True. But it isn't promising.
I considered Jon. "So you asked us here to discuss Primary Majda's reservations?" I could call his bluff by telling him Vazar agreed with my idea, but he might call
my
bluff and really ask Vazar. She would tell him exactly what he wanted to hear.
"I'm concerned about your safety," Jon hedged.
"On your own ship?" Eldrin asked. To me, he thought,
Here it comes.
"These are difficult times," Jon said. "My loyalty to your family demands I ensure that conflicting loyalties endanger neither you nor the Imperialate."
Right. Lock me up for my own good. I wondered at his use of
Imperialate,
though. The word had become controversial; the Assembly consisted primarily of elected representatives, whereas
Imperial
implied a hereditary power base. The Ruby Dynasty.
Some felt that calling ourselves an Imperialate was tantamount to agreeing with the Allied detractors who dubbed us "imperialistic warmongers." The Allied Worlds had the only truly elected governments. The Traders practiced tyranny; they could call themselves benevolent all they wanted and it wouldn't change the fact that they enslaved over a trillion people. Both we and the Allieds believed all humans had the right to freedom. Given the way ISC occupied planets, though, Skolia had a ways to go before we reached that ideal. As long as we and the Traders kept fighting each other, we left the Allieds alone. But if one side ever won a decisive victory, the Allieds knew the winners would come after them next. Now they had a chance to neutralize us when both sides were weakened.
I dropped into normal-speed thought, but I wondered if it was the accelerated mode that made my head ache this time. In my more honest moments, I had to admit the galaxy would probably be a far more peaceful place if the Allied Worlds were in charge.
Amusement came from Eldrin.
If you really want to shock the Assembly, tell them that.
Hah. Not a chance.
To Jon, I said, "I value your loyalty immensely. Your support would mean a great deal."
His control eased, revealing the depth of his concern. "Then I entreat you, Your Highness. Don't split loyalties within the Imperialate. This is the time we can
least
afford such rifts."
"The rifts already exist," Eldrin said. "We must make the best of the situation."
Jon glanced at him. "That's what I'm trying to do."
I spoke quietly. "Then we
must
retrieve my family from Earth."
"I wish I could agree with you." Reaching forward, he touched a panel in the table. "But I'm afraid I can't."
A door whispered open elsewhere in the suite, followed by the tread of booted feet. Damn. Even knowing that Jon probably wouldn't back us, it still came as a disappointment.
They've never given us freedom,
Eldrin thought tiredly.
This just makes it explicit.
The soldiers entered like fog: gray uniforms, gray boots, gray eyes, gray gauntlets threaded with glittering conduits. We all stood up as they surrounded the sofa. I didn't know how my expression looked, but when I turned to Jon, he had the decency to appear ill-at-ease. I spoke with deceptive softness. "I would never have expected a betrayal from you."
For all his disquiet, he showed no sign of relenting. "I regret that you see this as a betrayal, Your Highness. But I must do what I believe is best for the Skolian Imperialate."
Imperialate again. It sounded incongruous from him, given that he had just implicitly pledged his loyalty to the Assembly.
It is the name of our civilization,
Eldrin pointed out.
Jon does everything by the rules.
The guards escorted us out of the suite and along empty, secured corridors. Our trek ended at an entrance hidden deep within a maze of tunnels. The suite beyond had soft carpets. Gilded furniture. Soothing holo-panels on the walls. Blue. Gold. Crystal. Genuine wood. Amazing that they could provide such plush quarters on a battle cruiser.
But making the brig attractive made it no less a prison.
20
Interlude
Eldrin paced the living room, restless and edgy. Despite his mental shields, I could tell this reminded him of being a Trader captive. Again I wondered if they had tampered with his mind. What better way to reach the Ruby Pharaoh than to sabotage the one person she was willing to trust?
Eldrin froze and stared at me.
I would never hurt you.
I know.
Do you? Do I?
He pushed his hand through his hair.
I've no guarantee you're any safer with me than with anyone else.
I don't believe you would do anything.
That's your heart speaking. Not your intellect.
Sometimes the heart knows more.
I hope you're right.
He looked around the elegant room. "You can't even see the spy monitors."
We both knew security would be monitoring everything we did. I smiled wryly. "I hope we're entertaining."
Can you do anything about them?
Maybe.
I sat at a console near the wall. Then I went to work.
First I dumped the security blocks Jon's people had put on the console to stop me from using it. They could have removed the console and it would have done no good; with computers ingrained in everything we used, even ourselves, no way existed to cut off an experienced telop from a ship's networks.
Within an hour I had infiltrated the security that guarded the suite. Although it was well set-up, I managed to turn off the monitors. But I didn't believe it; Jon knew what I could do. They had created this "security" as camouflage for the real systems.
It took the rest of the night for me to find the real security. They had systems watching us I had never even heard of. Jon's security people had done a superb job. Fortunately, it wasn't good enough.
Eldrin slept a few hours, then returned to the living room. He leaned on the back of the console, facing me, his arms folded on a ledge that jutted up to chest height. As he watched me work, he spoke musingly. "On Lyshriol, we didn't have these consoles in every room. When I was young, our only computers were in a console room my mother had installed in my father's castle, and those in the school." He grimaced. "I didn't like them then."
