Corbal’s mouth tightened. “One might suggest, Your Highness, that observing proper court protocol will yield more productive results than profanity.”
“So wash my mouth out with soap.”
“What would possess me to do such a bizarre thing?”
Jai stalked over to him. “Did you really need a Skolian yacht? Your billions of slaves and trillions of credits aren’t enough? Never mind that this may have trashed our talks with the Skolians. What does interstellar peace matter compared to your attaining a little more wealth?”
“Are you done?”
Jai struggled with his anger. “Why? Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Oh, excuse me, I forgot that proper Highton discourse includes denying culpability for everything and anything.”
A muscle twitched under Corbal’s eye. “I went to the starport to meet representatives of the Diamond Coalition. I didn’t trust their invitation, so I came back here.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
Corbal blinked. “Then what?”
“Your pirates.”
His cousin’s gaze unfocused slightly, the way it always did when he lied. “I know of no pirates.”
“Right. You forget those frigates that work for you?”
Corbal crossed his muscular arms. “When making accusations, it behooves the accuser to have proof.”
“That’s all you have to say?” Jai wanted to burst. “Damn it all, Corbal, couldn’t you at least have called them off until after the peace talks?”
His cousin lowered his arms, his forehead furrowing. “It is difficult to call off what isn’t on.”
“A thousand denials won’t undo the truth.”
“A ‘truth’ may be false.”
Jai paused. As he had come to know Corbal better, he had grown attuned to his cousin’s mind and tended to ease his defenses in Corbal’s presence, at least as much as he could bear with his Razers around. Confusion came from the older man now, not deception. Jai picked up other details, too; if he had ever doubted Corbal financed a fleet of pirates, he no longer did. But Corbal hadn’t sent them out recently; if anything, he had shown unusual restraint.
“Ah, hell,” Jai said.
“I would hear this accusation against me.”
“The Skolian Assembly sent a protest to our Foreign Affairs Ministry.” Jai spoke tiredly. “Pirates boarded a Skolian yacht, spiked the passengers, stole the yacht, and kidnapped a Skolian citizen.”
Corbal stared at him. “I had nothing to do with it.”
Jai had no doubt Corbal could look him straight in the eye and deny any link to the pirates. Had Jai not been a psion, he would never have believed him. The trail led straight to his cousin, and palace security had found no evidence of anyone else involved. If Jai had accused Corbal in public, he could never have retracted it, even if he later found proof that someone set up the Xir lord. Taking back the accusation would have meant admitting the emperor himself had leveled a false accusation of major proportions, a crisis that would undermine his reign.
But Jai was a psion. He knew Corbal was telling the truth. He felt as if he had just dodged another attack, this one on his character rather than his life. He spoke in a subdued voice. “I have heard that those without wisdom sometimes foolishly accept accusations when the truth is anything but obvious.”
Until Corbal’s shoulders relaxed, Jai hadn’t realized how much the older man had tensed. “Your Highness shows insight.” It was probably the closest Corbal could come to saying, apology accepted.
Jai walked to the couch and sank down onto it. His Razers remained at their posts, discreet as always, but he felt their disapproval. They thought him foolish, to back down so easily.
Corbal spoke with care. “The Line of Xir supports the peace talks.”
Jai rubbed his eyes. “The evidence says otherwise.”
“Such evidence can be convenient to those who wish to discredit someone.”
Jai rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands between them. “That leaves the question of who created the evidence.” Bitterly he added, “Perhaps those people sparkle, just like my would-be assassins.”
“It would be stupid for the Diamond Coalition to set me up or attempt an assassination.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know.”
It didn’t surprise him that Corbal said no more. Jai was acutely aware of the Razers listening. Neither he nor Corbal dared make accusations. He had an odd sense, as if Corbal were trying to create pressure against his mind. Jai took a deep breath. Then he did what he had dreaded since coming to Eube; he completely lowered his barriers.
Jai silently gasped at the onslaught from the Razers. He felt as if an avalanche was burying him in suffocating darkness. Struggling against the sensation, he focused on Corbal. His cousin’s thought came through like a faint voice in a roar of noise: Check ESComm.
Jai could take no more. Pressing the heels of his hands against his temples, he rebuilt his barriers. He hated that the Razers were transcending at a low level because of his discomfort. They weren’t conscious of it; they just knew they felt better when they were around their emperor. Jai didn’t miss the irony, that the distress they caused him also increased their loyalty to him.
He lowered his hands. “I should check on Tarquine.”
Corbal’s voice cooled. “One might wonder why the Diamond Coalition spared your wife.”
Jai stiffened. “Do not presume too far on our kinship.”
“My apologies, Your Highness.”
He recognized Corbal’s challenge from his cousin’s stiff posture rather than his apparently conciliatory words. Corbal wanted to know how Jai could be so sure in his belief that the empress hadn’t tried to kill him.
Quietly Jai said, “The same way I am sure about you.”
The Xir lord stared at him, startled into silence, his response so strong it penetrated even Jai’s rebuilt barriers: Corbal understood exactly what he meant. Jai had an answer then to a question that had troubled him since he first met his cousin.
Corbal knew he was a telepath.
