The Ruby Dice (43 page)

Kelric tapped a panel. "Major Wills?"

A man answered. "Here, sir."

"Prepare the omega protocol." Kelric had designed omega himself, in case he ever wanted to hide his communications from ISC and the government. "Use it to send the following to Emperor Qox's people."

"Recording, sir." Wills sounded stunned. He couldn't miss the implication, that Skolia's Imperator wanted to conceal his contact with Eube's emperor.

"And Wills," Kelric said. "You are bound by the protocol confidentiality." It was the weak link in the process, that Wills knew he had sent the message.

"Understood, Lord Skolia."

"Message begin," Kelric said. "The Imperator desires a mutual audience of himself and Emperor Qox, real-time, virtual."

"Sending." Wills spoke with efficiency, but Kelric didn't miss the shock in his voice.

And you don't know the half of it,
Kelric thought.

The Luminex console curved around Kelric. Normally a crew tended his VR sessions: today he came alone. He fastened himself into the chair. The mesh folded around his body and plugged into sockets in his wrists, ankles, and spine, linking to his internal biomech. He had told no one what he was doing, and he used security he had designed himself. If this worked as expected, no one else would ever know about this session. He didn't fool himself that it would be impossible to trace, but if someone did unravel what he had done, he hoped it would be too late.

He touched a panel in the arm of his chair. "Bolt?"

"Here," his node said. It had accessed the console through Kelric's biomech link to the chair.

"Do you have a Kyle node prepared for Emperor Qox?"

"Everything is ready," Bolt said.

A chill went through Kelric. No communication between Eube and Skolia at this high of a level had taken place for years, since the breakdown of the negotiations. In the beginning, their staffs had continued to speak, trying to restart matters, but when one attempt after another failed, those communications had fizzled as well.

"Let's go." Kelric lowered the visor over his head, and the world turned black.

"Wait," Bolt said, a disembodied voice in the dark.

"Is something wrong?" Kelric asked.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"He requested the communication."

"You know what I mean."

Kelric closed his eyes, not because it mattered in the dark, but out of reflex, as if that would let him evade the concern in the voice of his supposedly emotionless node. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Activating VR," Bolt said.

The surroundings lightened into a mist and took form: a glossy white room with no furniture or exits. As real as it seemed, he had to remind himself he was in a chair on the Orbiter. He had changed nothing in his appearance except his clothes; instead of the casual slacks and shirt he actually wore, here he had a dark gold uniform with the insignia of an exploding star on his shoulder.

Kelric walked toward one seamless wall, and a door appeared. He exited into a hall of blue marble columns and airy spaces. Normally the computer would create an honor guard and whatever other retinue his protocol people felt necessary for a meeting with the emperor. Kelric had activated none of those simulations. The less resources he used, the less likely he was to draw attention to his proscribed use of the Kyle web.

I.

Jaibriol stood by the Luminex console that curved around his chair. Robert waited a few paces back, checking a holofile. Hidaka was monitoring the area with his cybernetic arm, and Jaibriol's other guards stood posted around the chamber. Several Hightons waited with him: the Protocol Minister, the Diamond Minister, and Tarquine. Corbal hadn't approached him since the vote, and Jaibriol didn't blame him, given what had happened.

His head ached continually. No nanomeds could cure it. He wondered dully if he would have to endure this pain for the rest of his life.

A tech approached and knelt to him, her gaze downcast.

"Please rise," Jaibriol said.

She stood, favoring her knee. "We're ready, Your Highness."

He nodded formally and took his seat in the console. As she fastened him into the chair, its mesh folded around him, clicking prongs into his wrist, ankle, and spine sockets.

"Are you comfortable?" the tech asked.

"Yes, good," Jaibriol said. The taskmaker minds of the techs working around him offered a mental wall that eased the pressure of the Aristo minds in the room.

She tapped the console. "This will link to the Kyle web."

"You're sure they have a node we can use?" he asked. The Skolians had promised to create one, but unlike with the peace talks, this time no crew had contacted his people. They had dealt only with an EI that called itself Bolt. Jaibriol had no idea what it meant, and he didn't like it. But he wasn't meeting Kelric in person, only as a simulation. What happened at the other end couldn't physically affect him.

