Prime- The Summons

  “Why don’t they take better care of their station?” Xai asked as she tramped along behind Joaquim. She was trying to be urbane about it, but the decrepit state of the hallway appalled her.

  Joaquim laughed, honestly amused. “This station is almost as old as the Salak. It’s changed asteroids at least two hundred times. They actually take incredibly good care of it. The Ruus just don’t have the same sense of orderliness as Primers. Perhaps it’s part of being a miner—mining is dirty, ugly, hard business. I’m certain a bit of graffiti seems rather harmless after you’ve almost died in a fluor explosion.”

  Xai shook her head, unconvinced by his explanation.

  They came to a halt before a hatchway. Joaquim keyed it open. With a great screeching groan the hatch opened onto one of the tubes Xai had seen from the exterior of the station.

  The tubes were about five people wide, with three guides attached equidistant from each other around the interior. “Red is up, blue is down, and yellow is for emergencies,” Joaquim explained. With an effortless leap he crossed the corridor and grasped the red balustrade. “Follow me,” he told Xai. Turning his body so that he was facing upward he began to propel himself up the tube.

  Xai leapt after him. Her hand barely caught the guide, her helmet smacked into the wall, and her boots swung around and clanged loudly against the balustrade.

  “Deactivate your boot magnets,” Joaquim told her. Xai flushed, did as she was told, and clumsily pulled herself after him.

  The tube was translucent, giving Xai a clear view of the asteroid beneath them. There were groups of people wielding what seemed to be lasers working on the surface, blowing up great sheets of dust and rock. Armored ships darted back and forth between the people and the stations. Seen up close, the place was a hive of activity.

  Joaquim grasped Xai by the shoulder and pulled her into the safety of a portal. “Activate your boots,” he told her. Turning, he keyed the door open.

  It was a large room, filled with people—a cafeteria or social area of some sort. There were perhaps eighty people there, sitting, eating, talking and watching vids projected up before them. Even though they were clearly at rest all of the inhabitants were wearing huge, bulky, dark red PES. The one concession was that their helmets were off, attached to their backs.

  The people were obviously of the same genetic strain, fair, with thick features, tending toward muscle. The sheer size of most of them, augmented by the size of their PES, was daunting. Three especially large specimens stood by the force field, waiting for Xai and Joaquim to walk through. Xai fought down anther shiver of apprehension. They didn’t look particularly welcoming.

  Joaquim stepped through the force field and took off his helmet. He seemed incredibly conspicuous—a tall, gaunt man in a light silver PES surrounded by huge men wearing large armored prolonged exposure suits, the kind Xai could have sworn Prime had decommissioned at least a hundred years earlier. The largest of the men began to speak with Joaquim. Xai couldn’t hear the words, but the tone was decidedly menacing.

  Hurriedly, Xai stepped through the force field, took off her helmet, and joined Joaquim in the cafeteria.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “TAKE ME TO VLAD,” Joaquim repeated in a calm tone of voice.

  The three men stood before them, barring their way into the room. “There are many Vlads,” the man in front told Joaquim, his great, heavy features blank and still. Xai quickly attached her helmet to its docking slot on her hip and fell into Second, scanning the crowd. Several were watching, but most ignored them, speaking instead with their table-mates or following the vids. There were at least four card games going on in the back. The room had an oddly sour smell, a combination of sweat and stewed foods.

  Joaquim stood calmly, helmet in his hand. “Vlad,” he said, “Son of Petro, son of Alexis. He’s keeping some things for me. I’d like to speak with him.” The eyebrows of the second man shot up. He was obviously surprised.

  The man in the front examined Joaquim, his head cocked slightly to his side, his expression neutral. “Your name,” he said finally.

  “Joaquim Salazar Syng,” Joaquim told him.

  The third fellow lifted his arm and began speaking into a communicator on his wrist in a thick, guttural language. He stopped. The three men were silent for a moment. Then, as a group, they nodded.

  “You will come with us,” the man in front told Joaquim and Xai.

