Vyrl laughed. "You can compare my competition to all the slimy creatures you want."
"I would never speak ill of Ironbridge’s good name."
"You’re tact is laudable." He closed his eyes. "I like your worm images better, though."
She stroked his forehead. "Lionstar Province has no worms."
A guilty look passed over his face. "I don’t really have a province on this planet."
"Of course you do."
"I do?"
"Argali and our villages." She thought of Azander. "Your stagmen come from outlying hamlets, yes?"
"That’s right."
"Most of those hamlets were originally part of the North Sky Islands. But they’ve become unattached." It appalled Kamoj, actually. Rather than trying to support villages so distant and so impoverished, past governors of the Islands had ignored them, until finally, after many generations, the villages lost all association with their former province–and with that, their last hope of survival. "If their stagmen are your sworn liegemen, then you are also now the authority in their villages."
He opened his eyes. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"A union such as ours is a merger. A business arrangement. In marrying me, you agreed to help support my people."
"In other words, responsibilities come with power."
She took a breath. "Yes."
"Such as?"
"Food. Work. Tools. Shelter." Softly she said, "Survival."
Vyrl considered her. Then he reached out and pressed a turquoise stone on the nightstand.
A voice floated into the air. "Colonel Pacal here."
"Dazza, when is Morlin coming back up?" Vyrl asked.
"I’m not sure. The techs are replacing the fiberoptics. Is there a problem?"
"No. I just need some information."
"Maybe I can help."
He scowled. "Yes, but Morlin never argues with me."
Dryly Dazza said, "What are you about to do that you think will start an argument?"
"Do you remember our decision to minimize interactions with the native culture here?"
"Yes."
"Well, we may have a problem."
"What problem?"
"It seems that by marrying Kamoj, I’ve set myself up as a sort of sovereign in Argali."
Dazza made an exasperated noise. "That’s hardly what I call ‘minimizing interactions.’"
"I want to send some techs to the villages."
"Why? The villages have no tech for techs to work on."
"That’s the point. These people have a killing winter coming. We can heat their houses."
After a pause, Dazza said, "I’ll assign a group to it."
"Discreetly, though. I don’t want to scare anyone. Dress them in native clothes and send some of my stagmen with them."
"All right."
"Some of the houses are old enough to have web systems–"
"Vyrl." Her voice had a warning note. "Don’t push it."
"Can you go down to Argali too?" he asked.
"Me? Why?"
"See if they need medical help."
Her voice turned dry again. "In case you’ve forgotten, I’m an ISC colonel. I have responsibilities."
"Oh. Yes. Of course."
The silence stretched out. Finally Dazza said, "I have some residents up on the Ascendant who are just out of medical school. They could benefit from the experience."
Vyrl smiled. "Good."
"We should send agriculturists too," she said.
"We already have one." His voice grew animated. "Dazza, listen. I’ve been working on quad-grains. Give me a few years and I could engineer crops and livestock that would increase production here tenfold."
"We don’t have a few years."
"Just think about it."
She exhaled. "All right."
"Good." Vyrl grinned. Then he yawned and turned his head until his lips touched Kamoj’s thigh.
Tears gathered in Kamoj’s eyes. Softly she said, "Thank you, beautiful lion."
"Vyrl?" Dazza asked.
"I’m sleeping," he mumbled.
"Ah," the colonel said. "Good-night, Governor Argali."
Kamoj blinked at the phrase. "Good-night?" When no answer came, she said, "Dazza?" The nightstand remained quiet.
So she stroked Vyrl’s hair and watched stars move across the patch of sky visible through the window on the other side of the room. Could he truly warm their houses in winter? Heal their ills? Help them grow ten times as much food? It was remarkable how, when life seemed to reach its worst, things could turn about this way. Surely all would be well now.
Surely Vyrl wouldn’t drink anymore.
VII
Above The Sky
Integration
"Water sprite, wake up."
