Soz.
Kurj stood at the wall of dichromesh glass in his office and looked at HeadQuarters City far below. Laid out in squares and angles, the city formed a precise metropolis. Chrome, metal, ceramoplex: it gleamed under the red sky and splintering hot sun of Diesha.
Soz will someday stand here. For three months he had maintained that hope. For three months he had waited for her to reappear with Jaibriol Qox as her prisoner. But now his operatives had found the ships. As wreckage. That inescapable fact registered in his files.
Soz was dead.
Kurj stared at his city, his hands clasped behind his back. She had been his first choice among his heirs. He had only one living candidate now, his half brother Althor, his second rather than first choice, but still a fine candidate. Soon Kurj would make the announcement. Althor would follow him as Imperator.
A, he thought, summoning the primary node in his spine.
Attending, A answered.
Explain, Kurj thought. Why am I unable to stop dwelling on the death of Sauscony Valdoria when such serves no useful purpose?
Analysis complete, A answered.
Already?
Yes. You are grieving.
Kurj looked at the pale wash of sky above HeadQuarters City. It achieves no useful result. End process.
It is a necessary process. It will stop when you have made peace with her death.
Peace is not in my nature.
I can delete your memories of her. However, she is embedded in your processors, files, and neural patterns. Removing her will delete data crucial to your optimal function.
No deletions. Kurj didn’t want to forget his sister.
Suggestion, node C thought.
Yes?
Work, C thought. Occupying your mind with tasks will decrease the amount of time it spends in attempts to calculate models that would have led to your sister’s continued existence.
Very well. Kurj turned from the window. His office took up the top floor of the skyneedle known as Spire A. His desk extended the length of the room, a slab of dichromesh glass studded by web units and supported by glass columns embedded with more equipment, a mechanically beautiful array designed from precious metals and ceramoplex. He settled into one of the control chairs and sat back while its exoskeleton folded around his body, clicking prongs into sockets in his spine.
Activate Kyle gate, he thought.
His office web responded. Activated.
A psicon appeared in his mind, the symbol Ψ from an old language. Greek. As a descendant of Earth’s Lost Children, Kurj found himself fascinated by those ancients from Earth and their legends. Antigone. Agamemnon. Oedipus.
The psicon vanished, replaced by his mindscape, an ordered mesh that extended in all directions. Just as a Fourier transform took a time-dependent function into frequency space, so the Ψ gate transformed his mind from spacetime into psiberspace.
Kurj interacted with machine intelligences using the synthetic nodes and fiberoptics implanted in his body; he interacted with other telepaths using organic bodies in his brain. As he entered the web, his Kyle Afferent Body picked up signals sent by other telepaths and routed them to the para neural structures in his cortex, which translated them into the thoughts of the other users. The paras also translated and conveyed his thoughts to his Kyle Efferent Body, which sent them into the web. Without psiberweb amplification, he could still pick up and send thoughts to a limited extent, but it depended on fields produced by the brain, in particular Coulomb effects, which meant he had to be near the people he interacted with. In the web, spatial location became irrelevant.
Clearance verified. That came from the Evolving Intelligence in the computer that monitored security in his office.
Dusk icon, Kurj thought. He became a dark figure cloaked in shadows.
So he strode across the grid, passing through psiware that waved like filaments in the glimmering atmosphere. One flicked his leg, as often happened near a node where his telops were working on ISC business.
Kurj stopped. He distrusted subtle events like psiware fronds flicking his leg. The Rhon powerlink that created the web was a Triad: himself, his stepfather Eldrinson, and his mother’s sister Dehya. When it came to Dehya, he took nothing for granted. Where he was force, she was subtlety; where he radiated power, she created nuances. And he didn’t trust nuances.
Kurj knelt to study the filament. It waved innocuously, like seaweed.
Access location. He sank down, into a bare room with gray walls. Torpedo, he thought, calling one of his search-and-destroy routines.
Attending, Torpedo rumbled.
Apply key codes.
Done. Large keys appeared, hanging from a rack on the wall, each representing a different security routine. No hidden locks found at this location.
