“Where Mommy go?” Jai sounded worried and Soz knew her game hadn’t fooled him; it just gave him an excuse to give in.
“Hunting,” she said. “We need food.”
“Mommy catch the tommy-jommy?”
“The what?”
He tried a different pronunciation. “Tummy-jummy.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Big and black. Tastes good.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “You mean a tomjolt. Yes, I hope so.”
Jaibriol had named the animals “tomjolts” because EcoComp claimed they resembled Earth bobcats. Given EcoComp’s description, though, Soz suspected one tomjolt could slaughter five bobcats before breakfast. Like the gilded crimson fliers that lived near the river, tomjolts had eight legs and were part crustacean, part reptile, and part plant, with chitinous hides rich in chlorophyll. Jaibriol decreed the animals belonged to their own phylum and christened them chloropods.
Soz had no intention of seeing a tomjolt dine on her family. So she hunted them with the same single-minded ferocity she had once directed against Eubian warriors.
“Hoshpa!” Jai’s delighted shout rang out as he scrambled to his feet. Looking up, Soz saw Jaibriol walking up the hill toward them. Still feeling bulky from her recent pregnancy, she climbed to her feet, holding Lisi in the crook of her arm. MedComp insisted she was too thin, but MedComp always complained.
As Soz started down the hill, Lisi made a noise of protest, then resumed nursing. Jai ran toward his father, and Jaibriol crouched down, extending his arms to the boy. Jai promptly tripped on a spiderpouch weed, sprawled face forward on the grass, and let out a wail to split the sky.
Jaibriol jumped up and ran to his son, his smile vanished, replaced by the fear Soz knew well, the one that came every time their son took even the smallest tumble. Here, with only themselves to rely on, a simple injury could be fatal.
When Jaibriol scooped the boy into his arms, Jai sniffled and hugged his father around the neck, mollified. As Soz came up to them, Jaibriol’s attention shifted to her.
“You look tired,” he said.
“Just a little,” Soz answered. Lisi quit nursing and Soz slid her shirt back into place.
“Don’t go,” Jaibriol said. “Stay here. Rest.”
“We can’t sit around while tomjolts eat our son’s pets.”
“Bad tommy-jommy.” Jai sniffled. “Ate Puppli.”
“We don’t know that a tomjolt got Puppli,” Jaibriol said.
Soz thought of the remains they had found of Jai’s furred pet, a small chloropod with big ears and a long, green tail. “It’s the same pattern as with the other jolts.” She handed Jaibriol the carbine. “We can’t take chances.”
He pushed the carbine back at her. “You take it.”
“If I shoot it with the laser, there won’t be anything left for us to use but charred bones.” Quietly she said, “You’ll have the children. Better you have our best weapon.”
Jaibriol glanced at the boy in his arms, then slung the carbine over his shoulder. When she offered him Lisi, he took her with the same ease Soz had long ago seen in her own father when he held her younger siblings. Who would have thought it, that the Highton Heir, the terror of three empires, would be such a gentle, loving father? She wondered if the emperor or empress had ever held Jaibriol the way Jaibriol held Lisi and Jai. She doubted it.
He spoke in a subdued voice. “My mother is a superb actress.”
“You mean Empress Viquara?”
He nodded. “She could convince a rock she loved it. But convincing a Rhon telepath is different.” He tried to shrug. “She resented acknowledging another woman’s child as her son.”
Softly Soz said, “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I have far more now than my parents will ever have, with all their palaces, slaves, and wealth.” He watched her face. “Be careful, Soshoni. I know you think you’re invulnerable, with all that hardware inside your body. But you’re not.”
“I’ll be careful.” She rose up on her toes and kissed him.
They parted then, Jaibriol headed to the house with the children, and Soz going in the other direction, up the hill. The walk was easy and the day beautiful. She enjoyed it, except for her unease at even a short separation from Lisi, who so far had no predictable schedule as to when she ate or slept.
