“Why did it do that?” Jai asked. His bodyguards were moving into formation around him and Corbal.
Corbal pressed the cuff of his tunic and the gold designs on it flickered into an active comm mesh. “Captain, what’s going on?”
Redson’s voice came out of the comm. “A precaution, Lord Xir. We’re closing the chute.”
Jai stiffened, his claustrophobia returning. He could almost feel the weight of the palace above them. “How do they know this place won’t cave in?”
“The walls are held by a quasis grid.” Corbal motioned toward a line of shadowed machines against the curving wall of the cavern. “Those are the generators.”
Jai took time to absorb that. ESComm kept a tight rein on its quasis generators, yet he counted five here. A quasis field fixed the quantum wavefunction of anything it touched. The affected system didn’t freeze; its atoms continued to move as they had when they went into quasis. But their behavior couldn’t change, not even one particle. On a macroscopic scale, everything in the field became rigid. In theory, even explosions couldn’t deform it, though if you hit it enough times, the quasis would fail. He suspected that the fields here formed a grid that reinforced the cavern, rather than a solid surface, so communications and the plug could pass through.
The floor shuddered.
Jai froze. Had he been wrong about the strength of the quasis fields—but no, the vibration wasn’t from an explosion or structural collapse. The elevator reappeared, coming down from the ceiling. People crammed it: Razers, aides, soldiers, even waroids.
A tall figure stood in their midst.
The woman wore a dark red dress, ankle-length and gleaming like carnelians. Her hair fell in a shimmering black waterfall over her shoulders. She stood tall and proud, a fiery goddess in the midst of dark warriors.
His bride had arrived.
20
Merger
As the lift settled onto the floor, Jai’s mouth went dry. Tarquine stood regally, devastating in her red dress, which clung to her long curves from neck to ankle.
“It would seem she survived,” Corbal said dryly.
Jai knew Corbal was studying him. Ignoring his cousin’s scrutiny, he headed for his bride. Corbal came with him.
“You can wait for me back at the platform,” Jai said.
“So I could.” Corbal continued on at his side.
He didn’t want to argue with Corbal when Tarquine could see. She was stepping off the lift, watching their approach. Jai was having trouble breathing. He might as well have heart failure now and get it over with, because he wasn’t going to survive the wedding night if she kept looking at him like that. She let her gaze travel upward, moving up his legs like a caress, taking in his hips, gliding over his torso and chest. By the time she reached his face, his cheeks were so hot, he wondered that he didn’t incinerate.
He made himself walk slowly. As he reached Tarquine, she murmured, “My greetings, Your Highness.”
At least I’ll die happy, Jai thought. “You look lovely, Minister Iquar.”
She inclined her head.
Jai indicated the cavern. “I had intended to offer you a better wedding hall, but I’m afraid this will have to do.” In his side vision, he saw Corbal stiffen, a familiar scowl on his face. Even the Razers looked flustered this time. No one expected the imperial marriage to happen here in a bunker, or safe room, or whatever they called this place. Jai didn’t care. He had no intention of letting whoever had tried to assassinate him win. He would marry Tarquine now.
Robert performed the ceremony.
Jai asked him to officiate because Robert had so savored the preparations. It only seemed right that at least one person should enjoy the wedding. Jai was too agitated. He and Tarquine stood side by side, surrounded by guards, many armed with laser carbines now in addition to the miniature arsenals they carried on their hips, boots, and belts. Waroids in full armor patrolled the perimeter of the area.
Robert read the vows, and Jai and Tarquine gave their agreement. Tarquine’s personal aide had brought the Iquar documents and Robert had the Qox documents. So Jai and Tarquine signed the contracts, and gave their retinal scans and voice imprints, fulfilling the legal requirements.
Then it was done. Eube once again had an empress. It remained only to name a moon after her.
Jai turned to Tarquine, running through phrases in his mind, searching for the right words to greet his new wife. She regarded him with her dark gaze, her lips parted. Before Jai could decide what to say to her, Robert motioned to him. The aide and Captain Redson were talking urgently, in low voices.
