Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 3

Kurj clenched his teeth. He raised his hand and red lasers shot out of his fingers, searing the mural. In a node owned by Ascendance Hall on the planet Parthonia, a marauding section of computer code cut a swath of destruction through the directory of advertising files for the Imperial Ballet. In Kurj's mindscape the mural exploded, shards of color flying everywhere.

Offense nullified, the sparkle thought.

If they show her image again, Kurj thought, shut them down.

Monitoring of Imperial Ballet updated, the routine answered.

Kurj had no objection to the Imperial Ballet-provided they used no displays of this woman. Let the tales of her spectacular beauty become legends no one could verify. He had no intention of letting audiences drool over his mother.

He waved his hand and the city disappeared, replaced by the web grid. Transfer to Comtrace, he thought.

Transferred. That came from a new source, cold and rumbling. Any other user accessing Comtrace, the heart of ISC intelligence, would have faced extensive security protocols. Unauthorized attempts could result in execution. Kurj's Dusk psicon simply re-formed in a region of splintering whiteness.

Attending, Comtrace thought.

Download Admiral Tahota's reports to node S, Kurj thought.

Download commenced.

Kurj went to work. First he read the reports from Starjack Tahota, his second in command at ISC. Then he studied ISC maneuvers against Trader battle cruisers, a.n.a.lyzing them for weaknesses in strategy. Next he moved on to intelligence reports on military officers in ESComm, the Trader equivalent of ISC.

When Kurj finally left Comtrace, he felt more settled. Thoughts of Soz still weighed on him, but the pressure had eased, at least for now.

Incoming message from a.s.sembly Key Selei, Mail Server 19 thought.

What does she say? Kurj asked.

"Hercules is the wrong icon."

That's it?

Yes.

He frowned. Dehya was the one who had invoked the hydra myth. And what did she mean, icon? It could refer either to a computer icon or to an icon as a figure of note. Knowing Dehya, it might be both, in a riddle that made sense only to her enigmatic, albeit towering, intellect. What was she up to, on this eve of his announcement that he had chosen his heir?

Seeker, respond, Kurj thought.

A rotating sphere the size of his fist appeared, with colors swirling on it like rainbows on oil. Attending, his Search-and-Summon monitor thought.

Is Secondary Althor Valdoria in the web? Kurj asked.

Seeker paused. No.

Summon him.

The sphere darted off, vanis.h.i.+ng into the glimmering mist. If Althor was near any form of console with IR capability, he would receive the summons through IR signals sent to receivers in his body. Given the ubiquitous presence of computers, from full-sized consoles down to picowebs embedded in buildings, almost nowhere in the Imperialate existed where one could avoid a summons from the Imperator.

Kurj focused on the grid under his feet. Access memory location.

The ground descended, taking him into another gray room. Office, he thought, and a macro created a ma.s.sive office for him, all dichromesh gla.s.s and gleaming components. As he sat behind the huge desk that spanned the room, Seeker reappeared, hovering in the air.

Secondary Valdoria requests permission to access your location, Seeker thought.

Let him in.

The door opened and a man entered. A psicon, actually, but this man's symbol of choice was simple; it looked like him. Althor Valdoria stood nearly two meters high, six-foot-six. He was built like Kurj, with a ma.s.sive physique. He too had inherited their mother's gold coloring, but his violet eyes came from his father, Eldrinson Valdoria, the man Kurj refused to acknowledge as his stepfather.

Althor wore a Jagernaut's black uniform with black knee boots. Two gold armbands on each arm indicated his rank as a Secondary, about equivalent to a naval commodore. Picochips packed the conduits embedded in his leather-and-metal gauntlets, and were linked through his wrist sockets to the biomech web in his body. He saluted Kurj, extending his arms straight out, his fists clenched and his wrists crossed.

At ease. Kurj motioned to a chair. After Althor sat down, Kurj said, Tomorrow I will announce you are to a.s.sume the t.i.tle of Imperial Heir. The ceremony will be at 16:45, Dieshan time, from my office.

I am honored by your confidence, Althor thought.

You've given me good reason for it. Kurj paused. Has Dehya discussed this with you?

No, sir.

Have you had contact with her recently?

