Eldrin touched my face, tracing his fingertip from my temple to my cheek. As he lowered his arm, his finger rippled like water.
It is so strange, Dehya, that you are so fragile and yet so strong at the same time.
My lips curved upward.
I'm a fierce one.
Chad was watching us. I caught his wistful thought; he wondered what it was like to converse as a telepath.
"Do you think the Allieds will attack us?" I asked him.
Chad shook his head. "So far, they have shown no inclination to do so, but they've given us no response about your family, either."
That didn't sound promising. "Do we have news from Prince Havyrl on Lyshriol?"
Incongruously, Eldrin suddenly grinned. "He got married."
I blinked. "What?"
"He married a young woman, an empath who has helped him heal."
"Heal?" I was growing confused. "From what?"
"The nightmares," Eldrin said. "The sensory deprivation."
This conversation felt oddly languid. Out of place. And where was Ragnar? It wasn't like him to be out the loop if anything happened.
Good gods. Why was
Eldrin
here? What happened to everyone's fear that his convulsive rage would explode again, endangering my life?
Chad vanished.
Eldrin vanished.
The Chair vanished.
The chamber vanished.
I plunged into dark mist.
What—?
Dehya.
The thought rumbled.
Come back.
Who was that?
Mother, go back.
Taquinil?
The mist cleared and the Triad Chamber reformed. The Chair had taken me back up in the dome.
Dehya, can you hear me?
Eldrin asked.
Drrrrynnnni?
My thought was muffled. Reverberating.
Focus.
Who the blazes had thought that?
A comm on the Chair lit up. An annoyed voice came out of it.
Mother, I'm a grown man now. I don't need you to coddle me.
Taquinil. Why did his thought come out of the comm? That was impossible.
I don't coddle you.
Well, this isn't the time to start.
I don't understand what you mean.
You don't need to stay here. I'm fine.
Stay here?
In psiberspace.
I'm not in psiberspace.
The universe rippled.
The universe rippled.
The universe rippled.
Dehya, focus.
Who are you?
Kyle space was turning into a regular Starport Central.
No techs were bringing down the chair. No recovery team was taking me out of it. I hung here in the starlight, alone except for impossible thought-voices on the comm.
Mist silvered the chair until I could no longer see it. A great stillness surrounded me.
Whispers grew. Louder. Not whispers. Distant shouts. Far away. Curious, I opened my eyes, though I hadn't realized they were closed, or even that I had eyes.
The Triad Chair had descended to the floor again. I could see all of it below me, as if I were separated from my body. Techs swarmed over the chair, unfastening a limp form from its heart. Dr. Bayliron gently pulled robot arms away from the body. Chad Barzun and Jinn Opsister stood back while the techs and medics worked. Ragnar was striding back and forth, more agitated than I had ever seen him before.
Interesting. That was my body.
I concentrated, and the shouting became louder.
Her heart's stopped!
Ragnar stopped pacing, his face contorted.
Flaming hell, do something!
Apparently I was dying.
I preferred that didn't happen.
I concentrated, trying to collect back into my body.
Vertigo hit me like a fist.
Ah, no.
My chest hurt, hurt,
hurt—
"Stat,"
someone shouted. "Get a shocker in here!"
Forcing my eyes open, I found myself in the chair. Techs were working all around, fast and expert as they disengaged me from the chair's mechanical embrace. My nausea surged. So much pain. How long had I been here, my chest hurting, my body on fire?
Pain…
Then they had me out and onto an air-stretcher. With my last desperate threads of conscious thought, I wondered if we would reach the hospital before or after I died.
27
World of Legends
Virtual reality had advantages. It wasn't the same as being with a real person, but it came close. In a good system, even touch felt so authentic, you couldn't tell the difference between that and the real thing.
But you knew; your loved one wasn't really there.
So Eldrin came to visit while I was dying.
"Dehya, you can't do this," he told me, sitting by my bed in a dark blue chair. "You escaped the Traders. You survived Opalite. You can't die now."
Opalite wasn't so bad.
I meant to speak, but only thoughts came. This was a computer-generated simulacrum; Eldrin was actually on
Havyrl's Valor
and couldn't pick up my thoughts. It was a good sim, though. He came across as real even to me, who had been married to him for fifty-seven years.
He leaned forward. "Damn it, Dehya, don't you die. We haven't finished our argument."
"Argument…?" I asked.
Eldrin froze, his eyes widening. Softly he said, "Thank the saints." He hinged his hand around mine, his touch warm. Almost real.
Then it hit me: Why would doctors put a dying Pharaoh in a virtual sim? Ah, hell. This was another weird Kyle space creation.
His voice caught. "Welcome back, Wife."
"What argument?" I asked.
He laughed shakily. "I don't know. We're always having one. I figured that might stir you up."