28
Psions
The false leads went nowhere. The Intelligence Ministry conducted an investigation, thorough and detailed, aided by palace Security. Jai and Robert also searched every database they could find. No Diamond yacht had been in orbit the day Corbal went to the port. The Coalition denied sending him a message, yet he had a verified record of their conversation. Despite the circumstantial evidence against the Coalition, no proof surfaced to justify an accusation of assassination, just as none had ever been found against the Line of Raziquon in the first attempt.
Innuendo swirled everywhere. Rumors about Jai’s eccentricities proliferated. Speculation about Corbal ranged from insulting but harmless suggestions of abnormal behavior with his providers to deadly whispers of treason. Hightons shunned the Diamond Coalition. The economy of Sapphire Sector sagged and antagonism deepened against the Line of Iquar, though the recession had little to do with the platinum trade. Lies spread that Jai had pardoned Jafe Maccar because Maccar was smuggling platinum for the Line of Xir, taking it to the Skolians, who paid inflated prices. Protests against Raziquon’s imprisonment grew louder.
Within the rank and file of ESComm, cracks appeared in the bedrock of support for the emperor.
Jai turned over in bed, groggy, unsure what had awoken him. His mind formed one thought: assassin. He knew he should wake up, but he was too tired.
A rustle came from across the bedroom. Deciding that living was better than getting enough sleep, he opened his eyes. His new optical enhancements let him see infrared light; the hotter an object, the brighter it glowed. A red blaze with human shape was approaching.
Ah yes, definitely a shapely human shape.
Jai smiled drowsily. “When did you get up?”
“A few hours ago.” Tarquine sounded tired.
As Jai sat up, rubbing his eyes, Tarq
uine climbed the dais. She sat on the bed and started to pull off her boots.
Jai slid over and put his arms around her waist, his front to her back. “Why did you get up?”
She leaned against him. “I am glad, my husband, that we have privacy from monitors in here.”
Jai wondered what she was up to. “What happened to the monitors?”
She pulled off her other boot and dropped it on the floor. “I redirected them.”
“How?” He wasn’t sure he had ever managed that feat, though he had tried.
She turned in his arms, facing him. “With discretion. The same way I traced the Diamond Coalition transmission that Corbal received from Sapphire Sector.”
Jai went very still. “We’ve all traced it.”
“Not well enough.” Her voice hardened. “I can’t prove it, but I know what I found. Xirad Kaliga framed the Diamonds.”
“Admiral Kaliga? The Joint Commander of ESComm?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded muted in the large suite. “You can bet General Taratus is in it, too.”
“We have no evidence of their involvement.” Jai didn’t want to believe his Joint Commanders were plotting against him. “None.”
“They hide well.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“And why is that?”
He swallowed. “Because I can’t take on ESComm.”
“You need only take on Taratus and Kaliga.”
“They’re too strong.”
She shook her head. “No one is invincible.”
“Can you prove your accusations?”
“No.”
“I need evidence.”
Tarquine spoke in her shadowed voice. “Do you?”
“Why should I trust your word?” He couldn’t read her expression in the dim light, and she had guarded her thoughts well. “Maybe you have motives for accusing them.”
“You know my motives.” She had become deadly quiet. “You know them without doubt.”
“Doubt always exists.” Easing his barriers, he tried to probe her thoughts more deeply.
“No,” she said. “You know.”
Jai felt her surety: she believed with certainty that he could tell if she lied. It chilled him—because she was right: as a telepath, he would know. But she couldn’t know he was a psion. She couldn’t.
“Tell me something,” she asked. “Have you tried, lately, to find an image of yourself on the webs?”
“What?” Jai released her, disoriented by her change of subject. Even now, with his barriers relaxed, he had trouble picking up more than a sense of her mood: tension, sexual desire, anticipation. It disquieted him that she shielded her mind so well.
She motioned at the console by the wall. “See what you can find.”
Puzzled, Jai pulled on his black sleep trousers and went to the console. After accessing the planetary web, he began a search.
An hour later he gave up. He had checked every database on Glory; he had tried every offworld network he could reach; and he had even managed to access some of the Skolian and Allied webs. He knew public images of him existed, but he had found absolutely none from before he became emperor, and despite his more recent appearances on news broadcasts, very few of him existed even from the past few months.
He looked up at Tarquine, who was standing next to his chair. “What happened to them?”
“I think Corbal deleted most. I disposed of some he missed.”
“But why?”
She pulled over a chair and sat by him. Then she spoke into the comm on the console. “Tomjolt, access my private directories and bring up the file labeled ‘Jaibriol One.’ ”
“Verification required,” the EI answered.
Tarquine gave her passwords and submitted to retinal and voice scans. A moment later, a holo appeared above a flat screen on the console, a laughing youth in a blue sweater and jeans, with blond highlights streaking his dark hair. He was standing in a meadow, under a blue sky with a yellow sun.
Jai blinked. “That’s me.” The holo had been taken on Earth a few months ago, just after his seventeenth birthday, his real birthday, not the false one he used now.
Tarquine studied the image. “Did you know, Jaibriol, that my provider, Kelric, had metallic hair?”
