Skyfall (20 page)

T
he docking bay alone was larger than a battle cruiser. Roca stood on the platform at the end of a high catwalk, cradling Eldrin as she watched the ships, cranes, and machines below. The frigate that had brought her to the Orbiter sat clamped in its docking pad. Kurj had just finished registering with the port authority; now he was striding toward a lift that would bring him up to this platform.

Eldrin stirred in his sleep, and pressed his hinged, four-digit hand against her arm. She smiled at him, her sadness easing. He had slept through the takeoff from Lyshriol, ensconced in a bubble that protected him from acceleration. He seemed similarly unimpressed now with this space station. In her more objective moments, she realized that although he was a hearty, healthy child, he wasn’t
that
different from any other child born throughout the history of the human race. But most of the time she marveled that she had somehow, incredibly, given birth to this child who was so much more extraordinary than any other baby ever born.

She wished his father could be with them.

Kurj boarded the lift, which wasn’t much more than a metal square with a rail. As it rose from the ground, he waved to Roca, but he let no emotion show on his face. It didn’t fool her. Behind that impassive demeanor, he hid a heart capable of far more feeling and forgiveness than he let himself acknowledge. She just wished he could forgive himself. It wasn’t his fault she had made flawed decisions in her life, that Darr had hurt her, or that the Traders wanted to do the same to the entire Imperialate. Kurj took the responsibilities of an empire onto his shoulders until she thought he would break under the weight.

The lift stopped at the platform and Kurj pushed aside the rail. “All set?”

“Yes.” Roca had little else to say. She had hardly spoken to him in the three days it had taken to reach the Orbiter. He didn’t push. He knew he had gone too far when he threatened her husband. For all her thoughts about forgiveness, she knew that if he had hurt Eldri, she could never have forgiven him.

Roca glanced at the tiny child in her arms. Would he too turn hard someday? Over the decades, she had seen the joy in Kurj turn to stone. Given time and a gentler life, he might have healed after Darr. Instead he had become a Jagernaut. Nothing could take away the hells he had lived since then.

“We all have our personal hells,” he said softly.

She looked up with a start and found him watching her, his eyes unshielded. His height disconcerted her after she had lived for so long among the Lyshrioli. She didn’t even reach his shoulder.

“We should go.” She heard the chill in her voice.

“All right.” He mentally withdrew and his inner eyelids lowered.

They crossed a catwalk to the arrivals gate. The rotation of the Orbiter produced a lower apparent gravity than what Roca had become used to on Lyshriol, and it felt strange now. However, her internal systems had a memory of dealing with the Orbiter environment and her body was adapting quickly.

Had she and Kurj come on a commercial flight, they would have disembarked in a lounge with all the amenities travelers took for granted. This gate was spare, dedicated to military personnel rather than civilians. Roca had never been in this area of the Orbiter. Soldiers did double takes as she and Kurj passed. She felt their astonishment at his large size and her appearance. Many recognized Kurj, though not all. A few wondered if she and Kurj were brother and sister. Mercifully, only one person assumed they were a husband and wife with their child.

The magrail station was a few hundred meters from the gate, down a carpeted hall. White Luminex walls lit the corridor, and panels of swirling holoart. The lovely effect surprised Roca; she hadn’t realized ISC would seek to make its port areas attractive for its soldiers. Given the utilitarian aspect of the gate itself, the designers had only been partially successful, but at least they made the attempt.

A magcar waited at the platform like a huge bullet. As she and Kurj settled inside, facing each other across the small cabin, the baby began to fuss. Roca cooed to him, but he kept twisting in her arms. She could tell from the vague impressions in his mind that he wasn’t hungry. He wanted something else, she wasn’t sure what.

“It’s all right, beautiful boy,” she murmured. He flailed his small fists, his face scrunched up. So she sang to him, a Trillian ballad Eldri had often crooned to her when they lay curled in bed. The baby quieted immediately, his body relaxing as he snuggled against her, his eyes closing.

“That’s a beautiful song,” Kurj said.

She looked up, startled. Absorbed in her link with the baby, she had forgotten he was there. “His father used to sing it to me.”

Kurj stiffened and turned away.

Roca wanted to entreat him to give Eldri a chance. But she knew Kurj; if she pushed, it would only make him more adamant against her husband.

