"Eighteen." I was running my models, checking possibilities. New shapes were appearing in the probability landscape. "I need to go to my quarters. I have to think."
Jon studied my face, as if it could reveal answers I didn't have. His gray-eyed gaze seemed to take in all of me. Intent and contained, he could turn fierce in battle, but he never lost his cool, neither in combat nor when dealing at the top-most levels of Imperialate power.
"Coming here to Delos was a good idea," he said. "We can pressure the Allieds without making hostile moves against Earth."
"But there's more." I tried to give definition to what was hardly more than vague impressions in my mind. "I'm finding strange convergences in my models. Soz. Seth Rockworth. Eldrinson. Jaibriol II. Viquara Iquar. Kryx Quaelen. Delos.
Kelric.
I need to figure out what it means."
"Are you sure it means anything? Modeling the future rarely gives reliable results."
"I'm not sure it's the future. Maybe the present…" I floated away from his chair, preoccupied.
"Pharaoh Dyhianna."
Looking up, I caught the cable and stopped myself. "Yes?"
Jon was watching me with undisguised curiosity. "Let me know your conclusions."
I smiled. "I will."
His face gentled. "I wish you had reason to do that more often."
"Do what?"
He spoke quietly. "Smile."
I swallowed, aware of the ache inside. "I too."
* * *
The sofa shifted, yielding under my back, but not too soft. I put my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling. In the dim light I could barely see its smooth surface. My hair poured over my arms and torso, onto the floor, a black waterfall, freshly washed, fragrant with soap. My suite also had a pleasant smell, almost imperceptible, like wildflowers in a meadow. The EI was learning my preferences. I had named the EI Laplace, in honor of the Earth-born mathematician who had developed some of my favorite equations.
"Laplace," I said.
"Attending." It had a mellow voice, low and smooth.
"If I reset the security in my neural nodes, can you make a wireless link with them?"
"It should be possible."
"Excellent." Breathing deeply, I concentrated. "Link to my prime node and project the patterns I've marked there onto the holoscreen in the ceiling."
"Done."
The ceiling directly above me changed to a golden sheet, glowing and thick, as if a deep layer of liquid radiance had been poured across it in defiance of gravity. It gave my suite an antique quality, like an aged picture washed in the sunlight of a lost world.
"Nice," I said.
"It is my translation of your current mood."
Interesting. Laplace equated my mood with warmth and golden light, but darkened with an amber quality. I realized that did fit how I felt right now.
I let my mind drift. A figure formed above me, as Laplace turned the evolving equations in my mind into pictures. Black blobs floated in the gold background.
Then my perception shifted and the gold became the foreground, defined by black blobs. Gold shimmerflies. Lovely and ethereal, they had graceful wings outlined in delicate tracings of black. The black blobs reformed until they were shimmerflies going in the opposite direction, their dark wings veined with gold threads. The black and gold shimmerflies interlocked, making it impossible to say which was foreground and which background. The images gave me a sense of satisfaction, even one of completion.
The gold shimmerflies began moving to the right, their flight making the black ones move left. At the edges of the gold sheet, the figures faded away, while new shimmerflies continually formed in the center of the holo. I liked the effect, but I wasn't sure what it meant.
Foreground and background. Which was which?
The shimmerflies faded, replaced by a series of ruby numbers floating on the gold background:
2 1 2 6 4 5 12 9 10 20 16 17…
Fascinated, I tried to figure out what number came next. They could be rearranged in a grid. As soon as I imagined the grid I wanted, Laplace shuffled the numbers on the ceiling:
Hah! Each row defined a different series. To figure out what term came next in each, I looked at their "backgrounds" —the numbers you added to each term to obtain the next one.
The background for the first series was even numbers.
The background for the second series was odd numbers.
The background for the third series was prime numbers.
Each of these mini-series had four numbers. So to find the next number in the original series, I needed the fifth term in the 2, 6, 12, 20 group. It had to be 30. That gave me,
2 1 2 6 4 5 12 9 10 20 16 17 30…
The numbers floating above me gradually became three-dimensional. Each number sat on top a stack of jeweled rings, some large, some small. Studying them, I realized the points within one ring related to those in the ring above or below it according to
w
= 1/z*
where
z
* was the complex conjugate of
z.
