The Quantum Rose

  Dazza paled. "We want you here, Vyrl. What if something happens and we can’t locate you?"

  "Is that all any of you think about?" he rasped. "What you want?" He thrust the slab back in his cloak and grabbed Kamoj’s shoulders. "Look at this. My wife. A farm girl like a virginal sex goddess out of an erotic holomovie, and all she asks is a simple life, a husband who doesn’t beat her, and the freedom to walk in the woods. Did it ever occur to all your generals, politicians, and strategists that maybe that’s all I want? That what I want might actually matter? Or are you all too busy plotting how to use your oh-so-valuable prince to give a flaming damn what I think?"

  He jabbed the stag with his heels and Greypoint leapt forward, racing for the forest. Vyrl held the reins with both hands now, his arms around Kamoj. He was gasping, choking as if every breath hurt.

  "Vyrl!" she shouted. "Put your mask on!" The wind carried away her voice. Desperate, she shouted in her mind. Vyrl! Your mask!

  His arm moved and his breathing stopped. Dismayed, she twisted around–and stared into a face of silver scales. Jerking at the sight, she lost her balance. Vyrl caught her as she fell, but he misjudged his strength and almost shoved her off Greypoint in the other direction. She turned around and hung onto the stag’s neck while they raced through the iridescent trees.

  The dirt path they followed sloped upward, trees towering on either side, branches meeting overhead. Despite the cloudless day, thunder rumbled above the forest. Kamoj stiffened, wondering what other "marvels" Vyrl’s outburst would call up.

  "It’s just a shuttle engine," he muttered against her ear. He slowed Greypoint to a walk and prodded him off the path, into the woods. The stag had calmed, his fire eased by the race. He trotted between the widely-spaced trees, his six legs moving with such smooth coordination that Kamoj barely felt the bumpiness of his bi-hooves hitting the ground. His muscular, long-legged grace reminded her of Vyrl.

  They went deep into the mountains, always headed upward. Every now and then an "engine" grumbled overhead. Each time the sound came, Vyrl tensed, and each time it faded he relaxed again.

  Eventually Kamoj said, "Where are we going?"

  "Away. Until they find me." He sounded tired. "Actually, they always know where I am. But usually they let me come back on my own." He paused. "Except today I took the jammer. They’ll have more trouble this time."

  "Jammer?"

  "What I pointed at Dazza," he said. "It works best against electromagnetic sensors."

  "Lector’s senses?"

  "It confuses the things they use to find me." His voice slurred. "Neutrinos are harder to fool, though. They go through anything. But this jammer is a real beaut. It can create false shadows to throw off even neutrino sensors."

  "Oh." Kamoj wondered if the rum made him babble, or if his words had some actual sense.

  "What do you think is this Current you all worship?" Vyrl asked. "Electromagnetic radiation. Light. Those threads in your light panels are just optical fibers."

  That gave her pause. In Iotaca, Optical Fiber was the full name of Lyode’s husband, Opter Sunsmith. If their line ran true, their children would inherit the sunsmith talents. Opter’s brother Gallium Phosphide Sunsmith worked in the sunshop with him. Other provinces had other gifts, such as the Amperman and Ohmston lines in Ironbridge. The Argali temple was dedicated to sun spirits, like the Glories and Airy Rainbows, but Kamoj had always seen them as guardians or even servants of the Sunsmith line, rather than deities.

  "Why do you think we worship the Current?" she asked.

  "Don’t you?"

  "The Current just is. Like rain, clouds, and sun."

  "Not like the sun," Vyrl said. "It is the sun. Well, not just the sun. But light."

  "Of course, Prince Havyrl."

  "Don’t call me that."

  "That?"

  "Prince Whatsit. You’re my wife. Call me Vyrl."

  "Yes, Vyrl."

  "Why are you so formal? Last night, I even thought you were afraid–" Suddenly he stopped. "Saints almighty. I am an idiot."

  Kamoj blinked, again caught off guard. Never, in a hundred Long Years, would Jax have ever said such a thing about himself.

  "You had no choice, did you?" Vyrl said.

  "Choice?"

