An authoritative voice said, “Get her husband back here. He’s a Ruby telepath.”
“The doctors told him to go sleep,” someone said. “He’d been here for two days straight.”
“Get him,” the authoritative voice repeated.
Dryni? Dehya thought. Her husband didn’t answer.
She drifted, hurting. Every now and then a clank or hiss penetrated the fog.
Dehya? The thought soaked into her mind.
Dryni? Is that you?
His thought brought hues of a deep blue sky and the sunset. Yes, love. It’s me.
Can’t stay . . . She drifted into the blur of non-existence.
“I don’t need to stay in bed.” Jaibriol glared at Doctor Qoxdaughter. He tried to throw off the blankets, but the smart-cloth resisted his efforts, slipping out of his hands and settling around his body again. What fiendish person had come up with intelligent bedding? Jaibriol had grown up in exile, hidden with his family on a world where they had nothing but what they made with their hands. He would never get used to clever furniture, blankets that analyzed his moves, or food that sent him mesh-mail if he forgot to eat. It drove him nuts.
“Your Highness.” Qoxdaughter spoke carefully. “If you get up, your wounds might reopen.”
“I’m fine.” Jaibriol wasn’t fine and he knew it; just sitting up made him dizzy. But he couldn’t stay here. He jerked away the covers and slid free of the bed before it could resist his efforts. He was still wearing his silk sleep trousers and shirt, but the socks he had pulled on earlier were gone, leaving his feet bare. For saints’ sake. He was arguably the most powerful man in the universe, and he couldn’t stop the bedding from pulling off his socks. Moving slowly, his head reeling, he fished under the blankets until he found them. Then he leaned against the hospital bed while he put them back on his feet. Qoxdaughter watched him, tensed to respond, though whether to help or hinder him, he didn’t know. No, that wasn’t true. He knew. She would never dare hinder the emperor.
“Go ahead,” he told the doctor as he tugged his socks into place. “Say what you have to say.”
She motioned at his bed. “Do you see all these monitors?”
He glanced at the machines arrayed around him. They showed holographic views of his body, as well as graphs and charts and other multi-colored displays floating in the air, gleaming on screens or glowing on curved surfaces. “Impressive,” he said.
“They all tell me the same thing. What you’re doing is endangering your health.”
“I’m going to see my wife.” He stood up straight and gritted his teeth against the pain in his torso. He found it hard to believe that only yesterday an explosion had nearly torn him apart. His body was well on the way to healing, but nothing could fix his fear. He couldn’t lose Tarquine.
Qoxdaughter took a breath. “Sire, please—”
“Stop.” He lifted his hand. “I’m going, Colonel.”
She started to answer, stopped, then said, “Of course, Your Highness.”
Even with treatments to dull his pain, Jaibriol hurt everywhere. He knew he should listen to her and lie down. He wanted to lie down. But he couldn’t rest until he saw Tarquine, not in a holo, but where he could feel her breath against his hand. If someone had come so close to killing them in his own palace, they might try here in the hospital. He knew, logically, his presence would make no difference to the protections around the empress or the child she carried. Even so. He had to visit his wife. He needed to see his family.
Of course Qoxdaughter was family, too, his grandfather’s child. She was supposedly half Aristo. If she truly had been, he would have felt the pressure of her mind. He didn’t because his grandfather, Ur Qox, had been only half Aristo. His great-grandfather set it up that way so Ur could sire a Ruby heir. And Ur had done exactly that; Jaibriol’s father had been a Ruby psion. Two generations of emperors had broken the most entrenched taboo in Eube, claiming a provider’s child as their Highton heir, so they could put a Ruby on the throne and counter the Skolians. But joke of all bitter jokes, the psion they had created had loathed his throne. Jaibriol’s father had gone into hiding to escape a legacy as hateful to him as it was to his Skolian enemies.