"Then?" I looked up. "I didn't know you ever started liking them."
"Ah, well." He gave me a rueful smile. "One gets used to how easy all this tech makes our lives."
"Ah, but some things it can never replace." I stood up and stretched, long and languorously, working the kinks out of my back. Then I went around to him and put my arms around his waist.
He drew me close.
Do we have privacy now?
It should be all right. I have the spy monitors running a fake program of us in bed sleeping.
I continue to mindspeak, just in case.
I couldn't finagle a direct line to anyone outside, but at least we have privacy. And I did manage to send some hidden messages to some of our supporters.
Won't Security find them?
I hope not. I was discreet.
I shifted my weight.
I just, uh, twiddled some accounts.
Twiddled?
He laughed.
Dehya, what did you do?
I had Laplace send them cartoons from the erotica databases.
He grinned.
Why those?
They're the easiest to hack.
Dryly I added,
It seems they're the most accessed databases on this ship.
Now he looked intrigued.
And what did you do with these pleasing holos?
I encoded them with directions to this suite.
It had been the best way I had found to minimize the chance of alerting Security. Given how often people accessed those databases, the spike in activity due to my fiddling wasn't likely to draw attention.
Jon's security is good. It won't be long before they figure out what I've done. If we're going to get out of here, we have to go soon. I unlocked the door.
Escaping won't help unless we have support. Otherwise Jon's guards will just put us back.
Then we'll try again.
As long as it didn't involve you getting hurt.
I almost groaned.
Don't you start too.
Dehya, what do you expect us all to say? 'Sure, go take all the chances you want with your life.' I don't think so.
The door beeped.
"That was fast," I said.
Eldrin raised his voice. "Computer, who is it?"
"I don't know," it answered. "The Pharaoh turned off my spy monitors."
I went to the entrance. "Activate the viewing panel."
"I can't," it said. "You have another program running on it."
Ah well. Caught by my own intrigues. "All right. Open the door."
The wall shimmered and faded. In the corridor outside, soldiers waited in rows, a metallic sea of silver and gray warriors. A man in a crisp black uniform stood at their front.
"My greetings," Ragnar said pleasantly.
21
Mutiny
Ragnar bowed from the waist. "My honor at your presence, Pharaoh Dyhianna." Next he bowed to Eldrin, somehow making exactly the same motion seem less respectful. Then he lifted his hand, inviting us to leave the suite. "At your pleasure."
I considered all the human firepower he had brought. His soldiers stood like a wall of cybernetic muscle. He couldn't have organized them so fast; he must have prepared this before tonight. It made me uneasy. Just what had he planned? With this much backup, he could do whatever he wanted with us.
Eldrin crossed his arms. "How do we know we won't just become your prisoners instead of Jon Casestar's?"
Ragnar looked exasperated. "Your Highness, we're rescuing you."
With no warning, a shot came from the side. Ragnar lunged forward with the eerily smooth motion of someone controlled by physical augmentations rather than by his own conscious thought. A soldier behind him stumbled and fell, his shoulder soaked where a melting ice bullet had impacted him. The unexpected bullet had missed Ragnar, apparently because his internal system had detected its firing and thrust him out of its path with enhanced speed.
Everyone burst into action. As Ragnar grabbed me, his soldiers blurred, moving with extraordinary speed, like a machine with many human components. Even using my extra optics, I couldn't follow their movements. It happened in eerie silence; they communicated by implants in their brains rather than by voice.
Ragnar yanked me into the corridor, away from Eldrin, and pushed me toward a small tunnel with a shadowed entrance. Two of his cyberthugs helped him drag me away from the mêleé.
Straining to look back, I saw a blur of moving people, not only silver and gray, but with black mixed in now as well. Black. Damn. That meant Jagernauts. A flash of wine-red hair and blue trousers surfaced in the scuffle. Either the Jagernauts were rescuing Eldrin from his rescuers or else Ragnar's people were stopping him from following us.
Ragnar strode at my right side with his left arm around my waist and his right hand clenched on my upper right arm. I had never realized how strong a grip he had with all those augmentations of his. I struggled to pull free. "Let me go."
"Dehya, come on," he said. "This is our only chance."
We were almost running now. "Damn it, Ragnar, kidnapping the Ruby Pharaoh in the middle of a mutiny is stupid."
"I'm not kidnapping you. I'm saving your royal razoo." He maneuvered me into the side corridor. The two husky soldiers he had brought, a woman and a man, strode on either side of us.
"What the hell is a 'razoo'?" I said. When my language files supplied the image of a shapely posterior, I muttered, "Never mind."
As we ran down the dim tunnel, the tumult behind us faded. Then Ragnar drew me into an even narrower access tube. We were in a maintenance area now, one used mostly by robots. He pushed me into a niche barely big enough for the two of us to stand together.
Glancing at his soldiers, who waited outside the niche, he said, "What happened back there?"
The woman tapped a comm on her gauntlet. It glittered in a familiar pattern; it was sending data to implants in her ears. "Those were Primary Majda's people."
