Schism: Part One of Triad (37 page)

Eldrinson tried to get his mind around the words. They wanted to give him mechbot legs, like the small creatures that cleaned his house when he wasn’t looking. “That is revolting.”

Another silence. Emotions leaked past Jase’s mental barriers. Eldrinson’s response had startled him.

“Why is it revolting?” Jase asked.

“I am not a machine.”

“Your new legs would look no different than the old.”

Eldrinson didn’t believe him. “Would I walk like before?”

“I don’t know.”

That gave him pause. He had expected reassurances. Healers were notorious for telling you less than you wanted to know, and with more sugar than die news warranted. He wished mey would realize how aggravating it was for them hold back the tram when an empath could tell they were pretending. He should have remembered Jase had never been that type. It was another reason Eldrinson liked him.

“Why don’t you know?” Eldrinson asked.

“We aren’t sure if your body will accept the changes.”

“Oh.” He wanted to ask more, but fatigue weighed on him. The pain in his legs was increasing and he had exhausted himself, though he had done little more than lie in bed.

“Are you thirsty?” Jase asked.

Thirsty? Actually, very much so, now that he thought of it.

“Yes,” he said.

A clink came from the nightstand. Then Jase set a glasswood tumbler into his hand. Lifting his head, Eldrinson drank the water witii relief. When he finished, he let his head fall back on the pillows. Jase took the glass from his hand.

The pain in his legs was growing. Softly he said, “I hurt.”

“I can increase your medication.”

“Medication?” Eldrinson heard the strain in his voice.

“We injected you with a nanomed species mat dispenses a painkiller into your body. Each med carries a picochip. Via a remote, we can tell those chips to increase the dosage mey release.”

Eldrinson wondered if the words made sense. Twenty years ago it would have sounded like gibberish, and right now it wasn’t much better. It was hard to think when he hurt so much. “Can you make the pain go away?”

“I think so.”

“Do that. Please.”

“All right.” Tapping noises came from the nightstand. “You should notice a change soon.”

“Good.” Eldrinson whispered the word.

Then he lay there, enduring it. He didn’t notice a change. The agony went on and on.

Gradually, though, he began to feel detached from the pain. After a while it hardly bothered him at all.

“Eldrinson?” Jase asked. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” He felt sleepy. “Can’t see you, though.”

“We can help that, too.”

His mind began to drift. “Robot eyes? Click, click, Eldri, you’re blinking.”

“Eldri?” Now Jase sounded confused.

“Yes?” Eldrinson asked.

“Oh. I see. It is your nickname.”

“Only Roca may use it.” Eldrinson yawned. “And Garlin.”

“Garlin?”

“My cousin. He has a farm outside Rishollina now. You would have called him my regent, when I was young.” His eyes closed, though it made no difference to what he saw. Or didn’t see. “He raised me.”

“Ah,” Jase said.

Eldrinson slipped into the welcome oblivion of sleep, where he wouldn’t face the horror of what they wanted to do to his legs and eyes.

Vibarr

oz walked down the corridor after class, deep in thought, pondering multilayered Hilbert spaces, including those that created the Kyle universe.

“Cadet Valdoria?” a voice said.

Startled, she glanced up. A novice from her own class was walking next to her, a girl with brown hair and a round face. She saluted as if Soz were an upperclass cadet.

“You don’t have to salute me,” Soz said.

“Foxer says you’re third-year status now.”

Interesting. It was true she did have the augmentation that most cadets received in their junior year. And she had tested out of her first-and second-year classes, ending up in third-year or senior courses. But she still roomed with the novices and thought of herself as a first-year student. If Secondary Foxer said otherwise, though, who was she to argue?

Soz grinned at her. “At ease.”

The other girl relaxed. “I have a message for you, from Foxer. You’ve a visitor this evening, during your free hour.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Then remembering herself, Soz added, “Thank you, Cadet.

Dismissed.”

The novice saluted and took off, obviously relieved. Soz wondered if she felt awkward, having to treat a former classmate like an officer. Then she wondered who was coming to visit She wished it could be her mother, with news of her father. Soz wanted to see him so much. He had almost died. It helped a little to know it wasn’t only her he had refused to see, but she longed to go home, to end her exile and be with her family. They needed one another now.

