I listened while they hammered out details. Delos was a crux of some kind and I needed time to figure out why. Yamada obviously didn’t believe we had brought an entire fleet here for a vacation. He didn’t press the point; we outnumbered and outgunned his defenses fifty times over. I suspected he thought we intended to occupy Delos. Given the situation with Earth, such a move made sense, a way to prèssure them into releasing their Ruby Dynasty prisoners. Delos wasn’t a major world, but it had a symbolic value that could work for our purposes.
I doubted, though, that the Allieds would release their hostages for Delos. With access to a Lock, any of their Rhon prisoners could recreate the psiberweb. So could I. Fortunately, the Allieds didn’t know I had survived, which was why I was staying hidden from Yamada. Three empires thought my sister Roca was Pharaoh Presumptive. For that matter, she was also Imperator Presumptive.
In ancient times, the House of Majda had provided our military leaders. They still produced many of our best generals and admirals. Although my father had been titular head of ISC, Naaj Majda’s grandmother had been the acting commander. Kurj had wrested the job from Majda, year by year, until he became Imperator in all but name. Then he took the title too—at the bitter price of our father’s death. Now we had no Ruby Dynasty Imperator, not my father, Kurj, Soz, Althor, or Kelric.
I kept thinking of my “conversation” with Kelric in Kyle space. What had it meant? He was dead. Maybe I had picked up a sense of him that survived in the mind of his father; Eldrinson and I had a strong link through the Triad. But Eldrinson was also the father of Soz and Althor. If I felt his thoughts about Kelric, I should have felt those about Althor and Soz even more, since we had lost them much more recently. Yet if anything, I had been aware of their absence.
Maybe Kelric was alive. Hell, maybe he was a ghost. That made about as much sense. It was hard to see how he could have survived the Trader attack that destroyed his ship eighteen years ago—the debris had been spread all over space—but it wasn’t completely impossible that he had lived.
I wanted to search psiberspace again, but I couldn’t risk it, not without supporting technology to pull me out if I lost control A few of the ISC’s largest cruisers carried Triad Chairs, those immense command stations a Rhon psion could use to work in Kyle space. But this ship, Havyrl’s Valor, wasn’t one of them.
I opened my eyes and found Jon Casestar watching me. He had apparently finished his negotiations with Colonel Yamada.
Curiosity flickered across his face. “You looked like you were asleep.”
“I was thinking.”
Now he looked even more intrigued. “Did you come to any conclusions?”
“KelricValdoria.”
It took him a moment respond. I suspected he was accessing a memory file. Then hé said, “Do you mean the Ruby Prince? The one who married Naaj Majda’s older sister?”
“Yes.” Good gods, of course. That added yet another twist to this convoluted mess. Thirty-five years ago, Kelric had wed Corey Majda, the previous Majda Matriarch, in an arranged marriage. The Traders assassinated her two years later. Naaj, her younger sister, had inherited the bulk of her assets and taken over as head of Majda. Kelric had received a sizable widower’s stipend, the Majda palace on Raylicon, and several lucrative enterprises Corey had given him. Now Naaj had everything, not only her House and Kelric’s assets, but the title of Imperator as well. She stood to lose a great deal if he suddenly showed up from the dead.
“Naaj Majda would be a formidable foe,” I said.
Jon blinked. “For whom?”
“Kelric.”
“Kelricson Valdoria has been dead for twenty years.”
“Eighteen” I was running my models, checking possibilities. New shapes were appearing in the probability landscape. “I need to go to my quarters. I have to think.”
Jon studied my face, as if it could reveal answers I didn’t have. His gray-eyed gaze seemed to take in all of me. Intent and contained, he could turn fierce in battle, but he never lost his cool, neither in combat nor when dealing at the top-most levels of Imperialate power.
“Coming here to Delos was a good idea,” he said. “We can pressure the Allieds without making hostile moves against Earth.”