Go deeper into the web, Kurj thought.
The walls peeled away as Torpedo searched. Each time it stripped down a wall, the debris disappeared, swept away by macros Kurj had created to keep the web well-ordered.
No locks detected, Torpedo thought.
Upload the filament under analysis, Kurj thought.
The ceiling above him misted and the filament fell through, dangling in the air. The disruption of the room’s symmetry aggravated Kurj. He resisted the urge to eject the filament; if Dehya had created it, she might intend for it to evoke exactly that reaction. She knew him too well.
Isolate filament code from its environment, he thought.
The filament dropped to the floor. When Kurj crouched down to take it, the code came alive and whisked out of his hands. It sped up the wall, but the ceiling had solidified, controlled by his security routines. The filament whipped across it, slid down the other wall, and disappeared into a seam where the wall met the floor.
Go get it, Torpedo, Kurj thought.
Code captured. It is corrupting itself.
Bring back what’s left.
A glass box appeared on the floor. The filament inside dissolved in erratic sparkles until only glitter winked on the bottom of the box.
Analysis of code, Kurj thought.
It is a monitor to track your web activity.
Kurj snorted. Mail Server attend.
Server 36 answered. Attending.
Send the following to Assembly Key Selei: “I ate your spy, Dehya.” End.
Mail sent. Reply received.
That was fast.
The response came from an automated routine in Selei’s mail server. It says: “My spies proliferate. I call them hydra. If you cut down one, two more grow in its place.”
So. Dehya was playing on his penchant for Earth mythology, using the battle of Hercules and the hydra. Every time Hercules cut off one head, two more appeared. He defeated the hydra by having the stumps cauterized before they grew new heads.
Send reply, Kurj thought. “Hydras are easy to scorch.” End.
Message sent.
Any reply?
None.
Kurj grinned. Close memory location.
He rose out of the room, and its ceiling re-formed under his feet. Filaments of web code waved around its edges.
Torpedo, he thought. Search out and destroy any psiware produced by the corrupted code.
Procedure implemented.
Good. Kurj continued across the web, surrounded by its glittering atmosphere. Each speck of “glitter” specified the process of a user. His Watchers ran continual security checks without need of his attention, but from time to time he examined a speck at random, to gain a sense of web activities. Today he turned up little worth his time: three telops in a quarrel, a private group meditating together via psiberspace, and someone checking flight times at a starport.
One nodule resolved into a petition written by a colonist on a fringe world. He was protesting an ISC order to disband the colony’s Union of Web Analysts. Kurj deleted the petition even as the man was writing it and ordered a monitor to remove any rewrites. The UWA created disorder by agitating for privileges reserved to ISC. And Kurj
disliked disorder.
A sparkle danced in front of him. Attention.
Expand, Kurj thought.
It grew into a shimmer that engulfed the web. When it cleared, Kurj was standing in Selei City on the planet Parthonia, capital of the Imperialate. A boulevard stretched in front of him, bordered by wrywillows, with stately houses set far back from the street and a lavender sky overhead.
What is the purpose of this representation? Kurj asked.
The sparkle reappeared. An advertisement for the Imperial Ballet triggered security monitor 484.
Show me the advertisement.
The street moved past him as if he were traveling in one of the open teardrop cars popular in Selei City. He came into view of Ascendance Hall, home to the Imperial Ballet. A mural on its facade glistened in a holographic display of dancers, along with performance dates and times.
The mural’s most striking aspect was a dancer in a diaphanous blue dress. Her skin, eyes, and hair gleamed gold. Hip-length curls streamed out when she whirled and leapt, then swirled around her when she paused. A sweet smile curved in her angel’s face. She had the body of an erotic holomovie actress rather than the more angular form of most dancers.
Kurj clenched his teeth. He raised his hand and red lasers shot out of his fingers, searing the mural. In a node owned by Ascendance Hall on the planet Parthonia, a marauding section of computer code cut a swath of destruction through the directory of advertising files for the Imperial Ballet. In Kurj’s mindscape the mural exploded, shards of color flying everywhere.
Offense nullified, the sparkle thought.
