Primary Inversion (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Paperback (32 page)

My mind expanded onto the four nodes that served the
civilian arm of the psibernet on Diesha. They worked together like one machine,
swapping back and forth among themselves according to whichever happened to be
free when the user entered a command.

Today I started on Alto. The subgrid was subdued, a faint
gold color. There was no sign of my father. The whole Net changed character
when he withdrew from it, becoming less vibrant. Nor did I pick up the delicate
sparkles of my aunt’s presence or the immense flux of Kurj’s power. Right now
Alto just felt like Alto, one of four simple voices singing together with no
Triad soloists to jazz up the tune.

Greetings, Soz, Alto thought.

Greetings. Connect me with my psiberchip.

Chip activated.

I felt nothing. No reason I should have, though, given that
it was part of my own brain.
Locate Lord Skolia’s neural tracings.

Soprano answered. Located.

Match my brain activity with his.

Attempting match, Soprano thought.

I waited, watching the Net flicker. It was lovely, an eerie
beauty that never appeared the same way twice. The infinite gold mesh hung in a
shimmering atmosphere, one more liquid than gas, pale gold and sparkling. It
undulated around me, soft and sensual. The sounds of the civilian nodes were
gentler than those in the Hub, sweet melodies that rippled like ocean swells.
Its smells were honey-corn and spice.

Soprano? I thought. Is anything happening?

Tenor answered. Your brain resists.

That was no surprise. Although I had never melded with Kurj,
I had shared enough thoughts with him to know our mental processes were
basically foreign.

Keep trying, I thought.

I continued to wait. The grid exhibited a well-ordered
pattern of squares, but far too many defects showed on it. I knew those
discontinuities. They came from poorly maintained connections and negligent
users. Fluctuations appeared in the quality of its environment as well,
concentrations of color and light in asymmetric patches. Civilians were
inefficient. Our organization of the military grids was far more ordered.

Tenor was taking too long, using valuable time.
What is
the status of matching procedure?
I asked.

Bass answered. Matching complete.

Complete? What percent difference exists between my brain
activity and Imperator Skolia’s, as determined by his tracings on my chip?

1.6 percent, Bass answered.

I felt nothing. But the fact that I perceived no difference
wasn’t proof of its absence. However, a 1.6 percent discrepancy wasn’t
negligible. The possibility still existed that his chip would erase if I tried
to access it, leaving irrefutable evidence that I had been in violation of
security procedures.

I needed to rethink the risks of tampering with Kurj’s
strategy for the Qox interrogation. Qox had put himself far too close to the
brain of the Skol-Net. If he escaped, he could carry out exactly the function
he had been bred to execute. By gaining access to the Hub he could overload the
Triad psilink, thus assassinating the Triad and crippling the Skol-Net. If he managed
it without killing himself as well, he would then be perfectly positioned to
take over the functions of the murdered Triad. It would put him in control of
the Imperial Space Command, of Diesha, and of the Skol-Net.

Bass, Stop matching.

Stopped, Bass thought.

I withdrew from the Net in proper format, rising through its
levels until I reached the interface with the electronic system. After I pulled
out, I considered my next move. If I went to Kurj now and told him what I knew,
I risked execution for the treason I had committed by hiding the truth about
Qox. But Kurj needed the information. The best procedure would be to
interrogate Qox, break his barriers, and then inform Kurj that the Highton Heir
was Rhon. I would present the information as if I were also learning it for the
first time. That way, I protected both myself and the Imperialate.

I would have to be careful when I broke Jaibriol’s barriers,
though, to make sure I didn’t hurt him.

I rubbed my eyes. The drain from my work tonight had pulled
me down both physically and mentally. And now I was about to make Jaibriol’s
suicide attempt into reality.

Suicide.
Suicide.
Why had I forgotten that? What was
wrong with me, thinking that Jaibriol had come here to kill us?

I got up and paced out of the room, trying to clear my head.
A moment ago I had been thinking with what I believed was perfect clarity. Yet
now I felt as if a stranger had been in my head. My intention was to
free
Jaibriol,
not betray him to Kurj. How was I going to get the information I needed to find
Jaibriol, if the process of getting it made me refuse to take it?

