They also discussed platinum, a metal crucial to modern technology. The war had left Eube with a shortage. Although molecular assemblers could construct sheets of the pure metal from waste products, the process wasn’t trivial for transition elements, with their high reactivity and complicated band structures. So the shortage had sent its price soaring.
They spent an hour in a verbal dance of negotiation. Sapphire Sector had the greatest stores of the metal. It came down to a simple equation: the other sectors wanted platinum at reasonable prices, and Sapphire wanted its advantage. He had a hard time following the convolutions of their speech patterns, but it sounded like they were trying to find a compromise. The process amazed him. If they had been willing to say what they wanted straight out, they could have conducted their business in about one fifth the time.
After a while he submerged into sleep again …
… Hidden here in shadow, I can watch the entire hall. Yes, a successful night …
Tarquine reclined in her lounger, while Kelric slept with his head in her lap. Idly stroking his hair, she studied the hall. The lights had been dimmed and most of her guests had retired to alcoves or corners for their after-dinner pleasures with the providers. It had been a productive meeting.
Platinum, Sapphire, Sphinx. Indeed.
The Platinum Sectors had begun rebuilding the mines damaged during the Radiance War. The asteroid facilities were already coming on-line. But the planetary mines contained the fabulous platinum deposits that gave those sectors their name, and they were taking longer to become operational.
Sapphire Sector had far fewer mines than Platinum, but none had suffered in the war. Tarquine suspected they had even more reserves than they claimed. They were stockpiling the metal to force up prices. Sphinx Sector had no platinum at all and had grown desperate. Although she couldn’t be certain, she thought they were dealing covertly with the Allieds on the black market.
She continued her survey of the hall. A few Aristos still sat at tables, talking in quiet voices. She would analyze their behavior later. Of course, they all knew she was monitoring them. They chose their words and actions with care. Even the most guarded comments could offer advantage, though. One unraveled the discourse to find what secrets hid within its fractal nooks and crannies. True human speech, at its finest, showed repeating patterns of meaning on ever finer scales. When she unfolded a statement, she discovered its “smooth” edges were themselves convoluted with information.
She tangled her fingers in Kelric’s hair, savoring its glossy texture. So different, providers. With them, fine distinctions of pleasure replaced the fine distinctions of speech. To achieve existence in its purest form, humans needed both intellectual and physical perfection. Highton discourse provided the ideal medium for intellectual elevation, and providers offered the purest form of physical elevation. Their synthesis produced a sublime state of existence. An Aristo.
In sleep, Kelric’s face had relaxed, making him even more appealing, almost unbearably so. He was the pinnacle of what a provider offered an Aristo. And he was hers.
A deep regret cut through her satisfaction. She could never achieve the ultimate state. She had forfeited transcendence. Yet perhaps learning compassion took one to an even higher plane. Maybe. Maybe not. Who the hell knew? For all her regrets, her decision felt more correct as time passed.
Kelric shifted in her lap, restless with his dreams. She stroked his head until he quieted. He was an enigma. A puzzle. Was he like the rest of his family? Direct and overt, without even the pretense of discretion, they publicly flaunted their traits as providers. Beautiful. Sexual. Candid. Empathic. Uncontrolled. Their behavior violated all norms of morality. Yet even after only a short time with Kelric, she was convinced he never deliberately sought that lifestyle. He genuinely didn’t understand the indecency of his ways. She had begun to doubt any of his kind did.
But the Skolian problem went far deeper than the improper public displays of providers. The Skolian armies forced their twisted reality on the rest of humanity. They had penetrated to the heart of Eube, violated Glory, committed unspeakable murders. Viquara, Jaibriol, Quaelen. All dead.
Did Kelric know? Where had he been these eighteen years? So far she had made no discoveries, neither from him nor from her investigations. Did he feel grief for his lost siblings? Remorse for their misdeeds? Shame at their indecency? Did a provider have the capacity for such depths of emotion? Yes, of course, providers were empaths. Even telepaths. But funneling moods or stray thoughts through their minds wasn’t the same as having the depth and complexity to understand what they absorbed.
