It was a fair, if unexpected, request. Kelric considered. “There is a man. A Skolian. Jafe Maccar. Captain of the Corona. After a battle at the space station Chrysalis, Maccar was sentenced to ten years in an ESComm prison. Unjustly.” He regarded Jaibriol steadily. “Pardon him.”
The emperor paused. “I will consider it.”
His lukewarm response didn’t surprise Kelric. He doubted Maccar would see his freedom. If Jaibriol pardoned him, it would undermine ESComm’s claim that Maccar instigated the incident.
Jaibriol motioned upward, a gesture that seemed to include all Eube. “It’s like a great thundering machine I hold by the barest thread. If I am to find a road to peace, I need your help.”
Then, finally, it hit Kelric, what he had known at a subliminal level throughout this surreal conversation, an awareness that grew until it became conscious in his mind. It was impossible. Utterly impossible.
Jaibriol III was a psion.
He felt the youth’s mind. Jaibriol did have barriers. They had been dissolving as he and Kelric talked, probably without Jaibriol realizing it. His luminous Kyle strength glowed.
In a low voice, Kelric said, “You’re a telepath.”
“No.” Pain layered Jaibriol’s denial. He became pure Highton. Polished. Smooth. Cold. Unreal. “I am what you see. Qox.”
“At what price?” Kelric asked softly. “What must you suffer to hide the truth?”
Jaibriol met his gaze. “Was anyone here when I came into the Lock? I never saw him.”
What hells did this youth live, a psion ruling from the Carnelian Throne, surrounded by Aristos every day of his life, never knowing surcease? How had it happened? Watching Jaibriol, he knew he would learn no more answers here.
He spoke gently. “Gods help you, son.”
Jaibriol swallowed. “Go. Now. While you can.”
Kelric stepped back into the arched entrance of the corridor. When Jaibriol said nothing, Kelric turned and started the long walk down the Lock corridor. His back itched as he waited for the gunshot, maybe a neural blocker to disable him, or an EM pulse rifle that would shred his body.
“Lord Skolia,” Jaibriol said.
He froze. Turning, he faced the emperor. Would the game end now? “Yes?”
“If you make it to Earth—” Jaibriol lifted his hand, as if to reach toward Kelric. He stood poised, his posture showing the strain of longing balanced with denial. Then he lowered his arm. “Go see Admiral William Seth Rockworth.”
So. Jaibriol did have a link to Seth. “I will go.” He wanted to ask more, but he dared remain no longer. Turning, he resumed his walk. As he strode down that avenue of the ages, he had a strange sense, as if Jaibriol spoke in his mind:
Gods’ speed, my uncle.
Kelric ran down the access tube, his soft-soled boots thudding on the deck. He reached the maintenance hold and ran past the droids, remembering how he had dragged himself through here such a short time ago. The shuttle was where he expected, hidden in a dimly lit bay behind the storage holds.
As he fastened himself into the pilot’s seat, he thought: Bolt, if you receive this, make my right leg move.
His right foot shifted on the deck.
Bolt, listen. He snapped the safety web around his body. If you put my mind in a subshell again, will you lose my hydraulics? If the answer is yes, move my right leg. If no, move my left leg. If you’re unsure, move my right arm.
His right leg shifted. Yes.
Will you be able to get them back?
His left leg moved this time. No.
It was the Lock, wasn’t it? Kelric asked. You recovered because I entered the Lock.
His right leg moved. Yes.
So now what? He couldn’t risk being detected when they left the station, but he didn’t want to lose his mobility again. Of course, if Qox revealed him, it would make little difference how he protected himself. He had no idea what was going on with the emperor. He even wondered if he had hallucinated the meeting, an eerie side effect of joining the Triad or turning off the Lock. But he thought it was genuine.
Meet me at the peace table.
“All right,” Kelric said. “If I get out of this, you have a deal, Emperor. If you really mean to follow through.”
