Skyfall

by Catherine Asaro

  “I don’t want to wake him.” Kurj wondered what Callie would do if he kissed her. Probably scream. That was the trouble with being an empath; he couldn’t convince himself a woman wanted him unless she really did. If he pressured her, he would experience her fear. It would make him feel like a monster. Like Darr. At times, he became so angry, it gave his passion an edge, frightening some of his lovers and exciting others. It was an aspect of his personality he chose not to examine too closely, lest he find he was no different than the Traders who considered it their right to inflict brutality on the rest of humanity.

  What held him in check was the memory of what his father had told him so long ago, that loving a woman meant kindness and compassion. Perhaps Tokaba hadn’t actually said the words, just shown them in his every action toward Roca. It had been so long.

  “I think he would like it if you held him,” Callie was saying. “He seems to like sleeping that way.”

  Startled out of his contemplation, Kurj reoriented on the baby. Again he experienced that disconcerting warmth. Odd. Perhaps he had caught a virus. But he didn’t feel sick. Looking at Eldrin relaxed him, though why, he didn’t know.

  He lifted up the drowsy child. Over the past four months he had become comfortable holding Eldrin, as he realized his sturdy brother wasn’t going to break. He settled in the rocking chair, Eldrin in his arms, and rocked back and forth. He was glad none of his officers could see him. Gods only knew what this scene would do to his reputation.

  He knew he shouldn’t let himself be so easily affected by this tiny life, this child sired by a man who would destroy Roca if Kurj didn’t stop him. Yet whenever he saw Eldrin, a deep, abiding emotion filled him unlike any he had known before. He wanted to give the universe to Eldrin. A fierce determination rose within him: he would do anything to protect this child.

  Anything.

  Roca paused in the doorway, touched by what she saw in the room beyond: Kurj Skolia, formidable warlord of ISC, asleep with his baby brother in his arms. For a while she simply stood, savoring the scene, knowing that if she moved, Kurj’s hair-trigger reflexes would awake him, destroying this rare moment.

  Despite her attempts to stay quiet, he soon stirred, his eyes opening, first his outer lids, then his inner. “Mother?”

  “My greetings,” she said.

  He shifted Eldrin in his arms and rubbed his eyes. It reminded Roca of when he had been a small child awaking from his nap. He had always vigorously objected to taking it, then immediately dropped off into a deep sleep. That was before he had grown up and enhanced his body until he could achieve the equivalent of sleep by recharging parts of himself. He claimed he needed only two hours of sleep a night now, but she had her doubts.

  “How long have I been here?” he asked, groggy.

  “Several hours. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  Kurj stood up, holding Eldrin. “I shouldn’t have slept. I have work to do.”

  “You work too hard.” When Kurj scowled at her, she couldn’t help but smile. “I’m glad you came to see him.”

  “Actually, I came to see you. Business matters.”

  Roca tried to fathom his mood. Usually when they discussed business, they met in his office or hers. Today he seemed pensive, seeking connections with his family. This gentler side of him made her remember his youth, in the days when she could still reach him.

  Eldrin began to squirm, twisting toward her. Then he let out a hearty wail.

  Kurj winced. “I think he likes you better than me.” He came over and put Eldrin in her arms. When the baby nuzzled her breast, Kurj averted his gaze, his face reddening. His embarrassment was strong enough that his mood came to her despite both her own barriers and those Kurj used to protect his mind.

  He didn’t know how to deal with this aspect of her. It confused and angered him, and it evoked a tenderness he strove to repress. Roca wanted to weep for knowing that he believed having gentler emotions weakened him.

  Eldrin cried out again, a softer protest.

  “He is hungry,” Roca murmured. “Can you wait in the living room?”

  Kurj nodded stiffly. “Of course.” Then he left.

  After Roca nursed Eldrin, he fell asleep. She rocked him for a while, then tucked him into his cradle and returned to the front room. Kurj had settled on the couch, taking up a good portion of it, and was engrossed in the holos above a film he had unrolled on the table in front of him.

