Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 4

Soz nodded. "According to this, an automated Allied probe discovered this planet a few days ago." Actually, days was inaccurate. During their escape, they had never quite managed to engage the stardrives, racing instead on the edge of light speed. It had made their time dilate, eighteen minutes going by for them while almost three months pa.s.sed for the rest of the settled galaxy.

"The probe transmitted its discovery to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics on Earth," she said. "No one had yet downloaded the data when President Calloway's routines found it." Reading the file, she whistled. "Calloway must have some system. She got in, copied the data, and then wiped out all trace of it. Aside from us, only she and Erin know this place exists."

"And your father," Jaibriol said.

Soz swallowed, thinking of the tears in her father's eyes as he had bid her good-bye. Loving a Rhon psion himself, her mother, he understood Soz's decision to free Jaibriol. So he had used his hot line to the Allied president to request sanctuary for the lovers.

Her eyes hot with unshed tears, knowing she would probably never see her father or family again, Soz leaned over the computer. "These files have some data on the planet."

Jaibriol gentled his voice. "How about the length of the night?"

Soz flicked her finger through a holicon above the screen, the tiny icon of a world. A much larger holo appeared floating in the air over the computer, showing a star system. "Prism orbits a red dwarf star, which orbits a blue-white star." She paused, studying the data. "This is all referenced to Earth. The red star pulls on Prism with a force more than twenty times that of Earth on its Moon. That ought to drag Prism into a tidal lock, which means it would always keep the same face toward the red sun. But either it isn't locked yet or else it's in some sort of resonance. It rotates three times for every orbit it makes around the red sun."

"Three days per year?" He stared at her. "How long until we see sunlight again?"

Soz brought up more data. "For every three days that pa.s.s relative to the red sun, four days pa.s.s relative to the blue-white sun. So sometimes we have no suns in the sky, sometimes we have one, and sometimes two." She grimaced. "What a flaming mess."

Jaibriol laughed. "Does that last have a scientific translation?"

She gave him a rueful smile. "Unfortunately, yes. Right now we're at the start of a 135-hour night. We get a long night because we're on the side of the planet facing away from the red star when red is between us and the blue-white star." Peering at the data, she said, "When day comes, it will last 243 hours, with both suns up for 135 of them. Then an 81-hour night. Then a 486-hour day, when Prism pa.s.ses between the blue-white and the red sun. While red is up, blue-white sets and then later rises again. After both suns go down, we get another 81-hour night, followed by another 243-hour day. Then the whole mess starts over again."

"G.o.ds," Jaibriol said. "Do we get cooked during the days?"

"I don't think so." She studied the glyphs on the screen. "Both suns have to be up for the planet to receive as much light as Sol s.h.i.+nes on Earth. We're more in danger from flares on the red star. But the atmosphere offers protection. It also does a reasonable job holding heat, which is probably why it's warm right now."

She glanced at him standing in the entrance, his chest bare to the balmy night. Distracted by his husbandly attributes, she lost her train of thought. It was a moment before she could refocus on the GeoComp. "We can determine the north celestial pole from how the stars move in the sky."

"How do you know it's north?"

She looked at him, pleasantly distracted again. "It?"

"Why call this the north hemisphere?"

"We have to call it something."

"I just wondered why you picked north instead of south."

"If you want to call it south, that's fine."

"I didn't say I wanted to call it south."

"All right. North."

"That's not-never mind." He looked outside again. "So what is our lat.i.tude?"

She hesitated. "We're pretty far north. Or, uh, south."

"North is fine."

"About sixty degrees north of the equator." She squinted at the screen. "This is all relative to Allied standards. 'The same lat.i.tude as Sundsvall.' Whatever the h.e.l.l that means."

"It's in a place on Earth called Sweden." Jaibriol rubbed his palm across his chest. "I guess we'll have to get used to the dark."

Seeing him touch himself, she smiled. "I could get used to long nights."

He glanced at her, then flushed and looked away. Once again he rubbed his chest, this time with a self-conscious motion.

What had she said? They were married, after all. It wasn't as if she were drooling over him in an erotica arcade. Then again, she also found her reaction to him unsettling. She hadn't responded this way to her former fiance, Rex Blackstone, another Jagernaut. After being injured in combat, he had withdrawn his proposal for fear of what the war would do to their marriage. She had died inside then, for the loss of their newly acknowledged affection. Yet in all the years she had known Rex, she had never felt such an intense pa.s.sion as Jaibriol had stirred in her from the moment she met him. Like knew like. Rhon.

Jaibriol swatted at his arm. "That's odd."

She flushed, afraid he had picked up her thoughts. "Odd?"

He scratched his arm. "My skin itches."

She stood up and went over to him. "Where?"

"Everywhere." He rubbed his cheek. "It hurts."

Soz drew him back into the cave. "Maybe you should-"

"No!" He jerked away from her. "I can't come in here. If I have something on me, it could hurt you."

"I'm going to turn on the quasis screen." The thought of his being unprotected outside stirred an intense emotion in her. She wasn't sure how to define it, but she knew she wanted him here with her. Safe.

