Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 38

Will the approach of another craft endanger him? Soz asked.

Yes, Rasmuss thought. The closer the s.h.i.+ps, the greater the effect. The fluctuations that triggered the JG-8 were large, from the collapse of the bottle holding Heald's s.h.i.+p. But if a Jag gets closer to him, even minor field fluctuations could trigger an explosion.

Heald, abandon s.h.i.+p, Soz thought. Ko, pick him up. All s.h.i.+ps maintain present course and speed. Don't fire thrusters.

Got it. The response came simultaneously from Heald and Ko.

The air lock of Heald's Jag dilated and he floated out, wearing an environment skin with its hood inflated. As he moved away from his Jag, Primary Ko began maneuvers to rendezvous with a "man overboard" at 0.05 light speed. A probe glided out from Ko's Jag, tethered by a spider-thin line of reinforced fullerene tubes, and homed in on Heald. As soon as he caught it, Ko reeled him in. The air lock of her Jag dilated- And Heald's s.h.i.+p exploded.

Ko, report! Soz thought. Did you get him? The s.h.i.+ps had gone into quasis, but Soz had no need of protection on the Orbiter. Even seeing the explosion, though, she couldn't tell if the field of Ko's s.h.i.+p had caught Heald in time.

He's here, Ko thought. She sounded subdued.

Soz eased her mind into Ko's Jag. Its EI also felt subdued. She was startled to find that with the Triad enhancing her already Rhon-powered mind, she could even submerge into the picoweb formed by repair nan.o.bots in the s.h.i.+p's hull. She saw Heald floating in the cabin, his head down. Ko had peeled herself out of the c.o.c.kpit and was moving toward him.

Gently Soz thought, Heald?

He lifted his head. I'm all right, Imperator Skolia. Grief saturated his thoughts.

Soz's mindscape registered the relief of personnel on the dreadnought and Orbiter as they picked up Heald's thought. But Casestar remained silent, as did the Jagernauts and a few others who realized the magnitude of the loss Heald had suffered. His s.h.i.+p had been part of his mind.

Ko took Heald into her arms and they floated, holding each other, while the Jag's EI controlled the s.h.i.+p. Soz and the other pilots offered regrets and praise for the lost s.h.i.+p.

Eventually Soz withdrew and checked the rest of the team. Professor Rasmuss and Jase Furlon were studying the explosions, trying to understand the problem. Apparently twisting an object that contained its own Klein fields in or out of a larger Klein bottle created instabilities.

Eventually Soz withdrew from the link and became aware of the War Room again. Jon Casestar swung up to her in his crane.

"Well, we did it." He looked fatigued, but a wary sense of jubilance touched his thoughts. "We actually put s.h.i.+ps in a Klein bottle."

Soz blew out a gust of air. "Hiding in Klein s.p.a.ce does us no good if we blow up when we come out of it."

The signal made no sense.

Domino Squadron consisted of sixteen ISC Wasps headed for the ISC army base in Edge Sector. They had just dropped into sublight s.p.a.ce to run the standard checks when Lieutenant Jen Bollings picked up a telop signal. Still plugged into her telop station, she said, "Captain Kaller, I just got a signal over the web on an unsecured channel."

Kaller glanced back from his pilot's seat. "What source?"

"Unknown," Bollings said. "It was clumsy. Like a child trying to hack the web."

Kaller frowned. "Did the other s.h.i.+ps pick it up?"

"I'll check." Bollings submerged into her link with the other Wasps. Anyone pick up a hacker? Awkward, like a kid?

Fourteen telops answered: No. The fifteenth had picked up a whisper he couldn't identify. But even the faintest murmur could be a warning. As soon as Bollings informed Kaller, he said, "Prepare to invert-"

The blare of a siren cut him off. All around them, eight ESComm s.h.i.+ps dropped into real s.p.a.ce, Solo starfighters, the Trader equivalent of Jags, appearing all at once in perfect formation, their hulls glinting silver and black.

Bollings identified them immediately: Hawkracer Squadron. That name was her last thought before an ESComm missile hit the abdomen of her Wasp and exploded its antimatter bomb.

Jon Casestar paced Soz's office on the Orbiter. "The Hawkracers dropped out of inversion simultaneously."

Soz was sitting at the long table that had been Kurj's desk, a clear slab embedded with web components. She mourned the loss of Domino Squad. "Maybe the traders hadn't been superluminal long enough to lose cohesion."

"It was too precise." He stopped in front of her. "They came out at Domino's exact location, obliterated them, and then inverted out of there, all within seconds."

Soz swore. "It sounds like a web extraction."

"Yes." Casestar resumed pacing, his face creased with worry. "They may be using psibertech now, but we still have the advantage. I doubt ESComm will go into full-scale psibertech development, given their att.i.tude toward their providers. If they do try, they face severe limitations. They have almost no trained telops and no access to a psi-berweb. Even with the tech they steal from us, they can't link more than a few nodes. They don't have power for more."

Soz nodded. Without a web, ESComm could access psibers.p.a.ce only by hacking Skolian nodes, which they had been doing, or trying to do, for decades. She looked over the report of the Domino ma.s.sacre. "Their telops are clumsy." But that hadn't helped her people.

"We can set up a system to detect them," Casestar said.

"For now. They're bound to get better at it." She scowled. "Any psibertech ESComm uses cuts our edge. And we don't have much edge."

He halted again. "I'll check with Professor Rasmuss. Maybe they've solved the problem with the Radiance Project."

"Our web-extraction program also needs work." She leaned forward, her fingers laced together. "We need a way to locate other extractors in inversion."

Casestar grinned. "Train extractors to extract extractors?"

Soz felt her face relax into a smile. "It would seem so."

