Primary Inversion (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Paperback (25 page)

She turned to face us. “Sauscony.” Her gaze shifted to
Jarith, who was standing behind me, a little to my right, as if for protection
from this apparition that had shown up in my apartment. A smile tugged up her
lips. “I’ve already met your friend.”

Even at my age, I felt guilty having my mother find me with
my lover. “How did you get in?”

“Pako let me in.”

Pako? Before Jarith and I had gone to sleep, I had told Pako
we weren’t to be disturbed. Why did it let her inside? True, its Evolving
Intelligence was supposed to anticipate my wishes as best it could.

But even I wasn’t sure about my wishes in this case. “What
did it tell you?”

“That you weren’t available, but I should wait.” She glanced
at Jarith. “I can come back later ...”

“No. Don’t do that.” I motioned toward the bar on the other
side of the room. “You want a drink?”

Sauscony.

Her thought came as clear as sunlight into my mind, bringing
the smells and views and sounds of Lyshriol, my father’s world, the place where
I had grown up. Home. I saw the silvery plains rippling from the city of
Dalvador all the way to the horizon in the east and south, to Rider’s Forest in
the west, beyond that to the Backbone Mountains, and in the north to the huge
mountain range we called Rider’s Lost Memory. Shimmerflies flitted through
fields, their gauzy wings iridescent in the sunlight. Home, with all of the
love and the pain, the joy and the loss, the place where in my dreams I
retreated to the safety of childhood, to the nurturing arms of the golden woman
who had given me birth.

Behind me Jarith made a soft noise, as if he had been shown
a beautiful picture. He touched my shoulder. “Soz, I have a music lesson this
afternoon. I should go practice.”

I turned to him. He was smiling now, no longer red-faced.
But sad too. Why was he sad? And why did he have to practice? He had been
playing his lytar all morning.

“Can I call you this evening?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.” I started to kiss him, then remembered who
was watching us and decided to leave the kissing for later. “I’ll talk to you
then.”

Jarith gathered up his things from the bedroom. But when he
tried to leave my apartment, he ran into my mother’s bodyguards, two Jagernauts
hulking outside the door. As they searched him, Jarith gave me a puzzled look.

Sorry,
I thought.
She’s a dancer. A celebrity.
They’re just being careful.
It was a lame excuse. Although my mother was a
lovely dancer, she was too curvy to be considered among the best. Ballet wasn’t
a profession that came with all that much celebrity unless you were at its top.

I hid the real reason for the search from Jarith. More than
one “friend” of our family had tried to smuggle out holofilm or audio-tapes of
our private lives, information that brought a phenomenal price on the media
black market. But explaining that would have also meant explaining why, and I
had no intention of telling Jarith I was Rhon.

When Kurj chose an heir, that person would spend the rest of
his or her life the way Kurj, my aunt, and my parents lived now, guarded day
and night. I wanted neither Kurj nor the Assembly forcing that on me any sooner
than necessary. Perhaps someday I would have no choice, but for now I made sure
I did nothing that might make anyone decide the risk of my being assassinated
outweighed my refusal to accept bodyguards.

“All right.” The older guard bowed to Jarith. “You can go on
through.”

Jarith blinked at her, seeming more surprised by the bow
than by the search. Then he smiled at me. “See you tonight?”

I nodded. “Tonight.”

After Jarith was gone, I went to the bar and poured a glass
of ale. Then I glanced at my mother. “Want some?”

She shook her head, setting her masses of hair rippling like
liquid. “No, I’m fine.” Ringlight glimmered on her gold skin, reflecting off
its metallic sheen the same way light reflected off Kurj’s skin. Her eyes had
gold irises and black pupils, just as did Kurj’s eyes under the shield of his
inner lids. She hadn’t inherited the inner lids from my grandfather, but other
than that she and Kurj could have been fraternal twins rather than mother and
son.

