Primary Inversion (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Paperback (27 page)

Helda chuckled. “Some people walk by me on purpose. I just
scared away a golden boy.” She tilted her head upward. “Said he would wait up
there.”

Had Jarith come to see me? But where did he go? Although the
lobby was open during the day, there was no way he could go farther into the
building without a pass. And I hadn’t given him one.

“Come on upstairs.” I smiled. “Maybe we can find this mysterious
fellow.”

As we walked to the airlift, I spoke carefully. “How is Rex?”

“Good. He has some contraption for his legs. It makes it
possible for him to walk as soon as he learns how to use it.”

“Is he happy?” What I really wanted to know was did he have
a woman in his life. But I couldn’t ask that.

“Ya, he’s fine.” Helda chuckled. “The usual. All of his
nurses are in love with him. There is one he asks for often.”

I told myself that didn’t hurt. After all, I had Jarith now.
Then I thought,
Oh, cut it out.
You know it hurts. So let it hurt. You
aren’t going to die from it. And you’re right, you do have Jarith.

When the lift opened on my floor, I saw Jarith down the hall
sitting by my door with his satchel in his lap, reading a holobook. We went
over to him, our feet padding on the carpet.

When he looked at us, I smiled. “How did you get the lift to
work?”

He stood up, watching Helda. “I don’t know. Pako just let me
up.”

That was interesting. I had never told the computer to let
Jarith into the lift. Not that I had any objection. Pako could let him into my
apartment if it wanted.

Helda grinned at him. “Heya, hoiya. We meet again.”

Jarith reddened. “My greetings.”

“This is Helda,” I said. “She flies in my squad.”

“Used to.” Helda gave me an annoyed look as I opened the
door. “We fly nowhere for months now.”

I glanced at her. “Kurj hasn’t sent you and Taas out with another
squad?”

Jarith dropped his satchel, his holobooks and holosheets
spilling all over the floor. He flushed, dropping down on his knees to scoop up
his things.

Helda and I knelt down, helping him gather up the mess. But
when I gave him a questioning look he wouldn’t respond. What had I done to
upset him? Sometimes it was hard to understand his moods.

Helda thumped the last book into his arms. “He sent Taas out
with Eighth squad.” She stood up with Jarith and me. “Put me in a think tank.
Military strategy. But I miss flying.”

I closed the door. “I also.”

Jarith walked across the room, leaving the two of us alone.
Helda watched him unload his books on the table. Then she spoke quietly. “Imperator
Skolia asked me to give you a message.”

A message? Why would Kurj send it by courier? Using the Net
would have been far more efficient. If he had wanted the message secured, he
could have patterned it to my brain with a lock only I could release.

I glanced at Jarith. “Perhaps we should wait.”

“It’s only twelve words.”

“What?”

He said: “Come back to Headquarters immediately. Quietly.
Tell no one I ordered it.”

“That’s it?”

She nodded. “That’s it.”

So. Kurj reached out his long arm and pulled me back. I
could see him, metal in a uniform, calculating in his shielded mind, setting us
all on trajectories that ended in places only he knew.

But maybe it was time to face him. Maybe it was time to calculate
my own trajectories. “Why did he send you to tell me?”

“I don’t know.” Helda’s gaze flicked over my shoulder and
her voice changed. “Want to go sightseeing?”

I turned to see Jarith headed our way. When he reached us, I
smiled. “Want to come sightseeing with Helda and me?”

He regarded Helda warily. “All right.”

So we went to the boardwalk. We strolled on the piers,
bought puff-cube balloons, let them go, laughed a lot, and ran on the beach.

But the entire time I had an odd feeling, the inexplicable
sense that I was seeing an end, though to what I didn’t know.

Jarith sat on my bed. “I like your friend.”

I gave my sweater to the closet robot arm, which hung it up
in the closet. “I thought you were going to run like a wind-antelope the first
time you saw her.”

“I was.” He smiled. “But she’s all right.”

