“The child is conceived,” she said softly. “My body is ready. You will have a son.” In a parched voice, she added, “I have twice lost our heir. I will not have it happen again.”
“Stay here.” He touched her cheek. “Don’t come to Delos.”
Her gaze never wavered. “I will be at the summit.”
Jaibriol wanted her there, but he wanted more to protect her and their child. “You cannot.”
“I will.”
He could forbid her. And then? He would have her enmity. When most husbands and wives argued, it damaged their lives. When he and Tarquine battled, it damaged an empire.
“I will go to Delos,” he told her. “If you come, you are choosing to endanger our child, the Highton Heir. It is your responsibility, Tarquine.”
Her voice cooled. “I act as I believe right, given the choices others make. If their choices are foolish, they must live with them.”
“You may also be choosing for our son.”
“If you insist on going to Delos, so are you.” She splayed her hand against his chest. “No sanctuary exists for us, Jaibriol.” Softly, she added, “Just as none existed for your parents.”
For that, he had no answer. His parents, who had met on the forgiving soil of Delos, had died in the unrelenting hatreds of two empires.
“I was asleep.” Dehya paced away from the marble bench. She, Kelric, Roca, and First Councilor Tikal had met here, in a park surrounded by meadows on three sides and ethereal City on the fourth. A breeze ruffled her hair and skitterbugs clicked and hummed in the pure air.
“What you’re describing can’t happen,” Tikal said. “Del couldn’t reach you through Kyle space. It had to be a dream.”
Dehya turned back to them. Kelric was standing by a white column, leaning against it, his muscled arms folded. Light from the Sun Lamp shone on his gold hair and skin. Roca and Barcala were sitting on a marble bench, Roca in a rose-hued dress, her long, long legs crossed. Barcala had leaned against a column at the other end of the curving seat, one foot up on the bench with his leg bent, his elbow resting on his knee, his other foot on the blue-tiled ground.
“It’s true,” Dehya admitted. “It should be impossible for Del to reach me.”
“But?” Roca said.
Dehya tried to focus. At times like this, when she had been deep in the web, it was hard to talk. She didn’t feel fully in this universe. During sleep, that feeling could become even stronger . . .
“Dehya,” Kelric asked. “Are you still here?”
“Yes.” Focus. She made a sweeping gesture to encompass the Orbiter. “This space station, the Lock here, so much of what we do in the Kyle—it’s all based on ancient machines from the Ruby Empire. We’ve never found good records to describe how they were created or why they work. I’ve studied the Locks all my life and I’m only beginning to understand them.”
“So what are you saying?” Tikal asked. “That Del was working on it, too? No offense, but your rock star nephew is about as likely to do Kyle research as he is to turn into a fish.”
She winced, not from his words but for his veiled hostility. After the coup that overthrew the Assembly, ISC had almost executed Tikal. He lived because of her choice to split the government, but he had never again trusted her.
“I meant we don’t fully understand the technology,” Dehya said. “When I’m sleeping, my mental barriers fade. Could Del reach me? It’s unlikely, yes, but maybe not impossible.”
“Too many people live on Earth,” Roca said. “Billions. Even if he could reach across space to you, all those other minds would be like static blocking what little you might pick up.”
“On Earth, yes.” What was it Del had told her? Two-thirds Earth gravity . . .
“It’s rotating,” she said. “That’s why the gravity is lower.”
They blinked at her. Barcala said, “Are you talking about the Orbiter?”
“No.” What else had Del said? Her mind drifted . . . Axil Tarex and neural scans . . .
“Dehya?” Kelric’s voice came from far away.
Dehya mentally shook herself. She had asked them to meet here in the hopes that the fresh air and breezes would help her stay focused in real space. “I think Del is being held on a ship. One large enough to rotate so that it provides an apparent gravity about two-thirds that of Earth.” It hit her, then, what she had been missing. “A Trader ship.”
Kelric stiffened. “He said that?”
