The mercenary leader spoke. “What do you mean, ‘hideously deformed’? We’re promising to deliver a healthy Jagernaut.”
“Deliver where?” Althor said.
Bloodmark turned to the leader. “He’s quite healthy, I assure you.”
“If there’s a problem,” the leader said, “we damn well better talk about it now.”
“Althor is as physically perfect as human science can make a man,” Bloodmark said.
“Human science?” the leader said. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Ragnar, stop,” Althor said.
Bloodmark glanced at him like a sculptor admiring his work. He turned back to the leader. “He was born with that face. A beautiful child. And that magnificent Rhon brain of his. Unfortunately, that was all he had.” He made a disgusted sound. “Any other two people as closely related as his parents, with such a proclivity for genetic defects, would never have been allowed to breed. But not so for the Rhon. No attempt to make more of them is too desperate.”
“What was wrong with him?” the leader asked.
“Stop it.” Althor stood up, hands still tied behind his back. His guards grasped his upper arms roughly, holding him in place. “He was born without legs,” Bloodmark said. “Left arm and hand deformed, lower right arm missing. One kidney, and that defective. Only part of one lung. Defective heart. Defective liver. Skeletal sections missing. No spleen. Only partial digestive system. He had a stomach, though. You could see it every time you looked at him. He was missing entire portions of the right side of his body.” He grimaced. “It was disgusting.”
“Christ.” The leader motioned at Althor. “And now he looks like that?”
Bloodmark nodded. “We removed him prematurely from the womb because he had more chance of surviving in an artificial environment where we could work on him. We studied his genes to determine what he might have been without his—defects. And then we rebuilt him into that human. It took ten years to make him whole, and another ten to ensure the biomech grew properly with the rest of him.”
Althor said nothing, just stared at Bloodmark. He looked as if he had been kicked in the stomach.
“I don’t like it,” the leader said.
The doctor spoke. “Commander Selei is sound, sir. It’s true, he does carry more biomech than any other case I know of. It’s rarely done on children; only in situations like this when it’s their only chance of survival. But all Jagernauts have webs, so it’s assumed we’ll be delivering biomech.” He walked over to Althor and pointed out his shoulder, as if Althor were an expensive piece of equipment. “My concern is the damage to his web.” He indicated the transcom socket. “This will also need a replacement unit, one without weapons capability. Otherwise, the socket will spoil.” He tilted his helmet down to the admiral. “These problems could cause rancor.”
Bloodmark nodded. He spoke to the leader. “We’ll offer to renegotiate, so it doesn’t look as if we are trying to cheat on the terms.”
“Damn it,” Althor said. “Cheat who?”
Watching him, I had a feeling he knew. But I had no idea. One thing I had no doubt about, though: Bloodmark didn’t want to answer. It was a long moment before he turned back to Althor— and said:
“We’re selling you to Kryx Iquar.”
At first Althor didn’t react. He just stared at the admiral. Then, slowly, he sat down.
“Who is Kryx Iquar?” I asked.
Althor looked at me. “The Eubian Trade Minister.”
“Who are the Eubians?” I asked.
“We also call them Traders,” Bloodmark said.
My heart stuttered. “You’re giving Althor to them?"
“Not giving,” one of Althor’s guards said, turning her helmet toward me. “Trading. For more frigging wealth than the yearly gross product of the entire Allied Worlds.”
Althor was finally starting to react. “Ragnar, gods, why?" Bloodmark sat next to him and spoke more quietly, as if revealing the full extent of his betrayal allowed him to drop the defensiveness that had masked his guilt. “A fake Allied extremist group is claiming credit for your abduction. After the trade takes place, the Eubian ministry will announce they purchased you, and how. The Allieds will of course condemn the action. Apologies and disclaimers will proliferate. But the damage will be done.”
Althor stared at him. “That will destroy any hope of any alliance between our people and the Allieds.”
“Yes. It will.”.
“Ragnar, you’re going to start a war.”
“Actually, I’m trying to end one.”