After Casestar left, Soz sat back in her chair. A, attend, she thought. With more than one node now, she had to distinguish among them. The first still had no name, so she simply called it A and labeled the new ones accordingly, by letters.

Attending, A thought.

Do I have any mail in the urgent queue?

One message, from First Councilor Tikal: It reads: "Imperator Skolia, please meet me in the Mentation Chamber."

Any idea what he wants?

Based on records of his behavior patterns, I a.s.sume he is in a perturbed state due to actions by one or more members of your family.

Soz smiled. That sounds like his normal state of mind.

He apparently retires to the Mentation Room when the perturbation rises past what he considers an acceptable level.

Ah well. I should go see what he wants.

Accompanied by her bodyguards, Soz headed for the Mentation Room. As she walked "uphill," her weight lessened. The room was near the north pole, 180 degrees around the Orbiter from the Solitude Room. The two chambers were similar, except Mentation had no command chair, only a small table.

Soz left her Jagernauts outside the chamber with Tikal's bodyguards. She found him inside, sitting at the table, staring at its surface.

"My greetings," she said.

He looked up. "My greetings, Imperator Skolia."

She sat across from him. "I got your message. Is anything wrong?"

"Your nephew arrived."

"You mean Taquinil?"

"Yes. Taquinil." Tikal rubbed his eyes. "He disappeared as soon as he got here. I tried to reach him at the Pharaoh's residence, but no one answers."

"That's why you wanted to see me?" What could be so dire about Dehya and Eldrin's son arriving on the Orbiter?

"You aren't concerned?" Tikal asked.

"Should I be?"

He grimaced. "It's bad enough having one invisible genius loose in the web. At least the a.s.sembly Key is sane."

Soz tensed, a snap of anger ready in her voice. Then she paused. She felt Tikal's concern. He was genuinely worried. She made herself speak in a quieter voice than she had first intended. "Taquinil is sane."

"Is he?"

"He's been stable for decades."

"It was my understanding he a.s.saulted his psychiatrist at Harvard."

"You mean while he was a student?" When Tikal nodded, Soz thought, Node C, get Taquinil's college file. Give me a summary of anything about an a.s.sault.

He attacked Doctor Maria Sanchez after she determined he was suffering from multiple personality disorder, C thought.

What did he do? Soz asked.

Trapped her in a building, struck her, and threatened to kill her.

That doesn't sound like Taquinil.

One of his personality fragments exhibited violent tendencies. However, Sanchez managed to draw out his core personality. He let her sedate him and call in help.

That's incredible. Soz knew Taquinil only as a gentle scholar, with a humble nature that belied his staggering intellect. She could no more imagine him committing violence than she could see herself as an Aristo. Does that personality still exist?

No.

Tikal was watching her. "Do you have a record of it?"

She nodded. "Yes. I do. Barcala, you don't need to worry. That was over thirty years ago. Taquinil has been fine since then. He's a charming man. You'll like him when you get to know him."

"How?" he growled. "He's just like his mother. Invisible. No one has seen him since he arrived."

"Do you want me to check on him?" She had a mind to do that anyway, to growl at her aunt, if Dehya really hadn't welcomed her son home.

"I'd appreciate it, Imperator Skolia."

"Soz."

"Soz?"

"That's my name."

He blinked. Then he smiled. "Ah. Well. Good. Soz."

After she left Mentation, she rode the magrail to Valley, where she was staying in the stone mansion Kurj had used as his second residence. His first residence, the desert house, had remained untouched since his death. Soz couldn't face it yet, that memorial to the brother she had admired, feared, criticized, and loved.

She walked to Dehya's home among the trees. The pager at the door played a ripple of music that brought to mind a whisper of insect wings, the burble of water, a bird's trill. Soz liked it.

The door slid open and a man gazed out at her. He stood about five-foot-ten, with a slight build and glossy black hair. His most notable features were his eyes, which s.h.i.+mmered gold and were fringed by long black lashes.

"Soz!" Taquinil smiled at her. "Come in."

"My greetings." She stalked into the house. "Where is Dehya?"

"In the web."

She scowled. "What, your mother calls you home, then ignores you?"

Taquinil laughed. "Ah, Soz, you're as ornery as ever." He pulled her into a hug. "G.o.ds, it's good to see you."

She hugged him back, her annoyance softened by his good spirits. "I'm glad to see you too."

Stepping back to look at her, he said, "I thought you would be working in the Lock."

"Tikal told me you were here."

"Tikal? I haven't even seen him yet."

"He was concerned you hadn't been properly welcomed."

"Mother and Father met me in the docking bay. We had lunch here together."

"Well. Good." Soz stopped being annoyed at Dehya. "Tikal is a bit..." She stopped, feeling awkward. "I think he'd just like to know what you're doing."

His smile faded. "Why? To see if I foam at the mouth?"

"I didn't say that." Gently she added, "Barcala means well."

Taquinil sighed, a fey sound Soz recognized. Regardless of what anyone else thought, she liked her nephew. Given his background, a B.S. summa c.u.m laude in economics from Harvard on Earth, a doctorate from the Economics Inst.i.tute at Royal College on Metropoli, and tenure as a professor at Imperial University on Parthonia, he could have been an arrogant pain. Instead he was humble. She knew he considered himself flawed because of the personality disorder created by his Rhon mutation, but as far as she was concerned his ability to succeed despite so many obstacles made his prodigious accomplishments that much more impressive.

As they talked, she felt his distraction. He spent most of his time in the web, far more at ease in its universe than with people, whose minds he had such trouble blocking. He was the extreme end of a spectrum, a telepath so sensitive it was impossible for him to survive without medication and solitude.