Primary Inversion (41 page)

      
He raised an eyebrow. “And what do you expect in return?”

      
“That you don’t try to kill yourself again.”

      
He snorted. “Don’t play with me, Sauscony. What is your price for this so-called ‘rescue’?”

      
I spoke quietly. “That when your father dies, you return from exile to become Emperor of Eube.” It wouldn’t be easy, but with enough planning he might pull it off. “Try to make peace with us. I mean genuinely try. Not those deceptions your father calls negotiations.”

      
He shook his head as if to push away my words. “The deceptions are yours.”

      
“You think this is a trick?”

      
His voice was cold. “A clever means of torture your brother has devised, I must admit. Convince the prisoner he is being rescued by a beautiful woman. It should make the reality of my prison all the more painful when we end up back there.”

      
“You’re wrong,” I told him. Even if I had been working as Kurj’s agent, he wouldn’t have used such a subtle method. He preferred brute force.

      
Jaibriol shrugged. “Brute force failed. Why not try subtlety?”

      
I stiffened. “Why did you say that?”

      
“It’s true, isn’t it?”

      
“Jaibriol, if I were trying to trick you, why are your mental shields already dropping to me, when all Kurj’s interrogators, even Kurj himself, couldn’t force you to lower them?”

      
His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

      
“I didn’t say anything about brute force or subtlety. I only thought it.”

      
“I heard you say it.”

      
“You heard it with your mind.”

      
Silence.

      
I tried again. “Your barriers are activated by stress, aren’t they? Or pain, anger, danger? Any situation your mind registers as threatening?”

      
“That’s right.”

      
“So why would they drop with me?”

      
He watched me with an unreadable expression. Then he laid his head back against his seat and closed his eyes again, his face pale. I waited, but he remained silent. Finally I turned to my controls.

      
Eventually he did speak, though. “You’re the one who will need sanctuary. The Imperator will execute you himself when he discovers what you’ve done.”

      
“I hid my tracks.”

      
He turned to look at me. “It can’t be possible to hide them all.”

      
I met his gaze. “My brother believes your capture was arranged, a trick to get you here. He’ll think your people broke you out.”

      
“This would be unlikely, given his security.”

      
I smiled. “It’s a lot more likely than me doing it.”

      
His lips barely moved, just the slightest curve upward. But it was a smile. “This is true.”

      
My voice softened. “The Allieds will find a world where you can go into exile. Somewhere unpopulated, with no one to recognize you. A place where you can stay until it’s time for you to become Emperor.”

      
“What makes you think I want to be Emperor?”

      
“You must.” I grimaced. “This undeclared war is destroying us. I don’t see any way to end it without you. Can you imagine your father and my brother ever making peace? I sure as hell can’t.”

      
“Imperator Skolia will never negotiate with me.” Jaibriol’s voice tightened. “After these past few days, I doubt I could endure being in the same room with him.”

      
“Kurj won’t be Imperator forever.”

      
“So you want me to go into exile and return someday to the Hightons.”

      
“Yes.”

      
“No.”

      
“Jaibriol—I’m not making it a condition on freeing you. But please consider it.” I let out a tired breath. “What will happen if Skolia falls to the armies of your father or the next Emperor or the one after him? Without us, the Allieds won’t last a decade against your military. Is that what you want? An entire galaxy controlled by Hightons?”

      
“No.”

      
“Then you—”

      
“No.” He held out his arm. ““If I go back to them, this is what waits for me.”

      
Although the sleeve of his shirt hid the top of his upper arm, the rest was bare. Bruises covered his forearm, also welts, cuts, and Espring burns. Torn skin crusted with blood surrounded his wrist in an ugly bracelet.

      
I raised my gaze to him. “You mean interrogation?”

      
“No. Look closer.”

      
Puzzled, I looked again. Most of the marks were fresh, but older ones showed, too, white marks that looked like healing welts or scars. I touched a line that snaked down his palm. It had been there far longer than Jaibriol had been Kurj’s prisoner.

      
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You didn’t have these scars on Delos.”

      
“No. I didn’t.” He sounded as if he were gritting his teeth.

      
“How did you get them?”

      
His gaze was hollow. “How do you think?”

      
“I don’t know.”

      
“You should. You’ve been there. What was his name? Tarque?”

      
I stared at him. “You’ve been a
provider?
”

      
His laugh was harsh. “Of course not. I am the Highton Heir. No one would dare even harbor such a thought about me, let alone try it.”

      
“It was Quaelen, wasn’t it? Kryx Quaelen, the Trade Minister.”

      
His fist clenched on the arm of his chair. “He did what he felt necessary to train me.”

      
“Gods, Jaibriol, didn’t your father stop him?”

      
“He didn’t know.” His voice tightened. “My father cannot endure my presence. Perhaps he hates me, for my failures. I don’t know. I don’t think I care anymore.”

      
“Maybe he doesn’t come near you because he can’t bear wanting to hurt his own son.”

      
Jaibriol flexed his hands, opening and closing them. “He told me never to make a mistake, never to falter in any way that would reveal a hint of my deficiencies. But I can’t be a perfect fortress all the time. It is impossible.”

      
No one could. My brother came as close an anyone I knew to walling himself away from human contact, but even he had his needs. And Kurj didn’t have to live among Hightons.

      
“As Emperor, you could make more tolerable conditions for yourself,” I said. He could get rid of Quaelen, for starters. “Work with taskmakers instead of Aristos.”

