Primary Inversion (13 page)

      
While Jaibriol battled with my memories of Tarque, I shook with my own nightmare. I knew why Jaibriol existed. He had a purpose his father and grandfather considered even more important than the purity of the Qox bloodline. They had created him for one reason and one alone—to take control of the Kyle-Mesh. Through him, the Traders would conquer Skolia.

      
Gradually our minds separated, like a storm abating. No one, not even the Rhon, could sustain the intensity of that contact for long. I became aware of the room again. Jaibriol and I were leaning into each other, he holding my arms as if he were my lover. I had gripped his sleeves so hard, the cloth had ripped in my hands. His face was wet with tears and I felt them on mine too. My Jumbler lay on the floor.

      
Jaibriol sat up, still holding on to me. “My father is not evil.” His voice shook. “Hightons are not evil. You will see. You are wrong.”

      
“You were there with me. You
felt
it.”

      
The door’s pager chimed, followed by a voice coming over the comm. “Prince Jaibriol?”

      
He dropped my arms as if they burned. For a moment I was afraid he wouldn’t answer, forcing the guards to find out why. Then he drew in a ragged breath and spoke loudly. “What is it?”

      
“We’re ready to re-activate the cyberlock, Your Highness.”

      
Both Jaibriol and I stood up. Then he bent down and picked up my Jumbler.

      
The blood drained from my face. How could I have lost my weapon to him? He couldn’t use it; the gun was keyed to my brain waves. But now that he had it, my bluff was worthless. And he knew my identity. All he had to do was say, “The Primary is in here.”

      
Jaibriol handed me the Jumbler. “Go.”

      
I backed into my hiding place behind the wardrobe. “The guards. In the garden.”

      
He wiped his cheeks on his sleeve. Then he went to the door and touched a panel, turning off the lights. When the door slid open, the shadows hid his face. Cloth crinkled as a guard bowed.

      
“I was resting,” Jaibriol said. “You will have to wait until tomorrow to turn on the lock.”

      
“I’m sorry. Terribly sorry.” The guard sounded nervous. “I’m afraid we have to do it now.”

      
Anger mixed with fear stabbed my mind. Neither emotion was mine. Although I could read Jaibriol well enough to realize he was barriered to everyone else, he and I were in a link neither of us could break. Our meld had receded to a bearable intensity, but the connection remained. It was physical as well. The memory of his scent, his closeness, his muscled legs under my hands—my body responded with a surge of desire so intense I almost dropped the Jumbler again.

      
Block!
The psicon flashed erratically, then popped and fizzled like a wet firecracker.

      
Overlaid on that unwanted arousal was another emotion, Jaibriol’s loathing for the cyberlock,
hateful, suffocating, dizzying…

      
I knew from my own experience that turning on the cyberlock was like being hit by vertigo that kept going until the lock deactivated. I wondered why Jaibriol’s father had sent him here if the risk was so great, he thought his son needed cyberlock protection. In our joining I had found only a sense that Jaibriol wasn’t sure himself.

      
“You will wait until tomorrow to turn it on,” Jaibriol told the guard.

      
“I–I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir.”

      
Jaibriol spoke in a chillingly perfect Highton accent. “I’m ordering you to do it.”

      
“I’m s–sorry. I’m v–very sorry.” The man’s voice kept shaking. “I–I have orders from your father.”

      
“Give me six hours without it.”

      
“I can’t. I–I’m t–truly sorry, sir. A lot could happen in six hours.”

      
“Two hours,” Jaibriol said. “Or I shall be displeased.”

      
“Your Highness, I
can’t
,” he said miserably. “If anything happened to you, the Emperor would execute me.”

      
“Nothing will happen.”

      
“I—six hours—it’s a long time?” He sounded as if he were asking rather than telling.

      
Jaibriol’s face eased into a smile. “I’ve heard your daughter is a gifted seamstress.”

      
“Sir, please, my daughter has never offended any—”

      
“No, no.” Jaibriol spoke pleasantly. “I have heard good reports. Has she applied to the Tailor’s Guild?”

      
The guard hesitated. “She was turned down. She as no Aristo blood, you see.”

      
“Perhaps I can mention her name to the Guild Master.”

      
The guard’s uniform crackled again and again, multiple bows this time. “Thank you, sir. Your Greatness. Your Exalted Highness.” The words tumbled out over one another. “Thank you.”

      
“Yes?” Jaibriol didn’t sound pleasant anymore.

      
The guard took a breath. “Prince Jaibriol, before we activate the cyberlock I must oversee repairs to the security system. That will take me two hours. At least.” He paused. “Possibly three. Will you need me before then?”

      
I almost snorted. Although the virus I had unleashed was effective, I doubted it would take even an hour to clean out the system.

      
Jaibriol’s voice relaxed. “No, I won’t be needing you. Take care of security.”

      
“Yes, sir.”

      
  “Did you find the Primary?”

      
“No, sir. She went into the park and destroyed trees and power lines. Then she disappeared.”

      
“Who is the guard I just saw down in the garden under my balcony?”

      
“Rak.”

      
Jaibriol stiffened as if he had been struck. I caught a vivid image from him of the guard with the providers. Unease stabbed at me,
a fear of Rak he never understood—

      
Block!
The fear receded, but my psicon kept flashing.

      
“Send Rak to the control center,” Jaibriol said. “He’s to file a report immediately.”

      
“Yes, Your Highness.” The guard’s uniform crackled.

      
After Jaibriol closed the door, he came over to me. “Sauscony—”

      
It was unsettling to hear a Highton speak my name with such longing. “Yes?”

      
“Stay with me.”

      
“You know I can’t do that.”

      
He touched my cheek. “Good-bye.”