Even if her father would have let her come home, though, Kurj probably wouldn’t let her go. Allowing an extended absence for travel to another world in the middle of die term would be granting her an exception over other cadets, which he wasn’t likely to do.

Lost in her brooding, she ran into a barrier. Soz blinked and looked up. Her roommate Grell was standing mere with her arms crossed.

Soz’s face heated. “Sorry.”

“Heya.” Grell lowered her arms. “You going to run me over?”

“I wouldn’t dare.” Soz smiled. “You might organize Jazar and Obsidian into a commando team and attack me with pillows.”

Her roommate’s grin flashed. “Good idea.”

Grell fell in beside her and they walked togemer down the marble hall bordered by columns. Other cadets passed them by, talking with each other or lost in thought.

“So how does it feel to be wired up?” Grell asked.

Soz thought of her biomech enhancements. “Fast.”

“Rajindia still following you around?”

“No, thank goodness.” The biomech adept had grilled her for days after the trouble with the node. Soz had fully intended to take care with the accelerated mode, but Rajindia and Kurj decided on drastic steps anyway. “They took out the extra memory in my node.”

“Will you get it back?”

“I think, if Rajindia ever decides I’m no longer at risk of brain damage.”

Grell smirked. “What, you mean it didn’t already happen?”

“Hey!” Soz swung her flat-pack and Grell ducked, laughing. Several cadets glanced their way. Thinking of her never-ending supply of demerits, Soz resisted the temptation to keep roughhousing. Instead she smiled angelically at a senior cadet who was frowning at her. She didn’t know his name, but she had noticed him around. He was tall and well muscled, witii a patrician nose and the dark coloring of the nobility.

Grell stopped at Soz’s side. “Sir!” She saluted the cadet.

Belatedly, Soz started to salute. Then she remembered the novice who had saluted her. Foxer said Soz was a junior now. According to the convoluted academy rules, that meant she didn’t have to salute other upperclass cadets.

Or was it only juniors? She squinted at the senior, her flat-pack dangling.

Yes, she remembered, she was supposed to salute seniors.

“Sir!” Soz dropped her flat-pack and raised her arms, fists clenched, wrists crossed.

He looked bored. “At ease.”

Soz lowered her arms. For good measure, she added, “Yes, sir.”

“You realize,” he said, “that was worth two demerits.”

Ah, hell. Resigned, Soz said, “Yes, sir.”

He motioned to Grell. “You may go, Novice.”

Grell looked from Soz to the senior. But she couldn’t refuse. “Yes, sir.”

Then she went on her way, with a backward glance at them.

Soz considered him. He had to be a psion, given that he was a cadet here, but she picked up nothing from his guarded mind. She waited, unsure what he wanted.

He indicated a side hall. “Novice.”

Soz thought of telling him she was an upperclass cadet now, but decided against it. He still outranked her, besides which, with her questionable tact, it might come out badly. She went down the hall, aware of him behind her.

“In there,” he said. “On the right.”

Soz turned into a secluded alcove that slanted off from the wall. It had probably once been part of a larger room drat had been divided. Now a few crates filled it, stacked against one wall. The way it angled back from the hall made it impossible for anyone to see into the alcove unless they came down the side corridor and stopped to look in here.

Soz didn’t like it. She paused next to a pile of boxes and regarded the senior. “Sir?”

He leaned against the wall so that he blocked even the restricted view from the hallway outside. Not that anyone was likely to come this way. “I hear you’ve got nothing but demerits, Cadet Valdoria.”

So he knew her name. Soz scrutinized his uniform, but she couldn’t read the tag from where she stood and she had no intention of going closer to him. “No, sir.”

His voice turned cold. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“No, sir. You said you had heard I had nothing but demerits. I’ve also many other things.” Then she added, “Sir.”

He stepped toward her, his face flushing. “Don’t goad me, smart-mouth. You just got yourself two more.” He stopped in front of her and braced his palm against the crates behind her back, cornering her in the alcove.

Node, she thought. How many regulations is this asshole breaking?

