Primary Inversion

by Catherine Asaro

  They needed three minds in that link. When Kurj and my aunt had supported the Kyle-Mesh alone, they had struggled with the overload of work. Kurj also commanded a military that protected almost a thousand worlds. My aunt served as liaison between the Assembly and a mesh that spanned not only our civilization, but Allied and Trader worlds as well. They had those jobs in addition to the demands of the Kyle-Mesh itself, which never rested, never paused, never eased, but only grew larger each year, filling a voracious ocean as deep as the stars. No one, no matter how ambitious, dedicated, or strong, had the resources to manage that balancing act for long. Eventually it would have killed them, as it had been doing, slowly and relentlessly, before my father turned their Dyad into a Triad.

  Regardless of my family’s problems, we had to keep the Kyle-Mesh functioning. I would rather die than live in a universe where everyone except a few thousand Aristos were Trader slaves.

  I suddenly felt tired. I went to a chair and sat down, sinking into its cushion. Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees and stared at the floor.

  Tager came over and sat in the chair next to me. “What are you thinking?”

  “About my family.” I looked at him. “We’re a mess.”

  He spoke gently. “You’re like people without skins living in a universe that makes no accommodation for that. Most everyone has protection, so they have no idea how damaging their normal mode of living is to you. To survive, you have to develop drastic coping mechanisms.”

  I thought of Jaibriol and his life of solitude. It had protected him, but the price he had paid, that punishing loneliness, was too high. “Those coping mechanisms are tearing us apart.”

  “You’ve had the responsibility of defending an empire thrust on you, not by your choice, but because the same traits that make you so vulnerable are also the source of our only protection against the Aristos.” Tager shook his head. “Gods, that would strain anyone.”

  “When we were living together, my parents and us children, we had something.” I struggled to find the right words. “I don’t know what to call it. A Rhon community? We were happy. Then we all grew up and left home. Reality intruded. My parents have each other, but our community is gone. The rest of us just survive.” I regarded him steadily. “I want more than survival.”

  “If you mean a Rhon mate, a Rhon society—”

  “Yes, I know. I won’t find it.” An image of Jaibriol flickered in my mind. If only you knew, Doctor Heartbender. “Contrary to what the Assembly seems to think, my parents aren’t breeding machines. They can’t provide fodder for the Mesh forever and then watch the children they love gives their lives for it. What if Althor and I both end up dead? Then what?”

  He let out a breath. “I don’t know.”

  I got up and walked over to the shelf with the Cammish figures. “Neither do I.” I turned to him. “I want to find an answer. To all of it. To the pain, the anger, the terror. To this war that never ends.” I met his gaze. “I want an answer to Tams.”

  “Do you think you can find it?”

  “I think I have a better chance than Althor.” Or Kurj. I regarded him steadily. “And having that power is a hell of a lot better than being a victim.”

  Then I said, “Yes, I want to be Imperator.”

  #

  When I entered the lobby of my building, I found a visitor waiting. She was relaxed in an chair reading a holozine, her feet propped up on the onerously expensive table in front of her.

  “Helda!” I strode over. “What are you doing here?”

  She stood up, a grin spreading across her wide face. “Heya, Soz.”

  “I almost walked by you.” I wasn’t used to seeing her out of uniform. Of all the bizarre outfits—she had on blue jeans. She must have bought them in one of the import shops that sold Allied clothes and coffee, Earth’s most popular exports with my people. That, and their hamburgers. I doubted a major city existed anywhere that didn’t have one of their hamburger places. Sometimes, in my more cynical moments, I was convinced that while we and the Traders were busy hurling planet-melting armies at each other, Earth would quietly take us over by flooding us with “fast food” and convincing us we couldn’t live without it.

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

  Had Jarith come by? Probably not; I didn’t see him anywhere. Although the lobby was open during the day, he couldn’t 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 will let him walk when 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 his nurses are in love with him. He often asks for one in particular.”

  I told myself that didn’t hurt. After all, I had Jarith. Then I thought, Oh, cut it out. You know it hurts. So let it. That won’t kill you. And it was true, I did 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. Helda and I went over to him, our feet padding on the carpet.

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

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

  Huh. 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.”

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

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

  Helda and I helped him gather up the mess. When I gave him a questioning look, he wouldn’t respond. What had I done? Sometimes it was hard to understand his moods.

  Helda thumped a 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 crossed the room, leaving us alone. Helda watched him unload his schoolwork on the table. Then she spoke quietly. “Imperator Skolia asked me to give you a message.”