And yet … he apparently grieved for the Majda admiral. In a limited sense, he felt deeply. Or perhaps it wasn’t limited. Maybe she didn’t understand how he experienced and expressed his emotions. The more time she spent with him, the more she realized how little she fathomed Skolians. She had so little interaction with them and had never watched them in their own environment.
After Eube built a psiberweb, the Aristos would extend their umbrella of protection to all the worlds and habitats in settled space. Humanity would merge into one glorious civilization guided by the Aristos, with Hightons at the helm. They would all understand one another then. They would all be of the same mind. The same thoughts. The same.
Without the web, news traveled with maddening slowness. Nearly two months had passed since the deaths of the Emperor, his mother, and her consort. Yet the tidings were only now reaching the more remote sectors of humanity’s far-flung settlements. The memorials had yet to begin. It would be even longer before all humanity came together in their mourning for the inconsolable loss of Viquara, her son Jaibriol II, her consort Quaelen, and perhaps even for the Ruby Dynasty.
Kelric stirred, his eyelids twitching. Watching him, she felt a strange tightness, a blend of satisfaction, desire, and fear. The intensity of her reactions alarmed her. No provider should evoke such a vehement response. She must control herself, lest she begin to need him too much …
Kelric opened his eyes. Fragments of his dream drifted in his mind, but he was no longer Tarquine. Before his memories of her thoughts faded, he had Bolt tag, copy, and file them.
Shadows filled the hall now. The other Aristos had left the dais, but he still lay with his head on Tarquine’s lap. Although she was idly stroking his curls, he sensed she was half asleep herself and rather drunk. In the shadowed recesses of the hall, in corners or submerged in piles of cushions, Aristos silently amused themselves. He felt their minds in the alcoves as well.
Closing his eyes, he tried to shut out the mental pain that so many Aristos in one place created. He concentrated on Tarquine, letting her proximity overwhelm the more distant Aristos.
Even half asleep, her mind parallel-processed. Before the advent of computer-enhanced intelligence, the human mind hadn’t been able to think along many tracks at the same time. Tarquine had nodes in her spine and brain stem that allowed her to process many problems at once. It was the only way, in the data-thick life humanity lived now, that a person could keep up with the huge influx of information needed to succeed in a star-spanning culture.
One line of thought spinning in her dream-saturated mind involved scenarios for cheating Sapphire Sector out of platinum. She thought of it as “negotiation.” Another line included her speculations on how long it would take Eube to absorb Skolia. Yet others involved aspects of her job as Finance Minister. Her sexual images of Kelric played out in dreamy sensuality alongside hard-nosed evaluations of import regulations. He had thought himself experienced, but her fantasies startled him. Did she really believe he could get into those positions? If she thought he would wear those leather-and-chain outfits, she was nuts.
Then he found her files on the plans to redesign his biomech. He would wear his temporary collar only until they reworked his internal web. Although this collar could affect his sight or hearing by accessing his enhanced optics or acoustics, it had no control over his hydraulics. It could only interfere
with Bolt’s messages. The hydraulics themselves remained quiescent but operational.
It used his microfusion reactor to power chemical reactions in his body. Rather than injecting him with drugs, it had his body make them itself, through sophisticated reaction cycles. It was why he was so tired, and hungry as well; his body was using resources at an accelerated rate.
Some of the drugs were meant to wear down his resistance to captivity. Other muted more aggressive aspects of his personality. Several were aphrodisiacs. Still others were truth serums, which puzzled him, until he realized Tarquine wanted to ensure he gave accurate reports on whatever he picked up from the Aristos. A large number of the drugs were meant to heal him. They treated his anemia, slowed damage to various organs, battled his mutated meds, and prepared his body to accept the regeneration or transplant of new organs.
One medicine treated what they termed his “depressive state, mostly likely brought on by the innate weakness of his empathic mind.” Didn’t it occur to them that he was depressed because he had been kidnapped and sold into slavery?