“Is that why you dropped your books this afternoon?”

“Oh. That.” He averted his eyes. “No. I was just clumsy.”

I came over and sat cross-legged next to him. “That’s not
the reason.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Something was wrong. I felt it.”

“I—it was nothing.” He studied the pattern on the comforter
that covered my bed.

“Jarith.” I put my hand under his chin and turned his face
so that he had to look at me. “What’s wrong?”

“What you said startled me. That’s all.”

I dropped my arm. “What I said? What do you mean?”

“That name.”

“What name?”

“Kurj.”

I stiffened. That wasn’t a name I wanted to discuss, not
with Jarith, not with anyone. Tager had taken all of what I had to spare on
that subject. “What about it?”

“In the context of your conversation it could have only
meant one person.”

“I’m a soldier. He’s my commanding officer.”

He gave me an incredulous look. “Even Primaries don’t call
the Imperator of Skolia by his
personal name.
”

That stopped me. Of course I never called Kurj by that name
when he was acting as my CO. But in a casual conversation with Helda it hadn’t
occurred to me to use his title any more than I would have called one of my
other brothers Prince Whatever.

“You live in a penthouse rich even for an Imperial Primary,”
Jarith said. “You have a rank as prestigious as an Admiral even though you’re
barely thirty. And you call the Imperator by his personal name.”

I got off the bed and walked to the window. Outside, Jacob’s
Shire rolled out like a fairyland country, golden in the setting sun.

“Soz?” Jarith asked.

“I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

Jarith took a breath. “Imperator Skolia—are you and he—have
I presumed—?”

Flaming rockets. He thought Kurj was my
boyfriend.
I
almost laughed. But instead I went back to the bed and sat next to him. “No.
You haven’t presumed on anything. I’ve just known Lord Skolia for many years,
that’s all.”

“You’re older than you look, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be forty-eight in a few days.”

His mouth fell open. “You’re
kidding.”

“No.” I squinted at him. “Does that matter to you?”

Jarith shifted his weight on the bed. “I don’t know. You’re
older than my mother.”

Gods. The next thing I knew, the ISC ethics squad was going
to come looking for me.
You’re under arrest, ma’am. For cradle theft.

But what he said hurt in another way. I had yet to have a
child, and a woman younger than me had a son old enough to father his own
children. Although my extended lifespan let me delay childbearing longer than
most women, I couldn’t wait forever. But I hadn’t wanted to start a family
while I was flying with the squad, not after what happened the first time, not
knowing my children could lose their mother every time I went out.

Jarith watched my face. “Soz?”

I exhaled. “I’m not sure how to say this.”

He tensed. “Just say it.”

“Helda brought me a message from my family. I have to leave
for Diesha tonight.”

“You’re going offworld?
Tonight?”

“As soon as I pack.”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “Was it what I said? I can
learn to handle the age difference. Really.”

“It’s nothing you said.”

He started to add more, then stopped. I felt what he didn’t
say. He wanted to go with me. And part of me wanted him to come. But it would
mean asking him to start all over on a strange world where he knew no one. I
couldn’t press him to make that change unless I was willing to offer him more
than what we had now. And I wasn’t. Too much was unsettled in my life.

“You mean a lot to me,” I said.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Say things that sound like a preface to ‘I think you should
start seeing other people.’”

“I think you should.”

Jarith swore under his breath. “Soz, stop it.”

“Do you really understand what I do for a living? Every time
I go out, I could die. Do you want to live with that?”

“No. But I’m willing to try.”

I spoke softly. “I don’t know if I am.”

He exhaled. Then he drew me into his arms. “Will you come
back to Forshires?”

I laid my head on his shoulder. “I hope so.”

We held each other for a long time. Finally Jarith lay down
on the bed, pulling me with him. We made love in the clouds, floating together
one last time.

