Prime- The Summons

  The interior of the store was very quiet, compared to the esplanade. It was also quite small, perhaps three meters wide and five long. The walls, painted in light pink, were decorated in different T’lasian fonts. Toward the front of the room was an old-fashioned tattooist chair, with arms and legs and a plurality of straps. Toward the back, before another door, was a long bank of access nodes.

  A very small, almost delicate looking woman in her early fifties stood before the access nodes, wearing a deep blue space suit and a pair of projection goggles. She was looking up at whatever the spectacles were projecting, her arms folded before her, her hand over her mouth. She seemed confused.

  “I just don’t know,” she said absently. “I’ve never seen inscriptions like these before. The detail is so fine you’d think they were computer generated—but there’s no record of their having access to that sort of tremor technology. Not during that period. Mind you,” she said contemplatively, “there’s nothing to prevent them from making those inscriptions with chisels. But the amount of work involved in that sort of an operation is simply staggering. They would need somewhere between fifty to sixty artisans—that’s fifty to sixty artisans per tablet,” she added, shaking her head, impressed by the number. “On the other hand,” she continued, another idea coming to her, “they could have used lasers. They did have access to laser technology at the time, although it was very unstable. Perhaps—”

  “Excuse me,” Xai said finally, realizing that the other woman thought she was someone else, and had no intention of stopping speaking unless interrupted. “I’m looking for Mika Kumar.”

  The little woman turned and blinked at Xai. She seemed utterly baffled by Xai’s appearance in her shop. “I’m Mika Kumar,” she replied, confused but pleasant. “How may I help you?” She smiled gently. The projection spectacles made her look remarkably like an inquisitive owl.

  “You’re a tattooist?” Xai asked, gesturing toward the tattoo chair and stalling for time.

  Mika glanced at the chair, her face brightening. “Yes, it’s quite a piece, isn’t it?” she replied. “I don’t need to use it any more, but I like to keep it. It’s a nice nap chair, too,” she added with a mischievous glance at Xai. “They were quite common during the last century. At one point, T’lasians wanted the tattooing process to cause pain,” she explained, her face brightening as she began to delve into the subject matter. “It became a sort of ritual. A fad, but one which necessitated the chair. It is interesting, don’t you think, that a fad could create an entire industry? And oddly pathetic, really, when the fad disappeared, as fads tend to do. Hundreds of chair makers went slowly out of business,” she said sadly, “their skills no longer useful. Mind you,” she continued, rambling on, “I’m sure chair making has complementary skills.” Xai nodded politely, not knowing what else to do.

  The door behind the data banks swung open and Joaana Kumar stepped through. She had a data tablet in her hand and was running her fingers back and forth across her forehead. “I’m not sure—” she began, looking up. Xai forced herself to relax.

  “What are you doing here?” Joaana said bluntly. This close, she seemed even more beautiful, a combination of her parents, animated by a self-possession all her own.

  Xai looked at Mika, who gave her an encouraging smile. For a moment, she had no idea what to say. How could she put it? She realized then there was no way to be delicate or easy about it. “I—I have a message,” she said, her eyes locked with Mika’s.

  “From whom?” Joaana asked. But Mika paled. Somehow she knew.

  All of a sudden, Xai was babbling, trying to answer the question she could see in Mika’s eyes, trying to justify the actions taken, feeling somehow that this was her only chance to get the truth out. “He was in stasis,” she said quickly. “For thirty-five years. A miracle, really. I have no idea how he survived that long. I found him by accident.” In the back of her mind Xai could tell she was barely coherent, but Mika seemed to follow, her eyes huge and dark in her pale face. “I came upon him—I’d had a hull breach.” She laughed, a short, sharp, unamused laugh. “I was looking for a pistol. I couldn’t leave him there. I mean, thirty-five years. It’s just not right. Who knows how much longer the pod would have lasted?”

  “What are you talking about?” Joaana asked. Mika ignored her daughter, her eyes trained on Xai’s face.

  “He didn’t know. He said he had spoken to Ricardo about it before he left. He was going to come see you after he went to Records, but on the way out…” Xai’s voice trailed off.