  "About the marriage. Bloody flaming hell. I should have seen it before. That wasn’t a dowry. It was a purchase order." He pulled Greypoint to a halt and dismounted, swinging his leg over the stag’s back and landing on the ground with leonine grace. Greypoint danced sideways, and Kamoj had to grab the bridle to keep from falling.

  Standing with his back to her, Vyrl looked normal, a man with a mane of tawny hair. Then he turned and she saw the silver mask on his face. She tensed, almost as unsettled now by that blank expanse of metal as the first time she had seen it.

  He peeled off the mask. "I hate this thing."

  "Vyrl, no. You need to breathe."

  "You must hate me."

  "I don’t hate you." Every time she thought she began to understand him, he went off on a rant again.

  He crumpled the mask. "You think you have to say that."

  Although she meant what she said, his words gave her pause. Had Jax asked if she hated him, certainly she would have denied it. Otherwise he would have hit her.

  Vyrl was concentrating as if she were a tangle of threads he was trying to unravel. "I’m not going to beat you. Gods, Kamoj, I would never do such a thing."

  Her face gentled. "I like being with you. It’s just . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "I don’t understand you."

  Vyrl gave her a rueful smile. "That makes two of us." He pressed the mask onto his face, then came over and reached for her. As he helped her off the stag, she put her arms around his neck and hugged him. He held her with her feet dangling in the air while he pressed his lips against her hair.

  "I have a place out here where I go to be alone," he said. Then he set her down on the ground and took her hand.

  They went to an outcropping of moss-covered slabs half-buried in the ground. Bridle bells clinked as Greypoint followed them. Vyrl stopped and rubbed his mount’s neck, pressing on the scales in that way greenglass stags liked. Greypoint stood quietly, patient while Vyrl removed the bridle and tended him. The stag pushed his long snout against Vyrl’s palm, nipping at his fingers with fangs that could have torn Vyrl to pieces, had Greypoint wanted. Then the greenglass took off, running in a graceful six-legged lope among the trees.

  Vyrl glanced at Kamoj. "Don’t worry. He’ll come back."

  She spoke softly. "I know." Greypoint’s behavior told her far more than Vyrl realized. After working all her life in the glasshouses stables at Argali, she knew greenglass stags. Greypoint was wild, never broken or tamed. A gifted stagman might attract the interest of a wild stag, but never one as high-strung and powerful as Greypoint. That the animal freely chose to follow Vyrl impressed her more than all Vyrl’s wealth, titles, and palace repairs.

  Vyrl led her through an opening in the rocks into a small cave. It had a roof half again as tall as Vyrl and a floor of packed dirt, with boulders jutting out here and there. He knelt at a platform beside the entrance and ran his fingers over its dark surface. Despite all the wonders Kamoj had seen here, it still stunned her when lights appeared within the platform, glowing and winking. A hum began, and a shimmer curtain appeared in the entrance of the cave, blending into the rocks on either side.

  Vyrl sat back on his heels. "The generator will bring the atmosphere to normal. Normal for me, that is."

  She stood just inside the entrance. "Why can’t you breathe the air?"

  "A lot of reasons. Too much carbon dioxide. Too little oxygen. All the scale dust in it." He seemed distracted, either tired or depressed. "The irradiation from your sun is lower than the human standard. That means it doesn’t give Balumil as much light. The extra carbon dioxide helps keeps the temperature up." He touched the mask on his face. "This concentrates oxygen and filters out CO2. It also filters out
impurities that gives gamma humanoids a severe form of asthma. Fatal, in fact, if we breathe it too long."

  "Gamma humanoid?"

  "Like me." He pressed his palm against his chest. "I can tolerate the air here for a short time, but some people can’t bear it even for a few seconds."

  "It doesn’t bother me at all."

  Vyrl smiled. "You’re a theta." He took off his mask and dropped it on the console. "Your lungs have filters that mine lack. Your people’s hemoglobin was redesigned and your circulatory system responds to different partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide." He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "This world is almost uninhabitable for those of us without your modifications, especially during winter and summer. That’s why your ancestors wore space suits."

  "Space suits?"

  "You know those pictures of ancient stagmen in full-body diskmail?" When she nodded, he said, "Those are space suits."

