“What are you doing?” she growled.
One doctor, a plump woman with graying hair, exhaled in obvious relief. “We thought we were going to lose you.”
Soz sat up straight, then grimaced as her muscles protested. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting rigid in her chair, but every part of her ached.
“Imperator Skolia!” Barzun’s voice came over her ear comm. “Glory has called in reinforcements from all over Eube. If we’re going in to the planet, we have to do it now. If we aren’t out of here by the time reinforcements arrive, we’re dead.”
She rubbed her face, trying to focus. “What’s our status?”
“Eighty thousand ships,” Barzun said. “We’re cleaning up Glory’s orbiting defenses and firing on planetary nodes. We just got the Silicate Rift Military Complex on the Tarja Cape of Kuraysia. We’re avoiding civilian areas, except for the palace, which is packed with ESComm nodes. We’re trying to carve them out without destroying the rest of the palace.”
“Good,” Soz said. “Only military sites.” Billions of civilians lived on Glory, only a tiny fraction of them Aristos, and killing civilians violated both the Halstaad Code and Soz’s conscience.
She slapped her face, but it didn’t make her any more alert. The strain on her resources had gone beyond what her nanomeds could handle. She couldn’t remember when she had last slept. Focusing on the plump doctor, she said, “Give me a stimulant.”
“I don’t think you should,” the woman replied. “You’re pushing the limits of your endurance as it is.”
“Advice noted,” Soz said. “Now give me something.”
The doctor opened her mouth to protest. Soz glowered, and the woman raised her hands, conceding defeat. Then she dialed a prescription into her syringe and injected Soz.
A new clarity came over Soz’s thoughts. She spoke into her comm. “Barzun, are the d-teams ready?”
“They’re assembling in the drop-down bay,” he said.
“I’ll see them off.” Soz extricated herself from the chair, and the doctors moved back to give her room. She floated free, over the platform that anchored the catwalks stretching through the stardome to her command station. Below, the bridge personnel worked at consoles.
Soz pulled herself to a catwalk. As her boots touched it, one of her spinal nodes sent a command to her ankle sockets, which conveyed the command to the nanobots in the soles of her boots, ordering them to extend their molecular hooks so her boots adhered to the catwalk.
The walk swayed as she made her way to a hatch in the back wall of the bridge. The rotating body of the cruiser was separate from the bridge and extended out from it in a double-walled cylinder half a kilometer in diameter and several kilometers in length. She entered the cylinder at the center of its end cap, on its rotation axis, where no pseudo gravity would disorient a person transferring from the bridge to cylinder.
Soz floated into a circular chamber with chutes leading out in all directions, like spokes. When she entered one, weak gravity pulled her “down” toward the rim. As she progressed outward, gravity increased until she was slowly falling down the chute. She grasped the rung of a ladder on the wall and climbed the last ten meters.
At the bottom, the gravity was about one-tenth human standard. She opened a hatch and entered the main body of the cylinder, which ran parallel to the rotation axis. She ran along the metal hall in loping strides, sailing. When she rose into the air, Coriolis forces pushed her to the side, and she compensated with practiced nudges against the bulkheads.
Instead of heading to the drop-down bay, she wept to her office. People crammed it. Jagernauts. Twenty of them. They stood holding their drop-down gear, at attention as she entered, gauntleted men and woman in black uniforms. They raised their arms to salute her, fists clenched, wrists crossed.
“At ease,” Soz said. She had selected this group with excruciating care. Two were Blackstars. Four were Abaj. All were at least Secondary in rank and several were Primaries. None had families. No ties to a home or life. But their personality profiles showed they desired such ties, that indeed they sought them. As Jagernauts, they were all psions. She chose only those with the highest ratings, telepaths, seven or more on the scale. They came from across the Imperialate, men and women of many cultures, races, and backgrounds. A wide genetic pool.
“I want to make sure you all understand what being on this team means,” she said. “Regardless of what happens on the mission, you won’t be coming back. Ever. I can’t tell you more at this time, other than to say you will be serving Imperial Skolia. It will be a good life, one your profiles suggest suits you well. But you won’t be going home.” Quietly she added, “I’ve no intent to take anyone from a life you value. If you wish to join another drop-down team, there will be no loss of honor. But you must let me know now.”
They all stood watching her. No one spoke. They had already made their decisions.
“All right,” Soz said. “Let’s go.”
They moved through the cruiser in formation. Elevators took them “up” spokes to the nonrotating hub that stretched along the cylinder’s center like a giant pipe. The hub ended in launching pods at the aft end of the cruiser, where instead of having a second end cap, the cylinder was open to space. The huge thrusters mounted around its rim could provide an immense push, adding a component of gravity to the cruiser that pointed along the rotation axis instead of perpendicular to it.
At the hub, they entered a cavernous bay crowded with drop-down teams, all Jagernauts. Unlike special operations forces of the past, they brought only light packs for gear. Most of what they needed, they already carried within their bodies. It left them better able to carry more weapons, including laser carbines, EM projectile rifles, and missile launchers.
As Soz floated to a weapons rack, she spoke into her comm. “Barzun, the teams are ready to go.”