They shot through tunnels in the Orbiter’s hull, which housed the military command centers of the station. Then the car whirred into the main habitat. The spherical Orbiter had an inner surface area of over fifty square kilometers, divided into two hemispheres, Ground and Sky. Ground consisted of meadows, hills, and mountains, with the ethereal City in its center, its diaphanous beauty hiding an underlying strength. It reminded Roca of her sister, Dehya, whose delicate beauty hid a great strength of character.

It never ceased to amaze Roca that the great blue dome of Sky took up half the living area. The Sun Lamp moved across it during the day, and lights sparkled at night, like stars. Although lovely, it was a remarkably inefficient use of space. But the Orbiter housed many powerful government figures; to provide for them, it was designed for beauty rather than efficiency.

The “gravity” created by the Orbiter’s rotation pointed down at its equator, which bisected Ground and Sky. The rotation poles pierced the horizon where Ground and Sky met. As a person walked from the equator toward the poles, gravity decreased and the ground sloped upward, until one became weightless at the poles and the “ground” was vertical. They could walk just as easily on Sky, if they wished.

The Ruby Dynasty lived in a valley about halfway to the poles. Roca’s father, Jarac, had chosen that region because the lower gravity was easier on his huge size. Twenty years ago, Kurj had named the area Valley, just as he named Ground, Sky, and City. Jarac agreed they were sensible names. Roca’s mother had wanted to know if they intended to name space “Space” and their ships “Ship.” Roca didn’t think her son or father had caught the joke, though, given how seriously they considered the idea.

“Why are you smiling?” Kurj asked.

She glanced up, softening despite her anger at him. “Do you like it here on the Orbiter?”

“Yes. I do.” His inner lids raised, revealing his eyes. “I’ve always liked it. I don’t feel so heavy.”

She knew he meant more than gravity. “You work too hard.”

His lips quirked up. “You always tell me that. And how I should settle down with a nice girl.”

“Well, you should.”

His eyes glinted. “I don’t like
nice
girls.”

“Kurj!”

He laughed. “Sorry.” In a more serious voice, he said, “I am just so very, very glad to see you alive and well.”

In truth, she felt the same way about being alive. “We feared Avaril’s army would kill us.”

“They might have if you hadn’t sent out those robot birds. Otherwise, we might not have made it in time. We were having a hard time fixing your location on the planet.”

“I’m glad it worked.”

“Why were those people attacking the castle?”

“They wanted Eldri.”

At the mention of his stepfather’s name, his expression hardened. The baby stirred in Roca’s arms, crying in his sleep.

“Look.” Kurj’s face relaxed. “He feels our tension.”

“It is because he is a psion.” Roca regarded Kurj steadily. “Possibly a Ruby psion.”

His inner lids came down. “Impossible.”

“No.” She willed him to see the truth. “I know you sense the baby’s mind.” The mental bond he had formed with Eldrin at the birth was undeniable. Kurj treated him with a gentleness Roca had never seen him show anyone else. It gave her hope for both of her sons.

“How could it be?” Kurj said. “It means his father carries the genes of a psion.”

Her gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”

“That barbarian can’t have them.”

“Why not? What does his culture have to do with his DNA?”

His jaw stiffened. “It’s too incongruous.”

“Nevertheless, it is true.”

He looked away, out the window.

The walk through Valley soothed Roca’s agitation. The beauty of the secluded vale, with its pastoral hills and glens, comforted her. Sky arched far above, a reassuring blue, the Sun Lamp halfway from its zenith to the horizon. Kurj walked at her side, silent, as the two of them had often been with each other these past few days.

They went to the house where Roca lived when she visited the Orbiter. Entering the front room, she saw a massive gold man standing at a table by the far wall, glancing through a holobook she had left open there a year ago, the last time she had been here. She had an eerie moment of dislocation, entering the room with Kurj only to find him already here.

Then her mind readjusted and her mood warmed. “My greetings, Father.”

Jarac turned with a start. “Roca!” He strode forward—and stopped halfway across the room, staring at the bundle in her arms.

Eldrin stirred and opened his eyes, trying to look around.

Roca’s father blinked, his unshielded eyes like liquid gold with black pupils in the center. “Is that the baby?”