A tenday ago, Althor answered. She and my brother Eldrin invited me to dinner at their home on the Orbiter.

What did you talk about?

Althor rubbed his chin. A ballad Eldrin is writing. The remodeling on their house. Mother's birthday.

Anything about your position as the Imperial Heir?

Nothing.

Very well. Kurj doubted he would discover anything even if Dehya had intended more than a quiet family dinner, Her methods were too subtle. He needed a different approach to unmask them.

Watching Althor, Kurj was concerned for other reasons. His brother's psicon reflected moods, at least those that Althor's spinal nodes considered safe for him to express. Right now he looked tired. Dark circles showed under his eyes.

How are you? Kurj asked.

Althor swallowed. I will be fine.

Quietly Kurj thought, Nothing makes up for Soz's loss.

I had kept hoping.

I also, Kurj thought. I miss our sister.

Grief flicked across Althor's face, and also surprise. Kurj supposed it wasn't often he revealed emotions even to his family.

I too, Althor thought.

Kurj nodded. Report to my office tomorrow at sixteen hundred hours.

Yes, sir.

Kurj raised his hand. You may go.

Althor stood and saluted, then left as he had come, through the door.

Seeker, Kurj thought.

The sphere appeared. Attending.

Where is the Web Key?

On the Orbiter s.p.a.ce station, repairing a damaged section of the web.

So. His stepfather also combated grief with work.

Kurj had never come to terms with his mother's marriage to Eldrinson. But Eldrinson Valdoria-a simple farmer from a backward world-was Rhon. The difficulty in creating Rhon psions in the lab made s.e.xual reproduction the most reliable source. In the past, that had prompted the a.s.sembly to overlook the ethics, or lack thereof, in coercing the Ruby Dynasty to interbreed. It all became moot when Eldrinson and Kurj's mother began having Rhon children, which they had done at a frequency Kurj found altogether inappropriate. Even more annoying, they bequeathed some form of Eldrinson's name to numerous of their sons. However, they named their third son Del-Kurj, which meant "In honor of Kurj." In any case, their ten offspring ensured a hefty reserve of Rhon psions for the web, enough so the less important children even enjoyed a degree of freedom rather than having their every move monitored by the a.s.sembly.

The web grew larger every year, a voracious ocean as deep as the stars, requiring ever more Rhon strength to power it. But the powerlink could support at most only three minds; more would overload the link and short-circuit the web. Nor could just any Rhon psion join the Triad. Just as no two fermion particles could have the same quantum numbers, so no two minds could occupy the same region in psibers.p.a.ce-a condition difficult to satisfy when the Rhon were all related, which made their minds more similar.

The original powerlink had been a Dyad, formed by Kurj's maternal grandparents. Kurj had tried to make it a Triad, but he and his grandfather were too much alike. The strained link shattered-and killed his grandfather. His grandmother died soon after of old age, and Dehya, her eldest daughter, a.s.sumed both the Ruby Throne and the t.i.tle of a.s.sembly Key. So Dehya and Kurj had formed a new Dyad, shaken by grief, afraid to add a third Key because their close genetic ties made them too much alike. It could kill.

Except Eldrinson had no Ruby Dynasty genes. Fate played the ultimate joke on Kurj; the stepfather he so wished would vanish turned out to be the only person who could complete the Triad. Having Eldrinson to maintain the web freed Kurj and Dehya to focus on using it. Which they did in service to the Imperial a.s.sembly, but also in pursuit of their own purposes, such as maneuvering control of the Imperialate away from the a.s.sembly. So they formed a volatile Triad: Dehya, Kurj, and Eldrinson; a.s.sembly Key, Military Key, and Web Key; the Mind, the Fist, and the Heart of Skolia.

Summon Web Key, Kurj thought.

Seeker darted off again.

A moment later a thought came out of the air, its l.u.s.trous resonance a reminder of its owner's extraordinary singing voice. Yes? Eldrinson asked.

Where are you? Kurj thought.

A psicon formed, a handsome man about five-foot-ten, with large violet eyes and a hint of freckles across his nose. Wine-red hair brushed his shoulders. It puzzled Kurj that Eldrinson had silver in his hair; the man was almost twenty years younger than Kurj, who had no trace of gray and expected none for decades. More irritating were his stepfather's spectacles. As far as Kurj was concerned, it was sheer obstinacy on Eldrinson's part to so dislike Imperial technology that he preferred gla.s.ses to having his damaged eyes replaced with better ones.

