Primary Inversion (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Paperback (23 page)

“No.” That actually wasn’t completely true. Hilt did have dark
hair and a muscular frame, like Tarque. He was tall too, like Tarque. And when
he walked into my apartment that night it had reminded me of the arrogance I
had so hated in Tarque, who had believed he had a right to do whatever he
pleased to people he considered inferior. But it was only a surface reminder.
Hilt was abrasive, yes, but even after knowing him only a few hours I could
tell he was basically a decent human being. “They aren’t at all the same.”

“What about the singer in the cafe?” Tager asked. “Did he
have any resemblance to Tarque?”

I snorted. “You’re looking for something that’s not there.
That man was the polar opposite of an Aristo. He had golden brown eyes and a
golden voice. I doubt he would have hurt a shimmerfly.”

“You sound angry.”

“Angry?” I stared at him. “Why should I be angry? I didn’t
want to hurt him. I wanted to make love to him.”

“Tell me about him.”

“I don’t know anything about him.”

Tager waited. I scowled and crossed my arms. After a moment
he tried a different tack. “Then you have no husband?”

Was it that obvious no one wanted me? “What is that supposed
to mean?”

“You strike me as someone who wouldn’t consider a person as
a potential lover if you were already committed to someone else.”

“Oh.” How had he known that? “So what? You expect me to be
married?”

“Why does that anger you?”

“Stop being a heartbender and answer the damn question. You
want me to be honest with you, then you be honest with me.”

He spoke gently. “Yes, I’m surprised you’re not married.”

I always got the same garbage:
How could
you
be
lonely?
“Lose it, Tager.”

“Why does that make you angry?”

“I’m not angry. Quit asking me that.”

“You look furious.”

“Sure,” I said. “Right. Get that sexy Primary into bed. What
a catch. Or else they want what Hilt wanted, to punish me for it.” My fist
clenched. “Maybe I should scar my face and wear rags and see if anyone wants me
then.”

He kept on in his maddening gentle voice. “Who is Hilt?”

I was furious at Tager now, with his stupid questions. “Hilt
is the bastard who shoved me up against the wall and called me an Old Money Ice
Bitch.”

“You’re not.”

I felt like a hovertrain that had just run into a brick
wall. “What?”

“The reason I’m surprised you’re not married is because so
few empaths with your sensitivity can bear to live alone.”

“I have the sensitivity of a cement block.”

He smiled. “An unusual block.”

“I’m not making a joke.”

“Neither am I.”

I couldn’t believe him. “What makes you think you know anything
about me?”

Tager spread his hands. “I go on experience, training, gut-level
reactions. I’m also an empath.”

“Oh.” Of course. In his line of work he had to be an empath.
“I don’t think I want to talk anymore.” Telling him about myself was more
exhausting than walking back from JMI. I just wanted to go home and sleep. “I
don’t know if I’ll come back.”

“I think you should,” Tager said.

That stopped me cold. I hadn’t expected it. I had thought he
would say what Kurj had implied, that I was just overworked, that I should go
out and try to live a normal life. Relax. Rest. I had expected Tager to tell
me, tactfully, that there was no reason for me to waste his time with my
self-indulgent worries about my inability to relate to people.

Instead he wanted me to come back.

But talking to him took too much out of me. “I don’t know if
I have time.”

“I don’t think it would be wise for you to stop.”

I stared at him. “Why?”

He had that look again, like my mother. “I need to see you
more before I can really understand why you’re so angry. But this much I can
tell: if you don’t deal with it, something is going to give.”

I tensed. “You think I’m going to hurt someone?”

“It’s possible.”

I knew it. I had known it all along. I forced myself to say
it. “You think I’m going to lose control and kill someone, don’t you?”

“I don’t believe you’re capable of killing without
provocation.” Then, with no warning, he lifted my hand and pulled off my glove,
revealing the bandages underneath. “How did you do this?”

How had he guessed I was hurt? Was he that empathic? Could
he read my body language that well? I jerked my hand away from him. “I told
you. I broke a glass.”