Soz felt as if she and Lisi were still one body and mind. Jai’s mind was gradually becoming distinct from hers. Lately he asserted his independence with gusto, coming up with more ways to say “no” than she had ever imagined existed. Smiling, she sent a mental caress to her family. The union they all shared as Rhon telepaths was strong enough that even from this far away her loved ones might pick up a sense of her thought.
Her node was running calculations. Combining data on other tomjolts with what they knew of this one, it predicted where she might find the predator. The mountains in this area consisted of open rolling hills covered with light green spatula grass and dotted by clumps of palm trees. She scanned the terrain at various EM wavelengths, cranked up her ears until she could hear spatula fronds fall from trees, and inhaled the pungent scents of a land teeming with flora but scant on fauna. No trace of the tomjolt turned up.
She came to a minicliff a few meters high. At its base, the hill rolled away in ripples of knee-high grass. Soz jumped off the cliff, letting her node calculate her optimum trajectory and her hydraulics move her body. She landed in a crouch, poised like a human tomjolt ready to leap. Then pain twinged in her hip and she fell over.
“Pah,” Soz grumbled. So much for being a human tomjolt.
Suggestion, her node thought.
What? Soz stood up, rubbing her sore hip.
Unnecessary physical exertion makes it more difficult for your body to regain strength. You should exert yourself less.
My strength is fine.
That is an inaccurate statement. You are in excellent health given that you gave birth 250 hours ago. However, you are far from your optimum.
“I’m fine,” Soz muttered.
Question.
She set off down the slope. What?
Have you thought of a name for me yet?
No.
Why?
Because I haven’t.
You named your children before they were born.
You aren’t my child. You’re part of me.
Then my name is Sauscony?
She unslung her bow and nocked an arrow in it. No, your name is not Sauscony.
Why are you preparing to shoot?
It’s called “a state of readiness,” which you well know.
Have you considered that your tension in regards to my name has psychological implications?
No.
I have a suggestion.
Be quiet, Soz thought. She continued down the slope until she reached a forest. Within the trees, the day’s brightness became muted and a chatter of spatula leaves surrounded her.
Finally she thought, So are you going to tell me your suggestion?
Call me a name for one day. See how it affects you.
Why are you so certain this has some deep, dark significance?
I believe your refusal to name me reflects your inability to make peace with the fact that you are, simultaneously, an empath and a weapon.
That caught her by surprise. It was a long moment before she answered. Giving you a name won’t erase the scars in my heart.
After a pause, her node thought, I am sorry.
Sorry. Her computer was sorry. The strangeness of that left her with no response.
The trees gave way to a circular clearing. A mat of crystalline grass the color of white jade stretched out ahead of her. She felt a distant tug at her mind, like a call, and wondered if it was time to go back. But she still hadn’t found the tomjolt. Jai had been devastated over the death of his pet, and that was minor compared to the tragedy a tomjolt could inflict on humans.
Caught between the decision to go back or
continue, Soz touched her boot to the crystal grass. What is this stuff?
I have no data on it, her node thought. I need a sample to analyze.
Crouching down, Soz touched a filament. It vibrated in a soft chime. She brushed her palm across the grass, and a shimmer of chimes greeted her. “Hey. It’s beautiful.” When she stood up and walked onto the grass, it sang like angels.
I would suggest you give me a sample to analyze, her node thought. Wait for the results before you continue.
It sounds so soothing.
Yes. It does.
Soz sat on the grass and it crooned to her, sweet notes in her mind. Lying on her back, she stared at the circle of sky above her. Red was low in the west, hidden by the trees, and Blue blazed overhead, far too bright to look at. She closed her eyes. The grass hummed and chimed, soothing, soothing, soothing …
Soshooooooo … nnnnn … iii …
Soz twitched at the intrusion into her bliss. Above her, the evening sky shimmered pink with Red’s sunset.
Soshooooonnnnniii … Somewhere a baby screamed.
Soz sat bolt upright. How could it be evening? She heard nothing, but the sense of a baby’s screams filled her mind.
