Primary Inversion (21 page)

      
Yes, sir.
I kept the rest of my thoughts hidden. What else could I say? Knowing Rex was aware of the dangers didn’t help.

      
“Soz.” Kurj’s voice gentled. “You deserve the commendations.”

      
A light glowed one of his wrist gauntlets, which covered his lower arm and part of his hand. When he touched the pager, a man’s voice came into the room. “A medwoman is here to see you, sir. Her codes cleared security.”

      
“Send her in,” Kurj said.

      
The cyberlock field dimmed, leaving an opening across the room. The wall separated into an oval that stretched from floor to ceiling. Two of Kurj’s bodyguards stepped through, both  of them Jagernauts. A woman appeared next, a girl really. She walked behind them, her face flushed as she stared at the floor. She was a beauty, with a silky mane of gold hair to her waist. Curls floated around her breathtaking face, which was soft and sweet, golden. She looked like a delicate, younger version of my mother. She didn’t have my mother’s vibrant quality, though, that glowing self-confidence that drew people like pale moths seeking a night lamp. This girl was more fragile.

      
Kurj nodded to his guards. “You may go.”

      
After the Jagernauts left, the wall closed and the cyberlock rippled into place, trapping the girl with us. Fear closed around me like glass enclosing an insect. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe—

      
Block,
I thought, and the fear receded. The girl stayed riveted in place, staring at the floor. She couldn’t even acknowledge Kurj, an omission that made her a criminal, punishable by prison. Hell, Kurj could give her any sentence he wanted, including execution. No one was going to argue with him. But I had a feeling that wasn’t what he had in mind for her at all.

      
He regarded the girl. “Come here.”

      
At first she didn’t move. Then she took a breath and walked forward. She stopped in front of him and knelt, first on one knee, and when he didn’t give her permission to rise, on both knees. Her shoulders trembled, making the lace neckline of her white dress slip forward so that her breasts were visible to anyone above the level of her shoulders.

      
For a while Kurj stood looking at her. Finally he said, “You’re the girl I saw tending children in the nursery?”

      
“Yes, Your Highness.”

      
“What is your name?”

      
“Charissa Deirdre.”

      
“You have a message for me?”

      
“Yes, sir.” Her voice was soft.

      
“What is it?”

      
“Your guard—the biggest one. He said you gave orders. That—I was to inform y-you when—” She took a breath. “When the broadcast you wanted to watch was ready to begin.”

      
“Is it?” Kurj asked.

      
“Yes. It—it is.”

      
What was the bloody blazes Kurj doing? If he wanted to watch some news program, all he had to do was set my room console to activate when it was about to start. Why order a girl who worked in the nursery to tell him? No, stupid question. I knew why. Some men asked women who interested them to dinner. Kurj had other methods.

      
“Get up,” Kurj said. His voice was even gentle. But it was still a command.

      
The girl stood, her eyes averted. She was young enough to be his great-granddaughter. Although he looked a fit and muscled forty, he was ninety. He towered over her; the top of her head barely reached the center of his massive chest.

      
“Look at me,” he said.

      
She raised her large eyes, brown flecked with gold. Bright spots of color showed on her cheeks. Kurj cupped his hand under her chin, stroking her cheek with his thumb. His grip was so large that his fingers covered her right ear lobe and his thumb brushed her left lobe. With his other hand, he touched the comm mesh on his wrist gauntlet.

      
The voice of his guard came out of the mesh. “Ko, here.”

      
“The girl is ready to leave,” Kurj said.

      
The cyberlock opened and the two Jagernauts reappeared. Kurj ignored them, his gaze on Charissa. She stared at him like a shyback gazelle mesmerized by a hunter’s light. Bending his head, he held her chin and kissed her, a long kiss, taking his time. Then he straightened up and glanced at the Jagernauts. “Have her taken to the palace.”

      
“Yes, sir,” the larger guard said.

