IV
Lucifer's Legacy

 

The spectacular sunset had cooled into darkness, leaving the street below my window lit only by holosigns that glowed in the alley. I couldn't sleep. The Delos day had no resonance with my internal clock. I wondered if Rex was in bed. What he would say tomorrow, in the early hours of darkness when humans here started their day? I lay naked under the frothy blue blankets, thinking about it. Then I rolled over. Again. And again. I wound the blanket so tight around my legs, I could barely move. I jerked off the covers and turned again, facing the console, the air cool on my skin.

A button the size of a coin had turned blue on the console. I pushed it. "Yes?"

"Soz." Rex's voice rose out of the speaker.

My shoulders relaxed. "Heya."

"Were you sleeping?"

"No. Just lying here."

"Do you remember Jo Santis? That officer you bunked with in retraining a few years ago?"

"Vaguely." Whatever had prompted that question?

"She told me something about you. I've been thinking about it."

I didn't like the sound of that. I couldn't imagine what in a spacer's helmet I had done that some woman I barely knew would tell Rex, and that he would find thought provoking after all these years. Warily, I asked, "What did she say?"

"That you sleep naked." I could almost see his wicked grin. "That true?"

Ah. I stretched my arms. "Maybe." I almost added: Why don't you come find out? But the words stayed in my throat. Instead, I said, "I used to when I was a girl, when it was hot."

"Soz _. . ."

"Yes?"

"I can deal with the succession thing. It just caught me by surprise."

"I should have said something before. I was stupid."

"You're never stupid." He laughed. "Dense as hell sometimes. But never stupid."

"Hey." I smiled. "I'm still your CO, you know."

"I'd rather a wife."

"Me too." After he retired, he would have to get my family's approval before we could marry. But they would give it. Even I could see how well suited he and I were.

"You want a wife too?" Rex asked.

I laughed. "No. You. Husband."

His voice softened. "See you tomorrow, Soz."

"Night."

After we cut the connection, I still couldn't sleep. Now it was because I kept remembering how tightly his pants fit. I was never going to get any rest. Finally I sat up and turned on the lamp over the bed. Soft light diffused through its blue glass.

The book Tiller had given me lay on the nightstand. I opened it to the title page. Verses on a Windowpane. A pen-and-ink drawing below the title showed a window frosted with ice. An indistinct form stood on the other side of the pane, barely discernible through the icy coating. The figure was drawing in the frost, just the tips of fingers visible against the window.

As I flipped through the book, a ticket stub from the Arcade fell out. It marked a page with a poem and another drawing of the frosted window. Whoever had been on the other side of the glass was gone. The pane had shattered, and its broken glass jutted up in shards with ice glistening on their edges. The poem was in English:

 
A frame of stone.
Silvered glass
frosted with icy tears.
 
My fist closes
on the mirror;
flesh traps ice.
Brittle snaps
of breaking tears.
I see you now
standing behind me;
always watching,
always waiting,
never satisfied.
 
I sheath my heart,
its bare softness
guarded by ice.
 

"For flaming sake." I closed the book. "What kind of poem is that?" It reminded me of Kurj for some reason. I dropped Verses on a Windowpane on the console and lay in bed. What was Rex doing? Sleeping? Did he sleep with clothes on? Images from the poem mixed in my mind with far more appealing images of Rex minus his uniform.

"Stop it," I muttered. I would never get any sleep this way.

Finally I got up and dressed. Then I went for a walk. It was either that or take a cold shower.

The crowds on the Arcade had thinned to almost nothing. I cut through a corner of Athens, then jogged across the stubbly fields around the Delos starport. When I reached a terminal, I went in on the level with the arrival and departure gates. The place had that late night feel unique to starports, with their cool lights that never went off and their chrome and glass halls. I paced its artificially bright corridors like a leather-clad thug in black boots.

Eventually I came to one of the ubiquitous security checkpoints, an arch about two meters tall. It could make multiple recordings of whoever went under it, everything from magnetic resonance scans to an analysis of skeletal structure. It could even analyze behavior and judge if it was suspicious. Two guards staffed the arch, a man and a woman checking a line of bored people. I got into the line for no other reason than to have somewhere to go. Anything was better than returning to the Inn, where I could find nothing to do but read weird poems about sheathing hearts.