Before he could meet anyone, however, he had to escape. Which meant this shuttle had better look like a drone leaving the station after a routine delivery.
Bolt, he thought. Put me in the subshell. Get us out of here.
23
Jeejon
… goto Restart: insert Conscious for NotConscious. P=P+1
If P>30, goto Emergency Restart.
If NotConscious, goto Restart insert Conscious for NotConscious. P=P+1
If P>30, goto Emergency Restart
Emergency Restart Set Neurons (1:M:N)=1
Fire Neurons—
Kelric groaned as he came out of the convulsion. His body ached where he had thrashed against the safety webbing. Darkness surrounded him. Alarms clamored.
“—fired on us,” the insistent voice was saying. “Please. What should I do?”
“What?” He tried to orient himself.
“A buoy on the SSRB perimeter defenses very rudely fired on us,” the shuttle EI told him. “It ruined the finish on my hull.”
Kelric tried to see in the dark. Even the warning lights on his console had gone dark. “What is the situation?”
“I was trying to locate this Shuttle Four of yours,” the El said in a vexed tone. “That’s what you told me to do, if you remember. A space buoy on the perimeter surface told us to stop. It refused my security codes. When I took up a holding pattern, this ill-mannered Bolt of yours interfered. It made my thrusters fire, accelerating me right into the perimeter, precisely where the buoy told us not to go. The buoy fired on us. It damaged my hull in a most unattractive way. This is all very upsetting. ESComm security shuttles are coming. I am in a holding pattern until they arrive.”
For crying out loud. What kind of EI was this? Apparently he no longer had the option of sneaking through the perimeter. He probably could have guided the shuttle out himself, using a stealth pattern and his knowledge of Eubian security, but apparently Bolt had run into trouble restarting him.
“Get us out of here,” Kelric told the EI. “Invert.”
“I am not designed for interstellar travel,” it said primly.
“You have inversion engines. So invert.”
“My inversion capability is confined to small distances. The volume of the SSRB, to be precise.”
“I don’t give a flaming damn about precision. Invert!”
“You don’t have to use foul language.”
“If you don’t get us out of here before ESComm arrives,” he growled, “I’ll wipe out your processors with my language.”
Its voice quavered. “If I attempt to accelerate, the buoy will fire again.”
“Accelerate fast.”
“It will still fire. I do not wish to be destroyed.”
“Don’t you have mods for stealth and evasion tactics?”
“No,” the EI sniffed. “I am a cleaning shuttle.”
Kelric thought fast. “Use a random pattern of accelerations and decelerations. Bolt will give you an algorithm. You probably can’t dodge the buoy for more than a few seconds. So you have to reach inversion speed fast. In one second. But you’re small. You can manage.”
“That requires hundreds of thousands of g-forces.” It sounded appalled. “Your body wouldn’t survive. It would make a mess.”
Exasperated, he said, “Put me in quasis.”
“It is inadvisable in your condition—”
“Do it, damn it. Now.”
“You needn’t yell. Quasis activated—”
When Kelric came out of quasis, he threw up. He heard palm-sized robots whir and felt them skitter over his body, cleaning him up. He didn’t try to move. He couldn’t see worth a damn.
Oddly enough, his right arm kept twitching. Bolt, he thought, glad that
thinking required no motion. Are you making my arm move?
His right leg jerked.
What had that meant? Yes. That was it. Right leg meant yes. With relief, he thought, You have control of my biomech.
His right arm moved. Maybe.
How can you not be sure? When his right arm moved again, he realized his question didn’t have a yes-no-maybe answer. You have some control?
His right leg jerked. Yes.
More than last time?
His left leg moved. No.
You couldn’t help my legs before, he pointed out.
His right leg moved this time. Yes.
You have control of my legs, but lost something else?
His right leg moved again.
Kelric swallowed. My optical nerve. I’m blind.
Again his right leg moved. Yes.