  She poked her finger into the shimmer curtain. "And this?"

  "It’s an airlock. It surrounds the cave." He paused. "I’m not sure how to describe it in a way that would make sense to you."

  "Tell me in your own words then. I like to hear them." Now that she knew he wasn’t mocking her ignorance, she found a beauty in his words, the promise of knowledge and wonders.

  "The curtain is a membrane," he said. "A modified lipid bilayer." He tapped the platform. "This applies an electric potential to it. There are enzymes in the membrane, like keys, but so tiny you can’t see them. They fit certain receptor molecules. Certain locks. Different potentials activate different keys. When a key opens a lock, it changes the permeability of the membrane." He paused, lines of fatigue deep on his face.

  "Are you all right?" Kamoj asked.

  "Yes. Fine." He stood up. "Right now the membrane won’t let air pass, but water can diffuse through it just fine. The generator recycles our air, so we don’t suffocate. It also seeds the air with nanomeds that take dust out of the air."

  Kamoj thought of the firepuff fly that had stuck to the shimmer in her chamber last night. "The curtain lets us pass through it."

  "On this setting, yes. We’re easily strong enough to push through it. Your body becomes part of the interface, keeping the seal." He pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. "A picoweb within the membrane remembers its original form, so after you pass, the curtain returns to normal."

  "Vyrl, are you sure you are all right?"

  "It’s just a headache." He pulled a bottle out of his cloak and unscrewed the top. Then he drank deeply, tilting his head back as he swallowed.

  Watching him, Kamoj felt a sense of helplessness. Her only experience with anyone who drank this much was Korl Plowsbane. Would Vyrl become that way, decimated and dulled, with no family or friends, only the bottle he loved above all else? She had no idea what to do. She had seen how angry he became if Dazza even mentioned it.

  He walked across the cave, his boots scuffing up swirls of iridescent dust. The generator hummed, making its nano-meds to carry the dust out of the air, so it wouldn’t kill her husband.

  Vyrl turned to her. "That day at the river–you have no idea. I was so close to going after you. Just one bodyguard you had, to my four stagmen." He raised his hand, palm up. "‘But no,’ I thought. ‘Do you want her to hate you? What of honor? Decency? All that.’ So I courted you. Or I thought I courted you." He took another swallow of rum. Lowering the bottle, he spoke with self-disgust. "Seems I raped you anyway."

  "That’s not true." How could he be so empathic and not see that she liked him? She had never wanted Jax to touch her, but after Vyrl’s gentleness last night even the thought of Ironbridge revolted her.

  "I knew, damn it!" Vyrl said. "I knew you wanted me to stop last night. You even cried it in your mind." He sat on a hip-high boulder and took another swallow of rum. "Self-delusion is remarkable, isn’t it? I convinced myself you wanted me."

  "You weren’t deluding yourself," she said.

  "You think you have to tell me that. Because I bought you." He let the empty bottle slide out of his hand. It hit a half-buried rock and broke into pieces. Watching her, he said, "You aren’t bound to me, Kamoj. You’re free. I’ll have the Ascendant move our base to some other place. We’ll tell your people–hell, tell them what? That I went back to my own ‘land’ and will send for you. Then we’ll send word I’ve been killed. That way you’ll be free of me without being humiliated."

  "Killed?" She couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  "Imperial law recognizes unions made in the colonies, even the rediscovered ones like this. That means we’re married by my law as well as yours." He spoke awkwardly. "I’ll have someone arrange divorce papers."

  How could he speak her language, yet say so much she didn’t understand? Enough made sense, though. He meant to dissolve their merger. The realization stabbed like broken glass. With news of Vyrl’s "death," Jax could claim the widow. Ironbridge would get everything: Argali, the redone palace, Morlin, all of it.

  Kamoj went over to him and toed aside the broken bottle. Shyly, she put her arms around his waist. "Stay with me."

  His arms went around her. "You don’t have to say that."

  "I know." She hesitated. "Unless you want to go."

  "Gods, no." His hand moved over her hair. "Are you sure?"

  "I’m sure."

  "Even after last night?"

