The Final Key: Part Two of Triad (Saga of the Skolian Empire)

by Catherine Asaro

  As the ESComm numbers plummeted, a sob escaped Soz. The flotilla was going to make it. This sliver of the invasion would fail to reach Metropoli. Had it succeeded, it could have committed an unprecedented massacre. That bloodbath was averted by the barest margin.

  ISC 180: ESComm 12.

  ISC 179: ESComm 0.

  The remains of the flotilla limped into Metropoli, 178 ships and the cruiser. Soz heard voices over her comm, some excited, some weary, all relieved. She couldn’t join their celebration. She didn’t know—and never would—whether or not her decision to withdraw support from Kurj’s force had made the difference in achieving that hard-fought victory.

  Soz returned her attention to the distant struggle between the main invasion and defense fleets, the battle Kurj was directing from his Triad Chair. She resumed her work for Kurj, and she sent reports to Devon Majda, who transmitted updates to the flotilla and Metropoli. So it was that they all heard—and cheered—when the news came:

  ESComm was in retreat.

  The rest of it came more slowly, and silenced the cheers. ISC had taken gruesome losses, a third of a million ships.

  Reeling with grief, Soz remembered Kurj’s words from last year: The problem, Soz, is that to lead well you have to know how to lose. You can’t always win. You can’t always be right. She had thought she knew what he was telling her, but she had been so very wrong. She would have to live with a bitter knowledge for the rest of her life, that in defending the flotilla and Metropoli, she had condemned an untold number of men and women to die.

  The worst of it was, she would never know if she had made the right choice.

  19

  Baylow Station

  Eldrin stood in one of ten long queues formed by the refugees outside the starport, leading to a row of outdoor gates. People were crowding off the many ships putting into Baylow and coming here, thousands of them, with heat beating on their backs.

  Sweat plastered Eldrin’s shirt to his skin. The air smelled strange, too sweet. This world had been terraformed, so the air should be breathable, but it made him nauseous. Nor did the gravity help. He felt too light. After his ordeal on the ship, he was queasy, weak, lightheaded. His exhaustion went deep. Although bearable now, his craving for phorine remained. He would live with the miserable specter of its power over him for the rest of his life.

  He had the two children with him, and he stood holding the girl’s hand. The boy stood next to her, trying to be brave but obviously scared. About seven, he was old enough to have a better understanding of their situation. He reminded Eldrin of Taquinil, with his dark hair and alert gaze. What if something had happened to Taquinil? Or Dehya? He had to believe they were all right.

  He spoke to the children in Flag, as he had many times today. “I’m Eldrin.” He touched the boy’s shoulder. “And you?”

  The boy regarded him with solemn eyes and the girl clutched his hand. Neither had spoken in days.

  “Ah, well.” Eldrin murmured. “I would be afraid, too.”

  The girl moved closer to him. He laid an arm on her shoulders and wished he could find their guardians.

  The line moved forward. Restless with the wait, Eldrin thought, Allegro, do yon have any data about this place?

  His node answered. I have a summary from the El on the freighter. It accessed visual centers of his brain, and a translucent display appeared in the air. Baylow orbited a yellow sun, which orbited a bigger, cooler star. The yellow sun appeared white from the planet, and the distant star was like a brass stud, smaller in the sky despite its large size because it was so far away. Allegro estimated that “day” here lasted tens, even hundreds of hours.

  Right now, both suns were up. The sky had a blue-green tinge, which bothered Eldrin. Sweat dripped down his neck, and he tugged at his collar. He had on a white shirt and gray slacks, all self-cleaning. The captain of the freighter had also let his passengers break open soap-bots from the ship’s mess, and Kaywood had tended Eldrin with them during the fourday ride. The doctor seemed to think this was a small thing, but it had made an immense difference to his patient.

  A woman in front of Eldrin pulled up her hair and fanned her neck. The girl with Eldrin fidgeted with her brother’s shirt, which hung out of his trousers, and he glared at her. They moved another few steps toward the gate. The official there was a member of the Imperial Relief Allocation Service, a civilian group run by the government. The blue and white circle of the IRAS insignia gleamed on the shoulders of her khaki jumpsuit.