“How? The Traders have the third Lock.” Althor swallowed. “They can use me as a Key. Once they have that, we lose our advantage over them.”
“Advantage?” Bloodmark snorted. “We have lived with four hundred and fifty years of hostilities. Every time it erupts into full-scale war, it devastates billions of lives.”
“You would rather the Traders conquer us?”
“Favorable terms are being arranged.” The admiral sighed. “Your family is flawed, Althor. I’ve seen firsthand what it does to hold a handful of humans responsible for such a crucial portion of our defense. Even if your family were the epitome of human perfection, it would destroy you. Shall we draw this out in a long, bloody war? Better to cut our losses now. I learned long ago when to order a retreat.”
“How can you believe that?” Althor asked. “We’ve served the Net for five centuries. It’s growing stronger, not weaker. And with help from the Allieds, we’ll have a chance of recovering the third Lock.”
“The net is growing,” Bloodmark said. “Bigger and stronger are not the same. Even with three Keys, the job of powering and maintaining it was almost impossible. Now, with just your mother and ybur uncle, it’s killing them. How much longer can this continue? The psibernet will collapse; not today, not tomorrow, but soon.”
Althor’s fists clenched behind his back. “You want to be on the side you think will win.”,When Bloodmark didn’t answer, Althor said, “You’re a fool. The Traders don’t want ‘terms.’ They want to own the Imperialate and Allied Worlds. Period.”
“ ‘Own’ is a relative term. Most Trader subjects live comfortable lives.” Bloodmark stood up. “And when the Imperialate becomes part of the Concord, a select few of us will have a more—honored status.' The freedom to pick and choose from among choicer options.”
I could guess where Bloodmark was going: Althor’s mother was the choicest “option” of all. I don’t think Althor saw it then; he was too close to the situation. But he understood the rest of what Bloodmark meant. He spoke in a cold voice. “What you mean is the freedom to own people.” When the admiral didn’t answer, Althor said, “Did it ever occur to you that our citizens don’t want this choice you plan to make for them?”
“It has already been made.” Bloodmark spoke more gently. “If it helps any to know—we intended your Jag to explode when you reinverted on approach to Earth. The group that supposedly arranged your kidnapping would have claimed credit for the destruction. We had doubts this was as effective as an arrangement with Kryx Iquar, the other option we laid the groundwork for. And it certainly wasn’t as lucrative, to put it mildly.” He paused. “But it had the advantage of not requiring we hand you over to the Traders.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Althor asked. Bloodmark sighed. “Althor, I would have preferred it be someone else in your family. But you are, I am afraid, the least-well-guarded member of the Rhon.”
Althor just turned his head away. Bloodmark watched him, then walked back to the mercenary leader. “Contact Iquar’s people. Inform them of the damage to Commander Selei and renegotiate the deal. The damage is relatively minor. Allow only correspondingly minor changes in the agreement.”
“What if they won’t go with that?” the leader asked.
“They will,” Bloodmark said. “They want him. But be careful. I want no rancor.”
“Understood.”
‘And kill the girl,” Bloodmark s
aid. “She’s seen too much.”
“No!” Althor stood up. “She won’t try to escape.”
“Contact my ship when you’ve settled on terms,” Bloodmark told the leader.
“Yes, sir.”
Bloodmark headed for the airlock, where his bodyguard waited. I stared at him, feeling sick, unable to absorb the full import of his words.
“Ragnar!” Althor’s composure dissolved. “Gods, man, don’t do this to her.”
Bloodmark paused in the airlock, still facing away from Althor. After a moment he glanced at the leader. “Let her stay with him until we return.”
Then he left.
I closed my eyes, aware only of my heart pounding. An armored hand touched my elbow. As I opened my eyes, a mercenary nudged me froward. A slab of stone opened outward from the wall, revealing a stone hallway.
