Carnelians (32 page)

Someone touched her arm. Startled, she turned to see one of the soldiers. “Stay with me when we leave the ship,” he told her. “Don’t talk. Kneel when it’s appropriate.”

She wanted to ask how she would know when it was appropriate, but he looked so severe, she just nodded.

Two soldiers left the shuttle. She had little doubt that they went first so if any danger turned up outside, they would be killed instead of the Hightons. Apparently nothing happened, because the three Aristos disembarked, their grey uniforms crackling as they moved. Red’s guards escorted him out next, and his clothes glistened in the gold sunlight slanting through the hatchway.

Aliana’s guard went forward and she followed him, squinting as they neared the exit, not because the sunlight bothered her, but because . . . well, she didn’t know why. She wanted to protect herself, and squinting was pretty much the extent of her ability to do anything. That and maybe her mental fortress, if it was even doing anything.

The landing field was a silvery expanse decorated with blue lines and elegant gold and red symbols where the lines intersected. It was lovely and unexpected. The wind blew through her hair, ruffling the gold curls that fell around her shoulders and down her back. The air smelled impossibly pure and clear, reminding her of sweet water running over rocks. Mountains rose high on all sides, peak after peak carpeted in green forests thicker than any foliage she had ever seen. So much sensation, so much richness. She needed time to absorb it all.

The guard drew her to a halt. She saw why; up ahead, the three Hightons had stopped. A newcomer had joined them on the landing field, a man who looked like them, except his uniform had more gold, especially the bars on his shoulders. The four of them stood talking, looking so much alike, Aliana wondered if they were clones. Probably not; they weren’t identical. But she would have bet they were kin.

Red’s guards stopped him well back from the Hightons. The moment she saw his face, she knew who the Highton was who had come to meet the shuttle. It wasn’t only the fear in his gaze, but also the hatred. He was staring at the man who had tortured him for over a year and then, on a whim, condemned him to die.

Aliana clenched her fists, struggling for control. She wanted to run at Admiral Muze, attack him, do to him what he had done to Red, make him
suffer.
A few months ago she might have tried, even knowing they would shoot her before she went a few steps. But she was learning to control her temper. She didn’t know what she could do for Red, but getting herself killed wouldn’t help him.

Beyond the Hightons, another shuttle stood on the field gleaming like platinum. It was so sleek, Aliana realized it was artwork rather than a real ship. Or at least she thought so until an oval shimmered open in its hull, and a flight of stairs morphed down to the ground. Four men in black uniforms with carnelian red on their cuffs appeared in the hatchway. They descended to the field and stood flanking the stairs, two on each side, giants with emotionless faces and powerful forms. They weren’t Aristos; none had any hint of glittering hair or red eyes. They wore large gauntlets packed with tech, and silvery mesh piping threaded their uniforms. It all made them seem inhuman. And yet she recognized something about them, something familiar . . .

It hit her like a cold wind. They were like
Tide.
It wasn’t only their builds, but the way they held themselves, as if they were poised to attack or defend. These were Razers, the secret police and bodyguards of the Aristos. So who were they guarding?

When the answer to her question appeared in the hatchway of the platinum flyer, Aliana understood exactly what her guard had meant about kneeling. She gaped for one second at the celebrated face of the man and then dropped to her knees, bowing her head. The emperor had come to meet them.

No sound broke the silence except the keening wind. Aliana couldn’t absorb it all, so she decided to pretend it was perfectly normal for the greatest man alive to show up. Once she put that idea into her mind, she could think again. She raised her gaze, keeping her head down so no one would see she wasn’t looking at the ground. The emperor was standing with Admiral Muze and the other Hightons, his four bodyguards hulking around him. Everyone else was on their knees, including the bodyguards of the other Hightons. Her own guard was kneeling next to her, reduced to the same slavish show of obligatory worship as everyone else.

Eventually the emperor lifted his fingers slightly and the soldiers all stood up. A low tone hummed on the gauntlet of the guard next to Aliana.

“You may rise,” he told her in a low voice.