I've spoken with Althor, Kurj said. I will make the announcement tomorrow.

Eldrinson nodded. Your mother and I will come to Diesha.

Kurj almost told him it was unnecessary. But in this he relented. Both he and his stepfather had lost a person they loved. He felt Eldrinson's grief in the very fabric of the web.

Roca and I are also having a memorial service on Lyshriol, Eldrinson thought. We would like you to come.

Normally Kurj resisted visiting Lyshriol, his stepfather's home world. Although pleasant enough in its own rustic way, it was Eldrinson's dominion. However, this was different. I will attend.

Your mother will be glad to see you. Eldrinson faded from the grid.

Kurj resumed his walk. At another grid square he thought, Open, and once again sank into a bare gray room.

You have 653 messages, Mail Server 1 thought.

That surprised Kurj. It had been less than an hour since he last checked his mail. Delegate.

Done. The queue now contains 102 messages.

Prioritize. Relay first on list.

Hieroglyphs appeared on the wall, scrolling downward, a list of who had received this particular message.

Address map, Kurj thought. The list vanished, replaced by a holomap with a network of nodes joined by filaments. It showed every address that had received the message, millions of sites, so dense with lines it was impossible to distinguish individual addresses.

Text of message, Kurj thought.

The map moved to the upper corner. Three-dimensional glyphs appeared on the wall, their height and width containing their primary information, their depth adding shades of meaning. As Server 1 read the glyphs, Kurj studied them, verifying that the server's interpretation matched his own. Although he had fine-tuned its psiware, he still often checked its work.

The message was surprisingly blunt and free of propaganda, given its source: His Exalted Highness, Emperor Ur Qox of the Eubian Concord, declares war on Imperial Skolia.

Kurj snorted. Skolia and the so-called Concord had been having an undeclared war for centuries. This changed nothing. But since it had become known that Emperor Qox's heir had died while a prisoner of ISC, Kurj had expected this.

Who else has received this message? he asked.

Server 1 answered with a metallic thought: All government offices on the planets and habitats of the Eubian Concord, Skolian Imperialate, and Allied Worlds.

Kurj accessed an image of Ur Qox, the Trader emperor. A tall man appeared in front of Kurj, lean and gaunt, with red eyes and s.h.i.+mmering black hair.

You think you grieve, Kurj thought to the image. Don't come to me with oaths of war over your ill-bred sp.a.w.n. You will pay for my sister's death, Qox. You will pay, until the blood of the Trader Aristos runs red across the sea of stars.

3.

Jeremiah, stop being provincial. Why do you find it so hard to believe humans have settled 2700 worlds and habitats? Yes, I know, our Allied Worlds have only have 300. But I came to know the Imperialate much better during my studies at their inst.i.tute on Parthonia. It's true, they have over 900 colonies. And that's nothing compared to the Traders. The Eubian Concord-what we call the Traders-they have nearly 1500, some with billions of people. Think of it! Humanity numbers over 3000 billion people. Only 400 billion live among our Allied Worlds of Earth. Skolians number almost 1000 billion and the Traders a full 1700 billion.

But here's a sobering thought, Jeremiah. Except for a few hundred Aristos, those 1700 billion Traders are all slaves.

-From the collected letters of Tiller Smith to his brother Soz knelt on the ground in front of the valise-shaped box that contained their computers. She was wearing only the s.h.i.+rt from Jaibriol's prison uniform, which reached to her thighs, but the warmth of the night required nothing more.

Jaibriol had turned off the quasis screen and was standing in the cave entrance, in his trousers, looking out at the night. His presence both soothed and agitated her. He was a beautiful sight, his broad chest smooth with muscles, his cla.s.sic face in profile as he gazed into the darkness. But he was strange too, unfamiliar, Imperial s.p.a.ce Command's worst nightmare, an Aristo who could power a psiberweb.

He glanced at her. "Did you find anything?"

"Erin left a file in GeoComp."

"Erin? You mean the pilot who brought us here?"