It was a mathematical inversion. The rings sparkled in gem colors: pale sapphire, amethyst, ruby rose, opal, blue diamond. They alternated big and small, thick and thin, layers of jeweled circlets glittering in a gold atmosphere.
Well, fine. It was all lovely. But what the blazes did it mean?
Foreground. Background. Inversion.
The foreground for the shimmerflies had started out as dark blobs, with gold in the background. Then the background became foreground, resolving into gold shimmerflies. A similar thing had happened with the series. The numbers were the foreground, but to find what came next I had to look at their background, the numbers added to each term to obtain the next.
What about the rings? Inversion. It meant a reversal, as with words in a sentence, tones in a musical chord, layers of hot and cold air, traits of a person, and more. The physics that described a starship drive involved a mathematical inversion. It was why we called them inversion drives. They made it possible for us to travel to other star systems in a reasonable amount of time. Inversion drives had made interstellar civilization feasible.
Even. Odd. Prime. Foreground. Background. Inversion.
Something was missing. Prime data. What was the primary inversion?
It hit me like the shift of an optical illusion, the way a drawing of normal stairs could suddenly look like an upside-down staircase or the background of a figure could jump into prominence as the foreground. What inversion most defined our lives? We lived in constant fear of the Aristos, even more so now that they might conquer us. Aristos. Anti-empaths. So what was the ultimate inversion? A Rhon psion Aristo.
No.
Gods, no.
An Aristo could never be a psion. It violated the basic traits that defined them. They were fanatical about keeping their genetic bloodlines "pure," which meant no trace of psion genes. None.
Realistically, probably more than one Aristo had tried to pass off an illegitimate child or relative as an Aristo. But a psion couldn't hide among them. Even if she did manage to shield her mind so they didn't guess the truth, it would destroy her. She would need to maintain incredible barriers every moment, never faltering, never letting a chink form in her mental fortress. It would take only one mistake to reveal the truth. She couldn't even risk falling asleep near anyone, for fear her barriers might weaken. To build such defenses took a powerful psion. But the stronger the mind, the more painful the isolation. A psion strong enough to maintain such barriers would go insane among the Aristos or become suicidal…
My mind jolted out of Kyle space— and everything snapped into place. It made too damn much sense. Soz had gone with Jaibriol of her own free will. It was an inversion in every sense of the word.
And Eldrinson knew.
I was certain of it. That was why he kept coming up in my models. Gods, what had he been thinking, to hide it from us? With a Rhon Emperor and a Lock, the Traders could have built a psiberweb. They wouldn't have needed Eldrin. They had someone better: their godforsaken emperor.
Except Jaibriol was dead, and he had no heirs.
None we knew about.
And four children lived quietly on Earth, in the background. The oldest was named Jay.
"Laplace! Get me Admiral Casestar
now.
" Pain sparked in my temples as my mind leapt into an accelerated mode.
Why the hell was my ex-husband taking care of those children? Soz must have gone crazy, if she had been with an Aristo for sixteen years. But she was one of the sanest people I knew. Driven, yes, but stable. Maybe Jaibriol was the one who had gone crockers.
Even. Odd. Even how? Balanced? Everything was
out
of balance. We had four children who just might have been born of both the Skolia and Qox dynasties. If Jaibriol had been a Rhon psion and Soz was their mother, they were also Rhon psions. Skolia, Qox, Rhon. The juxtaposition made my head throb. What would Soz and Jaibriol consider balance?
Saints almighty, had they
married
? It would make their children legitimate heirs to both the Ruby and Qox dynasties. Gods. That boy could be both the emperor and a Ruby heir. He had the proof in his genes.
A voice snapped out of my comm, breaking me out of Kyle space. "Jon Casestar here."
I nearly jumped off the sofa. Only two seconds had passed since I had told Laplace to contact the Admiral. I spoke fast, urgency spilling into my voice. "Jon, we have to go to Earth. Four children are there, staying with Admiral Seth Rockworth. We must get them."
Jon was silent a moment. Then he said, "Pharaoh Dyhianna, this fleet had enough resources to take on a minor world like Delos. But we've no chance of coming near Earth, let alone freeing anyone."
"We have to." My heart was pounding. "Before it's too late."
"Staying here makes good sense." He sounded puzzled. "Delos is cut off from Earth and we have control of the system. It gives us a bargaining point to negotiate the release of Lord Eldrinson and Councilor Roca." He paused. "And anyone else we need to free. Who are the children?"