  “You look so serious,” Roca said.

  He glanced at her with a start. “I was answering web-mail.”

  “Bad news?”

  He straightened up, rolling his shoulders. “This supposed offer the Traders made to negotiate is draining impetus from my officers.”

  Her anger sparked. “How can you fault them for wanting peace?”

  He frowned at her. “This is exactly the discord the Traders want their ‘offer’ to create. They seek to divide our leadership and weaken our morale. And they’re succeeding.”

  Roca bit back her answer. She and Kurj could argue this for eternity and never agree. To calm down and keep from saying words she might later regret, she walked into the room and settled into a smart-chair, stretching out her legs. The chair shifted subtly, trying to ease her tension. Usually it only took a few moments to find the right shape, but today it kept readjusting well after she had sat down. Had it come to this, that she responded to Kurj as if he were an enemy in her own home? It grieved her, this winter in their relationship.

  She spoke carefully. “What brings you to visit?”

  He answered with similar caution. “I thought you would like to know. The doctors have finished checking the DNA for Eldrinson and your son.”

  Roca had wondered how long he would keep them checking. It shouldn’t have taken this much time. She felt as if she were on a precipice. Her love for Eldri wouldn’t change if he wasn’t as strong a psion as she thought, but it would weaken the support for her marriage she had so carefully built in the Assembly these past four months.

  “What do they say?” she asked.

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. “You were right. Both Eldrinson and Eldrin are Ruby psions.”

  “Ai, Kurj!” Her relief overflowed her restraint. “I knew it!”

  He had an odd expression. “I was wondering about something.”

  Ah, no. How would he fight now that she had this advantage? Her shoulders hunched in anticipation of his next salvo. “Yes?”

  “Why,” he asked, perplexed, “is the son called Eldrin and the father Eldrinson?”

  Roca blinked, feeling like a warrior who expected to confront an armored opponent and instead found herself at a tea party. Her shoulders lowered. “Ah, well, I guess it does sound odd. That’s how his people do it, using ‘son’ every other generation.” She smiled. “We could hardly call him Eldrinsonson.”

  His expression turned pensive. “I suppose not.” For the second time today, the unexpected happened: his barriers slipped enough to let his mood reach her. He wondered if he would ever have a child. Kurjson. The intensity of his longing startled her. Then his barriers snapped into place, hiding his troubled emotions.

  “The other doctors say more about Eldrinson,” he told her, carefully neutral.

  Roca folded her arms. “They’ve said enough already.” She had no doubt Kurj would do everything he could to prove Eldri mentally incompetent. It might be the only viable way now to convince the Assembly to dissolve the marriage.

  Roca doubted he would openly take her on in the Assembly. The more popular her marriage became, abetted by her orations, the harder it was for him to challenge her without weakening his own standing. But he was working behind the scenes, encouraging those factions that wanted to control Eldri, the schemers and intriguers who would gladly strip her husband of his title. To use Eldri to father Ruby children; they considered this acceptable, a worthy goal. But to allow him the authority of a Ruby consort, with influence above even theirs—this was anathema. They made Kurj’s arguments
for him, voicing the inflammatory rhetoric, stirring doubt in the Assembly. Kurj remained silent. Nor did Roca want to accuse her own son in public, especially with no proof except her unspoken sense of him. So they fought this shadow war, both struggling to preserve what they considered right.

  “I didn’t know the medical team that went to Lyshriol had returned.” She had managed to select one of the three experts on the team, but she had doubts about at least one of the others, maybe both. They had too many ties to Kurj. She knew they intended to observe Eldri for a longer period of time before reporting, but the wait frustrated her.

  “They haven’t made a report,” Kurj said. “I meant the medics here, the ones studying his DNA.”

  She spoke warily. “What do they say?”