They led us through a maze of marble tunnels. Our trip ended in a bare room that looked like the interior of a seamless polished box. After the waroids returned to the hall, beyond Althor’s reach, the leader stood in the doorway, his armor reflecting the walls, black with red veins. He spoke in his language and lights flickered on the mesh that bound Althor’s wrists. Gathering itself back into a cord, it whisked off Althor. It sped across the floor to the leader as he opened a compartment in his armor, then climbed up his body and snapped into the compartment.
“You have several hours before we leave,” the leader said. “You can stay with your wife until then.” He stepped back and the wall closed.
Althor just stood there, rubbing his wrists, staring at the smooth wall. Then he drew me into an embrace. “Gods, Tina. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you got pulled into this.”
I hugged him around the waist, my face buried against his chest. As he bent his head over mine, a pressure pushed against my mind.
Tina?
Louder, I thought. I can barely hear you.
We are sure to be monitored in here. His thought faded… .musn’t find out… only Stonehedge knows… treaty…your Kyle rating? I don’t understand…
It’s the Jag. I tried to shout the thought. It did something to me.
Althor tilted up my head so that I was looking into his face, but I still picked up nothing. He kissed me, bringing us even closer together… yyo te amo. ’Akushtina.
“And I you,” I whispered. Te amo. I love you.
His voice caught. “As long as we both shall live.”
15
The Cylinder
Our cell was exactly what it looked like: a hollow cube with no exits, at least not any we could find. So we sat against one wall, arms wrapped around each other, staring into the empty interior of the cube.
After a while, I said, “I’m sorry about Bloodmark.”
Althor swallowed. “So am I.”
“What he said—about rebuilding you…”
“It’s true. In fact, he underplayed it.”
“It’s incredible. You’re beautiful.”
It was a moment before he answered. “I’ve never lost the sense I formed in my childhood, that my body is hideous.” He hesitated. “Does it bother you?”
I looked up at him. “No.”
He touched my cheek. “I still carry the genes. If I have children with a woman who carries the same alleles, they could be born like me. Or worse. At least my brain was intact.”
“Then you should have children with someone who doesn’t carry them.”
His voice caught. “Like you.”
I laid my head against his chest. “I don’t want to die.”
“Gods, Tina, I wish they would take me in your place.”
“I don’t want you to die, either.”
“Nor I.” We sat silent then, out of words, staring at nothing. Some time later I became aware of his body shaking. I looked up and saw tears running down his face. “Althor—” I touched the wetness on his face.
He spoke softly. “I loved him like a father.”
“I’m sorry.” I kept saying that. It sounded so useless. Apparently all my prayers had done no good at all. True, Althor wasn’t going to die. I was. What they were doing to him was worse than death.
“Do you believe in God?” I asked.
“Yes.” He stroked my hair, his voice damp like his face. “More than one, actually. Our supreme being isn’t a ‘god,’ though. She’s female.”
“Then why do you say ‘for gods’ sakes.’”
“It’s the English translation of a Skolian idiom. Literally it means ‘for the sake of any above-spirits that may notice me.’ The spirits don’t have a sex.”
“Can you pray to your Goddess?”
He laid his cheek against my head. “I tried. She doesn’t hear. Or maybe she doesn’t exist. Maybe Ixa Quelia is no more than the desperate mythology of a dying people.”
“Ix Chel?”
“Ixa Quelia.”
“Ix Chel is the Maya moon goddess.”
“Raylicon has no moon, other than in our legends, probably brought by our ancestors from Earth. Ixa Quelia is the goddess of fertility. Fire. The night. Life.”
Life. No wonder he thought she hadn’t heard.
Eventually we dozed, half awake and half asleep. After a while I became aware of voices. Opening my eyes, I saw mirrored armor filling the room. Admiral Bloodmark stood in the doorway.
As Althor and I stood up, Bloodmark spoke. “We’ve been in contact with Iquar’s people.”
Althor tensed. “And?”
Bloodmark motioned at me. “Iquar wants her too.”
“No!” Althor pulled me against him. “She’s not even an empath. Your people tested her.”
“We sent him holos.” Bloodmark shrugged. “He wants both of you, as compensation for our delivering damaged equipment.”
