Impact Velocity (The Physics of Falling)

by Leah Petersen

  “Sabria has been Owen’s head servant since he moved in with the Imperial Family,” he said.

  I froze, taking a moment to process that. Days ago it might have surprised me more. Now I only felt the stirrings of vague bemusement that was becoming the default reaction to any news of my son’s life as the ward of Jacob Dawes.

  Sabria was a tangible and real connection to Hera. I didn’t wonder so much that Dawes would want to preserve that influence in Owen’s life. Dawes had loved Hera, in his way, though I felt the familiar tightening of anger at the thought.

  But Sabria had worked in my household all the time I’d been scheming against Dawes. He could have arranged for her to tell Owen of his mother without keeping her so close. The head servant’s influence on a child can be enormous. How could he have trusted her? Why would he?

  “I thought that you might like to have her as your head servant as well,” Laudley continued. “At least until you find someone who suits you better.”

  I watched her, noting with approval the way she didn’t shy from my gaze.

  “She will do for now.”

  I didn’t love Hera when I married her. I didn’t even know her. But the time it took to transition from indifference to something more was so short I barely remember it. She was such a genuinely good person. I didn’t understand her, but I did love her.

  iv22

  We walked openly into the halls of the noble section. Startled, frightened gasps and exclamations rippled around us as we passed. A servant screamed, dropping the laden tray she carried. Laudley nodded to one of the guards and I noted with little amusement that the woman would probably lose her position at the palace now. It simply wasn’t appropriate behavior for a palace servant, even if she had just seen a dead man roaming the halls.

  “Where now?” I said.

  “To the council chambers.”

  I stopped. “And you think we’ll have privacy there?” Anger fueled my sarcasm.

  His self-satisfied expression infuriated me. “No. In fact, I’ve already requested a meeting with the council, as well as all the dukes in residence.”

  He hadn’t stopped when I did, but he was forced to, now—I still hadn’t moved from my spot. He gave me a disappointed look. “Surprise is the best offense, I think.”

  It didn’t escape me that the council and dukes weren’t the only ones he was surprising. I gave him a cold look. “If you expect me to be the public face for your schemes, you will at least keep me informed. This isn’t a game.”

  He smiled maliciously. “Oh, Enryn, it is always a game.” When I didn’t reply he shrugged. “When you need to know something, you can be sure I will inform you.”

  “I refuse to do this until you answer my questions.”

  “You refuse?” He took an obvious look around at the astonished, even hostile expressions of the passersby, the growing crowd of gawkers, and the guards who were the only wall between me and them. “And what do you think that will accomplish for you.”

  Fury boiled within me. He grinned when I had no answer. “You don’t have many choices here, Eight.” The world went black and red at the edges. “Only one, really. You can walk into that council room with me. Because I don’t think you want to go back into the only other place you can go if you defy me.”

  I couldn’t suppress the cold shiver and his grin widened. “Come, Blaine,” he said, “there’s no need to make a scene. We have another one to make now that will be much more satisfying, I assure you.”

  I joined him, stunned, trembling with anger and ice-cold terror. I didn’t look at him. He chuckled to himself as we walked on.

  ***

  The men and women in the council room gasped and startled just as the others had, no more noble than the commoners in the corridor. It was ridiculous that I’d never noticed before.

  Everyone was standing, so I took the seat at the head of the table, pulled it a little away, and sat down. I drew on knowledge and years of practice and positioned myself so that my body language projected confidence, even boredom, hoping it would hide the thudding of my heart and the trembling of my knees.

  Laudley made his explanations, told his story of my tragedy and suffering. They watched me surreptitiously, eyes darting up to the scars on my face and quickly away again. I said and did nothing. It occurred to me that once upon a time that would have been a deliberate effort. Now, it was the default.

  On Dead End the one place I could find some sanctuary was within my cell, but our walls were merely force fields, no visible separation from the others. I imagined them now, the walls between me and this group of entitled, naive nobles. I watched them, watched Laudley play them as I might have watched Kafe or one of the other gang leaders manipulate those who followed them. There was so little difference between the politics there and here—just the stakes, and the methods. These people were amateurs.

  I sat silently as Laudley laid out his plan for the imperial rule.

  “Emperor?” Duke Annis said, watching me sideways.

  “Regent,” Laudley clarified. Annis still watched me, as if he needed my reaction, but he wasn’t going to get it. Both because there was power in silence and because Laudley hadn’t told me his plans. I felt as if I floundered in deep waters. I knew how to swim, but I was weak, and tired.

  “Regent for whom?”

  I affected a small smile for Annis, holding his gaze until he looked away. The relief was overwhelming.

  “For the child, of course,” Laudley answered. I watched carefully, noting who did and didn’t take that answer as enough.

  “We don’t know where Prince Owen is yet,” Duchess Xian said.

  I held my breath. So easily he had turned their minds to Owen. The princess was Rikhart’s child, but she was contaminated. Half unclass. The nobles would not fail to take note, and no doubt he had been reminding them. Owen was the perfect solution for them. So long as Princess Marquilla didn’t return.