  “It’s interesting, actually.” Kurj’s posture relaxed a bit. “His ancestors had their hands and feet engineered for that hinged, four-digit structure.”

  “But why?”

  He smiled wryly. “Good question. The medics have no idea.”

  The shifting of her chair eased as her posture relaxed. “Do they know any more about his seizures?”

  “Some.” Kurj rolled his computer sheet into a rod and slid it into a sheath in his sleeve. “He inherited an unusually low threshold for seizures from his parents. Apparently that isn’t unusual for psions. It probably wouldn’t have caused him problems if his brain hadn’t been injured when his family died.”

  The thought of how Eldri had lost his family made Roca tense again. “Avaril Valdoria has much to answer for.”

  His expression darkened. “If you would only protect yourself with the same ferocity you protect your family.”

  Roca knew he wasn’t talking about Avaril. “I was much younger with Darr. Less mature. Less confident.”

  “I meant now.”

  Softly she said, “Did you?”

  He watched her through the gold shields of his inner lids. What he saw, she had no idea. She wished he would rage, condemn her for those years with Darr, respond in some way. Instead he remained in his mental fortress, behind impenetrable walls.

  “Eldrinson’s Ruby genes are different from ours,” he said.

  Roca felt as if she had run into a blockade. He wouldn’t talk about Darr, not now, perhaps never. Perturbed, she answered more sharply than she had intended. “We couldn’t have had a child otherwise.”

  “You and father had me.”

  An old pain stirred in her. “That is because we had the best experts and technology available to help us and geneticists to select the right genes. Even with that, it took years.” She ached with the memories. “Kurj, you truly were our miracle child.”

  He spoke in a low voice. “And now?”

  “You always will be.”

  But they both knew the truth. Too much had happened in the relentless years of his adulthood for them ever to regain the trust and simple affection of his childhood.

  Kurj was walking across a meadow in Valley when his palmtop buzzed. He flipped it open. A response had arrived to a message he had sent earlier today, after he left his mother’s home.

  “Skolia here,” he said.

  A shy voice came out of the comm. “My g-greeting, Your Highness. This is Callie Summerlet. Your EI paged me.”

  “My greeting, Callie.” Kurj kept walking, his mood improving as he thought of the curvy nursemaid. “I have a houseboat in a lake up here. Would you like to join me there for dinner tonight?”

  A long silence came from the comm. Just when Kurj was going to check if the comm had malfunctioned, Callie said, “I—I think, I mean, yes.” She sounded out of breath. “I would be honored to dine with you, Your Highness.”

  “Good.” Kurj wasn’t sure if she was excited or terrified. He hoped it was the former. He hadn’t expected her to decline, though. They rarely did. Some felt honored by his attentions, and even the ones who didn’t like him were curious enough for a first dinner. Nor did most want to risk his displeasure.

  “I will send one of my aides for you sometime this evening.” He wasn’t sure when he would be done with his work. “Will you be in your apartment in City?”

  “Y-yes. Will. I mean, yes, I will.”

  “Very well. I will see you. Out.”

  “Uh—out.” In a softer voice, she added, “Until tonight, Your Highness.”

  He smiled. “Until tonight.”

  As Kurj continued his walk, a thought formed in the back of his mind. Callie Summerlet could help him banish the emotional demons that threatened his control. She was safe. Simple. Sweet. Maybe for one night he could evade the way his emotions tangled whenever he thought of what it meant to be a father and a son. The roles had snarled in his mind until he could no longer separate them. His emotions fused in the wrong ways. He didn’t want this yearning to act as a father to Roca’s son, didn’t want to remember that a half-grown barbarian held his mother’s love. Why couldn’t he rid himself of these thoughts that threatened his control?

  Callie. Think of Callie. Tonight he would make a normal bond with a normal woman.

  If he only could.

  A face gradually came into focus, hovering over Eldri. He lay on his side, aware of hard ground under his body. Slowly he rolled onto his back. Garlin was kneeling on his right and one of the Skolians was on his left, the woman, Tyra Meson.

