Primary Inversion

by Catherine Asaro

“Their executions will escalate our war with the Eubians.”

  Calloway considered him. “You must be aware I can’t interfere with military matters concerning any Eube-Skolian war. Were I to do so, it would be tantamount to making a statement of alliance that doesn’t currently exist between your people and mine.”

  “And surely you realize,” my father said, “that if we fall to the Traders, you’re next.”

  “You believe the execution of these two people threatens the Imperialate that much?”

  “Yes.”

  She spoke firmly. “I need to know who they are.”

  “I can’t give you their names until we have an agreement.”

  “I can’t give you an agreement until I understand the problem.”

  My father was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Madam President, before I give you their identities, I need your word that you will reveal this conversation to no one.”

  Jaibriol’s hand tightened around mine. Like me, he must have been present during dealings of his government with Calloway. He would know what I knew: her word was good—which was why she gave it so rarely. What if she refused my father? As soon as she saw us, she would realize she was being asked to intervene in a matter that could tear apart the Rhon. She had no way to know what would happen if she sided with my father.

  “You’re asking a great deal,” she said.

  “With reason,” my father said.

  “And if I don’t promise my silence?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. I felt his turmoil. He was going to tell her even without her guarantee. If she contacted Kurj—no, we couldn’t let that happen. I would no longer be the only one who had committed treason, and Kurj had far less desire to see my father alive than me.

  Father, no! I thought. Don’t do it.

  He took a breath and spoke to Calloway. “If you can’t give me your word, people may die. Members of the Rhon.”

  “And if I do give it?”

  “No one but you and I will ever know.”

  “What about the two people in question?”

  “They also. But we will send them where no one can find them.”

  Her expression remained guarded. “You’re asking me to enter into pact with one member of the Triad, an agreement you intend to keep secret from the others.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you won’t tell me why until I make this pact.”

  “I must ask you to trust my judgment.”

  She spoke dryly. “Judgment and politics are rarely easy bedfellows.”

  “Nevertheless, I ask for your trust.”

  Whatever she was thinking, she revealed nothing. As the silence lengthened, I glanced at Jaibriol. Sweat had gathered at his temple. I could feel moisture on my hand where it gripped his.

  “Very well,” Calloway said. “I give you my word.”

  I made a small sound, just a rush of breath. My father’s shoulders lowered, coming down from a hunched position I hadn’t realized they had taken. Turning, he beckoned to us. As we walked over to the console, he moved out of the way. Then Jaibriol and I were in front of the screen, I dressed only in a prison shirt that was the obvious partner to his trousers. We stood there half naked, holding hands, and regarded President Calloway.

  Her mouth opened. “My God.”

  My father came to stand with us. “Will you help them?”

  She blew out a gust of air, stirring a tendril of hair about her face. “I don’t understand.”

  “They think they are in love,” my father said.

  “I still don’t understand,” Calloway said. “Primary Valdoria, do you truly want to go into exile with a Highton?” She paused. “Could you even survive living with him?”

  “He’s not Highton,” I said.

  “No?” She turned to Jaibriol. “Then how in heaven’s name are you the Highton Heir?”

  He spoke quietly. “I’m a Rhon psion.”

  Calloway’s eyebrows went up. It was a good five second before she said, “That must have taken some doing.” She glanced at my father. “It seems to me that he poses a far greater threat to you alive than dead.” She grimaced. “To all of us.”

  My father shook his head. “What Emperor Qox wants from his son is probably impossible for Jaibriol to give.”

  “You trust Jaibriol Qox because he’s Rhon?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “I once learned about a fish native to your planet. To reproduce, it must swim upriver to reach the place where it was spawned or die in the process. The Rhon are like this in our drive to mate with our own kind. No matter what the barriers, we fight until we overcome them.” He glanced at me and his voice caught. “Or die trying.”

  “Why can’t they go to Delos?” Calloway asked.

  “We can’t leave Diesha,” I said. “The planet is on full military alert.”