She scrambled to her feet and ran across the clearing. The grass shrieked in protest, its song vicious now. Her stomach clenched in a way that suggested the grass was using frequencies below her hearing range. It had to be all the grass together; a single blade couldn’t produce that sound. The effect intensified, became unbearable, she had to make it end, had to stop running—
“Like hell,” she muttered, and ran off the grass. Node! What happened?
No answer.
Node!
Nothing.
Soz kept running. The trip back seemed to last ages, but she had no idea how much time actually passed. She couldn’t access her internal timer. Her node had to be working, though, because she was running with enhanced speed, which meant it was directing her hydraulics. If she used them too much, it strained her skeleton and muscular systems, but right now she didn’t care.
Soshoni! The thought burst into her mind.
I’m almost home, she thought.
Jaibriol’s relief exploded over her. You’re alive!
How long have I been gone?
Ten hours. Lisi won’t eat. She’s worked herself into a frenzy.
Hoshma! Mommy! Jai’s thought was frantic. Leesy dying!
Soz could hear Lisi screaming now. She ran down to the house and through the open doorway. Jaibriol was coming toward her, the red-faced infant in his arms. Toddler Jai hovered behind him like an agonized supervisor unsure how to direct the crisis.
“Ai, Babylisi, lisi, lisi.” Soz crooned as she took her screaming daughter. She pulled up her shirt and put Lisi to her breast, but the frenzied infant was too worked up to suckle. Standing with her planted feet wide, dressed in a fur shirt and the black leather pants of her Jagernaut uniform, Soz looked down at the baby in her arms and swayed back and forth.
Suddenly Lisi took a choked breath and latched onto Soz’s nipple with the vehemence of a stardock crane grasping cargo. She suckled furiously, her tiny body shaking with her exertions.
Jaibriol made a strangled noise. His relief was so intense it felt tangible.
Is Leesy happy now? Jai asked. He was watching with such earnest concern, Soz wanted to scoop him up into her arms too.
Lisi happy, Jaibriol assured him.
“I’m sorry, little hurricane,” Soz murmured to her daughter.
“Where you go, Mommy?” Jai toddled forward and put his arms around her leg. “We looked all the places in the world.”
Soz smiled at him. “In the whole world?”
“All over,” he assured her.
Jaibriol pushed his hand through his hair. “We searched for hours. Where were you?”
“I went out past the minicliff.”
“We went through there.” His mind crackled with lingering remnants of his fear, and anger too, now that he knew she was all right. “Couldn’t you hear us calling? Lisi was screaming loud enough to break the sky.”
“I’m not sure what happened,” Soz said. “I found a patch of grass. Crystal grass. It sang me into a trance, and my node too.” Remembering its earsplitting protests when she left, she said, “It may have a rudimentary sentience.”
“Where is it?” Jaibriol asked. “I’ve never seen it.”
“In the minicliff woods. It must have only recently grown.” Soz went to an armchair Jaibriol had made and sank into it, cradling Lisi, who was nursing more gently now.
Attending, her node announced.
For heaven’s sake, Soz thought. I called you a long time ago.
I seem to have suffered a disruption in my ability to process your neural impulses.
Why?
The plant you term “crystal grass” apparently creates fields that disrupt neural activity.
What about your overrides? Soz asked. Safety routines? Emergency toggles? Backups? You’ve a hundred and one ways to deal with a situation like that.
This hit 102.
Jaibriol brought over another chair to Soz. As he sat down, Jai crawled into his lap. Holding his son tenderly, Jaibriol “spoke” in Soz’s mind. Do you have any idea what this “crystal grass” is?
Her node answered. A relative of the people trap. Its entranced prey must die of starvation. The decomposing body would provide nutrients for the grass.
That’s disgusting, Soz thought.
But efficient. The grass probably secretes chemicals to help break down substances.
We should get rid of it, Jaibriol thought.
It could prove useful, the node answered. Its size suggests it preys on large animals. The largest animal we’ve seen is the tomjolt. If you can contain the grass and bait it somehow, it might make a tomjolt trap.
