“When President Calloway was in office, we knew where we stood,” Tikal said. “Ever since the Allieds elected this new president, everything has shifted. The Allieds openly express doubts as to the stability of the Ruby Dynasty. They even question whether Trader pirates exist anymore. They think ESComm cleaned them all up.”
Kurj snorted. “Then they’re fools.”
“The Traders are fighting this war with propaganda.” Tikal pushed his hand through his hair. “Earth isn’t about to jump into bed with Eube, but we’re beginning to look like an even worse choice for an ally, an unstable government doomed to fall. We have to change our approach. No more dire prophecies. We must woo them.”
“Diplomacy is an Assembly function,” Kurj said. “Talk to my mother. She’s the expert.”
Tikal cleared his throat. “The Assembly has, ah, spoken with Councilor Roca.”
Kurj frowned. What was this? The Assembly had met without his knowledge? He needed new web monitors. Barcala and his cronies must have figured out how to outwit the ones Kurj had spying on them. Tikal had to be up to something; otherwise he wouldn’t be hiding his mind with such strong mental barriers right now.
“We’ve set up a program of reforms,” Tikal continued. “Most of the changes we can implement ourselves. There are, however, a few matters that we, ah—need your cooperation on.”
Kurj kept his arms crossed. “What?”
“It has to do with your image.”
“What image?”
“Your public image.”
“I don’t have a public image.”
“I’m afraid you do. We would like to soften it.”
Kurj scowled. “I don’t have time for ‘image.’”
“We will take care of everything for you.”
“Take care of what?”
Tikal spoke in a rush, as if to get it all out before Kurj stopped him. “We want you to marry. We have several candidates in mind, all lovely women. Charismatic. Beautiful. The type of woman who will capture the hearts of people everywhere.” Hastily he added, “And yours too, I’m sure.”
Kurj stared at him. “This is a joke, right?”
“Not at all.”
“The answer is no.”
“The Assembly passed it as a resolution. You can’t say no.”
“What, you voted to force me into an arranged marriage?” Kurj made an incredulous noise. “The last time you all tried that, it ended in disaster.”
“What disaster? The Iceland Treaty is still in effect.”
Kurj had no wish to repeat the history. The Iceland Treaty had been established 135 years ago by the arranged marriage of Dehya and Seth Rockworth, an Allied naval officer chosen for his high rating as a psion. Earth wanted an alliance and marriages were how Skolians made alliances, so Seth became Dehya’s consort. After years of grappling with the intrigues of the Imperial court, Seth said “enough,” went home to Earth, and divorced his Pharaoh wife. Given that the treaty was tied to the marriage, neither government acknowledged the divorce, even after Seth remarried and Dehya gave in to the Assembly’s demands that she take Eldrin as her consort. It left them with the bizarre situation of having two major interstellar figures living in apparent violation of accepted social custom.
As far as Kurj was concerned, the treaty wasn’t worth the trouble it caused. For all its many volumes, the closest it came to a pledge of military support from the Allieds was a promise to help protect the Ruby Dynasty during times of war.
“We don’t need another Iceland Treaty,” he said.
“This isn’t.” Tikal walked over to him. “The Allieds are listening to ESComm propaganda. They think the Ruby Dynasty is a mess.” When Kurj glowered at him, he held up his hands. “I’m just telling you what they think. Everyone knows the survival of the Imperialate is tied up with your family. We have to convince the Allieds that the dynasty is stable.”
“So tell them the truth. ESComm is lying.”
“It isn’t working. We sound shrill. We need a positive approach. Allieds look at image. Give them a good show and half the battle is won.”
“For gods’ sake, Barcala. I’m not an entertainer.”
Tikal launched into an obviously prepared spiel. “We will take care of everything. A full Imperial wedding, all the pomp, flourishes, and splendor. A great show. We’ll find you a bride who exudes charm and glamour. Someone to, ah, polish your image. We play up the fantasy, the dream, the romance. Afterward we ease her into position as spokeswoman for you. You and she will have beautiful children, of course, and she will be a wonderful mother. The Allieds love this sort of thing.”
