The Moon's Shadow (8 page)

Kaliga frowned. “Xirene, what are you talking about?”

His wife scrambled to her feet. She ran to him and threw her hand over her heart. “Why, Xiri?
Why?
Do I make you so unhappy?”

Kaliga wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “What is it now, Xirene?”

“I won’t go away. You can’t do this to me.”

Skolia be damned. “Do what?”

She waved at the gold man. “Isn’t that why you bought me this provider? So I wouldn’t complain as much when you sent me away?”

“I’m not sending you anywhere.” He took her hands, pointedly ignoring the stranger. “Why would I do such a thing?” Why indeed. The prospect had appeal. Whenever he looked at her body and face, though, he tended to forget that he wanted to send her away.

Xirene pouted. “You’re always upset with me, love.”

“I’m not upset with you.”

“You
ignore
me.” With a flourish, she whipped her hands out of his.

I don’t have time for this.
“Xirene, I don’t even remember ordering this provider. I will check with my steward tomorrow. But I’ve no intention of sending you anywhere.”

Her smile transformed her face from petulant to radiant. “I’m so glad to hear that. I don’t want to go away. I really do like you, you know.”

Kaliga sighed. Almost against his will, he drew her into his arms and tilted her face to his. Ignoring the overmuscled provider, he kissed his wife. She needed no steroid-packed provider. He might have less bulk and greater age than the young bucks she could have married, had she been given a choice, but he was her husband. Someone had sent the provider as an insult, implying Kaliga couldn’t keep his young wife satisfied. When he found out who had done it, his retaliation would be swift and subtle.

Kaliga sent his wife off to the living room, where he had left her a gift. Mollified, she gave him a bright smile and swept out of the room.

Kaliga turned to the provider. “Get up.”

As the man stood, Kaliga’s anger hardened. The slave towered over him. He wore gold trousers and shirt, nothing blatant, but fitted to showcase his magnificent physique. Even more galling, age lines showed around his eyes and gray streaked his hair. He obviously hadn’t been sculpted; he came by his looks naturally, an appearance Kaliga could never match even with modification.

Strangely enough, the provider had been subjected to some cheap genetic tattoo that was either wearing off or had been reversed. His brown hair was turning a metallic gold, and his eyes and skin had a gold shimmer. It didn’t surprise Kaliga; many providers resembled precious metals or gems. But the shoddy tattoo job was another insult. He would find out who had done this, and when he did, they would pay.

“Who sent you?” he asked.

The provider looked at him blankly. “Don’t know, sir. I’m sorry.” He had an unusually deep voice.

“You’re sorry.” Kaliga would see to it that whoever had sent him was more than sorry. “Where are you from?”

“I don’t know that either, sir.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t understand those things.”

The man’s responses were off in some way, but Kaliga wasn’t sure how. He wondered if the fellow was faking a vacuous personality to protect himself from questions. But a provider could never have the cunning for such a deception. Far more likely, the man had been deliberately chosen for his limited intellect. Kaliga didn’t miss the implied taunt:
he needs no mind to satisfy your neglected wife.
He made a conscious effort not to grit his teeth. “What did they do, take your brain out?”

“No sir. I don’t know.”

Kaliga had no intention of letting this insult remain in his home. He snapped out an order. “You will work on the rim crew.” Then he left.

As Kaliga walked to his office, he contacted his aide about the rim-walk crew. Like the robots that maintained the station, rim-walkers did upkeep. Robots had higher status, though, because they were more durable and less emotional.

Then Kaliga told his intelligence people to find out who had mailed this provider to his wife. After he had the man killed, he would send the body back to the true owner, cheap tattoo job and all.

J
ai told no one his plans. He summoned his aide, Robert Muzeson, before the sun rose on Glory’s sixteen-hour day. He chose Robert for two reasons: the aide had no direct relation to Corbal Xir, and his mind didn’t create any mental pressure on Jai. Robert, however, insisted on summoning Jai’s Razers. Jai balked at first, but he finally gave in, knowing that if he didn’t choose his battles wisely, he would exhaust himself fighting everything.

So it was that two hours before the sun rose, Jai left Glory and headed to the Sphinx Sector military base where ESComm kept the Lock they had stolen from the Skolians.

The stations of Sphinx Sector Rim Base orbited one another in complex trajectories that covered an immense region of empty space. “Empty,” of course, was relative; interstellar dust, high energy particles, radiation, and asteroids regularly visited the neighborhood.

The Lock orbited near the center of the SSRB. Only a select few of ESComm’s highest officers had clearance to enter the space station. Jai was irked to discover that even he had trouble securing permission on such short notice. He didn’t try threats; instead, he bestowed gifts on those who cooperated with him, everything from expensive baubles to implied promises of imperial favors.