As she reactivated the screen, Jaibriol made a strangled noise. Turning, she saw his face go pale. She grabbed the medkit off a crate and pulled out the diagnostic tape. When she set the flexible strip against his chest, holos formed in front of it, views of a man's body, red and blue veins on one, the nervous system on another, ivory for his skeleton. Glyphs scrolled across the tape.

"Oh, h.e.l.l," Soz said. "Do you have any allergies?"

He heaved in a strained breath. "None I know of."

"You're having an allergenic reaction." She took an air syringe out of the kit, dialed in the antihistamine recommended by the tape, and injected his neck.

"I can't-" He choked and sagged against the wall.

"Jaibriol!" Soz caught him as he collapsed. His weight knocked them over, but her hydraulics kicked in and she controlled their descent enough to lay him on his back. The red alert icon on the tape gave the story: he was in anaphylactic shock. His larynx had swollen, blocking his respiration, and his blood pressure had dropped far too low. Tipping back his head, she tried to breathe air into his lungs. Without breaking the rhythm of her efforts, she pressed the end of the diagnostic tape against a receptor square on the syringe. When the syringe beeped, she injected his neck again, all the time breathing air into his lungs.

Blow in. Wait. Blow in. Wait. Over and over she tried, praying the swelling would recede enough for him to take in air.

Don't die, Soz thought. G.o.ds, don't die.

With a shuddering gasp, Jaibriol heaved in a breath. As Soz jerked up her head, his chest rose again. She watched, ready to resume, but he continued to breathe on his own. His long lashes twitched and his eyes opened.

"Thank you," she whispered, she wasn't sure to whom.

He spoke in an almost inaudible voice. "Soshoni?"

She drew in a shaky breath. "We can call it south. East. West. Anything you want. I promise. Just don't die."

"North," he whispered. "North is up. South is down. North is optimism ... That's why I wondered why you chose it."

Then he pa.s.sed out.

After hours of watching Jaibriol sleep, Soz finally let herself doze. When he stirred, she snapped awake, afraid he was having a seizure. But he was only sitting up.

He rubbed his eyes. "How long was I out?"

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He looked so normal, just sitting there. "Ten hours."

"What happened?"

"You had some kind of reaction to something."

He smiled. "That's a precise diagnosis."

Soz managed a laugh. "As near as I can tell, some pollen dusted across your skin, nose, and mouth. You know the rest."

His smile faded. "If I have that reaction every time pollen comes along, how will I survive here?"

"I have the computer working on an antidote. It also says you may develop immunities." She indicated the s.h.i.+mmering quasis screen at the entrance. "For now, that will keep you and the pollen apart." Although on a macroscopic scale the screen was a rigid barrier, it didn't actually "freeze" the slice of air it contained. The air molecules continued to rotate, vibrate, and otherwise behave as they had when she activated the screen. What the quasis, or quantum stasis, did was keep the molecules in the same quantum state. Any penetration of the screen, even by one particle, involved a state change. So nothing penetrated. A few hits from a high-energy weapon could break it down, but against pollen it would work just fine.

Of course that created other problems. No air or light could penetrate the screen, either. Fortunately their cave had vents to circulate air. But quasis wasn't meant to be used this way; rather, it protected starfighters and their occupants from the immense accelerations and energies involved in interstellar warfare. The generator required to produce the screen was no minor piece of equipment; only her high security clearance and familiarity with ISC procedures had made it possible to obtain this one.

Soz watched as Jaibriol sagged against the wall. "How are you?"

"All right."

"Jaibriol."

"Yes?"

"Don't be so stoic. I can feel how much you hurt." She slid over to him. "We can't take chances here. There are no hospitals."

He gave her a wry smile. "This business of living with another telepath may be more difficult than I realized."

"Does it bother you?" Growing up in a family of psions, she and her siblings had learned early to keep their minds private, a mental knock expected for personal interactions. With Jaibriol, the doors kept fading, reappearing, fading again, as the two of them danced their awkward waltz of Who are you?

"Being near people bothers me," he said. "Their emotions beat on my mind. Solitude seems more natural. It is what I've known most of my life. But I don't like being alone. Solitude-it's not the same as alone." He drew her into his arms. "Now I have someone to share my solitude. Someone like me."

She hesitated. "I had a sense, earlier tonight, that you didn't like it when I, uh-looked at you."

He made an exasperated noise. "I wanted to talk about north and south, hope and despair, new worlds and old empires. You wanted me to take off my clothes and lie down."

"That's not true." When he raised his eyebrows, she amended, "I appreciate your intellect too."

"'Too'?"

"Ah. Well." She flushed.

His lips quirked up. "Then again, we can't discuss hope and despair all the time. Perhaps we should investigate the other side of this 'too.'"

She smiled. "Perhaps we should."

And so they did, throughout the warm Prism night.

Kurj leaned back in a control chair in his office. The comm in his ear connected him to the team checking security on the pavilion outside. Soon they would begin the ceremony investing Althor with the t.i.tle of Imperial Heir. Kurj glanced at the group in his office: himself, Althor, their mother, Eldrinson, five bodyguards, and Barcala Tikal, First Counselor of the a.s.sembly.

