The Moon's Shadow (31 page)

J
ai wasn’t sure how he left the blue-tiled room. He found himself in a nearby bathing chamber, kneeling over a gold-tiled pool, vomiting his guts out. He knew his bodyguards were hovering over him, that one of them started to talk into a comm, and that someone else stopped the Razer from making a report. Jai didn’t care. His mind had been blasted open, wide open, leaving him in agony.

Raising his head, he spoke hoarsely to the captain. “Flood the blue room with gas. Knock out everyone in it.” His mind was raw to his bodyguards, undefended. If he hadn’t replaced some of his Razers with non-Aristos, the pressure they exerted on him would have been unbearable. Desperate, he shored up his demolished barriers.

Tarquine knelt next to him. “It is your illness.” Her voice was low with warning. “Shall we go to your rooms?”

Jai clenched the rim of the pool. “What, this is just the emperor being bizarre again? Blame his behavior on his ‘eccentricities,’ is that it?” Standing up, he pulled away from her. “Not this time.” He swung around to the captain. “Gas the goddamn room.”

The captain’s usually impassive face was set in tense lines—and Jai finally discovered how far his authority went with his bodyguards. The captain made no move to carry out his order.

“Do it,” Jai ground out. “Or you’re dead.”

The Razer stared at him, obviously trying to decide if Jai was bluffing. Then he raised his wrist and spoke into his comm, giving the order. Jai watched, aware of everyone staring at him, Tarquine and his four bodyguards.

Jai knew when the gas took effect. The screams of the provider faded in his mind. He inhaled, suddenly free of her pain. Taratus and Kaliga had been so deep in their brutal transcendence, they had barely realized he had left. But nothing would ever erase her agony from his mind. Even though she had known how their ménage might end, the shock of pain had caught her hard; multiplied by her undefended telepath’s mind, it had shattered Jai’s barriers as well, ripping his mind wide open.

He wanted to die. Before Kaliga and Taratus had gone to work on her, he had been with them, wanting her for himself. He felt so ill he thought he would vomit again.

Without another word, Jai left the chamber. As the Razers fell into formation, Tarquine caught up with him.

“Jaibriol,” she said.

“Go to hell.”

She stiffened but didn’t answer. She and the Razers kept pace as he strode down an arched hallway tiled in blue and gold. The walls curved at the floor and ceiling, and no cross-hall came in at right angles. Nothing met anything else square on. Oblique and convoluted: Aristo built as they thought.

Tough.

In his side vision, he saw Tarquine turn to the captain. He felt her intent; she wanted the Razers to stop him before he trapped himself in a situation he couldn’t escape. Jai had no intention of changing his plans, regardless of what she told his bodyguards.

He stopped abruptly. “Captain, where is Corbal Xir?”

The Razer lifted his arm to speak into the comm embedded in his gauntlet. Then Jai realized he wasn’t wearing a gauntlet; his entire arm was cybernetic.

Tarquine spoke in a low voice. “Be careful, Husband.”

“Of what?” He turned a hard gaze on her. “Or should I say of
who
? Taratus? Kaliga? Corbal? You?”

A flush tinged her cheeks, marring the snow-marble skin. His ice empress was losing her cool. “Do you have any idea the magnitude of what you have done?”

He met her gaze. “I gassed my Joint Commanders.”

She had the look of someone who had just seen a wild person jump off a cliff. “It’s called suicide.”

The captain looked up. “Lord Xir is in his office, Your Highness.”

“Good.” Jai set off again.

Jai didn’t like Corbal’s silver and steel office any more today than the first time he had seen it. That day, the octagonal shape and domed ceiling had startled him; today, they were more symbols of Highton duplicity.

As Jai strode into the room, Corbal stood up behind his desk, his white hair glittering in the harsh light. Jai stopped at the desk and rested his clenched fists on its surface. “I’ve made my decision.”

Corbal met his bluntness with his own. “I have no doubt it is the wrong one.”

“I’m sending Jacques Ardoise home to Earth.”

A muscle jerked in Corbal’s cheek. “While you’re at it, why don’t you sign the death warrant you took out for yourself when you gassed your Joint Commanders?”

Tarquine came to the desk and spoke in a measured voice. “Perhaps, as kin, the three of us might hold this discussion in a more appropriate setting.”

