Skolian Empire: The Radiant Seas Part 42

You would cry too if you had to make love to you, Cirrus thought.

"You probably used the wrong dosages." Sharla plugged an air syringe into her palmtop to get its recommended prescription, then gave Cirrus a shot. She took a vial out of her lab coat pocket and pressed it into Cirrus's hand. Gently she said, "Give this to Althor. He may enjoy putting it on you and you may enjoy his doing it."

Cirrus considered the vial, blue gla.s.s with a gold stopper. She shook it and oil sloshed within.

Vitrex took the vial. "If he thinks he needs nanogels to make her want him, he'll lose interest." He gave it back to his wife. "You apply it."

Sharla smiled, and Cirrus caught her thought: Ah, Izar, you want to watch me play with your favorite toy, hmmm? She took off Cirrus's robe, speaking in a gentler voice. "This won't hurt. Just lie down."

Cirrus lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, imagining Vitrex and Sharla as repair bots up there, their exalted selves reduced to squeedy little mechanical bugs in case-crete. Sharla rubbed the nanogels over Cirrus's body, and Vitrex watched, leaning against an adjacent table with his arms crossed, his gaze devouring them both. After Sharla finished, she helped Cirrus off the table.

"How do you feel?" Vitrex asked Cirrus.

Strange, she thought. She wanted to touch someone. Putting on her robe, she deliberately gave him a blank look. "Fine."

Vitrex scowled at his wife. "You see? Nothing."

Sharla was working on her palmtop. "According to this, she's having a huge response."

"Really?" Vitrex touched Cirrus under the chin. "Would you like to play later, pretty cloud?"

No, Cirrus thought.

Sharla gave Cirrus her robe. "If you do, Izar, she could end up with yours instead of Valdoria's. I've got her primed."

"I'll be careful," Vitrex said. "Give her a suppressant. I don't want your work wasted on Althor Valdoria."

After Sharla gave her another shot, Cirrus put on her robe and Vitrex took her out of the lab. His bodyguards were waiting outside, including Xirson, a Razer gifted to Vitrex from the palace. Xirson smiled at Cirrus, catching her by surprise. Razers were usually more like the other guard, Kryxson, hard-edged and cold, daggers in snow. They never smiled.

As they walked down the hall, two ministry aides intercepted them, along with more Razers. Vitrex went with them, leaving her in the care of several guards, who took her through secured halls until they reached a cell. Inside, Althor was lying on the cot. He sat up when they entered, and the guards removed his chains. Then the Razers left, locking Cirrus in with Althor.

"So you're back," Althor said.

She bit her lip. Did he hate her for revealing Jaibriol Qox?

He laid his palm on the cot. "Come sit with me."

Relieved by his mild tone, she went over and settled on the cot. Although he was still drugged, he seemed more coherent now. "Are you feeling better?" Cirrus asked.

"About what?" he asked.

"Last time you were unhappy."

He pushed his hand through his hair. "I don't remember."

I tried not to tell, she thought. About Jaibriol Qox.

His face gentled. I know. I picked that up from the empress. He took her hand. I'm sorry if they hurt you because of it.

She tried not to think of the son she would never again see. I'm all right. At least being with Althor distracted her. She rubbed the gold skin of his arm, below the short sleeves of his gray prison s.h.i.+rt.

He folded his hand around hers. "What did they do to you?"

"Do to me?"

"It's more than just Rhon pheromones. I can feel it."

She flushed. "I'm sorry."

"Why? They're the ones who should apologize to you." He let go of her hand and stroked her hair, from the top of her head to her shoulder. "They should be on their knees begging your forgiveness."

Cirrus slid her arms around his waist, feeling his muscles under his clothes. She rubbed her cheek on his shoulder, then turned her face up to his. Watching her, he moistened his lips and bent his head. As they kissed, he took off her robe.

Cirrus moved her lips to his ear. "You're wonderful."

"Hardly."

"I love you."

Althor sighed. "Ai, beautiful girl, you don't love me." He rubbed his hand up her spine. "They made you this way. Right now, you would love a slug under a rock."

She smiled. "You are no slug."

"I'm a sh.e.l.l without a memory."

"You're beautiful." She tugged at his s.h.i.+rt, to unfasten it. So he helped her, undressing while she explored him. Then they lay on the cot, their limbs tangling together.

What Althor did with her was no different than what Hightons did when they weren't transcending. Except she liked Althor. He had a gentleness she had never before encountered. But she was trying to reach something, she wasn't sure what, and she couldn't get there.

Finally he climaxed and then went still on top of her, his weight sinking in to her body as his breathing calmed. Even knowing he would soon want to sleep, she kept pressing against him. He brushed his lips over hers, then slid to her side and caressed her between the legs, trying to help. It wasn't enough. She almost cried out with the frustration.

"They gave you Damzarine, didn't they?" he said.