  “Of course,” Joaquim replied. Xai glanced around the room once more, at all the people so studiously ignoring them. Every instinct told her to stay where there were people. But Joaquim followed the three men, seeming totally at ease. Xai shook her head slightly and followed him back into the tubes.

  The men surrounded them as they went into the tubes, one before and two behind. Xai gritted her teeth and tried to mimic Joaquim’s total calm. “The fool sees danger, the wise, advantage.” Me’itze Ate. Xai was looking everywhere she could think of, but could see no advantage.

  This time they took the tubes down, past where the Tellorian was docked, around the curve of the asteroid, and up to another ship. The man leading them keyed the door. It slid open soundlessly. Xai and Joaquim followed him through the force field and into the ship, taking off their helmets. The door slid shut behind them.

  It was very quiet and very dark, a large room with the red runner lights Xai had come to realize were standard on these ships. Alternate panels on one side were transparent, offering a view of the asteroid belt gleaming in the light of the distant, dusky sun. The work on the asteroid surface was sending out great plumes of dust and they sparkled, showers of gleaming particles shooting past the windows. Xai fought down a shiver of apprehension. They were walking into an ambush. She began to wonder if she had been right to follow Joaquim so blindly.

  A man said something in Ruus—a short, swift command. The first of their guards turned and slapped Joaquim, a slow, almost casual gesture that sent Joaquim flying to the ground and half way across the floor. Xai’s heart sank and she turned as quickly as she could, knowing it was too late but fighting nonetheless. Her fist connected with the armored plates of one of the men’s bellies and she knew immediately it would be impossible. The man snorted derisively, clasped his fist around her neck, just under her chin, and lifted her into the air before him, his eyes locked with hers, his expression amused. Xai started to struggle. The man’s eyebrow cocked slightly and he tightened his fist, cutting off her oxygen. Xai stopped struggling. The man’s hand loosened slightly, and Xai hung off his hand in the low gravity, barely breathing and fully conscious of this mans fist, controlling her breath—furious with both herself and Joaquim for having gotten into such a situation. She was a Messinian, for God’s sake. She should have known better.

  Joaquim rolled over and dabbed his gloved forefinger at the blood on his cheekbone. Beneath his tattoos he seemed very pale. And yet Xai could discern neither anger nor fear. Xai twitched, uncertain. The man’s fist around her throat tightened. Xai swallowed and tried not to move. The man released his hold slightly, a smile on his face. He was enjoying himself, and it made Xai coldly, wildly furious.

  A small, slender man walked out of the shadows and over to where Joaquim lay on the floor. He didn’t look like the other Ruus—he was too small. He seemed almost frail. In perhaps his early fifties, he was strikingly ugly, with sallow features and heavy lidded eyes. He too wore an ochre PES, but it was a decidedly newer model than the ones worn by his guards.

  Joaquim took his hand away from his face and examined the blood on his fingertip. The little man knelt easily beside him, folding so that he was almost on the same level as Joaquim, his head cocked to the side with an eerie, feline curiosity.

  “Who are you?” he asked in a contemplative tone of voice. “You look just like him. If it is a ruse by one of my enemies, it is elaborate—unnecessarily so, I should think.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “Joaquim Salazar Syng has been dead for over thirty years,” he said calmly, “and you have
not aged in the slightest. It would be much easier to have you age—time does strange things to men’s faces.”

  Joaquim smiled slightly. The room filled with light for a brief moment, as another shower of sparks passed the ship.

  “Are you a clone, then?” Vlad asked, his tone still not requesting an answer. “Clones have no rights, do you know that? They are slaves of the men who made them. I can set you free. If you tell me who sent you, I can do that.”

  “Do you still have the cream I gave you?” Joaquim asked.

  The little man went entirely still. “What is that?” he said, his calm tone at odds with his tense frame.

  “The tattoo suppressant,” Joaquim replied, his tone as calm as Vlad’s. “I asked you to keep it for me until I came back. That and a ten thousand credit lens. Do you still have them?”

