The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (22 page)

Yes, it is within my abilities.

*What if you make a map and store it in your memory? Then put me in a coma.
She almost started her next sentence with "if," then decided to be more positive. When you bring me out of the coma, could you reestablish my mental patterns?

It might be possible. I would need you to do exercises now to help me make the map. We must hurry, before they realize you are conscious. Do the multiplication tables from one to twelve, in base ten and base eight.

Roca multiplied as fast as she could. Arabesque put her through memory, logic, analysis, recall, and reasoning drills. She was in the middle of balancing a chemical reaction when Kryx said, "I think she's awake."

"Her neural activity has increased," his sister said.

"Are you awake, Councilor?" Kryx asked.

Roca kept her eyes closed.

His sister spoke. "My scanner says she is."

Kryx laughed softly. "Good."

Roca opened her eyes to see Kryx leaning over her. "We have many drugs for you," he murmured. "Designer chemicals." A smile spread across his face. "We can make you feel anything we want."

Roca felt sick.
Arabesque, are you ready?

Yes.

You're sure they wont hurt me while I'm out?
I cannot make that guarantee. However, it appears unlikely.

Then-turn off my brain.
Done—

12

Me One

Shannon rode with Varielle through the mist. They had gone ever higher since leaving the Dalvador Plains, first crossing the Backbone Mountains that separated Dalvador from the lush western province of the Rillian Vales, then heading north into the huge range known as Ryder's Lost Memory. From Ryder's they traveled higher and farther north into the Blue Dale Mountains.

They were traveling in a forest, where the trunks were hollow tubes of jewel-like glasswood, all translucent, glistening in the fog. Smaller tubes branched out from the trunks and filmy disks hung from them, some a handspan in diameter, others smaller. Each tree was one color, but the forest had many hues: ruby, sapphire, emerald, gold, and a violet as pure as the eyes of a Rillian. They ducked their heads under dusty clusters of bubbles. Shannon's arm brushed a blue disk and it inflated into a sphere. It floated into the air, detaching from the tree, then hit another branch and popped. Sparkling blue glitter dusted across Shannon and Moonglaze, his lyrine now, gifted to him by his father. Multicolored glitter already covered both him and Varielle, and also their lyrine.

The forest went on in every direction, endless it seemed. The air had turned chill, and they wore heavy tunics and sweaters with double leggings. They kept their bows and

quivers lashed to their travel bags so neither would stab bubbles on the trees and inundate them with more glitter.

They finally reached a high valley submerged in blue fog. This was the land of the legendary Blue Dale Archers that the people of Rillia and Dalvador no longer believed existed. Mist veiled the tents on either side. Sentries came out to meet them, eerily beautiful Archers with silvery hair flowing like moonlight and silver eyes that slanted upward.

That night, Shannon sat with Varielle's tribe around a fire that flickered in blue and gold flames. The scent of burning glasswood permeated the air, fragrant and pungent. The mist felt damp against his cheeks, mixed with ashes and glitter. The senior members of the tribe had all come, and Varielle sat at his side.

They drank wine together, a rare vintage distilled from bubbles that grew only here in the Blue Dales. When the wine had saturated their senses, Shannon joined the Archers in a trance. One by one they revealed their names. He knew most of them from the many octets of days he had spent with this tribe last year. But speaking their name was a ritual as old as the millennia they had roamed these mountains. To unveil one's name was to offer acceptance, something the elusive Archers hadn't done with an outsider for centuries.

In the late hours of the night, with the moons hidden by blue fog, they gave him a final gift: the name of their tribe.

Eloria.

The word came from an ancient form of Trillian no one had spoken in the Plains for thousands of years. Eloria. It meant The Misted Ones. Shannon recognized the word because, as a son of the Valdoria Bard, he had learned the ancient tongues. If ever he became Bard, he would need to sing and interpret songs handed down over the millennia.

In giving him the name of their tribe, the Eloria offered him a place as one of them. All his life Shannon had known he differed from the people of Dalvador. His Blue Dale heritage had come down from one of his father's ancestors and manifested in Shannon after many generations of dormancy. He looked like the Archers, went into trance like them, blended his emotions like them. He, too, needed to wander

the mountains. He had craved the Blue Dales even before he visited them.