Kamoj moved, then groaned. It felt like pins and thornbats prickled her legs, where she had folded them under her body. She didn’t remember sliding out from under Vyrl, but she was sitting next to him now, her hands tucked between her knees. Moonlight poured over the bed.
Vyrl lay watching her. "I need you to do something for me."
She smiled, imagining his hands on her body. "Anything."
"In the second drawer of my desk. There’s a bottle I need."
Her good mood vanished. "You don’t need that."
"I can’t sleep."
"Dazza could give you–"
"No!"
"But–"
"I don’t need Dazza’s damn sedatives."
"I can’t get you the bottle."
His voice hardened. "Why not? You have two legs. You can walk the ten steps it would take to reach the desk."
"The rum hurts you."
"After two days you claim to know me well enough to dictate what is and isn’t good for me?"
"Vyrl, no. That’s not what I meant."
"Then get it for me." His voice gentled. "Just for tonight. To help me sleep."
"I can’t. I-I’m sorry."
His gentleness disappeared. "Then get out of my bed."
"But I–"
"Get out."
Stunned, Kamoj slid off the bed and ran across the room, her bare feet slapping the stone. Inside her chamber, she dropped onto her own bed. Moonlight shone through the window, creating a swath of pale colors across the floor.
A grunt came from the master bedroom, followed by the rustle of blankets. Kamoj froze, listening.
A gasp, labored but brief.
Silence.
Was he having trouble breathing? It was hard to believe he had suffered a collapsed lung only this afternoon. She started to get up, then hesitated. Get out, he had said. If she walked in and he was fine, she would look like a fool.
The crash of shattering glass broke the silence. She jumped up and ran into his bedroom.
Vyrl was kneeling by his desk, wearing only his sleep pants, his chest bare, except for the bandages, his arms wrapped around his body. Shards of broken glass covered the floor, glinting in the moonlight. A pool of rum was spreading under the desk.
Kamoj went over and knelt in front of him. Up this close she saw tears on his cheeks, just as she had seen them last night after his nightmare. She wondered if his waking helped at all or if his night terrors recognized no boundaries between sleep and reality.
Stretching out his arm, he pulled a strand of her hair away from her lips. "Touch me, Kamoj. Let me feel you. See you. Smell you."
She reached for him. "Always. Whenever you want."
Instead of responding, he grabbed the desk and pulled himself to his feet. The window above the desk looked south, over the Lower Sky Hills that fell away to the plains. Staring out at the mountains, he spoke in a distant voice. "I’ve a younger brother. Kelric."
She stood up, trying to understand his mood. "A little brother?"
"Little?" He gave a short laugh. "He’s huge. Joined ISC."
"Is he here now?"
"No. The war took him away."
Kamoj lifted her hand, meaning to t
ouch him, to offer comfort. Then she hesitated, unsure what he needed or wanted. Uncertain, she dropped her hand again.
"I have a lot of brothers," he continued. "Althor. I always admired him. Looked up to him. He joined ISC too. Jagernaut."
"Jagernaut?"
"Cybernetically enhanced star fighter pilot. Like Kelric. Like those new bodyguards Colonel Pacal gave me."
"Althor is a soldier too?"
"Was." In a wooden voice, he said, "ISC gave him a beautiful funeral."
"Hai, Vyrl. I’m sorry."
He kept on, as if unable to stop. "There’s my sister. Soz. We were closest in age, out of ten children." He finally turned to Kamoj. "You look a little like her."
"She is also a soldier? Like Dazza?"
"Dazza served under her."
"Where is she now?"
"Blown to dust."
"Vyrl, I–I’m sorry."
"Sorry?" His words came like leaded rain. "My brother Eldrin is still alive. The Traders captured him. You know what they do when they catch one of us? No, never mind. You don’t want to know. My aunt and her son, they’re gone. Prisoners, maybe. Dead, probably. Then there is Kurj, my uncle. War leader before Soz. She took over after the Traders killed him."
"I’m so sorry." It sounded useless, saying that over and over. She had lost only her parents and that had torn apart her world. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose most of a large family.
