Prime- The Summons

  Prime

  The Summons

  Maeve Sleibhin

  Published by Cranberry Square Books

  http://www.cranberrysquarebooks.com

  In collaboration with Grinning Bandit Books

  http://grinningbandit.webnode.com

  First published in 2019 by

  Cranberry Square Books

  © Maeve Sleibhin 2019

  ‘Prime The Summons is the copyright of Maeve Sleibhin, 2019.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital or mechanical, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  Cover design by Jon Hrubesch

  http://www.jonhrubesch.com

  Also by Maeve Sleibhin

  MOTHER AND OTHER SHORT SCIENCE FICTION STORIES

  MRS MAGINNES IS DEAD

  FRESH MEAT

  Contents

  Beginning

  Chapters

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Other Grinning Bandidt Books

  Other Cranberry Square Books

  Chapter One

  STARBASE 42319 spun slowly before the multi-colored expanse of the H’draxx Nebula—a long shard of gleaming light less than a parsec from hydrogen clouds shimmering with tones of yellow and red. Turning slowly on its carefully calibrated axis, the aging Starbase monitored the ionized storm in the distance and slowly succumbed to the ravages of time.

  Xai Ke-i’dzei looked up at the Strip for the fourth time in ten minutes and battled down a scowl. A petite, oriental girl, she was wearing a faded tunic, trousers, and a pair of brand new combat boots. Soldier’s clothing. She looked like a soldier, but for the scowl. The scowl was a child’s scowl, youthful and frustrated. Over her left shoulder floated a Gamma, a small black globe keyed to her DNA.

  Xai peered out from her booth at Mazie’s toward the open door. Still no sign of him. Marcus was always late, but this time he was later than usual. She glanced up at the Strip again and shook her head, disgusted more with herself than with Marcus. She’d been a fool to believe him. The Annabel Tellorian—the ship Marcus had designed and built, the small, almond-shaped two-seater he had spent three years creating—was less than a week from completion. Marcus couldn’t wait to be out sailing. He’d probably forgotten their meeting, sucked in by some minor detail. Xai glared at the Strip, wishing she were a Primer, wishing she could connect and give Marcus a piece of her mind.

  The Strip was a meter long data scroll positioned, as all Strips were, over the doorway. To Xai’s eyes it was currently scrolling a document on a disaster in Mauritanian Space. To a Primer, however, those words were merely a screen masking Prime access nodes—entry points to a wealth of information accumulated, organized, and structured for the sole purpose of answering any question a Primer might have.

  Primers were connected, Xai thought wistfully. Chipped from birth, they could log into the nodes. They could find out exactly where their friends were by accessing the Confederation’s registries and schematics. They could contact any particular errant friend and point out exactly how late that friend was to a date that very friend had insisted on making. They could notify Prime itself of such callous behavior, and could dispense, in general, with annoying things like sitting around and waiting.

  Xai drummed her fingers on the table before her and peered through the doorway opening onto the commercial avenue. People clustered by the pseudo-fountain, chatting. A pack of children ran past, shouting gleefully. The crier before the theater called out pending performances. There was even an Allorian Trading Drone buying goods at Timon’s store—a rare sight this near a nebula. The entire place gleamed with the usual Prima cleanliness. But—

  Xai’s eyes narrowed. Something was happening.

  More and more Primers were pausing in the middle of their daily routines, eyes locked with the Strips. As she watched, two Primers logged off and hurried off in different directions, their faces tight with worry. Another logged off, then a fourth. On the last, the sentiment seemed closer to dismay than anxiety.

  Xai rose apprehensively to her feet. The last time she had seen anything like this had been when a seal on the m’tor virus being transported through the Station had collapsed. She still bore scars from the vaccinations.

  Then she saw Marcus weaving through his compatriots, his unmistakable angular figure moving hurriedly in her direction. The dark jumpsuit clung to his long body, throwing his pale hair and skin into stark relief. Primer from his booted toes to the telltale blue shadow at his left temple, Marcus could trace his ancestors back to the Second Venusian Colonization. Like so many Venusians, he was an albino, with a great shock of unruly white hair and startlingly red eyes.

