Primary Inversion (20 page)

      
“Soz.” A hand came down heavy on my shoulder.

      
I turned in the grip of the meds and looked up.

      
Helda.

      
I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Saints above and almighty. I hadn’t killed them all.

      
“Did you report?” I asked. I wanted to shed tears, but I couldn’t do that in front of these people.

      
“Ya.” She hesitated. “Taas?”

      
“He didn’t respond when I told him to pull out.”

      
“Damn.” She exhaled. “I am sorry.”

      
Softly I said, “So am I.” Sorry didn’t begin to say it.

      
Helda indicated a curving white sofa against the curving white wall. “You wait with me?”

      
I nodded, and jerked my arms away from the meds, who finally let go, apparently trusting Helda to keep me from disturbing the peace. So she and I sat on the sofa.

      
Then we waited.

      
And waited.

      
We sat for eight hours. Someone asked if I wanted to watch Rex’s operations on a holoscreen. I said no. I didn’t think I could bear it. Later someone asked me questions, taking my report. Then they went away. During all those long hours I kept reliving the battle, the moments when I gave Taas his orders, Helda hers. Or Rex. I kept thinking of other scenarios, other commands I could have issued that might have changed the way it ended, given them and Tams a chance to live.

      
Finally I tried to turn off my mind. But I could still hear the dying scream of that child-pilot in the Solo. Overlaid on his death were my memories of the Aristo warlords who had nearly destroyed us, their lust for my death like a dirty taste in my mouth I could never clean out, never if I tried for a thousand years, no more than I had been able to clean off the crust of that hatred from any other battle I had fought over the last quarter of a century.

      
About an hour after dawn I finally dozed off. My head fell back against the sofa, but I caught myself and sat up. Then I let it fall back again and closed my eyes.

      
“Do you want some coffee?” a voice asked.

      
My eyes snapped open. I
knew
that voice.

      
“Primary Valdoria? I brought some coff—”

      
“
Taas!
” I jumped to my feet.

      
Taas grinned and held out a plastic cup filled with that god-awful drink the Allieds had inflicted on our import shops. He was still wearing his space suit. I grabbed him a hug, followed by Helda who nearly knocked him over. His coffee splattered all over the floor.

      
“Hey.” His voice came out muffled against Helda’s bosom. “I can’t breathe.”

      
She let him go. “It is no good if you die from suffocation now, heh? Not after coming back from the dead.”

      
He blinked. “The dead?”

      
I laughed unsteadily. “I thought you were dead when you dropped out of the link.”

      
“I got hit by a drone,” Taas said. “It knocked me out of our link.”

      
I stared at him. The only way to knock him out would have been to damage Greenstar so seriously, it couldn’t access the Kyle-Mesh. “You made it back here with a crippled computer?”

      
“It wasn’t so bad,” Taas said. “I just had to do a few calculations in my head.”

      
In his
head?
“You must have one incredible brain.” But I had known that when I picked him for the squad. “Did you get the EI through to Tams?”

      
“I did the drop,” he said. “I don’t know if it helped. I haven’t heard any reports yet.”

      
“Soz.” Helda touched my arm.

      
I glanced at her, and she nodded toward the door. I turned to see a doctor approaching. He stopped in front of me. “Primary Valdoria?”

      
“Yes?” I asked.

      
“We’re done in surgery.”

      
“And?”
Tell me he’ll live. Tell me he’ll be all right.

      
The doctor pushed his hand through his hair. “He had bruises, broken bones, internal bleeding. None of that was too serious.”

      
But? I felt it hanging in the air. “What about his legs?”

      
“The problem isn’t his legs,” the doctor said. “It was the psiphon socket implanted in the lumbar region of his spine. It ripped out of his body, partially transecting his descending neural fibers between the cervical and lumber enlargements.”

      
“Tell me so I can understand.”

      
“The implant cut his spinal cord.”

      
“You can fix it, can’t you?”

      
“Normally we can make even neural cells regenerate by tricking them into thinking they’re in an embryonic state.” The doctor spoke quietly. “It didn’t take with him. Then we tried three operations to link the severed portions with bio-optics. His body rejected them.”

      
This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “But you can fix the damage, right? As soon as he starts responding to treatment?”

      
He hesitated. “Normally I would say yes. Unfortunately a biomech system as extensive as what you carry in your bodies can lead to unexpected side effects. Secondary Blackstone has had so many injuries to his nervous system already, he’s developed a toxic reaction to some of the drugs we use to promote regeneration. If we try anything more with his web, his body may reject the entire system.”

      
I stared at him. “What are you telling me?”

      
A painful compassion darkened his eyes. “Secondary Blackstone is paralyzed from the waist down. He will probably never regain function of his legs.”

      
“No.” It couldn’t be. They wanted me to believe Rex had been crippled the day before he resigned? No, it couldn’t be.

      
Helda spoke softly. “When can we see him?”

      
“He’s sleeping now,” the doctor said. “We’ll let you know as soon as he can have visitors.” He glanced back at me. “Primary—”

      
I knew what was coming. Solicitude. I couldn’t bear that. I regarded him implacably. “What?”

      
“I’m told your ship’s log indicates you haven’t slept in over fifty hours.” He paused. “Preliminary scans indicate you have two broken ribs, multiple bruises, and internal tissue damage from being in stasis too long. You need medical care and sleep.”

      
Sleep? I was too agitated even to sit down. “I’m fine.”

      
“Ma’am, you aren’t fine. You’re about to collapse.” When I started to object, he held up his hand. “We can give you a bed here.”

      
I scowled. “I don’t want a bed.”