Disheartened, he laid his head back on the seat. He needed to plan, but he felt sick from being too long in quasis. It was hard to concentrate. He was blind. Blind …
A voice pulled him alert again. “—sorry if I hurt your feelings back there,” the shuttle EI was saying. “I was afraid I was about to be destroyed.”
He gave a wan smile. “That’s all right. I’m sorry I cussed at you.”
“Would you like me to find Shuttle Four?”
“No. We can’t risk dropping out of inversion again.”
“Where shall I take you?”
Tiredly he said, “Home.”
“Where is home?”
“Skolian space.”
“I don’t have enough fuel to go that far.”
“Do what you can,” he said.
A blaring alarm roused Kelric. Groggy and confused, he rubbed his eyes. “Shuttle? What’s going on?”
“I am no longer space-worthy,” it informed him.
He blinked. “We still seem quite worthily in space.”
“I took us out of inversion. If I make it to the outpost, I will let you off there.” Awkwardly it added, “Otherwise I will disintegrate with you onboard.”
“Uh, shuttle, I would rather you didn’t do that.”
“I will do my best to avoid it.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“This volume of space is on the Eubian side of the Eube-Allied border surface.”
So they hadn’t made it to Skolian space. His fading dream of home receded again. “You said an outpost was here?”
“My files say we are within one point four light-days of Spikedown, an asteroid with a border outpost. I had hoped to bring us out there. Or where I estimate it should be now. I don’t know how current my data is. My purpose is to carry cleaning supplies. As far as I know, this outpost has nothing to do with cleaning supplies. So I have almost no data on it.”
Cleaning supplies. Kelric sighed. “How fast are we going?”
“About forty percent light speed.”
At that rate, it would take three and a half days to reach the outpost. “Can you go faster?”
“I advise against it. My condition is fragile. I may survive the final deceleration at Spikedown, but only if I don’t accelerate and decelerate any more than absolutely necessary.”
He winced. “I’m sorry.”
“We’re not dead yet,” it said with attempted cheer.
He managed a smile. “Do you have enough food to keep me alive for three and a half days?”
“My stores will last four.” It paused. “For someone your size, they may only last three.”
If this outpost was anything like other frontier posts he knew, they wouldn’t give him squat unless he paid for it. Nor were they likely to have facilities for a blind man. If he couldn’t survive on his own, tough.
Even worse, right now a border station might have refugees pouring into it, like Edgewhirl. He doubted they had facilities for dealing with such a deluge. Gods only knew what they would do with everyone. They might shoot him if he couldn’t pay his landing debt.
Bolt, he thought, tired. Will I ever see again?
His right arm moved. Bolt didn’t know.
“Human?” the shuttle said.
“Yes?” Kelric asked.
“Good luck.”
He exhaled. “Thanks.”
“You got a stolen shuttle,” the woman from the Port Authority said. She was speaking in Eubic, the Trader equivalent of Skolian Flag. “Why should we let you land?”
Kelric rubbed his unseeing eyes. “Because if you don’t, this ship will fall apart and I’ll die.”
“Should’ve thought of that before you stole it. Your ship is sending us its codes, thief. They say it’s ESComm issue, SSRB.”
“They wanted me to be a slave. I disagreed.” Quietly he said, “Please let me land.”
Although she still sounded wary, for some reason the hostility left her voice. “Can you pay for a berth?”
“Didn’t the shuttle send you a credit line?”
“It’s got no credit line. Just detergent.”
“I’ll work off the debt.”
She gave a tired, bitter laugh. “You and how many others? You know how many refugees we got here? Crammed with ’em. You people keep coming in. No one can get out again. We got two hundred passengers for every berth, and can’t none of them pay. Your ship is falling apart? It’d cost you more than I make in ten years to buy out on another ship. If you don’t got enough to dock, I can’t let you land.” The edge left her voice. “I’m sorry.”