      
Charissa went with them quietly, looking at neither. When she was gone, I sat on the bed with my fists clenched under the blanket.

      
Kurj turned back to me. After a moment he said, “You disapprove?”

      
“You’re an empath. You must have felt how scared she was.”

      
He shrugged. “Perhaps.”

      
Perhaps?
How could he have stood there, submerged in her fear, and not react?

      
And who the hell was I to judge him? I had killed a terrified pilot who was barely more than a child, purposely blocking off my emotional responses so I could destroy his ship.

      
“If you hadn’t killed him,” Kurj said, “he would have killed you.”

      
I thought of the Aristos. “So we become what we fight.”

      
“No. We survive.”

      
My voice snapped out. “And survival means raping whoever catches your fancy?”

      
Kurj’s jaw stiffened. “You overstep yourself.”

      
That one.
Tarque’s image seared my mind. He had made me kneel in front of him and praise him with every noxious title he could think of, promising respite from the pain if I did what he wanted.

      
Watching me, Kurj raked his hand over his short hair. Then he went to the window and pulled aside the curtains, letting painfully bright sunlight into the room. He stood in its swath, glinting in the glassy sunlight, while he stared out at the casecrete and chrome grounds of the ISC hospital.

      
Then he said, “You compare me to a Highton?”

      
I just shook my head. I couldn’t talk to him about Tarque.

      
He turned around. “Did it ever occur to you that I need companionship?”

      
I stared at him. I didn’t know what surprised me more, his admission of loneliness or his method of alleviating it. What kind of companion would Charissa make if she was so traumatized she could barely breathe when she was in the same room with him?

      
“You want me to court her,” Kurj said. “‘Woo’ her. Coax her.” His voice hardened. “I bow to no one. Not Ur Qox, not the Allied President, and not any woman.”

      
Is that how you see love? I thought. As a loss of control? Or are you punishing her for looking like the one woman you most want, the one you can’t have? But I didn’t let those thoughts out where he could find them. It might be true that I spoke more openly to Kurj than almost anyone else alive. Even so, limits existed on what I could say—or think—in his presence.

      
Even after all the years I had known him, Kurj remained an enigma to me. He had plenty of good within him. Even kindness. He was a brilliant war leader who inspired fierce loyalty from his officers. But decades of battling the Traders had hardened him, until he could no longer express affection even to a gentle girl like Charissa. I had never found a way to resolve the darker side of this man I called brother.

      
Across the room, the VR-wall activated, speckled patterns swirling on its surface. A holo formed in front of it, a sleek black puma with red eyes. Its lips drew into a snarl, and its fangs glistened like daggers. Music swelled into the haunting melody of the Trader anthem.

      
So. Kurj
had
set the console to activate. He was watching the wall-screen, his arms crossed, his gaze intent on the emblem of his enemy. He had filed Charissa away in his mind and moved on. I couldn’t put her out of my thoughts that easily. I kept seeing her frightened face, kept feeling her sinking sensation as she heard Kurj’s words:
Have her taken to the palace.

      
Block,
I thought. The psicon sputtered in my mind, but the memory stayed strong. My blocker only muted other people’s emotions. Deleting my memories was too dangerous; it could inadvertently wipe out other needed information as well.

      
In front of the screen, the puma stretched a paw forward, its claws extending in a fan of sharpened points as the Trader anthem swelled in a crescendo.

      
I spoke in a neutral voice. “Who is broadcasting this?”

      
Kurj continued to watch the puma. “We picked it up from the Traders.”

      
“Emperor Qox is speaking?”

      
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Yes.”

      
We were probably getting the transmission even before many of the Trader worlds. To transmit off planet, Qox had to record the broadcast and send it via starship to wherever he wanted it heard. But once we picked it up, we could shoot it over the Kyle-Mesh instantaneously.

      
The broadcast had to be about Tams. Qox couldn’t hide this time. Two hundred million witnesses had survived his latest attempt at genocide. Their testimony would show the lie of his.