"The node is set," the tech said. "Ready, Your Highness?"

Jaibriol's pulse jumped. "Yes. Go ahead."

She lowered his visor, enclosing him in darkness. A voice said, "Initiate," and another said, "Activating VR."

The world brightened, and Jaibriol found himself standing in a white room. A
square
room. The right angles disoriented him. He expected a door to appear and an avatar to enter, to serve as his host. When nothing happened, he went to the wall, uncertain what to do.

A message in English lit up the surface: Privacy requested.

Jaibriol tensed. Kelric wanted to talk to him alone, with no one else in the connection? To call it a strange request was akin to saying it was odd that the vote on opening trade relations with the Skolians had passed.

Jaibriol had asked to meet the Ruby Pharaoh. The Imperator had answered. Technically, it was an insult; in theory, Kelric didn't rule Skolia. In practice, no one doubted his power, especially since the recent Assembly vote. But communications between potentates weren't done in private, not without inviting suspicion of collaboration with the enemy. In this situation, though, that verged on ludicrous. Jaibriol suspected that if he refused the private conference, he would never learn what Kelric had come to say. He also knew that if he cut his advisors out of the link, they would have collective heart failure.

He laid his palm against the wall. "I accept."

The surface shimmered and vanished, revealing a fog beyond.

"Emperor Qox!" The alarmed voice of his Protocol Minister cut the air. "You just activated a security field!"

Hidaka's deep voice rumbled. "Sire, please go no further."

"I've accepted the field," Jaibriol said.

"Jai, don't." That was Tarquine. "You don't know what it means."

"It's just a simulation," Jaibriol said.

Hidaka spoke. "Your Highness, simulations can be used to cause injury, even at a distance. You could risk brain damage."

Jaibriol hesitated. Then he said, "I'll be fine."

"Jai, no!" Tarquine's voice rang out.

I have to find out what your former lover wants.
Then he walked into the mist.

Kelric didn't have to wait; Jaibriol soon materialized out of the fog. The emperor looked as if he were cloaked in the night. He wore black-diamond trousers and shirt, and a black belt studded with carnelians. Red gems glinted in his cuff links. His black hair splintered light, and his red eyes had a jeweled quality. Kelric was no judge of appearance, but even he could tell Qox was uncommonly good-looking even among Hightons, who raised the pursuit of narcissistic "self- improvement" to an art. The emperor exuded vitality, a man at his peak, broad-shouldered and tall, long-legged and narrow-hipped, the embodiment of every standard of perfection in Eube and across the stars.

Kelric hoped Qox had enhanced his avatar in the simulation, because if the emperor really looked like this, it had to violate some law of the cosmos. No one deserved so many advantages: the greatest wealth of any human alive, the highest title in what many considered the most powerful empire in human history, the worship of trillions who considered him a deity, and an empress whose sultry, devastating beauty was outdone only by her deadly efficiency as a political weapon. Kelric was acutely conscious of his advanced years, the grey in his hair, and the limitations on his power, his life, and his family. He had been nothing more than a high-priced slave to the woman this man called wife.

They stood taking each other's measure, neither willing to speak first, for it was an implicit admission that the other occupied the dominant position. They had held their titles for roughly the same time, but Jaibriol was hardly more than a third Kelric's age. He had also initiated contact, which meant he should go first. But Kelric's status wasn't formally equivalent to Jaibriol's title as emperor.

Then Jaibriol spoke in Highton. "Imperator Skolia."

Kelric responded in the Aristo language. "Emperor Qox."

"It intrigues us that you requested a secured conference," Jaibriol said.

Kelric's first reaction was that Qox had learned Highton discourse too well. Instead of simply asking why, he approached the question obliquely. Fast on the heels of that reaction came the shock; the emperor had spoken to him—a former slave—as he would to a Highton. As an equal.

Kelric could read nothing from Jaibriol except what Qox wanted him to see, the perfect, aloof, alabaster Aristo. If Jaibriol had ever been a naïve high school boy on Earth, those days were gone.