As the line moved forward, people queued up behind me, most looking half asleep. When my turn came, I stalked through the arch and sent the console into shock. Lights flashed and alarms shrilled loud enough to wake every living sole in the entire area.

The guards stepped in front of me. The woman looked at the bands on my jacket, then spoke in English. "I'm sorry, Primary. But we can't let you through until we find out the problem."

The problem indeed. What, besides the fact that I was a living weapon.

We compromised; they would let me through if I handed over every metal object on my person. So I pulled the switchblade out of my boot. As I straightened up, both guards dropped their hands to their burn-lasers. I just handed my knife to the woman. She blinked, then took the blade. Next I gave her the thorn-tube hidden in my jacket sleeve and the dart thrower tucked under my belt. She turned the weapons over in her hands as if she didn't know what to do with them.

"Is that all?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

The man indicated the metal studs on my jacket. "Those will set off the alarms."

Oh, what the hell. I took off the jacket and handed it to him. I could pick it up on the way out. Underneath I was wearing a Regulation Class Six Garment, upper body issue, type three; in other words, a black pullover. But when the man glanced at my pants, which also had metal studs, I said, "I not give you those."

He turned bright red. "I didn't mean—of course not."

I tapped my torso, then my head, then my thighs. "Got biomech in here."

He blew out a gust of air. "Well, give it another try and see what happens."

I went around and walked under the arch again. The alarms were just as loud as the first time. The guards were very polite while they scanned me for more weapons. They were very polite when they asked me to go through three more times and submit to three more scans so they could verify it was the tech on my uniform and in my body that set off the alarms. By then, I thoroughly I wished I had found somewhere else to walk. Meanwhile the line of people behind me grew longer and longer.

Finally the woman said, "She's clean."

"All right." The man exhaled. "You can go on through, Primary."

Someone in the line clapped. I laughed—and half the waiting people jumped like scared rabbits. Huh. They must have seen too many Jagernaut-runs-amok movies.

Once I made it through the checkpoint, though, I had no idea where to go. So I just walked. And walked. Eventually I stopped near a deserted gate. I stood in front of its door, staring at my reflection in the windowpane that made up its upper half.

"Want to retire?" I asked the woman staring back at me. Maybe it was time to rest, to give myself the peace I needed to clean out that file of suppressed memories.

Small footsteps sounded nearby. A child spoke in English. "Do you have a motorcycle?"

I looked down to see a girl of about five gazing up at me with big eyes. I smiled and tried out my English. "What is mutter-psi call?"

She smiled back. "It's like a big bicycle."

"Oh." I didn't know what a bi-psi call was either. "Have you mutter-psi call?"

She shook her head. "Just a trike. A red one. The wheel had a hole in it."

Ah. She meant cycles. Of course. "I am sorrow about the hole."

"It's okay." she said. "My Daddy fixed it. The tire was all empty and he made it full."

Something about what she said was important, but I couldn't figure it out. Then I noticed a man hurrying up the hall. He spoke quickly to the girl. "Kimberly, don't bother the soldier."

I smiled. "Is okay. I enjoy."

He stared at me, and I caught a flash of his thoughts, surprise that I responded like a normal human being.

Kimberly waved. "Bye."

"Bye," I said.

As the girl walked away with her father, it hit me why her words were important. It's okay. It was empty and he made it full. That was what was wrong with the Aristo. He wasn't empty. He didn't need anyone to make him full. That cavity, that horrible emptiness wasn't there.

After my experience with Tarque I knew how an Aristo's mind felt. It was hollow. But the Aristo in the bar hadn't been hollow. He didn't have something wrong, he had something right.

"He's not an Aristo," I told the deserted hallway. "I don't care how he looks, talks, moves. He's not an Aristo."

That made the whole incident even stranger. His guards, the people in the bar, even my squad mistook him for a Highton. Hell, Comtrace did. Only a trained telepath who had also been a provider would know he was a fake.

How had he done it? As far as I knew, no exceptions existed to their caste system. Aristo babies had their DNA verified to prove it came from Aristo parents. His heredity must have been thoroughly scrutinized before the Hightons acknowledged him as one of their own. The testers were supposedly above reproach, though I had my doubts any system existed that couldn't be corrupted. But it stretched credibility that even a Highton could buy off all the necessary verification units. Aristos all felt the same: they didn't want their bloodlines "polluted" by non-Aristos. More than any other human race, they acted collectively rather than as individuals.