  Xai watched as hope, fear, anger and a myriad other emotions chased themselves across Vlad’s face. Abruptly—so quickly it made Xai flinch—he reached out with grasping fists and took Joaquim’s head tightly between his hands, as if he had to touch to prove it was true. It was an oddly intense gesture, filled with suppressed longing. The two men stayed that way for a moment, one man clasping the other man’s head. Xai was reminded of the painting by D’mei Peo of Pin Xan’ta’lei and her son Maor, on the hills outside of Makor. He had left her for the Goddess’ House, and she had never forgiven him, dying cursing his name, a bitter old woman, forsaken by those she loved.

  “Gods,” Vlad whispered huskily. “It is you.” He let go of Joaquim and sat back on his haunches, relaxing for the first time since he had entered the room, his face and frame slack, exhausted. “How?” he asked finally.

  “Stasis,” Joaquim replied.

  “For thirty-five years?” Vlad said, incredulousness creeping into his tone.

  Joaquim nodded and grinned. His smile faded after a moment. Vlad kept looking at him, his expression calm, his eyes very intense. “What of her?” he asked, gesturing in Xai’s direction.

  “She found me,” Joaquim told him. Vlad looked at Xai then.

  “Did she?” he murmured. Xai felt a sharp thrill of fear at the sight of those pale, cold eyes.

  Vlad murmured something in Ruus. The big man holding her grinned widely, walked across the room, put her on the ground, and roughly turned her to face Vlad’s calm, eminently dangerous expression.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “SHE SAVED MY LIFE,” Joaquim told Vlad. He had risen to his feet and moved as close to her as he could get, his face tight with worry. Two guards stood between them, holding Xai up before Vlad in the glare of a bright yellow light.

  “Really,” Vlad replied, his tone disbelieving. He sat down in a chair before Xai, his small body awkward in its great golden arms, before the wide expanse of the table.

  Xai’s eyes flickered around the room. Her neck hurt. She could feel her own heartbeat increase as her entire body flooded with apprehension. She could see no means of escape. They were hopelessly outnumbered. There were two doors, and both had guards beside them. There were the two men at her back, along with the third behind Joaquim. They were trapped.

  Vlad looked up at Xai, his small eyes glittering dangerously. A sunbeam shot out from between two asteroids, filling the room with brilliant light, setting all the gold and silver to shimmer.

  “She did,” Joaquim repeated.

  Vlad leaned back in his chair, his expression contemplative as he examined Xai being held before him. “I know her kind,” he said finally, his tone oddly calm, his forefingers drumming swiftly on the tabletop. “You forget I am older than you now. I have seen much of the world—more than you. I have seen her people, spoken with them, on Rydia VI. I even did some business with them, until they betrayed me.”

  “Vlad,” Joaquim began. Vlad ignored him.

  “Gangcat, they were called. They fight like very demons but in their hearts they are snakes, selling their souls for profit and power.” He leaned forward in his chair suddenly, grabbed the center plate on Xai’s PES, and jerked her toward him so that they were face to face. She felt his breath on her face, sour and sweet.

  Xai steeled her heart and looked him in the eye. “Cowards die ugly deaths,” T’ei Xeit had once said. He’d had a lot to say about cowards, and had died like one. Xai took a deep breath. “I am not Gangcat,” she said.

  Vlad tilted his head slightly to the side, a curious, blank look. This close, Xai could tell he was much more dangerous than she had thought. Xai wanted to kick herself. Everything she had ever seen about space travel had showed how dangerous it was, and yet she had waltzed right into the arms of the Ruus. She was in a room with a man she did not know and several of his assistants, all of whom had shown a propensity for violence and no shame in using it. “Kesta, give us wisdom, and if not that, at least caution,” Tal’ei Xein had once prayed. Xai had had neither. Shame flushed her cheeks.

  “Did you know Ricardo is about to sign a treaty with the Emperor of the Heavens?” Vlad asked, speaking to Joaquim even though he was looking into Xai’s eyes.

  “What?” Joaquim said, profoundly startled. “How? What of Indira?”