“But there’s more.” I tried to give definition to what was hardly more than vague impressions in my mind. “I’m finding strange convergences in my models. Soz. Seth Rock-worth. Eldrinson. Jaibriol II. Viquara Iquar. Kryx Quaelen. Delos. Kelric. I need to figure out what it means.”
“Are you sure it means anything? Modeling the future rarely gives reliable results.”
“I’m not sure it’s the future. Maybe the present…” I floated away from his chair, preoccupied.
“Pharaoh Dyhianna.”
Looking up, I caught the cable and stopped myself. “Yes?”
Jon was watching me with undisguised curiosity. “Let me know your conclusions.”
I smiled. “I will.”
His face gentled. “I wish you had reason to do that more often.”
“Do what?”
He spoke quietly. “Smile.”
I swallowed, aware of the ache inside. “I too.”
The sofa shifted, yielding under my back, but not too soft. I put my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling. In the dim light I could barely see its smooth surface. My hair poured over my arms and torso, onto the floor, a black waterfall, freshly washed, fragrant with soap. My suite also had a pleasant smell, almost imperceptible, like wildflowers in a meadow. The El was learning my preferences. I had named the El Laplace, in honor of the Earth-born mathematician who had developed some of my favorite equations.
“Laplace,” I said.
“Attending.” It had a mellow voice, low and smooth.
“If I reset the security in my neural nodes, can you make a wireless link with them?”
“It should be possible.”
“Excellent.” Breathing deeply, I concentrated. “Link to my prime node and project the patterns I’ve marked there onto the holoscreen in the ceiling.”
“Done.”
The ceiling directly above me changed to a golden sheet, glowing and thick, as if a deep layer of liquid radiance had been poured across it in defiance of gravity. It gave my suite an antique quality, like an aged picture washed in the sunlight of a lost world.
“Nice,” I said.
“It is my translation of your current mood.”
Interesting. Laplace equated my mood with warmth and golden light, but darkened with an amber quality. I realized that did fit how I felt right now.
I let my mind drift. A figure formed above me, as Laplace turned the evolving equations in my mind into pictures. Black blobs floated in the gold background.
Then my perception shifted and the gold became the foreground, defined by black blobs. Gold shimmerflies. Lovely and ethereal, they had graceful wings outlined in delicate tracings of black. The black blobs reformed until they were shimmerflies going in the opposite direction, their dark wings veined with gold threads. The black and gold shimmerflies interlocked, making it impossible to say which was foreground and which background. The images gave me a sense of satisfaction, even one of completion.
The gold shimmerflies began moving to the right, their flight making the black ones move left. At the edges of the gold sheet, the figures faded away, while new shimmerflies continually formed in the center of the holo. I liked the effect, but I wasn’t sure what it meant.
Foreground and background. Which was which?
The shimmerflies faded, replaced by a series of ruby numbers floating on the gold background:
2 1 2 6 4 5 12 9 10 20 16 17…
Fascinated, I tried to figure out what number came next. They could be rearranged in a grid. As soon as I imagined the grid I wanted, Laplace shuffled the numbers on the ceiling:
2 6 12 20…
14 9 16…
2 5 10 17…
Hah! Each row defined a different series. To figure out what
term came next in each, I looked at their “backgrounds”—the numbers you added to each term to obtain the next one.
The background for the first series was even numbers.
The background for the second series was odd numbers.
The background for the third series was prime numbers.
Each of these mini-series had four numbers. So to find the next number in the original series, I needed the fifth term in the 2,6,12,20 group. It had to be 30. That gave me,
2 1 2 6 4 5 12 9 10 20 16 17 30…
The numbers floating above me gradually became three-dimensional. Each number sat on top a stack of jeweled rings, some large, some small. Studying them, I realized the points within one ring related to those in the ring above or below it according to
where z* was the complex conjugate of z. It was a mathematical inversion. The rings sparkled in gem colors: pale sapphire, amethyst, ruby rose, opal, blue diamond. They alternated big and small, thick and thin, layers of jeweled circlets glittering in a gold atmosphere.