      
The puma shimmered—and we were
there,
in a great circular hall. Far above our heads, the ceiling arched in a white dome. High-backed benches of white stone formed concentric rings, many rings, filling the room. Cushions softened the seats, pillows the color of blood. Aristos sat here. Ranks and ranks of Aristos. Hundreds. Thousands. They sat side by side, subunits in a machine, all in black, with glittering black hair and ruby eyes.

      
In the center of the hall, a pillar of crystal rose from the floor almost to the ceiling, refracting and splintering light into sparks of color. The puma crouched in the air behind the pillar. The animal twisted and swelled in size. Its back legs pulled out straight, its body came upright, front legs reached out like arms—and a lean man stood there, two meters high, three meters, four. When he finished morphing, he was five meters tall, sixteen feet, his head just below the domed ceiling. His Highton features were unmistakable, though nothing else made his face remarkable. What set him apart was his presence, an air of undisputed authority.

      
This was Ur Qox, Emperor of Eube.

      
The music stopped. Qox spoke in Highton with a powerful voice. “My people, I come before you tonight with great pride. Rejoice! We, the children of Eube, have been chosen. We have an honor never before known, the honor of living in the greatest civilization to grace the great, turning wheel of our galaxy. We shine where darkness once blanketed the stars.”

      
For flaming sake. He went on and on, coming up with ever more grandiose tributes to his empire. He never mentioned Tams. Did he believe he could hide it? I wished he would finish the damn speech. Even seeing him so long after he had recorded it, I felt as if mites burrowed into my skin. Qox, the Hightons, all the Aristos—just their images were enough terrorize us, as if our minds recognized on a subliminal level what they could do to us.

      
“I come to you tonight with magnificent news,” Qox said. “The constant threat we live with, the threat of enslavement by our malevolent enemies, has been dealt a great blow.” His expression became firm, that of a leader struggling with righteous anger. “The latest victim of the ruthless Imperial forces is Tams Station, one of the Concord’s most vulnerable members. Yesterday the Imperialate attacked the defenseless Tams with no provocation.”

      
What the hell? In the “seat” next to me, Kurj stiffened. All around us, the Aristos clicked the ornate rings on their fingers, click, click, click, like a huge insect rattling with agitation.

      
Grief tinged Qox’s voice. “I speak in great sorrow. Tams lost its population. Yes, my people,
four hundred million
innocent citizens died at the hands of Imperator Skolia.”

      
I couldn’t believe it. He was blaming
us.
Kurj watched with his shielded eyes, his face a metal mask. But I was an empath, one of his own blood. No matter how well he blocked his anger, I felt it.

      
Triumph washed over Qox’s face. “But our gallant forces drove away the war-mongers! We saved two hundred million of our brave citizens.”

      
I gritted my teeth. This was even worse than I expected.

      
Pride swelled in Qox’s voice. “My people, I cannot take credit for the rescue at Tams. No, that credit goes to a hero like none other you have known, a man whose greatness has only begun to shine, a star rising in Tams’ darkest hour.” He motioned to someone out of range of the camera. For a dramatic moment he stood alone, waiting, his hand outstretched.

      
Then Jaibriol appeared at the podium.

      
Ah, Gods.
I clamped a cover over my mind while inside I reeled.

      
      
Qox gazed out at the assembled aristocracy of his empire. “This man commanded the mission that saved Tams Station.” He laid his hand on Jaibriol’s arm. “I present to you Lord J’briol U’jjr Qox. My son. The Highton Heir.”

      
“No,” Kurj said.

      
A collective gasp rose from the Aristos, like a flock of birds startled from their roosting place, rising into the air with a flurry of motion. Their finger cymbals clicked wildly, click-click-click, click-click-click. Jaibriol hardly looked like the same man I had met on Delos. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. He stood next to his father like a dead statue, grim and silent.