Just say you want to get rid of the damn guards.
Jai was sick to death of Highton speech. He was wound so tight, he felt like he would snap. He spoke to the captain. “You and your team may wait outside.”

The Razers bowed and left, their footsteps muted on the carpet, like stealth robots. Jai turned to Tarquine and Corbal, but they still couldn’t talk, not without verifying security. Corbal met his gaze, then sat at his desk and went to work. Holicons appeared above the glossy surface, symbols for security systems in the palace. Jai didn’t even recognize some of them.

Tarquine leaned over the desk and tapped several glyphs on the screen. When Corbal frowned at her, she shrugged. With a scowl, he redoubled his efforts, and the glyphs soon disappeared. He and Tarquine repeated the procedure several times before Jai realized she was revealing security flaws Corbal hadn’t known about. At one point, Jai was certain she showed Corbal a system he had never before seen. Jai paced the room, too angry to stay still.

Finally Corbal pushed back his chair and stood up. “Perhaps we should have some wine.”

Jai gave a harsh laugh. “Is that your solution to everything? Have a frigging glass of wine?”

Corbal’s mouth tightened. “Better than destroying all hope of working with ESComm.” He walked around the desk and came over to Jai. Then he lifted his hand, holding his thumb and forefinger close together. “We were this close to reestablishing good relations with ESComm. Now you’ve destroyed it. What the blazes possessed you to attack them?”

Incredulity cracked in Jai’s voice. “Gods forbid I should ‘attack’ while they tortured that helpless girl.”

A long silence descended as Corbal and Tarquine stared at him. Finally Corbal turned to Tarquine. “Your Highness, I believe my cousin and I need to discuss—”

“I’m not leaving,” Tarquine said.

“My, aren’t we direct,” Jai said. “You aren’t related to Corbal. Then again, given how everybody here marries their relatives, you probably are.”

“Stop it,” Corbal said.

“You both transcended.” Jai wanted to fold up and die. “For
decades.
”

“Jaibriol, don’t do this,” Tarquine said.

Jai was losing his battle to stay calm. “I could make myself ‘forget’ because I never had to witness it, not from either of you.” He couldn’t bear to tell Tarquine the truth, that she had become the only thing that made his life worth anything. She and Corbal were all he had, which meant he had nothing.
Nothing.

Tarquine and Corbal looked at each other, and Jai felt their shock as they each realized the truth, that neither of them transcended. He also knew the moment when each realized the other suspected Jai was a psion. He felt as if a band were constricting across his chest, making it impossible to breathe.

Jai stepped behind Corbal’s desk. When he stabbed his finger at its screen, an array of holicons appeared, floating above the surface.

Corbal came to the front of the desk. “Deactivate.” His voice had deepened into command mode.

“Deactivated,” it answered. The holicons disappeared.

Jai clenched his fists. “Ardoise goes home. The peace talks go forward. And Raziquon stays in prison.”

Corbal started to answer, then turned to Tarquine. “I must speak to His Highness alone.”

She glanced at Jai. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes,” Jai said.

“No,” Corbal said.

Jai could tell Corbal genuinely felt it would endanger him if Tarquine stayed. Tiredly, he spoke to his wife. “We can talk later.”

She gave him one of those enigmatic looks he dreaded. Then she bowed and took her leave.

The moment they were alone, Corbal said, “We may be able to convince Kaliga and Taratus they were caught in another assassination attempt against you.”

Jai gave a bitter laugh. “How believable is that? They helped Raziquon’s kin with the first and masterminded the second.”

“How do you know?”

“Don’t ask.” A shudder wracked his body. That moment when his barriers had shattered, when he had been wide open to Kaliga and Taratus—he had learned everything from them.

Corbal was worried Taratus and Kaliga would have their poor Highton feelings hurt by the gassing. If they had picked up the truth about Jai when his mind opened, he had a lot worse to worry about than their feelings.

Corbal faced him across the desk. “These peace talks aren’t your only alternative.”

Jai hit the desk with his palm. “What else is there? Warring with each other until we destroy civilization?”

“You can ensure its survival by bringing all of settled space under your sole command.”

Jai scowled. “That isn’t survival. It’s tyranny. And in case you’ve forgotten, Eube has tried for centuries to conquer Skolia and never succeeded.”

Corbal met his gaze. “That was before we had a Kyle web.”

