Carnelians (12 page)

His voice tightened. “Not have to buy me.”

She spoke unevenly. “I need time, okay?”

Red kissed her ear. “Okay.” He pulled his hand out from under her sweater and just held her.

An engine rumbled above them. It sounded like the hatch in the ceiling opening.

“Damn,” Aliana whispered. She dug her heels onto the corrugated floor and wedged them even farther back between two big crates, behind the bulge in one. Red tightened his grip around her waist and they hunkered in the dark, scrunched together.

“Damn stupid bouncer,” an irritated man said from somewhere above them.

Huh? That
couldn’t
be who it sounded like.

“Did you two have to hide in the least accessible place on the entire ship?” the man asked. Metal clanked, the sound of boots on a ladder.

Light trickled into Aliana and Red’s hiding place. She breathed shallowly, silently. But she was getting mad. How the blazes could he be here?

“Aliana, I know you’re between the crates,” the man said.

Red drew in a sharp breath.

“Go drill yourself,” she said loudly.

“I don’t think that’s anatomically possible.” The man sounded amused.

Red’s fist clenched against her side.

A lamp shone into their hiding place, lighting their feet. The man crouched down and peered at them under the bulge.

“Tide, go away,” Aliana growled.

“Who is that with you?” Tide asked, peering at Red.

Red was so tense, he seemed ready to snap. He kept his arms around Aliana.

“He’s my friend,” she said.

“Aliana, babe,” Tide said. “Did you really think you could stow away and no one would see, in a dockside slum where people spend their entire lives figuring out how to screw the system?” He paused. “Though I must admit, you did a good job. Only one guy noticed. You’re lucky he knew me, because he could have called in the head-killers instead of me and claimed a reward for you.”

Red peered into the glare from Tide’s lamp. “Who?”

“His name is Tidewater,” Aliana said sourly. “He used to be a Razer.”

“No!” Red pushed back, trying to squeeze into the non-existent space behind them.

“You got a problem with Razers?” Tide asked.

Red didn’t answer.

“Right.” Tide sat on the rough floor and set down his light. Half of him was visible to one side of the bulge, a dark figure with the light giving him an aura, like the corona on an eclipsed sun. “So Aliana, sweetheart, how come your friend talks fractured Eubian in a Highton accent? Let me see, who would have such bad grammar and yet speak with the accent of the nobility? And be afraid of Razers? Gosh, I wonder.”

“Tide, stop it,” Aliana said. “Leave him alone.”

“You’re going to die, stupid girl,” he said angrily. “Are you insane? Stealing providers, beating up powerful people, stowing away illegally?”

“What, there’s a legal way to stow away?” she asked. “Are you going to rat us out?” She felt tight, ready to explode.

“I’m not telling anyone.”

Aliana exhaled. “What did you tell the crew? Hell, Tide, how did you get
on
this boat?”

“It’s a ship, not a boat. I’m running deliveries in the flyer Harindor issued me. I told the captain of this rig I needed fuel. It’s true.”

“How come it needed fuel? You never go anywhere without checking that.”

He shrugged. “Seems I forgot this time. Can’t imagine why. They’re filling it up on the deck.”

“And when they’re done?” she asked, afraid to breathe, as if that would change his answer.

“Captain invited me to stay for dinner. I’m leaving after that, probably late.” Tide paused. “I’m going back up deck. Get a tour, have dinner, take off. If my flyer is carrying more weight than when I landed, well, it’s because of the added fuel, right? Couldn’t be any other reason.”

Aliana closed her eyes. It wouldn’t take much for her and Red to sneak onto his flyer while he was having dinner. “Thanks, Tide.”

“Yeah well, it’s costing me a lot of credit. And if I get killed for transporting you two, you’ll need something better than ‘thank you’ to make up for it.”

She gave a shaky laugh and opened her eyes. “Sure. If we all die, I’ll make it up to you.”

“Deal.” He stood up, and shadows encroached on their hiding place. His footsteps receded across the hold. The light switched off as he climbed the ladder. The hatch powered open, then slammed shut, leaving Aliana and Red alone in the dark.

A whirring tugged at Dehya. She floated in a sea of pain.

“. . . show any sign,” a voice said. “Move a toe. Twitch an eyelid. Lift a finger.
Anything.
”

Go away,
she thought.