“How?”

“None of your goddamned business how.” I wanted to shake
him. “What does it
matter
how I did it?”

He spoke with his unbearable compassion. “The person I fear
you’re going to hurt is yourself.”

I was so mad my voice cracked. “You don’t know anything
about me.”

“I can’t force you to come back,” Tager said. “Even if I
could, it would do no good. I’m sure you can make me believe whatever you want
about your mental state. But you wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t want
help.”

I spoke bitterly. “I’m a malfunctioning machine. I need an
overhaul.”

Kindness softened his expression. “You’re no machine.”

I pulled off my other glove and held out my hand, palm up,
so he could see the socket in my wrist. “Machine.”

“Your biomech web doesn’t make you less human. All it does
is extend the gifts you were born with.”

“Gifts?
Gifts?”
I dropped my arm. “Every time someone
I know hurts, I hurt. Every time someone wants to hurt me, I feel it. Often I
don’t even know where it comes from. Do you know what it’s like to live that
way?” The words escaped before I could stop them. “Do you have any idea what it’s
like to fly in a Jag squadron? What it’s like to feel Aristos when you go into
combat? They
like
to kill us. It’s better than sex for them. Or else the
pilot is a slave given his one chance to make his life better. And I have to
kill him.” I couldn’t keep my voice from shaking now. “I feel every Trader I
kill. I’ve died a thousand times and more out there. There’s nothing I can do
to myself that hasn’t already been done.”

“I can only know a part of it,” Tager said. “But I’ve seen
what it does to empaths to endure the life you live. That any of you survive it
at all is a miracle.”

After that I didn’t know what to say. I was tired. Tired. I
couldn’t talk anymore. “I have to go now.”

“Will you come back?”

“I’ll—think about it.”

“I’m here every day. You can reach me any time. Day and
night, any day.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know if I
could bear to come back.

It was midmorning when I left the embassy. I walked home
along the harbor, watching the ships in their docks. Sailors crowded the piers,
strutting in their white pants and striped shirts, their blue caps pulled
jauntily down to shade their eyes. Couples and families and singles strolled
the beach, or played in the water, or lay in the golden sand under the golden
sky with its shining span of rings. Children ran everywhere in bright clothes,
waving puff-cube balloons, laughing and yelling and teasing the street musicians.
The smells of food from concession stands mixed with the salty tang of the air.
The place was
alive,
alive and thriving, human, booming and vibrant.

For a long time I stood by a wooden rail on the boardwalk
watching the commotion. Gradually I became aware of an odd sensation, a feeling
that crept up on me.

Relief.

For some bizarre reason, knowing that Tager thought I was in
trouble gave me an incredible sense of
relief.
Why? Why should I be glad
to know I was a mess?

Because if I was sick, I could be cured.

That was the crux of it. A problem could be fixed. If no problem
had existed, that would have meant that the way I had been feeling was normal,
not something I could change. And I didn’t think I could have lived with that.

Maybe, just maybe, I could go back to see Tager.

Eventually I started to walk again. I looked forward to
getting out of my uniform and relaxing in the quiet of my apartment. The harbor
was only a kilometer from the building where I lived so it didn’t take long to
get home.

As I neared the building, I saw a group of people standing
on the steps outside. It wasn’t until I had almost reached them that their
identities filtered past my preoccupation and I understood why they were
staring at me. It was Jarith and his friends, including Rebeka and Hilt. I had
forgotten Jarith invited me to the beach.

I stopped in front of them, standing awkwardly. “I’m sorry I’m
late. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

Jarith was staring at the bands on my jacket. “No, not long.”

I pushed my hand through my hair. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be
much company today. Perhaps you should all go without me.”

They nodded. No one seemed to have any idea what to say.
Jarith’s embarrassment practically shouted at me; he felt like an utter fool, an
idiot who had been lunatic enough to ask an Imperial Primary on a date.

This is no good, I thought. I smiled at him. “Would you like
to come up?”