None, it answered. An instructor would probably give him one or more demerits for his behavior, but technically, he hasn’t violated any procedures.

“So what do you say, Valdoria?” he asked in a low voice, his body a handspan away from hers. “You going to be on droid duty for the rest of your life?”

“I hope not.” To her node, she thought, It must be against regulations for him to get this close to me.

In spirit, yes. By the book, no. He hasn’t touched you.

If he does touch me, is there any device in this alcove that can record it?

Nothing.

Well, hell. That was convenient for him. Then again, if she couldn’t prove his inappropriate behavior, neither could he prove disrespect on her part.

However, her node added, both you and Cadet Vibarr have biomech webs and nodes. Anything you do will be recorded on his node, and vice versa.

So his name was Vibarr. That meant he came from a powerful noble House.

“You hope not?” Vibarr was saying. “I’ll bet you’ve suffered more disciplinary action than all your roommates combined.”

Soz saw the trap. Of course. He believed she was a novice. He didn’t know she had a node. He probably assumed he could record her behavior, including any violations, but she would have no record to use against him. Spinal nodes were supposed to be tamperproof, but given his actions, it wouldn’t surprise her if he had fooled with his enough to gain control over what it recorded. She had to be careful here and go by the book.

She answered in an even voice. “I don’t know how many demerits my roommates have, sir.”

He lifted his finger, almost touching her lips. “I haven’t registered the four you’ve earned from me yet.”

“Is mat so?” Soz wanted to ram her knee into a certain sensitive place he was pushing all too close to her. “I’m sure you will carry on according to proper procedure. Sir.”

“I’m sure.” He moved his finger down, almost touching her chin. Then he went down to her breasts, still not touching. “What would you say is proper, Valdoria?”

For frigging sakes, Node, Soz thought. If this isn’t sexual harassment, I don’t know what is.

In my estimation, if you brought a complaint against him, with my record of this incident, you could have him put on probation.

It would serve him right. Anyone who misused his seniority this way had probably done it to other cadets as well. But if she made a stir, it could backfire. He came from a powerful family. She did as well, but she couldn’t appear to misuse her title. Always it came to this: as an Imperial heir, she was watched more closely. It made no difference that relatively few people knew her identity; those who did would assess and judge her behavior by a tougher criterion than other cadets, except Althor. Hell, Kurj would probably come down harder on her than Althor, given the way he seemed to think she needed it more. She had better damn well make sure she handled this without breaking any rules herself.

Pride also came into it; she was a descendant of the Ruby Pharaohs who had ruled a matriarchy where men didn’t even fight For one of those queens, this situation would have

been humiliating. To conflict her reactions even more, she had grown up in a culture where only men fought It all left her with a tangle of emotions that she herself didn’t fully understand.

“Proper procedure is in me regulations,” Soz said, answering his question.

Lame answer, but she was stalling while she decided what to do.

“The rule book?” He leaned closer. ‘To survive, every good soldier learns when to compromise, Novice.”

Soz gritted her teeth. “Is my survival in danger?”

He tilted his head. “Get too many demerits, and you’ll find yourself out of this academy as fast as you can say, ‘Well, fuck, I~broke the profanity rules.’”

“Yes, sir. You did.” To her node, she thought, You get that?

Affirmative. However, if swearing was considered a serious offense, the majority of the cadets here would be in trouble, including yourself.

“You think you’re tough,” Vibarr said. “Think again.”

“What I think,” Soz said, enunciating each word, “is that this goes well beyond the respect expected by lower-class cadets for seniors.”

His eyes glinted. “And how would you prove that?”

Soz had to make a decision: tell him about her node and make him back off, keeping the matter discreet; or keep silent and let him hang himself for an expulsion. Convincing him to back off would be safer. If she accused him, me inquiries could be embarrassing and might leave her open to a backlash.

Smear campaigns paid little heed to the tram, and she had no doubt Vibarr would spread rumors. But who knew how many people he had misused tins way, cadets who might also have opted for discretion rather than risk trouble. That was the problem with DMA; as much as its ingrained traditionalism produced well-trained cadets, it also discouraged any sort of stir, even when the person causing it was in the right.