Carnelians (33 page)

“He has another daughter,” Dehya pointed out. “Eristia and her mother Syreen lived here for years, and Syreen still does. Althor may not have married Syreen, but he loved them both.”

“Yes, well, why do you think he didn’t marry Syreen?” Roca demanded.

“He went both ways,” Dehya said. “You know that, Roca.”

“That’s only because the Assembly was always pressuring him to get married, make babies, all that diddle-carp. He was trying to make everyone else happy and making himself miserable.” She lowered her arms, suddenly looking very tired. “He just wanted his own life.”

Kelric had never understood why the universe had seemed determined to fuss over his brother’s sexual preferences. It wasn’t anyone’s business but Althor’s. But the Assembly had been unceasingly annoyed that one of their invaluable Ruby Heirs didn’t want to make Ruby babies.

Regardless, though, Althor made up his own mind. “He married Vaz because he liked her,” Kelric said. “If he had an affair with this woman before that, then he cared for her, too.” He thought of his brother’s military records. “He did some covert work among the Eubians fifteen to twenty years ago.” Althor had died eleven years ago, in the Radiance War, so what Dehya described wasn’t impossible. “ISC regulations wouldn’t allow him to bring back a Trader citizen, and if someone had broken his cover, he would have acted to deflect attention from his lover. So yes, he would have had to leave. But if he had known he had a daughter, he would never have left her or the mother behind.”

“All right,” Roca said. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this girl is a genuine Ruby Heir. Then we
must
get her out of Trader space. The mother, too, if we can.”

“It won’t work,” Dehya said miserably.

“Why not?” Kelric asked. “You said the girl was at the embassy.”

“I’ve been investigating,” Dehya said. “ESComm broke in and took her, along with a provider who wanted asylum and a Razer who had asked to defect.”

“Hell and damnation!” Kelric wanted to punch the wall. “A
Razer
wanted to defect? And we lost him, too?”

“Yes.” Dehya lifted her hands, then dropped them. “The provider, a boy, belonged to Admiral Erix Muze.”

“If they broke into the embassy,” Roca said coldly, “they violated the Paris Accord.”

“They pulverized it,” Dehya said. “Roca, we could use your expertise as Foreign Affairs Councilor on that, to make sure none of the embassy staff are harmed or taken into custody.”

“Count on it,” Roca said. “What about the Eubians?”

“The provider, Althor’s daughter, and the Razer were all sent to Admiral Muze,” Dehya said. “He found out about them because someone recognized his provider from footage of a street brawl between the girl and two of Muze’s illegitimate grandchildren. Apparently Althor’s daughter was protecting the boy.”

“That’s impossible,” Kelric said. “A low-level slave would never fight high-level taskmakers. They’re bred and conditioned from birth to obey.”

“If she’s Althor’s daughter,” Roca said, “she’s a far different breed than the usual taskmaker.”

“I couldn’t find much about her,” Dehya said. “She’s never registered on our spy monitors. If Lensmark hadn’t found a way to warn us, we would never have known she existed.”

Kelric felt heavy. He walked away from them, deeper into his living room. He didn’t know how to add this incredible development to everything else that weighed on him.

“Kelric?” Dehya said.

He turned to face her. “You and I need to play Quis.”

“I know,” she said.

“For flaming sake.” Roca glared at them. “Your answer to this mess is to play
dice?
”

Dehya smiled at her sister. “It helps us plan.”

“First you two nearly die. Then Del. Now this.” Roca’s voice cracked. “It’s too much.”

Kelric came back over to them. “We’ll figure it out.”

“You need to give up this idea of meeting Jaibriol Qox face-to-face,” Roca told him.

“Why?” Kelric asked. “This has nothing to do with that.”

“Well, fine,” his mother said. “You can accept his invitation to have the summit on Glory, and while we’re there, miraculously avoiding their attempts to make us all prisoners, you can rescue this Ruby Heir we had no idea existed, grabbing her out from under the nose of Erix Muze. Hell, Kelric, while you’re at it, you can create a few new galaxies, too.”

He laid his hand on her shoulder. “We
will
solve this.”

“I hope so,” she said softly. “Because I don’t know how much more of this we can take.”

