Activating simulation modulator transfer in v-space. That thought came from Bolt, the node implanted in his spine.
What the blazes does that mean? Kelric asked.
I’m turning on your helmet. Bolt wasn’t supposed to have emotions, but his response felt far too amused to Kelric. His node was having fun with him.
The darkness lightened and left Kelric floating in interstellar space, surrounded by nebulae like cosmic gem dust. Pretty simulation, Kelric thought.
It does have aesthetic qualities that humans associate with beauty.
Kelric smiled. But of course you don’t.
Of course not.
He laughed softly. Bolt, you know that’s bull-bollocks.
You don’t have to cuss at me. Then Bolt added, You’re right, though, it is pretty.
That it is. So let’s go to the planet.
Continuing simulation. The view changed as if Kelric was arrowing through space. Then Bolt added, You know, cussing with alliteration doesn’t make it any classier.
Since when did cussing bother you? Kelric asked, curious. You’ve heard me do it for decades. An orange star was swelling in view in front of him. He wondered why Bolt didn’t just switch the simulation so they were at the planet.
The profanity bothers your wife, Bolt said.
No, it doesn’t. I’m an empath. I’d know if it bothered her.
Bolt transmitted a sense of rebuke.
You’re inside me, Kelric thought. If I don’t see it, why would you?
I’m paying attention.
She swears all the time.
She doesn’t mind it from women.
For flaming sake. Yes, I know, my wife is a barbaric sexist matriarch. Given the opportunity, she’d lock all men up in seclusion.
I never said that. She’s a modern, enlightened woman.
And you’re a military mesh node. Not a marital advisor.
Bolt sent him the glyph of a grinning cat.
You enjoy giving me a hard time, Kelric thought.
I would never do such a thing, Bolt assured him. It would have been more convincing if the node hadn’t sounded so amused.
The orange star continued to grow larger in front of Kelric as he hurtled through its system. Asteroids flashed by, huge chunks of rock rolling ponderously close.
When will we reach the base mesh? Kelric asked. My schedule is tight. If I can’t check all seven ISC bases in this region before I finish my shift, I’ll fall too far behind on my rounds.
A pause. Then Bolt thought, Actually, we should already be there.
Why aren’t we? You have control of this—
With no warning, the galaxy burst open, splitting like a rotten fruit. Light drove daggers deep into Kelric’s brain and pain roared through him.
And he died.
The dice lay scattered in a rainbow of shapes before Jaibriol. He rested his elbows on the tall table and his chin on his knuckles as he gazed at the playing pieces. Kelric had taught him Quis when they were on Earth negotiating the treaty. Jaibriol would never forget that moment—or hours, maybe—when they had linked minds, and Kelric had flooded him with the rules of the game. Somehow Kelric had known it would help calm the immense energy that had coursed through Jaibriol’s mind since he joined the Triad. The patterns, algorithms, strategies, the infinite ways to play Quis: it fascinated Jaibriol. He wished he had someone to challenge. Unfortunately the only person he knew who played it was Kelric. He could just imagine the headlines: Emperor of Eube challenges Imperator of Skolia to dice game. What does it mean? Is life as we know it ending?!
“It means I can’t figure out the blasted moves,” Jaibriol muttered.
“What moves?” a woman said in a dusky voice.
He had enough control not to jerk, but she had caught him off guard, which rarely happened. Then again, she was the only person who could approach him without being blocked by a phalanx of security people and procedures.
He glanced up. “My greetings, wife.”
The empress slid her long, sensual body into a wing chair across the table and glanced over his array of dice. “Why do you play with these?”
He wondered how she managed to look erotic and deadly at the same time. “It relaxes me.”
Tarquine idly picked up a sapphire octahedron. “Is this an important piece?”
“It could be. Three-dimensional dice are higher in rank than flat ones. So are pieces with more sides.” He tapped a garnet square. “Very low rank.”
