Del stared at them. “Kelric what?”
“Something affected our neural processes,” Kelric said. He wanted to make this right, so his brother didn’t think they doubted him, but he never knew how to talk to Del, how to deal with his brother’s emotional intensity and mercurial moods. That was part of what made Del such a gifted artist, but it was so unlike the way Kelric saw the world, it left him at a loss. “We don’t know yet how it happened. Essentially, I overloaded my brain until it shut down. Doctor Sashia restarted it from one of my neural backups.”
“You’re saying someone controlled your thoughts and made you kill yourself?” Del’s face paled. “If that’s really possible, nothing can protect us. Why aren’t you terrified?”
He scowled at Del. “Getting emotional won’t solve anything.” Of course he was afraid. But the last thing Imperial Space Command needed was for its commander to panic.
Kelric, don’t, Dehya thought. To Del, you probably sound like you’re discussing the weather.
This is the way I am. I’m not going to jump up and down screaming.
I know. And I understand. But he doesn’t.
Kelric knew what she wanted. Doing his best to put reassurance into his voice, he said, “Del, listen. We don’t think this was easily done. It may not even be possible to replicate it.”
Del’s shoulders had tensed, but as Kelric spoke, his stiffness eased. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Kelric said. He tried to let down his emotional barriers. “It’s frustrating. I don’t even know what happened in those few moments between my last backup and when I died.”
“You backed yourself up and restarted your brain?” Del asked. “I mean, I know it’s possible, if you have enough neural augmentation. But it’s like—like you’re—” He stumbled to a stop.
Kelric had to make a conscious effort not to grit his teeth. “Like I’m a machine?” Del wouldn’t be the first person who had described him that way.
“Kelric, no, I didn’t mean that. I just don’t understand how all this could have happened without any of us knowing.” Del reached out to the side, out of the range of the holo-cam, and his arm vanished up to his elbow. It reappeared as he pulled a desk into view. He leaned against it, sitting on the edge. “What about mother and everyone else? Aunt Dehya, are you all right?”
Careful what you tell him, Kelric warned.
He’s not a child, Dehya thought. Aloud, she said, “We’re not sure what happened to me. Everyone else is fine.”
Del braced his palms on the edge of the desk. “What do you mean, what happened to you?”
Don’t, Kelric told her. We don’t know if he can handle it.
He deserves to know, Dehya thought. He was attacked, too. Trust him.
Trust. With Del, it was hard for Kelric. In his youth, Del had made some terrible choices, and he had suffered for them. After he had overdosed on drugs, with a violent allergenic reaction, the health nanomeds in his body had gone awry and amplified the damage instead of helping. Del had spent nearly fifty years in cryogenic suspension, until medical science had advanced to the point where they could heal his body and keep him alive. But that was in the past. Kelric would never agree with many of Del’s decisions, like staying on Earth to be a “holo-rock” star, but Del had matured these past years and he seemed happier than Kelric had ever seen him before.
Dehya was watching Kelric. She didn’t need his agreement to tell Del confidential information; as Ruby Pharaoh, she outranked the Imperator. But she and Kelric had always worked as a team and he respected her judgment.
Tell him what you think he needs to know, he thought. I won’t object.
Del was waiting, his posture tensed. He had to know they were communicating about him.
“Del, what I tell you isn’t for anyone else to know,” Dehya said. “Not even Ricki, your wife.”
“You have my word,” Del said.
“Whoever struck you and Kelric also got to me,” Dehya said. “My links to the Kyle web exploded. I was cut off.” She spread her hands out from her body. “I couldn’t get out of the Kyle.”
“Why not?” Del asked. “Couldn’t the techs just unplug you from the mesh?”
“They did.”
“And you were still in the Kyle?”
“That’s right.”
“I thought that was impossible.”
“It is. Mostly.”
His smile flashed. “That ‘mostly’ meaning impossible for anyone except you, I’d wager.”
Dehya actually blushed at his smile. “Pretty much.”
