Carnelians (18 page)

“You too,” Red said.

When Tide glanced back at Aliana, she again had the sense he wanted to touch her. She was on the verge of throwing her arms around him, entreating him to come with them. But neither of them did anything. He just nodded to her and took off down the hall. At the oddly square corner where his hall intersected another, he paused and looked back.

Aliana raised her hand. “Be well,” she whispered.

Tide lifted his hand. Then he turned the corner.

Gainor spoke gently. “What are your names?”

“Aliana call me Red,” Red said.

“Do you have any other names?” Gainor asked.

He shook his head. “Just that.”

Aliana turned back to them, despondent. “I’m Aliana Miller Azina. I was named for a chemical or something.”

“A chemical?” Gainor smiled. “Aliana is a shortened version of Aliana-Lia. It’s a popular Skolian name.”

“I’m not Skolian!”

Red frowned at her. “But Tide say—”

“Stop it!” Aliana told him. “I don’t care what Tide says.”

Gainor spoke carefully. “What branch of the military did Tide serve in? The navy?”

“He wasn’t military.” Aliana didn’t actually know if Razers were part of ESComm, but she wouldn’t tell this Gainor regardless. He was trying to trick her.

The Jagernaut glanced at Red. “Did he work for the Aristo who owned you?”

“I not know,” Red said.

Aliana could tell Gainor wasn’t convinced. An alarming thought hit her: if she could pick up his emotions, he might be picking hers up as well.

Gainor spoke, again using that unexpected kindness so incongruous with his formidable presence. “With you, I get some moods, but only a rare thought, and only if it’s unusually strong and on the surface of your mind. Like that last one. If you want to protect your mind, imagine a shield around it.”

Heat flushed in Aliana’s cheeks. This was mortifying. She imagined a fortress surrounding her mind with locks designed to keep Gainor out, out,
OUT.

He inhaled sharply. “Careful! Don’t use it as a weapon.”

“Weapon?” She hesitated, uncertain what he meant. She covered her fortress with mist.

Gainor’s shoulders relaxed. “Yes. Better.”

Another strange thought came to Aliana. It wasn’t to his advantage to reveal that he could hear some of her thoughts. He even told her how to protect herself. If he had wanted to trick her, he would never help her that way.

Gainor motioned to the archway. “My commanding officer is in the room beyond this door. She will ask you both about why you came to us. Answer the best you can and you’ll be fine.”

“All right.” Aliana wished this was over. Red stood at her side, steady and silent.

Gainor tapped a code into a tiled panel, and the archway shimmered and faded away. As he ushered them forward, Aliana had an odd sensation, as if an invisible membrane slid over her skin. Maybe the “door” was still there, just changed so they could walk through it.

The room beyond was big. A woman sat at a desk, her dark hair pulled back, her face like an austere statue. She wore a uniform similar to Gainor’s, black and sleek, but like Gainor, she had no slave collar or wrist cuffs. So strange. She stood as they came in, her gaze intent on Aliana.

Why look so hard at me?
Aliana wondered, but she hid the thought within her mental fortress.

“Welcome,” the woman said. “I’m Lyra Lensmark.” She motioned to several chairs set about her desk. It disoriented Aliana; she was used to cushions on the floor, scattered around low tables. But she and Red sat down, and Gainor did, too, while Lensmark settled behind her desk. Aliana perched on the edge of her seat, ready to bolt.

“This is Aliana and Red,” Gainor said. “They’ve come to ask for asylum.”

“Not political asylum, I take it.” Lensmark considered them. “You’re both psions?”

“Yes,” Red said.

Aliana felt painfully vulnerable, unprotected, ready to burst. “I don’t understand this psion thing. Everyone keeps saying it like I should know what it means.”

“Provider,” Red said.

Not again! Aliana jumped to her feet. “Damn it all, quit calling me that fucking name!”

Lensmark’s voice snapped out. “Sit down, young lady.”

Startled, Aliana dropped into her seat.

“When you are in my office,” Lensmark told her, “you will use courteous language, not cuss like you came out of a sewer hole. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Aliana’s cheeks were burning. “I’m sorry.”

“All right, let’s start over.” Lensmark spoke to Red. “You know you’re a psion?”

“Yes. I provide—” He looked at Aliana and stopped.