  She gave me a long, hard look. Then she spoke to my father. “You’re asking me to become a co-conspirator in an action that directly challenges the authority of the Imperator.”

  “I’m asking you to help avert a crisis that threatens three interstellar governments.”

  “If I help you now, and it ever becomes known—” She let her sentence hang.

  My father jumped on the opening. “My daughter is an expert in covert operations. She can remove every trace of these negotiations.”

  Calloway had to know he was telling the truth. Her people would have a dossier on me just as extensive as the ones we had on her top officers. She leaned back in her armchair and rested her elbow on its arm with her cheek on her hand. She didn’t watch us while she thought, just stared at a point off in space. Silence filled the room except for the ticking of the spire-clock. Tick-tick. Tick. Tick-tick. I wished the maddening thing would stop.

  Calloway spoke. “I will help you.”

  XVII

  Until Tomorrow

  The ship landed on the palace roof, a medical racer designed to ferry people to hospitals. It came down in a roar of hot gases, blasting the pad with exhaust. Warning lamps strobed in the night, their patterns tuned to the palace defenses. The light caught on the surrounding peaks, a reminder that we were on an isolated roof in the mountains rather than an airfield at the starport.

  Jaibriol and my father stood next to me, shading their eyes from the glare. We had taken shelter behind a low wall on the roof. As soon as the ship was down, I jogged toward it, running through a wind that whipped my jacket around my body.

  The hatch swung open and light streamed out. A woman jumped onto the roof. She wore the uniform of an emergency medpilot, a white coverall with a triangular medical patch on her left shoulder. The hatch closed, cutting off the light as abruptly as it had appeared.

  As I stopped in front of her, she bowed from the waist. “Primary Valdoria?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “My father is resting.”

  “Has he had any more convulsions?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing else. But he’s not too steady.”

  “I have an air stretcher for him.”

  So far she had given the right answers. “What’s your name?”

  “Erin O’Neill.”

  It was the name Calloway had provided. The badge on her uniform said Lyra Merson. A good, solid Skolian name. We had a dossier on Merson covering her entire life. And it was false. Every last bit of it. This woman was Erin O’Neill from Earth. If I hadn’t had a lot more to worry about, I would have been vexed that the Allieds had planted her so securely in the heart of HQ City.

  “What were you told?” I asked.

  “I’m to take two people offworld, to a location uploaded to my racer by President Calloway.”

  “Does anyone know your orders besides the President?”

  She shook her head. “No one else.”

  I was betting my life and Jaibriol’s on her guarantee of secrecy. “I’m one of the people you’re taking.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “President Calloway told me that under current Allied l
aw, ship captains can perform marriages in space that are legally binding among your people. Is that true?”

  She blinked. “Well—yes. It is.”

  “Good.” Both Imperialate and Trader law recognized Allied marriages. That way, if Jaibriol and I ever had children, they would be our legal heirs. I had no idea what that would mean, but at least they wouldn’t be illegitimate.

  I spoke into the comm in my wrist guard. “We’re ready.”

  The few lights on the roof went out, leaving darkness and the gusting wind. As O’Neill peered into the shadows, two figures appeared, just silhouettes in the dark. They approached slowly, the shorter figure limping the way my father did when he didn’t have his cane. The two men became clearly visible as they reached us. O’Neill gaped at Jaibriol, who was still wearing his prison clothes. Then, remembering herself, she closed her mouth and bowed from the waist, first to my father, then to Jaibriol.

  I motioned at the racer. “We should get inside.”

  O’Neill stood aside to let my father climb into the darkened cabin. Jaibriol stepped up next, followed by O’Neill and then me. As soon as the airlock closed, lamps flooded the cabin with light.

  The racer was designed for speed and economy. Equipment crammed its cabin: crates with survival-gear patches slapped on their sides; bundles of cloth, nervoplex, rubber, canvas, pipe; barrels ribbed with metal; smaller boxes, brown, grey, green, black, all with labels for mesh nodes or medical supplies. A laser carbine was secured against a bulkhead with its power pack. O’Neill had brought other weapons gear, too: a survival axe, a box of needle bombs more useful for excavation than as weapons, ISC standard issue tools. A bunk hung on the hull and medical webbing lay across it, ready to fasten around a patient.