Something strange was going on, and where Traders were involved I didn't like strange goings-on. It was time to find out why they had come to Delos.

I went back for my jacket and weapons. After I left the port, I returned to the Inn, but only to get my Jumbler. The gun fit in a holster on my hip, with a strap fastened around my thigh for support. Jumblers had to be big; each contained a particle accelerator. Despite its size, it was relatively light, molded from composite materials. It carried abitons for fuel, antiparticles of the biton, a subelectronic building block. Bitons, what we affectionately called "wimpons," were the most weakly interacting particles found that coupled to the electromagnetic field. Their rate of pair-production was miniscule, and like quarks they were rarely found in isolation. Electrons consisted of bitons—hundreds of thousands of bitons.

When I fired the Jumbler, abitons whipped around the accelerator and ejected in a beam. Abitons annihilated bitons, creating photons, which meant a Jumbler turned electrons into light. If even a fraction of an electron annihilated, the remains decayed into other particles. A Jumbler beam could travel short distances in air reasonably well, but solids were another story. Coulomb repulsion and the instability of the mutilated electrons made the material blow itself apart. The gun got its name from the way solids looked after we shot them.

I had no intention of shooting the Aristo; regardless of what people seemed to think, Jagernauts weren't violent by nature. Besides, killing an Aristo, even a fake one, would achieve nothing except destroy the shaky truce negotiations we periodically tried to conduct with the Traders. What I wanted was information, and the Jumbler could make an excellent tool to persuade him that he should give it to me. Of course after I left, he could call the police. But Aristos hated to look weak in front of non-Aristos. As long as I caused no damage to his exalted person, I was betting the potential for humiliation would stop him from calling in the authorities.

I headed into the hills north of the Arcade. The "houses" up there were mansions separated by parks that covered more area than the spaceport. An Aristo was far more likely to have rented one of those than a room in a hotel suite. The problem was to find which one.

Lamps lit the estates, shedding pearly light across the grounds. The houses were shaped like ships and built from green stone with foamy accents that swirled through the rock. Vines draped them like delicate fronds of pale green sealace. The translucent blue-violet stone used for the roofs evoked the sky and clouds. The "masts" of the ships were gold spires, each adorned with disks in hues of platinum, silver, green, white, the palest rose, and ocean shades of blue, all chiming together in the stray breezes. Even the nervoplex streets were beautiful: silver and glittering when still, as now when no traffic skimmed over them; shimmering and rippling when I walked on them. I still didn't like the stuff. It made me feel vulnerable. But I had to admit it looked good.

I followed a path winding through the low hills of a park. I was already tired. Although the Delos atmosphere had a high oxygen concentration, it wasn't enough to compensate for the thinner atmosphere. I felt as if I had been jogging on a high mountain. I stopped in a field of downy clover, my chest heaving as I gulped in air. Flowers nestled in the clover—and they sang.

I knelt down to peer at the blossoms. Each was a cluster of purple tubes that whistled as the wind blew across them, the notes varying with the shape and size of the tubes. It blended into a soft music that floated through the night. It reminded me of tunes my brother Kelric used to play on a flute-reed he had cherished as a small boy. Actually, "small" was the wrong word; Kelric had grown into a giant who could hold the entire flute in the palm of his hand. But I remembered him as seven years old, from that day we had taken refuge in the spine-cave.

I bit my lip. I wasn't going to find the Aristo by getting maudlin about my childhood. I headed down the path again, and as I walked, I schooled my mind into a meditative state. The scenery made it easy to relax, easy to let my sphere of thoughts expand. Without a psiphon to amplify my mind I couldn't do much, but if a strong empath were close enough by, I might detect glimmers . . .

Pain!

His face hung above me, his eyes like rusty flakes from an incinerator. The iron rod descended, its end glowing red from heat—I looked away—

My body jerked as the iron seared my skin, and the stench of its burning mixed with the stink of scorched nervoplex. A boy screamed, his ragged voice begging for mercy—my voice. I struggled to shut out the pain, to imagine myself home on Tams, a young man in the Ivory Garden, relaxing, happy—NO! My arms jerked above my head, trying to come down and push away the iron. But the harder I fought, the tighter the nervoplex bonds pulled my wrists. He leaned over me, and I fell into the hole of his mind, fell, fell—

Something slammed my body. Gasping in a breath, I realized I had fallen. I was lying on my stomach, the dull point of a rock pressing into my cheek. My arm lay next to my face, the gold band on my jacket sleeve reflecting the faint light from a distant lamp.