“We’re all set here,” Barzun said.
“Good.” At the weapons rack, Soz took a Jumbler she had already set to her brain patterns.
“Imperator Skolia,” Barzun said. “My sensors indicate you are arming yourself with weapons meant for the d-teams.”
She strapped on the Jumbler. “You’re a hell of a good commander, Chad.”
His voice exploded over her comm. “Are you out of your flaming mind? You will NOT go with them!”
Surrounded by her team, she floated to the launching chute and boarded a drop-down shuttle. Even without the psiberweb, her biomech still worked and EO signals still flooded Roca’s Pride. Being a Triad member had its advantages: she was thoroughly integrated into what remained of the Radiance web. So she monitored Barzun’s attempts to evade the blocks she had set up. His people tried everything from emergency shutdowns to short-circuiting the docking bay doors. They tried to deactivate the shuttle nodes and engines. When the launch sequence initiated anyway, Barzun started swearing, language she had never before heard from the conservative admiral.
Then the shuttle launched and dropped away from the cruiser, headed for the planet.
* * *
Althor lay on his back in the sweltering heat. When the door of his cell opened, he sat up, combing his fingers through his hair. But it wasn’t the girl with sky eyes and sun hair. He hadn’t seen her since the day she had cried in his arms and sworn she loved him. Today eight guards entered, accompanied by a tall man with Highton features.
The Highton regarded Althor. “Do you recognize me?”
Althor tried to remember. “You’re one of the palace ministers.”
“Which one?”
Althor shook his head.
“Do you know your own name?” the Highton asked.
“Althor.”
“That’s all? Althor?”
He hesitated. “Prince Althor Izam-Na Valdoria kya Skolia, Fifth Heir to the throne of the Ruby Dynasty, once removed from the line of Pharaoh, born of the Rhon.”
“That’s it?”
Althor knew there was more, but he couldn’t rememb
er. So he said nothing.
The minister considered him. “You’re going to have a son, you know.”
Althor froze. “What?”
“Cirrus is pregnant.”
“Who is Cirrus?”
The man smiled. “The little trill was all over you the last time she was here. Couldn’t control herself.”
“You mean that beautiful girl?” Althor couldn’t believe it. “She’s going to have a son? My son?”
“Quite so.”
His pleasure was fast replaced by a hollow sensation. “Why? She wouldn’t be pregnant unless you wanted her that way.”
“She’s prime stock, you know. I paid ten million for her.”
Althor tensed. “What are you going to do with my son?”
The minister beamed. “With you as the father and Cirrus as the mother, he will be top-quality. Better than top. I may even get more than ten million—ah!”
The Highton stumbled back as Althor lunged at him. Althor’s chains brought him up short before he even reached his feet, and he fell back on the cot. Rage hazed his mind. Provider. They were going to make his son a provider. His vision went red and he saw only the chains that kept him from killing the Aristo who would enslave his son. Althor fought with a single-minded violence until finally he dragged a ring out of the wall, the one that secured the chain attached to his left ankle.
A needle hit his chest. He ignored it, struggling with his other chains. Then languor spread through his body, draining his strength until he fell onto the cot and sagged against the wall. As his mind went dull, he saw the guards staring at him. The Highton tried to look calm, but nothing could hide the pallor of his face.
“Gods,” one of the guards muttered.
Althor watched them, his rage blunted by whatever drug they had given him. Gradually he absorbed what had happened. He had gone berserk. It had never happened before, even in battle. Apparently the past two years of interrogation had affected more than his memories. His higher functions had suffered as well, the shadings of intellect that separated civilized behavior from barbarism. He didn’t care. He had to protect his son.
A woman spoke. “I thought you deactivated his hydraulics.”
Althor turned to look. A woman stood in the doorway of his cell, a beauty even by Highton standards. He knew he should recognize her, but no memory came, only a sense of disquiet. And pain. He didn’t want to remember how he knew her.
“We did deactivate them,” the minister answered. He glanced uneasily at Althor. “It seems he has more reserves than we realized.”
“Reprogram him, Vitrex,” the woman said. “Now that you’re done with him, you can get rid of that speed and strength.”
Althor had known they would eventually redesign his biomech so they could use it to control him. If they were done with his interrogation, they no longer needed to worry about erasing data and could proceed with a full reconfiguration of his internal systems. It would take extensive operations, including brain surgery. Even more than the operations, though, he dreaded what he would lose. Having lived his entire adult life with enhancements, he would feel crippled without them.
He finally associated a name with the woman’s face. “Empress Viquara.”
“My greetings, Althor.” Her expression gentled. “Would you like a nicer home than this cell?”
“Yes,” he said, which was the truth.
“I’m going to bring you to the palace.”
He could guess why. His son wasn’t the only one they intended to make a provider. The drugs blunted his revulsion, but the idea still sickened him.
The other Highton, apparently Minister Vitrex, said, “I don’t think it’s wise to move him yet, not until we’re sure he can’t go berserk again.”
“How long do you need?” she asked.
“We should be able to deliver him this evening.”
She nodded. “Very well. Proceed.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Vitrex bowed, his fist placed to indicate optimism.