"What?" Opening her eyes, she saw him through a haze of desire and tears.

"A suppressant."

"Yes." She tried to calm her breathing. "What is it? Why would they give it to me?"

He swore softly. "To be cruel. Damzarine blocks the neural receptors in your brain that process the sensations of o.r.g.a.s.m. You can become aroused but you can't climax."

She folded her fingers around his, not understanding, just wanting to hold his hand.

He felt her face with his other palm. "You have a fever."

"Hot," she agreed.

"Did they give you kerradonna?"

"I think so. What is it?"

"A poison."

Poison? "Have I done something wrong?"

"G.o.ds, no." He kissed her, running his tongue over her swollen lips. "You're an angel."

"Why would they poison me?"

"In low dosages, kerradonna is an aphrodisiac."

"A what?"

"It makes you want to love me."

"I do."

He laid his head next to hers. "Why is it so important to them that we make love?"

"I'm your reward. For cooperating. Last time I wasn't enthusiastic enough. So they made me better."

"You were fine last time." His face gentled and he fitted her to him, bringing his lips to hers.

The next time they went slower. Through his mind she felt him trying to help her finish. But she couldn't. Finally he groaned and let go, this release even more intense than the first. When she realized he was done, she was so worked up from the drugs that she cried, as much from anger at Vitrex as from frustration. Althor held her, murmuring comfort, until she calmed down. His embrace relaxed then and she felt him submerge into sleep.

Too restless to sleep, she lay watching him, almost content in the shelter of his kindness.

Soz floated in psibers.p.a.ce, within a s.h.i.+mmering mesh. As she slowly came awake, she realized she couldn't be in the web. She wasn't even plugged into the chair here in the Solitude Room.

Starlight bathed the chamber. Her neck ached from sleeping on it at an odd angle. She pushed her hands through her hair, trying to wake up. Too many days with too little sleep had left her groggy. She could almost feel the meds in her body trying to compensate, synthesizing molecules to provide energy.

"Soz?" The voice came from behind her.

With a jerk, Soz looked around. Dehya was standing in the shadows.

Her aunt walked to the chair. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"How did you get in here?" Soz rubbed her eyes. "I didn't hear the door open."

"You were asleep."

"Only dozing. I would have heard."

Dehya leaned against the console in front of her, "Taquinil and I finished our work on the fleet a.s.sembly problem."

Soz tried to focus on her. For some reason, her aunt's body seemed blurred. "You found a solution?"

"Many of them, some c.u.mbersome, others less so. We gave Tahota the least clumsy ones." Dehya shrugged. "To implement any of them will require many telops, working together, solving as many simultaneous coupled equations as there are s.h.i.+ps in the fleet. But it should work. In theory."

"In theory."

Dehya spread her hands. "That's what I am. A theorist. The engineering I must leave to others."

"Professor Rasmuss says you were right about Klein s.p.a.ce phases. If we can find a way to keep the larger field in phase with the smaller, it will probably solve the problem."

"I hope so."

Soz rubbed the kink in her neck. "We're going to do it. We're going in to Eube. I'm not sure when. But we're going."

Her aunt continued to watch her, and Soz had an eerie sense that Dehya was dissolving. When the Pharaoh spoke, her words seemed to drift in from a distance. "Don't wait too long."

"Why?"

Dehya exhaled. It was a curious sound, like a wind blowing in trees as a storm approached. "The solutions converged. But I can't read much from them."

Soz poked her ear, trying to fix whatever problem in her audio enhancements made Dehya sound so odd. "The solutions?"

"My predictions."

"What do you predict?"

"Upheavals. But it's buried in noise. The noise of many possible futures." Dehya tilted her head and her eyes caught the starlight. "Right now the future is malleable. But I can say this: Go to Eube now. Don't wait."

"We aren't ready yet."

"It's something about Glory. There may be somewhere else you have to go? You have to make a choice. You have to lose something." She turned her head as if looking at visions Soz couldn't see. "You have to choose."

"War is always a matter of choices," Soz said.

"I asked Eldrin to go to Earth."

Soz had given up trying to follow her aunt's mental leaps. Dehya's mind formed connections so fast, in such detail, that her comments only touched the surface of her thoughts. Soz had discovered that if she just went with it, she could usually fill in her gaps of understanding later. In any case, she could guess what her brother had said. "He's not going to leave you here."

Dehya scowled. "He told me I should go to safety, not him."

"That sounds like Eldrin."

"He is as stubborn as a hammerheaded skybolt."

"He's a man who loves his wife and son. Did you really think he would leave without you?"

"You don't see." Dehya leaned forward, her words collecting in drifts of sound. "He could be hurt. Killed. Worse."

"How?"

"I don't know." Frustration creased her face. "I get glimpses and glimpses, a million futures fluttering, fanning, filling my mind. He's there; he isn't. You're there; you aren't. I exist; I cease to exist."