I sat up, willing my body to stop shaking. The path. I was Soz, on a path in the park. Soz. Not that youth there, bound and screaming. But where was there? And whose Aristo face had that been above him? I kept seeing Tarque, but it couldn't be him.

Recall, I thought.

Memory file degraded, my node thought.

It didn't surprise me. The human brain couldn't make perfect records of memories even with processors as advanced as my node, which had been upgraded a few months ago. But a reasonably good record had to remain for an event as intense as the one I had just experienced.

Play what you have, I thought. But put a filter on it.

Replay activated.

I saw the Aristo leaning over me again and felt the iron branding my skin. Mercifully, the filter gave the memory a diffuse quality, muting its intensity.

Freeze, I thought.

The image froze on the Aristo's face. He wasn't Tarque, but neither was he the false Highton. It was his guard, the tall one whose Aristo blood had shown in his eyes and hair. I guessed he was at least half Aristo, probably more, certainly enough to make him want a provider.

Release, I thought. The memory faded.

I had found the Highton, or at least his guard's provider. I closed my eyes, trying to reach the youth. He was my clue to the Aristo. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't force myself back to his mind.

I climbed to my feet and started down the path. Gradually, as I walked, my pulse slowed and my breathing calmed. I called up a menu that said my adrenalin levels had returned to normal. Taking a breath, I reached out again with my mind. This time I searched more carefully—there! I jerked back from provider, but not so completely that I lost the link, just enough so I didn't submerge into his experience. Gritting my teeth, I probed at the rusty-eyed guard. Normally I couldn't have reached him from so far away, but his link to the provider gave me a bridge. I hung on to the edges of his mind like a swimmer hanging onto a strut, fighting a whirlpool. A scream from the provider cut through my consciousness, and the guard groaned like a lover in the grip of an orgasm.

I was dimly aware of the park, of a tree where I had halted, leaning against its trunk. How could I stop the guard? I couldn't change his damn brain structure. But I had to do something.

Boring. I hurled the thought with as much strength as I could marshal. Boring! This provider has become immensely, excruciatingly BORING.

Lethargy settled over the guard, dulling his interest and also my link with him. I was losing the image. The echoes of pain from the provider stopped, and his relief flared so intensely that I saw the guard, too, and even the room around him. Another provider was there, a girl lying bound to a divan on her back with her arms stretched tight over her head.

As the first provider's responses faded into exhaustion, my link with him weakened. Where? I thought in the Eubian language. Where are you?

He was passing out; soon I wouldn't sense him at all. The guard had left the room—wait, the second provider, the girl—he must have freed her before he left. She was running to the boy, and the intensity of her frantic concern yanked me back into the link.

I jumped to her mind. Where are you? WHERE?

She untied the boy, crying, cradling him in her arms. As he collapsed against her, my link weakened. Before it faded altogether I caught up the faint image of a mansion shaped like a huge galleon. I had no idea if either provider tried to send the image; it felt more like an overflow from the girl's agitated thoughts. Whatever the reason, I had the hint I needed.

Or maybe not. After searching for an hour, I still hadn't found the galleon. It was time to go back to the hotel. Disheartened, I walked around a graceful fountain that spouted fragrances instead of water, my footsteps muted on a lawn of rose-bells. Beyond the fountain, a road glistened in silvery light from the street lamps. I looked across it—straight at the galleon mansion.

The house "floated" in its gardens, surrounded by bushes sculpted like swells of water, with white flowers that resembled sea foam. The masts glowed with streaks of phosphorescence, and their furled sails looked, at this distance, like sheets of gold. The disks on them chimed together, their pitches blending into a song that evoked water and wind.

Faint light rippled around the house like an aurora borealis. I knew those colors; I often saw them around the Triad—my aunt, my brother Kurj, and my father. By order of the Assembly, when a Triad member went in public, those rainbows also went. They were the only outward sign of a cyberlock, a brain implant. I had one, though I rarely used it. When activated, the lock produced a field tuned to its owner's brain waves. Low-keyed fields sounded an alarm when penetrated, mid-keyed fields repulsed intruders, and high-keyed fields killed them.