Jaibriol knew people believed he had appointed Qoxdaughter as his personal physician because of nepotism. In truth, he chose her because not only was she a damn fine doctor, but also because her presence wasn’t an assault on his oversaturated brain. Her medical records had been doctored to say she was half Aristo, but she was only one-quarter, so the Aristo traits didn’t manifest in her. Her mind didn’t suffocate his.
“Sire?” Qoxdaughter asked.
“Just thinking.” Jaibriol looked around. His velvet robe lay on a nearby chair, shimmering blue, its hems embroidered in gold and silver. He walked over and tried to pick up the robe. The chair snapped fasteners onto it, holding the garment, and he had to tug it away.
He glared at Qoxdaughter. “Who programmed this furniture?”
“The tech staff, Your Highness.” She kept her disapproval of his behavior out of her voice, but he felt her mood. Her concern for his health battled her fear of displeasing him.
“Have them reprogram this room,” he said. “I don’t want the furniture, walls, or anything trying to control my actions.”
“Yes, Sire.”
He pulled on his robe. “How is my wife?”
She spoke smoothly, with the panic hidden in her mind. “We’re doing everything possible, everything, using the best—”
“Colonel.” Jaibriol put up his hand. “I’m not going to do anything to you if the news isn’t good. Tell me the truth.”
She let out a breath. “I’m sorry, Sire. She hasn’t recovered consciousness.”
He felt a constriction in his chest. “And the baby?”
Qoxdaughter spoke quietly. “We don’t know yet.”
Jaibriol clenched the cuff of his robe, crumpling it in his fist. If Tarquine miscarried, it would be the second time in only months. He wanted to hurt whoever had attacked them, long and horribly, and right now he couldn’t care less what that said about him. He went to the door, an elongated hexagon, and it irised open. His four bodyguards waited in the foyer outside, their midnight uniforms like shadows against the white Luminex walls. As he walked forward, they fell into formation around him, towering, though he was tall even by Aristo standards.
They headed into the halls of the exclusive medical center, Qoxdaughter walking at his side. Jaibriol glanced at his guards. Like all Razers, they had serial numbers instead of names. ESComm considered them machines rather than human. With his last four guards, he had done the unheard of, encouraging them to pick names for themselves. Those names had died with them on Earth, when they had given their lives to save his during an assassination attempt. Jaibriol had mourned long and hard for their deaths. He had hand-selected those Razers, especially Hidaka, the captain of the unit.
Hidaka, who had known the truth.
Hidaka had witnessed Jaibriol become a member of the Skolian Triad—and murdered an Aristo colonel, the only other witness, to protect Jaibriol’s secret. The Razer should never have been able to defy his programming. The moment he had realized Jaibriol was a psion—that the man who sat on the Carnelian Throne was a provider—he should have reported it. Hidaka had been designed, conditioned, and brainwashed to adhere to that principle. Instead he had taken Jaibriol’s secret to his grave. Why Hidaka gave him that incredible loyalty, Jaibriol would never know, but he would mourn the captain for the rest of his life.
ESComm Security claimed Hidaka failed to stop the assassination attempt because he was defective. So the idiots decommissioned the entire line. Never mind that Hidaka had acted with great heroism. Never mind that Jaibriol survived because of that heroism. Hidaka’s “failure” was in what Security discovered in the investigation. He acted too human. So they ordered the destruction of every Razer clone in his line. Every goddamned one.
It had been almost too late when Jaibriol
discovered what his ESComm “protectors” were up to. He had ordered them to stop destroying valuable Razers, but he couldn’t go further without inciting suspicion. His sovereignty was a balance between his authority and his ability to convince the Aristos and ESComm he should hold that authority. So he had never asked these four Razers if they wanted names. Better they remain serial numbers than he draw lethal attention to them.
“This way.” Qoxdaughter indicated a hall slanting off from their corridor. The lack of right angles in Aristo architecture no longer disoriented Jaibriol; he was accustomed to the geometry. Even the walls curved into the floor. It was always oblique, indirect, like Aristo speech. He only noticed at times like now, when he already felt disoriented.
