He swore softly. “To be cruel. Damzarine blocks the neural receptors in your brain that process the sensations of orgasm. You can become aroused but you can’t climax.”
She folded her fingers around his, not understanding, just wanting to hold his hand.
He felt her face with his other palm. “You have a fever.”
“Hot,” she agreed.
“Did they give you kerradonna?”
“I think so. What is it?”
“A poison.”
Poison? “Have I done something wrong?”
“Gods, no.” He kissed her, running his tongue over her swollen lips. “You’re an angel.”
“Why would they poison me?”
“In low dosages, kerradonna is an aphrodisiac.”
“A what?”
“It makes you want to love me.”
“I do.”
He laid his head next to hers. “Why is it so important to them that we make love?”
“I’m your reward. For cooperating. Last time I wasn’t enthusiastic enough. So they made me better.”
“You were fine last time.” His face gentled and he fitted her to him, bringing his lips to hers.
The next time they went slower. Through his mind she felt him trying to help her finish. But she couldn’t. Finally he groaned and let go, this release even more intense than the first. When she realized he was done, she was so worked up from the drugs that she cried, as much from anger at Vitrex as from frustration. Althor held her, murmuring comfort, until she calmed down. His embrace relaxed then and she felt him submerge into sleep.
Too restless to sleep, she lay watching him, almost content in the shelter of his kindness.
* * *
Soz floated in psiberspace, within a shimmering mesh. As she slowly came awake, she realized she couldn’t be in the web. She wasn’t even plugged into the chair here in the Solitude Room.
Starlight bathed the chamber. Her neck ached from sleeping on it at an odd angle. She pushed her hands through her hair, trying to wake up. Too many days with too little sleep had left her groggy. She could almost feel the meds in her body trying to compensate, synthesizing molecules to provide energy.
“Soz?” The voice came from behind her.
With a jerk, Soz looked around. Dehya was standing in the shadows.
Her aunt walked to the chair. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“How did you get in here?” Soz rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t hear the door open.”
“You were asleep.”
“Only dozing. I would have heard.”
Dehya leaned against the console in front of her, “Taquinil and I finished our work on the fleet assembly problem.”
Soz tried to focus on her. For some reason, her aunt’s body seemed blurred. “You found a solution?”
“Many of them, some cumbersome, others less so. We gave Tahota the least clumsy ones.” Dehya shrugged. “To implement any of them will require many telops, working together, solving as many simultaneous coupled equations as there are ships in the fleet. But it should work. In theory.”
“In theory.”
Dehya spread her hands. “That’s what I am. A theorist. The engineering I must leave to others.”
“Professor Rasmuss says you were right about Klein space phases. If we can find a way to keep the larger field in phase with the smaller, it will probably solve the problem.”
“I hope so.”
Soz rubbed the kink in her neck. “We’re going to do it. We’re going in to Eube. I’m not sure when. But we’re going.”
Her aunt continued to watch her, and Soz had an eerie sense that Dehya was dissolving. When the Pharaoh spoke, her words seemed to drift in from a distance. “Don’t wait too long.”
“Why?”
Dehya exhaled. It was a curious sound, like a wind blowing in trees as a storm approached. “The solutions converged. But I can’t read much from them.”
Soz poked her ear, trying to fix whatever problem in her audio enhancements made Dehya sound so odd. “The solutions?”
“My predictions.”
“What do you predict?”
“Upheavals. But it’s buried in noise. The noise of many possible futures.” Dehya tilted her head and her eyes caught the starlight. “Right now the future is malleable. But I can say this: Go to Eube now. Don’t wait.”
“We aren’t ready yet.”
“It’s something about Glory. There may be somewhere else you have to go? You have to make a choice. You have to lose something.” She turned her head as if looking at visions Soz couldn’t see. “You have to choose.”
“War is always a matter of choices,” Soz said.
“I asked Eldrin to go to Earth.”