He walked away, across the room. Bathed in pale light from the Far Moon and the aurora borealis, he climbed the dais. Then he turned to face her. "I’m a good farmer. You want crops with better yields? Bi-hoxen that can better survive your winters? I can work it out. That’s what I wrote my doctorate on, the application of genetic engineering to crop and livestock development. I’ve had Morlin running DNA simulations here."
"I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me," she said.
"Farming." He stood in the moonlight like a statue, the planes of his chest stark in the colorless radiance that filled the room. "I’ve always loved it. You know where I got that? From my father. He loved the land. And he loved us. His children." His voice broke. "At least I was there when he died."
She went to him then, joining him on the dais. Gently she said, "How did it happen?"
He rubbed his palm over his cheek, seeming surprised to find tears there. "Old age. Old wounds." Dropping his hand, he said, "My father spent his last days with his family, in our family house, on our home world. The Allied military let us have that much."
"Allied?"
"The Allied Worlds of Earth." Bitter now, he said, "They were ‘kind’ enough to let us live in our own homes. Of course, Earth now controls the entire planet where we live."
"Earth? I don’t understand."
"I told you this afternoon. Our ‘allies’ betrayed us. They won’t let my family go." In a quieter voice he said, "They believe that without my family to power the Ruby machines, ISC won’t risk another war. Earth fears that otherwise my people and the Traders will destroy civilization, the way the Ruby Empire was destroyed, five thousand years ago."
"But if you were their prisoner, how are you here now?"
"None of my family could get offworld."
"But you’re here."
He looked away from her, out the window across the room. "Do you know what my father’s dying wish was? His gruesome dying wish? That his coffin be launched into orbit around the planet."
"Orbit?"
"Above the sky."
"Like the moons?"
"Like the moons. He wanted to be a moon."
"But why? If he valued the land–"
"He loved it. The land. The harvest. The seasons." Vyrl turned back to her. "Going into orbit terrified him."
"But you said he asked to go there."
"That’s what he told our jailors." A muscle in his cheek jerked. "We held his true funeral in secret, to do what he told my mother he really wanted. We cremated his body and spread the ashes over his land." He swallowed. "Then my family took his coffin to the starport."
"Why, if he wasn’t in it?"
"The Allieds didn’t know that. There was a body, one their sensors registered as his."
She stiffened. "No."
He went on, inexorable. "Our family physician on Lyshriol was an ISC agent. He installed an intravenous system inside the coffin to feed me. Made the coffin vacuum tight. So I could breathe. Put in a web system to deceive probes. I weigh more than my father, so he streamlined everything. Same for the web, not because of weight, but to minimize the risk of detection. It didn’t even have a voice mod for conversation. He didn’t want to use drugs in an unmonitored environment, but finally he agreed to sedate me, so I wouldn’t get claustrophobic." His voice cracked. "It would only be for one day, after all."
"They buried you alive?"
Flatly he said, "My mother made a heartbroken plea to our jailors. Said she couldn’t bear to think of her husband in that cold wasteland. In compassion for the beautiful bereaved widow, they agreed to let an ISC ship recover his casket from space. In honor of his wishes, it would spend one day in orbit, and then ISC would make the pickup." He paused. "By the time I awoke from sedation, I would be safe on the Ascendant."
Relief poured over Kamoj. "It was a trick! To get you away from your enemies. And it worked."
"Yes. It worked." His cheek twitched. "With just one little glitch."
"Glitch?"
"An Allied bureaucrat stalled the pickup." In a quiet voice, he added, "No one told my family. The Allieds didn’t want to upset them. But minutes after the launch, someone somewhere along the line changed his mind and said they wouldn’t give up the body."
Kamoj felt as if her stomach dropped. "No."
"Don’t look so grim." He flexed his fist, jerkily opening and closing his hand. "Negotiations to recover the body began even before I woke up."
"You woke up inside the coffin?"
"Yes."
Kamoj tried to imagine it, buried alive, with only a box separating you from the sky and stars, knowing something had gone terribly wrong, that you were here when you should have been there, safe and free.
