"I think their father is Jaibriol the Second."
Silence.
"Good gods," he finally said. "How did you come to that?"
"Calculations. Models. Intuition. Instinct."
"Do you know for certain they are on Earth?"
Good question. "No," I admitted.
"We have another concern. Yamada is hiding something. He's as nervous as a jumpcat on a hotplate."
Dryly I said, "Well, we do have over two thousand ships in orbit. And I doubt anyone expected us."
"I'm sure they didn't," Jon said. "Until you suggested it, we hadn't considered it either. But having one armed force occupy the territory of another happens in wars. Procedures exist for the situation. It might not make Yamada happy, but it shouldn't create the tension I'm getting from him. We have EIs analyzing his voice; they say he's hiding something. I agree."
Another complication. My temples throbbed. Stay here or go to Earth? I could be wrong about the children. I stared at the numbers floating on the ceiling above me. Three series. Three mysteries, but what were they? Soz. Jaibriol. Seth. Eldrinson. Kelric.
Who?
A deep chill went through me. We had no Triad right now, only a Dyad: Eldrinson and me. Could Jay Rockworth join the Triad? But no, my models kept coming back to
Kelric.
About one thing I had no doubt: if those children with Seth were Rhon and the Traders captured them, it would be an unmitigated disaster. But how did Delos come in to it all? My calculation-enhanced intuition had driven me here with images of orbitals. Why?
A second had passed since Jon's comment. I had to answer. So I said, "I'm going down to the surface."
He didn't miss a beat with my abrupt topic change. "My apologies, Your Highness, but I can't let you do that."
"Yes, you can. Send Jagernauts with me. Arm them with laser carbines and Jumblers. Turn on my cyberlock. Hell, you can send smart-tanks with me. But I have to go down there. I need to know for certain."
"Know what?"
I took a breath. "Whether or not they have Kelric. I think he's alive— and has become Imperator."
14
Sanctuary
White light filled the docking bay. Electric blue arches made a tunnel down one side. A gold and black shuttle poised at its end, ready to leap down the tube and launch into space. The air tasted sterile and felt cool against my face.
Jagernauts strode through the brightness, indomitable in black uniforms studded with silver, their imposing presence adding to my tense anticipation. Some were checking security on the shuttle while others ran preflight checks. Several carried Lenard K16 laser carbines. Others had Jumbler guns, miniature particle accelerators fueled by abitons, the weapons glittering huge and black on their hips. The chief of security, a Jagernaut Secondary, stood with me, working on her palmtop while we waited.
"Heya, Dehya."
Startled, I glanced around. Vazar had come up my other side. "My greetings," I said.
The security chief looked up from her palmtop. She saluted Vazar, crossing her fists at the wrists, the palmtop clenched in one hand. Raising her arms to Vazar, she held them extended straight out from her torso.
"At ease, Secondary Opsister," Vazar said.
As the security chief lowered her arms, I regarded her curiously. "Your name is Opsister?"
She nodded, rustling the short, dark hair that framed her square face. "Jinn Opsister, Your Highness." Her voice had an efficient sound, as if she chose the minimum of words to communicate her response.
"It sounds familiar," I said.
"I've family in the J-Force. Several circle-siblings."
Circle-siblings? A check of my memory files revealed that the term came from the Isobaril region on the planet Metropoli. Isobaril families were related by vocation rather than blood. The Op Circle had distinguished itself in laser and particle science. It tended to make them good with weapons.
"Yes, I remember." It pleased me to make the connection. "You've a niece, Jinn Opdaughter, a weapons expert, quite accomplished I understand.
"Yes, ma'am." Now she sounded carefully neutral. "She died in the Radiance War.
I felt her sorrow. Yet another spark of grief in the flame of our devastation. "My deepest sympathies, Secondary. "
Jinn inclined her head to me, her mourning contained but not hidden in her thoughts. "Thank you, Your Highness."
Vazar spoke. "Jinn Opdaughter served with courage and honor. She was part of the ISC raid that captured Jaibriol the Second."
I gazed across the bay to the shuttle. A similar ship had carried Soz and Jaibriol II away from the Trader capital, along with their Jagernaut team— until it exploded. Had Soz brought two empires to their knees in the most brutal war the human race had ever known, all to rescue the father of her children— and then died after she finally achieved her goal?
Then again, Jaibriol and Soz had died once before.
"Vaz." I considered her. "Were the remains of the shuttle found?"
"They found pieces of everything. Even the engines."
Hmm. Shuttle explosions could be faked. It seemed unlikely that such a deception would succeed, but this was Soz. Saints only knew what she could come up with. If she and Jaibriol wanted a life together, they had little choice but to go into exile. But as much as I wanted to believe she had survived, I didn't sense her in the Triad. Eldrinson was there. We had tenuous link through whatever remained of psiberspace. But no Soz.
Jon Casestar was coming toward us. He stopped next to Vazar. "Are your preparations complete, Primary?"
"Just about," Vazar said. "We're checking the Pharaoh's cyberlock."
I blinked, startled. They were working on the cyberlock in my brain? I hadn't noticed.
My thought must have been more directed than usual, enough to reach Vazar. Turning to me, she said, "That's because we're just running checks.
Jon gave her an odd look. In the context of his comment, hers didn't make much sense. Jinn Opsister glanced from Vazar to me. As a Jagernaut she had to be a psion, but she had neither Vazar's strength nor family connection with me. I could tell she hadn't caught anything from my mind.
