Primary Inversion (24 page)

      
We climbed to the top of a hill that let us look out across the countryside. The sun was dropping to the horizon in the west where the rings met the mountains, though this early in the summer it was too far north to sink behind that great arch. In the distance, the roofs of Jacob’s Military Institute reflected its rays like liquid glass.

      
Hilt motioned toward JMI. “Take a look, Soz. That’s where they train the robots.”

      
I glanced at him. “Robots?”

      
He wasn’t smiling any more. “That’s right. Robots trained to salute and kill.”

      
It took conscious effort for me to remain calm, an effort far out of proportion to his comment. “Those cadets you call robots are all that stand between you and the Traders.”

      
Hilt scowled. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those.”

      
“One of what?”

      
“Parrots of the empire, our dearly beloved military dictatorship.”

      
A woman named Mika spoke. “You have it wrong, Hilt. For a dictatorship you need a dictator. We don’t have a dictator. We have a Triad.” Dryly she said, “That’s three dictators, my friend.”

      
“That’s absurd,” Pulli said. “The Assembly rules Skolia. Not the Triad.”

      
“If you believe that, you are woefully naive,” Mika said.

      
“What Triad?” Hilt demanded. “Everyone knows Lord Valdoria is just a propaganda figurehead they prop up there because the people love him.”

      
I went rigid. He was talking about my
father.
Eldrinson Althor Valdoria. True, he became an interstellar potentate by accident. A simple farmer from a backwater planet, he had neither the interest nor knowledge to rule the Imperialate. The only reason he ever left home was because of his epilepsy; without treatment, he suffered such severe convulsions he could barely function.

      
A memory jumped into my mind: twenty-seven years ago, the Traders had tried to assassinate Kurj. Only a Dyad existed then, Kurj as Imperator and my aunt as Assembly Key. After the attempt, while Kurj lay near death, the Traders launched an assault against our capital world. In the ensuing chaos, my aunt’s bodyguards whisked her to the hidden base Safelanding. Then the Traders penetrated our computer defenses—and crashed the Kyle-Mesh.

      
The entire interstellar network collapsed. Telops managed minor patches, but only Kurj or my aunt had both the Rhon strength and Dyad access required to restart the system. But my aunt was unreachable at Safelanding and Kurj was in a coma. It left Skolia blind and deaf, floundering like a crippled animal with its brain gutted.

      
The Traders moved in for the kill. But they had miscalculated. My father—the “nobody” of the Rhon—had been at an ISC hospital, seeing the doctors who monitored his epilepsy. When the Kyle-Mesh failed, he had been only a few minutes away from one of its control centers. So the desperate Skolian military had sent him in to join the Dyad and make in a Triad.

      
No one knew what would happen when my father joined Kurj and my aunt in that circle of power. It might disintegrate, unable to spread itself over three such disparate minds. Or it could overload, killing them all in one galaxy-wide short circuit. Or maybe, just maybe, my father would survive long enough to repower it. Never mind that he had no idea how it worked, that he came from a society so primitive it had no electricity, that he might die from a mental overload even if the system survived. It was either put him in the Triad or let Skolia fall to the Traders.

      
No one expected what happened. My father told me later that the Kyle-Mesh had looked like a toy that day, like the nets that we, his children, used to play with when we were small. Except this sparkling net was broken. So he fixed it—and reactivated the star-spanning brain of Skolia.

      
He didn’t understand the technology. To this day he can’t access it without help. But none of that matters. Once he enters Kyle space, he
becomes
it, supporting the mesh like the ocean supports a huge net floating within it. He handles it with an innate gift no one else in my family can match.

      
My voice came out cold enough to chill ice. “Without that man you so blithely call a figurehead, you wouldn’t be standing here free to insult the Rhon. You’d be a Trader slave, mister.”

      
Hilt snorted. “I always wonder if you people who spew out Imperial propaganda have any comprehension of reality.”

      
Pulli spoke uneasily. “Maybe we shouldn’t be having this discussion.”

      
“That’s the whole
point.
” Hilt’s voice snapped. “We’re so oppressed by the Rhon we’re afraid to discuss them. All that’s allowed is worship. Well, I don’t worship tyrants.”

      
Gods. Where had that come from? “Why do you think the Rhon oppresses you?” I asked.

      
“I know what you’re going to say,” Hilt told me.

      
That was a good feat, considering I didn’t. “What?”

      
“That the ISC ‘occupies’ planets for their own good.”

      
“We don’t live in a gentle universe,” I said. “To survive, we need strength, and that includes people, territory, and resources. It we don’t get them first, the Traders or the Allieds will.”

      
“That’s one hell of a justification,” Hilt said. “What makes it any more right for the Rhon to do the conquering instead of the Traders or the Allieds?”

      
Rebeka, another woman in the group, spoke up. “The Allieds don’t conquer anyone. They offer citizenship as a choice.”

      
I glanced at her. “You think we ought to do the same?”

      
She spoke carefully. “Doesn’t it bother you that we’re forced to follow laws enforced by the leaders of a military occupation who never gave us a choice?”

      
My anger flared. “You don’t think Imperial law is just?”

      
“You’re missing my point,” Rebeka said. “When ISC occupied this world, they took everything, even the name of our planet. We never had the right to choose.”

      
“To choose what?” Why was I so incensed? “If Foreshires hadn’t become part of the Skolian Imperialate, you would still be struggling to survive instead of enjoying the affluence that lets you join hiking clubs and spend your time strolling in meadows.”

      
Rebeka spoke quietly. “No, we weren’t rich before. But we had the right to be ourselves.”

      
Hilt was watching me closely. “Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that people want responsibility for their own lives?”

