Catch the Lightning (33 page)

Everything in this room—walls, floor, furniture, art—was patterned from gleaming bronze, copper, and amber octagons. A divan stood in the center, behind a table, and pillars hung with bronze scarves rose behind it, their gauzy cloth rustling in air currents.

Kryx Iquar was. sitting on the divan.

He didn’t acknowledge the woman as she bowed and left the room. When we were alone, he spoke in English. “Sit down.”

When I started to sit in a chair at the table, he shook his head. I hesitated, confused. Then I realized what he wanted. Gritting my teeth, I stepped past the table and sat next to him on the divan. A gauze scarf drifted across my face, then fell away.

Iquar took my chin, tilting my face up. “Exquisite.”

“Where is my husband?” I said.

He took hold of my shoulders and turned me right, then left. “Your holos don’t do you justice. You really are like a Raylican. Except your nose is smaller. Is your appearance real?” -

“Real?”

“Did you have it altered to make you look this way?”

“No.” I wished he would stop touching me.

He didn’t, though. Instead he dropped his hand to my breast and felt the nipple through the cloth.

“Don’t!” I hit his hand away.

Hitting him was stupid. You don’t strike one of the most powerful human beings among three interstellar civilizations. But he only laughed. Leaning back on the divan, he put his arm around my waist and jerked. I sprawled forward on my stomach, my hair flying out like a spray of black silk across the coppery divan, which I realized was actually a bed. Scrambling to my knees, I tried to pull away. He yanked me down again, still laughing as he flipped me onto my back.

“You never finished your wedding night,” he said. “Don’t you think it’s time?”

“No!” I tried to roll away from him.

He raised his hand over me. “Hold still.”

I swallowed, staring at his hand, and froze.

Iquar spoke to the air. “Darius, attend.”

“Attending,” a voice said. It reminded me of the Jag, but with a harsher voice.

“Initiate stim cycle, lab bay five.”

“Initiated,” the voice said.

Nothing happened. Nothing, except Iquar closed his eyes and opened his mouth, as if he were concentrating on something neither audible nor visible. He exhaled, a sound barely heard but familiar somehow.

Junkie. I knew that look. Like a junkie in snow heaven. A feather of hope brushed my fear; if he were doped up enough, perhaps he would forget about me.

He didn’t.

I’ve tried, in the years since, to understand why the emotional scars of that night took so long to heal. Fear, confusion, pain— it could have been any of that. Or perhaps it was the way he lay there for so long after he reached his physical peak, groaning in a euphoric daze, as if he were having sex in another reality. He held onto me as if I were a touchstone for the physical world while he existed somewhere else, doing what, I had no idea.

Some time later he said, “Darius, attend.”

“Attending.”

“Discontinue stim cycle in lab bay five.”

“Discontinued.”

Iquar sighed and closed his eyes. Within moments he was asleep. When I tried to ease into a less awkward position, he awoke and raised his hand over me. “Lie still.”

I froze. After watching me for a moment, he seemed satisfied. He lay down and fell asleep again.

So I stared at the gauze over the bed, listening to him breathe, trying not to move while he slept. I discovered another part of being owned, along with the fear, anger, and loneliness. It was also boring as all hell.

When I awoke later, I was back in the room with the gray-haired nurse. I don’t remember much about that time; I was drugged again, and crying, asking for Althor. She tended my bruises, murmuring words of comfort, and eventually I slept again. When I woke, she gave me water and medication that put me back to sleep.

The next time I woke up, I felt almost normal. The past few days seemed a fevered nightmare. The nurse was in her recliner, watching a holo projected above her chair. It looked like an adventure story, with people riding odd animals and speaking the harsh Trader tongue.

As I sat up, she turned off the holo. She asked a question and I spread my hands: another of our stimulating conversations. She made a call on her console and talked to someone. Then she helped me dress and we left the room, once again heading out into the octagonal corridors.

This time we went to a command center. A huge one. Hundreds of people worked at its consoles, hurrying back and forth, or sitting in control seats, encased in exoskeletons. Voices hummed, both human and mechanical. Banks of equipment packed the area and holomaps rotated everywhere, showing views of the Cylinder, its attendant ships, and stars. Some traced exhaust from the thrusters, highlighting it in colors. In an area at the back, above the commotion, there was a dais with three control seats. Two were empty.