As he absorbed Tarquine’s thoughts, he tagged them to Quis patterns. Whether or not Bolt could still receive his input and respond, he had no idea. But it was worth a try. After he filed his impressions, he built mental Quis structures of the Aristos and let them evolve. They grew ever more complex, until they resembled fractals, those mathematical constructs that revealed the same repeating patterns of intricacy at ever finer scales. Fractals. Strange. It meant something, he wasn’t sure what.
A thought forming in Tarquine’s mind registered on him. Her leg felt numb where he was lying on it. He shifted his head to relieve the pressure.
She brushed her fingers across his neck. “Did you sleep well?”
Kelric answered in a low voice. “Yes.” He knew what she wanted.
He lifted his head. The dim light softened her face, giving her an elegance that would have taken his breath away had she been anyone other than a Highton. She leaned forward and kissed him, tasting his lips. It was the aphrodisiacs that made his body respond with such intensity. Surely the aphrodisiacs.
Setting her hands on his shoulders, she gave a slight push. He slid away and lay on the carpets, half covered by pillows. As she joined him, he trailed his fingers along her hip, feeling its lean contour through the diamond cloth of her uniform.
They undressed each other in the shadows. Kelric ran his hands over her body and she arched, smooth and firm under his touch. Rather than the exaggerated curves of a provider, Tarquine was long and sculpted. Her well-formed body belied her claim of being over a century old.
She stretched out on top of him, sliding her hands down to his hips. Kelric rolled her onto her back in an instinctual drive to cover her body. With the collar monitoring the aphrodisiacs in his body, his arousal felt more natural now, less wrenching than his response to the copper provider. He wondered if Tarquine thought she needed the chemicals to make him want her. Maybe she was right. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. Dazed, drugged, and half drunk, he submerged into the sensuality.
So they came together, almost fighting as their bodies strained against each other. Yet they made no sound. An unspoken protocol existed among the Aristos: if no one could hear, the act was acceptable in public. He lived an exquisite agony of pleasure, a drug-augmented ecstasy that Tarquine stoked ever higher. In his rare moments of lucidity, he hated that she made him crave a Highton. Most of the time he knew only the incredible heights Aristos created out of human pleasure.
When he finally climaxed, the orgasm affected his entire body, which was sensitized by the drug cycles spinning within him. His peak lasted longer than normal, and with greater intensity, until in one agonizing moment of rapture he genuinely thought it would kill him.
He didn’t die, though. Instead the waves of pleasure gradually eased. His breathing calmed. He and Tarquine were lying on their sides against the table, their limbs tangled. Eyes closed, she rested her head against his shoulder as she pulled in deep, shuddering breaths.
So they lay, too exhausted to move.
“Minister Iquar.” The girl’s trembling voice was soft.
“Please, most honored one. I humbly beg for your sublime attention.”
Grumpy with his disturbed sleep, Kelric opened his eyes halfway. A dark-haired, dark-eyed provider was kneeling by Tarquine, her face anxious as she tried to wake the Minister without raising her voice. Kelric and Tarquine were still entangled on the dais, but someone had covered them with a white fur.
The girl looked terrified. “Please,” she entreated Tarquine. “Most exalted lady, please forgive my imprudence and speak to me.”
Kelric shook the Minister’s shoulder. “Tarquine,” he muttered. “Wake the hell up.” From the girl’s aghast look, he gathered his method of addressing an Aristo wasn’t standard procedure.
Tarquine sighed and turned toward him. “Hmmm?” With a drowsy smile, she put her arms around his waist. “Again?”
“Someone needs to tell you something,” he said.
She frowned, then rolled over to the provider. Her voice came out in an icy snap. “What do you want?”
“Please, most exalted Minister,” the girl whispered. “I beg your forgiveness for my intrusion. But Lord Hizar, he—he—”
“He what?” Tarquine asked impatiently.
“On the holovid.” The girl motioned with a shaking hand. “It is a broadcast, ma’am. Lord Hizar wanted me to tell you.”