“It’s red.” Her lashes lowered slightly, veiling her carnelian eyes. “Any Aristo optician can tell you the stratospheric worth of that color.”
Calm down, Jaibriol told his pulse, which was having an all too male response. “In Quis, it’s just physics. The status of a piece goes by color. The longer the wavelength, the lower the rank. So red is low, purple is high.”
“Status. How appropriate.” She stretched her arms like a sleek cat, for all appearances relaxed. Since she never relaxed, he wondered how much trouble he was in this time.
“You’re in a good mood,” he said. “What did you do, cheat some rivals out of their legacy?”
“I never cheat anyone,” she purred. “I simply exploit flaws in their finances.”
Flaws, indeed. She needed somewhere to turn that prodigious mind of hers before she took over the economy of his entire empire and tangled it into knots just to keep herself entertained. “You should learn to play Quis. We could challenge each other.”
“We challenge each other all the time.” Her perfect smile curved. “I always win.”
He didn’t want to debate who won the most arguments, because he would lose. So instead he pushed a handful of dice toward her. The gems sparkled. “The purpose is to build structures. The higher the rank of the structure, of the dice within it, and of the way the structure fits into the story of the game, the more points you get.”
She set down the sapphire and nudged a diamond sphere with her index finger. “What story?”
Good question. “I’m not sure, actually.” He thought of his solitaire games. “Taken altogether, the structures tell a story. Or predict one. You mold them using various strategies and see what results you get.” He gave her a wicked grin. “We’ll play a game about you and me playing games. See which of us the Quis predicts will win.”
“I don’t need dice to tell me that.” She leaned back languidly. “Though I must say, that logic was deliciously circular.”
Jaibriol thought if she kept looking at him that way, they would end up working on his need for an heir rather than playing dice. How bizarre, that circular arguments aroused his wife.
“Here.” He set an emerald bar in the center of the table. “Your move.”
“Is it now.” She flicked the diamond ball and it rolled until it hit the bar, then rebounded a bit and stopped.
He set down a topaz rod, bridging his emerald bar and her sphere. “There.”
“ ‘There’?” she said. “Does that have a translation?”
“The structure I made using those three dice is called a lamp post. Or something like that. I made it, so I win.” He smirked at her. “And I captured your diamond sphere. Which is the highest ranked piece.”
“A sphere?” Her elegant eyebrow arched. “It has only one measly little surface.”
Jaibriol grinned. “It has an infinite number of faces, wife.”
She gave him her iciest Aristo stare. “It most certainly does not.”
“Ah, but look.” He tapped a line of dice. “Tetrahedron, pentahedron, cube, heptahedron, octahedron. They go from four to eight faces. The more faces, the rounder they get. Let the number of faces go to infinity, and you get a sphere.”
“Is that so?”
“It most certainly is.”
“Of course I would play the highest ranked piece,” she murmured. She slid a ruby pyramid into the center of the table. “And what, your Delectable Highness, can you do with that?”
“You know, Tarquine, I’m a
n emperor, not a dessert.”
“Is there a difference?” she murmured.
Jaibriol decided he was safer treating that as a rhetorical question. Besides, he liked her titles for him better than the overblown honorifics that Aristo custom demanded people use for him, Your Glorious, Exalted Whatever. He wondered if his ancestors had ever exploded from being so full of themselves their skin couldn’t contain their egos.
He set a carnelian pyramid next to her ruby. “Your move.”
“Eube and Skolia,” she said. “How appropriate.”
“It could be,” he said. She intuitively seemed to understand how the Quis worked.
They continued playing, their session evolving as he taught her what little he knew of the rules. She caught on extraordinarily fast, and he thought he should be terrified by that fact, but he was enjoying himself too much to care. Quis patterns spread across the table.
A story evolved.
It started out as a nebulous idea, but it soon clarified, growing out of whatever subconscious motives they brought to their moves. Tarquine started many new structures, fresh and full of promise, always stressing red and purple, the colors of his throne and office.