They arrived at another hexagon. As it irised open, Jaibriol tensed. He hadn’t seen Tarquine since yesterday, when the explosion had ripped through the palace. His doctors said he had bled all over the debris, almost died, that he was alive because he was such an exalted being, etcetera, etcetera. He didn’t want to hear it. If he had bled everywhere, that meant so had Tarquine, and no matter how much protocol required everyone to tell the emperor and empress that they were more than human, it wouldn’t save her very human life if her injuries were too severe.
Her bodyguards were inside her room, one by the wall, the other near the door. They knelt as he entered.
“Rise,” Jaibriol said. He wanted them paying attention to Tarquine’s safety, not looking at the floor. Right now nothing mattered but the woman lying on her back on the bed under luminous white smart-sheets, her eyes closed, her breathing slow.
Jaibriol went to the bed with Doctor Qoxdaughter and stood gazing at his wife. He touched Tarquine’s cool cheek. Her face look too perfect in repose, like a marble statue.
“Has she shown any sign of change?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Qoxdaughter said. “Her coma remains the same.” She spoke carefully. “It is inspiring that she was able to get pregnant.”
“If that’s your way of saying she shouldn’t be doing this to her body at her age,” Jaibriol answered dryly, “then yes. But she’s the empress.” He didn’t need to tell Qoxdaughter what that meant. The doctor knew he needed an heir. So he said only, “Physically my wife is in her thirties. Essentially.”
Qoxdaughter kept looking at Tarquine. “Essentially.”
“She will live.” He didn’t know who he was trying to convince, himself or the colonel.
“Of course.” Qoxdaughter continued to watch Tarquine. “She is beyond any normal human.”
“Doctor, look at me,” he said.
She raised her gaze. “Sire?”
“You say that because you think you have to.”
Qoxdaughter spoke quietly. “She is a strong woman, your Highness, and I would say that no matter what.”
Jaibriol nodded, though inside he was breaking apart. He had never expected to love an Highton woman, but it had somehow happened, and if Tarquine died, part of him would die as well.
Begin.
Failure.
Retry.
Failure.
Retry.
Failure.
Reinitialize backup of mental files.
Reinitialized.
Begin.
Code begun.
Kelric opened his eyes. He was lying on his back, staring at a silver-white ceiling. Conduits criss-crossed it, glowing white in star designs. Turning his head, he saw his two doctors, Sashia and Drayson, across the room, conferring in low voices. Various monitors around his bed glowed with holos of his brain.
Why am I here? he thought.
Bolt, the node in his spine, answered. You died.
What the hell?
If this is hell, it doesn’t fit the claims of various literatures. Though some might consider confinement to a hospital as such.
Not funny, Bolt.
I can’t be humorous. I am a mesh node. Then it added, Someone tried to assassinate you, so you were brain dead.
You mean I really did die?
Yes. I’m sorry.
I seem to be quite alive.
Your most recent neural backup was only minutes old. They restarted your brain with it. You’re missing only the last minutes before you died.
Although he knew in theory it was possible to restart the brain from a saved version if they loaded the memory into a living human bring, he had never expected to test the theory. How did I die?
Someone cracked the War Room mesh and hacked you in Kyle Space.
That’s impossible. Only I have that kind of access to the War Room mesh.
Apparently someone else does, too. Either that, or you assassinated yourself.
What a bizarre thought. How about you?
I didn’t try to kill you, if that is what you mean.
I mean, are you all right?
I’m running diagnostics. I can’t find anything unusual.
You wouldn’t tell me if you were compromised. Kelric couldn’t imagine that Bolt, who had been part of his brain for over half a century, would attack him. He didn’t know what he would do if the node was corrupted. Shutting it down would be like cutting out a part of himself.
Have an outside agency run diagnostics on me, Bolt told him.
They probably already are. Kelric tried to remember what had happened just before the attack, but nothing came. Do you have any records of those moments I’ve lost?
I’m missing the time from your last neural backup until they restarted your mind. About two minutes’ worth.