“We still don’t have one.”

“But we have a Lock.”

“It doesn’t work.”

“It needs its Key.”

“We don’t have one.”

Corbal’s voice went deceptively quiet. “Just think—if we had a Key, he could use the Lock to join the Triad. He could build a Kyle web. And he could ensure that no one who mattered to him came to harm when Eube absorbed all settled space into its empire.”

Jai braced his palms on the desk, leaning forward. “And if some Highton had the mistaken belief that he could control such a Key, and through him, the empire, then that ill-advised Highton would have to think again.”

“It needn’t be a matter of control,” Corbal said reasonably. “People with similar goals can work together.”

“Only if they trust each other enough.”

Corbal spread his hands out from his body. “You found answers about ESComm. Find them about me.”

Jai crossed his arms, feeling the black-diamond cloth of his tunic against his skin. He didn’t want to do what Corbal suggested. Now that he had brought his mental defenses back up, he didn’t ever want to lower them again. But he had to know his cousin’s true mind. Unwilling but driven by fear, Jai lowered his defenses for the second time that night. With only himself and Corbal, it didn’t shatter him this time, but he still felt shaken, raw, and vulnerable.

Corbal had natural mental barriers, as did most humans, and he had made an effort to fortify them. Now he was trying to lower his defenses. Just as he didn’t fully know how to build them, so he had trouble bringing them down. But Jai caught enough. Corbal wanted power, yes, but he would rather wield it from behind the throne; he liked his life now too much to change how he lived. Corbal saw him as naive, unpredictable, intelligent, an d…worthy of loyalty.

Jai blinked. Loyalty. He hadn’t expected that.

Unable to take the exposure for long, Jai raised his defenses again. They had become so ingrained that lowering them had taken more effort than bringing them back up. It was a relief to retreat into his mental fortress.

Corbal stood watching him, waiting. Jai wondered what it was like for his cousin never to feel the emotions of others, to be locked forever in his own mind. Less painful, certainly. Jai wanted to sit down and rest his throbbing head, but he could show no weakness, especially not with so much balanced on the edge of his indecision. And yes, it was indecision, for he knew all too well now what Corbal wanted. If Jai built a Kyle web, he could claim Jacques Ardoise was the Key, that the initial tests to determine the musician’s psi ability had underestimated it. What Highton would recognize the lie? None were psions. As long as Jai never released Ardoise, no one would know that the emperor rather than his provider was the true Key.

Corbal believed they might salvage the mess with ESComm if Jai canceled the peace talks and released Raziquon. And with the instant communications a Kyle web provided, ESComm might finally conquer Skolia and the Allied Worlds.

Like a man responding to a siren call, Jai looked at what he had so long avoided. No human being, no matter how noble, could remain unmoved by the lure of such power.

He could rule humanity.

All of it.

The children of Earth had never seen such an empire. No reign would match his, not among the Allieds, not among the Skolians. He had within his grasp an empire unparalleled in the history of the human race. But in return, he had to allow an abomination, the ascension of the Highton Aristos to dominance over the sum total of humanity.

Jai sat slowly behind the desk, staring across the office but seeing nothing.
I could protect my Ruby kin.
As emperor, he could ensure none of the Ruby Dynasty suffered. No Highton would ever touch them. He would make certain. He had a lot to learn, but he had Corbal and Tarquine. And he learned fast. Very fast.

But…

He would condemn humanity to slavery, controlled by a few thousand Aristos. Nor could he guarantee that his successors would share his beliefs.

But…

Many taskmakers had a higher standard of living than their Skolian counterparts. Their material lives were better than those of the Skolian or Allied peoples.

An image of Robert came to him, his aide’s face pale as he asked for permission to refit his collar; of Robert having no choice but to live at the palace, never seeing his father; of Robert’s father condemned to a life of loss and pain, never able to see his son until Jai paid an exorbitant price to bring him here. Then Jai thought of Jacques Ardoise, who would have never seen his family again because the Hightons felt they had a right to own and torture anyone they pleased.

No.

Jai closed his eyes. Corbal offered a temptation both horrifying and seductive. All Jai had to do was give up his dream of peace. What use was it to hope? Kaliga and Taratus would never accept peace with the Skolians. The harder Jai pushed, the harder they would try to kill him. They would relent only if he became a conqueror.