Jai held back his sigh. Perhaps, in another century, he might actually hold a conversation with Tarquine.
“Is there a problem?” he asked Robert.
“We have news of the Skolians,” Robert said. “The Ruby Pharaoh.”
Sweat beaded Jai’s temples. The Pharaoh was his aunt. “What news?”
Captain Redson spoke, agitation marking his usually implacable demeanor. “ESComm intercepted a broadcast from Earth.
Ships are carrying it throughout Allied, Skolian, and Eubian space.”
“It’s that important?” Jai asked. Without the Kyle web, it was hard to spread news in a timely fashion to the star-flung settlements of humanity. It would travel fast only if its importance justified the immense effort of so many ships carrying it quickly among the various worlds and habitats.
Jai caught a thought from Redson’s mind: the captain would have rather been anywhere but here right now, giving this news to the emperor. But he spoke with laudable composure. “The Skolians sent a commando team to Earth. It rescued the members of the Ruby Dynasty imprisoned there.”
Jai blinked. “The Ruby Pharaoh was on Earth?” That fit none of the rumors he had heard.
“No, Your Highness.” Redson was almost stuttering. “She has taken command of the military.”
“She can’t,” Jai said. “Her title is titular.”
Robert was reading from his palmtop. “It isn’t clear—reports are conflicting—but it looks like she instigated a coup over the Skolian government, backed by the most powerful branch of ISC, the Imperial Fleet.”
Jai stared at him. What the blazes were the Skolians doing? ISC meant Imperial Space Command, the combined military forces of the Skolian Imperialate. The name “Imperialate” was historical, given that an Assembly of elected councilors governed the Skolians. The reign of the Ruby Dynasty had ended long ago.
But if the military had supported his aunt in a coup, it meant the Ruby Pharaoh once again ruled. Such a political upheaval could shatter the fragile balance among Skolia, Eube, and the Allieds.
Another thought hit Jai: his uncle Kelric had been on Earth.
If ISC had freed the Ruby Dynasty, that included Kelric. He truly was Imperator now.
Jai was painfully aware of Tarquine at his side. Better than anyone else here, she could predict what Kelric would do now.
But even if Jai had been in private with her, where he could have asked a direct question without insult, he didn’t think he could bear to hear her speak of Kelric, the man she truly wanted, the one who was far more her match than Jai would ever be.
Somehow he kept his face composed as he turned to his wife.
“The Ministry of Finance must have interests that will be affected by changes in the status of the Ruby Dynasty.” There: indirect and understated. Much more appropriate than What do you think about your former pleasure slave becoming Imperator?
Her face was unreadable. “Many observers might assume it makes no difference to the Finance Ministry where peace talks between our people and the Skolians take place. But our offices have a great deal invested in the outcome.”
The talks. With a start, Jai realized everything had changed. The Skolians had agreed to talks when they were prisoners on Earth. They had more options now. And the Ruby Pharaoh hadn’t agreed to anything. With the might of ISC behind her, she would be a formidable foe if she chose war ove
r peace.
Jai knew he needed to deal with these new developments, but he couldn’t do much, trapped here while his people tried to figure out who wanted to kill him. He turned to Redson. “How long until we can return to the palace?”
The captain scanned his palmtop. “Security is doing a final check. Then we can go back up.”
“Good.” It would be a relief to escape this cavern and its oppressive sense of burial. Soon he would be free.
Until the next assassination attempt.
Kelricson Valdoria, Imperator of Skolia, stood on the dais. Light bathed him, slanting through windows in the cathedral-like Hall of Chambers on Parthonia, the capital world of Skolia. Media teams surrounded the dais. Soon they would broadcast the speech of Dyhianna Selei, the Ruby Pharaoh, the woman he knew as Dehya, his aunt, his mother’s older sister. Dehya had re-created a fledgling psiberweb. Telops would use the newly birthed web to send her words throughout space faster than any ship could carry them.