Tonight the Eloria offered their name.

So it was that Shannon Eirlie Valdoria Skolia, formerly of the Dalvador Plains, became a Blue Dale Archer.

The Bard held Taquinil's hand as they crossed a slope carpeted with grass. They had climbed a bill above the house where the boy lived with his parents in Valley on the Orbiter. Their Abaj bodyguards ranged across the countryside around them, though at enough distance that Eldrinson didn't feel suffocated. But he couldn't escape the agitation that had plagued him all day.

"Me, too," Taquinil said softly.

Starded, he glanced down at the boy. "What do you mean?"

Taquinil regarded him with a haunted gaze, his gold eyes large in his face. "I'm afraid for them. For Hoshpa and Hoshma, for Grandmother and Uncle Kurj and Uncle Althor." His young voice cracked. "I want to help, Grandfather. But I don't know how."

Eldrinson pulled the boy into his arms and hugged him. "It will be all right." He had to believe that "Come on. We will try again to reach them." He would settle for talking with anyone: Roca, Eldrin, Dehya, any person who had even seen a member of his family.

They returned to the house and went to the console room where they could connect to the offworld meshes. They had the same result as every other time they had tried: communications to the interstellar meshes was down and nothing could go out or in. Telops continued to assure users there was no need to worry, just maintenance work, life was proceeding as normal.

Eldrinson didn't believe them.

Callie Irzon was the top biomech surgeon in HQ City on Diesha. She had implanted the biomech webs carried by

Althor and Soz Valdoria, the two Imperial Heirs. Tine Loriez had assisted her. Now she and Tine entered a viewing chamber in the ISC hospital, both of them in white jumpsuits with silver medical insignia on their shoulders. At the window across from the entrance, they paused. A man lay motionless in the room beyond, his wasted body quiescent in the hospital bed. The only light came from monitors and screens around him, their lights glowing amber or red. A second man sat sprawled in a chair by the bed, asleep, his head back, his legs stretched out.

"The order said every Jagemaut," Tine said.

Irzon set her palm against the window, a sheet of programmable matter that was transparent on this side and a mirror on the other. Their orders from HQ had no ambiguity; all living Jagernauts must have their bioelectrodes analyzed. Technically, Althor lived. His node no longer communicated with his brain, but it wasn't inoperative, only dormant. It couldn't do anything given that he was brain dead, but even that minuscule risk had to be addressed.

They entered the room quiedy, but the man in the chair by the bed woke up anyway. Lifting his head, he rubbed his eyes, his blond hair falling back from his face.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," Irzon said. She didn't recognize him, and she doubted she would have forgotten such a distinctive person. He reminded her of the artists in a colony on the outskirts of HQ City, a group of theater types. The graceful quality of his movements made her wonder if he were an actor, a successful one given his expensive clothes. Judged by his tousled hair, he must have been here for hours, even days.

He stood up and pulled down his sweater, a blue pullover that set off his well-toned physique. He lifted his hand and turned it palm upward in a civilian salutation. "My greetings. I'm Chad." He sounded older than he looked. And tired.

"My greetings," Irzon said. She gave him an apologetic look. "We need to run some tests. It won't take long."

"Do you want me to leave?" The way he had one palm resting on Althor's arm made her reconsider her assumption that he and Althor were only friends.

Loriez said, "It would be better if you waited out—" He stopped when Irzon raised her hand.

To Chad, Irzon indicated a chair with soft cushions across the room. "You can wait there if you like. We won't be long."

"Thank you." Chad nodded, his motions slowed with fatigue. He went across the room and seeded into the chair.

Loriez raised his eyebrows at her. Normally they only let a spouse or family member stay. She was uncertain about the young man's relationship with Althor, though. She shrugged at Loriez and tilted her head toward Althor, hoping the doctor would understand. He nodded slightiy and made no protest.

The equipment they needed for their tests was already in place, including the medical Els that monitored Althor's body and biomech. Soon the two doctors were deep in their tests of Althor's biomech systems.