“We’ll manage,” Kelric said. “We’ll fix it.”

He just wished he knew how.

XX: The Next Move

XX
The Next Move

The Mentation Chamber was tucked into the Orbiter’s hull, close enough to the poles of the rotating sphere that the gravity was significantly lower than Earth standard and the floor slanted sharply. The outer surface of the chamber was dichromesh glass reinforced to withstand the radiant emptiness of space. It curved outward and offered a glorious view of jeweled nebulae in the deep black of the interstellar void. Dehya stood before the window, remembering the words of an ancient poet. His identity had faded in the blur of history, but one line of his works survived:
Magnificent sea forever bright, forever cold and forever night.

The click of dice came from behind her, followed by Kelric’s musing voice. “The seeds of the game we sent Jaibriol Qox are all here in the patterns he sent us.”

Dehya turned around. Kelric was seated at a carved table, which stood on a dais that compensated for the tilt of the floor. Quis structures covered the table, reproducing the session Jaibriol Qox had coded into his last message. Kelric was studying them with that incredible gift of his to understand patterns. Dehya liked watching him. It was hard to understand why he terrified people. Couldn’t they see the luminous intellect and affectionate man inside that huge frame? Yes, he was a phenomenal warrior. But she would always remember how she had first known him, as a baby snuggled in a sling on Roca’s hip, a golden cherub gurgling and happy. He had grown into an inimitable man, but she understood the gentler side he hid within.

“It’s like a frozen frame of the game,” he said, intent on the dice, his face bathed in starlight. “We sent him a frame of ours, he played that game, and he sent us this frame.”

Dehya came over and sat across from him. “The problem is figuring out how he produced these patterns. I see the seeds, yes, but modeling how he reached this point in the game is difficult.”

Kelric looked up. “The closer we get to figuring out his moves, the better we can understand his intent.”

She mulled over the patterns evolving in her mind. “You know, we’ve assumed he played solitaire. But I don’t think he did.”

Kelric regarded her uneasily. “That would mean he taught someone else.” He motioned at the structures. “Someone talented enough to help him come up with this work of art.”

“Who do you think?” Dehya asked. “You know the Hightons better than most.” She thought of Tarquine Iquar. It didn’t surprise her that Jaibriol had married the Finance Minister. True, an emperor was expected to choose a beautiful young Highton for his empress, the flower of supposed maidenhood, after which she dedicated her life to fawning on him. That was the antithesis of Tarquine Iquar. But if Jaibriol truly was the son of Kelric’s sister Soz, and he had grown up on a world with no other human beings except his family, then his
only
model of an adult woman during his formative years was a force of nature who had become one of the most formidable warrior queens in the history of the human race. It was no wonder he chose Tarquine as his wife.

“The empress,” Dehya said. “Jaibriol taught her Quis.”

Kelric scowled darkly. “Then gods help the human race.”

Dehya couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t look so dire.”

“Quis was developed by the women who rule the Twelve Estates on Coba.” His metallic face showed alarm, which in Kelric’s understated universe could mean he was envisioning a disaster of unmitigated proportions. “It’s how they establish their authority. And Tarquine Iquar could leave any of them in the dust when it comes to political acumen and intrigues. If she realizes the power of Quis, who knows what she could do.”

“You put a lot of trust into Jaibriol Qox when you taught him Quis.”

His thought came to her mind like a tap the door.
Dehya?

She eased down her barriers.
Our Jagernaut bodyguards are outside this chamber.

I turned on a cyberlock tuned to our brains,
he answered.
It surrounds this chamber. Even if they were strong enough to catch hints of our thoughts from outside, which they probably aren’t, the field would block them.

Dehya nodded. It was a good idea. The cyberlock affected the neural processes of anyone who crossed the field from either within or without. On its lowest setting, it caused vertigo. On its highest setting, it fatally disrupted neural structure in the brain. The one Kelric had activated affected neither him nor her because they both had a key for it within their brains. Designed from their own neurons, it knew to protect them. The cyberlock affected neural firings, so it would also veil their thoughts from any telepaths outside its field, providing an extra layer of security.