Althor was standing with his parents. He wore his Jagernaut uniform, not the everyday leathers with gauntlets and boots, but his dress uniform, gold pants with a darker stripe down the outer seam of each leg, gold boots, and a gold pullover with a narrow line across the chest, accenting the breadth of his shoulders. The ISC Public Affairs Office had done an extensive a.n.a.lysis for its design, and Kurj approved the result. The holographic cloth made a gold nimbus around Althor, achieving the planned effect, which was to make him look like an avenging warrior angel.

Eldrinson stood next to his son. He wore civilian clothes, dark blue pants tucked into suede boots. For some bizarre reason he had chosen a s.h.i.+rt that laced up the front, with actual leather thongs, and long sleeves that belled out and then came in at the cuffs. His wine-red hair brushed his shoulders and his spectacles framed his eyes. Kurj thought he made an absurd picture, too rustic by far, but the public loved it. He had to admit his stepfather presented a far more palatable image of the Ruby Dynasty than he did with his own harsh appearance.

His mother, a.s.sembly Councilor Roca, stood with her husband. She looked her heritage, a descendant of the queens who had ruled the Ruby Empire. Tall like her sons regal and graceful, she riveted attention. Her thick braid fell to her hips, gleaming gold with copper and bronze highlights. Tendrils escaped to curl around her incomparable face. Her jumpsuit covered her from neck to wrist to ankle, in the dark blue of mourning, with no adornment at all, yet still he wished she had worn something more discreet. But in truth he knew it wasn't the clothes. Nothing short of a shapeless sack would hide her spectacular sensual beauty.

Kurj wanted to comfort her, hold her in his arms, soothe her grief. He did nothing. He never touched her. He hadn't since he was a child.

Barcala Tikal, First Councilor of the a.s.sembly, stood near the door, going over his speech on his palmtop computer, his lips moving as he mouthed the words. A gangly man with black hair that he allowed to gray at the temples, he stood taller than Roca and Eldrinson, taller than most people, in fact, though compared to Althor and Kurj he had no great height. As First Councilor, he held the highest civilian t.i.tle in the Imperialate.

One person was noticeably absent. Dehya. The Ruby Pharaoh. Her absence was one of the few topics on which she, Kurj, and the a.s.sembly concurred; no more than two members of the Triad would ever appear together in public. It was yet another precaution to ensure the survival of the web's power sources.

Kurj wondered where in the web Dehya lurked right now. He had no doubt she was monitoring his office. To all of Skolia he embodied Imperial power. The Fist of Skolia. None of them knew the shadowy, gossamer Pharaoh, who controlled the web with an intricacy he could never approach.

The bodyguards stood posted around the room, ma.s.sive and implacable, all Jagernauts with Jumbler guns heavy on their hips. But they weren't the foremost defense for the Ruby Dynasty. That protection was never entrusted solely to humans, even the hybrid machine-humans known as Jagernauts. The most valuable members of the Ruby Dynasty carried their first defense in their brains.

Anyone could have a cyberlock implanted in their cerebral cortex, but few willingly agreed to it. The process required extensive surgery, and attempts to remove it resulted in brain damage. When activated, the lock surrounded its carrier with a distorted quasis field. Unlike normal quasis, this field changed the molecular behavior of whatever entered it. At its lowest level it disrupted neural activity in an intruder's brain, enough to stun or knock a person unconscious; on medium it stressed the molecular structure of matter; and at its highest level it tore matter apart atom by atom.

Locks were fine-tuned, of course, to ignore specific quantum states, such as those produced by air, certain sound waves, and visible photons, making it possible for the person within the field to breathe, hear, and see. However, the modifications that allowed a device to recognize different quantum states were prohibitive, to say the least, particularly given that a lock also had to be synchronized with its carrier's brain waves. It made cyberlocks almost impossible to obtain-unless one had the resources of Imperial s.p.a.ce Command at their disposal.

Kurj chose to have a cyberlock; had he decided otherwise the a.s.sembly would have danced a careful waltz of power with him, trying to convince without commanding. Dehya had designed the locks, and as far as he knew she also chose to carry one. Roca, Eldrinson, and Althor were a different matter; the a.s.sembly decreed they take cyberlocks, Kurj agreed, and so it was done.

Eldrinson had refused the lock. So it was implanted against his will, an operation far more sensitive for him than for the others. Kurj's stepfather had epilepsy. Without the aid of modern medicine he would have long ago died from the severity of his convulsions. That he dreaded any treatment he considered invasive, that hospitals made him uncomfortable, that he disliked the cyberlock-none of that deterred the a.s.sembly from protecting him with it.

A comm link on Kurj's desk chimed.

Activate line 18, he thought.

Activated, his office answered.

A voice came out of the comm. "First Councilor Tikal, this is Jak at the pavilion. We're ready down here."

Barcala Tikal looked up. "We will be there in-" He glanced at his palmtop. "Two minutes."

"Very good, sir," Jak said. "Out."

Deactivate line, Kurj thought.