Jai didn’t know what to expect. He had no experience with space stations. He had read about them during the journey to the SSRB, between his bouts of space sickness, so he understood that larger stations supported biospheres with plants and animals, and crews that numbered in the millions. The Lock was apparently much smaller, purely utilitarian, with no biosphere, only machinery and metal.

Colonel Vatrix Muze, the ranking officer on the Lock, took Jai on a tour. As it turned out, Muze had kinship ties to both Jai and Robert. The colonel was the grandson of High Judge Calope Muze, who was a niece of Eube Qox, and Calope’s son had sired Robert’s mother on a provider. Jai realized even he and Robert were related, through Calope. It was no wonder Aristo introductions included a recitation of ancestors, given their labyrinthine kinship bonds.

Jai couldn’t fathom why Hightons so adamantly believed inbreeding strengthened them. True, most of the deleterious recessives had been purged from their DNA, but that didn’t stop them from stagnating. They needed new genes, which they would never get if they insisted on marrying each other all the time. There weren’t even that many Highton bloodlines. So far he knew of only eleven: Qox, Xir, Muze, Iquar, Kaliga, Taratus, Vitrex, Raziquon, Haquail, Kayzar, and Quaelen.

Colonel Muze escorted them through command centers which all looked the same to Jai, just chambers with dormant consoles that would sleep until a Key activated the Lock. But for all that ESComm believed the Lock slumbered, Jai felt its mind even through his barriers and the pressure of Colonel Muze’s Aristo mind.

The Lock was alive. Its sentience tugged at him, just barely awake. It wasn’t life he understood; its intelligence felt alien.

But it recognized its Key.

=They’ve shown us nothing, = Jai wrote to Robert on his palmtop. =Just inoperative consoles.=

Robert had swept the office for monitors, and dismantled several, but Jai doubted they had found everything. Instead of speaking, he passed his palmtop to Robert. That didn’t guarantee privacy either, but it would help. Jai wondered just how paranoid he would become, living among the Aristos.

They were sitting at a table in Jai’s suite on the space station. Robert wrote on the palmtop, =Some command stations must work; otherwise this station wouldn’t operate at all.=

=I want to see the Lock, = Jai wrote.

Robert’s forehead creased. =This is it.=

=We haven’t seen the actual Lock.=

=You mean the singularity in spacetime?=

=Yes.=

Robert blanched. =It will suck us away. Take our souls.=

It wasn’t the first time Jai had heard a Eubian express superstition about the Lock. He didn’t miss the irony, that Aristos felt soulless to psions, yet Eubians feared the Lock that protected Skolians would suck away their souls.

=It can’t affect you unless you walk into it, = Jai wrote. =Even then, only a psion would feel anything.=

Robert stiffened. =I am a taskmaker.=

Damn. Jai knew he had blundered. He had lived most of his life surrounded by psions. It wasn’t until he had gone to live with Seth Rockworth on Earth that he realized most people weren’t empaths or telepaths. Although he had kept his abilities to himself, he considered them a benefit, traits he greatly valued.

Eubians didn’t share that opinion. They saw psions as inferior. Weak. Although most providers lived in a luxury few taskmakers could ever attain, they were at the bottom of Eubian social hierarchies. In contrast, Robert was close to the top. If Jai implied he was a provider, it would be a grave insult.

=You are a lord among taskmakers, = Jai wrote. =You are my respected aide.=

Robert lifted his head. =It is my honor.=

=I will go into the Lock alone. As a Highton, I’m immune to its effects.= Jai had wanted an excuse to dump his guards, and Robert’s superstition gave him an opening. =You and the guards will wait outside.=

Robert took the palmtop from Jai. =I would give my life rather than let you risk entering the Lock alone.=

=I won’t enter. Just view it.= Although he could use the Lock to join the Triad, it would be about as smart as shooting himself with a laser carbine. Command centers all over the station would come to life. Not only would it give him away as a Ruby psion, but he would also be handing the Hightons a Key who was already in the Triad.

Jai had come here only to find Kelric. His uncle was the one who should join the Triad; Kelric had the experience, maturity, and background to rule as Imperator, the military commander of the Skolian Imperialate. Jai’s mother had been Imperator before she died, but no one held the position now.

The other two Triad members were Jai’s grandfather and Jai’s great-aunt, the Ruby Pharaoh. His grandfather was in custody on Earth; their military refused to release him for fear the Ruby Dynasty would build another psiberweb and go back to war with Eube, throwing world-slagging armies at each other until they destroyed civilization. In his darker moments, Jai wondered if the people of Earth weren’t right.