Aliana stood up. So did everyone else at exactly the same time, as if the emperor’s presence had turned them into a machine. Jaibriol Qox the Third. Who would have thought she would come this close to the greatest being alive? He looked younger than she expected. She was glad he was so far away; it meant she didn’t have to struggle against the pressure of his mind. She felt Admiral Muze even at this distance, a faint pressure adding to that of the other Hightons. The emperor didn’t register, though. Or maybe all their minds blended together to create a single miasma of misery.

Two thoughts came to Aliana. The first was that she had never heard the words “miasma of misery” in her life. Yet not only had she thought them, but she understood them. The other thought was that for one insane instant, she was certain the emperor
knew
she was there.

Kelric sunk onto the sofa in his living room, his booted feet planted wide, his elbows resting on his knees, his forehead on his palms. So tired. He couldn’t stop thinking about Del. Surely he would sense it if something terrible had happened to his brother. Del still lived. He had to believe that. But in what condition?

He wanted to go to Earth, throw away caution, forget he was the Imperator, and find his brother. Such a rash act would play into the hands of Del’s kidnappers, further disrupting the peace process. Gods, it was one thing after another, like being struck again and again, until he felt so worn down he wondered if the summit would ever happen. No one wanted it: not his people, not the Traders, not the Allieds. What the hell was wrong with them? Did they
want
to keep fighting until they wiped out the human race? If they couldn’t even establish the terms of a treaty they had already signed, maybe
homo sapiens
didn’t deserve to keep existing. But damned if he would give up. He would find a way to rescue his brother, meet with Jaibriol, and make the treaty work, and he would do it without anyone dying from assassination.

Gods only knew what Jaibriol Qox was dealing with. And Tarquine, his empress. Kelric didn’t want to worry about Tarquine. He didn’t love her. Sometimes he had hated her. But they had been lovers, no matter how much he wanted to forget. Why she had paid such an exorbitant price to buy an aging man as her provider, he would never understand. He had escaped and come home to claim his title while she went on to marry Jaibriol Qox, the epitome of youth and vitality.

“Kelric?” The soft voice came from across the room.

He looked up with a start. Dehya was standing in the entrance of his living room, a small figure within a huge archway. He didn’t need to ask how she entered; he never closed his home to her. She watched him with her sunrise eyes, so large and distant. Her face was paler than usual, her skin almost translucent. He had intended to meet with her hours ago, to go over the message from Jaibriol, but the time had somehow slipped by.

“What’s wrong?” He stood up, rubbing the small of his back. “You look as if you’ve seen the death of the human race.” He meant it as a joke, but it didn’t sound funny.

“Ah, gods, Kelric,” she said.

He went over to her. “Is it Del?”

She shook her head.

Kelric waited. When she said nothing, he thought,
Dehya? What is it?

“I can’t,” she said aloud. “I’ve been in the Kyle web for hours. My mind is worn out.”

“Have you been searching for Del?”

“All day.” She had that strange distant look, as if she were still partially in the Kyle. “I’ve also been running models, trying to understand what happened to the three of us.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Clues.” Her luminous eyes were so wide. “That’s not what I need to talk to you about.”

A woman’s rich voice came from the hall beyond the archway. “Kelric?”

He looked past Dehya. Roca was coming up the wide corridor. As Dehya turned around, Roca squinted at Kelric, then turned to Dehya, her sister. “He looks fine.”

“I am fine,” Kelric said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I sent her a message that she had to come right away.” Dehya sounded exhausted. She hadn’t even pulled back her hair; it fell in a lustrous but tangled black sweep over her arms and down her back to her waist. “I wanted to talk with you two first before we told anyone else.”

Roca joined them. “Is it Del?” Her voice caught. “Please don’t tell me it’s bad news.”

“It’s not Del,” Kelric said. “I’ve no idea what this is about.”

“I received a coded message from ISC on my personal account,” Dehya said. “Highest security level. It came from Trader space.”

He stared at her. “Why the
blazes
would ISC send you private messages from the Eubians?”

Dehya paced away from him, into the living room. As he turned to watch her, she stopped and faced them. “It’s because of a hidden monitor I set up on the interstellar meshes. It caught a message. A Skolian embassy on the world Muze’s Helios sent a blood test offworld, asking to have the results analyzed.”

“Why send it offworld?” Roca asked. “Analyzing blood tests is trivial.”

“It was for a Eubian taskmaker.”