“No, I don’t think he knew.” She thought back to her visits to Earth. “Certain areas on the planet Glory are known for a flower with a distinctive smell. People from Earth associate it with the scent of an Earth plant used to make a food flavoring.”
Kelric said, “And this matters because . . . ?”
“Del told me he smelled vanilla,” Dehya said. “That’s the food flavoring.”
Roca squinted at her sister. “He smells vanilla and from that, you infer that the Traders took him?”
“He also mentioned Axil Tarex,” Dehya said.
“For flaming sake!” Tikal said. “You only now get to that part?”
She winced. “Sorry.”
Kelric gave Tikal a wry glance. “You get used to the way she thinks after a while.”
Dehya started to frown at him, then decided he had a point. “I think Del believes Lord Tarex scanned his brain and created a neurological map.”
“It’s not impossible,” Kelric said. “But the equipment Tarex would need is hardly standard issue for a private yacht. Also, according to our intelligence, he has very few direct connections to the planet Glory. He certainly doesn’t live there. It’s not impossible his ship would smell like a specific region on that planet, but it seems unlikely.”
“Not his ship, maybe,” Dehya said. “But possibly one that belonged to someone in the emperor’s inner circle.”
Kelric went very still. “You think Jaibriol Qox ordered Del’s abduction?”
On the surface, it was a logical question. Of course, she doubted Jaibriol had anything to do with it. She said only, “It could be any number of people. Someone in ESComm, I would guess.”
“It still doesn’t explain how whoever took Prince Del-Kurj managed the kidnapping,” Tikal said.
“Something to do with the neural scans of his brain,” Dehya said. “It could connect to the Kyle space attacks, too.”
Roca stiffened, her gaze shifting to Kelric. “The Traders have your neural scans, too.”
“And your brother Althor’s,” Tikal said. “From when he was a prisoner of war.”
“Althor.” Kelric stared at Tikal. “Hell and damnation.”
“Gods,” Roca said. “This gets worse and worse.”
“Worse than what?” Tikal asked. “Why do you all suddenly look like you’re at a funeral?”
Dehya cleared her throat. “It has to do with the other thing we need to talk to you about.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Tikal said.
Kelric glanced at Dehya and Roca.
Go ahead, Dehya thought, and Roca nodded.
Kelric spoke to Tikal. “My brother Althor fathered a daughter seventeen years ago with a Trader woman.”
“We think the girl may be a Ruby psion,” Dehya said.
“And she’s on Glory,” Roca said. “Where ESComm has Althor’s DNA and neural scans.”
Tikal stared at them. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m afraid not,” Dehya said.
“Flaming hell,” Tikal said. “How can you all be so calm?”
“If you think we’re calm,” Roca told him dryly, “we’re a lot better at hiding our reactions than we thought.”
“And you’re sure about this?” Tikal asked. “Absolutely sure?”
“Ninety-nine point seven percent sure,” Dehya said. “The girl sought asylum at a Skolian embassy on Muze’s Helios, and a military attaché there, Lyra Lensmark, sent us her blood tests to analyze.”
“How did this Lensmark figure out about the
girl?”
“We don’t know,” Roca said. “We can’t reach Lensmark. ESComm is blocking our messages.”
Tikal scowled. “They have no right to refuse us communication with the embassy staff.”
Roca spoke dryly. “Apparently ESComm has forgotten the Paris Accord we all spent so much time hammering out all those years ago. But we’re negotiating with them.”
“Do they know the girl is your kin?” Tikal asked.
“We don’t think so.” Roca pushed her hand through her hair and sent it rippling around her body like a gold waterfall. “I’ve found no indication they have any clue about the girl’s identity. Their main concern has been the man who brought her in and a youth who came with them. The boy is a provider belonging to Admiral Muze and the man is a Razer who claimed he wanted to defect. Apparently the Razer was actually a spy planted by ESComm. No one seems interested in the girl. She’s what they call a slum rat, a child who grew up in poverty.”
“Hidden in plain sight,” Dehya murmured.
“So how did Lensmark know?” Tikal asked.