  So tired. He felt so tired.

  “Your Majesty?” Tyra asked.

  Eldri wet his lips. “A…seizure?”

  “Yes.” The line between her eyes was deeply etched today. “Another seizure.”

  “A bad one,” he whispered.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Garlin brushed the hair back from Eldri’s forehead. “It didn’t last long.”

  “That’s…good.” Eldri sat up slowly, aware of the doctor watching him. “We still have the wrong medicines?”

  Tyra looked apologetic. “I’m afraid so.”

  He let them help him stand, but he insisted on walking without help, though he limped for the first few steps. It disheartened him even more now to have the seizures, because these Skolians had given him hope that they could make him better. Instead, the attacks continued, now with “side effects” that left him exhausted and ill. The demons that caused the attacks were surely angered by his attempts to escape retribution.

  But even if these healers did eventually manage to help, they couldn’t cure his loneliness.

  The rocking houseboat soothed Kurj. Callie lay against him, her backside to his front, her curves fitted against his body. The old-fashioned door stood ajar, and colored light from paper lamps on the deck filtered into the cabin. Only the lap of water and the chirps of insects broke the slumbering night.

  Callie stirred, turning onto her back. Kurj languorously slid his hand across her breasts. As her eyes opened, her face reddened, her blush deep enough to see in the dim light.

  “My greetings,” he said in a low voice.

  “My greetings, Your Highness.” She rolled to face him, and pressed her lips against his chest. “Your beautiful Highness.”

  Kurj stretched with pleasure. “I’ve been called many things, most unrepeatable, but never beautiful.”

  She ran her hand over his torso. “You scared me today, when I first saw you.”

  “Do I still?”

  “A little.” She sounded more aroused than frightened.

  Kurj nudged her back and covered her body with his, holding himself up on his elbows so he didn’t smother her. She groaned when he entered her, and he could tell from her mind that it was real, not an act. He made love to her with the same control he exercised in every part of his life, but at the end he let go, giving in to a rush of sensation that obliterated all pain from his heart.

  Sometime later, when alarm surged from her mind, he realized he had sunk down and was crushing her. He slid off, then moved his large hands over her body, savoring the soft skin and curves.

  Callie sighed. “You are very robust.”

  “Robust?” />
  She yawned. “Very awake.”

  “Yes.” He rolled her nipple between his fingers.

  “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Not much.” His two hours this afternoon would last another day. With all his cybernetic augmentations, his body could care for itself in many ways that required sleep for unenhanced humans.

  “You looked different, rocking Eldrin this afternoon,” she said drowsily.

  “How?”

  “It was sweet.”

  Sweet? Gods forbid. “I hope not.”

  She curled against him. “That was when I stopped being so afraid of you.”

  “Oh.” Her misperceptions had their advantage. “Good.”

  “Lady Roca told me they verified Eldrin was a Ruby psion.”

  Kurj stroked her abdomen. “So they did.”

  “You must be very proud.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Will the Assembly give him bodyguards, too?”

  He slid his hand between her thighs. “Maybe.”

  “Ummm.” She moved against him.

  “The Assembly may make you have bodyguards.”

  “Whatever for?” She sounded distracted, her eyes closed, her body responding. It was taking her longer this time, though. Kurj supposed he ought to let her sleep. He had kept her up all night.

  He propped his head up on one hand and let his other rest in the triangle between her legs. “They will give you bodyguards because you’re important to me.” It occurred to him belatedly that she might mistake his meaning and think she meant more to him than she actually did. He did rather like her, though.

  “It makes you a target,” he added. “People may think they can get to me through you.”

  She hesitated. “Why does that make you angry?”

  “What makes you think I’m angry?”

  “Your voice.”

  It was a moment before he answered. “The Assembly has manipulated the Ruby Dynasty for so long, it is hard to remember when our lives were our own.” Even he could hear his bitterness.