And finally he understood.
Jaibriol raised his gaze to look at Tarquine. He felt suddenly wound tight, as if he were about to open a door to an unknown place that he both feared and longed to find.
Her lips curved as she met his gaze. “Am I really that fascinating?”
His pulse was hammering. Music should swell or criers should call out. But they would do none of that here. “When did you find out?” he asked. His voice was surreally calm.
She said, simply, “An hour ago.”
“An hour.” Jaibriol took a deep breath. “Do you know . . . ?” He couldn’t go on.
Her words fell into the silence. “It’s a boy.”
He stared at her. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” Her voice was velvet. “Your empire will welcome news of the Highton Heir.”
The Highton Heir. His heir. The heir to the Carnelian Throne. Gods almighty, she was carrying his son. He felt as if he was struggling to breathe. “Tarquine—”
She did something incredibly rare then. She reached out and took his hand. “He will look like you. Beautiful.”
He didn’t know how to answer. If his son truly looked like him, as Jaibriol had appeared before he had genetically modified himself, they would have to alter the child’s appearance. Jaibriol had been born with multicolored hair, black streaked by gold, with none of the telltale Highton glitter.
The chair heaved under Jaibriol. What the blazes? Meshes networked the furniture, and the table could morph, even act with rudimentary intelligence, but no reason existed for it to react to Tarquine’s announcement—
The ceiling suddenly snapped with a great booming crack and collapsed downward, showering them with breaking plasticrete. A growl rumbled through the room. Tapestries swayed and fell while the walls where they hung bowed inward and split open.
Tarquine jumped to her feet as Jaibriol shoved the table out of the way. A column toppled against a wall, smashing into pieces, and the growl became a roar. Dust billowed in the air while chunks of composite, gems, and stone smashed down around them. As Jaibriol grabbed Tarquine, a jagged weight hit the back of his head. They fell under the rain of debris and he curled his body around her, protecting his empress and their unborn child.
Blackness closed around him.
VIII
Three Paths to Death
The black hover car whizzed above the street like a bullet, whirred around, and came back toward Aliana and Red. It settled on the road, blocking their way. A portal in its side irised open and a woman leaned out, her rusty-red eyes hard in the drizzling morning. A man sat farther back in the car, barely visible.
“Well, aren’t you a pretty pair,” the woman said. “Get in. We’ll give you a ride.”
The hair on the back of Aliana’s neck rose. That woman had eyes the same color as her stepfather. He used to talk that way when he was drunk, as if he were an Aristo and Aliana was his slave. That was usually before he started hitting.
“No thanks.” Aliana grabbed Red’s arm, spun around, and strode the other way, tugging him with her.
“Careful,” Red said as he strode at her side. “They rich. Important. Not make mad.”
“I don’t give a drill how rich they are,” Aliana said. “They’re still slaves.” With those eyes, the woman had to be part Aristo, the illegitimate daughter of someone powerful. Just seeing her made Aliana feel as if bugs were crawling on her skin.
The car hummed behind them, its turbines growling. Aliana sped up, pulling Red, and he stumbled as his shoes scraped the pavement. She suddenly knew he had never before worn shoes. His mind blazed with it. She often picked up moods from people, but never with this clarity. She kept her grip on his arm, afraid someone would try to tear him away. He had only been with her a couple of days, but he already felt like a part of her life.
The car came around and settled down in front of them. Aliana skidded to a stop and Red stayed with her, staring at the car.
The woman stepped out and stalked over to them. “Come along,” she said. “Both of you.”
Aliana tensed. Although the woman wasn’t wearing a uniform, she moved like a military tech-type. Even so. Aliana could lose this prowler babe if she sprinted for the labyrinth of alleys that networked the old city. She knew this town better than any half-Aristo spawn. But she doubted Red could keep up, given his problems with the shoes. So she stayed put, tensing for a fight. Good thing she’d been working with Tide.