Well, fine. It was all lovely. But what the blazes did it mean?
Foreground. Background Inversion.
The foreground for the shimmerflies had started out as dark blobs, with gold in the background. Then the background became foreground, resolving into gold shimmer-flies. A similar thing had happened with the series. The numbers were the foreground, but to find what came next I had to look at their background, the numbers added to each term to obtain the next.
What about the rings? Inversion. It meant a reversal, as with words in a sentence, tones in a musical chord, layers of hot and cold air, traits of a person, and more. The physics that described a starship drive involved a mathematical inversion. It was why we called them inversion drives. They made it possible for us to travel to other star systems in a reasonable amount of time. Inversion drives had made interstellar civilization feasible.
Even. Odd. Prime. Foreground. Background. Inversion.
Something was missing. Prime data. What was the primary inversion?
It hit me like the shift of an optical illusion, the way a drawing of normal stairs could suddenly look like an upside-down staircase or the background of a figure could jump into prominence as the foreground. What inversion most defined our lives? We lived in constant fear of the Aristos, even more so now that they might conquer us. Aristos. Anti-empaths. So what was the ultimate inversion? A Rhon psion Aristo.
No.
Gods, no.
An Aristo could never be a psion. It violated the basic traits that defined them. They were fanatical about keeping their genetic bloodlines “pure,” which meant no trace of psion genes. None.
Realistically, probably more than one Aristo had tried to pass off an illegitimate child or relative as an Aristo. But a psion couldn’t hide among them. Even if she did manage to shield her mind so they didn’t guess the truth, it would destroy her. She would need to maintain incredible barriers every moment, never faltering, never letting a chink form in her mental fortress. It would take only one mistake to reveal the truth. She couldn’t even risk falling asleep near anyone, for fear her barriers might weaken. To build such defenses took a powerful psion. But the stronger the mind, the more painful the isolation. A psion strong enough to maintain such barriers would go insane among the Aristos or become suicidal…
My mind jolted out of Kyle space—and everything snapped into place. It made too damn much sense. Soz had gone with Jaibriol of her own free will. It was an inversion in every sense of the word. And Ëldrinson knew. I was certain of it. That was why he kept coming up in my models. Gods, what had he been thinking, to hide it from us? With a Rhon Emperor and a Lock, the Traders could have built a psiberweb. They wouldn’t have needed Eldrin. They had someone better: their godforsaken emperor.
Except Jaibriol was dead, and he had no heirs.
None we knew about.
And four children lived quietly on Earth, in the background. The oldest was named Jay.
“Laplace! Get me Admiral Casestar now” Pain sparked in my temples as my mind leapt into an accelerated mode.
Why the hell was my ex-husband taking care of those children? Soz must have gone crazy, if she had been with an Aristo for sixteen years. But she was one of the sanest people I knew. Driven, yes, but stable. Maybe Jaibriol was the one who had gone crockers.
Even. Odd. Even how? Balanced? Everything was out of balance. We had four children who just might have been born of both the Skolia and Qox dynasties. If Jaibriol had been a Rhon psion and Soz was their mother, they were also Rhon psions. Skolia, Qox, Rhon. The juxtaposition made my head throb. What would Soz and Jaibriol consider balance?
Saints almighty, had they marriedî It would make their children legitimate heirs to both the Ruby and Qox dynasties. Gods. That boy could be both the emperor and a Ruby heir. He had the proof in his genes.
A voice snapped out of my comm, breaking me out of Kyle space. “Jon Casestar here.”
I nearly jumped off the sofa. Only two seconds had passed since I had told Laplace to contact the Admiral. I spoke fast, urgency spilling into my voice. “Jon, we have to go to Earth. Four children are there, staying with Admiral Seth Rock-worth. We must get them.”
Jon was silent a moment. Then he said, “Pharaoh Dyhianna, this fleet had enough resources to take on a minor world like Delos. But we’ve no chance of coming near Earth, let alone freeing anyone.”
“We have to.” My heart was pounding. “Before it’s too late.”