Helda and I took a commercial flight to Diesha, traveling
like civilians, doing nothing to attract attention. Although Kurj had made no
stipulations about how I was to arrive, it was obvious he wanted a low-key
approach. Why? What was he up to?

Our ship landed on a pad far from any terminal at the
starport. When we were down, I got out of my hammock and went to the cubicle
that some generous person had dubbed the ship’s lounge. It had three chairs and
a table bolted to what served as the deck when the ship was in a gravity field.
I looked out a porthole and saw a flybus approaching from the distant terminal,
speeding on its cushion of air like a bullet of silver and black metal.

“Prepare to disembark,” the steward said over the com, his
sensual tone a pleasant contrast to the clipped computer voices on the military
transports I usually took to Diesha.

As we queued up at the airlock, the steward appeared, a
young man in a crisp blue uniform. When he opened the airlock, fresh air
flooded the ship, a blissful relief after our days of canned air during the
flight.

The flybus pulled alongside the ship. As it rose up, I saw
an officer standing inside its open door, a woman in the dusky red uniform of
ISC security police. She carried a laser carbine.

An accordion bridge unfolded from the flybus and came to
rest in the airlock. After the steward clamped it into place, he smiled at us. “Welcome
to the Diesha Air and Starport, Civilian Terminal. We hope you enjoy your stay
here.”

The security officer checked each of us as we entered the
bus, running her scanner over our bodies and our luggage. She never even
glanced at our faces. When we had all boarded, the bus retracted its bridge,
closed its door, sank down toward the ground, and headed for the port
buildings. We all sat in the nervoplex seats staring out the windows or at the
floor, anywhere but at each other.

A second flybus met us halfway to the terminal. While the
two vehicles sat on the tarmac like giant bullets conferring with each other,
we disembarked from the first and boarded the second, going through the whole
frigging security check again.

Helda grumbled as we waited to be scanned by the security officer.
“Never again,” she said under her breath.

The second bus took us to within ten meters of the terminal.
We walked the rest of the way between poles that blinked and beeped as we
passed them. The path ended at a security arch which framed the doorway to the
terminal building.

The counter beyond the arch was staffed by a burly man and a
heavyset woman, both in ISC uniforms. The woman stood at a computer console
behind the counter and the man stood in front of it, his concentration intent
on our group. As I walked through the arch, he motioned for me to stop. “Baggage
check.”

I slung my duffel up on the counter. The woman touched a
panel on her console and holos appeared above it, rotating slowly to show the
interior of my bag, every last detail, including my underwear and other private
belongings.

“Open it,” the man said.

Did every civilian who came into Diesha have to go through
this? I undid the flaps and the bag fell open. As the man ruffled through my
things, data scrolled across the woman’s console screen. “Valdoria, Sauscony,”
she read. “Jacob’s Shire, Eos, Foreshires Hold.” She glanced at me. “Far from
home, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

Someone nudged my shoulder, pressing me into the counter. I
glanced back to see another passenger pushing past me to enter the terminal.
Although she was dressed as a civilian, the patches on her shoulders indicated
her commission in the military. I recognized her; she had been on the ship, and
had been at the end of the line when we queued up to enter the terminal.
Outside, other civilian passengers stood in line, squinting in the harsh
sunlight as they waited.

I turned back in time to see the security officer take my
wallet out of the duffel. He flipped it open and the minialbum activated,
cycling through its holos. An image of Jarith came up, followed by several of
the two of us together, then one with Helda and Jarith, and finally one of my
mother. The man stopped the display, leaving a miniature image of my mother
floating above the holoscreen sewn into my wallet. He was holding the wallet
flat in his hand, so it looked like he had my mother standing on his palm.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“My mother.”

“You’re kidding.” He handed the wallet to the woman behind
the counter, his arm creating ripples of light when it pierced the security
field around her console. “Can you get an ID?”

She set my wallet on a horizontal screen. The holo of my
mother floated there, smiling and golden. Then it blurred as a laser played
over it.