      
“The Allieds have a luxury we don’t share.” Even I could hear how bitter I sounded. “As long as we and the Traders claw at each other’s throats, Earth is free to do as she pleases. So fine. Good for Earth. If we ever adopted her practices, it would kill us.”

      
“You’re certainly cynical,” Mika said.

      
Hilt snorted. “I’m not sure I believe the Traders are such a big threat. What better evil than the Aristos could the Rhon conjure up to divert attention from their own flaws?”

      
My face went hot. “If you think the Traders are no threat, you’re a fool.”

      
“Right,” Hilt said. “Now you’re going to spout off the List of Aristo Evils. Come on, Soz. I mean, have you ever actually
seen
a provider?”

      
I froze as the memories jumping into my mind: Tarque, kneeling over me on his bed while I screamed and screamed and
screamed—

      
“Leave her alone!”

      
Everyone spun around. It was Jarith who had spoken, the youth from the music school.

      
The others stared at the usually soft-spoken musician. He reddened but he didn’t back down. “Stop it,” he said.

      
“Why?” Hilt demanded.

      
Rebeka spoke to Hilt in a low voice. “He’s an empath.”

      
Hilt blinked at Jarith. Then he turned back to me. “What did I say?”

      
I swallowed. “You asked me if I had ever seen a provider. The answer is yes.”

      
Everyone went silent then. I had no intention of elaborating and no one asked me to. The look on Jarith’s face had been enough to tell them the details were better left unsaid.

      
Rebeka motioned toward the far side of the hill, where the rest of the group had started to walk. “They’re leaving.”

      
So we followed. Conversation began again, fitfully at first and with more ease as it drifted to less volatile subjects. I stayed out of it. I hadn’t felt much like talking before and now I just wanted to get out of here. The worst of it was that they were right. People needed freedom to thrive. But they were wrong about the Rhon. We had no more freedom than they. We were locked in a war that left us no choices.

      
Was I truly fool enough to believe Jaibriol could make a difference? He was the one who would change. He would do what he had to do to survive. He would become Highton. And I would watch, hating myself for wanting to believe otherwise, hating myself for loving him.

      
I can’t bear this, I thought. My mind is going to implode.

      
Jarith came up alongside me. “I’m sorry about eavesdropping.”

      
“Eavesdropping?”

      
“Your image—of the Aristo.” He paled. “It was so vivid.”

      
“You don’t need to apologize. I practically shouted it at you.”

      
He didn’t probe, but I felt what he wanted to ask.
Was it you on that bed?
I shook my head, not wanting to pursue the subject, and let him interpret that however he wanted.

      
“I hope you’re not angry with the others,” he said. “They’re just not used to hearing such a conservative line.”

      
“You think I’m conservative?”

      
He laughed. “Ultra.” A grimace chased across his face like a cloud scudding over the sun. “Don’t worry about Hilt. He gives me a labor too.”

      
Translate last sentence from Jarith,
I thought.

      
It’s slang,
my node answered.
To give a labor: to behave in a confrontational manner.

      
I couldn’t fathom why anyone would give Jarith a hard time about anything. “What for?”

      
“He says I’m apathetic. He thinks I should fight for what I believe in.” Jarith shrugged. “I guess I’m just not political. I’d rather sing.”

      
I sighed. Here was this gentle youth with the face of an angel and no political opinions. Pako couldn’t have found me a better companion if I had programmed it to search the planet.

      
Right, I thought. What’s the problem, Soz? You can’t deal with anyone who challenges you?

      
I gritted my teeth. I dealt with people who challenged me all the time. All day long, every day, every year, every decade. I deserved a rest.

      
You’re not resting, my inner voice answered. You’re hiding.

      
Shut up, I told it.

      
“Some of us are going to a holomovie,” Jarith said. “Would you like to come?”

      
Good gods. He was asking me for a date. At least, I thought that was what he was doing. It had been so long since I had socialized that way, I wasn’t sure if I remembered what qualified as a date. Maybe when people went in a group it had some other name. Gang date? No, that sounded too weird.

      
Who cared what it was called? What was wrong with me, having conversations in my head?

      
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to go.” I had almost nothing in common with these people, but going to a movie with anyone right now was better than returning to my empty apartment.

      
After we washed up at the café, we strolled through the park outside. Jarith came, also Hilt and Rebeka and a handful of others, everyone wearing chiming shoes now instead of hiking boots. As the sun set behind the hills, the horizon lit up with a spectacular red fire and the sky turned dark bronze. The shining rings arched across it, pale amber at their apex and a rich crimson at the western horizon. In the east, the shadow of Foreshires fell across the arch, and it looked like a mythical dragon had taken a bite of it, leaving the edges red and the center black.

      
As the sun disappeared, the evening grew chill. Hilt lent me his sweater. Mercifully, conversation stayed light, just a lazy discussion about what holomovie to see. I had no opinion. I had absolutely no idea what was out. We solved the problem by walking into the first theater we found, which was playing something called “Brain Warp.” The holos outside showed a Jagernaut, feet planted wide, blasting away with his Jumbler. Half the shows nowadays had soldiers as heroes.

      
We sat on a plush rug in a circular theater with about two hundred other people. Jarith and I reclined on cushions, talking about his classes at the university. Rebeka and Hilt were eating, and Pulli bought another glass of that godawful rootberry juice.

      
After a few moments the lights went out. Music swelled, the urgent beat of a drum overlaid with a melody on horns and strings. Suddenly we were in a field near JMI. A Jagernaut stood nearby, a handsome man with dark hair, sculpted muscles, and a Jumbler snug in a holster on his hip. He took off jogging and we “jogged” with him, following at whatever distance the director had thought would give us the optimum view of the action.