  “Marcus,” Xai said as he came up before her. Her Prime accent was perfect. The only Messinian thing about her speech was the tone—rather cold, and oddly lacking in emphasis.

  Marcus shook his head impatiently, interrupting her. “Xai,” he said hurriedly, out of breath, “there’s trouble on the Rydian border.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  Marcus scowled, clearly annoyed he had to explain it to her. “This would all be much easier if you were connected,” he said.

  Xai folded her arms and said nothing in an effort not to belabour the obvious.

  “It’s complicated in a very ‘not good’ way,” he said. “If you come with me to the Tellorian, I’ll get you access. It’s easier to see than to put into words.”

  “Try,” Xai said tersely.

  Marcus sighed, aggravated. “Planetary revolt,” he explained, looking back up at the Strip. Some of the older Primers were still Stripping—the situation was clearly complex. “Three systems,” Marcus told her, his eyes still focused on the Strip. His face twisted suddenly with excitement. “Xai,” he said, “they’re sending a Strike Force to our Starbase.”

  Xai blanched. Prime hired mercenaries from over fifteen different dependant planets. Still… “Where’s the Strike Force from?” she asked.

  “Sector Eight,” Marcus replied absently.

  “No,” Xai said, unable to keep the snappishness out of her voice, “which planet?”

  Marcus glanced at her for a moment, startled by the question. Then he looked back at the Strip. “Messim,” he said finally.

  Xai’s eyes darted blindly around the room as she mentally calculated the fastest way to quarters.

  “1st Battalion,” Marcus added. “Arrival time between twenty and seventy hours.”

  Xai paled further. “I have to tell them,” she said, almost to herself.

  “What?” Marcus replied, not understanding.

  Xai looked up at Marcus, her face filled with apprehension. “My family was deposed by the 1st battalion,” she told him. “Hundreds of thousands died in that war. We were accused of war crimes.” For a moment she just stood there, seeing the past before her and not the busy scene of the Commercial Avenue.

  “Xai—” Marcus began, stretching out a hand.

  Xai shook her head. “I have to go.” Without another word she darted into the body of the Space Station, her Gamma trailing behind her, making small sounds of distress. Several minutes later Guardian Drones had secured the area. Their great, gleaming shapes stood guard over the Space Station, waiting until the shock troops arrived.

  Chapter Two

  THE INTERIOR of the Ke-i’dzei quarters was markedly unlike the rest of the Starbase. Primers loved gleaming spotlessness—bright lights, clean, hard scents, curving metallic lines and wide-open spaces. Within Ke-i’dzei quarters everything was dark and sober: small rooms with conservative lighting, pools of shadow flecked with brilliant flashes of color. Quarters smelled o
f human sweat, spices, and incense. Even the sounds were different—the throbbing of the Starbase muted by the soft sounds of the kesta chimes in the prayer hall and the hum of the winds her grandfather had insisted on, saying, “A land with no winds is one forsaken.”

  Xai tore through the Secondary Portal with barely a gesture at the House te-idze’ike—the physical embodiment of Ke-i’dzei House’s te-idze. Her aunt Zazei was walking by the door at the time and stopped when she saw Xai’s perfunctory greeting. “Protocol is the heart of any House,” she said coolly, quoting Teksa Wu. A tall woman, she had the long face of her Xeing mother and her father’s fondness for citing authorities on any subject, providing they were ancient.

  As with all the Ke-i’dzei, Zazei’s Gamma hung in the air behind her head, constantly emitting her location, vital signs and an image of her surroundings to a nearby Prime central node. The Ke-i’dzei were held in exile against their will. Their Gammas were a constant reminder of it, lest they dream of forgetting.

  Xai stopped in her tracks and bowed carefully to the fourth degree, the bow of a servant or one with a substantial outstanding obligation. Zazei, third child of the fourth generation, was a stickler for propriety. “Ta, Zazei’ite,” she said, trying to control her breathing. “I apologize, but I have just heard that Prime is sending a Messinian Strike Force to our Station.”