  Mika’s face went a deathly white, a ghastly pale color. “What happened?”

  “We were coming out of a shuttle pod,” Xai pleaded. “I should have known, except—”

  “Is he dead?” Mika asked.

  Xai shook her head. “Wounded. He asked me to ask you if you would be willing to see him.”

  “I don’t understand,” Joaana said.

  Mika’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s your father,” she said simply. “He’s come home.”

  Joaana sat down roughly, her face white with shock.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  JOAQUIM’S EXPRESSION when Xai re-entered the Tellorian was a sight Xai was never to forget—gaunt, tired, scored with pain and filled with a fear unlike any other fear she had seen in him before, abject and despairing. Then Mika followed Xai into the small ship. They looked at each other for a long moment, the man in his thirties and the woman almost twice his age. Then Joaquim burst abruptly into tears, a collapse that scared Xai more than his being stabbed. He hid behind his hands, his shoulders shaking, and Mika went to sit next to him, taking his hand into hers, murmuring softly.

  The moment passed mercifully quickly, and when Joaquim looked up he had regained control of himself. “Are you well?” he asked. Mika beamed.

  “I am better,” she told him. Joaquim laughed softly and looked at Joaana.

  Joaana’s face was a mixture of wildly contrasting emotions—hope, anger, anxiety. Xai realized how difficult this must be for her. “I will go outside,” she said.

  “Wait—” Joaquim began, but Joaana’s relief was a palpable thing, and Xai didn’t look back. She walked instead down the corridor, toward the esplanade, feeling somehow relieved not to have to witness the encounter. She crossed the barrier and stood examining the esplanade for a moment, letting the energy of the place wash over her. She was hungry; she had a credit lens. It seemed like a good time to use it, in a place where she could keep an eye on the entrance and exit of strangers into the umbilical. They had been attacked once. This time, she would be ready.

  She found a vendor selling a thick soup filled with vegetables and noodles. He accepted her credit without any difficulty, and gave her a deep bowl filled with soup and a pair of sticks to eat it with. Xai crouched beside the row of eating T’lasians and clumsily imitated their swift, expert movements, sipping the soup and using the sticks to shovel the vegetables and noodles into her mouth. It was good, hot, sweet, and filling, and no one went near the passage to the Tellorian. She could relax and she did, relishing the anonymity and the simple pleasures of a full belly and a satisfied mouth.

  Joaana came out of the umbilical as Xai was finishing her soup, her expression clouded. Her eyes scanned the esplanade and fixed on Xai. Xai stood up as she strode over, tossing her empty bowl into a receptacle.

  “They are moving your ship to Hanu Kumar’s,” Joaana said shortly. “If you will come with me, we will meet them there.”

  Xai followed her silently down the esplanade and into a pod. They sat down. There was a hiss as the pod sealed, a moment’s pause, and the sudden jerk as they shot out into space.

  Joaana looked at Xai, her expression brooding. “So,” she said, “we are sisters.”

  Xai nodded.

  “What is your name?” Joaana asked abruptly.

  “The name I was given is Xai’andra zein Ke-i’dzei kal’e Tal’ei,” Xai replied. Joaana’s eyes widened with surprise. She knew who Xai was.
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  “Why are you here then?” she asked, sounding genuinely curious. “Why are you not with your kin?”

  “What kin?” Xai replied, not understanding.

  “The Ke-i’dzei,” Joaana said, as if it was obvious. “They have been on Messim for almost two months now. Why aren’t you with them?”

  “They are where?” Xai said, feeling horror sink into her chest. It couldn’t be. And yet Joaana seemed clearly to believe that it was.

  Joaana blinked, clearly taken aback that Xai didn’t know. “My friend is Messinian,” she explained. “We’ve been following the news for some time. Messim has left Prime Authority and made an alliance with Fleet.”

  Xai could only stare, appalled, at Joaana’s surprised face. The room seemed to be spinning around her head. They had betrayed all the people who had kept them alive for so many years. Her Grandfather—Marcus, she thought suddenly. The Me’xeit had killed Marcus as much as if he had done it with his own hand.