But where Kurj was hard, my mother was radiant. I longed to
go to her, to lay my head in her lap the way I so often had when I was a little
girl looking for her comfort. Except that I wasn’t a little girl anymore, I was
a grown woman, and I had no intention of running to my mother every time I
stubbed my toe.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

She smiled. “Well, I happened to be on Forshires, so I
thought I would—”

“Mother.” I clunked down my glass on the counter. “You have
absolutely no reason to be on Foreshires right now. So why are you here?”

She came over to the bar and sat in one of the tall chairs,
sliding onto it easily despite its height above the floor; at 180 centimeters
she was taller than me, taller than my sisters, as tall as my father. She spoke
with the same gentle voice that had always comforted my fears at night when I
was little. “Kurj told me about Rex. I’m sorry.”

I ran my finger around the top of my glass. “He chose to be
a Jagernaut. He knew the risks.”

“Sauscony. I’m not Kurj.”

I looked up at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re hurting. I can feel it.”

“It’s personal.” When she started to speak again, I put up
my hands. “I mean it. Leave it alone.”

“All right.” She watched me with that casting expression of
hers that I knew so well. She was casting around for a subject that wouldn’t
make me edgy, trying to find a way to talk to her daughter. The older I got,
the more often I saw that look on her face.

“Your friend Jarith is very handsome,” she finally said.

I shrugged. “I guess.”

Young, though,
she thought, reaching for the intimacy
of a mental link.

Leave it, Mother.

Sauscony, I’m not your enemy.

Block,
I thought. The synapse-and-wall psicon
flashed, taking away her concern.

My mother bit her lip. She didn’t say any more, just watched
me with her sweet concern. I scowled and stuck my glass under the fount,
refilling it with ale. Then I stalked out from behind the counter and went to
sit on the couch. After a moment my mother came over and sat in one of the
armchairs. She looked like a picture, an artist’s vision of beauty, her body
relaxed in perfect lines, her angel’s face pensive, a golden woman with a mane
of hair that fanned out all over the chair. I wondered if she had any idea how
hard it was being her daughter.

“What’s it like?” I asked.

She smiled. “What is what like?”

“Being loved by everyone who meets you.”

Incredulity. It broke over me in waves. “Where did you get
the idea I’m loved by everyone who meets me?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No.”

I exhaled. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“That’s a bit of a double standard, isn’t it?”

I stiffened. “Fine. Never mind.”

“Sauscony.” She spread her hands. “Go ahead.”

“What’s it like to be loved by a Rhon psion?”

The change that came over her face was as spectacular as it
was subtle. I hadn’t realized how tense she had become during our conversation
until I saw it ease out of her posture like water running out of a cup.

She spoke gently. “Your father completes me. Fills me.”

“What about sex?”

She reddened. “I think that’s enough personal questions for
today.”

“Sorry.”

The corners of her mouth twitched upward. “Let me put it
this way. Having ten children was easy.”

Can I ask you something else? I thought.

She smiled. That depends.

It’s about Kurj.

Suddenly she was stiff again.
What about him?

Was it really an accident?

Was what an accident? Her agitation rippled against my mind.
How can I talk to you, Sauscony, if you keep asking me half questions ?

Grandfather’s death, I thought. Was it really an
accident?

My mother practically snapped out of her chair, like a coil
pulled too taut, until it released in a burst of energy. She went to the window
and looked out at Jacob’s Shire. “Of course it was an accident.”

“Kurj must have known he could overload the link.” That had
been fifty-five years ago. Now, today, he was one of three minds in the circle
of power that kept the Skol-Net alive: Kurj, my aunt, and my father. The Fist,
the Mind, and the Heart of the Web. It was more than coincidence that their
minds were so different. If the three in that link were too similar, it set up
a resonance like a driven oscillator, forcing their minds into bigger and
bigger fluctuations until the link shattered.

Fifty-five years ago, my grandparents had been the only ones
in the link. Kurj had tried to become the third.

“He must have known,” I said. “The odds that both he and
grandfather would survive were too low. Kurj knew that. He
knew
it. And
he was younger. Much younger. Much stronger. The chances of him surviving were
far greater than for Grandfather.”

My mother whirled around. “Stop it!”