  The closer they came to the gate, the more ill-at-ease Eldrin felt. He never spoke to anyone outside the Imperial court. It was one of the few things his family, the Assembly, and ISC agreed on; the less time the Ruby Consort spent in public, the better. He valued his privacy, and ISC liked it because it made him easier to protect. On Lyshriol he hadn’t been guarded night and day, but he had just been a farm boy, far less a target for abduction or assassination. Here, without bodyguards, he felt uncertain. Anonymity was his shield.

  He also wished his bodyguards were here for another reason; it would mean they were all right. He was responsible for their absence. He spent a great deal of time with the taciturn giant. He liked and respected them. He prayed someone at the port had seen to their needs better than he in the tumult of the evacuation.

  No one here was likely to recognize him, though, given how rarely he appeared in public. Discretion seemed his best course. If he revealed himself, they would give him attention and resources other people needed. He had caused enough trouble for the refugees crammed in that cargo hold, forced to spend days with him while he screamed his throat raw. That was done with. The limited resources here should go to others.

  The IRAS officer at the gate was dark-haired and tall like most Skolians, though nowhere near as imposing as the Abaj. She waved the woman ahead of them through the gate and beckoned to Eldrin.

  This was it. As he went to the gate, he told himself he had no reason to be nervous. She looked him over, including his disheveled hair and wrinkled clothes. Even with top-notch nanos in the cloth, his shirt and trousers couldn’t erase the effects of the past four days. He didn’t know how he appeared, but he doubted it was good.

  She spoke curtly in Flag. “Are these your children?” Her harsh tone startled him, and for the first time he realized they might take away the boy and girl. Given how scared they were, he doubted it would be a good idea, but he had no claim to them.

  “Well?” the officer demanded.

  “They were separated from their parents.” He answered in Flag, his voice thick from his strained vocal cords. “I’m taking care of them.”

  She studied him with an appraising gaze. “Any injuries? We have doctors available.”

  He had seen how the officials here rushed Kaywood through processing because they needed doctors to treat the injured. Eldrin saw no reason to take up any medic’s valuable time. His head felt as if it had been through a rock crusher, but he was fine now. Or maybe not fine, but well enough.

  The officer frowned at him. “Can’t you speak?”

  He jerked at her hostile tone. Instinctively, he dropped his mental barriers and probed her mood. She wasn’t an empath, so he only gleaned an impression, but it was enough to make him flush. She was sexually attracted to him and feared reprimands if she slipped up and let it show. So she was overcompensating.

  “All right,” she muttered to herself. “He won’t talk. I’ll deal with it.”She flicked her finger through an icon above her holoboard and a new page appeared on its display.

  “I’m sorry,” Eldrin said. “I’m a little shaky.”

  Her posture relaxed. “It’s not surprising, after all this.” She unclipped the light stylus from her board. “Name?”

  “Eldrin Jarac Valdoria.” He omitted his fourth name. Skolia. Only one family in the Skolian Imperialate could claim it. His other names weren’t likely to identify him, but his ID would trigger a flag in her system and spur a discreet notification to ISC.

&nbs
p; She marked the form with her stylus. “Home?”

  “Parthonia.” He gave her the address of the mansion where he and Dehya sometimes stayed in Selei City. The Sunrise Palace in the hills had no address.

  She directed her light stylus toward him. “This will scan your retinas, for your ID. If family or friends are searching for you, they can locate this record in our databases after the Kyle web comes back up.”

  He squinted as light played over his eyes. “The web is down?”

  “Parts of it.” Her voice was losing its edge. “Or it might be us. We’ve had problems, having to set up this station too fast. We don’t know what is happening out there.”

  Eldrin hoped the problems came from here rather than the Dyad. His certainty that they had been in trouble, in agony, could have come from the horror of his withdrawal, but he feared it was real.

  “Do you have medical training?” she asked. “Engineering or communications? We’re short on personnel.”

  “No. Nothing.” Eldrin wished he had more to offer. Since his marriage to Dehya, he had spent most of his time caring for his son or creating his music. Even if he had been able to sing, which he no longer could, it had about as much utility here as mud.