ESComm claimed that Dyhianna Selei, the Ruby Pharaoh, had died when they captured her husband, Prince Eldrin, but Jai had his doubts. If they had killed her, they would have trumpeted it across interstellar space. That they were so quiet made Jai suspect they didn’t know what had happened to her. But if she had escaped, why didn’t she reveal herself? The silence unnerved him. The Skolians were demoralized; her appearance now could re-energize her people much as Corbal claimed Jai had done for the Eubians. So where was she?

Jai exhaled. Perhaps the Ruby Dynasty truly was broken, with only his grandfather in the Triad. Jai had found no hint of his uncle Kelric here. It disheartened him: he had been so certain. The escaped provider was probably someone else, a man who just happened to resemble the uncle Jai had seen only in holos. It was stupid to hope. Kelric Valdoria had been dead for eighteen years.

Regardless, Jai wanted to visit the Lock. He felt compelled, an impulse that had grown as the day passed.

Robert wrote on his palmtop. =You must take an active comm into the Lock. And we will monitor you. If anything goes wrong, we will be ready.=

Jai didn’t want them monitoring him; it would limit his actions. But it was probably the best he could do. If he kept insisting on privacy, it would arouse suspicion. Relaxing his barriers, he concentrated on Robert. His aide genuinely believed only a Highton could enter the Lock without being destroyed. But if Robert thought Jai was in danger, he would go in anyway, even believing he risked his soul.

=You honor me with your fealty, = Jai wrote.

Robert looked pleased. =We should go now, during the night shift.=

Smart man. =Yes. We are less likely to encounter obstacles.=

Robert understood exactly what “obstacles” Jai meant. =I can hide us from ESComm Security.=

Jai grinned. =Good.=

The only entrance to the Lock was through an ancient airlock. Unlike modern airlocks, which were permeable membranes that clung to a person as they stepped through, this one consisted of two solid hatches. Jai waited with Robert next to it while two of his Razers used their palmtops to check the monitors inside his body. His other two bodyguards opened the outer hatch of the airlock. Jai wondered why the Lock chamber needed it. An extra safeguard, perhaps, in case this section of the station ever became cut off from the rest. Psions strong enough to use the Lock had always been rare and well protected.

After he stepped through the hatchway, his guards shut the hatch, closing him into a metal antechamber. He tried the inner hatch, straining to turn its circular handle, but nothing happened. He tried pulling it the other way.

Nothing.

Jai frowned. Could he even enter?

Come.

Jai froze. He felt the thought as a sense of meaning rather than an actual word.

I know you,
Jai answered. It was true. The sentience had been trying to contact him since he boarded the station.

No answer.

Jai tried again.
How do I enter?

I will veil you.

Veil?
I don’t understand.

An impression formed in his mind, neither words nor images, but he understood. The Lock would disguise his actions within its chamber so the guards monitoring him would know nothing of what transpired.

How do I open the hatch?
Jai asked. When no response came, he tried again.
May I enter?

The handle turned and the hatch swung open.

Taking a deep breath, Jai stepped through the hatchway into an octagonal chamber about twenty paces wide. The dark shapes of consoles hulked in the gloom, but across from him, a corridor sparkled, shedding the only light. Its path arrowed straight back until it became a point in the infinite distance. That had to be an illusion; it couldn’t go on forever within a finite space station. The corridor had no walls; transparent columns delineated it, each filled with clockwork mechanisms that looked as if they were made from precious metals and ebony. Lights spiraled within the columns, racing around and around, hypnotic.

Jai didn’t know how long he stood enthralled. Gradually he became aware of the chamber around him. He could just make out the dormant consoles against its walls. A dais rose to his left, and a great chair stood there. Its armrests were rectangular blocks threaded with conduits, glistening with trapped light. Equipment embedded the backrest, a slab of metal several meters high and half a meter thick. Blocky and solid, the shadowed chair stood like an empty throne.

He walked to the dais, inexorably drawn. The pulse of the chamber rumbled through him like a heartbeat.

Jai went to the chair. It adjusted to his weight as he sat down. Looking out, he saw a console on the opposite wall, indistinct in the shadows.

A man was working there.

Jai froze. He knew that man. Few had such great height or massive build. Even in the dim light, his skin and hair glinted.

Kelric?
Jai formed the word in his mind. The man remained absorbed in his work. Even knowing he was there, Jai could barely see him.

Jai didn’t know how long he sat without moving. Then a man’s thought reverberated in his mind, ragged and harsh, raw with power.
Suspend.

The Lock answered:
Done.

And it died. The heartbeat vanished; the luminous corridor went dark; the sentience ceased. Jai suddenly felt bereft.

The man left the console then and walked to the darkened corridor. He paused at its entrance, glancing back—

And looked straight at Jai.