“Hey!” a man said. “Did you get that from her?”

“Get what?” a woman asked. “She’s in a coma.”

“Her thought,” the man said.

A third voice was fading in and out. “. . . he’s a telepath as well as a medic. Sometimes he picks up things from patients.”

An authoritative voice said, “Get her husband back here. He’s a Ruby telepath.”

“The doctors told him to go sleep,” someone said. “He’d been here for two days straight.”

“Get him,” the authoritative voice repeated.

Dryni?
Dehya thought. Her husband didn’t answer.

She drifted, hurting. Every now and then a clank or hiss penetrated the fog.

Dehya? 
The thought soaked into her mind.

Dryni? Is that you?

His thought brought hues of a deep blue sky and the sunset.
Yes, love. It’s me.

Can’t stay . . .
She drifted into the blur of non-existence.

“I don’t need to stay in bed.” Jaibriol glared at Doctor Qoxdaughter. He tried to throw off the blankets, but the smart-cloth resisted his efforts, slipping out of his hands and settling around his body again. What fiendish person had come up with intelligent bedding? Jaibriol had grown up in exile, hidden with his family on a world where they had nothing but what they made with their hands. He would never get used to clever furniture, blankets that analyzed his moves, or food that sent him mesh-mail if he forgot to eat. It drove him nuts.

“Your Highness.” Qoxdaughter spoke carefully. “If you get up, your wounds might reopen.”

“I’m fine.” Jaibriol wasn’t fine and he knew it; just sitting up made him dizzy. But he couldn’t stay here. He jerked away the covers and slid free of the bed before it could resist his efforts. He was still wearing his silk sleep trousers and shirt, but the socks he had pulled on earlier were gone, leaving his feet bare. For saints’ sake. He was arguably the most powerful man in the universe, and he couldn’t stop the bedding from pulling off his socks. Moving slowly, his head reeling, he fished under the blankets until he found them. Then he leaned against the hospital bed while he put them back on his feet. Qoxdaughter watched him, tensed to respond, though whether to help or hinder him, he didn’t know. No, that wasn’t true. He knew. She would never dare hinder the emperor.

“Go ahead,” he told the doctor as he tugged his socks into place. “Say what you have to say.”

She motioned at his bed. “Do you see all these monitors?”

He glanced at the machines arrayed around him. They showed holographic views of his body, as well as graphs and charts and other multi-colored displays floating in the air, gleaming on screens or glowing on curved surfaces. “Impressive,” he said.

“They all tell me the same thing. What you’re doing is endangering your health.”

“I’m going to see my wife.” He stood up straight and gritted his teeth against the pain in his torso. He found it hard to believe that only yesterday an explosion had nearly torn him apart. His body was well on the way to healing, but nothing could fix his fear. He couldn’t lose Tarquine.

Qoxdaughter took a breath. “Sire, please—”

“Stop.” He lifted his hand. “I’m going, Colonel.”

She started to answer, stopped, then said, “Of course, Your Highness.”

Even with treatments to dull his pain, Jaibriol hurt everywhere. He knew he should listen to her and lie down. He
wanted
to lie down. But he couldn’t rest until he saw Tarquine, not in a holo, but where he could feel her breath against his hand. If someone had come so close to killing them in his own palace, they might try here in the hospital. He knew, logically, his presence would make no difference to the protections around the empress or the child she carried. Even so. He had to visit his wife. He needed to see his family.

Of course Qoxdaughter was family, too, his grandfather’s child. She was supposedly half Aristo. If she truly had been, he would have felt the pressure of her mind. He didn’t because his grandfather, Ur Qox, had been only half Aristo. His great-grandfather set it up that way so Ur could sire a Ruby heir. And Ur had done exactly that; Jaibriol’s father had been a Ruby psion. Two generations of emperors had broken the most entrenched taboo in Eube, claiming a provider’s child as their Highton heir, so they could put a Ruby on the throne and counter the Skolians. But joke of all bitter jokes, the psion they had created had loathed his throne. Jaibriol’s father had gone into hiding to escape a legacy as hateful to him as it was to his Skolian enemies.

Jaibriol knew people believed he had appointed Qoxdaughter as his personal physician because of nepotism. In truth, he chose her because not only was she a damn fine doctor, but also because her presence wasn’t an assault on his oversaturated brain. Her medical records had been doctored to say she was half Aristo, but she was only one-quarter, so the Aristo traits didn’t manifest in her. Her mind didn’t suffocate his.