The empress departed with her Razers, leaving four guards with Vitrex. Two had air-syringe rifles, what they must have used to drug Althor. The other two had EM pulse rifles, which would have killed him instantly.
“Are you hungry?” Vitrex asked him.
“No.” It struck Althor as a strange question until he saw one of the guards working on a palmtop. That jogged his memory. They were checking his physiological responses while Vitrex talked to him, to see how he reacted to the drugs.
“Tell me something,” Vitrex said. “How did it feel to live without an owner? Did the lack of structure frighten you?”
“No,” Althor replied. “Does it frighten you?”
“Why would it frighten me?”
“No more reason exists for me to need an ‘owner’ than you.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Amazing.”
“How about you tell me something?” Althor said.
“You may ask.”
An edge came into Althor’s voice. “How is it that you people have convinced yourselves the rest of us are less than human? Do you think your wanting it to be true makes it that way?”
“Astonishing,” Vitrex said. “Even with half your mind gone, you still sound articulate.”
“My mind isn’t half-gone.”
“No? Perhaps we need to question you more.”
Althor tensed. “On the other hand, I can’t even remember your name.”
“Pity.”
He wasn’t sure what Vitrex considered a “pity,” that his prisoner couldn’t remember his name or that he had no excuse to interrogate him anymore.
“Minister Vitrex,” one of the guards said. “He’s responding normally.”
“Very well,” Vitrex said. “Bring him.”
The guards removed Althor’s chains and locked his wrists behind his back. They helped him stand up, but when they let go, his legs gave way and he sat back down on the cot.
Vitrex scowled. “Get him up, Kryxson.”
One of the guards unhooked an E-spring from his belt, a metal truncheon he activated by a switch in its handle. When he motioned at two other guards, they took Althor’s arms and stood him up. He tried to stay on his feet, but as soon as they let go, his legs folded and he sat down with a thud on the cot.
Althor looked up at Vitrex. “I can’t do it.”
Vitrex appraised him with a speculative glance, then gave a slight nod to Kryxson. The guard touched his truncheon to Althor’s neck, and a spark jumped from it to his skin. Althor jerked away, clenching his teeth against the shock. He tried to get up again, but his body wouldn’t cooperate.
As Kryxson raised the E-spring again, Althor said, “For gods’ sake. I’m trying.”
The other guard was working on his palmtop again. “Minister Vitrex, he could be telling the truth. We may have given him too much of the muscle relaxant.”
“I don’t like it.” Vitrex nodded to Kryxson. “Make sure he’s not faking it.”
Althor ducked as Kryxson swung the truncheon, but his locked wrists and the drugs in his body slowed him down, and the E-spring caught him square across the back. He gasped, from both the blow and the electric shock. Again he tried to rise and again he fell back on the cot.
Vitrex considered Althor, then glanced at the guard with the palmtop. “Can you counter the relaxant in his body without affecting the sedatives or neural dampers?”
Neural dampers? No wonder he felt groggy. Too much damper and he would walk around in a mental vacuum. It wouldn’t mute his empathic projection, though, which was all that mattered to the Aristos.
“I can start with a small dose,” the guard said.
“Proceed,” Vitrex said.
The guard injected Althor, and as the drug took effect his strength returned. This time when they helped him stand, he felt well enough to stay up. He sat down anyway, pretending to collapse.
Vitrex scowled. “Now what?”
Th
e guard worked on his palmtop. “I’m checking, sir.”
Basalt, Althor thought. Synthesize a chemical to resemble what they’re looking for, but that doesn’t relax my muscles. Although he had lost contact with Basalt long ago, the fact that his enhanced strength kicked in when he went berserk suggested the node still functioned, at least in part.
“The antidote isn’t working,” the guard said. “He has more relaxant in his system now than before.”
More? Basalt! Althor thought. Don’t overdo it.
“How can he have more?” Vitrex asked.
The guard hesitated. “I may have given him the wrong drug. The menu choices are right together.”
“Did you record what you did?”
“Not for one shot.”
Vitrex made an exasperated noise. “Next time record it.”
Althor felt the Razer’s uncertainty. He wondered if the Hightons realized that in training their taskmakers not to think for themselves, they conditioned them to make errors. Even this Razer, who was part Aristo, hesitated when he should have questioned.
“Try another dose,” Vitrex said. “But keep it small.”
The Razer administered a shot. After waiting for it to take effect, the guards stood Althor up again. And again Althor let himself fall back on the cot.
The guard checked his palmtop. “The levels are decreasing, sir. Not enough, but we’re getting there.”
“I don’t trust this.” Vitrex motioned to Kryxson. “Encourage him to get up.”
So Kryxson went to work again. Althor tried to evade the blows, but the Razer worked him over with an expertise that suggested a long practice in beating people with pipes. Althor gritted his teeth—and when they put him on his feet he let himself collapse again.
So it continued, Kryxson alternating “encouragement” with the other guards’ standing Althor up. He soon regretted his deception. He kept at it only because he feared even more what would happen if they realized he had feigned the whole thing. Kneeling on the floor where he had fallen the last time, he closed his eyes, trying to dissociate his mind from the blows.