“A provider for who?” Lensmark asked.

“Nobody now. He throw me away.”

“Who threw you away?”

“Admiral Muze.”

Lensmark’s face paled. “Which Admiral Muze?”

“I only know one,” Red said. “Joint Commander.”

“Gods above,” Gainor muttered.

Lensmark let out a long breath. Then she spoke to Aliana. “You have a Skolian name.”

No, no, no, no. Aliana wanted to groan. Really, she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t do that, not here, not in front of Skolians, not in front of anyone. “It’s a chemical. My father worked in an azine factory. My mother worked for a miller. That’s why I’m Aliana Miller Azina.”

Red shot her an apologetic look, then spoke to Lensmark. “Tide say Aliana is Skolian.”

“Who is Tide?” Lensmark asked.

“He’s just a friend,” Aliana said quickly. “He brought us here.”

“Your boyfriend?” Lensmark asked.

Aliana’s cheeks heated. “No!”

“He’s a lot older than they are,” Gainor said. “Military, I’m almost certain.”

“Not military,” Red said.

They all looked at him.

“He not,” Red said.

“How long have you known him?” Lensmark asked.

“I meet yesterday,” Red explained.

She raised an eyebrow. “And in your lengthy acquaintance with this man, you can say for certain he isn’t a military officer?”

“Yes.”

Lensmark considered him. Then she turned to Aliana. “How long have you known Tide?”

Aliana shifted in her chair. “About three months.”

“How did you get involved with him?”

“I’m a bouncer at a holo-club. He was teaching me how to fight.”

“A girl your age was a bouncer?” Lensmark stared at her. “Where are your parents?”

“My mother is dead.” Aliana gritted her teeth, then made herself relax so she could talk. “My father left her before she knew she was pregnant. It was on a hinterland world. Tide says my father might have been a Skolian soldier working as a spy. My stepfather is a half-Aristo asshole.”

“What you just told me,” Lensmark said, “is astounding in so many ways, I hardly know where to start.”

Aliana just wanted to leave. It was all she could do to stay put. And damn it, she’d cussed in front of Lensmark again. She hadn’t meant to. The Skolian woman hardly seemed to have noticed, though, she was so distracted by whatever Aliana had said that was so astounding.

“I’m nothing special,” Aliana said.

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

“Not even close. I don’t know about my father.”

“A lot of providers have metallic skin,” Gainor said.

“My father worked in a
factory.
”

Lensmark rubbed her chin. “How tall are you?”

“I don’t know.” Aliana squinted at her. “You got height restrictions in Skolia?”

Lensmark smiled. “No restrictions. But you’re unusually tall and muscular, and I’d wager you aren’t done growing yet.”

“Does that matter?”

“Your size is related to your parents.” Lensmark was being careful again. “It might help us find your father, if he is Skolian. Or was.”

Or was.
Was.
Until that moment, Aliana hadn’t realized she’d always assumed her father was out there somewhere. On the heels of that unwanted self-knowledge came another: she’d always hoped to find him. Now she didn’t know what to do. Did she need to know if her father was a dead Skolian? Hell, she would be Skolian soon, if these people let her. She didn’t want this, didn’t want to leave everything she’d always known, but she couldn’t go back. They would find her, the women and men who served the Muze Line, and she would even rather be a Skolian than become their prisoner.

“I would never do that.” The man standing on the holostage in Kelric’s living room looked as if he were here in the room instead of many light-years away on Earth. Only the slight wavering of his body every now and then revealed he was a projection. Red hair tousled over his collar, and he looked like a kid, hardly more than twenty. Kelric knew better; physically, his brother Del was in his late thirties.

“Dehya checked it herself,” Kelric told him. “The leak on that song came from you.”

Del crossed his arms and regarded Kelric coldly. “If you believe I would release ‘Carnelians Finale’ to destroy the peace process, the hell with you.”

A woman’s voice came from behind Kelric. “Del, calm down. That’s not what he means.”

Startled, Kelric looked around. Dehya had entered the room, a delicate woman in a blue jumpsuit. She seemed too ethereal for the huge, spare living room, which was all smooth stone walls except for the gold silhouette of desert horizon that glowed at waist level.

“Aunt Dehya.” Del lowered his arms and his voice warmed. “My greetings.”