Kelric almost groaned. How did Del have this effect on women, even Dehya? She claimed his smile was all it took to make all those billions of girls fall in love with him. Kelric didn’t understand it, but then, he was no expert on male media idols.
“Aunt Dehya, are you okay now?” Del asked. “You look tired. You should rest.”
“I’ll be all right,” she told him.
He’s right, Kelric thought at her. You should be sleeping. Not cavorting around here.
Cavorting? Her smile curved as she sent him a image of herself twirling around Kelric while he turned clumsily, too big and too slow to follow her.
Ha, ha, very funny, he grumbled.
Del’s gaze was flicking between the two of them. “You have some idea how this happened, yes?” he asked. “So we can stop it from happening again.”
“We’re working on it,” Kelric said. “Something altered the way the neurons fire in our brains. It happened about the same time for both Dehya and I, and we think for you, too. According to the traces of your activity in the Kyle, you actually released ‘Carnelians Finale’ twice, the second time at exactly the same moment Dehya and I were attacked. We’ve sent a team to Earth to check you out, make sure you’re all right. Based on what Dehya and your cousin Taquinil found, you programmed the release beforehand. You were asleep when ‘Carnelians Finale’ actually hit the meshes.”
“So maybe it wasn’t me.”
“It’s your neural patterns in the Kyle,” Dehya said. “We’ve verified them.”
“I’m sorry,” Del said quietly. “I swear, I never wanted to hurt either of you.”
“We know,” Kelric said. What he really wanted was to bring Del home to the Orbiter, where they could better protect him. He always felt that way about his brother, that he should be a bulwark between Del and the universe, as if he could shield the extreme sensitivity of his brother’s mind. Del felt things so deeply, he hurt so easily, and he sought solace in the worst places, like the drugs that had nearly killed him so long ago. Of course, Del didn’t want Kelric protecting him against anything. He chafed at the authority. Although Kelric could order his people to bring Del home, he didn’t want to interfere in his brother’s life unless it was absolutely necessary. Instead, he found ways to protect Del on Earth, working with their military.
All he said was, “You’d be safer here.”
“Maybe I should come to the Orbiter,” Del said.
Gods almighty, Dehya thought. Did he actually say that?
“You would do that?” Kelric asked, stunned.
“You two are scaring the hell out of me,” Del said. “What if it happens again? What if I lose control or hurt someone?” He raked his hand through his unruly curls. “My song, it’s everywhere, getting people upset. Either they act like I’m a prophet or else they hate me. I don’t feel safe here. And I worry about Ricki.”
“Your wife is welcome, too,” Kelric said. Although he had never felt comfortable with Ricki, a cutthroat producer in the music business, he had to admit that since Del had married her, he seemed to do all his misbehaving in private rather than in view of the insatiable scandal-mongering reporters for the interstellar media. “I’ve sent a military escort with the Kyle doctors coming to examine you. You can return with them.”
Del nodded with undisguised relief. “Okay. Good. That’s what we’ll do.”
This ought to go down in the history books, Dehya thought
. Del not only agreeing to what you want, but being the one who suggested it.
I’m just glad he’s coming back, Kelric thought.
He wouldn’t relax, though, until Del was actually here.
XII
Betrayals
Robert Muzeson had served Jaibriol for eleven years, since the day Jaibriol had assumed his throne. A man of medium height with brown hair and eyes, Robert acted as a personal assistant, staff director, and whatever else Jaibriol needed. Decades ago, during a pirate raid, slave merchants had captured Robert’s father, an artist from Earth, and sold him to Robert’s mother, a Muze Highton. When Jaibriol discovered Robert was rarely allowed to see his father, he had brought the artist to the palace and became his patron. The father had since developed into one of Eube’s premier artists. Even more important, he and Robert became close. Robert looked more like his father every day, from the grey at his temples to the distinguished cast of his face.
He was the only person Jaibriol came close to trusting.
“The report just came in!” Robert strode with him down a columned hall, his usually neat hair disarrayed. He had paged Jaibriol moments ago, well before dawn. Jaibriol had already been awake; he had little time to rest lately and without Tarquine here, he was too agitated to sleep.