“We’re aren’t sure she knew anything for certain,” Dehya said. “However, according to the DNA analysis, this girl has gold skin, gold eyes, and gold hair. Lensmark would have seen that.”
Tikal glanced at Roca and Kelric, and they looked back at him like the male and female aspects of a golden being, radiant in the Orbiter sunlight.
“So let me see if I have this straight,” Tikal said. “Someone in the emperor’s circle with a probable link to Lord Axil Tarex may have kidnapped Prince Del-Kurj by infiltrating Allied Space Command and possibly using Del’s neural patterns, secretly scanned by Tarex and given to ESComm. The Traders also have Imperator Skolia’s neural scans, which implies they could do similar to him. In addition, they have scans and DNA records of the late Prince Althor, and they also have his illegitimate daughter, who just may be a Ruby psion, which they will probably realize if they do any searches on her DNA profile.”
“That about sums it up,” Dehya said.
“Any other disasters you want to tell me about?” Tikal said dourly. “Maybe the universe is going to blow up?”
Kelric smiled slightly. “It stopped doing that.”
Dehya knew Kelric’s dry humor helped him deal with crises, but most people didn’t even realize when he was joking. Tikal just shot him an exasperated look.
She wished she could talk to them about Jaibriol. But just her and Kelric knowing was too risky. Suppose one of them were captured? They had protections in their minds, traps that activated under the duress of interrogation and erased their knowledge by destroying neural pathways. Better to have amnesia than unwillingly betray their family, people, empire. But no traps protected their knowledge about Jaibriol. To create such traps, they would have to tell the surgeon what to protect, which they could never do. She and Kelric had to find a way to do it themselves, even if it meant doing brain surgery on each other.
Right now, her mech-enhanced brain was shifting into an accelerated mode, pushing her limits. She was tired. She had lived too long, one hundred and seventy years. Her brain had too much in it. She wanted to turn off her mind, like a node put to sleep, but she couldn’t rest, not yet.
Tikal was speaking and one channel of her mind registered his words. “Dehya, ESComm doesn’t have your neural scans,” he said. “I can see how they might have used Del’s and Kelric’s to attack them in Kyle space, but how did they get to you?”
“I’m not sure,” Dehya said. She was missing something Del had tried to tell her. She went to another bench, a curve of white marble on fluted supports, and sat down cross-legged, comfortable in her white jumpsuit. Closing her eyes, she rested her hands in her lap.
Access memory, Dream, Prince Del-Kurj, she thought.
Light, her spinal node, answered. Accessed.
Distantly, she heard Tikal talking to Roca and Kelric. “What is she doing? Meditating?”
“Just thinking,” Roca said. “She does it that way sometimes.”
“I’ve known her for decades,” Tikal said. “Never seen her do that before.”
Kelric’s voice was a distant rumble. “She does it more and more lately.”
Their voices faded as Dehya increased her concentration. Del’s words replayed in her mind, misty, vague: . . . not Tarex . . . his ship? . . . Allied . . . Tarex could fake . . . all fake . . .
Dehya sent a thought to Light. Del thinks he’s on an Allied ship.
Possibly, Light answered. Or he could mean Tarex wants him to think that.
If Tarex wanted to mislead him, he wouldn’t let his vessel smell like a Trader ship.
Unless Tarex wants Del to think someone from Glory kidnapped him.
Oh, it could be a million things. Tarex this, Glory that. What did Del mean, “All fake”?
I don’t know.
Dehya pulled up files in her mind, some stored as biological memories, others stored in her spinal nodes. She labeled each file with a Quis die. Then she manipulated the dice, playing Quis with them, and in doing so, ran multiple analyses in her mind on the dream about Del.
After a moment, Dehya opened her eyes and regarded the others. “It’s all fake.”
Tikal’s face paled. “Dehya, what the hell are you doing?”
“Doing?” She looked around, but she saw nothing unusual, except a mist blurring the park.
“That’s been happening lately,” Roca said uneasily.
“What happens?” Dehya asked.
“Your voice,” Roca said. “You sound ghostly. Otherworldly.”
