“Maybe the attacks weren’t really at the same time.”
“Well, he released the song twice, the first time before we were attacked. The Kyle space paths for the two releases are tangled up together. It’s hard to separate them because events in the Kyle are related by similarity, not by time.” She thumped a panel her with frustration. “How did they get to him? None of us show any evidence of drugs, physical tampering, or anything else. The only possibility that makes sense is that they affected our neural processes through Kyle space. But he almost never goes into the Kyle.”
“A psion’s mind is more vulnerable during sleep,” Light said. “Maybe a telepath reached him on Earth while he slept, and Del went onto the Kyle web without waking up.”
“It’s possible, I suppose. But who? It would have to be an immensely powerful psion.”
“I’m running your models again,” Light said. “If you remove the assumption that the tampering came through the Kyle web, they all spew wonky code.”
She decided to let the “wonky” go this time. “So either it didn’t happen while Del was asleep or my models are drilled.”
“I don’t believe it’s anatomically possible to ‘drill’ a mesh code,” Laplace said. “According to my files on profanity, ‘drill’ refers to the act of reproduc—”
“I know what it means!” Dehya said, laughing. “You know, you evolving codes create new parts of yourselves all the time by splicing other parts together. That’s like reproduction.”
“Yes, well, I don’t have sexual relations with other codes. By the way, the message from Emperor Jaibriol has finished clearing through the protocol offices.”
“Good. Has Kelric contacted you?”
“Yes, he wishes to meet with you at his house. He says, ‘Bring your Quis dice.’ ”
A thought came to her. “Can you code my models for the Kyle attacks into Quis patterns?”
“I can do that. Do you want me to project the models as a game you can play?”
“Yes. But not now. I need to meet with Kelric.”
“He’s says he’ll be home in ten minutes.”
Dehya stood up and stretched her arms. “Upload the message from Emperor Jaibriol to my spinal node.” She headed for the archway out of her office. “Did you find Quis patterns in it?”
“In a border.” Laplace paused. “Did you know that you have a message waiting in your main queue that is labeled as urgent?”
Dehya stopped at the doorway. “No I didn’t. What is it?”
“Well, oddly enough, it appears to be a request for an analysis of blood tests.”
“Appears? Can’t you tell?”
“It’s buried in layers of security code.”
Baffled, Dehya returned her station, stepping inside the array of screens. “Why ever would someone want me to analyze blood tests?”
“I’ve no idea. It originated at a Skolian embassy on the Eubian planet called Muze’s Helios.”
How strange. “File it under ‘incoming, top priority.’ I’ll look at it after I see Kelric.”
“Pharaoh Dyhianna, I can’t file it. My security codes aren’t high enough.”
That stopped her cold. “Your codes are my codes. I can access anything.” Technically, she couldn’t access Kelric’s most secured files or those of the Assembly, but she had long ago circumvented their protections.
“It has to be you,” Laplace said. “Physically. It wants DNA, fingerprints, and retinal scans.”
“That’s truly odd.” Dehya slid her finger into a slot below the screen. A light played over her eyes while the console analyzed her fingerprint and scraped a skin sample for the DNA check.
A new voice spoke, cold and impersonal. “Identity verified. Invoking Zeta protocol.”
“What for?” Dehya asked. Her Zeta protocol involved such a high level of security, even Kelric couldn’t break it.
“I’m downloading the message,” Laplace said.
“What does it say?”
“Nothing really. It’s exactly what I thought, a request for a blood test analysis.”
This became more bizarre by the moment. Dehya brought up the message and scanned the layers of code it had accumulated. Why had they sent these tests out for a Skolian analysis? A procedure this simple could be done within the embassy.
Dehya spoke uneasily. “Laplace, analyze the blood tests.”
“I’m not a medical unit.”