His Razers came with them, stark in their midnight uniforms. Gunmetal collars glinted around their necks, more severe than the dark gold collar Robert wore. Jaibriol hated the slave restraints. He owned billions of people and every one had to wear collars and cuffs with his insignia. He could no more tell them to take those off than he could cut off his own arm. If he tried, the other Aristos would see it as an attack on their dominance. Hell, it was an attack. It would destroy his reign, erasing any chance he had to make a difference. But every year, it grated more. He had to find a way to end the oppression that would work instead of just leaving him dead.
Jaibriol lengthened his stride until they were jogging down the marble-columned hall. He was tempted to summon a hall-car, but he could run just as fast. “What I fail to understand,” he told Robert, “is why ESComm mobilized without my knowledge.”
“General Barthol Iquar ordered it.” Robert easily kept up with him. “He made an emergency decision when they couldn’t reach you. It is of course contingent on your approval.”
Like hell. It made no difference that he approved of Barthol’s decision; the general had no business acting first and seeking approval later. Barthol could easily have reached him; this “no time” business served only to undermine Jaibriol’s authority.
They ran into the Circle Foyer, a hall tiled in diamonds and snow-marble. Mosaics gleamed on the columned arcade that bordered the room. Jaibriol slowed to a walk. “I’ll read from the holofile,” he told Robert. He normally preferred to speak from memory; it looked better. But he couldn’t risk any mistakes in this quickly prepared statement.
As Robert handed him the file, they paused before a set of double doors that rose as high as the ceiling two stories above. Mosaics in gold, diamond, and carnelian bordered the portals. The Razer captain tapped a code into his wrist gauntlet and the doors swung open.
The Aristos of Eube waited beyond.
High-backed benches ringed the circular hall inside, sparkling like diamond, their backs intricately carved, their seats set with blood red cushions. Aristos in glistening black clothes filled every bench, nobles from all three castes: the Hightons who controlled the government and military; the Diamonds who saw to commerce, production, and banks; and the Silicates who catered to the pleasure of Aristos, including their most important product, the providers. Every person in the room had red eyes, glittering black hair, and perfect faces, as if they had been carved from alabaster.
They looked the same.
They moved the same.
They spoke the same.
They thought the same.
Jaibriol strode down an aisle that radiated like a spoke from a dais in the center of the hall. Surrounded by his bodyguards, with Robert at his side, he reached the dais and mounted its steps. A huge chair sat there, carved from snow marble and inlaid with carnelians and onyx. The Carnelian Throne.
Jaibriol stood by the throne that he never actually sat in and looked over the assembly. In unison, every Aristo present raised his or her arm and clicked their black-diamond finger cymbals. A blended crystalline note rang through the Hall, a rare acknowledgement. Jaibriol might be the most controversial emperor ever to sit on the throne, but he had retained his title despite all the challenges, and as long as he ruled, the Aristos gave him that sign of their reverence.
He waited until the chime vibrated into silence. Then he said, “I come before you to reveal an abomination from those who presume to share the stars with us.” It was a typically overblown opening, but expected. Let them hate him for forcing peace down their throats, not for breaking minor Aristo customs. “At three this morning, while the good citizens of this fine city slept, the Imperialate launched a vicious attack.” He wanted to shout his anger. “Skolian military vessels entered our space and attacked a Eubian merchant convoy. A civilian convoy. They obliterated nine vessels, including several crewed ships.” His voice hardened. “Every person on those ships died.”
Harsh notes echoed in the hall as Aristos hit their cymbals together, not chimes of honor this time, but the discord of anger. Jaibriol had to believe that whoever had ordered the attack had no ISC backing, because otherwise everything he had thought about Kelric’s intent in this peace process was a lie. Not only could this tear apart the treaty, but if Kelric didn’t condemn the attack, it would be the equivalent of his declaring war against Eube. That godforsaken song, “Carnelians Finale,” was sweeping through settled space, enraging people, inciting Skolians against Eube, Eubians against Skolia, and also Eubians against the Allied Worlds of Earth, for giving a Ruby prince the forum to shout his inflammatory song and the fame to make it inescapable.