"That's odd," Loriez muttered.

Irzon looked up from the screen she was studying. "Problem?"

"Not exacdy." He was frowning at a cluster of graphs floating above his console. Data glowed beneath them, symbols flowing across the screen in a river of golden, three-dimensional holos.

"Did you find tampering?" Irzon asked.

"No, it's fine. It's just—" He indicated a graph. "His node is quiet, but I don't think it is dormant It's ... well, it seems to be waiting." He looked up at her. "I don't know what for. Maybe it thinks he'll call on it again."

"Can't it tell he's—" She stopped before she said dead, aware of the man across the room.

Loriez motioned at the lines, machines, and aids that surrounded the bed. "His body lives. His brain has no activity, but the tissue is healthy."

"We can keep his brain cells alive for years." She didn't add that it did little good if the cells no longer functioned.

l1 think his node is waiting for his brain to start again."

"Start how?" Irzon asked.

Loriez shook his head. They both knew it waited in vain. He glanced at the youth across the room, then looked away. Irzon could see the man in her peripheral vision. He was like

the node, waiting futilely for Althor to resume a life that was over.

Loriez tapped a panel, and the graphs vanished. "I've sent our test results to HQ. They'll continue monitoring his node to see if anything comes up."

"That should do it, then," Irzon said. Sorrow weighed on her. As they were leaving, she spoke gendy to Chad. "You can go on back."

He nodded as he stood up. His expression seemed hollow, as if he had exhausted his emotional resources. He returned to his chair by the bed and resumed his vigil.

Soz and several midshipmen ran along the corridor, their long strides devouring distance. They jogged into their destination, a cavernous area that resembled a docking bay. It was overflowing with crew members, officers and noncoms alike, most in Fleet uniforms. Devon Majda stood on a platform at one end of the bay, ramrod straight in her uniform, surrounded by her top officers, her hands resting on a Luminex rail.

A nearby woman spoke in a low voice. "Why do we have to come here? They could have transmitted any announcement over ship's comm."

Soz looked around at the people in the bay. "Maybe for moral support."

A man next to them spoke tightly. "For what?"

"Gods only know," another man said.

Just a fraction of the crew fit in here; a Firestorm carried tens of thousands of people. They would be meeting in similar bays throughout the ship, gathering before a holo stage that projected an image of Devon Majda live from here.

Devon raised her hand and the rumble of talk stopped. Comm spheres floating throughout the bay amplified her voice. "I have a message from Imperator Majda."

The silence was so complete, Soz could hear people breathing.

"Forty-three minutes ago," Devon said, "First Councilor Meson declared war against the Eubian Concord." "No," someone said.

Soz suddenly felt as if she couldn't breathe. War? Now?

"As you know," Devon continued, "we have been on a training run. That has changed. As of this moment, we are on active duty." She looked out over them. "I have every confidence in the ability of our fine crew and vessel to meet this challenge."

Soz's thoughts whirled. She had spent only a few weeks on this ship. A flotilla accompanied it, including a contingent of Jags, but she couldn't fly someone else's fighter. Although she had begun working with the Els of several Jags, she was nowhere near ready. She hadn't even been commissioned yet. She would have to serve aboard this cruiser, the antithesis of the one-pilot fighters she was training to fly.

War. The prospect had never seemed real. It had been remote all those years she imagined attending DMA.

It was remote no longer.

Dehya and her bodyguards sprinted to a sleek gold and black shuttle that crouched on a tarmac of the Admiral Starport It would whisk her to an armored racer in orbit, which would take her away from Parthonia. Fast.

They scrambled into the shuttle and the airlock snapped closed behind them. Dehya dropped into the copilot's seat while her bodyguards strapped into passenger seats. The pilot was doing preflight checks. Dressed in the dark green of an army colonel, he was ensconced in his chair and surrounded by panels. Dehya's exoskeleton folded around her and clicked psiphons into her sockets. They linked her to the EI brain of the shuttle, through the shuttle to the racer in orbit, and from the racer into Kyle space.