Kurj stared at him. “You’re out of your flaming mind.”
“All our research points to this as a more effective means of dealing with the Allieds than our current propaganda against the Traders. You needn’t do anything. We will do it all.”
“I choose my own women.”
Tikal spoke carefully. “The woman you marry will know this is a political arrangement. Your, uh, intimate preferences remain your choice. In private of course.”
Kurj scowled. “In other words, I can cheat on this bride all I want as long as I keep it secret?”
“What you do in your private life is your business.”
“My marriage isn’t my private life?”
“Take some time. Think about it.”
Dryly Kurj said, “I’m afraid to ask what you have in mind for Dehya’s ‘image.’”
Tikal squinted at him. “Actually—we can’t find her.”
“What do you mean, you can’t find her?”
“No one knows where she is.”
The conversation was becoming more surreal every moment. “She’s on the Orbiter.”
“No one there has seen her,” Tikal said. “When we send her web mail, we only get automated responses.”
“You see her in Assembly all the time.”
“Only as a holographic simulacrum.”
Kurj snorted. “Maybe she doesn’t want to see you.” At the moment, he didn’t blame her.
“I don’t think you understand,” Tikal said. “She isn’t anywhere.”
“Then have a spy monitor locate her.” He knew the Assembly had less chance of spying on Dehya than smoke in the wind. Even he couldn’t do it.
“Our monitors can’t find her either,” Tikal admitted.
Kurj regarded him curiously. “So what you’re telling me is that you and all the Assembly can’t find the Assembly Key.”
“Well, yes. That about sums it up.”
He laughed. “She’ll get in touch. When she wants to.”
“Kurj, this is serious. No one has seen her in three years.”
It occurred to Kurj that he hadn’t seen Dehya in a while either. “She’s a shadow, Barcala. You can’t manipulate a shadow. It has no substance.”
“Can you contact her? In person, I mean.”
“Maybe.” All he had to do was go to the Orbiter and walk the few hundred meters from his house to hers. At the moment, however, he felt disinclined to help the Assembly on anything. “Why do you want to talk to her?”
Tikal made an exasperated noise. “She’s the Ruby Pharaoh, for gods’ sake. Our hereditary leader. The position may be titular now, but she has a responsibility to let the people know she exists.”
Kurj wondered if the Assembly had any idea how thoroughly Dehya had infiltrated the web. She ruled in ways the Assembly never knew, playing the strands that tied together an empire. Shadow Pharaoh.
“If I see her, I’ll relay your message,” Kurj said.
“I appreciate it.”
After Tikal left, Kurj sat at his desk and entered the psiberweb. Thousands of messages waited for him. His routines were dealing with most of it, responding according to macros lengthier than many of the actual messages. The queue marked for his personal attention only contained ten letters.
Mail server, attend, he thought.
Server 1 attending.
Send mail to As
sembly Key Selei. “Icon is Sophocles.” End.
Message sent.
Good. Kurj turned to his personal queue. The first message was from Admiral Starjack Tahota, now in command of Onyx Platform, the massive ISC base in Onyx Sector. She wanted him to speak at a ceremony honoring a group of soldiers for their bravery. Although Kurj liked to attend such ceremonies, he rarely had time. Normally his aides dispatched an ISC officer to stand in for him. If Tahota herself requested his presence, though, this must be an impressive group. He still couldn’t go; it was scheduled at a time when he had other commitments. But he could send Althor, his heir, as his representative.
Kurj wrote Althor a note and attached a proposed itinerary. Then he sent it off, scrambling it with the Fling cipher.
I have a response from Assembly Key Selei, Server 1 thought. Shall I read?
Go ahead. Kurj thought.
Message is: “Sophocles wrote the icon.”
Sophocles? He and Dehya had been at this for fifteen years and he had yet to figure out what icon she meant. He had no doubt she changed the target from time to time, either because he was getting too close or because her interpretation of whatever she was getting at changed. Kurj didn’t really expect to uncover the answer. The communication served more use in giving him insights into the current workings of her mind.