  Zazei paled. For a moment she merely stared at her niece’s young face, her own face tight with an emotion Xai had never seen there before. With something close to shock Xai recognized what it was—fear. She had not thought Zazei capable of that sentiment.

  “There is no excuse for a breach of protocol,” Zazei said, but the words had no sting in them, and she seemed to be thinking of something else.

  “Ta, Zazei’ite,” Xai replied. Her aunt returned abruptly to the present at the sound of Xai’s voice.

  “When?” she asked, apparently annoyed she had to ask the question.

  “Within the next seventy hours, Zazei’ite.”

  “Do you know why?” Zazei prompted.

  “Rebellion in several star systems.”

  “Which ones?” Zazei asked quickly.

  “I do not know, Zazei’ite.”

  Zazei made a noise of disgust. “I suppose you have this from your friend, the Primer?” she said, her mouth twisting with distaste.

  “Yes, Zazei’ite.”

  Her aunt looked at her for a moment, her expression moving from annoyance to thoughtfulness. Xai waited, her heartbeat fading to calm within her chest.

  “Come,” Zazei said finally. “This must be reported.” She turned and began to pace down the long hall, her arms folded before her, in the deliberate stride of the tan’the, the pace used on Parade or the Long Walk. Xai fell into Second and followed her aunt’s measured progress through quarters.

  They came finally to Temple—a long, low room with several prayer mats and one of the few precious things the House had been able to salvage from their exile—Te’dorr Maat’s portrait of Kesta in her aspect of the goddess of truth. It looked oddly incongruous against the ribbed, prefabricated wall—a perfect gilded painting over two thousand years old. Stories said it had taken Te’dorr over thirty years to make it. Kesta’s stern, archaic face loomed over the room, a haunting reminder of the fall of their House.

  On the mat before Kesta’s portrait knelt two young women. Between them, his head bent, was a tall male shape. Xai fought down a shudder of apprehension at the sight of that straight, unyielding back. She had known him her entire life, and yet the sight of him never ceased to make her feel fear.

  “He is at his prayers,” Delzein told his elder sister. He was the Me’xeit’s fourth child—a tall man in his late forties with a naturally anxious expression.

  “He must be interrupted,” Zazei said definitively, her face calm and remote. Delzein paused, waiting for further explanation. Zazei watched her father and said nothing. This was her right, being Delzein’s elder, and after a moment, Delzein shook his head and bowed to the first.

  “As you wish,” he said, clearly annoyed.

  Zazei turned to Xai. “Wait here,” she told her. As Xai watched Zazei and Delzein marched up to the old man kneeling before Kesta’s portrait. Zazei knelt beside him and began to whisper in his ear.

  The old man paused and murmured to his daughter. Zazei gestured back in Xai’s direction. The Me’xeit turned to look at Xai for a moment, his expression opaque. Xai stiffened. With a murmur to those surrounding him, the old man rose to his feet, bowed to the fifth before the painting, and came to the doorway.

  Xai’s grandfather was a gaunt oriental man with the long, flowing moustaches that were a mark of his social stature. He wore the se’att—the ritual robe of green and yellow that marked him as Me’xeit, leader of Ke-i’dzei House and contender to the Yasmin Throne—and smelled strongly of j’jiett, the sweet, harsh incense used in prayer. His expression was entirely still.

  Zazei and Delzein followed in his footsteps. Behind them were Tek and Kekka, twin daughters of T’zein, the Me’xeit’s eldest child. They were heirs to Xan’ta’lei House. The Me’xeit was training them to rule, and they had accompanied him everywhere since attaining their seniority six years earlier—two perfect shadows, tall, slender, each with a striking youthful beauty. Their Gammas moved along behind them all, mimicking their perfect formation.

  “Xai’andra zein Ke-i’dzei kal’e Tal’ei,” the Me’xeit said. He stated her name in full—he always did. By doing so he reminded them all that she was a sullying of their family’s name, the illegitimate child of the man who had overthrown his House, born of the daughter who had betrayed him.