“Correlation complete,” the computer said. “Name: Cya
Liessa. Occupation: dancer, Parthonia Imperial Ballet. No address given.”

“Ballerina, huh?” The man smiled. “She’s pretty.”

Pretty? That was all he had to say after they invaded my
mother’s privacy as if it were just some page in a holozine they were reading?

The woman dropped my wallet into my duffel and closed up the
bag. “All right. Move along.”

I clenched my fist around the bag and slung it back over my
shoulder. Then I went on into the arrivals gate. People crowded the chrome and
glass area, standing and talking, sitting in chairs, watching the holovid in
the corner, boarding speedwalks.

Helda came up next to me. “Pah.”

“They give you a hard time too?”

She scowled. “They are lucky we are under orders to be as
quiet as mumblemice.”

I smiled at the image of Helda as a mumblemouse. “How long
until you have to make your connecting flight?”

She tilted her head, the familiar blank look flashing across
her face as she accessed her spinal node. “About twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes. Then she was off again, on leave. “I wish
you were staying.”

Helda laughed. “Heya, Soz, you getting sentimental?” She motioned
at a speedwalk. “Come to my gate with me.”

I didn’t want to go with her. I had no idea why, other than
an odd sense that if she left now I would never see her again. As we boarded the
speedwalk, I spoke quietly. “You and Rex, and Taas too at the end there—I was used
to being around you day and night, all the time. Half the time we were one
mind. Now that’s gone.” I struggled to express feelings that swirled like mist
at the edges of my vision. “Something’s ending, Helda. But I don’t know what.”

“Ending?” The wall behind her slid by us as the speedwalk
sped toward her departure gate. “You sound strange today.”

I made myself smile. “I guess so.”

We didn’t talk much more on the way, just light
conversation. She told me what she knew of Taas, who was flying with another
squad now and making a reputation for himself as a skilled pilot.

“When you see him again, wish him well for me,” I said.

“If you want.” She shrugged. “It is more likely you see him
first, here at Headquarters.”

“I know. But do it for me anyway. Just in case.”

“In case what?”

I didn’t know the answer to that. So instead I forced a
laugh. “Well, you never know what diversions I’ll run into.”

When we reached the gate, the passengers on Helda’s flight
were already queued up for the flybus that would take them to the ship. After
Helda went through the security arch, she waved at me. I stood inside the gate,
in front of the bullet-proof, laser-proof, shatter-proof, fist-thick wall of
tinted glass and waved back. Then she got on the bus. Within moments it was just
another bullet humming across the tarmac like all the other chromed bullets
speeding across the airfields out there.

I got back on the speedwalk. This time I strode along it,
adding my velocity to its own so that I was moving at over ten kilometers per
hour. I had no idea I why I was in a hurry, just that I wanted to get away from
the starport, from this place of leavetakings and endings.

It only took me a few minutes to reach the MagRail stop outside
the terminal. The platform perched on a casecrete tower as tall as the
starport. Giant rails arched out of the sky down to the platform, ran level
with it for several meters, and then swept away again, up and over the port in
a great curving sweep of silver like a sculpture of rails.

I could see the MagTrain in the distance, a line of bullet
cars chromed in blue. The train hummed into the platform where I stood with a
handful of other travelers, and its doors sucked open like camera shutters,
letting us board. Within moments we were rushing back up the Rail, speeding out
and over the port.

Most of the civilians disembarked in the suburbs. At the perimeter
of ISC Headquarters, we stopped at a platform secured by armored guards with
laser carbines. The armor encased their entire bodies, making them eight feet tall,
like giants constructed out of mirrored black and silver metal, faceless, with
opaque screens where their eyes should have been.

By this time I was the only “civilian” on the train. As the
guards entered the car, we all stood up. One giant strode over to me, boots
ringing on the metal floor. He or she—I didn’t know which—spoke through a voice
filter that made it sound like a machine. “Identification.”