She smiled as she came up next to Kelric. “It’s good to see you, Del. And we know you didn’t deliberately release the song. It appeared to come from you, but it was done without your knowledge.” Then she added, “Just like Kelric killed himself in the Kyle without realizing it.”

Well, damn, Kelric thought. She would have to mention that.

Del stared at them. “Kelric
what?
”

“Something affected our neural processes,” Kelric said. He wanted to make this right, so his brother didn’t think they doubted him, but he never knew how to talk to Del, how to deal with his brother’s emotional intensity and mercurial moods. That was part of what made Del such a gifted artist, but it was so unlike the way Kelric saw the world, it left him at a loss. “We don’t know yet how it happened. Essentially, I overloaded my brain until it shut down. Doctor Sashia restarted it from one of my neural backups.”

“You’re saying someone controlled your thoughts and made you kill yourself?” Del’s face paled. “If that’s really possible,
nothing
can protect us. Why aren’t you terrified?”

He scowled at Del. “Getting emotional won’t solve anything.” Of course he was afraid. But the last thing Imperial Space Command needed was for its commander to panic.

Kelric, don’t,
Dehya thought.
To Del, you probably sound like you’re discussing the weather.

This is the way I am. I’m not going to jump up and down screaming.

I know. And I understand. But he doesn’t.

Kelric knew what she wanted. Doing his best to put reassurance into his voice, he said, “Del, listen. We don’t think this was easily done. It may not even be possible to replicate it.”

Del’s shoulders had tensed, but as Kelric spoke, his stiffness eased. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Kelric said. He tried to let down his emotional barriers. “It’s frustrating. I don’t even know what happened in those few moments between my last backup and when I died.”

“You backed yourself up and restarted your brain?” Del asked. “I mean, I know it’s possible, if you have enough neural augmentation. But it’s like—like you’re—” He stumbled to a stop.

Kelric had to make a conscious effort not to grit his teeth. “Like I’m a machine?” Del wouldn’t be the first person who had described him that way.

“Kelric, no, I didn’t mean that. I just don’t understand how all this could have happened without any of us knowing.” Del reached out to the side, out of the range of the holo-cam, and his arm vanished up to his elbow. It reappeared as he pulled a desk into view. He leaned against it, sitting on the edge. “What about mother and everyone else? Aunt Dehya, are you all right?”

Careful what you tell him,
Kelric warned.

He’s not a child,
Dehya thought. Aloud, she said, “We’re not sure what happened to me. Everyone else is fine.”

Del braced his palms on the edge of the desk. “What do you mean, what happened to you?”

Don’t,
Kelric told her.
We don’t know if he can handle it.

He deserves to know,
Dehya thought.
He was attacked, too. Trust him.

Trust. With Del, it was hard for Kelric. In his youth, Del had made some terrible choices, and he had suffered for them. After he had overdosed on drugs, with a violent allergenic reaction, the health nanomeds in his body had gone awry and amplified the damage instead of helping. Del had spent nearly fifty years in cryogenic suspension, until medical science had advanced to the point where they could heal his body and keep him alive. But that was in the past. Kelric would never agree with many of Del’s decisions, like staying on Earth to be a “holo-rock” star, but Del had matured these past years and he seemed happier than Kelric had ever seen him before.

Dehya was watching Kelric. She didn’t need his agreement to tell Del confidential information; as Ruby Pharaoh, she outranked the Imperator. But she and Kelric had always worked as a team and he respected her judgment.

Tell him what you think he needs to know,
he thought.
I won’t object.

Del was waiting, his posture tensed. He had to know they were communicating about him.

“Del, what I tell you isn’t for anyone else to know,” Dehya said. “Not even Ricki, your wife.”

“You have my word,” Del said.

“Whoever struck you and Kelric also got to me,” Dehya said. “My links to the Kyle web exploded. I was cut off.” She spread her hands out from her body. “I couldn’t get out of the Kyle.”

“Why not?” Del asked. “Couldn’t the techs just unplug you from the mesh?”

“They did.”

“And you were
still
in the Kyle?”

“That’s right.”

“I thought that was impossible.”

“It is. Mostly.”

His smile flashed. “That ‘mostly’ meaning impossible for anyone except you, I’d wager.”