  Well, that was odd. Using the Mesh was more efficient than sending a courier. If Kurj wanted the message secured, he could pattern it to my brain with a lock only I could release.

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

  “It’s only a few words.”

  “What?”

  “He said: ‘Come to HQ immediately. Quietly. Tell no one I ordered it.’”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  So. Kurj reached out his long arm and pulled me back. I could see him, metal in a uniform, setting us all on trajectories that ended in places only he knew. But maybe it was time to face him. Time to calculate my own trajectories. “Why did he send you to tell me?”

  “I don’t know.” Her 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 sightsee 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. The entire time I had an odd feeli
ng, 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 went to the closet and handed it my sweater. The robot arm hung it up. “I thought you were going to run like a wind-antelope the first time you saw her.”

  “I was.” He smiled sheepishly. “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 on that bed. “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.

  “Jarith.” I turned his face so he had to look at me. “What’s wrong?”

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

  I lowered my arm, puzzled. “What did I say?”

  “That name.”

  “What name?”

  “Kurj.”

  That wasn’t a name I wanted to discuss, not with Jarith, not with anyone. Tager had taken all 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.”

  His look turned incredulous. “Even Primaries don’t call the Imperator by his personal name.”

  That stopped me. Of course I never called him Kurj 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 not even thirty. And you know the Imperator.”

  I got off the bed and walked to the window. Outside, Jacob’s Shire rolled out, 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. Instead I went back and sat next to him. “You haven’t presumed on anything. I’ve known him 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. “I don’t know. You’re older than my mother.”

  Gods. The next thing I knew, the ISC ethics squad would 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.

  Jarith watched my face. “Soz?”

  I spoke quietly. “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.”

  “Soz, no. Don’t go.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “Was it what I said? I can handle the age difference.”

  I took his hands. “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. Part of me wanted him to come. But it would mean asking him to start 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 remained 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 lay 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.

  Part Three

  -

  DIESHA

  XIII

  Fist Of The Web

  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?

  We landed far from any terminal at the starport. The passengers all gathered in the cubicle some generous person had dubbed the ship’s lounge, a chamber with three chairs and a table bolted to what served as the deck in a gravity field. Glancing out a porthole, I saw a flybus approaching from the distant terminal, speeding on its cushion of air like a black and silver bullet.

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

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

  The flybus pulled alongside the ship. As it rose to the airlock, an officer came to stand in its open doorway, a woman in the dusky red uniform of the military police. She carried a laser carbine. Here on the planet dedicated solely to functions of Imperial Space Command, ISC controlled everything.

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

  The bored police officer didn’t look as if she cared whether we enjoyed or loathed our stay. She checked each of us as we entered the flybus, running her scanner over our bodies and luggage. When we finished boarding, the bus retracted its bridge, closed its door, sank down, and headed for the terminal. We all sat in nervoplex seats staring out the windows, the walls, 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 and boarded the second, going through the whole blasted security procedure again.

  Helda grumbled as we waited in line to be scanned. “Never again,” she muttered. “Never again I come to Diesha as a civilian.”

  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 at us. The path ended at a security arch framing a doorway. A burly man and a heavyset woman in ISC uniforms staffed the counter beyond.

  As I walked through the arch, the man motioned for me to stop. “Baggage check.”

  I slung my duffel onto the counter. The woman touched a panel on her console and holos formed above my bag, rotating to show the interior, every last detail, including my underwear and other privates.

  “Open it,” the man said.

  Gritting my teeth, I undid the flaps and the duffel fell open. As the man ruffled through my belongings, data scrolled across the woman’s console. “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 by me as she entered the terminal. Although she was dressed as a civilian, the patches on her shoulders indicated her commission in the military. I recognized her from the ship, a woman who had been at the end of the line when we queued up here. 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 my duffel. He flipped it open and the mini-album activated, cycling through holos. One of Jarith came up, several of us both, then Helda and Jarith, and finally one of my mother. The man stopped the display, leaving a holo of my mother floating above the wallet screen so it looked as if she was standing on his palm.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  None of your damn business. “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 flat screen. My mother floated there, smiling and golden. She blurred as a laser played over the holo.

  “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 we were just some page in a holozine they were reading?

  The woman dropped my wallet into my duffel, then closed up the bag and handed it to me. “All right. Move along.”

  Clenched the handle, I slung the duffel it over my shoulder as I stalked into the arrivals gate. People crowded the chrome and glass area, standing, talking, sitting in chairs, watching the holovid in the corner, boarding speedwalks.

  Helda came up next to me. “Pah.”