  "Especially after last night." She tried to recapture her feeling from then, so he would too. Rubbing her cheek on his chest, she inhaled his scent. Then she reached for him with her hand, seeking to give to him what he had given her. As she held him, he brushed his lips over the crown of her head and stroked his palm down her back, over her curls. After awhile, he pulled off the scarf she used for a belt and helped her fold it around him. Tensing with his release, he exhaled, then he murmured words from an old Argali harvest song: "‘So soft is her touch on grain full with nectar . . .’"

  Smiling, Kamoj looked up at him. As he relaxed against her, his eyelids drooped. Their metal lashes made a glittering contrast to the dark circles under his eyes.

  "Let’s lie down," she said. "I’m tired." She wasn’t actually, but Vyrl obviously needed to sleep. Why he fought so hard against it she had no idea, but perhaps he would do for her what he wouldn’t do for himself.

  "All right." He straightened his clothes, then stood up and swung off his cloak. It swirled through the air and settled on the ground. As Kamoj sat on it, he watched her like a greenglass mesmerized by night lamps on a coach. "So pretty . . . your dress. That color. What d’you call it? Rose? ‘S nice the way you fill it out–" He suddenly turned red. "Ai. I’m rambling. What an idiot you married."

  Kamoj couldn’t help but smile at his boyish expression. "No, you aren’t. Don’t ever say that." She patted the ground. "You lie down. I’ll rub your head."

  "Won’t argue with that." He lay down and put his head in her lap. As she massaged his temples, his eyes closed. Within moments his breathing had settled into the steady rumble of sleep.

  Watching Vyrl sleep, Kamoj wondered how to understand him. He spoke like a highborn man, dressed like a farmer, carried a title, had a laborer’s callouses, moved like a dancer, and had a stagman’s gift with greenglasses. The silver in his hair and the lines around his eyes suggested he had reached his forties, yet he had the powerful physique and vigor of a younger man. His wide-open emotions and beguiling flashes of mischief made him seem almost boyish.

  Beneath all that, though, buried also under his mood swings, his drinking, and his tormented dreams, she sensed a slumbering satisfaction with life that came from well-advanced years, not for everyone, but for some. He obviously wasn’t happy now, yet for some reason she believed she picked up a deeper contentment, the kind it took a lifetime to form. Was she imagining it?

  "Vyrl, what are you?" she murmured. Elderly, middle-aged, or young? Prince or farmer? Athlete or stagman? Drunkard or wise man? Or all of that? Brushing back his hair, she
decided she would simply try to accept him for himself.

  After a while she moved out from under his head and lay down beside him. Outside a quetzal called and another answered. Branches creaked in the wind. She could imagine the woods, ancient trees nodding together, their heads lifted high above the ground. If she were a bird, she could rise out of the forest and see it rolling in wave upon iridescent wave through the mountains, beneath the limitless violet plain of the sky.

  VI

  Sword And Ballbow

  Perturbations

  A shudder racked Vyrl’s body, waking Kamoj. Deep in his dreams, he made a strangled noise, his face clenched. She pushed up on her elbow and massaged his head until he calmed.

  When he was resting well again, she went outside and stood watching the forest. Morning had passed, bringing them into early afternoon. Overhead an "engine" rumbled. She wondered if it knew Vyrl was here.

  When she returned to the cave, she found him sitting up. Although fatigue still lined his face, he looked more rested.

  "Is there anyone out there?" he asked.

  "I heard an engine. I didn’t see anyone, though." She sat cross-legged in front of him. "May I ask you a question?"

  "Of course."

  "What are you a prince of?"

  He shrugged. "Nothing, really. I’m just a citizen of the Skolian Imperialate. It’s about nine hundred worlds governed by an assembly of elected counselors."

  "You are not a prince?"

  "I’ve the title. But it doesn’t mean much." He considered her. "Tell me what you know of Balumil’s history."

  She thought of the stories she had learned as a child. "Long ago the Current gave light and warmth to our houses. And voices." Like Morlin, she realized. Vyrl had given the Quartz Palace back its voice. "Sailors brought the people here on ships that flew above the sky."

  "That fits."

  His response surprised her. She would have expected him to smile at their fanciful tales. "How does it fit?"