A bullet-shaped magcar, black and gold, waited across the tunnel, upside-down relative to them. Grinning, Del flipped upside-down and hauled himself into the car, followed by Panquai and Mac. As the door snicked closed behind them, they strapped into their seats.
“Prepare to launch,” a voice said.
Del blinked. Launch?
With a jerk, the car set off like a projectile hurtling in the bore of a gun. The sides of the tunnel were visible on view screens.
“This is amazing,” Del said. “Where are we going?”
“Down the length of the ship,” Panquai said. “Twelve kilometers.”
Mac leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Tell me when we get there.”
“Don’t go to sleep!” Del said. “You’ll miss the fun.”
Mac slitted open his eyes enough to glare at Del, then closed them again.
When the car finally stopped, it let them out into a set of airlocks, not membranes but solid chambers with circular handles they had to crank around. They worked their way through several and floated past the final hatchway—into mech-tech wonderland.
They had reached the bridge of the battlecruiser, the hemisphere that capped one end of the cylinder. The airlock let them out in the center of the hemisphere’s flat base, which had to be at least a kilometer wide. Unlike the Orbiter, which was designed for beauty, this habitat was optimized for efficiency. A crane shifted aside as Del, Mac, and Panquai floated through the equipment around the hatch and into the more open area beyond. The bridge was huge. Crew members worked everywhere, upside-down far “above” them, sideways to the left and right, or right-side-up “beneath” them. Mini-flyers navigated the open space. A huge robot arm terminated in a command chair in the center of the hemisphere, facing away from them. Lights flashed and glittered as if they were in a fantastical city.
With no warning, the hull screens came on—and the entire hemisphere became a view portal, like a giant window. Suddenly Del was floating in the glory of space with nothing more than the cable he was clutching to keep him in place. A world hung before them, blue, green, and violet, all swirling with clouds. The spectacular vista was so vivid, Del gasped for breath as if he were actually in space.
“My God,” Mac said next to him.
Secondary Panquai, who was on the other side of Mac, grinned at them. “Impressive, eh?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this even on an Air Force cruiser,” Mac said.
Del could barely absorb it all. He had never thought of ISC as powerful, not compared to ESComm, which had many more ships, bases, and weapons. As a member of the Ruby Dynasty, he lived with the knowledge of that deadly discrepancy every day of his life, knowing his family was responsible for maintaining the Kyle web, the Imperialate’s one advantage over the Traders. Mac’s comment brought home the scope of ISC in a way Del had never understood before. The feeling it gave him was too big to put in words. Perhaps someday he could write it into music.
“I don’t feel any gravity,” Del said. “We won’t fall, will we?” The curving hull was half a kilometer away.
“You won’t,” Panquai said. “They aren’t rotating the hemisphere. When it turns, you can feel a pull like gravity on the hull, but you wouldn’t here.” She smiled. “Hang on, though, if you don’t want to float away and bump into the crew.”
Del had no wish to interfere with anyone. It would make him look like Kelric’s scattered-brained rock star brother, a reputation he had spent the last decade trying to dispel.
“So where do we go from here?” Mac asked.
“Follow me,” Panquai said. With a shove against a crane, she launched toward a cable that stretched across the hemisphere. Del followed, delighted, flying through the air. He caught the cable behind Panquai, his hair swirling around his head, and Mac came sailing in behind them. They pulled themselves along, skimming through the hemisphere, using whatever was nearby for a handhold, always headed toward the center. The hum of the bridge was a melody of engines, consoles, and boards, vibrating deeply like the beat of a great drum, or higher like chimes or strings, a choral symphony of tech.
Panquai pulled up alongside the command chair and floated around in front of it. With one arm hooked around a cable to hold herself in place, she saluted whoever sat there, clenching her hands into fists and crossing them at the wrists, right over left, as she raised them.
“Secondary Panquai, Captain, Blackhawk Squadron,” she said. “Permission to come aboard, sir.”
