Carnelians (14 page)

“No, damn it!” Tide said. “Don’t ever believe that.”

“Stepman have rusty eyes?” Red asked.

“If you mean, was he part Aristo, then yeah,” Aliana said.

“You provider,” Red told her. “That why he hit you.”

“I am not!” Aliana scowled at him. “Don’t make things up.”

“Not make up.” He touched her cheek, his finger lingering. “Gold skin. Like provider.” He lowered his arm. “Pretty, like provider. And your brain hears thoughts. Like provider.”

“What the
hell?
” Tide jerked so hard, the flyer swerved. “Are you saying she’s an
empath?
”

“Empath. Telepath,” Red said.

Aliana’s gaze flicked between the two of them. “What are you talking about?”

“He claims you feel people’s emotions,” Tide said. “Maybe their thoughts.”

“Oh, that.” Aliana shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

Tide made a strangled sound. “I’m going to die.”

“Whatever for?” Aliana had never seen him like this. He was usually the man of cool.

Tide tapped a panel that said
autopilot
. Then he turned to give Aliana his full attention. “It’s true what Red says, that a lot of providers have been genetically altered to resembling precious metals or gems. Like blue eyes that look like sapphires. Or gold skin. Metallic gold. Like yours.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been a provider,” Aliana said.

“Did your mother have gold skin?” Tide asked.

“Of course not.” Although she didn’t like to talk about her mother, it didn’t hurt as much now as it had eleven years ago. “She was beautiful. And sweet. But not gold.”

“What about your biological father?”

“I have no fucking idea.” Aliana crossed her arms and stared out at the sky.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Tide said. “But you got that gold skin from somewhere.” After a moment, he added, “Did your mother work in an Aristo’s household? If she was a psion, I could see an Aristo wanting to breed her to another strong psion.”

“No, my mother never served an Aristo,” Aliana said coldly, watching the horizon. “Never saw an Aristo. Never spoke the freaking
name
of an Aristo.” Thawing a bit, she added, “She hardly even lived in Eubian space. She grew up in the hinterlands, on a world even worse than this one. My stepfather brought her here.”

A sense of stillness came from Tide. Uncrossing her arms, Aliana glanced over to find him staring at her hard. “What?” she asked.

“What do you mean by hinterlands? A border region with Skolian space?”

“Well, yeah. So it was a crummy place, okay. I can’t help that.”

“Aliana, could your father be a Skolian?”

“Oh, go drill yourself.” What was
with
him, making all these rude cracks? It wasn’t like him.

“This can’t be,” Tide said.

“You bet it can’t,” Aliana said.

“Skolians have providers?” Red asked.

“If Aliana’s father was a provider,” Tide said, “She wouldn’t be so big.”

“Are you done insulting me yet?” she asked.

“I’m not insulting you.” Tide took a breath. “You aren’t ugly, Aliana. Your stepfather told you that to hurt you. You’re beautiful, but not like a provider. They’re bred to be soft, pretty, sweet. Docile.” Wryly he added, “You’re about as docile as a Balzarian she-devil.”

Her anger eased. “You got that right.”

“Do you know how rare telepaths are?” Tide asked. “At best, one in a million. Maybe one in a billion. Pretty much the only Eubian ones that exist are those bred by Aristos to be providers. So how did someone like you end up in the slums of some unknown planet? It’s like finding a billion credit gem in the trash.”

Red pushed up his sleeve, and his wrist cuff glittered in the dawn’s sunlight. “Can happen.”

“Gods almighty.” Tide gaped at Red. “Who the hell did you belong to?”

“Admiral Muze.”

Tide’s face turned ashen. “The Joint Commander of the Eubian Fleet?”

“Yes,” Red said. “That right.”

“Gods,” Tide muttered. “Maybe I should just commit suicide right now.”

“Tide, stop it,” Aliana said. “You’re scaring me. Why would you be in trouble?”

“Oh, nothing much,” he growled. “Just for having two of the most valuable pieces of property on the planet and not turning either of you in to the authorities.”

Aliana gave an uneasy laugh. “That’s not funny.”

“No.” He turned back to his controls. “Believe me, it’s not funny at all.”