“Your grandson.” Roca’s pulse leapt. Would Jarac accept him?

Her father came the rest of the way over to them and peered at Eldrin. “He certainly is small.”

Roca smiled. “That he is.” Especially compared to Jarac.

Her father poked a finger into Eldrin’s fist. The baby looked up, his big blue eyes scanning the gold face above him. Jarac spoke in a kind voice. “What do you see, little man?” His words took on a singsong quality. “Do you know your grandhoshpa? Well, you are a fine boy, eh?” He waggled his finger in Eldrin’s tiny grip.

Kurj made an exasperated noise. “I have never understood why otherwise rational adults speak gibberish to babies.”

Roca slanted a look at him. “I talked that way to you when you were a baby.”

Kurj cleared his throat, his cheeks reddening under their metallic cast.

“Look at that.” Jarac beamed at his infant grandson. “He turns his head to watch my face when I move.”

Relief flowed through Roca. Her father wasn’t rejecting Eldrin. It had probably helped that she sent messages ahead, letting her parents know she was alive—and a mother again. She could tell how much her father wanted to press her for news about what had happened. That he approached the situation with such tenderness made her want to hug him.

“Well, so.” Jarac laughed as Eldrin gurgled at him.

Roca extended her child to her father. “Would you like to hold him?”

Jarac hesitated. “He’s so small. I might break him.”

Roca couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve seen holos of you holding me when I was this size. You never broke me.”

With great care, he took Eldrin into his arms. “Well, and look at you, eh?”

She glanced around the room. “Where is Mother?”

“In the web.” Jarac smiled at Eldrin, the lines crinkling around his eyes, more wrinkles than Roca remembered. With a start, she realized how much gray threaded the bronze mane of hair that swept to his shoulders. It was the most noticeable difference between him and Kurj; his grandson kept his hair clipped close to his head in metallic curls with no trace of gray. She would never understand how her older son and her father could otherwise look so alike and yet be so different. As a small child, Kurj had been similar to Jarac in temperament, but the years had hardened her son in a way that had never happened to her father.

Jarac tickled Eldrin’s nose with his huge finger. To Roca, he said, “Your mother doesn’t know yet that you’ve arrived.”

“Actually, she does,” a regal voice said behind them.

Roca almost jumped. Turning, she saw her mother, Lahaylia Selei, in the archway of the room. Gray streaked the black hair that fell to below the pharaoh’s hips, its length a trademark of Ruby Dynasty women. She resembled a Majda queen, with her high cheekbones, slanted eyes, and elegant nose, but her eyes were vivid green instead of black. She came forward, willowy yet strong, with an imperial carriage.

“Mother.” Roca went to her, wanting to throw her arms around this woman who had held her as a child. The Ruby Pharaoh’s ingrained formality discouraged shows of emotion, but for all her mother’s reserve, Roca felt her love, and her gratitude that her daughter had come home. It flowed over Roca.

“I am glad to see you, Daughter,” her mother said.

“And I you,” Roca answered.

Lahaylia glanced at the baby that Jarac held. “You have brought us a grandchild.”

Roca tensed. Would her mother also accept Eldrin?

Lahaylia went to her husband, and Jarac beamed, showing her Eldrin. “Look, Lahya. He is beautiful.”

The Ruby Pharaoh gazed at her grandson. “So.”

“I named him Eldrin Jarac Valdoria,” Roca said. Then she added the last name, her voice firm. “Skolia.”

Jarac froze, his smile vanishing. Kurj stiffened at her side, even already knowing what Roca believed. Lahaylia didn’t move.

Then, slowly, the Ruby Pharaoh turned to her. She spoke in a deceptively quiet voice. “What did you say?”

“Prince Eldrin Jarac Valdoria Skolia.” Roca used the title deliberately.

Anger flashed in her mother’s eyes. “The Skolia name may be taken only by a Ruby psion. For anyone else to dare claim it is a grave insult to our family.”

“He is my husband’s son. That makes him a member of the Ruby Dynasty.” Roca’s stiffness eased. “Mother, I’m not sure if Eldri is a Ruby psion. The geneticists will have to examine his DNA. But I think he is.” Her hope surged despite her attempts to remain cool. “I really think he is.”