When I turned my hand palm up and tensed my wrist, my ID
chip slid out of its sleeve pocket into my palm. The socket on my wrist showed
clearly, marking me as either a telop or a Jagernaut. It was impossible to read
the officer’s reaction; the armor hid body language and facial expressions, and
the filter took all emotional nuances out of the voice. It slid my card into a
box attached to its waist. Although I had been through these checks often, the
procedure felt strange today, as if I were being distilled into a small square
card.

Everyone in the car received clearance to enter
Headquarters. That was no surprise. Only someone very naive or very foolish
would have tried to get into the city without proper ID.

The train took us into the heart of Headquarters. I got off
at a platform near the city center. As the train pulled away, a swarm of
automated taxis swooped in, vying for fares. I ignored them, going instead to
an airtube at the edge of the tower. It lowered me down, using air jets to slow
my descent. Getting blasted with air that way unsettled many people, to put it
mildly, and few trusted the tubes not to drop them. But I liked it, probably
for the same reason I liked doing loops and rolls when I piloted a plane,
something about the risk and the challenge of it, or maybe just the boost of
adrenaline.

Right now I needed a boost. The oddness of my brother’s
summons, the impersonal security procedures coming into Diesha, Helda’s
leaving, and then the faceless guards in their armor—it all left me with an
uncomfortable sensation, as if I were turning into a machine myself, my
humanity strained out and condensed into an ID card.

At the dispenser in the bottom of the tower, I bought a mirroredvisor.
It was translucent on my side, letting me see the city through an amber tinge
that muted the harsh Dieshan sunlight. Anyone looking at me would see only a
dark, mirrored strip across my eyes.

Heavy traffic hovered along the casecrete streets, but I
rode the speedwalks instead of flagging a taxi. Pedestrians were everywhere,
military personnel. Their visored eyes were blank masks, unreadable, like Kurj’s
face when his inner lids were lowered.

The tower where I lived had no lobby, just a door that
whisked open in response to my ID chip, admitting me into a glass-enclosed
shaft. The lift took me to the top floor, to a corridor with walls made out of
amber glass. Outside, Headquarters spread out in every direction, a relentless
pattern of squares and rectangles both horizontal and vertical, with no
softening touches of green anywhere, just black and silver and white. A flier
appeared from behind the tower, winging so close that the glass vibrated. Then
it curved away and out above the wide stretches of casecrete.

Only two people had quarters on this floor: myself, and a retired
general who was now one of my brother’s chief advisers on espionage. My door
checked my ID chip, fingerprints, and retinal patterns before it finally
opened. The living room looked the same as always, all chrome and glass, with
white furniture and gleaming tables.

“Welcome home, Primary Valdoria,” a voice said as the door
closed behind me.

“Heya, Mak.” The name was the closest I had come to personalizing
the ISC-MA4K EI that took care of the place. I dumped my duffel on the floor
and collapsed onto the couch. “Do I have any messages?” Although Mak had been
forwarding my netmail during the five months I had been on Foreshires,
everything might not have come through yet.

“Two messages,” Mak said.

“Is either from Imperator Skolia?”

“No.”

Maybe he didn’t know I was here yet. That didn’t seem
likely, though; if he wanted me back as badly as Helda had indicated, he had
probably kept track of my arrival. Given his extreme measures to keep his
summons secret, I doubted he wanted me to announce my presence.

“Mak, send a message to my parents at the palace.” They
weren’t there; neither liked coming to Diesha. But Kurj probably was unless
some crisis required him to stay close to Headquarters. The palace was the only
place secure enough to let him dismiss his bodyguards. High in the mountains
and surrounded on all sides by unsettled land and hidden security installations,
its functions were completely automated. It needed no human staff. It was the
one place where Kurj could find what we all treasured: privacy—complete, utter
privacy.

“Text of message?” Mak prompted.

“‘My greetings, Mother and Father. I’m back on Diesha to
visit Rex. Let’s get together while I’m here. Love, Sauscony.’ End message.
Send.”