Soz had given up trying to follow her aunt’s mental leaps. Dehya’s mind formed connections so fast, in such detail, that her comments only touched the surface of her thoughts. Soz had discovered that if she just went with it, she could usually fill in her gaps of understanding later. In any case, she could guess what her brother had said. “He’s not going to leave you here.”
Dehya scowled. “He told me I should go to safety, not him.”
“That sounds like Eldrin.”
“He is as stubborn as a hammerheaded skybolt.”
“He’s a man who loves his wife and son. Did you really think he would leave without you?”
“You don’t see.” Dehya leaned forward, her words collecting in drifts of sound. “He could be hurt. Killed. Worse.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” Frustration creased her face. “I get glimpses and glimpses, a million futures fluttering, fanning, filling my mind. He’s there; he isn’t. You’re there; you aren’t. I exist; I cease to exist.”
Soz squinted at her. “I think you spend too much time in the web.”
“Go to Glory now. Don’t wait.”
“We need more preparations.”
“You won’t have this chance again.” Dehya became translucent, her body fading into the ghost web that spanned the Solitude Room. The chamber dissolved, leaving only the web to fill space, a shimmering mesh floating in space.
Go now, Dehya whispered. Don’t wait.
Soz’s eyes snapped opened and she sat up with a start. She was in the Solitude Room, her neck aching from sleeping in the wrong position. She looked around the chamber. No ghost web, no ghost sea, no ghost Dehya.
The comm on her chair arm buzzed. Rubbing her neck, she touched the glowing button. “Skolia here.”
“Imperator Skolia, this is Admiral Tahota. We have results from the Pharaoh and her son for the fleet assembly problem. Do you want to meet to go over them? They gave me several possible options.”
Soz stared at the comm, remembering her dream. Coincidence? “Yes,” she said. “We’ll meet in—” She checked her chronometer psicon. “Fourteen minutes, at oh five hundred this morning. Notify the cabinet.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
“Very good. Switching out.”
After Soz closed the link, she stared at the stars. Dehya?
Her aunt’s thought whispered across her mind. Go now.
26
Onyx Platform glittered, twenty-three habitats, ranging from small wheels with a few thousand inhabitants to double-barreled giants that housed millions. It resembled a cluster of gem-studded flowers that on approach transformed into a mammoth city of space stations alive with sparkling lights. “Smooth” surfaces resolved into cranes, antennae, docking ports, control towers, all dwarfing the ships that came to call. And many came: Wasps, Cobras, Asps, Scythes, Leos, Scorpions, Jack-knives, Starslammers, Thunderbolts; Jag starfighters, Needle Spacewings, Ram camouflage tanks; tugs, bolts, masts, rafts, booms, blades, fists. Firestorm battle cruisers loomed among their smaller brethren, metropolises themselves, yet only specks next to the habitats.
The Third Lock was a small wheel a quarter-kilometer across, with a tower at its hub that extended perpendicular to the wheel. From far away it looked
like a spire of glistening lace above a gilded disk. The Lock rotated in space, protected by the most massive military complex ever built by humanity.
In year 372 of the Imperial Calendar, a sentinel one light-year from Onyx sent warning: a Eubian force had been detected on approach.
A large force.
Two million vessels.
* * *
Soz strode toward the Orbiter docking bay, the gold helmet of her armor under her arm, her Jagernaut bodyguards ahead and behind her. With his long legs, Tikal had no trouble keeping up. Nor did the pace interfere with his anger.
“Get this straight,” he said. “ISC is under civilian control. I don’t give a flaming damn how many people say otherwise. You answer to me, Imperator Skolia. And I forbid it.”
Soz came to a halt and Tikal stopped next to her, as did the Jagernauts. “How do you plan on keeping me here?” she asked.
Tikal glanced at the Jagernauts. “Take Imperator Skolia to her home in Valley. She is to remain there until the Fourth Squadron of the Pharaoh’s Army leaves the Orbiter.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir,” the first Jagernaut said.