Send message, he thought. He searched his memory for characters in plays of Sophocles and picked a name at random. “Jocasta is the icon.” End.
Message sent, Server 1 thought.
* * *
Cirrus lay on a padded table, listening to the murmur of voices as Qox and his ministers worked across the emperor’s office. They had pulled several divans around a table and holographs lay scattered on the furniture. Several ministers had gold dinner platters balanced on their knees.
The chill on Cirrus’s bare skin made her shiver. Izar Vitrex, the Minister of Intelligence, had returned to the divan and now sat with his head leaning back, his eyes closed. The others were deep in their meeting, intent on their files and palmtops, planning strategies against the Allieds.
Qox glanced at Vitrex with a hint of a smile. Then he turned to Trade Minister Kryx Quaelen. “Your pleasure, Lord Kryx?”
Quaelen looked up. “My honor at your hospitality, Your Highness.” He set his platter on the table, moved his shoulders to work out kinks, then stood and bowed to the others.
Then he walked across the room to Cirrus.
* * *
Alone in the privacy of the emperor’s personal suite, after a luxurious bath, with her hair washed and a soft wrap around her body, Cirrus felt relief. The worst was over. All she had to do now was report, a far easier task than keeping her mind open while the emperor’s advisers occupied themselves with her.
If a Highton offered the hospitality of his possessions to his guests, then political expediency disguised as etiquette required they treat his property well. So Cirrus wasn’t physically hurt. But she hated them all.
When she had been the emperor’s favored provider, she had taken refuge from him in her mind, creating a mental sanctuary where she wandered among gleaming white columns near a lavender sea, talking with ephemeral beings. Eventually Qox lost interest in her. After that she lived a quiet life in her small house on the palace grounds, imagining her sanctuary.
One day she realized that as she talked to her imagined beings, she was also talking to herself, out loud. She stopped doing it, and after that she began to recover. For the first time in her life she actually enjoyed being alive. She began to visit with the elderly slave who lived on the other side of the garden, a woman who had provided for Qox’s father and now lived in peace, ignored by the current emperor.
Then Qox called for her again, this time because he wanted a child. Eventually she gave birth to a son. Qox came every ten days to visit them, a formal and distant emperor who spoke to his son with adult words the boy rarely understood. Qox still sent Cirrus to the bodysculptors to keep her appearance the way he liked it, but he otherwise ignored her. Her next seven years were spent in contentment, raising her son.
Then Qox wanted her for yet another reason. She was one of his most powerful psions, rated eight on the Kyle Scale. Only one person in every hundred million had a mind as strong as hers. So now she waited in his suite, curled into a fetal position on his sofa.
After a while, Qox came in and strode over to her. He sat down, then pulled her into his arms and slid his hands inside her wrap, over her washed and perfumed body.
“You feel warm,” he said.
Cirrus made herself smile.
He leaned his head back on the couch. “What do you have for me tonight?”
“Minister Vitrex’s baby son.”
Qox yawned. “Everyone knows Vitrex has an heir.”
“He doesn’t.” She hesitated. “Have an heir, I mean.”
That got his attention. He lifted his head. “Meaning?”
“The boy isn’t his son. It was sired on his wife by one of her providers. She didn’t want her baby to be a slave so she bribed the genetics team to lie.” Cirrus was unsure about the bribe; like all Hightons, Vitrex knew how to fog his thoughts when he was with a provider. “She had the boy altered to look like a Highton.”
“So.” Qox gave her an appraising look. “This could be useful. If it bears out.”
Cirrus flushed. “I swear I would never make up—”
“I know.” He set his fingers against her lips. “You’ve done well.”
“There’s more.”
“Yes?”
“It’s Trade Minister Quaelen.” She hesitated, knowing useful information would be rewarded but afraid to stir his anger. Even if his ire was against someone else, she was the one here. “What he thinks and the way he acts have great differences in them.”
Dryly he said, “If you find this a revelation about people, you have lived an even more sheltered life than I thought.”