“The procedure is trivial. Any EI could do it. Hell, an AI could.” Dehya slowly sat back down. “Like the AI at the medical center on Sandstorm.” Except that AI hadn’t returned any results to the embassy, it had instead forwarded this message. From Sandstorm, the message had followed an ever more complex path, ending up deep within the ISC mesh, which had sent it to her.
“Analysis finished,” Laplace said.
“Put it on the screen.”
“Projecting.”
Dehya read the glyphs—and read them again.
And again.
“Gods almighty,” she whispered.
XIX
Revelations
Ships came into many hubs on the planet Glory. Taken altogether, the ports served billions. Some were military, others civilian, and some served both. Some were only for Aristos; others, larger and less extravagant, were for taskmakers. Commercial hubs catered to corporations, trade ports catered to the slave trade, and the cargo ports were for shipping goods other than people.
One small port was unlisted on any public, private, or commercial system. Hidden high in the Jaizire Mountains, it served only one person. The emperor.
Jaibriol stood on an upper level of the exclusive terminal and watched the ship from Muze’s Helios land. It was an ESComm transport, its main purpose to carry three members of Admiral Muze’s family, all high-ranking officers in the Eubian Fleet. As an afterthought, or so it appeared, Jaibriol had asked them to send along the three prisoners from the Skolian embassy.
You have no idea, he thought as the ship landed. You have no idea what you carry.
Unfortunately, neither did he.
Aliana was suffocating.
It was the Hightons. She felt claustrophobic when they were near, as if she had too little air to breathe. Three of them stood here in the shuttle, ESComm officers, tall and cold-faced, their skin as white as a precious stone. Their black hair glittered, splintering the harsh light in the shuttle. Their red eyes looked like crystals. They were beautiful in a terrible way, like heartless gods who could kill with a mere glance and would neither care nor even realize if that happened.
Now that the shuttle had landed, the Aristos stood by the hatchway and talked among themselves, ignoring everyone else. Aliana had no idea if this was normal, that they could step into this little ship, fly down to the planet from the bigger ship that had taken them here from Muze’s Helios, and just walk off the shuttle. She had some hazy idea that landing on a new world involved many procedures and long lines, but nothing like that seemed to be involved here.
Six ESComm soldiers were in the ship, including the pilot and co-pilot, who both had dull black hair and rusty-red eyes, which made them look part Aristo, like her stepfather. They were far more refined than Caul, though. No one spoke to her. They barely seemed to notice her. She stood alone at the back of the shuttle, feeling trivial.
They hadn’t let her and Red sit together on the way down. He was standing now on the other side of the craft, flanked by two soldiers. Someone had cut his hair, brushed it until it shone, and put him in clothes cut from a dark blue velvet that shimmered, both the pants and the long-sleeved shirt. His diamond wrist guards sparkled beneath his cuffs, and his shirt was cut to show his jeweled collar. His clothes, slave restraints, demeanor, everything about him was so much more exorbitant than anything Aliana had ever imagined, it was hard to believe he was real. Seeing him this way gave her a tendril of hope, though. Surely they wouldn’t go to so much trouble to make him look like a valuable provider if Admiral Muze just intended to kill h
im.
They had given Aliana a functional blue jumpsuit to wear, nothing at all fancy. No one paid attention to her as long as she obeyed and stayed out of their way. She wanted to spy on them with her mind, but she couldn’t risk opening her mental fortress. It was better that way; she feared the mental pressure of the Aristos would crush her and Red if she let her defenses weaken.
She still had no idea what had happened to Tide. She wanted so much to see him, to make sure he was all right. Except he wouldn’t be all right. They had probably started interrogating him. She flinched inside, wanting to find him, wanting to help, anything, but she was just a low-level taskmaker with no value, no resources, nothing.
An orb glowed on the pilot’s controls, shedding gold light. The pilot leaned over it and spoke in a low voice. Someone answered in Highton, but Aliana couldn’t make out the words. She watched Red for clues. He was closer to the front and he knew Highton well. When his face paled, she felt as if the ground had dropped out from under them.