“Negative, sir,” the second said.
“Do you understand the word ‘court-martial’?” Tikal gave them a chance to consider the question. Then he said, “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. You are to hold the Imperator in her home until the Fourth Squadron has left this base.”
Soz watched the Jagernauts. She knew the magnitude of what she was asking from them; if Tikal pressed charges, their military careers had just ended. The question of who truly ruled Skolia had long plagued the relations of her family with the Assembly, and through them, with the rest of the Imperialate.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the first said.
“I can’t obey your order, sir,” the second said.
Tikal gave them hard looks. Then he turned to Soz. “You won’t leave this base without my permission.”
“Barcala, I need to do this.”
“Why? You can monitor almost everything from the War Room.”
Soz shook her head. “I can only access web nodes, That hardly includes ‘everything.’ And what if something happens to the web links?”
“We can’t risk you.” He made a frustrated noise. “How do I get through that cast-iron skull of yours?”
She grinned and knocked her head with her fist. “Can’t do it.”
He didn’t crack a smile. “Do you see Empress Viquara going into space? The days when warrior queens rode at the front of the army ended five thousand years ago.”
“What ‘front of the army’? I’ll be inside the Asteroid weapons platform, far behind the Radiance Fleet. And my officers are even more fanatic about my safety than you are.”
“You’re safer here.”
“You have two Triad members here. That’s not safe. We need to split up.”
“Then go to Parthonia.”
“I’m needed on Asteroid.”
“Ur Qox believed he was safe. You see the result.”
“He made a mistake. He underestimated Kurj.”
“And you’re going to die taking out Qox’s son?”
If only you knew, Soz thought. “I’m asking you to trust my judgment.”
“Skolia can’t afford to risk a member of the Triad.”
“Skolia can’t afford to risk failure of this operation.”
“You think your presence could make that difference?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his head, pushing his fingers against his temples. With a wince, he dropped his arms. “I served in the Imperial Fleet forty years ago. But I’ve no military mind. When the cards are played, I’m a politician. My advisers tell me you’re a military genius. They say if you believe we should send the Radiance Fleet to Glory now instead of waiting, they support you. What does that leave me with? Do I trust my judgment or yours? Mine screams to keep you here.”
She spoke in a quiet voice. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You’ve been Imperator less than two years. Why are you so sure?”
She spread her hands. “What can I tell you, some cliché about how it’s in my blood? When I was six years old I started organizing the other children into infantry. When I was ten I spent all my free time reading military strategy texts meant for adults. When I was fourteen I took Althor’s Jumbler apart while he was home on leave and put it back together keyed to my mind instead of his. I entered DMA a year early and took three years to finish a four-year program. I was the youngest person in ISC history to receive the rank of Jagernaut Secondary. Do you want me to continue? Don’t ask me why I’m sure. I just am.”
For a long moment he stood watching her. Finally he blew out a gust of air. “I’m going to regret this.”
“You won’t.” She set off again, headed for the docking bay.
“Soz,” Tikal said.
She stopped to look back. He was standing in the corridor, his lanky form silhouetted against the gleaming walls.
“Good luck,” he said.
She smiled. “Thanks.” Then she took off, striding to meet the Pharaoh’s Army.
* * *
Starjack Tahota’s voice snapped in the air of her office. “How many sentries have picked up the incoming fleet?”
“We’ve reports from thirty-seven now,” Colonel Raines said. “They all say the same. The incoming fleet consists of about two million ships. They’re forming a sphere around Onyx Platform five light-years in diameter.”
Tahota swore to the empty air. Physically she was the only person in her office on New Metropoli, the largest space habitat at Onyx. But consoles and holobooths filled the room, alive with images and sound. Some displays showed Onyx, others the Trader fleet assembling out of superluminal space, yet others her staff meeting with simulacrums of herself. They all sent her reports via IR signals. Her spinal nodes analyzed the data and either responded or else queued the analysis for download into her mind. A file labeled urgent she read immediately; otherwise she went through the queue in order.