Only a few days had passed since ISC had freed the Ruby Dynasty from Earth. But in the months prior to that, Kelric had been healing. He would never have made it to Earth if not for Jeejon. She had lived on an asteroid near the border of Skolian and Eubian territory, an outpost that the Allieds had liberated from Eube during the war. It was the only place his ship had enough fuel to reach after he escaped the Sphinx Sector Rim Base. By that time he had no more than days to live. Jeejon thought him crazy when he told her he was the Imperator, but she helped him anyway. She was his age, fifty-seven, a Eubian taskmaker. Former taskmaker. Now she was the consort of the Imperator. He had married her on Earth.
Kelric stood waiting on the dais with Dehya, his aunt, a slender woman with her dark hair swept up on her head. The streaks of gray in it hinted at her age, but she otherwise appeared young. Only the timeless quality of her gaze revealed the truth: she was over one and a half centuries old. Although she was the Pharaoh and he the Imperator, they both dressed simply, Dehya in a blue jumpsuit and Kelric in gold trousers and tunic. Neither of them wore medals or ornamentation. Their Jagernaut bodyguards paced the hall, cyberwarriors in black. Less visible, but just as deadly, Evolving Intelligence defense computers monitored the great hall.
Trillions of people would receive this broadcast through the psiberweb, and in months to come ships would carry it to places the newborn web didn’t yet reach. When the media tech gave the signal, Dehya began. She had a strong voice, melodic and clear. “My people, I greet you. I come before you today with great hope.”
Dehya’s advisers had written the speech. They had wanted Kelric to speak as well, but he refused. Taciturn even in personal conversation, he dreaded public speaking. He preferred to stand in silence, a bulwark to protect Dehya, Eldrinson, and himself—Pharaoh, Assembly Key, and Imperator. The Mind, the Heart, and the Fist of Skolia. The Triad.
“It has been five thousand years since the height of the Ruby Empire,” Dehya continued. “Almost six thousand since the Ruby Dynasty first rose to power. Throughout our history, Skolia has been our heart. Now today we honor that heart with the advent of a new and greater era.”
Kelric waited for her next words: With a smooth transition to the new government, the Ruby Dynasty again assumes full sovereignty of the Skolian Imperialate. That one phrase had caused relentless debate among her speechwriters. It was the closest they wanted Dehya to come in acknowledging the price of the coup that had made her a true Pharaoh—she would have to order the execution of the First Councilor, the head of the government she had deposed, a distinguished leader who had been her friend and colleague for decades.
Dehya spoke stiffly. “With a smooth transition to the new government—” Then she stopped.
Kelric tensed, as did many of the people watching the techs record this broadcast. His older brother, Eldrin, was leaning against a column, his arms crossed. It gratified Kelric to see his brother free from the Traders; he would wonder for the rest of his life why Jaibriol Qox had shown Eldrin mercy, trading himself so Eldrin could go free.
Dehya was watching Eldrin, too, her husband of over fifty years, a marriage between kin, one forced by the Assembly to produce more Ruby psions. The match, however unwillingly made, had become a union of love. But the Assembly had again and again shattered the Ruby Dynasty in its desperation to control them, an irony given that destabilizing the Rubies destabilized Skolia. So Dehya had overthrown the government. But that coup could destroy the fragile bubble of peace that protected humanity in the aftermath of the Radiance War. Executing the First Councilor, the elected leader of Skolia, would create havoc.
Dehya suddenly finished her sentence in a ringing voice. “We will meld an alliance unlike any Skolia has known before.”
Kelric blinked. That wasn’t part of the script.
“Several tendays ago,” Dehya said, “the government of Skolia shifted from the Assembly to the Ruby Dynasty. I stand before you now as full sovereign. During the Ruby Empire, the rule of the Dynasty was absolute.” The media techs were scrambling to make sure they caught every detail of this unexpected change from the planned speech.
Some spoke hurriedly into comms, their attention split between Dehya and whatever protests they were hearing.
“Skolia has identified itself for six millennia through the Ruby Empire,” Dehya said. “Yet in this modern age, we chose a representative government instead.” She paused. “And so it should be.”