  A hole grew in my chest at the way I so easily thought of the death of a child, even as I longed for my own.

  “And if Prince Owen does not materialize, how do we transition power away from a man who has been installed in front of the entire empire?” the duchess pressed. I deliberately didn’t look at her, as if her objections weren’t worth my time.

  “Transition to whom?” Laudley said, a dangerous hush in his voice. “If the worst happens and Prince Owen is truly gone, who would you have in power then?”

  “That’s an important consideration,” Naganika replied. “But who has more claim to the throne than the Blaines and the Laudleys? Prince Owen is the last of the Laudley line. If he does not return, Duke Blaine inherits those rights.”

  “The Xian family—”

  “Oh come on,” Duke Shanks snapped. This one was young and impulsive. I had worked closely with his father in the days before my exile, but the old duke had apparently died since then. “As if we need more upheaval now. You know Naganika is right.” He sneered at her. “Besides, if you truly want to debate the point, the Shanks family has a better claim to the succession than the Xians will ever have.”

  Duchess Xian drew in a sharp breath. “What a completely absurd assertion—”

  “Enough,” I said, and I suppressed a smile when both immediately fell silent and turned to me. Did they not see the way they already acknowledged me as the superior of them all?

  “The decision has been made. The technicalities of interim versus permanent power, and whatever adjustments will be necessary when the children are recovered, will be lost on the common people. They need surety and decisiveness now, and clarity. There will be an announcement and a coronation, the details and legalities will be worked out by the council before anything is sealed. This quibbling is only a delay and a distraction. It ignores the most important issue of all, the recovery of my son.”

  “And the traitor as wel
l,” Duke Shanks said. I nodded.

  “The traitor as well. Though I consider those goals one and the same, since Owen will be with him.” Several of the nobles nodded in agreement. “Now, I want reports on the progress of the investigation from those of you overseeing the efforts and I want the rest of the council working on drawing up the necessary documents. I’d like to speak to the Grand Duke now. The rest of you are dismissed.”

  How easily they fell into my hand. I trembled, with both anxiety and excitement.

  When the others had departed, Laudley took a seat at an angle to me, a pleased smirk on his face he would normally have hidden. It galled me, this intimacy he pretended, even while he doled out information to me as he saw fit.

  “I see you had things well in hand before my arrival.”

  He smiled. “I would not have brought you here otherwise.”

  I kept my face blank, stoking the anger that gave me strength. “You make it look so easy. Within scant days you’ve brought the entire power structure of the empire to heel.”

  He affected a casual pose. “If by easy you mean the cumulative effect of years of planning and preparation, then yes, pulling the trigger—at last—went nearly as smoothly as I planned.”

  “You subverted the nobles right under Rikhart’s nose?”

  “I exploited cracks Rikhart opened himself with his marriage to the unclass.”

  “I thought they had gotten used to Dawes?”

  “Being used to something and agreeing with it are different things. They were not brave enough to do anything about it themselves, but many of your peers were only too happy to support someone else who had the courage to act.”

  “And the common people will accept this so easily? Dawes is something of a hero to them now.”

  He scoffed. “He was. But that is of no concern. The people will believe what they are told. Do you think the empire would have lasted this long if they thought for themselves?”

  I stared at him in astonishment. He watched me, chuckling. “You know, Enryn, this is why I chose you to marry my daughter. You are not stupid, but you are so dreadfully sincere. Hera would have seen right through a more astute conspirator, but you truly believe all the propaganda. Smart and ruthless enough to do what needs to be done, but so naive about what we were actually doing and why.”

  I looked away from Laudley. He fairly radiated satisfaction. That was good. I could let him enjoy his victory. But not for too long, lest he get the idea that gratitude or weakness would put me under his control. The crown would sit on my head, not his.

  Can you come to the lab? You have to see this.

  Will it wait half an hour?

  What have I told you about the secrets of the universe?

  OK, they wait for no man. But could they wait just a little bit, for the emperor?

  iv23

  I didn’t even try to sleep that night. I wandered the house alone in the dark, and that was when I found the lab.

  It was a physicists’ lab, to rival any of the small labs at the IIC. I stood there for a long time, just staring at it. It wasn’t generic or for light use. It wasn’t a jumble of the proper equipment with no understanding of function. It had been set up by someone who had taken care to make it efficient and logical. Of course Jonathan would do that.

  I spent the rest of the night in and out of the garage, cannibalizing the transport, taking parts of it with me to the lab. Jonathan had explained that the transport had been deactivated the moment we arrived, and could no longer be used. That sounded like a challenge to me.

  I broke it down, dissecting the things I was passingly familiar with, figuring out how the theories and concepts I knew well were constructed into useful applications. Sometimes I almost reached for the comm, meaning to tell Pete about something fascinating I’d learned, only to remember he wasn’t there anymore.