If they show her image again, Kurj thought, shut them down.
Monitoring of Imperial Ballet updated, the routine answered.
Kurj had no objection to the Imperial Ballet—provided they used no displays of this woman. Let the tales of her spectacular beauty become legends no one could verify. He had no intention of letting audiences drool over his mother.
He waved his hand and the city disappeared, replaced by the web grid. Transfer to Comtrace, he thought.
Transferred. That came from a new source, cold and rumbling. Any other user accessing Comtrace, the heart of ISC intelligence, would have faced extensive security protocols. Unauthorized attempts could result in execution. Kurj’s Dusk psicon simply re-formed in a region of splintering whiteness.
Attending, Comtrace thought.
Download Admiral Tahota’s reports to node S, Kurj thought.
Download commenced.
Kurj went to work. First he read the reports from Starjack Tahota, his second in command at ISC. Then he studied ISC maneuvers against Trader battle cruisers, analyzing them for weaknesses in strategy. Next he moved on to intelligence reports on military officers in ESComm, the Trader equivalent of ISC.
When Kurj finally left Comtrace, he felt more settled. Thoughts of Soz still weighed on him, but the pressure had eased, at least for now.
Incoming message from Assembly Key Selei, Mail Server 19 thought.
What does she say? Kurj asked.
“Hercules is the wrong icon.”
That’s it?
Yes.
He frowned. Dehya was the one who had invoked the hydra myth. And what did she mean, icon? It could refer either to a computer icon or to an icon as a figure of note. Knowing Dehya, it might be both, in a riddle that made sense only to her enigmatic, albeit towering, intellect. What was she up to, on this eve of his announcement that he had chosen his heir?
Seeker, respond, Kurj thought.
A rotating sphere the size of his fist appeared, with colors swirling on it like rainbows on oil. Attending, his Search-and-Summon monitor thought.
Is Secondary Althor Valdoria in the web? Kurj asked.
Seeker paused. No.
Summon him.
The sphere darted off, vanishing into the glimmering mist. If Althor was near any form of console with IR capability, he would receive the summons through IR signals sent to receivers in his body. Given the ubiquitous presence of computers, from full-sized consoles down to picowebs embedded in buildings, almost nowhere in the Imperialate existed where one could avoid a summons from the Imperator.
Kurj focused on the grid under his feet. Access memory location.
The ground descended, taking him into another gray room. Office, he thought, and a macro created a massive office for him, all dichromesh glass and gleaming components. As he sat behind the huge desk that spanned the room, Seeker reappeared, hovering in the air.
Secondary Valdoria requests permission to access your location, Seeker thought.
Let him in.
The door opened and a man entered. A psicon, actually, but this man’s symbol of choice was simple; it looked like him. Althor Valdoria stood nearly two meters high, six-foot-six. He was built like Kurj, with a massive physique. He too had inherited their mother’s gold coloring, but his violet eyes came from his father, Eldrinson Valdoria, the man Kurj refused to acknowledge as his stepfather.
Althor wore a Jagernaut’s black uniform with black knee boots. Two gold armbands on each arm indicated his rank as a Secondary, about equivalent to a naval commodore. Picochips packed the conduits embedded in his leather-and-metal gauntlets, and were linked through his wrist sockets to the biomech web in his body. He saluted Kurj, extending his arms straight out, his fists clenched and his wrists crossed.
At ease. Kurj motioned to a chair. After Althor sat down, Kurj said, Tomorrow I will announce you are to assume the title of Imperial Heir. The ceremony will be at 16:45, Dieshan time, from my office.
I am honored by your confidence, Althor thought.
You’ve given me good reason for it. Kurj paused. Has Dehya discussed this with you?
No, sir.
Have you had contact with her recently?
A tenday ago, Althor answered. She and my brother Eldrin invited me to dinner at their home on the Orbiter.
What did you talk about?
Althor rubbed his chin. A ballad Eldrin is writing. The remodeling on their house. Mother’s birthday.
Anything about your position as the Imperial Heir?
Nothing.