Aliana didn’t understand him; he came from a life she knew nothing about, where people like him guarded the princes of an empire. She spoke slowly, as if the words themselves could end what little joy she had eked out of her life. “Are you’re going to turn us into Admiral Muze?”

“Hell, no.” His hand was clenched so tight on his navigation stick, his knuckles had turned white. “ESComm ordered my execution just because I have the same DNA as a Razer who died saving the life of the Aristo he protected. The executions stopped, I don’t know why, but I’ve no intention of drawing any attention to myself. I might not survive a second time.” His voice tightened. “And damned if I would turn you in anyway.”

“You know,” Aliana said, “you don’t sound like a Razer.”

“I suppose that’s why our line was decommissioned.” His tension eased and he smiled, almost. “My programming is for me to guard whoever I’m assigned to protect. So now I’m protecting you two.”

“By calling me a Skolian?” she grumbled, mainly to cover her relief.

“Aliana, listen. It makes sense. Maybe your father was a Skolian soldier.” He glanced at her. “Some of them are psions. If your mother’s world was in a border region, it’s possible a Skolian soldier went there as a spy or on reconnaissance.”

Bile rose in her throat. “You mean some Skolian scum raped my mother?”

Tide spoke quietly. “She was forced?”

“Well, actually, that wasn’t what she said.” Aliana felt as if she were lost at sea instead of above it. She had been so young when her mother told her about her father, not even five yet, but she treasured the memory. “She said she loved him, that he was kind to her, but that he had to go away. Neither of them knew she was pregnant when he left.”

“If he were a spy, he would have had to leave eventually,” Tide said.

“Good way to learn about your enemies,” Aliana said bitterly. “Pretend you’re in love with one, get all her pillow talk, and then dump her when you’re finished.”

“Why pretend?” Tide said. “She wouldn’t have anything to tell him if she was a low ranked taskmaker on a slum world. Maybe he really loved her.”

“Then why didn’t he take her with him?”

“He probably couldn’t get her out, especially if he had to leave unexpectedly.”

“Yeah, right.” His logic made her feel better, though.

“So we go to Skolian embassy?” Red asked.

“Oh, honestly, Red,” Aliana said.

“Good gods,” Tide said. “That’s the answer!”

The answer? It sounded nuts to Aliana. But then, she understood zilch about Skolians, except that she didn’t want to meet any. “How do you know about Skolian embassies?” she asked Red.

“Admiral Muze not like them,” Red said. “He want them burned. Emperor say no.”

Her mouth fell open. “You’ve met the
emperor?
”

“Seen him. Not come close. He not like me.”

“How do you know he didn’t like you?” Aliana asked.

“He say Admiral Muze must send me away.”

“Oh.” She squinted at him. “Then you don’t have any good gossip about Emperor Jaibriol?”

Red frowned at her. “Is wrong to gossip about gods.”

“Oh, sure,” Aliana said. “Like they’re really gods.”

Tide made an incredulous sound. “Aliana, stop that!”

“Stop what?”

“He’s the
emperor.
You’re going to get yourself killed if you aren’t careful.”

She shifted in her seat. “I meant no disrespect.” She had, actually, but she saw Tide’s point. “Will you really make me go to a Skolian embassy?”

“It may be your only way out of this.” Tide glanced at Red. “Both of you.”

“Me not Skolian,” Red said. “Can’t go to embassy.”

Aliana sat up straighter. “I’m not leaving Red behind.”

Tide exhaled. “All right, listen. I never told you what I’m about to say. If you claim I did, I’ll deny it.”

“Told us what?” she asked.

“Providers who ask the Skolians for asylum are always granted it,” Tide said. “By Skolian law, providers are considered prisoners who have been tortured in violation of interstellar law. A Skolian embassy is Skolian territory. So if they give you asylum, you’re free.”

“Why would anyone want Skolian asylum?” Aliana said. “It sounds like putting you in a house for the insane.” Which was where they’d belong if they wanted to live with Skolians.

“You have a better idea?” Tide asked. “Aliana, sweetheart, you beat up one of Orzon Muze’s bastards and his bodyguard and you stole one of Admiral Muze’s providers. And if you really are a psion, any Aristo who comes near you will sense it. You’re in trouble, babe. You want to be tortured for the rest of your life? A lot of Aristos would enjoy breaking that eff-you spirit of yours.”