Vyrl swallowed. "Do you know what ‘sensory deprivation’ means? No sound. No sight. No taste. No smell. No weight. After a while I couldn’t even feel the inside of the coffin. And my mind–I couldn’t–as a telepath, I need to be close to people to pick up anything. My mind opened up, searching for anyone. Anything. Anything. I was wide open and there was nothing."
"How long?" she whispered.
The brittle edge of his voice broke. "Thirty-one days. When the team on the Ascendant finally got me out, I was screaming, raving insane."
Kamoj had no idea what to say. No words would take away this horror, no touch heal it.
"Don’t look so dismayed," he said. "They took care of me. Treated me. Hell, it even helped. To a point." His head jerked. "But the psiber centers in my brain went dead. ISC got their precious Ruby psion, but they broke him in the process. Turned me into a crippled telepath." He swallowed. "Except when I sleep. Then my mind opens up like in the coffin. But this isn’t space. People are all around. So I go into telepathic overload. If they isolate me and I can’t pick up anything, I start to scream again." Dully he added, "And every time Dazza sedates me, all I can think is that I’ll wake up in that coffin."
"There must be some cure–something–"
"The rum deadens my brain. It lets me sleep."
She took his hands. "Surely some other solution exists. Can’t Dazza and her people help you?"
"They can all go to hell."
"But–"
His voice hardened. "Two people on the Ascendant knew my father’s body wasn’t in that coffin: the special operations officer assigned to the mission and General Ashman, the ship’s commander. They could have ended it any time by revealing that a living man was out there. ISC would have lost me back to the Allieds, but I would have been free from that nightmare." His fists clen
ched. "They wanted me any way they could get me, and to the hell with my sanity."
"Hai, Vyrl." She thought she understood now, both his pain and the desperation that drove his military to such an extreme. Gently she said, "When did you start to feel thoughts again?"
"With you." With an obvious effort, he relaxed his hands. "You’re wide open to me, water sprite. I felt it that day I saw you in the river."
Kamoj remembered Dazza’s face when the doctor had realized Vyrl was picking up his bride’s thoughts. Joy. Hope. Elation. All signs of a healer whose patient had begun a recovery she feared would never happen.
Vyrl took her hand and climbed onto the bed, drawing her with him. As they lay down together, the quilts enveloped them in billowy cloth, soft from many washings and fragrant with the scent of spice-soap.
She touched his damp cheek. "We have a saying in Argali: ‘Tears wash clean the debris of the heart.’"
"I’m not crying." Another tear slid down his cheek. "I never cry. Only children do that."
Kamoj thought of all the tears she had held in over the years. "Maybe children know better than we."
His voice caught. "Ai, water sprite. Something inside me is breaking. I don’t know what, only that it’s thawing."
"Like ice on a lake in spring."
He pulled her into his arms. "Be my spring, Kamoj."
Night curled around them, quiet and foggy. As they made love, a low-lying cloud seeped in the window. Afterward they lay together, drowsing, their heads together, Vyrl’s lips touching her hair.
Some time later he said, "Look. The Lion came up."
Kamoj opened her eyes. The fog in the room had reached as high as his desk, but their view of the window was clear. The Lion constellation was stalking across the sky, his head thrown back, his mane flowing in a wind of stars.
"See the star in his front paw?" Vyrl said.
"The yellow one?"
"Yes. That’s a sun of my home world. It’s why we made up the name Lionstar."
"Lionstar isn’t your real name?"
He gave her a guilty look. "It isn’t even close."
"What are you called?"
"A lot of nonsense."
"Tell me."
"You don’t really want to hear it."
She smiled. "But I do. The whole thing."
"All right. But I warned you." With a grimace, he said, "Prince Havyrl Torcellei Valdor kya Skolia, Sixth Heir, once removed from the line of Pharaoh, born of the Rhon, Fourth Heir to the Web Key, Fifth Heir to the Assembly Key, and Fifth Heir to the Imperator."