Very well. Kurj doubted he would discover anything even if Dehya had intended more than a quiet family dinner, Her methods were too subtle. He needed a different approach to unmask them.
Watching Althor, Kurj was concerned for other reasons. His brother’s psicon reflected moods, at least those that Althor’s spinal nodes considered safe for him to express. Right now he looked tired. Dark circles showed under his eyes.
How are you? Kurj asked.
Althor swallowed. I will be fine.
Quietly Kurj thought, Nothing makes up for Soz’s loss.
I had kept hoping.
I also, Kurj thought. I miss our sister.
Grief flicked across Althor’s face, and also surprise. Kurj supposed it wasn’t often he revealed emotions even to his family.
I too, Althor thought.
Kurj nodded. Report to my office tomorrow at sixteen hundred hours.
Yes, sir.
Kurj raised his hand. You may go.
Althor stood and saluted, then left as he had come, through the door.
Seeker, Kurj thought.
The sphere appeared. Attending.
Where is the Web Key?
On the Orbiter space station, repairing a damaged section of the web.
So. His stepfather also combated grief with work.
Kurj had never come to terms with his mother’s marriage to Eldrinson. But Eldrinson Valdoria—a simple farmer from a backward world—was Rhon. The difficulty in creating Rhon psions in the lab made sexual reproduction the most reliable source. In the past, that had prompted the Assembly to overlook the ethics, or lack thereof, in coercing the Ruby Dynasty to interbreed. It all became moot when Eldrinson and Kurj’s mother began having Rhon children, which they had done at a frequency Kurj found altogether inappropriate. Even more annoying, they bequeathed some form of Eldrinson’s
name to numerous of their sons. However, they named their third son Del-Kurj, which meant “In honor of Kurj.” In any case, their ten offspring ensured a hefty reserve of Rhon psions for the web, enough so the less important children even enjoyed a degree of freedom rather than having their every move monitored by the Assembly.
The web grew larger every year, a voracious ocean as deep as the stars, requiring ever more Rhon strength to power it. But the powerlink could support at most only three minds; more would overload the link and short-circuit the web. Nor could just any Rhon psion join the Triad. Just as no two fermion particles could have the same quantum numbers, so no two minds could occupy the same region in psiberspace—a condition difficult to satisfy when the Rhon were all related, which made their minds more similar.
The original powerlink had been a Dyad, formed by Kurj’s maternal grandparents. Kurj had tried to make it a Triad, but he and his grandfather were too much alike. The strained link shattered—and killed his grandfather. His grandmother died soon after of old age, and Dehya, her eldest daughter, assumed both the Ruby Throne and the title of Assembly Key. So Dehya and Kurj had formed a new Dyad, shaken by grief, afraid to add a third Key because their close genetic ties made them too much alike. It could kill.
Except Eldrinson had no Ruby Dynasty genes. Fate played the ultimate joke on Kurj; the stepfather he so wished would vanish turned out to be the only person who could complete the Triad. Having Eldrinson to maintain the web freed Kurj and Dehya to focus on using it. Which they did in service to the Imperial Assembly, but also in pursuit of their own purposes, such as maneuvering control of the Imperialate away from the Assembly. So they formed a volatile Triad: Dehya, Kurj, and Eldrinson; Assembly Key, Military Key, and Web Key; the Mind, the Fist, and the Heart of Skolia.
Summon Web Key, Kurj thought.
Seeker darted off again.
A moment later a thought came out of the air, its lustrous resonance a reminder of its owner’s extraordinary singing voice. Yes? Eldrinson asked.
Where are you? Kurj thought.
A psicon formed, a handsome man about five-foot-ten, with large violet eyes and a hint of freckles across his nose. Wine-red hair brushed his shoulders. It puzzled Kurj that Eldrinson had silver in his hair; the man was almost twenty years younger than Kurj, who had no trace of gray and expected none for decades. More irritating were his stepfather’s spectacles. As far as Kurj was concerned, it was sheer obstinacy on Eldrinson’s part to so dislike Imperial technology that he preferred glasses to having his damaged eyes replaced with better ones.
The Radiant Seas Page 3