Primary Inversion (5 page)

      
Tiller looked from Rex to me. “You’re both sixes?”

      
Neither Rex nor I answered. After a moment, Tiller said, “Is something wrong?”

      
“What would you do,” I said, “if I asked you how many times you made love last night?”

      
He reddened, and suddenly I felt mortified, as if I had peeked into his bedroom. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was so private.”

      
“It’s all right,” Rex said. “I rate as a ten.”

      
What possessed him to reveal that? I knew the ratings for my squad: Taas was seven, Helda six. At ten, Rex was that one in ten-billion telepath. But knowing their ratings was part of my job as squad leader. I doubted Rex had told Taas, maybe not even Helda.

      
Tiller looked at me—and I caught it. Feedback. He was feeding my surprise back to me.

      
Are you getting it, too?
Rex thought.
I was trying to draw him out.

      
We could ask him,
I thought.

      
Too personal.

      
I think he wants to know.
To put it mildly. He was bursting with his curiosity.
He seems more comfortable with you.

      
Rex turned to Tiller. “How long have you known you were an empath?”

      
I almost groaned. He could have tried a little more tact.

      
Tiller turned red. “I never claimed—”

      
“You’re in a feedback loop with us,” Rex said. “You’re picking up our emotions and sending them back to us.”

      
Tiller gaped at him. “You’re
kidding.
”

      
“Not at all,” I said. “Didn’t you know?”

      
“Of course not.” He hesitated. “Well, I mean, I’ve always thought—but you don’t say things like that. People laugh at you.” A breathless feeling came over me, fear and hope together. At that exact moment Tiller said, “You really think I’m an empath?”

      
Rex smiled, the lines around his eyes crinkling. “Yes. You should get tested.”

      
“I’ve thought of it. That’s why I learned Skolian. But I can’t afford it.” He looked from me to Rex. “I’m probably fooling myself, anyway. I don’t see any evidence I’m different.”

      
“It’s not something you see,” Rex said. “It’s in your brain.”

      
“Something is wrong with my brain?”

      
“Not wrong,” I said. Though I supposed that depended on your point of view. “It contains two extra organs.”

      
Tiller laughed. “In my skull? There’s no room.”

      
“They’re microscopic,” I said. “The Kyle Afferent Body and the Kyle Efferent Body. Most people just say KAB and KEB, though.”

      
“When you think, neurons fire in your brain,” Rex said. “My KAB picks that up.”

      
Tiller squinted at us. “How could your brain know that my, um, neurons fired?”

      
“The molecular configuration of your brain has a quantum probability distribution—” Rex stopped when Tiller winced. Then Rex said, “Imagine an invisible hill centered on your brain.”

      
“Okay.” Tiller looked relieved.

      
“That’s the distribution,” Rex said. “Its ‘foothills’ fan out in all directions. They get smaller so fast that they’ve dropped to almost nothing a few hundred meters away from you. When you think, it changes the shape of those hills. You and I are close enough to each other that the distributions of our brains are overlapping right now. So my KAB can pick up changes in your distribution.”

      
Tiller squinted at him. “So why doesn’t this overlap thing happen with everyone?”

      
“It does,” Rex said. “But without a KAB, a person can’t pick up anything. For someone like me, who has one, the more intense your feelings or thoughts, the more molecular sites they affect my KAB. The KAB sends messages to neural structures in my brain called paras. Only empaths have them. My paras interpret that input as your emotions.”

      
“The KAB receives signals,” I said. “The KEB sends them. It acts like an amplifier, increasing the range and intensity of the signal you send to other empaths.”

      
Tiller laughed ruefully. “No wonder I’m so slow. If all that extra business is going on in my head, I must never have time for thinking.”

      
Rex smiled. “Actually, you have more brain cells. In fact, it can make you smarter.”

      
“Not me,” Tiller said. “I’m not brilliant like my siblings.”

      
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Rex said. “The traits are hereditary.”

      
“Shouldn’t my parents be empaths, then? I don’t think they are.”

      
“The genes are recessive,” I said. “Your parents could carry them unpaired, like brown-eyed parents with a blue-eyed child.”

      
Tiller hesitated. “A lot more people have blue eyes than, well—are like me.”

      
Rex and I exchanged a glance. We knew all too well the rarity of psions. I tried to make a joke out of it. “You could put us on an endangered species list.” It didn’t sound funny, though. It hit too close to the truth.

      
“If people know which genes do the trick,” Tiller asked, “can’t they engineer more of us?”

      
“It’s been tried.” My grandmother had been “born” that way. “But the Kyle genes are linked to lethal recessives. Even if an engineered fetus survives, its brain is often abnormal. The fetus also reacts strongly to its environment, so cloning is difficult.” I smiled slightly. “The best method for making psions is the old-fashioned way, with a man and a woman.”

      
“Ah.” Tiller smiled slightly. Then his face turned thoughtful. “I had always thought empaths were a result of the Rhon Project.”

      
“Not exactly,” Rex said. “Doctor Rhon was trying to help empaths develop a high resistance to pain.” Bitterly he added, “He created the Aristos instead.”

      
Tiller sat up straighter. “The
Skolian government
created the Aristos?”

      
I spoke shortly. “No.”

      
“Your government isn’t called the Rhon?”

      
Soz?
Rex thought.
Do you want me to stop?

      
I tried to relax.
No. Go ahead.

      
“We’re governed by the Assembly,” Rex said. “It’s an elected council of leaders.”

      
“Then what’s Rhon?” Tiller asked.

      
“He was a geneticist,” Rex said. “The word is also used for the descendents of a human dynasty that ruled the Ruby Empire five thousand years ago.”

      
“Oh.” Tiller looked embarrassed. “I’m afraid I don’t know much Skolian history.”