How many people know you taught Jaibriol Qox this dice game?
she asked.

Just you.

No one else?

Tarquine Iquar, apparently.
He paused.
I taught him Quis by opening my mind and dumping the rules for the game into his. We shared thoughts during that time. He has great strength of character. I don’t believe he would betray us.

Maybe not deliberately. That doesn’t mean he won’t. Or that his wife won’t.

He could use it to his advantage, that’s true. So can we.
A dangerous glint came into his eyes.
And no one plays Quis as well as I do.

Dehya smiled.
You shouldn’t be so insecure about your ability.

Ah well.
He didn’t look the least bit abashed.

She finally put into words what they both knew but never said.
Jaibriol is part of the Triad.

Kelric met her gaze.
Yes.

Yes. One simple word.
Yes, the leader of our greatest enemies is part of our ruling Triad.

We must meet with him in person,
she thought. A face-to-face meeting was the only way they could truly communicate with the third Triad member. By telepathy.

Dehya brushed her fingers along the table. A section slid out to her right, an opalescent screen with colorful holicons floating above it. She flicked her fingers through various menus until she reached her workspace on this Quis session.

“Laplace, attend,” she said.

“Attending,” her EI answered.

“Access all files on Tarquine Iquar,” Dehya said. “Draw from every source you can find, including my accounts, Assembly accounts, anywhere.”

“Include all ISC files,” Kelric said. “You have full access on my authority.”

“Security verified,” Laplace said. “What shall I do with the data?”

“Use it to create a profile for a Quis player,” Dehya said. “Then re-run all my models for the game on this table with Tarquine Iquar as a second player, starting with the initial Quis session and evolving to this one. Give me the result that best matches the session here.”

“Analyzing,” Laplace told her.

Within moments, a holographic Quis game appeared on the mesh screen. Laplace said, “I was able to play a game that evolves to match the one on your table exactly.”

“Gods help us,” Kelric muttered. “He taught her Quis.”

Luminous glyphs appeared on the screen, offering data with the words they represented and also in their dimensionality and the way their colors shaded through blue and rose. Studying them, Dehya said, “That’s odd.”

“What is?” Kelric asked.

“I think the empress left hints about herself in her moves, probably unintentionally.”

Kelric tapped the table and a mesh screen slid out to his right, mirroring the one Dehya had summoned. He spoke to the air. “Show me the moves you predict were made by the players Jaibriol and Tarquine, starting from the first Quis session and ending at the one here.”

Quis holos appeared and evolved as if players were moving the pieces. Kelric was so intent on the game, he seemed in a trance. But then he said, “You’re right. She’s here. She’s mourning.”

“Mourning?” Dehya hadn’t caught that. “Who?”

Kelric spoke quietly. “The death of their son.”

Good gods. Had Jaibriol finally sired the Highton Heir? “We’ve nothing on the birth of an heir to the Carnelian Throne. Given the pressure they’re under to produce one, you’d think they would announce it to the universe.”

“It’s all so vague.” Kelric continued to study the game. “I doubt they meant to put any of it into the session.”

As Dehya watched the moves evolve, a picture formed in her mind, enhanced by Kelric’s insights. “The child wasn’t born yet. It died very recently. That’s why it affected their dice.”

“Good gods.” Kelric looked up at her. “Are you getting a date for the child’s death?”

A chill went up Dehya’s back. “The same time you and I were nearly assassinated.”

“That’s one hell of a coincidence.”

“Or not.”

“Even if Jaibriol had died, it shouldn’t have affected us so dramatically,” Kelric said. “We probably would have sensed his passing. But it wouldn’t have almost killed us.”

Dehya nodded. “It seems more likely someone tried to kill us all at the same time.”

“Why time the attempts to coincide? It just looks suspicious.”

“Maybe it wasn’t the same person. One assassin might have used the work of another.”

“Whoever attacked us knew a great deal about ISC security,” Kelric said. “Whoever attacked Jaibriol’s child had to know similar about ESComm. If they are working together to kill both us and Jaibriol Qox, then we’re all in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

She regarded him bleakly. “Or it could be a double-agent. But who would want
both
the Highton and Ruby Heirs dead?”