Maybe Dehya can help. She has more monitors in the Kyle than ISC. Hell, she’s PART of the Kyle.
Silence.
Bolt?
I don’t think Pharaoh Dyhianna can help.
Why not?
The assassins got to her, too.
“Hell and damnation!” Kelric sat up in bed, knocking the silver sheet away from his body.
Both Sashia and Drayson spun around, as did every medic and tech in the room, all staring at him, their mouths open.
“Pharaoh Dyhianna,” he barked at them. “Is she alive?”
Sashia blinked. “Yes.” She came over to the bed with Colonel Drayson. “Until about two seconds ago, though, we didn’t know you were.”
He didn’t have time for that. “Where is Dehya?” Kelric swung his legs out from under the sheet. He was wearing a sleep shirt and trousers made from a silvery tech-mesh. His clothes were probably monitoring his vital signs and talking to his doctors.
Sashia made an exasperated noise. “Commander Skolia, stay put! You were just dead.”
“I’m fine.”
“How did you know about the pharaoh?” Sashia asked.
“Bolt told me.”
“Bolt?” Drayson asked crisply. “That refers to your one of your spinal nodes, doesn’t it?”
I’m not “one,” Bolt objected. I’m the PRIMARY node.
Kelric held back his smile. “That’s right,” he told Drayson.
Tell him I need a check, Bolt reminded him.
Kelric spoke to Drayson and Sashia. “Have you run diagnostics on my internal nodes?”
“We’ve tried,” Drayson said. “We can’t gain access.”
Bolt? Kelric thought. Let them in.
Sorry, yes, I’m fixing it. The failsafe security protections kicked in when you died. They shouldn’t have any problem now.
“Try again,” Kelric told Drayson.
“Good.” The doctor went to work, tapping panels on his wrist comm.
“How much did Bolt tell you about what happened?” Sashia asked Kelric.
“Nothing. It doesn’t remember.” Kelric frowned at them. “What happened to Dehya?”
Drayson glanced up. “We aren’t sure. An attack in psiberspace, same as with you. But you had only been in a few minutes. She’d been working for hours, in a lot deeper.”
Kelric felt as if he were filling with pressure. “Meaning what? Will she live?”
“We think so,” Sashia said.
&
nbsp; “You think.” Kelric clenched the edge of the bed. “Why don’t you know?”
“The question isn’t her life,” Sashia said. “We can keep her breathing.” She hesitated. “We can’t get her out of Kyle space.”
“Why not?” he asked. “Just turn off the machines. It’s her thoughts that are there, not her body.”
“If we aren’t careful, it could cause her brain damage.”
“She can’t stay there.” Kelric knew Dehya sometimes longed to lose herself in the Kyle, to seek its refuge against a universe where she was so sensitive an empath, she had to isolate herself to survive. “She can’t,” he repeated. “Skolia needs her.” He needed her.
“We have a team of Rajindias working on her case,” Sashia said.
He nodded, trying to relax his shoulders. The House of Rajindia, an ancient noble line, had a talent that all their inbreeding had strengthened. They trained biomech adepts, the neurological specialists who treated psions. If anyone could help Dehya, they were the ones.
Kelric slid off the bed. Considering his recent condition, he felt remarkably healthy. He must not have been dead for long. “I need some real clothes.”
Drayson cleared his throat. “Sir, I don’t think it’s wise for you to be up so soon.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m no longer dead,” Kelric deadpanned.
Sashia scowled at him. “Very funny.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry.” So much for his sparkling wit.
Drayson looked from Sashia to Kelric. From the colonel’s mind, Kelric gathered he didn’t know which was more startling, that Kelric had made a joke or that Sashia was so relaxed in her response. Kelric thought perhaps he needed to work on his demeanor around people. True, he couldn’t have his officers treating him with Sashia’s casual attitude, but neither did he want people to think he was more machine than human. His emotions ran deep and strong; he just didn’t know how to express them.
He said only, “What do you know about who tried to kill us? How did they reach both Dyhianna and myself?” It was a security nightmare.