I picked up a piece of paper and wrote: It’s not your mind.
If you listen, you will regret it. Get the data.

The maze of halls under the ISC Records complex went on for
kilometers. Its stark lines and dim lighting had long ago earned it the name
Catacombs. My psiberchips were in a Catacombs vault secured with an EI called a
beta scanner, which analyzed retinal patterns, fingerprints, voice patterns,
height, weight, body chemistry, skeletal structure, and brainwaves. It opened
only to me or Kurj, who kept one of his own chips there as well. That vault
stood inside a larger vault secured with a beta scanner, inside a room secured
with a beta scanner, at the end of a hall secured by a beta scanner. It was the
best security the Imperialate had to offer. Breaking in was impossible. I
glanced at the paper in my hand.
It’s not your mind.

Incorrect. It was imprecise to state that merging with Kurj’s
brain made my mind his. A more exact definition was that it altered my mental
process, giving me insights I otherwise lacked. But my mind remained mine.

If you listen, you will regret it.

No. The only source of regret I would find in these actions
were the actions themselves. It was time that I stopped this treason.

Get the data.

The data weren’t available to me. My aunt had protected the
in formation with her customary brilliance; even if someone came this close to
it, they would go no farther because in the process of reaching it they came to
understand why it must not be reached.

It’s not your mind.

My mind had been under a strain. I knew that. Tager had made
this clear in my talks with him.

But seeing Tager had been a weakness.

No!

I clenched the console so tightly that my knuckles turned
white. The paper crumpled in my hand, its edges sticking out of my fist. Seeing
Tager had
not
been a weakness. My mind was sound. If I had written the
words on this paper, they were sound.

I picked up Kurj’s card and placed it in the slot on the
console. His chip resisted me, like the human body rejecting a transplanted
organ. I tensed, waiting for that sense of
deletion
that would come when
it wiped itself blank.

Instead I felt a curious relaxation. And then I remembered
where to find Jaibriol.

I reentered EM16 as before, once again cloaking my operations.
This time I went straight to the security subgrid. I toggled visual mode and
the grid blinked out of existence, replaced by the desert. Parched land
surrounded me for thousands of kilometers, red and mottled with upjutting rocks
that cut the landscape like angular fingers. Prickly gray stubs of dustbrush
poked out of the sand. Only far in the north, where the plains rose into a haze
of dark mountains, did the line of the land soften. The sky above me was a blue
tablet of stone washed clean of clouds.

No one made their home out here. The ISC had other purposes
for this desert. We had honeycombed it with underground installations,
including Block Three, a complex that lay only a few meters to my right, hidden
under the surface.

Reduce to psicon, I thought.

The desert retreated like a cloth backdrop pulled away by a
giant hand, growing smaller and smaller as it receded into the distance. It
came to a stop when it was no more than a small image within a glittering square
of the grid.

I opened the file in my spinal node where I had stored the
data about Jaibriol. Guards: three units watched his cell, six guards per unit.
Each unit knew the location of only one other unit. I reprogrammed EM16 so that
on the next shift, units one and three knew about each other and unit two knew
about itself. Then I reassigned unit two to a new area so that its original
location appeared to be another unit. Where unit two was supposed to be, a hole
gaped in the security cage around Jaibriol.

I reprogrammed the Block Three warning and defense systems
to ignore certain input at a certain time. I reset the medical monitors that
watched Jaibriol’s cell so at that same time they would start to monitor the
guard outside the Block Three cafeteria. I set the sentry monitors to switch to
the holography darkroom when the med monitors switched to the cafeteria. I
changed work shifts to clear people out of certain areas and off certain
computers and I reset the robot stunmice to avoid certain corridors. Then I set
up a program that would, minutes after my changes went into effect, undo every
one of them, reset every system to its original state, wipe out the record of
my changes, destroy itself, and delete the record of my deletions.

There were going to be a lot of confused people in the morning.