Telepaths didn't usually respond out loud to another telepath's thought when people were with them who couldn't have heard that thought. I didn't think Vazar had offended anyone, but that rule of etiquette gave me a way to distract her. I didn't want her to notice I was guarding my mind more than usual. Although it was unlikely she could pick up anything as well barricaded as my suspicions about Soz and the rest, I could take no chances.
Vaz.
I focused my thought on her.
Let's not do that.
Sorry. Didn't mean to be rude.
Jon was speaking to Opsister. "How are you configuring the cyberlock?"
She showed him her palmtop. "I'm calibrating its field to surround the Pharaoh in two layers. The inner layer will be set on high and the outer on low."
Disconcerted, I looked down at myself. I saw only my blue jumpsuit. If the cyberlock had been active, a faint rainbow glimmer would have overlaid my body like a second skin. On its low setting, the cyberlock field made anyone who penetrated it dizzy. On high, it fatally disrupted the neural structure of the brain. It didn't affect me because as part of my brain, it knew to protect me. Even on high, it only gave me a mild vertigo, but I could identify its setting by minute differences in that sensation. Right now I felt nothing. Although that was fine with me, I knew Jon wouldn't like it.
Vaz, the cyberlock isn't working.
It should be.
She spoke to Jinn. "Secondary Opsister, activate the lock."
Jinn studied her palmtop. "According to this, it is activated."
Jon Casestar frowned at me. "Pharaoh Dyhianna, if we have a problem here, I can't send you down to the planet."
Damn. "I don't need the cyberlock," I assured him. "I'm not in danger."
"You can't know that for certain."
"Close to certain. I calculated it."
He shook his head. "I still can't risk it."
"I've been to Delos before. Several times, for diplomatic summits."
"That was during peacetime."
"We've never had peacetime." My voice had an edge of bitterness I hadn't realized I felt so acutely. "We've been at war in some form or another since day one of the Skolian Imperialate."
Jon cracked his knuckles, which made me think he wasn't so sure after all. To Jinn, he said, "Any improvement with the cyberlock?"
She traced her finger over the film-thin screen of her palmtop, her forehead creased with concentration. "I've never seen anything like this."
"What's the problem?" I asked.
"Your cyberlock is— well, incomplete."
Jon shot me a startled glance. "Removing the cyberlock would damage your brain, wouldn't it?"
"A lot." Quickly I added, "And I'm fine. My brain feels great."
Vaz snorted.
Your brain is fried. Otherwise you wouldn't insist on going down to that blasted planet.
Sometimes I could do without telepathy.
Stop treating me as if I'm helpless
You are.
If that were true, I wouldn't have survived Opalite.
All right, yes, that's true. But damn it, Dehya, you look breakable as all hell.
Looks can deceive.
"Could your palmtop be malfunctioning?" Jon asked Jinn Opsister.
"I don't think so." She flicked her finger through another holo, then studied the result. "I've triple-checked it."
"How is my cyberlock incomplete?" I asked her.
"I'm not sure, ma'am." She looked up at me with puzzlement. "It seems to have lost some of the links it makes with your brain."
I rubbed my chin. "It probably hasn't fully transformed back here from Kyle space. The neural threads a cyberlock extends into the brain are only a few molecules thick, so even if only one or two particles are affected, that could disrupt the lock."
Jon had The Look again, the one that made his face seem as if it were cut from granite. "Then I can't approve your leaving the ship."
Exasperated, I said, "I've gone down-planet in touchier situations. During the Carmichael Summit, we met here with Aristos and Allieds both. You didn't protest then. And now we have more ships." Answering his unspoken protest, I softened my voice. "Jon, I won't disappear again."
He responded quietly. "It would be an unmitigated disaster for us to have found you, only to have the Allieds take you prisoner. We've lost too much, Your Highness. I won't be responsible for your loss as well."
"You won't be." I tried my best to look safe and reassuring.
"Stay here. We can send a representative for you."
I wished I could make him see. "As a Rhon, I can pick up things even your best people can't detect."
He studied my face. "Very well. I will accompany you."
I had a taste then of what Jon felt when I insisted on doing things he considered too risky. "The two of us shouldn't go together. If anything happened, we would both be lost."
He snorted. "So. You do acknowledge a danger exists."
"No. I just don't see any use in the two of us going together."
He wasn't buying it. "Why not, if it's safe?"
"You didn't come down with the diplomats during the summit."
"That was then. This is now."
"Jon, please. Trust my intuition."
I expected him to put me off again. But after a pause, he said, "It is true that your predictions, as puzzling as they often first appear, almost always make sense. In hindsight. But they're never exact. Nor can we replicate them." He shifted his weight, watching me with concern. "I deal in concrete facts. This is too uncertain. I don't like it."
"I will be all right." I willed him to believe that.
"You really think Kelricson Valdoria is down there?"
"Yes. I have to go down."
For a long moment he stood thinking. Finally he exhaled a long breath. "Gods help me if I'm wrong. I'm going to trust your instincts, Pharaoh Dyhianna." He fixed Vazar with piercing gaze. "Make sure she doesn't get into trouble."
"That I will, Admiral." To me, she thought,
Even if I have to throw you over my shoulder and haul you out of there.
She made an image in her mind: me being pursued by slavering Aristo monstrosities; me trying to argue math with them, explaining how my calculations showed they couldn't catch me; them grabbing me with barbaric cackles of glee; Vazar appearing in a flash of light; Vazar hefting me over her shoulder and running like the wind.
