Schism: Part One of Triad (49 page)

Soz just stood, breathing too hard to speak. Lieutenant Colonel Dayamar Stone was a few paces away, intent on the timer of his gauntlet. The cadets jogged over to Soz, including Jazar, who was grinning.

“Soz!” Jazar clapped her on the shoulder, making her stumble.

“Hey,” she said, catching her breath and her balance.

“You broke the record!” He motioned at her gauntlet. “Look. You shattered it.”

“What?” Soz peered at her timer. She had run the Echo in seven minutes and eleven seconds, pulverizing the previous record of nine minutes forty-diree.

“Whoa.” Soz blinked at her timer. Then she blinked at Jazar.

“That was articulate.” Laughing, he turned as the other cadets gathered around. Soz tried to reorient on them, but she couldn’t unwind.

Stone came over and spoke without smiling. “Quite a feat, Valdoria.”

Soz saluted him. “Thank you, sir.”

He glanced at the other cadets. ‘Take four laps around the track, then off to the showers.”

They saluted and jogged off, but as Soz turned to follow, Stone said, “Not you.”

She turned back. “Sir?”

He spoke quietly. “How did you ran the maze so fast?”

“Practice.”

“What practice?” His voice tightened. “It’s a new setup.”

“I learn fast”

“No doubt” He met her gaze. “If I find you’ve been cracking DMA networks, Cadet, I’ll have you up before Commandant Blackmoor faster than you can say ‘You’re expelled.’”

Hell and damnation. “Sir! Yes, sir!”

He jerked his head toward the track. “Go run. Eight laps.”

Eight Soz saluted and took off before he could ask more questions. She caught up with Jazar on his second lap.

He jogged next to her. “What did Stone want?”

“He thinks I cheated on the Echo.”

“Did you?”

She slanted a look at him. “If you’re going to fight Traders, you damn well better do anything you can to stay alive.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You can’t cheat death.” She focused inward, drawing on her resources, and had pulled ahead of him before she realized she was using her enhanced speed.

“Soz, cut it out” He sprinted up next to her and drew her to a halt. She could have easily pulled free; as a cadet only a few months into his second year, he had no biomech yet, neither a node nor any enhancement to his body. But she stopped, breathing deeply, ready to take off if he pushed.

“Listen to me.” He stood with sweat running down his face and soaking his mesh shirt. “If you crack the Echo, the only person you’re cheating is yourself.”

“Jaz, don’t.”

“Let yourself hurt.” His voice gentled. “Let go. Be human.”

“I don’t know how.” She choked on the words. “I’m dying inside.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Give it time.” ‘Tune. Right” She shifted her feet. “Let’s run.” They started off again, and she tried to exhaust herself with the exercise. But nothing could fix her broken edges.

She couldn’t drop her anger and let herself grieve—for if it started, she feared it would never stop.

Kurj sat in a high-backed academy chair at a round table with the Jag insignia enameled into its surface. He looked away, out the arched windows of Commandant Blackmoor’s office, into the night. That darkness reflected his mood more than any glossy symbol.

A clink came from behind him, and he turned back as Blackmoor set steaming mugs of kava on the table. The commandant lowered himself into his own chair across from Kurj and folded his hands around the massive gray mug.

“Stone thinks she cheated,” Blackmoor said.

Kurj took a swallow of bitter kava. “How?”

“Cracked the field mesh and memorized the Echo.”

“Do you have proof?”

“Nothing. She covered herself too damn well.”

“Without proof, we can’t apply penalties.”

Blackmoor frowned. “We can’t let it go.”

“I know.” Steam curled out of Kurj’s mug and drifted over the J-Force insignia. “She’s hurting.”

“We’re all hurting. That doesn’t excuse it”

“No.” Kurj set down his mug. “It doesn’t.”

“I want her off the honor list.”

“With what justification? Cadets aren’t the only ones bound by the honor code.

If we punish someone without evidence, we’re violating it as well.”

The commandant thumped the table. “She’s one of the best cadets we’ve ever had, but she’s never going to reach her potential if she can’t shape up.”