I couldn’t stop. My life might someday depend on knowing the
truth. “Why is he so intent on setting Althor and me against each other?
Because he thinks we’ll be too busy fighting each other to turn on him?” I
forced out the words. “Because he fears one of us will try to assume his title
of Imperator by committing fratricide? Just like Kurj committed patricide?”

My mother came over—and slapped me across the face. She was
shaking, her entire body trembling as she sank into her chair. I put my palm
against my cheek, over the smarting skin, hating myself for what I needed to
know.

Her eyes were wet with tears. “You will never,
never
say
those words again. Not your filthy accusations and not your filthy insinuations.
Kurj’s
father
was an ISC scout, a good and decent man who died in the
line of duty.”

I swallowed. “Mother—I’ve seen the files.”

She stiffened. “What?”

“The files. The records. The same ones Kurj found the day he
killed the man who fathered him.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gods, I hated this. Kurj was right; we learned to
survive—not only against the Traders, but against each other as well. The same
talents of mine that Kurj had utilized so many times when he had me spy against
the Traders had worked just as well against him. “Kurj’s legal father couldn’t
have sired him. The man wasn’t a Rhon psion.”

She looked away from me. “My first husband carried at least
one copy of every Rhon gene. The doctors selected the proper ones from him.
Then we made a baby. Kurj.”

How many times had I heard that “official” explanation of
why Kurj was Rhon even though his father wasn’t. The Imperialate needed Rhon
heirs and we were their breeding stock. But our dangerous recessives made
inbreeding risky, and clipping out those recessives also cut out what made us
Rhon.

After a long search a man was found who carried variants of
the Rhon genes. His were different enough to decrease the probability that
recessives would kill or deform the children he had with any woman of the
Imperial family. He didn’t have two of every gene so he wasn’t a Rhon psion,
but he had at least one copy of each. So with the help of gene surgery he could
sire a Rhon child. My grandparents arranged a marriage between him and my
mother.

Never mind the almost zero probability of finding such a
man. Kurj was considered living proof that he had existed.

I regarded my mother steadily. “Those records include the
analysis of your first husband’s DNA. He had almost none of the Rhon genes. You
know that. You know Kurj can’t be his son.”

“What difference does it make now?” Tears ran down her face.
“It’s done. Over with.”

I wanted to hide in shame, to pretend it had all been a
mistake, that I was wrong. The last time I had seen her cry openly, where
others could see, had been at the memorial service for my brother Kelric. But
denying the truth wouldn’t erase it. Kurj trusted neither Althor nor me, and I
needed to understand why. I had no illusions about Kurj; if I ever made a wrong
move with him, it could mean my life.

I spoke softly. “Please. I need to know.”

My mother wiped her face with her hands, and wiped her hands
on her knees. Then she sat staring at the floor in front of her chair, her eyes
clouded with tears.

Finally she looked at me. Then she began to speak. “When my
father was Imperator, he chose Kurj as his heir.” She exhaled. “Kurj coveted
that power. The only thing that kept him from trying to depose my father was
family loyalty. Family love. Values he learned from the man he thought was his
father, a man he had loved deeply.”

“Your first husband.”

My mother nodded. “He was a good father. A good husband.”
She spread her hands. “My parents chose better for me than I did for myself. I
wasn’t like you when I was young, Sauscony, so strong and sure of yourself. I
made stupid mistakes. Several years after my first husband died, I remarried.
But I ... there was violence. I didn’t know, before I married him, what he was
like. When I found out, I was ashamed.”

“So you left him?”

“Imperial heirs don’t divorce.”

I thought of my first marriage, the one I had failed so
miserably at. “Tell that to Jato.”

Her voice softened. “I was a fool for feeling that way, I
know that now. But at the time I thought I had no choices.” She swallowed. “Kurj
was so young then, so vulnerable. He saw everything and he felt helpless to
stop it.”

Kurj, vulnerable, helpless? “It’s hard to imagine.”

“He was just a boy.” She paused. “At first my husband left
him alone. But when Kurj reached puberty, it changed. He was growing so fast,
already as tall as me. My husband thought—I don’t know. Yes, I do. He saw Kurj
as—as—”