      
“Good-bye,” I whispered.

      
I went to the balcony and checked outside. Rak was walking across the lawn, headed for the house. The gardens were dark; either my mad virus had overloaded the system or someone had turned off the power and shut down the wildly sweeping flood lights. Two other guards were moving among the trees in another garden, but with the lights out, the balcony and trellis were dark.

      
It took me only seconds to slip down the trellis. I crept along the wall, hiding in shadows. Then I ran across the street and into the darkened park.

V

Denials

It was after midnight when I walked into the Inn. An Allied police officer was waiting in the lobby by the front desk. As soon as I entered, she came over to me. “Navarhos Valdoria?”

      
I looked at her blankly, too tired to struggle with translation programs.

      
“¿Español?” she asked.

      
“Un poco,” I said.

      
“Ist Deutsch besser?” When I just kept looking at her, she said, “How about English?”

      
“Yes,” I said, not because my English was any better than my Spanish, but because I didn’t want to stand in the lobby all night.

      
“Are you Primary Valdoria?” she asked.

      
“Yes,” I said.

      
“I’m afraid I have to arrest you, ma’am.”

      
“Can’t.” That wasn’t actually true, though I hoped it would put her off. Under Skolian law, no civil authority could arrest a Jagernaut. The Allieds had made a fuss about that during their treaty negotiations with us.
No one is above the law.
They liked that phrase. But it was theirs, not ours. If a Jagernaut broke Skolian laws, the civil authorities could do no more than register a complaint with Imperial Space Command. That didn’t mean we got off; ISC expected us to follow a code of honor meant to ensure we broke laws only if necessary to protect the Imperialate. It was a military matter, however. Of course, that was Skolian law. Right now I was in Allied territory.

      
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the officer said. “Section 436, section G, paragraph 16 of Allied-Imperial Treaty MilCap allows for arrest and deportation of any Jagernaut found guilty of violating Allied—”

      
“All right,” I growled. Then I squinted at her. “You handlock me?”

      
Relief flickered on her face. “No, I don’t believe that will be necessary.” She read me my rights; anything I said could and would be used against me and so on. The clerk at the front desk watched avidly. The story would probably be all over the city tomorrow: Imperial Primary wrecks Highton’s mansion. I just hoped they didn’t use it in one of their confounded amok-Jagernaut movies.

      
The officer took me to the station in her official flycar. The screen that separated the front from the back crackled every now and then, like an electrical discharge. Someone had removed the exit buttons in the back, leaving a smooth spherical cavity with a single seat where I sat. The officer strapped a restraining web across my body, apologizing as she fastened me into its constricting embrace. I felt like an idiot. I wondered what she would do if I told her I was a Rhon heir. It would certainly get me out of this mess, but then I would have to endure being lambasted by my half-brother for using my title to circumvent an Imperial-Allied treaty.

      
The police at the station were exceedingly courteous while they booked me for breaking and entering, assault and battery, damaging property, and violating a mesh node. Their attitude was weird. True, I was a Primary, but even so I had just walked all over their laws, making far more trouble than I had intended. Yet they almost seemed to approve of my actions.

      
They took holoshots of me, recorded my fingerprints and retinal patterns, and registered a tissue sample for DNA analysis. Then they put me in a room where five other women waited, all with dark hair and tight leather outfits that resembled my uniform. A policewoman lined us up facing a glassy wall that showed our reflections. When I put my hands in my pockets and scowled, the other five women in the line copied me. The whole thing was surreal.

      
I couldn’t see through the glass, but I was ready to bet that whoever stood on the other side could see us. I tried to relax and let my mind probe beyond the wall. I sensed several people, but only vaguely; none were psions.

      
Then I hit the cavity.

      
It was Jaibriol’s guard, the one with the providers. The hole in his mind was less threatening than with a true Aristo, but I still felt as if bugs crawled on my skin. And he was
angry.

      
I withdrew like a shyback deer fleeing a hunter. As I ran, I sent the guard a vivid mental picture of another woman in the line. But I was pretty sure it was too late, that he had already identified me.

      
They took me to the police chief next, a portly man whose close-cropped hair stuck up from his head in a flat plane on the top, making him look like a bristly scrub brush. He spoke a language I didn’t know, what sounded like the first one used by the officer who arrested me. When I shook my head, an officer behind him leaned down and said something to him in a low voice.

      
“You speak English?” the Chief asked me.

      
“Some,” I said.

      
“How did you know where Lord Kyr was staying?”

      
Lord Kyr? “The Highton?”

      
“The man whose house you shot up.”

      
My node gave several translations for “shot up,” including
emptied rounds of ammunition into.
He must mean the mansion. “Lord Kyr’s” mansion. Well, Jaibriol would be crazy to announce he was the Emperor’s heir.

      
“Provider me tell where,” I said. “I his mind get.” No, that sounded awful. I accessed my translator and repeated what it told me. “I got the location from the mind of his guard’s provider.”

      
“I see.” That seemed to be the answer the chief expected. Apparently the Allieds accepted telepathy more than they admitted in public. But why had he anticipated my answer? He had no way to know the guard had providers unless the guard told him, and I couldn’t imagine a Trader discussing his pleasure slaves with the Allied police.

      
“What did she say to you?” the chief asked.

      
“The provider?”

      
“Yes.”

      
I verified with my translator what I thought:
she
referred to a female. But the first provider I had reached had been a boy. I had spoken to neither him nor the girl. Was the chief asking misleading questions on purpose, perhaps testing me? The guard had no way to know I contacted his provider. Even if Jaibriol had spoken with the police, which I doubted, he didn’t know I had been in contact with the providers. I wasn’t sure if even the providers knew.