Del wasn’t sure why she was asking for permission for what she had already done, but he was so nervous that he barely heard the familiar voice rumble, “Permission granted. Good work, Panquai.”
So. This was it. Del floated around in front of the command chair. Kelric sat there, a giant with gold skin, metallic hair streaked by grey, and molten gold eyes. With his square jaw and handsome face, he looked more like some artist’s conception of a war god than a real person. Then he grinned at Del and shattered the image, becoming the brother Del had always known.
“My greetings, Del,” the Imperator said. “Welcome.”
“Hey, Kelric.” Del wondered if he should ask for permission to come aboard. At this, their first face-to-face meeting in two years, it seemed they should have more to say, especially after all that had happened. Welcome felt anti-climatic.
“Mister Tyler, welcome as well,” Kelric said, nodding to Mac.
Mac managed to bow to Kelric even though he was weightless and hanging onto a cable. “I’m honored, Commander.” He motioned at the bridge around them. “This is incredible.”
“Ah, well.” The comment seemed to make Kelric uncomfortable the same way that Del felt when people told him he was an incredible singer. Del never felt he measured up.
“So that’s Delos?” Mac said, indicating the view screens behind them. “It’s beautiful.”
Looking around, Del had to agree with Mac. He would write a song for that jeweled world hanging so bright and promising against the unforgiving depths of black space. Okay, that was a little melodramatic. He’d have to work on the words. Mac was right, though, it was gorgeous.
Del turned back to Kelric. He wanted to hug his brother, say how happy he was to be here, to be alive, all those things that Kelric would feel were embarrassingly emotional. Since they were pretending this was casual instead, Del just said, “Is that where the summit will be?”
“That’s it,” Kelric said. “In just a few hours.”
Del didn’t know what else to say. Kelric had never been easy to talk to. But perhaps they didn’t need words, because here he could feel Kelric’s mental power. Del saw him in person so rarely, he tended to forget that about his brother. Kelric was like a sun, warm and golden in a way that had nothing to do with his metallic coloring. Regardless of how the Imperator looked, that was no machine behind those gold eyes. It was a man, a good man.
Del smiled. “You look great.”
Kelric blinked. “Thanks.”
“But shouldn’t you be on the planet?” Del asked. “I thought the summit was today.” His internal clock was thrown all out of whack after living in darkness for days and then traveling on the transport, which had no day or night.
“Most of our party is down there,” Kelric said. “Except for Mother, Dehya, and me. We’ve been waiting for you to get onboard.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” It embarrassed Del to hear that he was the one holding up this historic and monumentally beleaguered summit.
Kelric gave him a wry smile. “You try telling Mother that.”
Del couldn’t help but laugh. “Point taken.”
“Come on.” Kelric unfastened his safety webbing. “Let’s go see her.”
Roca was crying, talking, and hugging Del at the same time. “Ah, gods, honey, we’ve been so worried.” She stepped back, holding his upper arms with her hands, tears on her face. “I’m so very, very glad to see you.”
Del was acutely aware of everyone watching them: Kelric, M
ac, Panquai, bodyguards. But none of that mattered. They were in the cylindrical shell of the ship, which had full gravity, and he easily pulled his mother into another hug. Then Dehya was there, and he held her, too, amazed at how fragile she felt. It was such a relief to let his tension and fear go. He had been holding it all inside, striving to stay calm for days in the dark. Until this moment, he hadn’t really believed it was over.
They finally separated and Del wiped the heel of his hand across his face, smearing away the tears. He glanced at Kelric—and had the shock of his life. A tear showed on his brother’s famously stoic face. Kelric was standing back, hiding by being silent, but he wiped his face with the heel of his hand exactly the way Del had done it. That moment meant more to Del than any words.
“Well, so.” Roca reddened as if suddenly remembering they were in a room full of people. “Did Kelric talk to you about what he’d like you to do?”
“To monitor Kyle space,” Del said.