I landed the flier in silence and darkness. No moon shed its
softening rays on the desert, only the cold harsh light of the stars, a
multitude of stars that glittered above the parched land. I ran across the
rocky ground to a point several meters away from the flier. Then I touched a
button on the transmitter in the leather guard I wore around my wrist.

A circular section of rock about two meters wide sank into
the ground. After it descended for about a meter it swiveled to one side,
uncovering a flat metal surface, the safe door for Block Three. Another touch
on my wrist guard and the safe door lowered into the ground, sinking in
complete silence. Finally it swiveled ponderously to the side, showing itself
to be a cylinder of metal more than a meter thick. Below it, I could make out
the top of a metal staircase that spiraled down into darkness. A circular shaft
almost two meters deep plunged down from my feet to the top of the stairs.

I touched my guard again. In response, a vertical seam
opened in the wall of the shaft, uncovering a ladder that stretched down to the
staircase below. I climbed down to the landing and then ran down the stairs.

The security airlock at the bottom released to my command.
When the inner door opened, light glared in my eyes. Pipes lined the walls and
ceiling of the corridor before me: huge tubes big enough to crawl through,
smaller pipes the width of my arm, tiny conduits no wider than a finger. I ran
down the hall, my boots pounding on the floor. The place might as well have
been deserted. I passed through some of the most advanced security systems the
ISC had created and not one alarm sounded.

Running in a boosted state, it took me less than a minute to
reach Jaibriol’s cell. I unlocked it with a laserpick I had set to match the
light pattern expected by the lock. The door opened to it immediately,
revealing a small room with a ledge along one wall.

Jaibriol lay sprawled on the ledge, asleep.

He was barefoot, dressed only in the gray pants and
short-sleeved shirt of a prison uniform. Bruises and welts covered his lower
arms, and I also saw the marks of an E-spring, a prong that gave electric
shocks. The lacerations on his wrists and ankles looked like they came from chains
that had rubbed the skin raw.

I wondered how his interrogators justified their methods,
given that we had far less violent ways of extracting information from people
than chaining and torturing them. I had no doubt the interrogators were using
every method at their disposal. So why include torture?

Then again, they probably felt no need to justify it, given
whom they were interrogating. Vengeance had no use for benevolence.

I ran over and shook his arm. “Jaibriol! Wake up.”

He jerked, and spoke in Highton. “No more.”

I grabbed his shoulders. “Wake up!”

Jaibriol sat bolt upright and struck out with his fist,
hitting me in the stomach with a bruising blow that knocked me onto the floor.

I scrambled up to my feet. “It’s me. Sauscony.”

He stood up, clenching his fists again.

“Jaibriol, it’s m—”

“Qox.” Although he looked straight at me, his gaze was unfocused.
“Qox. Jaibriol Qox.”

“I know who you are.” I grabbed his arm. “Come on.”

He shoved me away with so much force that I stumbled backward
and banged into the wall. I forced myself to relax, trying not to think of the
time rushing by us. As he raised his arm over my head, I spoke in as
conversational a voice as I could manage. “If this is how you greet all of your
potential girlfriends, you must have a lousy love life.”

He stopped. “What?”

“Jaibriol, it’s me. Sauscony. From Delos.”

He just stared at me, his face blank. I extended my arms,
showing him I carried no weapons. “Sauscony. Remember? We met on Delos.”

He lowered his arm. “Sauscony?”

“Sauscony Valdoria. I snuck into your bedroom. Later we met
in the harbor.”

His gaze focused. “It is you. How did you get in here?”

“It wasn’t easy. We have to go. Fast.”

He turned his head and stared at the open door. Then he
broke into a run. I sped after him. He went where I pointed, stumbling on his
bruised feet, almost falling, regaining his balance, stumbling again. But he
never once slowed down.

We reached the exit shaft in minutes. Jaibriol ran up the
spiral stairs, his bare feet thudding on the metal strips. He made it to the
landing and grabbed a rung of the ladder. But when he tried to pull himself up,
his swollen hands slipped. He fell, knocking his head against the ladder as he
crumpled to the ground. He hit the landing and lay there in a heap with his
eyes closed.