Birds were flying through the rainbows, so the field had to be low-keyed right now, a warning system to catch intruders. But it would permeate everything around the house, leaving no hole to sneak through. Was this lock tuned to the Highton? That would mean he had undergone surgery to have it implanted, a grueling process few people cared to undertake. That so young an Aristo should be so thoroughly protected was as disturbing as everything else about him.

Toggle combat mode, I thought.

Toggled.

I studied the mansion, trying to decide how I could best utilize my augmentations. In combat mode my body relied on bioengineered hydraulics that ran along my skeleton, with living motors that linked to my fiberoptic web. The only limit on my reaction speed was the time it took the hydraulics to move my limbs. And that was fast, far faster than any muscle could contract. I often fought by reflex, automatically accessing the extensive libraries of fighting maneuvers in my node. And I used combat mode sparingly; despite reinforcements to my bones and joints, the system strained my skeleton. Fast reactions did me no good here in the park, though. I had to get inside the mansion without being detected, which at the moment looked impossible.

An idea came to me. I smiled. No, I couldn't do that. I really couldn't.

"Well, hell, why not?" I said.

I crossed the road, and its nervoplex shifted under my feet. On the other side I walked through the cyberlock rainbows and up to the front door. Then I knocked.

The door opened immediately, revealing two guards armed with laser carbines, power packs hung on their belts. Their confusion hit me like a blast of air; had his lordship actually been lunatic enough to invite me here? Had I been lunatic enough to accept?

"My greetings," I said—and whipped up my leg, kicking one carbine out of its owner's hands while I sent the other man's gun flying with a sweep of my arm.

Neither guard had a chance to summon help before I knocked them out. But as I ran into the mansion, another eight guards appeared, running down the stairs in the entrance foyer and coming through archways on my right and left. What the hell? Although Hightons always traveled with bodyguards, the usual complement was four. I had expected only the five I had seen at the bar.

As I focused on the guards, my mind went on boost, changing my perceptions so that everyone seemed to move in slow motion. The guards reacted as if they were underwater, barely changing position while I leveled my Jumbler at them.

Weapons link established, my node thought. A grid of cross-hairs appeared over my view of the foyer while stats flashed in a corner of my mental display:

 
Fuel: abiton
rest energy: 1.9 eV
charge: 5.95x10^-25C
magnet: 0.0001 T
max radius: 0.05 M
 

I swept the Jumbler beam across the ground in front of the guards. Only orange sparkles showed as it cut through the air, but when it touched the floor, that parquetry exploded. Debris flew everywhere and rained down into the trough I was gouging. Dust swirled around us. I doubted the owners of the mansion would rent to the Aristo again. His guests were too ill-mannered.

The guards skidded to a stop at the trough, their arms rising in slow motion to protect their heads from flying debris. It wouldn't delay them for long, and I couldn't knock out this many even with my enhanced reflexes. Either I was going to have to take the irreversibly drastic step of shooting them or else find another way to reach the Highton.

I ran back outside into the garden. A laser shot came so close to my ear that strands of my hair sizzled. Someone cursed and shouted in Eubian about wanting me able to talk, not crisped to cinders.

I sprinted with accelerated speed toward a tower at the south edge of the mansion. It had to be the security center; Traders rarely varied in their procedures. They didn't comprehend innovation, opting instead for sheer strength. Unfortunately for us, sheer strength went a long way no matter how much imagination its producers lacked.

I reached the tower in seconds and annihilated its lock. Another guard was inside, his carbine already up and aimed. Even before my mind registered his presence, my leg was kicking into the air. My boot heel hit the carbine and it flew out of his hands, its shot going wide and burning into the wall instead of me.

The guard hit my Jumbler so fast, the gun spun out of my hand in a blur. He also had enhanced speed; I barely managed to block his blows when he came at me. I slid the thorn-tube out from my sleeve and fired its microthin sliver of metal. He jerked up his arm, deflecting it with the wrist guard he wore. That gained me the second I needed; while he was stopping the drug-filled needle, I got him with a dart. It hit his neck and he spasmed in mid-punch, his fist flailing, the tendons in his neck outlined like cables under his skin. He collapsed to the floor, breathing but unconscious.

A quick glance at his console told me he had been monitoring the estate defenses. I deactivated the cyberlock first. Then I used his system to access an emergency node of the Kyle-Mesh, one ridiculously easy to reach—for those who knew how to look. The instant I activated the account, it released a virus that jumped into the Highton's system. Less than a minute had passed since I walked up to the mansion.