Kurj could only nod, too tired to say more. He had so little left for this mess. The Kyle web drained him more each day. That voracious, ill-defined universe absorbed all he had to give and demanded more. It was too much for two people, but he and Dehya had to do it. No one else could. Now his brother—his heir—had died. He had known the risk existed, known that the same flame of battle that would forge his heirs as it had forged him could also kill them. He understood Soz’s rage. It burned within him as well, but in his case, the fury turned inward, against himself, for he was the one who had sent Althor to his death.

He had only one heir now. And she wasn’t ready.

The lights were low in the viewing chamber when Soz entered. A sofa and several armchairs stood around the walls, upholstered in soft cloth, subtle grays and blues. Abstract holoart swirled on the walls, soothing and calm.

Soz did not feel calm.

A large window took up the top half of the opposite wall—and a woman with a cap of red hair stood there, gazing into the room beyond.

Soz stopped, startled. “Grell?”

The other woman turned around. It was indeed Soz’s former roommate. “Heya, Soz.” Grell sounded subdued. Her face was drawn, with dark circles under her eyes.

Soz joined her at the window. Althor lay in the hospital room beyond. He was stretched out on his back on a floater, a bed with chips worked into its air mattress, giving it an AI brain. It could react to tension in his body, ease muscle strain, dispense nanomeds, monitor his vital signs, massage his body, anything.

None of it helped.

The doctors were still running tests, and until Soz’s parents told them to stop, they would continue, convincing themselves beyond every infinitesimal doubt that he would never wake. During it all, they allowed very few people to visit him. Soz didn’t want to stay out here. She wanted to sit by his bedside, talk to him even if he couldn’t hear, offer comfort. But she had to wait for permission, until they exhausted every hope modern medicine could offer. It seemed so useless, aU their vaunted technology. Althor lay mere, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling with each shallow breath, but he never woke.

“He’s been like this ever since I came,” Grell said. “Every time I come.”

“I hadn’t realized you and he were… friends.” Soz didn’t know what to say.

Had he been seeing Grell? She hadn’t even known. Given their argument, she supposed he had reason to keep it to himself.

Grell glanced at her. “Yes. We’re—friends.”

“I didn’t realize.”

Grell went back to watching him. “Do you know what he asked me?”

It was easier for Soz to look at her tiian at her dying brother. “Well—no.”

“If I could imagine spending my life with someone as a friend.”

Ah, gods. He had really meant to do it, marry a woman so their father would let him come home. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t I never gave him an answer. But I could have said yes.” She smiled at Soz. “He’s an incredible man. Sweet”

Althor? Sweet? “Are we talking about the same person?”

“Well, yes. Of course.”

Soz squinted at her. “He wasn’t sweet to me.”

Grell cocked an eyebrow at her. “Maybe that’s because of all the puffle-wogs you put in his clothes.”

“I did not put puffle-wogs in his clothes,” Soz said, indignant. “It was spiney-wogs.” Twelve-year-old Althor had yelped most satisfyingly when he put on his shirt. “He put puffle-wogs in mine to get back at me.”

Grell laughed, soft and strained. “He loved you. Even if the two of you didn’t always know how to express it.”

“Loves,” Soz said. “Not loved.”

“Soz—I’m so sorry.”

Soz shook her head. She couldn’t go where Grell had already arrived. Until Althor actually stopped breathing, Soz refused to believe he wouldn’t wake up.

Grell spoke awkwardly. “I’m not sure why he was seeing me. But I wanted you to know …” Her voice trailed off.

“Know what?” Soz asked.

“It didn’t matter to me.”

“It?”

“His, uh, preferences.”

“Oh.” Soz flushed.

“I liked him the way he was.”

“Is.” Is.

“Yes. Is.” If Grell had any thoughts about contradicting her, she kept them to herself.

“Could you have been happy in a relationship like that?”

“I think so.” Grell smiled crookedly. “Hey, he’s an Imperial Heir.”

Soz scowled. “Not a good answer.” If someone sought her out because of her title, she would flip him over her shoulder and whack him down on the ground.

She sometimes suspected that the men feared she would do that to them regardless. It could explain her lack of dates.

Grell smiled. “You should see the look on your face.”

“You haven’t seen the half of it, if you go after my brother for his title.”

“You know me better than mat.”