  “You didn’t know,” Joaana said, amazed. “I can’t believe you did not know. Before the Ke-i’dzei arrived in Messim, an official message was sent—apparently by the Circle of Elders—rescinding the Ke-i’dzei banishment. Several days later, another message was sent, stating that Messim no longer wished to join the Prime Confederacy. Prime has done nothing since.”

  “The Comorra Wars,” Xai murmured, grimacing. Comorra had been a Prime dependant state with deep divisions. At one point Prime stepped in in favor of the pro-Prima faction. That act had practically torn the planet apart. After a thirty-year war, Comorra had given up its dependency status to join the Yaridian Empire. Several thousand mercenary troops had died for no evident reason, and from that point on Prime had seriously revamped its admission process. “What about the people killed by Fleet?” Xai asked.

  “Fleet has offered to pay reparations.”

  Xai felt something very close to despair. Prime managed thirteen planets and close to fifteen billion people. Fewer than one thousand people had lived on that starbase. Prime would accept the reparations.

  The pod docked with a hiss and the door opened. Xai shook her head, trying to return to the present, and rose to her feet. She followed Joaana out of the pod and into the Fourth Circle.

  A T’lasian woman in a yellow and blue robe saw Joaana and called something out. Another repeated the call and began to pound her fists on her thighs. Other T’lasians turned, saw Joaana standing there, and began to do the same, cheering, laughing, and calling out comments. Soon the entire esplanade was applauding.

  Joaana’s face burst into a great smile. She slid a proprietary arm around Xai’s shoulder and stood there for a moment, acknowledging their support. One man called out something in T’lasian and the cheers dissolved into laughter. Joaana laughed as well, waved, called out a reply, and began walking Xai toward her uncle’s house.

  “What did he say?” Xai asked.

  “That it is time to get our tattoos,” Joaana replied.

  Xai blanched.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  XAI sat quietly before the mirror when it was finished, tracing her fingers over the line of small, black figures on her right cheekbone. There were surprisingly few of them. Unlike Joaana, who could trace her debts back through both her parents’ line, Xai was a fresh beginning. Her tattoo said simply that Syng had a blood debt to her, and that she had been adopted into its House. It made up a small strip of figures on her cheekbone, which looked more, from a distance, like a ragged scar or a bruise than anything else.

  In the other room Joaquim lay sleeping. They had moved him carefully out of the Tellorian and into a room in a quiet back area of the Kumar house. But Xai still found the entire affair bizarre. She barely knew what to think, not to mention how to handle it. None of the philosophers she knew had ever said anything about being partially inducted into an alien culture. She couldn’t imagine how they would treat it. As for the Me’xeit… Xai shuddered. Best not to think of that.

  They had met Joaquim and Mika at Hanu Kumar’s house. Joaquim had already been asleep, his skin almost translucent. Mika had left Xai to sit with him and returned perhaps a half hour later, tattooed once more, the black marks stark and striking against her pale cheeks. She had taken Xai into the back room, strapped her head into the brace, and gone to work.

  Now Xai sat on a bench before a mirror, staring at the strange sight of her own face—gaunter than she had last seen it, with huge dark eyes over a strip of a tattoo and a small, serious mouth, beneath carefully shorn hair. She looked like nothing she had ever seen before. It made her slightly nervous. “Between a known and powerful enemy and a weak and unknown enemy, beware the unknown,” Teksa Wu had once said. “The true danger is always the unknown.”

  Joaana came through the doorway, followed by Marco Kumar, still in his white robes, and a big, bluff man. Joaana’s exotic face was shuttered, almost alien looking in its distance. The black marks on her cheeks seemed perfectly natural on her face.

  “Greetings,” the big man said. “My name is Hanuman Kumar. And you are Xai. I have seen your records. Honor to the ancestors, and thanks, that you have been returned to us.” Xai flushed, profoundly embarrassed. Hanu Kumar studied her for a moment. “It must be strange,” he said finally, “to see your tale for the first time.”

  Xai nodded.