“The plains of blue,” she murmured. She had learned the phrase from Roca’s son Shannon, the only other one of them who could access the Kyle without technology. Except maybe Del could do it, too. Of all Roca’s sons, he was the most like Shannon.
Kelric spoke gently. “Dehya, you need to tell us what you mean. Focus.”
The models running in her mind were distracting. Light, move the calculations about Del into the background.
Done, Light answered.
Her workspace quieted, freeing her to concentrate on the others. She said, “I think we can’t figure out how someone tampered with our minds because this so-called tampering was fake.”
“Both you and Imperator Skolia nearly died,” Tikal said. “I’d hardly call that fake.”
“I don’t mean in that sense.” She switched her thoughts into a linear mode. Presenting them that way to people seemed more successful, especially when she added extra details floating in her mind, those she usually absorbed without directly thinking about them. It made her feel annoyingly verbose, but it seemed to work. Given what was at stake, it seemed better to be just annoying rather than both annoying and confusing.
“I’m still analyzing,” she said. “But this is what I think so far. What happened to Del only appears connected to the attacks on Kelric and me. If Tarex has Del’s neural scans, ESComm must have them, too. Also, if ESComm has agents in the Allied military, General Barthol Iquar would be the Joint Commander with the most interest in their actions, since the Eubian army is more involved in covert operations than their fleet. And he lives on Glory.” She paused. “Then we have these Minutemen. Are they a Trader group in disguise? It’s a logical name to use if they’re claiming to be Allied citizens. It resonates with the history of the country where Del lives. They say they want people to hear ‘Carnelians Finale,’ which has been a major impediment to public acceptance of the peace process. Well, Barthol Iquar is almost certainly a staunch foe of the peace process. However, he signed the treaty—gods only know how Jaibriol Qox pulled that one off—and it would be treason for him to undermine it. So he sets up this fake Allied group to do his dirty work. He uses Del’s neural scans to create a Kyle pathway that links Del to the release of ‘Carnelians Finale,’ because not only does that shift blame away from ESComm, but it also appears as if a Skolian prince is the one committing treason. However—”
“Dehya, wait!” Roca held up he
r hands. “Slow down. We need time.”
“Sorry.” Dehya waited, feeling foolish. Apparently she still wasn’t communicating well. She needed to work on that.
Kelric smiled at her. “We’re recording what you’re saying on our nodes, then replaying the recording. Just give us a few seconds.”
“Ah.” She sat with her hands in her lap and ran mental analyses of her Del dream.
After a moment, Kelric gave Roca a questioning look. When she nodded, he glanced at Tikal, who also nodded. So Kelric spoke to Dehya. “All right. Go on.”
She put her calculations into the background and returned to linear mode. “Barthol Iquar is a Highton. So a high probability exists that he isn’t a psion.”
“A ‘high probability?’ ” Roca asked. “I’ll say. It’s impossible.”
“Why would you suggest otherwise?” Tikal asked Dehya.
“Because Aristos are human,” Dehya said. “Regardless of their claims about their eternally annoying exaltation. Do you really believe no Aristo has ever passed off an illegitimate child as an Aristo? We may think they’re incapable of love, but any human can love, no matter how weak they believe it makes them. Five generations of Aristos exist now, long enough for some Kyle DNA to have worked its way into their gene pool.”
“Highton empaths?” Tikal squinted at her. “It’s a contradiction of terms.”
“I can’t see how they would survive,” Roca said.
“It would be a nightmare,” Dehya said. How Jaibriol managed, she couldn’t imagine. It was a testament to his strength of will that he hadn’t committed suicide. “I think it’s safe to assume General Iquar can’t manipulate Kyle space himself. He might use providers, but their work would be clumsy. They don’t have training, and Eube has no infrastructure to access Kyle space. But if General Iquar could steal access to ours, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to use a provider to manipulate the web.”
Roca shook her head. “What happened to you and Kelric would take far more than a few inexperienced providers sneaking into Kyle space. The training and web access it requires are far too sophisticated. How would ESComm do it?”