“Ragnar, don’t do this to her. Let her go.”
Bloodmark came forward, through the forest of waroids. “At least this way she’ll live. You may even get to see her.” He glanced at the mercenary nearest him- “Bind him.”
They shouldn’t have come into the room when Althor’s arms were free, no matter how much they thought they had subdued him. He lunged at the nearest waroid, moving so fast that his reflection in its armor became a gold smear. He grabbed its mirrored arm and swung it around, hurtling its bulk into two others. They crashed together and toppled, the grating clang of their armor echoing off the polished stone walls.
Then he went after Bloodmark.
They blurred. Two human machines in battle. Althor’s attack threw them forward and in the loW gravity they sailed at a wall, feet off the floor. Bloodmark twisted, knocking Althor off balance, but Althor used the admiral’s momentum to wheel him around. They hit a waroid, still grappling with each other, but as fast as the mercenary reacted, Althor was faster, shoving against it so that he and Bloodmark spun away before it could grab him. Althor and Bloodmark wresded together, feet skimming the polished floor as they tried to throw each other.
The waroids shouted, strange filtered calls. Three aimed their weapons, tubes with bulky handles. But they didn’t shoot, not with Althor and Bloodmark locked together and moving fast. The fighters hit a wall and rebounded, moving like flashes of moonlight on sea waves at night, silver and black, blurred water rolling on a shadowed beach. They crashed past me, coming so close that I felt the heat generated by their reactors.
They lost their balance, and Althor swung Bloodmark under him as they hit the floor. For one instant they made a frozen tableau, Althor with his hands around Bloodmark’s neck, strangling him—
The shot came as an explosion of compressed air. It hit Althor in the chest and threw him backward, wrenching him away from Bloodmark. Four waroids dragged him up against the wall, pinning his arms and legs. Althor swore and tried to pull away, but four human fortresses were more than he could overcome. .
Bloodmark stood up, rubbing his throat. “Is there any more damage?”
The doctor pulled out his med clip and stepped over to Althor. As Althor struggled, one of the wa
roids pulled back his head, exposing his throat, “Don’t knock him out,” Bloodmark said.
The doctor swiveled his helmet to Bloodmark. “It will make him more manageable.”
“Iquar’s people want his reaction time slowed,” Bloodmark said. “He’s no good to Iquar if the only way to control him is to knock him out. You’ll need a neural suppressant that affects his reflexes without diminishing his empathic responses. If sedatives are in his system, it could affect your treatment.”
“I understand.” The doctor replaced the clip. While the other waroids held Althor’s head back, he pressed his tape against Althor’s neck and the rotating holos appeared, “A few more optic threads around the shoulder region ripped. But the damage is minor. It should repair itself before we rendezvous.”
“Good,” Bloodmark. said. “Now restrain him properly this time.”
They bound Althor’s wrists, then took us back through the building. Four waroids flanked Althor, one on each side holding his upper arm. One walked with me, silent except for the hiss of its armor every now and then. I wondered what it became when it took off the armor. A man or woman with a normal life, family, friends? It was impossible to imagine.
We left the building and crossed the glassy plain, moving in the low gravity with dreamlike languorous steps. As we walked, the quality of the light changed, becoming softer, like starlight. I looked up. Far overhead, the dome was opening, revealing a black sky studded with stars. They resembled jewels, their colors far more vivid than when seen on Earth. In fact, they were as bright as on the holomaps in the Jag—a view created by the near vacuum of space.
“Wait!” I stopped walking, my heart pounding. “We have to go back. To the building. We’re losing air.”
The waroid grabbed my arm, forcing me to go with him. Ahead of us, Althor twisted around to look, then stumbled as his guards yanked him forward.
Bloodmark slowed down to walk with me. “There is plenty of air.”
I pointed at the dome opening above us. “Not out there.”
“Can you see a glint of light, like a curtain?”
By squinting, I could just make out a familiar soap-bubble shimmer far above us. “What is it?”