Hmmm. That sounded authentic.
A voice spoke somewhere, indistinct.
Eldrin turned to someone I couldn't see. "I think so."
"You think what?" I asked, confused.
The room faded. Eldrin went too, which saddened me. Instead of one of those nightmare Triad Chamber scenes, though, this time a normal hospital room took shape. I was lying in bed wearing a white sim-suit that covered my body like a supple velvet skin. Dr. Bayliron leaned over me, his face concerned. Two robot medics, humanoid in shape, were checking the many monitors arrayed around my bed.
I peered at Bayliron, wondering if this was another illusion. "Did you have me in a VR simulation?"
"Yes. Your husband wanted to talk to you." He spoke with a doctor's comforting tones, but strain underlay his words. "How do you feel?"
"A little tired." His drawn expression puzzled me. "Doctor, did I phase out in the Triad Chair?"
He spoke quietly. "For three days. We couldn't see you, except a silver outline every now and then."
Three days? Good gods. No wonder he seemed upset. "How did you know I was still there?"
He set his hands on the rail that kept me from rolling out of bed. "The communications in the fleet continued to work, with all the new psiberspace links. And the chair sensors registered your presence."
"Couldn't you pull me out?"
He shook his head. "We might have disrupted your state and lost you for good."
So strange. What had the chair been doing? Its intelligence was so different, it was hard to fathom even when I was joined with its mind.
I pulled myself up into a sitting position. "I need to check the Chair's records."
He lifted his hand as if he meant to lay it on my shoulder, stopping me. Then he paused. People never touched me unless absolutely necessary. Otherwise, my bodyguards became upset, both the human and mechanical ones.
He sighed, lowering his arm. "Your Highness, you must rest."
"I've been nonexistent for three days," I grumbled. "I need exercise."
He gave a soft laugh. "Perhaps so. But humor me."
I bestowed him with my curmudgeon look. "Oh, all right."
"The techs tried to download the Chair's records. But it won't cooperate."
I stretched my arms, assuring myself I really was solid. "Cooperation is a human attribute. Triad Chairs don't have those."
He regarded me uneasily. "Do you think the Chair caused your problems?"
"Not with intention." I searched for words to describe what I only understood on a subconscious, instinctual level. "The Chair is alive, but it isn't even remotely human. It coexists with us when we work in it. If we have a full Triad, that stabilizes the interaction. But with just me, it's less—" I hesitated to say
less stable.
Instability was a human concept defined by what made humans comfortable. "It's less attuned to its human partners. So it is less likely to interact in ways we understand."
His forehead furrowed. "Isn't Web Key Eldrinson also in the Triad?"
My mood dimmed, like the shadow cast on the sun by the moon during an eclipse. If Eldrinson had truly died, the Allieds had probably told his family and ISC Headquarters by now. We may have heard nothing simply because we were cut off from them. But if the family wanted to make it public, I suspected we would have at least picked up rumors. Or perhaps he still lived, saints willing. Neither Eldrin nor I wanted to start another wave of grief among our people until we knew the full situation.
All I said was, "The Triad has two people, I'm fairly certain. But we haven't been working with the Chairs for some time now. The longer we go without interaction, the less attuned to us they become." Sorrow tinged my thoughts. We needed the anchor of the late Imperator, Kurj, with his massive, muscular mind. To say the Chairs had mourned his death these past few years would be giving them human traits they didn't possess. But in their own way, they experienced his loss.
The hum of an opening hatchway came from across the room, followed by the quiet tread of booted feet. Then Chad appeared at Bayliron's elbow. "Pharaoh Dyhianna. It is good to see you." Although he appeared unruffled, the relief in his mind was sharp and vivid.
"My greetings, Admiral." The EI for this room had probably notified him when I regained consciousness. "I'm glad to be back."
His rugged face gentled. "Your husband sends his greetings."
The memory of Eldrin's touch warmed me. "Was that really him in the VR sim?"
"Very much so," Bayliron said. "He was with you, in VR, the entire time you were unconscious. About four hours."
Eldrin, you thaw my life.
I thought. I couldn't speak such personal sentiment here, though. Instead I asked, "So we've been in the solar system four hours?"
"About," Chad said.
Odd. That was when the chair was supposed to have released me. I thought back to my strange "dialogue" with it, which had consisted of it submerging me in illusions. "Did you only manage about a fifty percent recovery when you tried to bring me out of the chair at the appointed time?"
Chad started. "Yes. How did you know?"
"You told me."
He paused, and I could tell he didn't want to contradict me. Finally he said, "We didn't speak, Your Highness. You weren't even solid."
Well, being translucent did put a damper on conversation. I remembered so much, though. "You said we were passing the asteroid belt. You also said we had an escort of about one hundred thousand Allied ships, but that the Allied fleet was stretched thin."