  I buried myself and my grief in physics. It wasn’t a comfort, but it helped me forget for the night and it gave me a purpose. I worked into the next day, stopping only for breakfast with the children. Jonathan was doing his planning and plotting, all the stuff at which I was so useless. But I could do this.

  Jonathan would come up with plans, plans that would work, backup plans for the backup plans. It would probably all be foolproof and look as easy as breathing when it was anything but. All my efforts in the lab might be redundant or fruitless, but at least they were something. Things could happen to the people you were depending on, who you believed were capable of anything, who were invincible. That wasn’t a lesson I was going to forget again.

  So while Jonathan worked on all the intelligent and meaningful ways we could act now, I worked on adapting the science and technology that had gotten us away from the assassins when we shouldn’t have been able to. I would use it to keep us safe. The house may be well hidden, the empire’s most protected secret, but with the resources of the entire empire and enough time, I didn’t believe it would be impossible for a determined man to figure out.

  The people who had killed an emperor had proven themselves determined, and they had too much interest in finding us—even if it wasn’t for simple spite, or revenge, or to clean up the mess. I had the heir and Prince Owen. So I focused on a way to get us off this island under our own power. Not that we had anywhere to go now, and maybe not ever. But I didn’t plan on being a sitting duck when or if they ever found us. And I knew better than to discount the possibility.

  When I explained my project to Jonathan, his eyebrows climbed slowly as a small smile touched his mouth.

  “It’s a very good idea,” he said. “That is one of the greatest weaknesses of the safehouse. The only way off the island is in a transport that must be triggered from the palace.” At my expression of surprise he frowned at me. “There’s little chance that it would be safe for you to leave here if your allies weren’t already in control of the palace. I never even considered that we might be able to leave here in any other way. Transporting ourselves off the island expands our options considerably.”

  It was high praise from Jonathan, and I accepted it for what it was worth.

  I considered trying to hotwire the return transport somehow, but that was hardly my area of expertise. Even though the propulsion system on the first transport had essentially self-destructed once we entered the garage, I still understood its principles better and had more confidence I could make that work.

  Propulsion was physics and physics was what I did. I applied myself furiously. Owen joined me often but Molly, in general, ignored us. She had her other father’s brilliance in the humanities, and gave our scientific endeavors all the attention she thought they deserved, which was very little of hers.

  For all his interest in helping me, Owen rarely left Molly for long. I wondered if he realized that it was as much for himself as for her. They shared a grief that was different than mine. And there’s some sense of control, even if it’s false, in protecting the ones you have left.

  Jonathan sat at my side when the children were otherwise occupied. The familiarity of his presence was easy to take for granted and hard to ignore. Sometimes we talked, and it was the exact opposite of what I expected. I thought we would stick to safe subjects, shy away from the rawness of pain, the wounds that had been re-opened with our unexpected reunion. But Jonathan avoided nothing.

  “I don’t think there was a worse punishment you could have come up with for me.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean? Back at the palace? Letting you go?”

  He gave me a weak smile. “Yes. You made lies of all my excuses. I’d told myself that I couldn’t stop spying on you for Blaine because you’d never understand, and the consequences would be too dire. And yet, when you found out, all you did was let me go. I’d told myself that it was best for it to be me, that I made a buffer between you and Blaine because you trusted me. But I only made it that much easier for him to hurt you be
cause you did trust me. Anyone else you’d have suspected, or at least considered, once you were being attacked in so many personal and intimate ways. But you never even questioned whether I could be behind any of it.” The lift of his lips looked more like nausea than amusement.

  “You took away all my defenses. I couldn’t pretend that I was anything but a cowardly traitor, that I’d done anything short of absolute betrayal. I couldn’t believe my own lie that anyone else would have shielded you from damage better than I did. Or even that anyone trying to hurt you could have done better than I did with no more than my silence.”

  I sighed. “We both made mistakes,” I said. “Even with the best of intentions.”

  “Mine weren’t always the best of intentions.”

  I shrugged. “Neither were mine.” I turned to face him. “You were good for me, Jonathan, more than you were bad.” I couldn’t help a small smile. “I’m sorry you had to see you weren’t as perfect as you thought you were.”

  His expression was hard and unforgiving. “I never thought I was perfect at all.”

  I gave him a wry grin. “Well, I did. That has to count for something.”

  He looked away. “More than you’ll ever know.”

  It’s 4:00am on Tuesday morning, 175 days since I sent you into exile. How can I still miss you so badly? I’ve been lying here for hours wondering what you’re doing now that you’re back at the IIC.

  That first night we worked together in the lab on the ship, you told me that even science can be boring sometimes. I’d give anything for us to be bored together right now.

  I really should stop writing these. I don’t think they’re helping. And I’m afraid I’ll break down and send one to you eventually.

  iv24

  I put the children to bed that night, exhausted beyond belief, but still not certain I could sleep, or if I wanted to. At least in the lab I was doing something. But Jonathan was waiting in the hall.