The guard hit my Jumbler so fast, the gun spun out of my hand in a blur. He also had enhanced speed; I barely managed to block his blows when he came at me. I slid the thorn-tube out from my sleeve and fired its microthin sliver of metal. He jerked up his arm, deflecting it with the wrist guard he wore. That gained me the second I needed; while he was stopping the drug-filled needle, I got him with a dart. It hit his neck and he spasmed in mid-punch, his fist flailing, the tendons in his neck outlined like cables under his skin. He collapsed to the floor, breathing but unconscious.
A quick glance at his console told me he had been monitoring the estate defenses. I deactivated the cyberlock first. Then I used his system to access an emergency node of the Kyle-Mesh, one ridiculously easy to reach—for those who knew how to look. The instant I activated the account, it released a virus that jumped into the Highton’s system. Less than a minute had passed since I walked up to the mansion.
Bells clamored outside. I grabbed my Jumbler and ran out of the tower—into chaos. Lights blazed, alarms cried for attention, flood lamps swung wildly across the gardens. The virus was setting off every warning system on the estate. In all that madness, they would never find the one alarm they needed, the one that registered me.
I fired the Jumbler across the street. Over here the glare of flood lamps hid the sparkles the beam made as it annihilated air molecules, but across the road, a street lamp disappeared in an orange flash. I hit the tree by the fragrance fountain, too, and its branches crashed to the ground in a confusion of exploding wood and flying leaves. Shoving the Jumbler back into its holster, I ran toward the mansion. If this supposed Highton followed the usual Aristo pattern, he would be staying on the second story in the room hardest to reach from either the ground or air.
The most isolated window on the second floor had no entrance below it. I climbed up using a nervoplex trellis that vibrated under my weight, trying to throw me off. Had my reflexes been even a fraction slower, it would have succeeded. But I made it to the balcony and clambered over the railing, then stepped silently onto its polished floor. This bizarrely untutored Highton had left the curtains open on the doors that fronted the balcony. I could see him standing in the middle of his bedroom, gaping at the madly flashing console on his wall.
I annihilated the locks on the doors. Then I shoved them open and walked inside. “My greetings,” I said in Highton.
He spun around. “How did you get in here?”
I tilted my head at a wardrobe by the wall. “I’m going to hide behind that. In a moment your guards are going to burst in and tell you an intruder is on the estate. You say you saw me run into the park, and you want them to catch me.”
He watched me with astonishment. “I will say no such thing.”
“Yes, you will.” I closed the curtains on the balcony and backed up into the space between the wardrobe and wall, aiming my gun at his head. “Otherwise, I’ll annihilate you into oblivion.”
He didn’t argue. It was a good thing, because my Jumbler was empty. I couldn’t annihilate a speck of dust. Even with only wimpons for fuel, a gun could only hold so much antimatter.
A knock sounded outside.
The Highton turned with a startled jerk. “Come.”
From my hiding place I could see only the Aristo. I heard the door open.
“We apologize for disturbing you, sir,” a voice said.
The Aristo gave a perfect Highton scowl and waved his hand at the blaring console. “This is disturbing me far more. What is the problem? Who was that woman I saw outside? She looked like an Imperial Jagernaut.”
“She is,” the guard said. “The Primary from the bar. She damaged the foyer and ran out again.”
“Why?” The Aristo sounded genuinely curious.
A second voice spoke. “We don’t know, sir. We’ll question her as soon as we catch her.” His anticipation made my stomach lurch. I “recognized” the feel of his mind even though I had never met him. He was the guard with the two providers.
“I saw her run into the park across the street,” the Aristo said.
“We’ll search it thoroughly,” the first guard told him.
“Good. Now leave me to my privacy. And fix those alarms.”
“We haven’t been able to isolate the virus causing the trouble,” the other guard said. “We may have to turn off the security system and restart it.”
The Aristo raised his eyebrows. “With all the commotion, she could have climbed into this room without being detected.”