Good idea, Soz thought.
Lisi pulled away from her mother’s nipple and gave a cry of protest.
“It’s all right,” Soz murmured. She shifted the baby to the other breast, and Lisi latched back on. When Jaibriol crooned to her, Lisi looked at him, still nursing, then closed her eyes and concentrated on dinner.
With Jai nestled in his lap, Jaibriol watched Soz nurse. “Who would have thought it?” he said. “The warrior turns to mush.”
Soz scowled. “What mush? I’m not mush.”
He smiled. “Do you know, Soshoni, once I saw a rogue tomjolt try to invade the lair of a female that had just given birth. The mother tomjolt tore the invader to shreds. Then she went back to feeding her cubs.”
She squinted at him. “Are you comparing me to a tomjolt?”
“Let’s just say I’m glad I’m your love and not your enemy.”
Softly she said, “I will always love you. If anyone ever tried to hurt you or the children, I would surely tear them to shreds.”
* * *
Caged in an exoskeleton of controls, Althor Valdoria, the Imperial Heir, sat at his console. Today he worked in his web chamber, a bare room with nothing but the console and his control chair.
Onyx. Althor doubted he would ever know what had spurred his brother, two years ago, to put him in charge of the situation at Onyx Sector. Usually Kurj kept control of sensitive areas. Whatever the reason, he had loosened his iron grip that day. Fascinated with the puzzle Kurj handed him, Althor had studied every report detailing the encroachment of Trader pirates into the region of Onyx Platform, a major ISC base. Over the last two years he had gained increasing authority in that sector, until now he directed ISC activities there.
Onyx Platform was in Onyx Sector, a crucial territory where Eube, Skolia, and the Allied Worlds intersected in a diffuse region claimed by all three powers. Although Trader pirates raided the ISC outposts there, they no longer harassed Allied holdings. The ISC Public Affairs Office claimed credit for protecting the Allieds, but Althor had no illusions. ESComm no longer sent pirates into Allied space because Emperor Qox wanted a treaty with the Allieds.
What bothered Althor today, however, had little to do with raids. The puzzle he had tracked for over a year was no more than a simple glitch in one inconsequential datum. It concerned a discrepancy he had found for one price listed in a shipment of construction supplies to an Onyx space station. The invoice in ISC Records differed by one centilla, one Imperial cent, from that listed by Onyx Records.
Althor would never have noticed if he hadn’t been searching the invoices for another reason, to figure out how his aunt, Dehya Selei, paid her agents among the dust merchants who trawled Onyx Sector. A one-cent difference in a million-dollar shipment? He almost ignored the error.
But the discrepancy tugged at him. He searched it out, to verify it was nothing. What he found puzzled him. Sending the invoice from Onyx to the Orbiter involved no human input. No one to enter the number. Nor did he find any trace of a rip or other problem in the web that could have corrupted the data. It seemed absurd to grow concerned over one cent, but it bothered him that no reason existed for the disagreement.
For a year he tracked it through the web, searching for one cent among daily billions. He found the memory location used to store the invoice. As he followed its history, the search took him farther and farther from Onyx. Today he finally confirmed the source of the discrepancy. Nearly four years ago in HeadQuarters City, the heart of ISC, someone had erased a file. Of course, millions of files were erased at HQ every day. But whoever deleted this one had first hidden it in a private account accessible only to a select handful of people.
Also, an expert erased that file. The only reason anything came up at all was because the hacker had worked from a civilian node. They had eradicated all trace of the work—except for one bit of data removable only from a computer within an ISC control center.
One bit of data.
The hacker apparently even knew about that one inviolable bit. They couldn’t reset its value, from one to zero, so they camouflaged it. A tiny problem came up: the hidden bit caused a bit in an adjoining memory location to change from zero to one. The new bit immediately reset to zero, but in the process it changed another bit from zero to one. So the glitch propagated for over a year, after which it disappeared. Somewhere along the line, it altered the value of an invoice by one cent.