  “She died,” Vlad said calmly. “Several weeks after you disappeared. Since you weren’t there…Well, Ricardo became the head of the Clan. And now, dependency,” he added. “Six hundred years of independence given up—for what?” He looked back at Xai. “And suddenly you appear,” he whispered, “magically finding a man I spent three years searching for? Three years?” he repeated. He paused for a moment, then shook his head. “This stinks of treachery,” he told Xai. “It stinks of it. I will know the truth,” he added, his tone hard and serious. “And believe me, if you will not give it freely, I shall take it.”

  Xai was startled by the surge of pure rage that shot through her. “I have told you nothing but the truth,” she said.

  Vlad smiled slightly and looked away. But Xai knew, now, and when his hand came toward her face she was ready for him, blocking his fingers as the base of her other fist dart through his guard to hit his nose, a paralyzing blow, bringing a swift rush of tears and blood. Vlad roared with anger and fury and she twisted easily away from her startled guard, backing toward the windows. The men by the doors moved swiftly in her direction, their faces set and angry.

  Vlad crouched against the opulent table, his hand over his face, and snarled something in his native tongue. The first guard reached for her. Xai ducked away, trying to dart between them and for the door. She was panting, trying to fight her way to self-control through a fog of uncertainty. All of her training seemed to have evaporated faced with the low gravity and the PES. She understood suddenly how much of her ability depended upon her foes following the same rules she followed, being hampered by the same constraints. But these men knew nothing of t’ei, or t’ao, the rules of conduct or the seven stages of battle. They would not fast as she might, before a fight, or bow to their opponents. The second guard brought his fist down at her temple, a sharp stinging blow, and Xai staggered into the other. All her struggles were useless. Between the two of them they hoisted her up and brought her back to the table.

  “Vlad, stop,” Joaquim said. He was standing behind Vlad, his eyes locked on Xai’s face.

  Vlad straightened. There was blood running from his left nostril, and a glassy look of hate in his eyes. With a vice-like grip he forced Xai’s mouth open and poured a vial of a sweet, hot liquid between her lips. “Here,” he snarled, as her pushed her mouth shut, “perhaps the vask will remind you of what you had forgotten.” Xai began to choke.

  “Vlad!” Joaquim shouted. Reaching forward, he forced Vlad off Xai. One of the other guards tore him away from Vlad, pinning his arms behind his back.

  “Vlad,” Joaquim repeated intently, ignoring the man holding him, his entire being focused on keeping Vlad’s attention, “she’s a child—she has no idea what she’s doing. She grafted an encyclopedia onto her operating system—”

  “I was younger than she when we met,” Vlad retorte
d. “Was I a child then?”

  Joaquim shook his head. “You were never a child, Vlad,” he said gently.

  “And you are still one!” Vlad cried. He paused, his chest heaving, as he appeared to try and regain control of himself. “They are snakes,” he continued, his tone calming somewhat, “treacherous to their core. Duplicity is written into the very fiber of their being, and I will show it to you.”

  The drug hit Xai at that moment, setting her head to spinning. She sagged in the arms of the man that was holding her. The particles swarming outside the ship seemed to seep through the panels, great planes of shimmering light swirling toward her. She thought she might vomit.

  “Vlad,” Joaquim said seriously, “don’t do this. Don’t violate her mind. For the sake of all that you hold dear—”

  “But I’m not doing it for me,” Vlad replied, his tone almost surprised. “I’m doing it for you.”

  Joaquim stood very still, his expression tense and pained. “I can’t let you,” Joaquim said finally. There was silence. Xai forced her head up, trying to focus through the fog in her mind.

  Vlad stood in the middle of the room, staring at Joaquim, his head down slightly, looking up at the taller and now younger man. They stood posed that way for a long moment. The only thing Xai could hear was her own breath, swift and sharp with fear. “You would choose her?” Vlad asked disbelievingly.

  “Vlad,” Joaquim said gently.

  “I spent three years looking for you,” Vlad said, his tone frighteningly intense. “Three years. Your family did not send out even one search party. The woman you loved? Your people? They left you to space. I was the only one. I gave up every opportunity during that time for you. To find your body, to bring you back. And you tell me now you will choose her—this child of treachery whom you barely know—over me? Me?” he added, his hand going to his chest.