Kelric came over to them, his usual self again. “You’ll be looking for your own neural signature.” He nodded toward Panquai, who was by the wall. “The Secondary will work with you.”
“Are you sure you want me to do this?” Del said. It meant a great deal to him that Kelric had requested his help, but he wasn’t sure he knew how. “I don’t have any experience as a telop.”
“It’s a forgery of your own neural signature,” Kelric said. “It’s like sensing your own mind. Now that we know what to look for, you can probably find it by matching your thoughts to the forgery.”
Dehya spoke. “No one else can do it, Del. It’s you that they’ve forged. The only other signature for a living Ruby psion they can copy is Kelric’s, and he’ll be at the summit. As his brother, you’re far more likely to recognize his mental signature than one of his officers.”
As much as it relieved Del that they no longer believed someone had tampered with their minds, but that she and Kelric had been caught in an attempt to forge his neural signature, he still didn’t see how it had nearly killed them. They seemed convinced, though. What stunned him more was that they trusted him to play such a crucial role in their security. Suppose he failed?
“I’ll do my best,” Del said.
Dehya’s expression softened. “You will. Believe that.”
“You really think they’d attack you during the treaty negotiations?” Del asked.
Roca snorted. “They’re ESComm. Of course they would.”
“So it was ESComm that took me and Mac,” Del said. “Not the Allieds.”
“That’s right,” Kelric said. “We have all five of their agents in custody.”
Del thought of how they had shot Mac when his manager tried to protect him. “Serves the drilling bastards right.” When Roca frowned at him, he said, “Sorry.”
Kelric grinned at Roca. “I’ve heard you say far worse.”
All the military officers gaped at him. Del didn’t blame them; he had seen Kelric smile plenty of times when they had been boys, but he doubted most people even realized the Imperator knew how. The grin turned Kelric’s face radiant; in that instant, Del could see why the queens on the planet Coba had gone to war over his brother.
“What?” Kelric said, when everyone had stared at him for a few moments.
Roca laughed. “It’s nothing.”
“We should go down to the planet,” Dehya said. “The summit is set to open in a few hours.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right there?” Del asked. “New Athens is packed with Hightons, and our battlecruisers aren’t the only ones in orbit.”
“Don’t worry,” Roca said. “We’ll be fine.”
Del hoped so, because part of their safety would depend on his ability to figure out if the Traders were using his or Kelric’s forged signature to tamper with their security.
He hoped he was up to the task.
During the trip to Delos, Aliana stayed with Red in the ship’s cabin where Tide had left them, a place with a blue rug and chromed furniture. It was much smaller than their palace suite, but still nicer than any place she had known before Glory. She and Red ate meals delivered by machines, wore clothes they found in the cabinets, and held each other for comfort. The only time they saw anyone else was when a woman came and changed Aliana, making her hair blond and her skin normal, with no metallic cast. She had lenses that turned Aliana’s eyes blue. By the time the woman finished, Aliana looked like someone else. She didn’t like the disguise, but apparently it was reversible if the emperor changed his mind.
At Delos, Tide hurried them through the disembarking process; she saw almost nothing of the ship in space or the shuttle that took them down to the planet. She felt too heavy here and the air had a tang to it. She saw only enclosed places: corridors, tunnels, and this chamber where they were traveling, going up in some building. Tide stood with them, cold, dark, and silent, wearing bulky gauntlets and a heavy gun on his hip, more like a deadly machine than a man.
The wall in front of them suddenly opened, its gold doors pulling back. Outside, three more Razers waited. As Aliana walked out with Red, she tried not to stare at them. Her heart was beating too fast, and Red’s mind was going numb, as if he were retreating within himself.
Tide spoke with the other Razers. Except he didn’t say anything. Their gauntlets flashed, some code they all seemed to understand without speaking a word. The four of them turned as one, surrounding Aliana and Red, and led them down a gold hallway. She had heard no other sounds, nothing but silence. At the end, they stopped at two tall doors, crystal and gold. Right angles were everywhere, disorienting Aliana, not just doors, but the corners where walls met each other, the floor, or the ceiling. She felt off balance, as if she were going to fall.