Iquar sat in the third.

The nurse took me to him, then bowed and left. Iquar motioned toward one of the control seats. “You look more optimized today.”

I climbed into the chair. Optimized? It makes sense to me now, given this universe where computer webs are so much a part of the human experience that people can’t imagine how the “primitives” ever survived without them. At the time, the comment left me at a loss for a response.

Iquar smiled and sat back, closing his eyes. He had that stoned , look of euphoria again. “Althor has been asking to see you.”

I almost j umped forward. “How is he?”

“We are taking him to the CMC base in sector Z. We have the Lock there.”

“Can I see him?”

He didn’t answer. After being ignored for several moments, I gritted my teeth, then sat back and watched the droning activity below.

Eventually Iquar said, “They tell me your marriage is a supplement contract.”

I glanced at him. “That’s right.”

“Good.”

Up until then, I had been too overwhelmed by events to absorb the full situation. But it was finally sinking in. A war was about to start between the Imperialate and the Traders, one where the Traders had both a Lock and Key. Goliath had his speed. Worse, the shaky alliance between the Imperialate and Allied Worlds would fall apart with news of Althor’s abduction. It was a second betrayal, added to the first, and this time the damage might well be irreparable.

Except. A treaty already existed. Hidden in the Epsilani web, our marriage contract was the answer, the cement to mend a cracking fortress.

At the time, I didn’t understand the symbolic power of our marriage. I brought fresh Kyle bloodlines to the Rhon, and so in a sense to all Althor’s people. It was like a gift from Earth to the Imperialate, one that compensated for their previous “betrayal.” My youth gave even more poignancy to the symbol. Althor’s race, the Raylicans, were old. Tired. Dying. To them, and so to all Skolians, a symbol of vitality meant more than any politics. My contract with Althor went further than a treaty: it could also heal deep wounds between the two civilizations. But only if Stonehedge could deliver it into the right hands.

Iquar spoke languidly. “Do you know what a dry socket is, Tina?”

I glanced at him. “No.”

“It can happen if you lose, say, a molar. A dry socket is a hole in the gums, with nerve ends exposed to the air.”

“It sounds painful.”

“It is.” He paused.. “It is possible to mimic that sensation all over the body. You cover it with a mesh. Probes on the mesh connect to nerves within the body. When activated, each probe produces an effect similar to a dry socket.”

I stared at him, too stunned to move or speak. Would he really do that if I angered him?

Sometime later, he said, “Do you know how many people I own?”

“No.”

“Guess.”

I hate this conversation, I thought. “A hundred.”

He laughed. “A hundred. How quaint.”

. “Ten thousand?”

“No.’
⁵

“I don’t know.”

“About one hundred billion.”

How could anyone own one hundred billion people? What did he do with them?

“Darius would have to run inventory to obtain an accurate number,” he said. “But I own one hundred and three planets. Actual populations vary widely, of course, but one billion per planet is a reasonable average.” He looked at me. “They live, for the most part, normal lives. That’s the key, you realize. People rarely revolt when they’re comfortable.”

“What if they revolt anyway?”

“I get rid of them.”

I swallowed. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Look at your husband’s people. The Skolian Imperialate.” He snorted. “They named it after his family. The Ruby Dynasty. Did he tell you that? His full name is Althor Vyan Selei kya Skolia.” His voice hardened. “We are stronger than they, Tina. When time evens out the currents of power, it is we who will be in control. You would do well to remember that.”

I didn’t have a response for that. After watching me for a moment, he sat back and closed his eyes, still with that euphoric expression. I sat stiff and silent.

After a while my attention wandered to the people in the command center. Every now and then one glanced at me, then quickly looked away. It was easy to read their faces. They might as well have stood up on the consoles and shouted: Thank God it’s you up there and not me.

Most of their work seemed involved with running the Cylinder. It was speeding up, preparing to invert, using weeks to do what a Jag managed in seconds. At several consoles, engineers modeled station designs, preparing to build new habitats for Iquar to rule. Most of the models weren’t stable. One, a long tube with end caps, appeared stable at first, but then its rotation wobbled, growing worse and worse until the entire structure began somersaulting end over end.