"Emperor Qox." Kelric spoke formally. "You honor me with your language. I haven't the proficiency in Highton to return the honor. If you will forgive my direct language."

Jaibriol inclined his head. "There is nothing to forgive."

"I come to you with a request."

Jaibriol watched him with his carnelian gaze. No, not carnelian. His eyes looked like rubies.

"Go on," the emperor said.

"Meet me on Earth. In person. Just the two of us."

Jaibriol's face showed no hint of his reaction to that outlandish suggestion. He spoke coolly. "Why would I do such a thing?"

"Because I can help you. I may be one of the only people who can. But only in person." If he and Dehya were right, if Qox were a psion, the emperor would know what he meant.

"I have many people who can help me," Jaibriol. "Billions, in fact. Why would I need the aid of a provider?"

Kelric gritted his teeth and was glad the simulation edited it out. "You once asked me to meet you at the peace table. We met. It failed. Are you willing to try again? We will get nowhere surrounded by aides, officers, and advisors who limit our discourse. Meet with me. Just me. If you truly meant what you said that day in the Lock."

Even in the simulation, Jaibriol's gaze darkened. "I spoke the truth."

"Then come to Earth."

For a long moment Jaibriol just regarded him, with no hint he would consider the suggestion, and Kelric's hope died.

Then Qox said, "Very well. Let us meet."

Jaibriol left Eube's Glory without telling Robert. He rose in the predawn stillness and went with Hidaka and three other Razers to the starport. Hidaka never balked. If he thought it bizarre that the emperor would steal away from his palace without telling even his most trusted aide, he said nothing.

Jaibriol couldn't fathom what Kelric wanted. At least he knew now that he hadn't killed his uncle by joining the Triad. He couldn't tell whether or not the pharaoh survived; if it was possible to detect the Triad across space, he didn't know how. But if she had died, surely he would have picked up some hint from Kelric of such a massive grief. And if anyone could help him deal with becoming a Key, it was Kelric. What would possess the Imperator to do such a thing, he had no idea. More likely Kelric would try to kill him.

By agreeing to see the Imperator in secret, Jaibriol knew he risked much. Despite the torment of his life, he had no desire to die, for he would soon be a father. He would love his child no matter what, even if his son might become everything he abhorred. But he could end up as a slave if he couldn't learn to control his mind better than he had done since he joined the Triad. And no Aristo could teach him that control.

So he went to meet his enemy.

Kelric's ship landed in a private berth at a starport in West Virginia. He came with Najo, Strava, Axer, and no one else. He had no wish to involve his bodyguards in actions that could end in an accusation of treason, and he had tried to leave them on the Orbiter. But ever since he had snuck off to Coba without them, they had been even more alert. They understood the stakes; if he was caught doing this, they all risked execution. They still refused to stay on the Orbiter.

As far as the port authorities knew, he was a rich Skolian who wanted no fanfare during his vacation on Earth. If his security worked as well as he intended, neither they nor anyone else would ever know otherwise.

Jaibriol would come in a similar manner. He hoped. That the emperor had agreed to the meeting supported Kelric's suspicion he was dealing with a psion, but he couldn't be certain until they met. Even then, he didn't know what he would find. If Jaibriol had lived among Aristos for ten years, gods only knew how badly it had damaged the Kyle centers of his mind.

Or maybe he was wrong about everything, and Jaibriol agreed to come because it offered a chance to kill the crazy Imperator.

Jaibriol's only stipulation had been that they meet in the Appalachian Mountains. It made sense; if the Aristos discovered what he had done, he would have an excuse, weak as it might be. He had gone on retreat in a place he had once called home. Kelric had no such cover for visiting Earth. The only time he had spent on this world had been against his will, as a political prisoner.

He went to an isolated mountain region, to a cabin owned by an elite establishment that catered to the wealthy. He spoke with no one and needed no check-in. Among the Allieds, one could buy anything if he paid enough, including anonymity. In some ways, it had been easier to arrange security here than for a military operation. Bolt had simply told his contact that his "patron" didn't wish to be disturbed and then arranged a large transfer of funds. Very large.