  The officer peered at the children. “What are your names?”

  They hung back, the girl halfway behind Eldrin and the boy close at his side.

  “I’m going to shine a light on your eyes,” the woman told them. “It won’t hurt.” She scanned them with the stylus and recorded the results. Then she spoke to Eldrin. “You can go on through.”

  He inclined his head. “Thank you.”

  She gave him an odd look. He wasn’t certain why. All he could tell from her mood was that most people didn’t nod in such a formal manner. He didn’t know what else to do; he had no referent for Skolian customs except the protocols of the Imperial Court that he and Dehya entertained at the palace.

  Eldrin led the children through the gate and onto a casecrete plaza. Its brilliant white surface reflected the sunlight. Many people were crossing it, and most looked as dazed as he felt. Beyond the plaza, meadows of stubbly grass spread out with the synthetic look of plants engineered for durability. IRAS workers were helping refugees set up tents and medical stations. People poured into the camp; by the time the deluge ended, the population here could be in the tens of thousands. He hoped it was that high. Over three million people lived in Selei City and its outlying areas. If the attack had continued as it began, few would survive who didn’t go underground or offworld.

  Eldrin wandered with the children, unsure what to do. Surrounded by so many people, he intensified his mental barriers, but their bewildered dismay still pressed against him. Some were in pain, injured in the attack or the rush to flee the city. He felt their distress like mental blows.

  He stopped and gazed across the camp. Everywhere, people were sitting, toiling, staring. He caught sight of a familiar figure, Lane Kaywood, working in a makeshift infirmary. Patients surrounded the physician. A sudden thought came to Eldrin; he did have something to offer, a way he could be of some small use.

  He smiled at the children. “Shall we go see the doctor?”

  They looked up at him, silent. The boy nodded gravely.

  The infirmary consisted of little more than a table strewn with equipment and tarps held up by poles. Patients lay on blankets. Kaywood was kneeling next to an elderly man in a bloodstained shirt.

  Eldrin stopped a short distance away and spoke to the children. “You two sit here, so we don’t disturb them.”

  The girl clutched his hand, her gray eyes wide.

  “It’s all right,” Eldrin said. “I’m not going away.” He put her hand in the boy’s. “This big fellow can look after you.”

  The boy pulled himself up straighter, and the girl eyed him with a skepticism that made Eldrin want to laugh, it reminded him so much of Soz. They sat on the tarp and regarded him with a trust that astonished Eldrin, given what they had seen him go through on the freighter.

  As Eldrin turned toward Kaywood, the doctor’s elderly patient groaned. Kaywood knelt and pressed an air syringe against his neck. Eldrin hesitated, reluctant to intrude. Listening to them, he gathered that several of the man’s ribs had broken and he had sustained internal injuries when his hover car crashed during the evacuation.

  Eldrin went over and knelt next to them. “I can help.”

  Kaywood glanced up with a start. Strain showed around his eyes, even more than on the ship. “Do you have training as a medic?” Hope surged in his voice.

  “Not exactly,” Eldrin said. “I’ve biofeedback training.”

  “Ah.” Kaywood seemed to sag again. “Yes, it can help you.”

  Eldrin spoke self-consciously. “I’m a psion. I feel and send emotions, sometimes even thoughts. It works with biofeedback, too. I can affect others as well as myself.” As a Rhon heir, he had trained all his life to develop his abilities.

  Kaywood blinked. “What can you do?”

  “Ease pain. Aid healing.”

  The elderly man regarded him with bleared eyes. “What is your name, son?”

  “Eldrin.” He ached from the man’s discomfort. “And yours, sir?”

  “Rory Canterman Willham.”

  “My pleasure at your company, Gentlesir Willham.” Eldrin used the formal cadences of the Imperial Court.

  Willham gave him an approving look. “Nice to see our youth showing some manners.”

  “Do you need anything special to work?” Kaywood asked Eldrin.

  “No. You can continue treating him.” Eldrin indicated the children. The boy was watching him and the girl had laid down, curled next to her brother. “I won’t be able to look after them, though.”