No! I grabbed his arm, trying to heft up his bulk. Even on
boost I couldn’t carry someone his size up the ladder. To have made it this
far, so close to freedom, and then to be stopped by a damned ladder—no! I shook
him as hard as I could.
“Get up.”

His eyes opened. He fumbled behind his body and closed his
hand around the lowest rung of the ladder. His other hand moved, following the
first. As he dragged himself to his feet, I held him around the waist and
heaved upward.

It took another minute for us to climb the ladder and run to
the flier. If Jaibriol noticed the spiky dustbite weeds jabbing his bare feet,
he gave no sign of it. At the flier, he threw himself into the open hatch and
sprawled across the deck as I scrambled over him. I slammed the hatch closed
and ran to the cockpit.

I taxied across the desert, bumping on the rough ground. I
took off with only starlight to show the way. We ran dark and silent, just as I
had done so often in the Jag. Now I had no mindscape, no psilink, no connection
to the Skol-Net, just training and experience to guide my hand. But it was
enough. We left Block Three and soared through the night.

And finally, after the installation had dropped behind us, I
dared to relax. We had made it. Jaibriol was free and soon we would be at the
starport. I had done the impossible, stealing the Highton Heir out from under
the relentless eye of ISC.

I put the flier on autopilot and turned to Jaibriol. He had
collapsed into the copilot’s seat and was lying with his head against its back,
his chest rising and falling with his ragged breathing.

“I have a counterfeit ID chip for you,” I said. “You’ll need
it at the port.” The only disguise he would need was the colored eyelenses,
visor, and hair dye I had brought. No one would ever dream the Highton Heir was
walking around free in the heart of the starport at ISC Headquarters.

He turned to look at me. “What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m taking you to Delos. You can ask the Allieds for sanctuary.”

He laughed harshly. “Sanctuary? They will put me on trial
for war crimes.”

“What crimes?” I grimaced. “Giving
bad speeches after Kryx Quaelen drugged you?”

He sat up straight. “How did you
know he drugged me?”

“I could tell as soon as I saw you
speak.”

“No one will believe it.”

“And what do you expect in return?”

“That you don’t try to kill yourself again.”

He snorted. “Don’t play with me, Sauscony. What is your
price for this so-called rescue?”

I considered him. “That when your father dies, you return
from exile to become Emperor of Eube.” It wouldn’t be easy, but with enough
planning he might pull it off. “Then you try to make peace with us. I mean
genuinely try. Not the deceptions your father calls negotiations.”

“The deceptions are yours.”

“You think this is a trick?”

His voice was cold. “A brilliant means of torture your
brother has devised, I must admit. Make the prisoner believe he is being
rescued by a beautiful woman and taken to a place of safety. It should make the
reality of my prison all the more painful when we end up back there.”

“You’re wrong.” Even if I were working as Kurj’s agent, he
wouldn’t have used such a subtle method. He preferred brute force.

Jaibriol shrugged. “Brute force failed. Why not try
subtlety?”

“Why did you say that?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Jaibriol, if I were trying to trick you, why did your
barriers just drop to me, when all of Kurj’s interrogators, even Kurj himself,
couldn’t force you to lower them?”

He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t say anything about brute force or subtlety. I only
thought it.”

“I heard you say it.”

“You heard it in your mind.”

He snorted. “Right.”

“You know I didn’t say that about Kurj out loud.”

Silence.

I tried again. “Your barriers are activated by stress, aren’t
they? Or pain, or anger, or danger. Any situation that your mind registers as
threatening.”

“That’s right.”

“So why would they drop with me?”

He watched me with an unreadable expression. Then he leaned
his head back against his seat and closed his eyes. His face was pale in the
cabin lights, so pale and drawn. I waited, but he remained silent. Finally I
turned back to my controls.

Eventually Jaibriol spoke again. “You are the one who will
need sanctuary. The Imperator will execute you himself when he discovers what
you’ve done.”