The first guard spoke in a reassuring voice. “The trellis would throw her off, sir. And she was only on the grounds for a moment. She didn’t have time to get close to you.”
The Aristo spoke dryly. “I’m glad you have such confidence. Now go find her.”
“Yes, sir.” The guards must have bowed, because their clothes crackled with that irritating noise Trader uniforms made when someone bent at the waist. The door whispered shut and the pound of boots receded through the house.
The Aristo came over to me. “What do you want?”
I edged out, keeping my empty gun trained on him, and went to his console. Then I turned down the audio. Alarms continued to blare in the rest of the mansion but at least it was quieter in here.
“Have a seat,” I said. “We’re going to talk.”
He stayed put. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“You didn’t feel that way in the bar.”
Unexpectedly, he smiled. “No, I didn’t.”
A law should have existed against an Aristo having such a beautiful smile. No, he couldn’t be an Aristo. Not with a smile like that. “I don’t believe you’re a Highton,” I said.
“Why?”
His surprise sounded genuine. If he was a fake, either he didn’t know it or else he was an astoundingly good actor. But I couldn’t be sure. At close range, I could pick up an Aristo’s emotions; their lack of empathy had no effect on how an empath perceived them. But I caught zilch from this one. Nothing. He was a blank wall.
I moved to the balcony doors and nudged open the curtains. A man was patrolling the garden below. “Your guards are good.”
“Apparently not good enough.”
“None of this makes sense.” I let the curtain close. “You have eleven guards, at least one with a biomech web in his body.” I thought of the man with the providers. It wasn’t easy even for an Aristo to acquire psions, let alone a guard. “Another one of them is in favor with a powerful Highton, one with far more rank than you could have at your age. And few people, especially at your age, want or need to undergo the invasive operation to implant a cyberlock in your brain. Since your guards hold its key instead of you, they must take their orders from someone else.”
He stared at me. “How did you know all of that?”
I didn’t. Most had been conjecture. But he had just verified it. “I’m good at what I do.”
“Yes. You are.”
Huh. No Aristo would concede that someone like me, who to them was no more than goods for sale, had competency at anything besides serving Aristos. They knew what we were capable of, but they never acknowledged it. Yes, this man had the mannerisms, the carriage, the accent of a Highton. But not the scorn. A true Aristo would have made no secret of his intent to punish my actions. I would have felt his contempt. But I felt nothing with this one. He looked annoyed and intrigued, but I felt none of it. Nothing. It was almost worse than the cavity.
Then it hit me. He had blocks in his mind. These weren’t the instinctive psychological walls anyone could raise, empath or not. Elaborate mental barriers protected this man. He had been trained to stop his brain from transmitting to other empaths. I knew the great investment of time and effort it took to learn those barricading techniques. It had been part of my Jagernaut training. It was different from the mental doors I closed to let other empaths know my feelings were private. These were fortified protections that could be broken only by the force of a stronger mind.
But only psions
built such barriers. Only psions. Normal people had neither the need nor the ability to do it. In fact, even with biomech enhancements, most Jagernauts couldn’t erect barriers as strong as I detected in this man. He was blocking even me. That meant he had to be a potent telepath. But no Aristo could be a telepath. It just wasn’t in their precious gene pool.
“Why do you look at me this way?” the Aristo asked.
“What way?” I asked, stalling for time while I thought.
“As if I am a laboratory specimen.”
“I’m trying to figure out why a provider is traveling as a Highton.”
His anger sparked. “You come up here, throwing insults and waving guns, demeaning my bloodlines. Well, I am not impressed. Go ahead, shoot. This is what Jagernauts do, isn’t it? Kill without compunction.”
I didn’t need telepathy to see his anger was genuine. He believed he was a Highton. “We never kill without compunction. How could we? We’re empaths. We feel what our targets feel.”
“This thing you call empathy—it weakens the mind.” His voice quieted. “It is a frailty. Those with weak minds must work that much harder to overcome their failings.”