Soz exhaled. “Yes. I do.” Grell had been trying to make a joke, with about as much success as Soz’s jokes. Neither of them would ever win awards for their wit, she supposed.

They stood side by side for a while longer, watching Althor breathe. Finally Grell said, “I’ve a test tomorrow. I guess I should try to study.” She squeezed Soz’s shoulder. “See you.”

“Right. See you.” Soz squeezed her hand back.

After Grell left, Soz continued to watch Althor. Wake up, she willed. Please.

Wake up.

After a while she sat on the couch and sprawled out, slouched against its back, her legs stretched out on the table in front of it, what Earth types called a “coffee” table,

though Soz could never imagine having a cup of the strange stuff anywhere, on a table or otherwise.

She dozed for a while, exhausted from running all day and slamming through the Echo. As fatigue leached her anger, remorse set in. Jazar was right. The person she had cheated today was herself. Even if the brass here never proved what she had done, she would know.

The door across the room whispered open. Soz considered waking up all the way to see who had arrived, but it seemed too difficult. She slitted her eyes open to peer at the door.

Shannon walked into the room.

What the hell? How did he get here? Her thoughts tumbled in a rush as she jumped up. “Shani! When did you—”

He turned—and the words died in her throat. How mortifying. She had just called a perfect stranger by her kid brother’s nickname.

“Excuse me?” the man asked.

Soz’s face heated with her blush. Gods. He was about Al-dior’s age, early twenties. Straight blond hair brushed his shoulders in a style similar to the way Shannon wore his. He had blue eyes, though, and his face had a chiseled look, too unbearably handsome to be real. No one should be that gorgeous. It had to violate some conservation law of the cosmos.

“Uh—sorry.” Soz cleared her throat. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Are you Soz?”

“Yes.” She blinked. “How did you know?” •ruvr; .x:?%

“You fit Althor’s description.” He motioned toward her head. “Not many people have hair like that.”

“Oh.” Apparently diis was another of Althor’s “friends.” It was bad enough he had paramours coming out of the woodwork when she couldn’t even get a date, but really, the universe had no justice when her brother had so much better luck with good-looking men than she did.

“Well,” Soz said. “So you know me but I don’t know you. Who are you?” Then she inwardly winced. Social niceties had never been one of her strong points.

“I’m Chad.” He nodded, the formal greeting of a commoner to nobility. Either he didn’t know people were supposed to bow to royalty or else he didn’t realize Althor’s full identity.

“My greetings, Chad,” Soz said.

“Althor never mentioned me?”

“Not by name.” She had a pretty good idea who he was, though, given Althor’s comments about his “former” friend. “You’re the one who dumped him, right?”

Chad flushed. Then he glanced toward the window. “How is her “Just about dead,” Soz said. “That what it takes to make you come around?”

He paled, his face strained. Then he went to die window and looked into the room beyond.

Soz joined him. “How come you never visited him at DMA?”

“He told me to stay away.”

“Why?” she demanded.

Chad slanted a look at her. “Are you his protection squad?”

Soz crossed her arms. “I know when he’s been hurt.”

“This is between Althor and me.”

“Well, I guess it’s stalled then.” Maybe she wasn’t being fair to him, but it grated that he would come only when Althor lay in a coma.

Chad started to speak. Then he shook his head. They stood, neither looking at each other, both watching the hospital room.

“Ah, hell,” Soz said. “I’m not handling this very well.”

Chad leaned his forehead against the window. “Nor I.” In a low voice, he added, “I never did.”

“Let’s try again.” She forced some cheer into her voice. “I’m pleased to meet you, Chad.”

He straightened up and faced her. “And I you.”

Then he smiled.

Whoa. A smile that dazzling should have been rated as a lethal weapon. It would drop people in their tracks. What a lovely way to go, though.

Soz cleared her throat. “So.” She ran out of words. Even at the best of times, she wasn’t great with small talk. When faced with her brother’s devastatingly handsome former boyfriend, she had no clue what to say.

Chad’s face gended. “You’re exactly like he described.”

Soz grimaced. “I couldn’t be that bad.”

He laughed, his voice full and resonant, like an orator or a singer. “He never said you were.”

“Did you, uh, know him long?”

His smile faded. “Several years.”

“Why did you wait until now to come back?”