The pilot went to the Hightons and spoke with respect. They nodded, their icy perfection never thawing. With no other warning, the hull next to them shimmered and opened to the day outside. Radiance poured into the ship, tinged with gold, purer than the sunlight of Muze’s Helios. A patch of sky showed beyond the hatchway, its color too blue, without the faded quality of the sky back home. Aliana didn’t see any other airlock, not what she expected, the kind with two solid doors. If that shimmer was an airlock, then the embassy used them even on the planet. That they needed airlocks in an embassy was a sobering comment on their lack of safety.
Someone touched her arm. Startled, she turned to see one of the soldiers. “Stay with me when we leave the ship,” he told her. “Don’t talk. Kneel when it’s appropriate.”
She wanted to ask how she would know when it was appropriate, but he looked so severe, she just nodded.
Two soldiers left the shuttle. She had little doubt that they went first so if any danger turned up outside, they would be killed instead of the Hightons. Apparently nothing happened, because the three Aristos disembarked, their grey uniforms crackling as they moved. Red’s guards escorted him out next, and his clothes glistened in the gold sunlight slanting through the hatchway.
Aliana’s guard went forward and she followed him, squinting as they neared the exit, not because the sunlight bothered her, but because . . . well, she didn’t know why. She wanted to protect herself, and squinting was pretty much the extent of her ability to do anything. That and maybe her mental fortress, if it was even doing anything.
The landing field was a silvery expanse decorated with blue lines and elegant gold and red symbols where the lines intersected. It was lovely and unexpected. The wind blew through her hair, ruffling the gold curls that fell around her shoulders and down her back. The air smelled impossibly pure and clear, reminding her of sweet water running over rocks. Mountains rose high on all sides, peak after peak carpeted in green forests thicker than any foliage she had ever seen. So much sensation, so much richness. She needed time to absorb it all.
The guard drew her to a halt. She saw why; up ahead, the three Hightons had stopped. A newcomer had joined them on the landing field, a man who looked like them, except his uniform had more gold, especially the bars on his shoulders. The four of them stood talking, looking so much alike, Aliana wondered if they were clones. Probably not; they weren’t identical. But she would have bet they were kin.
Red’s guards stopped him well back from the Hightons. The moment she saw his face, she knew who the Highton was who had come to meet the shuttle. It wasn’t only the fear in his gaze, but also the hatred. He was staring at the man who had tortured him for over a year and then, on a whim, condemned him to die.
Aliana clenched her fists, struggling for control. She wanted to run at Admiral Muze, attack him, do to him what he had done to Red, make him suffer. A few months ago she might have tried, even knowing they would shoot her before she went a few steps. But she was learning to control her temper. She didn’t know what she could do for Red, but getting herself killed wouldn’t help him.
Beyond the Hightons, another shuttle stood on the field gleaming like platinum. It was so sleek, Aliana realized it was artwork rather than a real ship. Or at least she thought so until an oval shimmered open in its hull, and a flight of stairs morphed down to the ground. Four men in black uniforms with carnelian red on their cuffs appeared in the hatchway. They descended to the field and stood flanking the stairs, two on each side, giants with emotionless faces and powerful forms. They weren’t Aristos; none had any hint of glittering hair or red eyes. They wore large gauntlets packed with tech, and silvery mesh piping threaded their uniforms. It all made them seem inhuman. And yet she recognized something about them, something familiar . . .
It hit her like a cold wind. They were like Tide. It wasn’t only their builds, but the way they held themselves, as if they were poised to attack or defend. These were Razers, the secret police and bodyguards of the Aristos. So who were they guarding?
When the answer to her question appeared in the hatchway of the platinum flyer, Aliana understood exactly what her guard had meant about kneeling. She gaped for one second at the celebrated face of the man and then dropped to her knees, bowing her head. The emperor had come to meet them.