Jai felt as if the air suddenly left the room. “He isn’t your provider. He is the Imperator of Skolia.”
“So he is.” She spoke to Tomjolt again. “Computer, give me the eighth Jaibriol file.”
Jai shifted in his chair. “What are you doing?”
“Watch.”
The image of him vanished, then reappeared, larger, with only his head and shoulders. A holo of Kelric formed next to it, an older man with metallic hair graying at the temples.
Jai tried not to grit his teeth. “What makes you think I want to see this?”
“Look.” She touched a panel and the image of Jai changed, the bright streaks in his hair spreading until all of the locks turned yellow. No, not yellow.
Gold.
Sweat beaded Jai’s forehead. He had never realized the streaks had such a metallic quality. “Tarquine, this is sick, comparing me to your provider.”
She spoke pensively. “Do you know, for decades I had fantasized about owning Kelric Valdoria.” She turned to Jai. “But then he died, all those years ago.”
The blood drained from his face. “You knew,” he whispered. “You knew his identity the whole time.”
“Well, I can’t admit that, now can I?” Her gaze hardened. “But I can tell you other things.”
He didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to hear. But he had to know. “What things?”
“Nanomeds.”
Sweat beaded on his temples. She couldn’t be going where he thought. She couldn’t know. His mother and Kelric Valdoria had been sister and brother. They would have received the same nanomeds from their mother, in the womb. Jai had inherited those same meds from his mother. Some of the species had undoubtedly been altered, but not all of them. And of all the people alive, only Tarquine was in a position to compare his meds to those Kelric carried.
She spoke to the EI. “Tomjolt, age the holo of Jaibriol Qox twenty years and make his hair dark again.”
Jai clenched his hands on his knees, watching his holo age. He obviously resembled his father, Jaibriol II, the previous emperor, but he began to see more similarity to someone else as well.
His mother.
Jai couldn’t breathe. It took a conscious effort to make himself stay in his chair. Laying his hand over the holoscreen, he made the image fade to nothing. “Stop this. It’s sick.”
“Is it?” She nudged away his hand, bringing back the holos of Jai and Kelric. “Tomjolt, compare the two holos. Tell me if those two men might be related.”
“Tarquine, stop,” Jai whispered.
“Comparison complete,” the EI said. “I calculate a six to eleven percent probability that the subjects are brothers, nine to twenty-seven percent that they are father and son, and five to forty-two percent that they have a kinship relation one level removed from immediate family.”
Relief surged over Jai, so intense it felt visceral. Complete strangers could come up with those statistics. He frowned at Tarquine. “Shall I compare you to the Ruby Pharaoh? You both have black hair, after all.” He waved his hand. “I have better things to do than play this game.”
“Indulge me just a bit longer.” She tapped a panel. “Computer, compare the image of Jaibriol Qox and the holo in file 87T5. Just consider close kinship.”
Jai tensed. “What is file 87T5?”
“Watch.”
“Comparison complete,” Tomjolt said. “I calculate a fifty-three to eighty-eight percent probability that the subjects are brother and sister, and eighty-four to ninety-two percent that they are mother and son.”
Only through a great effort of will did Jai speak without revealing his agitation. “Whose image is in file 87T5?”
Tomjolt answered. “The late Skolian
Imperator, Sauscony Valdoria.”
Adrenaline surged through Jai. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, Tarquine, but you’ve gone beyond insult. You walk the edge of treason.”
No doubt showed in her expression. “If I could find the resemblance, so can others. Corbal suspects, I’m certain. You must change your face, subtle alterations, but enough to destroy the resemblance.”
“This is absurd.” He could never acknowledge the truth. Never. Blackmail, government coups, betrayal—gods only knew what she would try. “It means nothing that I have similar features to a Skolian. We all come from the same stock, and our ancestors had a small gene pool.”
“You can’t take chances.”
“You go too far.”
“Jaibriol, listen to me.” Her quiet tone did nothing to disguise her urgency. “Aristos bodysculpt themselves all the time. It would surprise no one if you fine-tuned your features to resemble your ancestors more, better to establish yourself as emperor in a time of crisis.” She traced her fingertip over his nose, cheek, and lips. “You are so very, very beautiful. I would hope for only minor changes. But it must be enough to ensure you no longer resemble a dynasty of providers.”
Jai caught her hand. He took a moment, letting his pulse calm. “I will give it some thought.”
Tarquine turned to the console. “Tomjolt, destroy all the files in the current directory. Clean your memory of any fragments. Then erase all evidence of the deletions.”
“Tomjolt has protocols to prevent such erasures,” Jai said. “Even I can’t override them.”
“Erasures complete,” Tomjolt said.
“Gods almighty,” Jai muttered.
Tarquine glanced at him. “One should take care not to underestimate one’s wife.”
He took a deep breath. “What is it you want?”
“For my husband to stay alive.”
“Why?”
Her eyes glinted. “Because then I remain empress.”
It made sense. And yet . . . she was lying, or more accurately, she wasn’t telling the full truth. More than a desire for power motivated her, he just wasn’t sure what.
She rose to her feet. “Come, let us return to bed.”