      
“It’s your history too,” I said. “We all come from the same place.”

      
“I have to admit,’ Tiller said, “I just never understood how that could be.”

      
I spoke wryly. “Join the club.” As in, the entire human race. “All we know, really, is that six thousand years ago, an alien race kidnapped humans from Earth, stranded them on some planet, and disappeared.” My ancestors had never figured out the point of that bizarre exercise, seeing as their kidnappers never told them
why
.

      
The displaced humans had had nothing but the ruined starships left behind by their abductors. They eventually used the libraries in those vessels to develop star travel and establish the Ruby Empire, an interstellar civilization. The empire fell after only a few centuries, though, stranding its colonies. It took thousands of years for my ancestors to recover space flight, but they still managed it before Earth. In Earth’s twenty-first century, when her people finally attained the stars, they got one hell of a jolt. We were already here, busily building empires. We and the Allieds had intermingled since then, until now, less than two centuries later, it was hard to believe we had been separated for millennia. But the differences were there, deep under the surface. It would be a long time before we trusted each other.

      
“Rhon worked with the descendants of the Ruby Dynasty, which had ruled the Ruby Empire.” Rex said. “He was trying to bring back the Kyle traits that had made them empaths and telepaths. That’s why people call members of the Ruby Dynasty ‘the Rhon.’ It refers to their Kyle rating. It’s too high to quantify.”

      
“I thought Rhon was their name,” Tiller said.

      
“Their family name is Skolia.” Rex spoke wryly. “That’s why we’re the Skolian Imperialate. They may only be titular rulers, but they’re still our royal family.”

      
Tiller rubbed his chin. “So Rhon selected for empathy and got Skolias, and he selected for pain resistance and got Aristos?”

      
“He didn’t mean to create the Aristos,” I said. “It’s what you would call an unfortunate side-effect.” Very unfortunate, as in one of the worst catastrophes in human history.

      
“I still don’t get it,” Tiller said. “What do the Traders want with empaths?”

      
I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to think about it. But he needed to know. “An Aristo’s brain only picks up emotions caused by pain. To decrease their sensitivity to it, the brain sends the signals to its pleasure centers. It makes the Aristo feel good. More than good. It’s ecstasy.” I had to stop myself from gritting my teeth. “They’re a bunch of sadists. They get off on torturing people.”

      
Tiller’s face paled. “But why empaths?”

      
I was having trouble breathing. A fan in the wall whirred, with a hiccup that grated on my nerves. “We send stronger signals. The stronger the empath, the—the more the Aristo—enjoys…” My fists clenched and my words balled into knots.

      
Tiller waited. But neither Rex nor I continued. Finally Tiller traced his finger through a winged icon above his screen. “I’ve sent a copy of your report to the Chief.” He shifted in his seat. “But unless this man breaks a law, we can’t do much.”

      
“Just be careful where you go,” I said. “Stay at home or here for the next few days.”

      
“All right.” He looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

      
After we left Tiller’s office, we headed to the lobby. I stopped before we had gone far, though. “Rex, I’ll meet you at the Inn.”

      
“What’s wrong?”

      
“Nothing. I just forgot to tell Tiller something.”

      
He touched my cheek, his finger lingering. “Soz…”

      
His uncharacteristic touch startled me. “I’m all right.”

      
“You’re sure?”

      
“Sure. I’m great.”

      
He brushed a curl of my hair out of my eyes. “I’ll see you later, yes?”

      
Why was he looking at me with that strange, tender look? “Of course.” It wasn’t like I was going anywhere.

      
After we split up, I went back and found Tiller’s door open. He was sitting on the edge of his desk reading a book.

      
“Tiller?” I said.

      
He looked up, his pleased surprise lightening my mood like a gust of cool air on a sweltering day. “Did you forget something?”

      
“No.” I came over to him. “I thought you wanted me to come back.”

      
He winced. “Am I that easy to read?”

      
I smiled. “Only to another empath.”

      
“I was just thinking—” His voice gentled. “It took a lot for you to come here.”

      
“All we did was talk.”

      
“Something hurt you, and our talk stirred it up.”

      
“I’m fine. Really.”

      
“I wanted to say thanks, that’s all.” He pointed to the pen-sized computer on his armchair. “And for that. With a record of two high-ranking Imperial military officers saying I’m an empath, I might convince a grant committee at the university to sponsor my Kyle testing.”

      
“Well. Good.” I didn’t know what else to say. I was used to people speeding in the other direction when I came around.
Thanks
wasn’t a word I had much experience with.

      
“Here.” Tiller handed me his book.

      
I held it awkwardly, wondering what do. The book was old style, bound in soft cloth the color of ivory, with parchment pages inside instead of a holoscreen. My translator gave the title as
Verses on a Windowpane,
written in English.

      
“It’s beautiful,” I said.

      
“Keep it. As a thank you gift.”

      
A gift? This Allied citizen who didn’t know me was giving me a gift simply for talking to him. For some reason my eyes were wet.
Block,
I thought. But the psicon didn’t flash.

#

Night had folded its cooling darkness around the city by the time I headed back to the hotel. I took speedwalks that bordered the streets, avoiding the nervoplex. I didn’t want to feel what it would tell me about myself. I already knew. I had lied to Rex and Tiller. I wasn’t fine. My mind had started to replay that scene, the one I wanted to forget, the one that had lived in my nightmares for so many years.

      
Ten years ago, I had been walking along a dirt path on Tams, for all appearances a normal citizen going about my business. A flycar had hummed by me, then stopped and backed up. In slow motion, I saw it happen again and again; Kryx Tarque, the Aristo governor, leaning out to look at me, lifting his long finger while his lips formed words:
That one. I want that one.