No sound broke the silence except the keening wind. Aliana couldn’t absorb it all, so she decided to pretend it was perfectly normal for the greatest man alive to show up. Once she put that idea into her mind, she could think again. She raised her gaze, keeping her head down so no one would see she wasn’t looking at the ground. The emperor was standing with Admiral Muze and the other Hightons, his four bodyguards hulking around him. Everyone else was on their knees, including the bodyguards of the other Hightons. Her own guard was kneeling next to her, reduced to the same slavish show of obligatory worship as everyone else.
Eventually the emperor lifted his fingers slightly and the soldiers all stood up. A low tone hummed on the gauntlet of the guard next to Aliana.
“You may rise,” he told her in a low voice.
Aliana stood up. So did everyone else at exactly the same time, as if the emperor’s presence had turned them into a machine. Jaibriol Qox the Third. Who would have thought she would come this close to the greatest being alive? He looked younger than she expected. She was glad he was so far away; it meant she didn’t have to struggle against the pressure of his mind. She felt Admiral Muze even at this distance, a faint pressure adding to that of the other Hightons. The emperor didn’t register, though. Or maybe all their minds blended together to create a single miasma of misery.
Two thoughts came to Aliana. The first was that she had never heard the words “miasma of misery” in her life. Yet not only had she thought them, but she understood them. The other thought was that for one insane instant, she was certain the emperor knew she was there.
Kelric sunk onto the sofa in his living room, his booted feet planted wide, his elbows resting on his knees, his forehead on his palms. So tired. He couldn’t stop thinking about Del. Surely he would sense it if something terrible had happened to his brother. Del still lived. He had to believe that. But in what condition?
He wanted to go to Earth, throw away caution, forget he was the Imperator, and find his brother. Such a rash act would play into the hands of Del’s kidnappers, further disrupting the peace process. Gods, it was one thing after another, like being struck again and again, until he felt so worn down he wondered if the summit would ever happen. No one wanted it: not his people, not the Traders, not the Allieds. What the hell was wrong with them? Did they want to keep fighting until they wiped out the human race? If they couldn’t even establish the terms of a treaty they had already signed, maybe homo sapiens didn’t deserve to keep existing. But damned if he would give up. He would find a way to rescue his brother, meet with Jaibriol, and make the treaty work, and he would do it without anyone dying from assassination.
Gods only knew what Jaibriol Qo
x was dealing with. And Tarquine, his empress. Kelric didn’t want to worry about Tarquine. He didn’t love her. Sometimes he had hated her. But they had been lovers, no matter how much he wanted to forget. Why she had paid such an exorbitant price to buy an aging man as her provider, he would never understand. He had escaped and come home to claim his title while she went on to marry Jaibriol Qox, the epitome of youth and vitality.
“Kelric?” The soft voice came from across the room.
He looked up with a start. Dehya was standing in the entrance of his living room, a small figure within a huge archway. He didn’t need to ask how she entered; he never closed his home to her. She watched him with her sunrise eyes, so large and distant. Her face was paler than usual, her skin almost translucent. He had intended to meet with her hours ago, to go over the message from Jaibriol, but the time had somehow slipped by.
“What’s wrong?” He stood up, rubbing the small of his back. “You look as if you’ve seen the death of the human race.” He meant it as a joke, but it didn’t sound funny.
“Ah, gods, Kelric,” she said.
He went over to her. “Is it Del?”
She shook her head.
Kelric waited. When she said nothing, he thought, Dehya? What is it?
“I can’t,” she said aloud. “I’ve been in the Kyle web for hours. My mind is worn out.”
“Have you been searching for Del?”
“All day.” She had that strange distant look, as if she were still partially in the Kyle. “I’ve also been running models, trying to understand what happened to the three of us.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Clues.” Her luminous eyes were so wide. “That’s not what I need to talk to you about.”
A woman’s rich voice came from the hall beyond the archway. “Kelric?”
He looked past Dehya. Roca was coming up the wide corridor. As Dehya turned around, Roca squinted at Kelric, then turned to Dehya, her sister. “He looks fine.”