“Why ask us to look at it?” Kelric said. “Who sent it?”

“A Jagernaut Secondary called Lyra Lensmark.”

“I know Lensmark,” he said. “She’s a good officer. Calm, tough, rational.” Lyra also had more diplomatic skills than most Jagernauts. That was why he had assigned her to an embassy in such a sensitive location.

“She was being careful,” Dehya said. “I think.”

“You think?” Roca asked.

“The taskmaker asked for asylum,” Dehya said. “She’s a psion. But I don’t think that’s why Lensmark sent the blood tests offworld.”

It was starting to make sense to Kelric. “Lensmark was smart to seek a Skolian facility. I wouldn’t trust ESComm to respect the Paris Accord if they found out she was harboring a psion.”

“I think that’s exactly how it was meant to look,” Dehya said, her voice strained, like leaves blowing over a distant plain.

“Appears?” Roca said. “Dehya, what are you trying to tell us? Whatever is going on in your mind, either I can’t follow it or else you’re blocking me.”

“I’m sorry.” Dehya took a breath. “I’ve been in the web so deep, I’m having trouble pulling out.”

“You’re not
connected
to the web,” Roca said.

“I know.” Dehya’s voice sounded distant. “But part of me is there.”

Unlike the rest of his family, Kelric had seen Dehya like this before, when she had been working long hours in the mesh and was struggling to come out. He had discovered that direct, literal questions helped her focus.

“What did Lensmark write on the request?” he asked.

“Not much,” Dehya said. “The girl isn’t a provider, but Lensmark is sure she’s a psion.”

“So what’s the problem?” Roca asked.

Dehya looked from Kelric to Roca, her face as delicate as porcelain. “The girl has gold skin. Gold eyes. Gold hair. She’s tall. Very tall. And strong. Much too strong for a provider.”

Kelric felt as if she had punched him in the stomach. He didn’t want to hear this. It had to be coincidence.

The blood drained from Roca’s face. “A lot of providers have gold coloring.”

“That isn’t what set off my monitors.” Dehya’s voice drifted eerily. She shook her head as if to reset her mind. “My zeta monitor is hidden throughout the meshes. Its main portion sleeps most of the time. It wakes only if its outermost shell detects certain genetic markers.”

Kelric’s pulse ratcheted up. “Ruby genes? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“I’ve analyzed the tests over and over,” Dehya said. “They give the same results every time. It’s probably why the girl’s mother got pregnant; Ruby genetics play havoc with birth control methods.” Turning to Roca, she took a deep breath. “Somehow, seventeen years ago, your son Althor fathered a daughter with a Eubian woman.”

“No.” Roca’s voice cracked. “That’s impossible.”

“The tests give a 99.7% probability that he’s her father.”

“How could Althor have a Trader family?” Kelric said. “Even if he did somehow manage it, he’d never leave them with the Eubians.”

“Unless he didn’t know,” Dehya said.

“You’re saying I have a grandchild who is a
Trader?
” Roca asked.

The pharaoh closed her eyes, and for an instant her body looked translucent.

“Dehya, come back,” Kelric said.

She opened her eyes. Her gaze was so distant, he wondered if she would phase out of real space. How long had she been submerged in the Kyle trying to verify the truth of this claim?

“The girl has all the Ruby genes,” Dehya said. “All of them.
Every
one.” Her eyes were huge, like green pools. “She is a Ruby. An heir in the direct line of succession to the Triad.”

“No.” Kelric didn’t want this to be true. He didn’t want to discover that a member of his family, one he had never even met, was trapped with the Traders. If ESComm realized they had a Ruby psion, they wouldn’t give a flying drill about peace, not even with Jaibriol at the helm. They could make a Kyle web, break the Skolian monopoly on faster-than-light communications, and conquer the Imperialate.

“It’s no mistake,” Dehya said. “You can’t fake that genetic signature. It’s too complex.”

Roca crossed her arms and scowled at Dehya. “You’re forgetting something, aren’t you?”

Dehya tilted her head. “What?”

“Althor didn’t like women.”

“He liked women fine,” Dehya said.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Roca said. “Why do you think he was in a three-way marriage with Vaz and that boy Coop? He only married Vaz because the Assembly wanted him to have a wife. It was Coop he wanted.”