Tide’s fingers played across his gauntlet and its lights flashed blue. The doors swung open like portals into some unknown land. Their escort took them into a suite where chandeliers dripped diamond teardrops and floating orbs shed pearly light. Aliana couldn’t take it all in; the wonders slid off her mind like rain sluicing off waterproof clothes.
The living room was full of people. Several tech-mech types were gathered around an extravagant media center. The life-sized holo of a man stood on the holo-stage, a Skolian it looked like, judging from his uniform. He was speaking to a Eubian woman in this room while other people at consoles monitored the exchange.
Then it hit Aliana: the emperor was in the room, surrounded by men in grey uniforms with red braid on their sleeves. The woman next to him mesmerized Aliana. As tall as the emperor with a leanly beautiful face, she had flawless skin and her black hair glittered in a waterfall to her shoulders. She exuded a sense of power simply by standing there. The Empress Tarquine. Both she and the emperor wore clothes that looked like dark gems spun into fabric. Black diamond cloth. Aliana had heard of it, but had never touched the fabric or expected to see it up close. Only Aristos could wear such garments.
The Razers stopped Aliana and Red a distance away from the emperor. Aliana needed no prompting; she went down on one knee with her head bowed, aware of Red doing the same. The other Aristos she had met had blatantly projected their own belief in their importance, their conviction that they deserved reverence. The emperor neither cared about his power nor needed anyone to worship him, yet somehow, that only made him seem more deserving of such respect.
One of the Razers touched her shoulder. Looking up, she saw the emperor and empress watching them. Apparently Jaibriol had given the signal they could rise, because Red was standing up. So she did, too, her head swimming from the astringent atmosphere.
Jaibriol spoke to a man at his side. “Robert, have them wait at the back of the room. When I call for the boy, bring them both to the holo-stage.”
The man, “Robert” apparently, nodded. “I’ll take care of it, Your Highness.”
The people at the holo-stage had finished whatever they were discussing. The Eubian official, a willowy woman with dark brown hair, came over to the emperor and bowed deeply. “W
e are ready, Your Highness.”
As the Razers drew Aliana and Red back in the room, the emperor and his retinue went to the holo-stage. The taskmaker woman continued speaking to Jaibriol. “You and Pharaoh Dyhianna will appear simultaneously. Due to your relative ages and length of rule, you are expected to speak first.” She hesitated. “If that is unacceptable, Your Highness, we will demand another arrangement.”
Jaibriol spoke in his impeccable Highton. “It will be fine. Skolians need these protocols.” With those few words, he granted them a wealth of knowledge; the Skolians were weaker, needing such protocols to bolster their confidence in the presence of a god-emperor. Aliana didn’t know if that was really true, but it was impressive how easily he made it sound that way.
She spoke in a low voice to Red. “That’s amazing how he talks.”
Red jerked at the sound of her voice, then shook his head at her. He mouthed the word Highton. He seemed otherwise frozen, barely even able to breathe. That was when she realized another Highton was present.
Admiral Erix Muze.
Aliana felt as if the air left the room. This was the man who had tortured Red. He was standing at the back of the media center, watching the proceedings with an intent gaze that she suspected missed nothing. Red’s fear was like an elastic sheet stretched tight, ready to snap into ragged pieces. Aliana imagined her mental fortress growing stronger, protecting him even more.
Jaibriol stepped onto a dais with screens around its back and settled in a chair there, facing the now empty holo-stage. Robert stood next to the dais. The techs were working at consoles arranged in an arc behind the holo-stage so they wouldn’t be visible to any Skolian who appeared on it. As they toggled panels, the emperor’s chair “changed” into a white throne inlaid with carnelians and diamonds. The holo was so well done, Aliana would have thought it was real if she hadn’t just seen them turn on the projection.