“We will tolerate no such outrage!” Jaibriol’s voice resonated. He could show no other reaction, nothing anyone could use to accuse him of valuing the peace treaty above Eube. “The order has been given. ESComm is mobilized to move against Skolia.” He prayed Kelric decried the attack in time, because if he didn’t, Jaibriol would have to go through with the retaliation. He would deal with Barthol Iquar for giving the order without proper authorization, but he would have had to do it himself if Barthol hadn’t acted first.
A flash came from the holofile in his hand. Glancing down, he saw red glyphs scrolling across its surface, the alert for incoming news. As he read the message, a chill raced along his spine. He raised his head to see the Aristos watching him like a huge machine. Except not all were looking at him. Some were staring at their wrist gauntlets, tapping their ear comms, or taking the glazed look of a person communicating with a spinal node, each of them accessing the pervasive mesh that was so much a part of their lives, it was more integral to human beings than their own blood.
Instead of giving the statement he had prepared, Jaibriol read the message appearing on his file. “Even as we speak here, Imperator Skolia is giving the following statement.” He let his words ring in the orator’s voice he had inherited from his grandfather: “I, Kelric Valdoria Skolia, Imperator of the Skolian Imperialate, denounce the attack on the innocent civilians of the Eubian Concord. Nothing—I repeat nothing—in their actions was in any way ordered, encouraged, or authorized by Imperial Space Command. This act of terrorism was designed for one purpose only, to destroy the peace accord between Eube and Skolia. Our government will offer restitution to the families of those people lost in this act of brutal violence, and we will see to it that the perpetrators of this crime pay for their violence. They are under sentence of execution for their treason.”
Relief swept over Jaibriol, so intense it felt visceral, followed by shock. He had hoped Kelric would condemn the attack, but he hadn’t expected such vehemence. The execution sentence would surely weaken Kelric’s support within his own government
, bringing him under renewed fire from those who wanted Eube to pay for every sin that Prince Del shouted in his soaring, spectacular “Carnelians Finale.”
Emotions from the Aristos flooded Jaibriol, too strong to block even with the mental fortress he had built around his mind. Their fury and frustrated outrage swept over him, for Kelric had just stolen their justification for throwing away the treaty. They didn’t want reparations, they didn’t want peace, and they sure as hell didn’t want to know that ISC hadn’t ordered the attack. They wanted war and had ever since that defiant song had smashed through their lives.
Jaibriol didn’t know who had ordered the attack and he didn’t believe it would be the last assault. He had known the road to peace would be difficult, but he was beginning to wonder if their attempts to follow it would end up bringing on a more violent war than if they had never tried.
“Execution!” Roca threw the word at Kelric as they strode along the corridor to the War Room. “Are you out of your flaming mind?”
“This is the first chance we’ve had for peace,” he shot back. “They may have destroyed it.”
“You don’t have to execute them! Arrest is enough. Kill them and our own people will call you a murderer.”
“It’s not enough to say I’ll arrest them,” Kelric told her. “You think the Aristos will negotiate a treaty while our military slaughters their civilians in an unprovoked attack and my own brother is screaming to all high hell about their towering evil? I needed a stronger statement.”
With no warning, Roca lowered her mental barriers, and her thoughts hit him like a blow. He saw the same image they had all witnessed a thousand times since it had turned into a mesh plague—Del with his head raised in defiance as his voice rang out: You broke my brother, you Carnelian sons, you tortured my mother in your war of suns.
Kelric drew her to a stop. “Nothing will ever forgive what they did to you. If I could subject every one of those involved to excruciating pain, I would do it.” He took a breath, struggling for calm. “But somewhere, sometime, someone must say, ‘Today I will not seek revenge.’ Someone has to say, ‘We will stop’ and mean it, or the bloodshed will go on and on, endless, until we destroy the entire human race.”