“Staying here makes good sense.” He sounded puzzled. “Delos is cut off from Earth and we have control of the system. It gives us a bargaining point to negotiate the release of Lord Eldrinson and Councilor Roca.” He paused. “And anyone else we need to free. Who are the children?”
“I think their father is Jaibriol the Second.”
Silence.
“Good gods,” he finally said. “How did you come to that?”
“Calculations. Models. Intuition. Instinct.”
“Do you know for certain they aie on Earth?”
Good question. “No,” I admitted.
“We have another concern. Yamada is hiding something. He’s as nervous as a jumpcat on a hotplate.”
Dryly I said, “Well, we do have over two thousand ships in orbit. And I doubt anyone expected us.”
“I’m sure they didn’t,” Jon said. “Until you suggested it, we hadn’t considered it either. But having one armed force occupy the territory of another happens in wars. Procedures exist for the situation. It might not make Yamada happy, but it shouldn’t create the tension I’m getting from him. We have Els analyzing his voice; they say he’s hiding something. I agree.”
Another complication. My temples throbbed. Stay here or go to Earth? I could be wrong about the children. I stared at the numbers floating on the ceiling above me. Three series. Three mysteries, but what were they? Soz. Jaibriol. Seth. Eldrinson. Kelric. Who?
A deep chill went through me. We had no Triad right now, only a Dyad: Eldrinson and me. Could Jay Rockworth join the Triad? But no, my models kept coming back to Kelric. About one thing I had no doubt: if those children with Seth were Rhon and the Traders captured them, it would be an unmitigated disaster. But how did Delos come in to it all? My calculation-enhanced intuition had driven me here with images of orbitals. Why?
A second had passed since Jon’s comment. I had to answer. So I said, “I’m going down to the surface.”
He didn’t miss a beat with my abrupt topic change. “My apologies, Your Highness, but I can’t let you do that.”
“Yes, you can. Send Jagernauts with me. Arm them with laser carbines and Jumblers. Turn on my cyberlock. Hell, you can send smart-tanks with me. But I have to go down there. I need to know for certain.”
“Know what?”
I took a breath. “Whether or not they have Kelric. I think he’s alive—and has become Imperator.”
14
Sanctuary
White light filled the docking bay. Elect
ric blue arches made a tunnel down one side. A gold and black shuttle poised at its end, ready to leap down the tube and launch into space. The air tasted sterile and felt cool against my face.
Jagernauts strode through the brightness, indomitable in black uniforms studded with silver, their imposing presence adding to my tense anticipation. Some were checking security on the shuttle while others ran preflight checks. Several carried Lenard K16 laser carbines; others had Jumbler guns, miniature particle accelerators fueled by abitons, the weapons glittering huge and black on their hips. The chief of security, a Jagernaut Secondary, stood with me, working on her palmtop while we waited.
“Heya, Dehya.”
Startled, I glanced around. Vazar had come up my other side. “My greetings,” I said.
The security chief looked up from her palmtop. She saluted Vazar, crossing her fists at the wrists, the palmtop clenched in one hand. Raising her arms to Vazar, she held them extended straight out from her torso.
“At ease, Secondary Opsister,” Vazar said.
As the security chief lowered her arms, I regarded her curiously. “Your name is Opsister?”
She nodded, rustling the short, dark hair that framed her square face. “Jinn Opsister, Your Highness.” Her voice had an efficient sound, as if she chose the minimum of words to communicate her response.
“It sounds familiar,” I said.
“I’ve family in the J-Force. Several circle-siblings.”
Circle-siblings? A check of my memory files revealed that the term came from the Isobaril region on the planet Metrópoli. Isobaril families were related by vocation rather than blood. The Op Circle had distinguished itself in laser and particle science. It tended to make them good with weapons.
“Yes, I remember.” It pleased me to make the connection. “You’ve a niece, Jinn Opdaughter, a weapons expert, quite accomplished I understand.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Now she sounded carefully neutral. “She died in the Radiance War.”