“Sire?” Qoxdaughter asked.

“Just thinking.” Jaibriol looked around. His velvet robe lay on a nearby chair, shimmering blue, its hems embroidered in gold and silver. He walked over and tried to pick up the robe. The chair snapped fasteners onto it, holding the garment, and he had to tug it away.

He glared at Qoxdaughter. “Who programmed this furniture?”

“The tech staff, Your Highness.” She kept her disapproval of his behavior out of her voice, but he felt her mood. Her concern for his health battled her fear of displeasing him.

“Have them reprogram this room,” he said. “I don’t want the furniture, walls, or anything trying to control my actions.”

“Yes, Sire.”

He pulled on his robe. “How is my wife?”

She spoke smoothly, with the panic hidden in her mind. “We’re doing everything possible, everything, using the best—”

“Colonel.” Jaibriol put up his hand. “I’m not going to do anything to you if the news isn’t good. Tell me the truth.”

She let out a breath. “I’m sorry, Sire. She hasn’t recovered consciousness.”

He felt a constriction in his chest. “And the baby?”

Qoxdaughter spoke quietly. “We don’t know yet.”

Jaibriol clenched the cuff of his robe, crumpling it in his fist. If Tarquine miscarried, it would be the second time in only months. He wanted to hurt whoever had attacked them, long and horribly, and right now he couldn’t care less what that said about him. He went to the door, an elongated hexagon, and it irised open. His four bodyguards waited in the foyer outside, their midnight uniforms like shadows against the white Luminex walls. As he walked forward, they fell into formation around him, towering, though he was tall even by Aristo standards.

They headed into the halls of the exclusive medical center, Qoxdaughter walking at his side. Jaibriol glanced at his guards. Like all Razers, they had serial numbers instead of names. ESComm considered them machines rather than human. With his last four guards, he had done the unheard of, encouraging them to pick names for themselves. Those names had died with them on Earth, when they had given their lives to save his during an assassination attempt. Jaibriol had mourned long and hard for their deaths. He had hand-selected those Razers, especially Hidaka, the captain of the unit.

Hidaka, who had known the truth.

Hidaka had witnessed Jaibriol become a member of the Skolian Triad—and murdered an Aristo colonel, the only other witness, to protect Jaibriol’s secret. The Razer should never have been able to defy his programming. The moment he had realized Jaibriol was a psion—that the man who sat on the Carnelian Throne was a provider—he should have reported it. Hidaka had been designed, conditioned, and brainwashed to adhere to that principle. Instead he had taken Jaibriol’s secret to his grave. Why Hidaka gave him that incredible loyalty, Jaibriol would never know, but he would mourn the captain for the rest of his life.

ESComm Security claimed Hidaka failed to stop the assassination attempt because he was defective. So the idiots decommissioned the entire line. Never mind that Hidaka had acted with great heroism. Never mind that Jaibriol
survived
because of that heroism. Hidaka’s “failure” was in what Security discovered in the investigation. He acted too human. So they ordered the destruction of
every
Razer clone in his line. Every goddamned one.

It had been almost too late when Jaibriol discovered what his ESComm “protectors” were up to. He had ordered them to stop destroying valuable Razers, but he couldn’t go further without inciting suspicion. His sovereignty was a balance between his authority and his ability to convince the Aristos and ESComm he should hold that authority. So he had never asked these four Razers if they wanted names. Better they remain serial numbers than he draw lethal attention to them.

“This way.” Qoxdaughter indicated a hall slanting off from their corridor. The lack of right angles in Aristo architecture no longer disoriented Jaibriol; he was accustomed to the geometry. Even the walls curved into the floor. It was always oblique, indirect, like Aristo speech. He only noticed at times like now, when he already felt disoriented.

They arrived at another hexagon. As it irised open, Jaibriol tensed. He hadn’t seen Tarquine since yesterday, when the explosion had ripped through the palace. His doctors said he had bled all over the debris, almost died, that he was alive because he was such an exalted being, etcetera, etcetera. He didn’t want to hear it. If he had bled everywhere, that meant so had Tarquine, and no matter how much protocol required everyone to tell the emperor and empress that they were more than human, it wouldn’t save her very human life if her injuries were too severe.