The techs froze. Kelric wondered what the blazes Dehya was doing. She had just gone to great lengths to overthrow that representative government. Her mind was guarded; he couldn’t feel her thoughts, only her tension.
Dehya spoke slowly, as if even she wasn’t sure what she would say next. “The uneasy meld of modern politics with ancient tradition has often rent our civilization. We think of ourselves as an ancient race from Raylicon, yet compared to humanity on Earth we are incredibly young. We have no history prior to six thousand years ago, only distant memories of our birth world. We are new. Raw. At this crucial time in our growth, we dare not destabilize Skolia. We need both the Ruby Dynasty and Assembly.”
Kelric began to see her intent. She spoke the essence of their dilemma: six thousand years ago, some unknown race had moved humans from Earth to the planet Raylicon and then vanished, stranding the displaced humans with no explanation. Since that time, their people had evolved independent of Earth. They thought of themselves as Skolians, children of the Ruby Empire, which had arisen five thousand years ago. They weren’t ready to cut those ties, but modern civilization had outgrown that method of governance.
“For that reason,” Dehya continued, “our government will join old and new. The Ruby Dynasty and Assembly will share the governance of Skolia. So begins our future.” She turned to another holocam, as the techs had previously instructed. But instead of finishing with the planned tribute to the Ruby Dynasty, she said, “I accept the offer of Jaibriol the Third, Emperor of Eube, to meet at the peace table. Let us work together—Skolian, Trader, and Allied—to heal the rifts that have divided our common humanity.”
The Hall became a tumult, as people shouted questions. Kelric and Dehya stood together, surrounded by their bodyguards. Kelric wondered at this decision Dehya had so precipitously announced. He could see its promise; a joined government would return to the Skolian people the heritage that defined them, but retain the stability of the Assembly. Nor would they have to execute the First Councilor; he would be a part of this melded government.
Dehya’s idea was a good one.
It was also going to be one holy hell of a mess.
21
The Stone Table
Jai’s canopied bed waited, gold and ivory. He stood next to it, considering the lacquered table in front of him. It hadn’t been there this morning. A decanter of gold liquid and two crystal tumblers sat on it. Jai picked up the decanter and took a deep swallow. He had no idea what he was drinking, but it went down like summer heat and kicked like a blizzard.
He had triple-checke
d the room earlier to make sure no monitors spied on him tonight. Scanners would warn the staff if he had a heart attack or other crisis, but no one could see him swigging alcohol like a drunk on the stardocks.
At least his rib didn’t bother him. He had expected it to ache, but he felt nothing. On Prism, injuries had been a great danger. They had no hospitals there, only a medical computer and a few medicines. It told him a lot about the care available to an emperor, that just a few hours ago his rib had broken and now it was nearly healed.
The only light came from an antique stained-glass lamp at the other end of the suite. The breakfast nook curved out on Jai’s left, shadowed, its curtains drawn. He glanced across the bed to the archway that led to the bathing chamber, with its tiled pool, sauna, whirlpool, and underwater VR center. Right now he could think only of its most prosaic function, as a changing room.
Restless, Jai went down into the breakfast nook. He sat on a wing chair with ivory and gold pinstripes, then rose and paced to a wardrobe against one curving wall. A black velvet robe hung inside. He removed his clothes and slipped on the robe. It fit perfectly, covering him from shoulder to knees, but it was open halfway down his chest. He fought the urge to pull it closed. He had to stop acting like a boy who had never touched a woman. Well, all right, he pretty much never had, except Silver. But he had to handle this.
His bride had little in common with Silver.
Jai pushed his hand through his hair. Unable to hold still, he went back to the dais and sat on the bed. A tickling in his throat made it hard to swallow. Get a grip. Surely the emperor of the most powerful empire in human history could show more cool than this. He wished the EI hadn’t turned the lights so low. It seemed . . . blatant. He could have it brighten them, but that would be tantamount to confessing his embarrassment.