  Jaibriol sank onto the bunk, closing his eyes as he sagged against one of its supporting struts.

  I sat next to him. “Are you all right?”

  He looked at me. “Just tired.”

  My father came over and stood there frowning. Jaibriol flushed. Then he grasped one of the cables that held up the bunk and hauled himself back to his feet.

  What was this? Another silent communication between Jaibriol and my father, like that business about children? I stood up, looking from one to the other.

  My father regarded him sternly. “Are you prepared to take proper care of my daughter?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I was a Jagernaut Primary, for heaven’s sake. “You should ask me if I’m prepared to take proper care of him.”

  My father glanced at me and gave a slight, wry smile. To Jaibriol, he said, “Maybe that wasn’t the most appropriate question.” He stood for a moment scratching his chin. “Aren’t you a bit young for Sauscony?”

  That was almost as bad. Why did he and my mother feel compelled to comment on the age of the men in my life?

  Jaibriol regarded my father steadily. “I’ll do everything I can to make her happy, sir.”

  “See that you do,” my father said.

  O’Neill stood by the co-pilot’s seat staring at us with undisguised shock. When she saw me look at her, she let out a breath.

  I turned to find my father watching at me. He spoke gently. “Goodbye, daughter.”

  I started to reach for him just as he raised his own arms. Then I was in his embrace, the same arms that had held me safe when I was a child. I hugged him, laying my head against his shoulder as I closed my eyes. “Good-bye.”

  “Be well,” he whispered. “I love you.”

  A tear ran down my cheek. “And I you, Hoshpa.” I drew back. “Will you tell Mother that I was sorry about what happened on Foreshires. That I told you how much I loved her and how much I wished—” I swallowed. “How much I wished it wasn’t so hard for me to tell her.”

  He rubbed his palm over his face, smearing his tears. “I will.”

  O’Neill cleared her throat, a quiet sound, almost inaudible. When we looked at her, she said, “I’m sorry—but we should leave. The longer we stay, the more risk of our being discovered.”

  I made myself nod. My father and I walked to the airlock and stood by the door. When he touched the panel that opened the airlock, the cabin lights went out so no radiance spilled into the night. He let himself back onto the roof in darkness.

  I lifted my hand. Good-bye.

  He raised his arm to wave. Good-bye, Soshoni.

  Then I closed the airlock.

  As the lights came on, I went to the forward area of the ship. The racer didn’t have a full cockpit, just a section with two seats for the pilot and co-pilot. Erin motioned me toward the pilot’s seat. “I was told you can get through the cordon around the planet.”

  “I’m going to try.” Whether I could do it or not was another question altogether.

  She slid into the co-pilot’s seat. Although no strain showed on her face, I felt her tension. She had drawn a truly odd assignment, risking her life to help people she was supposed to spy on. Jaibriol was sitting on the bunk, leaning against a bulkhead with his eyes closed.

  “Jaibriol.” My voice softened. “You’d better strap in.”

  He opened his eyes. Then he lowered himself onto the bunk and stretched out his legs, moving as if every contraction of his muscles hurt.

  O’Neill touched a panel on the exoskeleton that lay open around my seat. “This controls the medweb.” She pressed the panel, and a rustle came from behind us. Turning, I saw the web fastening around Jaibriol. A thread snaked to his arm, inserted into it—and his eyes snapped open. He grabbed the line and yanked it out of his body.

  O’Neill spoke quickly. “It’s just glucose fluid, Your Highness. According to the monitors, you’re seriously dehydrated.”

  Jaibriol lay gripping the line, but after a moment, he exhaled and let it drop. It immediately snaked back to his arm and reattached. Although he stiffened, he let it stay. I clenched my teeth, hating whatever Kurj’s interrogators or Kryx Quaelen had done to cause his reaction.