“You realize,” Iquar said, “that legally, by anyone’s laws, I’ll own you and Althor for the rest of your lives.” As I looked at him, he opened his eyes. “Just in case the thought of trying to leave crossed your mind.”

“Slavery is illegal in the Imperialate and the Allied Worlds,” I said. No one had actually told me that, but I had no doubt it was true.

He smiled. “That may be. But the Paris Treaty requires your governments to return our property. I have full documents for my purchase, duly executed and recorded. In a case such as—oh, let’s say, the loss of a Rhon prince—the refusal to return property could be considered an act of war.”

I didn’t believe the Allied Worlds or Imperialate actually signed an agreement that required them to return escaped slaves to the Traders. “What treaty?”

“You really are slow-wit'ted, aren’t you?” Iquar laughed. “The perfect concubine. Exotic, breathtakingly beautiful, scandalously young, and as stupid as a brick.”

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t care how powerful or genetically improved he was, the only difference between him and Nug was that Iquar lived in a universe where he could run amok.

“Perhaps I will let you see Althor,” he said. “Would you like that?”

I almost jumped out of my chair. “Yes.”

“Very well. Darius, suspend stim cycle in lab bay five.”

“Suspended,” Darius said.

Iquar stood up. “Come.”

He took me down an octagonal corridor and stopped after only a few yards. Then he opened a portal. We walked through its shimmer into a lab crammed with instrumentation, both in its open areas and on the walls. I barely noticed any of it. All I saw was Althor.

“No.” I felt as if the world had dropped out from under us. “God, no. Please, no.”

A framework held him suspended about five feet off the ground. His clothes were gone and a mesh covered him from neck to toe. He was staring at the ceiling, breathing in gasps, his voice rasping as if his throat were torn raw. Sweat dripped off his body and pooled on the floor, then disappeared.

He didn’t know we had come; his ragged breaths covered the few sounds we made as Iquar pulled me inside. Iquar touched a panel on a console, and the framework holding Althor rotated, raising his head so he was looking straight at us.

“Iquar, no.” His voice rasped. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”

The Trade Minister went to the framework and smiled. “I’ve brought you a present.”

Althor swallowed, sweat running down his face. “Don’t do this.”

“You wanted to see her. You told me yourself.”

“Not like this.”

I felt as if the room were whirling. Dry sockets. I thought of Iquar in his drugged daze, enjoying himself, being provided for, and I wanted to run him through with a stake. I whirled on him, bringing up my fist to pummel his chest. “You’ve been doing this to him—all this time!—you bastard.”

He easily caught my arms. No longer smiling, he jerked me around to face Althor. “Take a look, mighty prince. What’s yours is now mine.” He sounded like he was gritting his teeth. “For five hundred years your family has made a mockery of us. No more.” Althor spoke hoarsely. “We never did anything to any of you.”

“No? You were bred for us. Your inferior family, instead of providing for Aristos—as is our right—mocks us with your ‘Imperial’ Skolia.” He shook me so hard my vision blurred. “Here’s your sweet fresh life. A symbol of new beginnings, at least for one man. His lovely concubine. Well, choke on this, provider. You can watch while I use up her charms and throw her away.”

Althor swore at him, straining against the framework that held him, his lips drawing back in a snarl.

Iquar’s face changed again, becoming affectionate, like a lover’s. He spoke in a soft voice. “Darius, resume stim cycle.”

Althor’s mouth formed the word “No.” But it never came out. Instead his entire body went rigid.

And he screamed.

The universe turned into a chaos of screams, Althor’s screams. I stumbled toward the framework, trying to reach him, but Iquar yanked me back. Grabbing my arms, he heaved me onto a lab bench and shoved me flat on my back. As he reached for the ties of my dress, my head filled with Althor’s screams, his cries ringing, ringing, ringing. Iquar looked as if he had shot up the strongest drug in creation, soaring into a high so intense he would never come down. Every time Althor screamed, Iquar groaned with the release of it.