Tarquine sat up, letting the blanket fall to her waist. With the fur draped around her hips and her upper body bare, she brought to mind the marble statue of an austere goddess.
Kelric looked to where the provider indicated. At the other end of the hall, the room’s lights had been raised. Most of the Aristos were up and dressed, seated at tables, watching the holostage. The news holo there showed the Hall of Circles in the emperor’s palace on Glory. Corbal Xir was standing on the dais, intoning about something or other, though whatever the future emperor had to say, Kelric couldn’t hear and didn’t much care.
“No palace broadcast was scheduled,” Tarquine grumbled. Without another word, she tossed the fur to one side, uncovering Kelric without a thought. She got up and dressed, pulling on her uniform and boots. Then she left the dais and strode across the hall to join her guests, leaving Kelric alone with the provider. Her dismissal stung.
He sat up and regarded the girl. “Do you know what it’s about?”
She shook her head, averting her gaze. Her lustrous skin was as dark and smooth as java cream. Rosy blooms colored her cheeks. She had an angelic face, so sweet and pretty it made his breath catch. But it wasn’t natural. Her black eyes were enhanced, large even by bodysculpting standards, framed by a thick fringe of black lashes. Impossibly luxuriant black hair cascaded in curls over her shoulders, arms, back, and hips.
She wore no clothes. The ring of rubies around her neck sparkled in the dim light, as did the ruby guards on her wrists and ankles, the ruby rings in her nipples, and the chain of rubies slung low on her hips. Her waist was too small, her breasts too large and firm, to be real. He couldn’t stop staring at her beauty, even knowing, gods help him, that the Aristos had made her this way to please themselves.
Then he realized more than her physical appearance affected him. Her mind suffused his with Kyle power, sweet and vulnerable. She was at least eight on the scale, possibly nine. Her fragrance captivated him, enhanced with pheromones. She also exuded Kyle pheromones targeted for other psions. From the haze of arousal in her mind and the dilation of her eyes, he knew she was as pumped full of aphrodisiacs as him. Her sensual desire flowed over him and her arousal blended with his own, driven and heightened in both of them by chemicals.
Before he realized what was happening, she had slid into his lap and was straddling his thighs.
“Now stop that,” he said, his voice slow from sleep and drugs. He put his arm around her waist, intending to move her off his lap. She gracefully bent back until sh
e was arching over his arm with her breasts straining upward.
“I can’t …” As he stared at her, he forgot what it was he couldn’t do. Lowering his head, he closed his mouth around her breast and suckled, tugging on her huge nipple while he tongued its ruby ring.
Even as he succumbed to the drugs and the girl, though, a question hovered in his mind. Why had the Aristo who owned this phenomenally seductive provider picked her to tell Tarquine about the broadcast? It also bothered him that Tarquine didn’t seem to care what he did now.
The girl sighed with pleasure and cupped her hands under his elbows. The feather touch of her fingers made his thoughts waft away into nothing, like fog blown on the wind. Her head hung back, her silken hair pouring over his legs. She was also caressing his shoulder—
His shoulder?
Wait a minute. How could a girl bent over his arm this way be stroking his shoulder? He lifted his head—and found a second provider at his side, a twin of the girl in his arms, except this one had gold hair, blue eyes, and sapphire gems. Her mind washed sweetly over his, as far up the Kyle scale as the sultry goddess in his arms. As he stared at her, she leaned forward and kissed his ear.
“Oh, Lord,” Kelric said. This was too much. Just the thought of a third person in the room when he made love disconcerted him. In that sense he had always been conservative. This went so far beyond his normal style, he would have told them no if he hadn’t been drugged out of his mind.
The gold girl slid behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest. Nibbling his neck, she pressed against him, soft as a dream.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked. Glancing across the room, he saw an Aristo lord watching them. When the Aristo realized Kelric had noticed him, he turned back to the broadcast. On the screen, Corbal Xir, the Emperor Presumptive, was intoning on in the usual interminable Highton style about some supposed Highton triumph. His oddly white hair glittered like ice.