      
“I don’t know.” He leaned back and stared at the bulkhead above him. “Quaelen is powerful, even more so than I am as Heir. Removing him wouldn’t be easy.” He looked at me. “Neither of us need to be bound to our heritage, Sauscony. Come with me. We’ll find a place where we never have to worry about Kryx Quaelen or anyone else.”

      
Come with me. Just like that. Throw away everything I had worked for.

      
Alone in my rooms earlier today I had been sure of what I wanted. Now, faced with Jaibriol, my certainty crumbled. Like knew like. I turned back to my controls, unable to look at him. The flyer was fine on autopilot. Its routines for maneuvering in traffic were kicking in as we approached the city. A few more minutes and we would be at the starport.

      
“Sauscony?”

      
I continued to study the controls. “I can’t go into exile.”

      
He didn’t say any more. Instead he made a picture in his mind, the two of us making love in a field of waving grasses.

      
“Stop it!” I swung around to him. “We can never have that.”

      
“Why not?”

      
“You know why!”

      
He gave me an incredulous look. “You never asked to be the Imperial Heir. You don’t have to martyr your sanity to it.”

      
“Don’t make it sound like some high-minded sacrifice. I want to be Imperator.”

      
“Maybe.”

      
I scowled at him. “What does that mean?”

      
“You think you have a responsibility. That you can’t run away from it.”

      
“What I think is my business.”

      
“If you try to make yourself responsible for every Skolian alive, the pressure will kill you.”

      
My anger flared. “So you want me to run off and fuck in the flowers for the rest of my life?”

      
He didn’t back down. “Belittling what you want won’t change how much it means to you.”

      
The flyer’s node spoke. “We are receiving a signal.”

      
I glanced at the controls—and the blood drained from my face. A light glowed that I had prayed would remain dark.

      
“What’s the matter?” Jaibriol asked.

      
“I’m not sure.” I switched on the neutrino transmitter, cycling through the ISC channels. Kurj’s voice suddenly cut into the air.

      
“—south of the city in a class 4B or 4C flyer. Stop all craft fitting that description. I repeat, stop
all
craft of that description.”

      
No!
Not now.
Not when we were so close.

      
Only a few seconds of listening told it all. Kurj knew Jaibriol had escaped. A planet-wide cordon had snapped into place, every flight grounded, every passenger suspect. As Kurj reeled off commands, I yanked on the flystick and veered to the east, away from the starport.

      
We had almost made it. But almost hadn’t been enough. What gave us away? One of my aunt’s watchers on the mesh? Maybe a guard had decided to check on Jaibriol, or I had tripped alarm I hadn’t known about. Whatever had happened, my plans were shot to hell.

      
Kurj’s transmission continued, coordinating search units. At least they were looking for Trader commandos instead of me. We were over the suburbs, immersed in traffic, one among hundreds of flyers that fit the description Kurj gave. But I knew ISC efficiency. Once Kurj set his machine into motion, even I couldn’t escape. No place could evade his inexorable grip.

      
Except one.

      
I brought the flyer around in a tight circle, the city pivoting below until we headed north. The suburbs soon thinned out, giving way to desert.

      
An ISC flyer appeared on my holomap, matching our course and speed. A voice crackled on the comm. “Identify yourself.”

      
“Read your monitor, mister,” I said.

      
“Sorry, Primary Valdoria. ID verified. Go on through.”

      
“Are you on the city cordon?” I asked.

      
“Yes, ma’am.”

      
“Any luck finding them?”

      
“We think they’re headed for the starport.”

      
“All right. Carry on.”

      
We were hailed twice more before we reached the mountains, and as we flew into the foothills, another flyer intercepted us. I hadn’t expected Kurj to waste craft out here, given the extensive systems already guarding this range. They protected the palace, the only dwelling within thousands of square kilometers. Hundreds of installations watched us from peaks and valleys. Satellites sailed in low orbits overhead, one after another, in a pattern designed to cover the area at all times. All to guard one empty building.

      
As the mountains closed around us, my comm crackled with a female voice I would have taken for human if I hadn’t known better. “Please identify yourself.”

      
“Transmitting ID,” I said.

      
“Greetings, Sauscony,” the computer said. “Welcome home.”

      
We continued on, passing through the best safeguards the Imperialate had to offer. Not one stopped us. Why should they? I was one of the people they were supposed to protect. But even where we were going—the Imperial palace—we wouldn’t be able to hide long.

      
Sooner or later, Skolia’s mighty Imperator would come home.

#

My bedroom in the palace made even my apartment on the world Forshires look plain. The door knob was gold, like the old fashioned key that unlocked it. The room was blue: ceiling, walls, carpets, and the bed on the raised dais. Gold filigree scrolled around the windows. Tall vases stood against the walls, priceless works of art from some ancient civilization on a planet with a name I couldn’t remember. The closet was as big as a living room. Dresses hung there, soft sexy things I had never worn. I suspected the room was more my idea of what I was supposed to like than what actually made me comfortable. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate its beauty. It pleased me as much today as the first day I had seen it finished. But it had never felt as if it were mine.

      
Jaibriol limped wearily across the carpet and climbed the dais. As he lay on the bed, its silk coverings rustled under his weight. I sat next to him, my Jumbler dangling in my hand. The weapon was useless here. All my training, my years of experience—what good was it now? Yes, the last place anyone would think to look for Jaibriol Qox was the Imperator’s home. But sooner or later, ISC would search even the last place.