Kelric laid his head back in his seat. Had he been a normal human, with normal endurance and no augmentation, he would have been long dead by now. Even he had almost reached his limit. His problems getting in and out of the Lock had drastically accelerated the failure of his health. Either he would die now or he would die on Spikedown, his sight gone, his body crippled, his brain exhausted.
Cut it out, he told himself. He couldn’t give up. If nothing else, he hated the thought of dying alone.
He spoke over the comm again. “Maybe I have something I can pay you.” But what? He had no money or goods. He had finished the food a day ago.
“What?” She sounded skeptical.
He ran his finger over the ridge of an armband under his shirt. Ixpar, I’m sorry. Aloud he said, “I’ve gold. And gemstones. Real gems. Almost flawless.”
“We can’t eat rocks and metal. You got food?”
“No food.” He raked his hand through his hair. “If you let me land, I’ll sell my goods in port. Then I can pay you.”
She snorted. “Isn’t no one will buy what you got. You want gems? We can make thousands of ’em. This used to be a mining outpost. Asteroid is part of a planet that broke up. Chock-full of minerals. They’re not worth spit. No one wants Spikedown rocks. Hell, my quarters are full of gold. Dishes. Goblets. Boxes. Worthless. Market’s glutted.”
“Not with what I have.” Even knowing they wouldn’t want it, he still tried. “My wrist guards are over a thousand years old. The armbands are almost as old. To an archaeologist, they’re priceless.”
She made an incredulous noise. “You think we got professors? Metal is metal. Rocks are rocks. You got food, something like that, we can trade. Or currency you can back. We’ll take Highton or Allied credit vouchers.” In a kinder voice she said, “I’m sorry. I really am. But we’re dying down here. You people are killing us.”
Gods. What else did he have? Nothing. Just himself.
Himself.
He forced out the words. “I’ve something you might like.”
“I doubt it.”
“Find out first.”
“What?”
“I’m a provider.”
A long silence followed his words. He wondered if he was about to be arrested for trying to bribe a port official. Or maybe solicit was a better word.
Then she said, “Send me a holo.”
He switched to his private channel and spoke to the shuttle EI. “Send her a holo of me. Make it look good.”
“Shall I change your features or physique?” it asked.
“No. She’ll know as soon as she sees me if I tried to cheat her. Just add fixes I can do here. Brush my hair, get rid of wrinkles in my clothes, that sort of thing.”
“Done. Image sent.”
After a moment, the woman spoke again. Her voice had a different tone now, tentative and self-conscious. “Maybe we can work something out. Got a docking code for you after all.” She took a breath. “I’ll meet you at the gate.”
The engine rumble ceased as docking clamps secured the ship. Kelric released the breath he had been holding. So. Spikedown. He had made it, at least to the port.
He pushed out of his seat and took a step. With relief, he found that his hydraulics did indeed work. He still had a limp, but he walked reasonably well. Too bad he couldn’t see.
He felt his way to the back of the shuttle, moving his hands along the seats. It helped that the asteroid’s gravity was only about one quarter the human standard. Without visual cues, it was hard to orient himself, though.
Just as he reached the gap between the last seat and the air lock, a deep male voice said, “Kelric?”
He froze. “Who is that?”
“Kelric?” the man repeated. “Can you hear me?”
He swung around. “Where are you?”
“From your behavior, I gather you can.” The voice was still right next to him. It moved when he moved. In fact, it sounded like it came from his gauntlet.
“Are you on my comm?” Kelric asked.
“If you can hear me, think your response,” the man answered.
Think my response? Why? Who is this?
“It’s Bolt.”
Bolt! He grinned. How are you talking?
“Your gauntlets have been extending bio-optic threads throughout your body. They’re using your reactor to drive chemical reactions they need to grow. That’s why you’ve been so hungry and tired. I linked up with the new network and contacted your gauntlets.”
The idea of ancient gauntlets threading his body with who-knew-what startled Kelric. What would he be by the time they finished? Human? Or something else?
Human. The answer came at a level deeper than surface thought, almost subconscious. Human and more.