“It’s his thoughts about you, Your Highness.”
“Indeed?”
“He—well, he only pretends to honor you.”
“And inside he loathes me. I’ve known this for years.” Qox tugged down her wrap, pushing it to her waist. “Quaelen does a good job as Trade Minister. He remains loyal because I have always ignored the stain on his name.” Bending his head, he kissed her, his hand on her breast. “But he hates us all, knowing we are pure Highton and he is not.”
“He considers himself pure Highton.”
“I suppose.” Qox bit at her ear. “Anything else?”
“Minister Quaelen still thinks about your heir.”
The emperor froze. “Jaibriol?”
“Yes.” She could mean no one else. The empress had yet to produce another heir. Whispers in the palace claimed she was barren, that the deceased Jaibriol II would be her only child.
“What exactly does Minister Quaelen think?” Qox asked.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It was fuzzy. Old memories. I reminded him of Lord Jaibriol for some reason.”
“Ah, Cirrus.” Qox sat back from her. “I am sorry to hear you say that. Truly sorry. I have been fond of you.”
As soon as she saw his face and felt his emotions, her world stopped. She had just signed her death warrant. But why? What had she done?
One mistake showed itself immediately. She had told the emperor that one of his ministers had compared the Highton Heir to a slave. It was a deep insult to the Heir’s esteemed memory. But to kill her for that?
It hit her like ice water. If Minister Quaelen compared Jaibriol Qox to a provider, it implied the Highton Heir had the blood of a slave. That such a suggestion was false made no difference. If it became known that one of Qox’s powerful ministers believed it, it could start rumors no sane emperor dared risk.
And if it were true?
Qox walked to the nightstand by the bed and took a syringe gun out of its top drawer. Desperation swept Cirrus. Minister Quaelen was Highton, one having proven use to the emperor, an Ar
isto with his own political machine, the most powerful after the palace. She was nothing, only a provider, easy to dispense with.
As Qox came back to her, Cirrus grew frantic. “Please. I’ll never tell anyone.”
“I’m sorry.” Qox looked genuinely troubled. But he sat next to her and set the syringe against her neck.
She talked fast. “What about the next provider you use to spy on your advisers? What if she isn’t as loyal as I am, if she doesn’t tell you what she learns, but repeats it to others? How can you ever again risk using a provider to learn Quaelen’s secrets? At least you and I know this now. You know you can trust me.” She willed him to believe her. “You can trust me.”
“I doubt it,” Qox said. But he lowered the syringe. “Very well. You will continue to watch Quaelen for me. But you will stay here with your son, in a room off my suite, and see no one.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” Her voice shook. “You have my loyalty and my gratitude forever.” She knew he still might eventually kill her. But she had given herself time, enough to think of new ways to extend her life.
10
Kurj’s shuttle slowed on approach to the Orbiter, matching velocity and acceleration to the metal world. With one rotation every ninety seconds and a diameter of four kilometers, the sphere’s hull moved at eight kilometers per minute. For a conventional habitat, cylindrical or wheel-shaped, the shuttle could have come in at a center hub that didn’t rotate. For the Orbiter, no “hub” existed, so ships docked in the outer hull.
Kurj wondered why the Ruby Empire engineers had chosen a less conventional form for the Orbiter. The ancient habitat had survived many millennia since the fall of the empire, but the reason for its design was lost. After ISC found the ruined habitat drifting in space, they worked long and hard to remake it—for the Orbiter contained the First Lock.
Without Locks, the psiberweb would cease to exist. Telops, the telepathic operators trained to use the psiberweb, could access the web from any console, if it had the correct equipment, but the web’s creation and maintenance required the Locks. Three existed. Kurj had used the Orbiter Lock to join the Triad. The Second Lock was on Raylicon, ancestral home of the Ruby Empire, one of the best protected planets in the Imperialate. The Third Lock was a space station currently at Onyx Platform. To protect the Lock, the Onyx military complex had grown to twenty-three stations, becoming the largest ISC base—which was why ESComm had turned its interest to Onyx Sector, pushing its boundaries.