Unlike with Jagernauts, no regulations required that Tahota have a biomech web. As a naval officer trained at Jacob’s Military Institute on the world Foreshires Hold, she had an impeccable and conservative background, one as bound by the traditions of Ruby Empire warfare as by modern cybernetics. But like most high-ranked ISC officers, she chose to have extensive biomech added to her body. It was the only way to handle the flood of information needed to do her job. Now she paced her office, her mind swapping among her nodes, her thoughts, her queue of files, and her staff.
She stopped in front of a holo that showed the sphere of ESComm ships. “How fast are they dropping into normal space?”
“Too fast,” Colonel Raines said, his voice coming out of the air. “It’s only taken thirty minutes to reassemble what we estimate is over 10 percent of their fleet.”
Tahota whistled. With two million ships, the fleet should have acquired a huge spread in space and time. To reassemble this fast, they had to be using telops. Without a psiberweb, they could maintain only crude links, but it would be better than nothing.
“Do you have a reply from Rail Sector yet?” Tahota asked.
“They’re giving us two thousand ships,” Raines said. “ETA is two hours.”
“That’s it. Two thousand?”
“That’s it.”
Tahota clenched her fist. She knew where the bulk of the Rail Sector forces had gone, along with ISC forces from all over the Imperialate. Hidden in inversion, they were stealing toward Glory like a cloud of stealth raiders, assembling into a camouflaged fleet of 800 thousand ships.
The Traders, however, were making no attempt to hide their attack on Onyx. No way existed, within ESComm’s technological capabilities, to disguise such a massive fleet.
“Colonel Raines,” Tahota said. “Verify our numbers here at Onyx. I’m reading 283 thousand ships.”
“With the reinforcements from the Reef Periphery, we’re up to 286 t
housand.”
“How many more do we have coming in?”
After a pause, he said, “We’ll probably make it to 300 thousand before the Traders arrive.”
Tahota didn’t need her huge staff to state the obvious. The normal complement of ships at Onyx numbered 600 thousand. Had the usual reinforcements been available, they could have kicked that up to over 900 thousand. Given the superior ISC technology and communications, they would have had a chance against the monster assembling out there in space. But a child could read the odds now. They had less chance than an ice crystal in hell.
Except that hidden out in space was an ISC fleet that could swell their ranks to over a million, a fleet armed with technology the Traders had no clue existed.
Tahota went to a console set apart from the others. She clicked her wrist gauntlet into it and a voice rumbled, “Security verified. Dedicated line open.”
“Put me through to Imperator Skolia.” And then Tahota said, “Code One.”
* * *
“Absolutely not!” General Stone hit the table with his fist. “If we split the Radiance Fleet, we lose everything.”
Like most everyone in the Strategy Room, his “presence” was a simulacrum. His fist made no sound, but his anger needed no physical manifestation to give it reality. People packed the room: General Stone, General Majda, Primary Tapperhaven, Admiral Tahota; the generals and admirals who served as Operations, Plans, Communications, Logistics, Intelligence, and Security; deputy officers, lower ranked generals and colonels; telops from Onyx, HQ, Raylicon, and the Radiance Fleet; and the Inner Assembly. As a simulacrum herself, Soz “stood” in a corner, behind the crowd. Across the room, the flesh-and-blood Tikal also stood in silence, also listening.
General Majda thundered at Stone. “If we leave Onyx out there with only 300 thousand ships, it will be a massacre.”
Logistics spoke. “Onyx has almost no civilians.”
Tahota’s face took on an inward quality as she accessed her biomech web. “The current population is 2.2 billion. About 4.9 percent are civilians.” Her attention focused out again. “That’s 108 million, including 1086 children under sixteen.”
Domestic Affairs stared at her. “What the hell are you doing with children on weapons platforms?”