“Come on,” the woman said. “Into the hover with you both.”
“Why the hell would we go anywhere with you?” Aliana said.
The man stepped out and lounged against the car, his arms crossed, watching them with an amused look, as if they were his entertainment. Although red streaked his hair, the rest shimmered black like Aristo hair. His eyes were red. He wore a collar like everyone else, but he was obviously in the stratosphere of taskmaker slaves, maybe even more than half Aristo.
The woman’s expression hardened. “Someone should teach you respect, girl.”
“For what?” Aliana asked. “Why should I respect some random stranger who stops us on the street and tries to haul us off some place where you and that asshole”—she waved her hand at the guy—“can get your kicks making us scream.”
The woman studied her as if she were a bug. “You’ve never been a provider.”
“Yeah, well, neither have you,” Aliana said. “So what?”
The man wasn’t smiling anymore. He came over to the woman and spoke in a low voice. They probably didn’t think Aliana could hear. She often picked up conversations that people believed were private. It had to do with feeling their minds and extrapolating their mood to their words. Or something. She didn’t know why it worked, but it was useful.
“She isn’t wearing provider restraints,” the man said. “But gods, her mind is a furnace. The boy, too. Find out who they are.”
The woman spoke louder, to Aliana. “Who do you belong to?”
“Same as you,” Aliana said. “Garret Muze.” Lord Garret was related to Orzon Muze, a cousin of a sister of a brother of who the hell knew what. A minor Aristo, but still an Aristo, so he owned things, like this slum, which more important Aristos didn’t even want. Aliana didn’t know what this guy meant by “furnace,” but she doubted she would like it.
The woman came forward, her laser-like focus boring into them, and stopped in front of Aliana. “We’re part of Lord Orzon’s household.”
Aliana stood her ground, glad she was taller than this fake Aristo. “Good for you.”
The woman’s mouth tightened. With no warning, she moved—like a blur.
Shit. Aliana responded by instinct, ducking the blow and kicking out her foot. The woman countered with surreal speed, fast and brutal, as if she had augmentation to her body.<
br />
Their fight went fast. With her mind so pumped up, Aliana couldn’t separate details. She combined the street brawling she already knew with the training Tide had pounded into her every day these past three months. The fight took all her strength, tricks and cheats, and even with that, she felt as if she were struggling with two people. She barely held her own.
Finally Aliana got a choke hold on the woman’s neck. She wanted to snap it in two, hear the bones crack . . .
“STOP!” Red’s shout registered on Aliana. He was yanking on her arm.
Disoriented, Aliana released the woman, who crumpled to the ground. As Aliana’s head cleared, she realized she had been fighting two people. The man lay nearby, one of his arms bent at an odd angle. Alarms were blaring and people had gathered around, watching avidly.
“Gods,” Aliana rasped. What had she done? The man and woman were breathing; in her heightened state, she felt their minds like a blast of heat. They were unconscious but alive.
“We dead,” Red told her.
“Like hell!” She grabbed his arm and took off. Red grunted, running clumsily, but he kept up. They had to hide! If Admiral Muze’s people caught them, that would be it. They’d kill Red, probably painfully, for having the audacity to want to live, and gods only knew what they’d do to her.
People backed away as she and Red ran, watching with the ugly fascination of a crowd that thinks it’s about to witness an execution. No one chased her. Why would they? They had no stake in this and they knew the rules. Mind your business. Keep your head down. She would have done the same.
Aliana ducked into an alley that was so narrow, she and Red had to go single file, their shoulders scraping against the ragged plasti-bricks on either side. At least the wall did nothing to hinder them. The cheap bricks just stayed in place like inanimate objects. Well, yeah, they were inanimate objects. She couldn’t imagine living in a place where all objects were this dumb, but right now it suited her just fine.
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