Jarith blinked. “You mean to your apartment?”

“Yes.”

He reddened. “Oh.” Then he smiled. “Okay.”

The others looked at him, then at me. Rebeka finally spoke. “Well.
We’ll—um—see you later, Jar.”

When Jarith nodded, the others bowed in my direction and
left. All of them except Hilt, who was the one I most wanted to disappear.

“I’d like to talk to you,” Hilt said. He glanced at Jarith,
then back at me. “In private.”

Given what I had almost done to him, at the least I owed him
a talk. “All right.”

I walked with him to the other side of the steps and stood
in the shade of a tree. “What is it?” I asked.

“Are you going to tab us?” Hilt asked.

Tab them? “What do you mean?”

“For the things we said. On the hike.”

Then I understood. He wanted to know if I intended to report
them. It was a legitimate question. I knew officers who would add their
comments to their files.

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to do anything.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “You have a right to voice your opinions.”

He spoke bitterly. “Do we?”

I wanted to say, “Of course you do.” But it wouldn’t come
out. So instead I said, “You talked about things I needed to hear. None of it
will go farther than me.”

“Swear.”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

“You Jagernauts claim to live by a code of honor. So swear
to me on that code that you’re telling the truth.”

Who was he, to question my word? “The hell with you.”

He snorted. “I figured as much.”

Stop it, I told myself. “All right. I swear it on my honor
as a Jagernaut.”

He blinked. But his stiff posture eased. After a moment, he
glanced at my hand. “How is it?”

“Fine.”

“You could have killed me, couldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I stared at him. “You must really think I’m a monster.”

He shook his head. “Believe it or not, I respect people who
are willing to fight for what they believe. But to me, you represent the worst
of the oppressor. My parents spent ten years in prison when Ruth-2 was first
absorbed into the Imperialate. Their only crime was that they protested having
Imperial Space Command descend on us when we had done nothing but live
productive, peaceful lives.”

No wonder he didn’t like me. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry won’t give back those years to them.” He swallowed. “Or
to me.”

Something in his voice made my heart lurch. “How old were
you when they took your parents?”

He spoke tightly. “Four.”

I stared at him. I knew ISC dealt harshly with its critics,
but what Hilt described was beyond reason. “You’re right, I can’t give you back
those years. But I won’t forget what you’ve told me.”

“So what? What will that change?”

“Maybe more than you know.”

He shrugged. “Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced.

After Hilt left, Jarith and I went inside to the lobby. We
crossed to a set of doors made from double panes of opaque glass. I took out my
pass, a square card with my fingerprints etched on it, and slid it into a slot
on the doors. A whir sounded as a scanner read the patterns produced when a
laser swept over the card. Then the doors glided open.

We stepped into a glass-enclosed room. “Top floor,” I said.
The doors closed and the room lifted silently. The liquid crystal between the
double panes rearranged in response to the electric fields produced by the
lift, changing the polarization of the glass so we could see through it. Below
us the lobby spread out in an elegant view of plush carpets and gilded
furniture. Then the lift rose through the roof and up the outside of the
building, giving us a spectacular view of the treetops and the countryside.

Jarith and I stood in silence. His nervousness hung like
mist in the air. After a moment I said, “How did your test go?”

“I got a pass plus.” His face relaxed into a smile. “With
high marks on the music theory section.”

“Well. Good.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. It had been
over a quarter of a century since I had worried about tests.

The lift opened onto a corridor. There was only one door on
the hall, an old-fashioned wooden portal with a copper knob. When we reached
it, I slid my card into a slit under the keyhole and waited while the scanner
checked it. Then a click sounded and the door swung inward.

As we walked inside, Jarith’s mouth fell open. “This is
beautiful.”

I smiled. The room no longer seemed dark. Amber sunlight and
ringlight poured in through the windows, making the giltwood shine. “I like it.”
I closed the door and went to the bar. “Would you like a drink?”

He came to the other side of the counter. “Do you have rootberry
juice?”