  “I’ll see they aren’t left unattended.” Kaywood’s expression was carefully neutral. Eldrin had a sense the doctor didn’t really believe a psion could help, but was willing to try anything at this point.

  As Kaywood cut away his patient’s bloodied shirt, Eldrin sat cross-legged on the other side of Willham, who studied him with faded blue eyes. Although Willham made no sound, Eldrin felt the pain splintering through the man’s body. The medicine Kaywood had administered either hadn’t worked or wasn’t enough. Unfortunately, medical supplies were limited.

  Eldrin bent his head and closed his eyes. He imagined blue mist spreading through his mind until his sense of place and time blurred. He linked his internal node with the picoweb produced by the nanomeds within his body, augmenting his natural abilities with his technological enhancements. The meds were depleted after laboring so hard during his withdrawal, but he had enough left to establish a weak link. Then he turned his concentration outward, similar to the way he would send thoughts to another person. He shut out the creaks and clatter of camp and focused on Willham.

  Eldrin sank into a universe of muscles and blood vessels. He knew only damaged tissues, ripped arteries and veins, the sharp edges of broken ribs. He went deeper, to where molecular catalysts aided repairs and carriers ferried nutrients or hauled away cellular debris. He submerged into the chemicals striving to heal, those molecules the body naturally carried and those Kaywood had injected. He followed threads of pain to Willham’s brain and damped the neurological centers that registered them. He helped ragged membranes knit together. He supported energy cycles that provided strength. Wilhelm’s full recovery would take more than Eldrin could give, but he could aid the natural healing processes.

  After a while Eldrin tired and his concentration lagged. Surfacing from his trance, he opened his eyes to find the light had become dimmer, as if a thin layer of clouds covered the sky. Willham was asleep, his torso bandaged, his hair damp and smelling of soap. A medical monitor hummed by his head.

  Disoriented, Eldrin rubbed his eyes. When had all that happened? Although no clouds covered the sky, it had darkened into a deeper shade of aqua. Only one sun was up, a small disk in the sky. The camp had become a city of tents. People talked in quiet voices or sat starin
g at nothing, as if they couldn’t yet take in what had happened. The children were sleeping under a blanket. Packages of food lay next to them and a hologame that glimmered with starships.

  “Welcome back,” a voice said behind him.

  Eldrin turned as Kaywood crouched next to him. The doctor set his hand on Willham’s forehead. “No fever. I was worried his wounds were infected. But he seems all right.”

  “That’s good.” Eldrin tried to sharpen his fuzzy mind. “What happened to the other sun?” His voice was thick, and he slipped into his natural speech patterns, both his Trillian burr and Iotic accent.

  Kaywood squinted at him. “Say again?”

  Eldrin spoke more carefully. “The sun is gone.”

  “Ah. Yes. The yellow one set.”

  Bewildered, Eldrin said, “It couldn’t have crossed the sky that fast.”

  “It took about eight hours.”

  Eldrin gaped at him. He had been in a trance for eight hours? No wonder he was worn out. “It hardly felt like any time at all.”

  “Maybe it’s a lingering effect of the phorine.”

  “Perhaps.” Sometimes after he had taken it, he had spent hours staring at a work of holoart or swirls in a glass of wine. Phorine. Node-bliss. Never again would he know its ecstasy. He would crave it forever, but he was done with that lie. It had turned his days into heaven and left him in hell.

  Kaywood was watching Eldrin with an odd look. “It’s amazing how fast Willham is healing.”

  Eldrin wondered at his strange expression. Kaywood seemed more reticent with him than on the freighter. Eldrin had dropped his mental barriers to help Willham, and it left him more open to the doctor. Although Kaywood was trying to guard his mind, he had little experience with psions. He also had natural empathy, as did many healers, and his mood came through clearly. Awe.

  “What you did,” Kaywood said. “It was incredible.”

  His reaction disconcerted Eldrin. “It isn’t much. I’m just glad I could help.”

  Kaywood started to speak, then stopped.

  “Yes?” Eldrin asked.