  As I slid into the pilot’s seat, its exoskeleton folded around me and psiphons snicked into my body.

  Medline attending, the racer thought.

  Linking into the Kyle-Mesh from Medline felt strained and overly formal. Blackstar, the EI on my Jag, would have boosted me into psiberspace immediately, but I had to walk Medline through the procedure, giving instructions at every junction. I entered the Mesh as a wavepacket cowled in black. The grid was alive with the cordon activity, its cords shining harshly, like rays of the too-bright Dieshan sun. Kurj’s presence was everywhere, omnipresent. Inescapable? I hid in my cloak.

  Virtual reality psiber-simulation, I thought. High orbit.

  The grid vanished—and I was in space. Diesha hung before me like a turquoise and amber ball swathed in dirty cotton. The psi-sim used data gathered by the ship’s sensors to create a “reality” so complete I felt as if I were here, far out from the planet, analyzing the cordon. It gave me a far better reading of the situation than the visual displays; better even than the mindscape of my Jag. Visual, mindscape, psi-sim: they were three different levels of sensor ability, each more effective than the previous, each more costly. A psi-sim drained its user’s mental and physical resources exorbitantly fast, which made it impractical in combat. But to get us out of here, I needed every advantage. If we didn’t escape—well, my condition wouldn’t much matter then.

  A blip appeared over the rim of Diesha. I concentrated and rushed toward it, the sim supplying data faster than an actual ship could safely travel this close to the planet. The blip resolved into an ISC battle cruiser, a ponderous giant big enough to swallow a thousand racers and have room for more. Weapons mountings covered its surface like craters. Its cannon maws alone were big enough to swallow a Magrail train. A host of smaller ships attended it, and docking bays opened like huge jaws ringed with the grotesque metal teeth of jutting equipment. The scene was eerily silent; the atmosphere up here was too thin to carry sound waves.

  I moved closer until the cruiser filled my field of view; closer still and
I could see every dent and pockmark. The hull curved above and below me like a cliff of metal. Closer yet, and I brushed its hull. I was actually feeling the inside of my exoskeleton, with Medline using its data on the cruiser to recreate the tactile sensations of the ship. But that gritty surface looked and felt authentic.

  Backing away, I plummeted to the planet. The view changed with dizzying speed: a ball in space, a curved landscape, a flat one. I plunged through clouds, came out below, and continued dropping until mountains rose around me. No lights showed anyplace except in the peaks where the Imperial palace sparkled like a jewel. I “landed” on the roof of the palace near the flyer I had used to bring Jaibriol here. Medline, the medical racer, sat next to it on a landing pad. I passed through its hull into the cabin, where I saw myself in the pilot’s seat with my eyes closed, my body encased in the exoskeleton. It felt bizarre, as if I were having an out-of-body experience. I shook my head—and the head of the pilot moved from side to side. My hair rustled, a noise I heard both with my ears and through the simulation.

  “Ready to go?” I asked. It felt odd to speak; usually when I piloted a ship I was in a psilink, making verbal communication unnecessary.

  “Ready.” O’Neill’s forehead creased as she watched me.

  “Problem?” I asked.

  “I’ve never seen a pilot make flight preparations with her eyes closed.”

  “I’m in a psi-sim.”

  “Can you actually see the cockpit?”

  “Better than that.” I concentrated on her and a translucent display appeared, glowing red. “You’re sitting 48.32 centimeters away from me, turned at a 23 degree angle relative to a line drawn from your solar plexus to the holoscreen directly in front of you. A lock of hair came free of your braid and is hanging next your left eye.”

  “That’s amazing.” O’Neill tucked the hair behind her ear.

  I took hold of the flystick, seeing it in the sim and feeling it with my hand. As I shoved the stick forward, I withdrew from the ship and arrowed back into the night. The racers’s near-planet thrusters fired and exhaust billowed around me, white and hot. The roar of our takeoff vibrated in the landing pad. We rose for several meters and hung there, our thrust just balanced by gravity.