Where had all that come from? “Did your parents tell you that when they taught you to hide your telepathic abilities?”
He paled, and I was sure I had hit the truth. He was a telepath, which meant neither of his parents was Aristo. Someone had taken great pains to conceal that fact. Why? Yes, many Hightons had children with their providers, and they often elevated those offspring to high levels within their slave hierarchies. But to pass off such a child as a Highton—it would be a phenomenal “corruption” of their incessantly glorified bloodlines.
“How long did you think you could hide it?” I asked.
He stared at me. “What are you going to do?”
I couldn’t believe it. He was afraid of me. I had felt many emotions from Hightons: lust, anger, obsession, disgust. But never fear. As far as they were concerned I was nothing but a provider, and they refused to acknowledge a provider could have the power needed to inspire their fear. Yet I felt his as clear and sharp as broken glass.
I felt his mind.
Sweat beaded on my temple. A moment ago his barriers had been impenetrable. Now they were dissolving. He was a mental fortress, one that should have taken a tortuous battle of wills to break, yet now I felt him. He had to be voluntarily dropping his walls; I had done nothing. But I sensed neither the intent from him to do so nor the realization it was happening.
He watched me with a healthy, sensual desire that caught me unprepared. Blood rushed to my face and to far more private places. Block! The synapse psicon flashed in my mind, and kept flashing, telling me the block wasn’t working. Either his reactions were too intense to shut out or else I was feeling my own as well. What was going on? It was wrong, all wrong. No, it wasn’t wrong, it was right, and that was what was wrong.
I took a breath. Stay cool. Find out who he is. But how? I had a good starting point; if someone wanted him to pass as a Highton, they would have given him a Highton name.
“What surprises me,” I said, “is that your parents gave you a name you obviously had no claim to.”
The comment didn’t provoke his anger, as I had hoped. He just shrugged. “I have far more right to it than the hundred or so others who have it.”
Hundred. Given that only a few thousand Aristos existed, his name had to be a popular one. What were well known Aristo names? That was easy. Kryx, as in Kryx Tarque. I would never forget it. Vitar was another, Jaibriol, and…
Jaibriol. Jaibriol. Now I knew why Rex and I thought this man looked familiar, but neither Helda nor Taas recognized him. This false Aristo, this dove hiding in a night-wolf’s body, was a living reminder of a dead Highton, a man who had died when Helda was a small girl and before Taas was born. Comtrace hadn’t reported it because we had asked for a living Highton. This man resembled the late Emperor Jaibriol Qox, the father of the present Emperor.
A dramatic difference existed, however, between this man and holos I had seen of Jaibriol Qox. Although the previous Emperor had been handsome in his youth, his face had aged into harsh lines that showed his true nature. His son, the current Emperor, was a leaner, quieter ruler, softer-spoken—and just as vicious. The years had stamped that cruelty into his features, just as they had stamped it into his father’s face. The man in front of me now showed no mark of that brutal nature.
The thought budding in my mind was absurd. It had to be wrong. But I had to test it. “How are you ever going to rule, Jaibriol? Your people will never accept a telepath as their Emperor.”
He flushed. “Nothing is wrong with my mind. My people will accept me.”
No. NO. It was a lie. It had to be. But his mind was opening up to me, leaving no room for misinterpretation. We had been wrong, all of us.
Emperor Ur Qox had an heir.
Somehow I spoke calmly. “You’re descended from a provider. It’s the only way you could be a psion. You have to get the genes from both parents.” Both. Both. I stared at him. Now that I was looking for it, I couldn’t mistake his Qox lineage. Not only did he bring to mind the late Jaibriol Qox, but I saw his resemblance to the present Emperor as well. “That means your father—the Emperor—is at most only half Highton. You can’t be more than one quarter.”
“Stop!” Jaibriol clenched his fist. “Stop your filthy insults.”
His mental blocks were dissolving like salt in water. His mind was incredible. Beautiful. Sensual. I wanted him, just as an Earth salmon ready to spawn felt driven to swim upstream, against all obstacles, to reach home and reproduce. It made me want to strike out at him, furious that he—the Highton Heir—could so move me.