I glanced at him. “I hid my tracks.”

He turned his head and looked at me. “There is no way to
hide all of the tracks you must have made getting me out of there.”

“My brother believes your capture was arranged, a trick to
get you into Headquarters. He’ll think your people broke you out.”

“This would be unlikely, given his security measures.”

I smiled. “It’s a lot more likely than me doing it.”

There was a faint movement of his lips, the barest raising
of their edges. But it was a smile just the same. “This is true.”

My voice softened. “The Allieds will find a world where you
can go into exile. Somewhere unpopulated, so there’s no one to recognize you. A
place where you can stay until it’s time for you to return and assume your position
as Emperor.”

“What makes you think I want to be Emperor?”

“You must.”

Why?”

I grimaced. “Because this war is destroying us, that’s why.
I don’t see any way to end it without you. Can you imagine your father and my
brother ever making peace? I sure as hell can’t.”

“Imperator Skolia will never negotiate with me.” Jaibriol’s
voice tightened. “After these past few days, I doubt I could even endure being
in the same room with him.”

“Kurj won’t be Imperator forever.”

“So you want me to go into exile and return someday to the
Hightons.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Jaibriol—I’m not making it a condition on freeing you. But
I ask you to consider it.” I spread my hands. “What will happen if Skolia falls
to your father’s armies, or those of the next Emperor, or the one after that?
Without us, the Allieds won’t last a decade against your military. Is that
really what you want? And entire galaxy controlled by Hightons?”

“No.”

“Then you—”

“No.” He held out his arm. “If I go back to them, this is
what waits for me.”

Although the sleeve of his prison uniform covered the top
half of his arm, the rest of the limb was bare. Bruises covered it, as well as
welts and cuts, and E-spring burns. Lacerated skin crusted with blood
surrounded his wrist like an ugly bracelet. “You mean interrogation?”

“No. Look closer.”

I peered at his arm. Most of the marks were fresh, but I
could see older ones too, thin white lines that looked like healing welts, or
scars from older cuts. I touched a line that snaked down onto his palm. It had
been there far longer than Jaibriol had been Kurj’s prisoner.

“I don’t understand.” I looked up at him. “You didn’t have
these scars on Delos.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“How did you get them?”

He gritted his teeth. “How do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“You of all people should. You’ve been there. What was his
name? Tarque?”

I stared at him. “You’ve been a
provider
?”

His laugh was harsh. “Of course not. I am the Highton Heir.
No one would dare harbor such a thought about me, let alone try it.”

“It was Quaelen, wasn’t it? Kryx Quaelen, the Trade
Minister.”

“He did only what was necessary to train me for my future.”
Jaibriol sounded as if he were gritting his teeth.

“Didn’t your father stop him?”

“He didn’t know.” Jaibriol shrugged. “My father cannot
endure my presence. Perhaps he hates me, for my failures. I don’t know. I’m not
sure I care anymore.”

“Maybe he doesn’t come near you because he can’t bear wanting
to hurt his own son.”

Jaibriol flexed his hands, opening and closing them. “He
told me never to make a mistake, never to falter in any way that would even
hint at the truth about my deficiencies. But I can’t be a perfect fortress all
of the time. It’s impossible.”

No one could. My brother came as close as anyone I knew to
walling himself away from human contact, but even he had his needs. And Kurj
didn’t have to live among Hightons.

“As Emperor, couldn’t you make a more tolerable condition
for yourself?” He could get rid of Quaelen, for starters. “You could work with
the taskmaker caste. The army—they’re mostly taskmakers, aren’t they? There
must be at least some of them you could trust.”

“I don’t know.” He leaned his head back on the seat and
stared at the bulkhead above him. “Quaelen is a powerful man, more so than I
was even as Heir. Getting rid of him wouldn’t be easy.” He looked at me. “Neither
of us need be bound to our heritage, Sauscony. Come with me. We’ll find a place
where we never again have to worry about Kryx Quaelen or anyone else.”

Come with me. Just like that. Throw away my life, everything
I had worked for.