  Joaana sat down on the bench beside Xai. For a moment she looked down at her hands, her expression guarded.

  “Joaquim is not well,” she said abruptly.

  Xai looked up at Hanu Kumar and his brother Marco. They both nodded, worried and serious.

  “He has lost a great deal of blood,” Joaana continued. “And he was in stasis for almost thirty five years before.”

  “What does that mean?” Xai asked.

  Joaana took a deep breath. “He may be dying.”

  Xai leapt to her feet. “No.”

  “We just don’t know,” Marco Kumar told her. “A body isn’t made to be in stasis for that long. That blood transfusion you gave him saved his life, for now. And the pressure packs keep the wound stable. But the body must heal, and after that much stasis…” His voice trailed off into silence.

  Xai sat back down abruptly in her chair. It didn’t seem possible that a man as vibrant as Joaquim might die. Everything in her heart rebelled at the idea. “Every passing is an outrage,” T’ao Xiang had once said. She hadn’t understood when she’d heard it. She did now.

  Joaana sat in the center of the room, her face tense and sad. “Who did this?” she asked.

  “Ricardo,” Xai snarled.

  “We’re not certain,” Hanuman told Joaana. “The men were t’les,” he continued. “For hire. But someone gave them access to the fourth shuttle pod interface. That’s the only way they could know where he was going to land. And that takes Council connections.”

  “Could Ricardo really have fallen so far?” Joaana asked, her tone incredulous.

  Hanu shook his grizzled head. “I doubt it. Ricardo isn’t that obvious. But some of the people that surround him… If someone went to the shuttle handlers, and suggested it might endear them to Ricardo, if they were to ignore someone tapping into the databanks at a particular point in time …”

  Joaana shook her head, her eyes wide with disbelief. Xai stared with odd fascination at her hands, which were trembling with rage.

  “Joaquim has challenged Ricardo for leadership of the Clan,” Hanuman told Joaana. “I have two hours left before I must second, or leave Joaquim to be banished.”

  “But who will represent Joaquim in the challenge?” Joaana asked. “He cannot go himself.”

  “You have the fletchings,” Hanu told her, his expression serious. “Your name has been entered into the record.”

  Joaana stared at Hanu’s broad face, her expression stunned.

  “Me?” she said incredulously.

  Hanu shrugged his massive shoulders. “There is no one else.”

  “This is madness,” Marco interjected, speaking to his older brother.
“If she stands, Ricardo chooses the means and can avail himself of a proxy. He has already mortally wounded his brother. Killing his daughter would end that line. Aditya is name-pledged to him, and the best of his generation with a knife. She must be defended by herself or one of her kin. We are too old, our children too young. There is only herself, and compared to Aditya…” His voice trailed off.

  “Ricardo has allowed an attempt on the life of his own brother,” Hanu replied. “What would you have her do? It is a taint on us all.”

  For a moment the two brothers stared at each other. Then Marco nodded, his expression reluctant. Hanu turned to Joaana. “For our honor,” he said, “and for the debt we hold the Syng, Kumar offers Second.”

  “No,” Joaana said, pleading. “Don’t.”

  “We cannot allow him to continue in this manner,” Hanu told her. He examined her young face, his expression almost sad. “The Kumar pledged to the Syng eight hundred years ago,” he said gently. “You cannot challenge without a Second.” Joaana shook her head, trying to deny what he was saying. Hanu continued, his tone gentle but relentless. “We are the oldest of the Syng vassals. If we second, the other clans will listen. The Syng have a debt to the Kumar. Your uncle has forsaken it. For the honor of your mother’s people, we ask that you fulfill it.”

  Joaana examined her uncle’s face. She looked at Marco. Then her eyes fell on Xai’s angry face. For a moment they just looked at each other.

  Joaana nodded, squared her shoulders and looked up at her uncle, her face firm, her eyes afraid. “Your honor is my honor,” she said.

  “Our honor in your hands,” Hanu replied. Marco nodded seriously.

  Joaana looked at Xai for a moment, her expression tense. Then she walked over to the console. “Records,” she said.