“They’ll lust after your pain.” I was losing my battle to stay cool. “All of them, your ministers, peers, women, guards, generals. Your life will be hell.”
“You’re insane.”
“You don’t know. You’ve had barriers protecting you. But you can’t do it forever. If you slip once, just once, they’ll know. You’ll find out the truth about your precious Hightons. About your father. The man is a monster.”
He pointed at the Jumbler I held. “This is all you understand. You see everything as war and hate. My father is a great man, far greater than you could ever comprehend.”
“Where have you been for the last twenty years? In a cocoon?” I wanted to hit him. “Hightons torture people. Your father probably did it to your mother while he was siring you.”
His face went white. “You are sick. Sick.”
“You think I’m lying?” I waved my gun at him. “Fine. Come into my mind, phony Highton. You want to know what providing is like? Come and look. If you have the courage for it.”
He watched me like a man balanced on a cliff staring at an abyss. And then he fell.
I had meant only to make him see what happened on Tams, to make that memory hurt him the way it hurt me. But I couldn’t pull out of our link. His mind was too strong, more so even than I had expected given the warning of his immense barriers. We dropped together, melding as we plunged, a joining I had known only once before with a seven year old boy. Only this time it was with an adult, with an intensity heightened by anger and sexual desire, and it hit me like a tidal wave.
Jaibriol Qox was Rhon.
I could smell him, a musky, masculine scent that muddied my thoughts. Pheromones, Rhon pheromones. My whole body reacted. He picked up my arousal through our mental link and fed it back to me, exciting me even more. It multiplied Jaibriol’s reaction as well, locking us into a double feedback loop that fast became overwhelming in its intensity. Had our natures been incompatible, it would have been revolting. But he fit. He was an aphrodisiac, firm and masculine, warm, inviting…
I fell into his memories like a diver plummeting into the ocean. His thoughts curled around me as if I were the only solidity in the sea of loneliness where he had lived for so long. He had spent the entire twenty-two years of his life, until
a few weeks ago, living alone…only the visits of his tutors broke his solitude…his father rarely came to see him—
The demands of his life leave him no time, Jaibriol thought. He has more than me to consider. He is Emperor of Eube.
I recognized what he couldn’t see: to his father, he was the ultimate provider. Somewhere within himself Qox had found the decency to leave the boy alone, avoiding him rather than risk giving in to the drive to torture his own son.
Too late I realized that as soon as I formed those thoughts, Jaibriol knew them. His mouth opened, then shut again. How can you believe such a thing? he thought.
Jaibriol—I’m sorry. I had to pull out of this link. I couldn’t let this happen. I couldn’t react with such sympathy to the Highton Heir.
Then I saw his mother, the Empress …tall, regal in a black and gold dress. Gold glistened on her wrists and throat, diamonds sparkled on her ears. Her hair fell to her waist like black silk. Her eyes were rubies, red and clear. Her face, so lovely, so regal—so icy, as hard and as cold as diamond. Why did she hate me? What horrible thing had I done, that my mother despised my every word, every move, every breath?
I watched his face, wanting to touch his cheek, his lips. Jaibriol, can’t you see? You don’t have even a remote resemblance to the Empress. She can’t be your mother, not if you’re Rhon and she’s Highton.
Stop! He took hold of my lower arms, gripping them hard. I am not a provider.
Despite his denial, he had to suspect the truth. How long had it taken his grandfather to find a provider who carried the full set of Rhon genes? Years? Decades? He must have used that provider to sire a son who was half Qox and half Rhon. That ensured his genes remained in the Qox bloodline and required the least deviation from Highton behavior. That he even managed to break those ingrained patterns of conduct enough to father a son who was half Highton astounded me. The son he created—Jaibriol’s father—must have completed the process. How? Engineered a son from his own genes? Or did he find a second provider to carry his Rhon heir?