      
“It would be in your best interest.”

      
A vivid picture from his mind intruded into my thoughts, an image of how I looked to him, like an injured rockdeer, a wild, beautiful animal growling while he tried to coax her to come near enough so he could heal her wounds. The image was so startling I just stood blinking at him. As the Allieds would say, it took the proverbial wind out of my proverbial sails, which was a dumb metaphor given that he saw me as a rockdeer and not a ship.

      
Maybe I was more exhausted than I thought, too tired even to form coherent thoughts.

      
“All right,” I said. “I’ll rest. For a little bit.”

#

The curtains cut out the harsh Dieshan sun, letting in just enough light to keep the room dimly lit. I lay in the pleasing warmth, rising out of sleep, wondering why I felt so sore.

      
Then I remembered.

      
It was a bonecrusher. When I slept, my mind relaxed its barriers, sometimes enough to let me pick up things that I blocked when I was awake. At times my dreams even sampled possible futures, the closest I ever came to precognition. The more intense the feelings of the people involved—and the closer I was to them—the more vivid the dream. But all too often intense feelings accompanied misfortune. I hated those dreams. Instead of waking up refreshed, I opened my eyes into misery, knowing that I or someone I loved was now or soon to be hurt. I called the dreams bonecrushers because it felt like they crushed me. Today I was waking up into one.

      
As my mind focused, I realized someone was in the room, a presence like an iron blanket on my mind. I turned over to look.

      
He stood by the bed, a giant man over two meters tall with musculature too heavy to have evolved on a standard gravity world. He looked more metal than human. His skin glinted as if it were gold. Although his eyes were open, inner lids covered them like gold shields, opaque to the world. I knew he could see through them, but to everyone else his eyes were blank spaces. His face would have been handsome if it hadn’t been so hard, but nothing softened that visage. He wore a plain uniform, beige trousers and a pullover with no markings, nothing to indicate his identity—except for a gold band on each upper arm wider even than the one that denoted my rank of Primary.

      
The Imperator had come to see me.

      
I sat up, wincing as pain shot through my torso. Then I saluted, clenching my hands into fists and crossing them at the wrists, right over left, as I raised them to him.

      
Kurj inclined his head. Even after so many years, I found it hard to believe we were related. Although we had the same mother, we bore little resemblance to each other; Kurj looked like our grandfather and I like our grandmother. His coloring came from genetic adaptations our grandfather’s ancestors had made when they colonized a world with a too-bright sun. The metallic sheen of his skin and hair reflected sunlight, and the inner lids protected his eyes. He was as much machine as human, with biomech even more extensive than mine. His appearance had become a symbol, the Fist of Skolia, the case-hardened emperor with no mortal softness the Traders could exploit.

      
“How do you feel?” he asked.

      
“All right.” I rubbed the restrainer that held my ribs. I had no recollection of anyone putting it there. I had been so keyed up, the doctors had knocked me out with some potion in an air syringe.

      
Beyond Kurj, the rainbows of a cyberlock rippled on the walls, ceiling, and floor, isolating us within its field. Their colors were more intense than those I had seen around Jaibriol’s mansion on Delos. These gave a different warning: Kurj’s lock was set to kill.

      
“The doctors told me about Rex Blackstone,” he said.

      
My attention snapped back to him. “Have you seen him?”

      
“He’s still asleep.”

      
I wanted to ask what else he knew, but I couldn’t. Faced with Kurj’s impassive metal face, my words dried up and blew away.

      
So instead I said, “Did Taas’s EI drop help?”

      
“Yes.” That one simple word said so much. “By the time our backup units arrived, Qox’s flags had flooded the planet. We couldn’t get anyone else out alive. But we were able to protect the refugee ships that had escaped and were fleeing the system.”

      
I dreaded the words he hadn’t said. “How many died?”

      
His words dropped like stones. “Two thirds of the population.”

      
Two thirds. Of six hundred million. I wondered what Jaibriol thought of his father now.

      
“I’ve also read your report on the Aristo,” Kurj said.

      
That was all.
I’ve read your report.
So he knew the truth. Ur Qox had an heir. The devil had reproduced himself.

      
No wonder the Emperor had never divorced his wife. She had to know her “son” was another woman’s child. She probably thought Qox had a Highton mistress. Had he secluded his wife and then shown up with the baby? If she denied Jaibriol, it would have put the Highton Heir under a scrutiny Qox had to avoid. I was surprised he hadn’t murdered the Empress. Was Taas right, that Qox actually loved his wife? Or did he just doubt he could get away with killing her? He must have made a devil’s bargain with her: keep her silence and she kept her title.

      
In the past, I had tried to convince myself that the among Aristos, the women were their gentle side. They disdained the military, which meant we rarely had contact with them. But my three weeks on Tarque’s Estate had cured me of my notions. The Aristos had no gentle side. The women were as brutal as the men. Nothing, not size, shape, sex, or anything else made a whit of difference.

      
Kurj was watching me. “The Delos authorities sent us a report about your activities in the Highton’s mansion.” He raised his eyebrow at me. “Your methods weren’t exactly subtle.”

      
“Is that a reprimand, sir?”

      
“No.”

      
That was no surprise. Kurj had never had much use for subtlety.

      
“I’ve arranged for Blackstar squad to receive commendations,” Kurj said. “We will broadcast it on the news holos.”

      
So. Make us heroes. I supposed it made sense. It gave ISC a better image. I felt about as heroic as a slug.

      
Unbidden, Kurj’s thought entered my mind.
Every time you fly a mission, you risk your lives. You know that. Your squad knows. Blackstone knows.