She stared at him. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Tide said. “That sums it up.”

“So we three go to embassy?” Red asked.

Tide turned back to his piloting, his gaze shuttered. “Not me.”

“Why not?” Aliana asked. “You said yourself, you’re in a mess.”

“I can’t go to the Skolians.”

“You’ll make us go, but you won’t?” She wanted to shake him.

He spoke quietly. “I was a bodyguard for a highly ranked military officer on Glory.”

“So?” She clenched her fist. “I’m training to be a bodyguard.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Why not?”

He met her angry gaze. “If I defected to the Skolians, I would be committing treason. Their military would take me apart.”

“Oh.” She felt as if she had rammed into a wall. Of course it was different. Her paltry attempts at training couldn’t compare with what he had done in his life. Nor did she want him risking execution for treason. “But what will you do? You said you’re in trouble, too.”

“I’ll manage. As long as no one knows I took you two to the embassy.”

“How you hide?” Red asked. “Aristos know everything.”

He shrugged. “I was around them for decades, learning their security. Hell, I was
part
of that security. I know a few things myself.”

Aliana spoke softly. “I’m sorry, Tide. I never meant for you to be involved.”

His expression gentled. “I chose to come after you, babe. That was my decision.”

“Why would you make a crazy decision like that?”

He started to answer, but then he glanced at Red and stopped. Turning back to his piloting, he just said, “I have no idea.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what to make of that.

“You are so damn young,” Tide muttered.

“That’s curable, you know,” she said. When he laughed, she asked, “So where is this embassy?”

He brought the flyer around in a shallow arc, changing their heading from south to east. “This way. Muzeopolis is on a large island to the south, and the embassy is on the mainland.”

Aliana could see only water in every direction. But sooner or later, the land would come and the life she had known would change forever.

Burning red mist surrounded Dehya. She couldn’t remember why or how she had come here. Music pounded:

I’m no golden hero in the blazing skies.

I’m no fair-haired genius, hiding in disguise.

A man’s thought came to her, curling out of the mist.
When he sings fair-haired genius, he means you.

Dehya’s focus sharpened.
Taquinil? Is that you?

The red faded into a gentler color, soft and golden. As the universe cooled, the man’s thought came again.
My greetings, Mother.

The landscape swelled into a shape that resembled the diffraction pattern from a circular aperture, like the wavelets in a pond after she dropped a rock into the smooth water. It grew into a symmetrical peak in the center with smaller ripples circling it. Taquinil. Her son. He existed only in the Kyle, his mind centered in the peak, his thoughts spreading in every direction. The waveform glowed gold, like his eyes in the real universe, against a background as black as his midnight hair. Sparks of light flashed along the ripples.

Taquinil, her firstborn. In the last war, the Traders had reached the Orbiter, attacking that stronghold, seeking the Ruby Dynasty. To escape, she and Taquinil they had thrown themselves into the spacetime singularity that defined a Lock, and it had transformed their actual bodies into the Kyle, a universe of thought. The immense energy required for that change had nearly destroyed them. She had eventually returned to normal space, coming out in partial waves, but Taquinil had stayed in the Kyle. He existed now only as a quantum wave function of thought.

Dehya had never quite figured out how to greet a son who had turned himself into a wave.
You look good. For a, uh, waveform.

A sense of amusement came from him.
Thank you.

Taquinil, we miss you.

And I you.

Come home. Meet your brother. He’s almost ten.
She and Eldrin had named their second son Althor in honor of Eldrin’s brother Althor, a Jagernaut who had died in the War.
Come home, sweetheart.

Maybe someday.

Dehya knew if she pushed, he would disappear. So she just said,
I’m glad to see you.

I had to come. Someone tried to kill you.

Don’t be silly. I’m fine.

No you aren’t.

She focused and the scene changed, becoming the green of a sun-drenched forest. Her mind formed an emerald waveform next to Taquinil’s gold. All the while, “Carnelians Finale” played in the background:
I’m only a singer; it’s all that I can do. But I’m still alive, and I’m coming after you.

Your uncle Del wrote that,
Dehya thought.

Taquinil’s wave flashed with red sparks.
Did he try to hurt you?

Del? Good gods, no. Why would you ask such a thing?