  Xai bowed carefully to the fifth degree. “Ke sat, Me’xeit,” she said, knowing better than to give anything but a neutral greeting. She stayed that way, with her head down, waiting for him to acknowledge her.

  The Me’xeit stared at her bowed head. Xai waited.

  “I would hear this from your lips,” he said finally.

  Xai straightened. “Ta, Me’xeit,” she replied. “I was told by the Primer I know that a Messinian Strike Force was being sent to our Starbase.”

  Delzein almost gasped. Tek and Kekka exchanged telling glances. The Me’xeit’s eyes narrowed.

  “Do you know why?” he asked.

  “Rebellion in a nearby star system, Me’xeit,” Xai told him. “I do not know which one.”

  “Could it be a ruse?” Kekka suggested.

  Zazei shook her head. “That seems unlikely. Primers do not lie—it is impossible, given their interconnectedness.”

  They waited then, for the Me’xeit to make up his mind, Xai at attention, the rest at ease.

  “Convoke Council,” the Me’xeit said abruptly. “All of the fourth generation, and Tek and Kekka. We shall complete our prayers. You are dismissed.”

  “Ta, Me’xeit,” they answered in unison. The old man turned back into the Temple, Tek and Kekka at his heels. Delzein, Zazei and Xai waited until they were kneeling once more.

  “This is terrible!” Delzein blurted, his tone both excited and nervous. “Do you think they might know—”

  “Enough!” Zazei snapped. “You,” she said, turning to Xai. “Inform Meezein of the Council. Go, now.”

  “Ta, Zazei’ite,” Xai replied. She bowed to the fourth, turned, and marched down the corridor toward the study rooms. The sounds of her uncle and aunt’s vehement, hushed conversation pursued her down the hallway.

  Chapter Three

  TWO DAYS shy of her twelfth birthday Xai, hiding from her older cousin Kekka behind one of the pseudo-braziers in the main hall, had the misfortune to overhear a conversation between her grandfather and his heir, her uncle T’zein. “Is it not enough,” T’zein had said, his tone filled with frustration, “that her mother has stained the honor of our House for generations to come? Must we also feed, clothe and maintain the living memory of that dishonor?”

  “To know one’s enemies,” the Me’xeit replied, quoting Ta’o Xiang, the lea
ding philosopher of the Second Age, “is to know oneself.”

  “Half of Messim is set against us,” T’zein had told his father, his voice tight with anger, “as well as the might of Prime. This child is a drop of water. We face the Great Storm.”

  “Her father,” the Me’xeit answered, his tone as hard as rock, “was the drop that grew to a storm.”

  “So why not remove her now,” T’zein retorted, exasperated, “when she is less than a drop?”

  The pair of them had stopped. Xai had seen them in the doorway—two tall, distant men, hardened by exile. “When you take your place on the Yasmin throne,” the Me’xeit had said softly, finally, “when you hold the Xan’ta’lei scepter and look over the crowds kneeling in fealty, one of the heads bowed in Submission will be that head. And all the people there,” he had added, each word formed with precision, “will know that the only child of the man who overthrew your family sits Last in your House.”

  T’zein had stood silently for a moment, staring at his father. Then, abruptly, he had bowed to the fourth, before falling in behind his father as they left the hall, on their way to prayers.

  Some days later Xai took abruptly to combat. None of the fourth generation noticed, but for her uncle Meezein, whose chief duty was to train the children. Until then she had been a mediocre student, squarely in the middle of the pack, without Kekka’s brilliance, and yet certainly not as poor as M’ek or Tekor Zazei, who seemed incapable of properly forming a fist, not to mention actually fighting. But in a matter of months Xai moved from being indistinguishable from the majority of the other students to the top of the class. It unnerved Meezein, who had grown to adulthood in the shadow of X’zeindra’s ability, and had only recently come to the relieved conclusion that Xai had not inherited her mother’s extraordinary technical gift. Then, one day, before the eyes of the entire class, Xai deliberately broke Kekka’s right arm. Everyone had thought Kekka was winning before Xai stopped merely defending herself, carefully cornered Kekka against the bar, and snapped her wrist. The audible crack startled everyone—most of all Kekka.