Bells clamored outside. I grabbed my Jumbler and ran out of the tower—into chaos. Lights blazed, alarms cried for attention, flood lamps swung wildly across the gardens. The virus was setting off every warning system on the estate. In all that madness, they would never find the one alarm they needed, the one that registered me.

I fired the Jumbler across the street. Over here the glare of flood lamps hid the sparkles the beam made as it annihilated air molecules, but across the road, a street lamp disappeared in an orange flash. I hit the tree by the fragrance fountain, too, and it's branches crashed to the ground in a confusion of exploding wood and flying leaves. Shoving the Jumbler back into its holster, I ran toward the mansion. If this supposed Highton followed the usual Aristo pattern, he would be staying on the second story in the room hardest to reach from either the ground or air.

The most isolated window on the second floor had no entrance below it. I climbed up using a nervoplex trellis that vibrated under my weight, trying to throw me off. Had my reflexes been even a fraction slower, it would have succeeded. But I made it to the balcony and clambered over the railing, then stepped silently onto its polished floor. This bizarrely untutored Highton had left the curtains open on the doors that fronted the balcony. I could see him standing in the middle of his bedroom, gaping at the madly flashing console on his wall.

I annihilated the locks on the doors. Then I shoved them open and walked inside. "My greetings," I said in Highton.

He spun around. "How did you get in here?"

I tilted my head at a wardrobe by the wall. "I'm going to hide behind that. In a moment your guards are going to burst in and tell you an intruder is on the estate. You say you saw me run into the park, and you want them to catch me."

He watched me with astonishment. "I will say no such thing."

"Yes, you will." I closed the curtains on the balcony and backed up into the space between the wardrobe and wall, aiming my gun at his head. "Otherwise, I'll annihilate you into oblivion."

He didn't argue. It was a good thing, because my Jumbler was empty. I couldn't annihilate a speck of dust. Even with only wimpons for fuel, a gun could only hold so much antimatter.

A knock sounded outside.

The Highton turned with a startled jerk. "Come."

From my hiding place I could see only the Aristo. I heard the door open.

"We apologize for disturbing you, sir," a voice said.

The Aristo gave a perfect Highton scowl and waved his hand at the blaring console. "This is disturbing me far more. What is the problem? Who was that woman I saw outside? She looked like an Imperial Jagernaut."

"She is," the guard said. "The Primary from the bar. She damaged the foyer and ran out again."

"Why?" The Aristo sounded genuinely curious.

A second voice spoke. "We don't know, sir. We'll question her as soon as we catch her." His anticipation made my stomach lurch. I "recognized" the feel of his mind even though I had never met him. He was the guard with the two providers.

"I saw her run into the park across the street," the Aristo said.

"We'll search it thoroughly," the first guard told him.

"Good. Now leave me to my privacy. And fix those alarms."

"We haven't been able to isolate the virus causing the trouble," the other guard said. "We may have to turn off the security system and restart it."

The Aristo raised his eyebrows. "With all the commotion, she could have climbed into this room without being detected."

The first guard spoke in a reassuring voice. "The trellis would throw her off, sir. And she was only on the grounds for a moment. She didn't have time to get close to you."

The Aristo spoke dryly. "I'm glad you have such confidence. Now go find her."

"Yes, sir." The guards must have bowed, because their clothes crackled with that irritating noise Trader uniforms made when someone bent at the waist. The door whispered shut and the pound of boots receded through the house.

The Aristo came over to me. "What do you want?"

I edged out, keeping my empty gun trained on him, and went to his console. Then I turned down the audio. Alarms continued to blare in the rest of the mansion but at least it was quieter in here.

"Have a seat," I said. "We're going to talk."

He stayed put. "I have nothing to say to you."

"You didn't feel that way in the bar."

Unexpectedly, he smiled. "No, I didn't."

A law should have existed against an Aristo having such a beautiful smile. No, he couldn't be an Aristo. Not with a smile like that. "I don't believe you're a Highton," I said.

"Why?"

His surprise sounded genuine. If he was a fake, either he didn't know it or else he was an astoundingly good actor. But I couldn't be sure. At close range, I could pick up an Aristo's emotions; their lack of empathy had no effect on how an empath perceived them. But I caught zilch from this one. Nothing. He was a blank wall.

I moved to the balcony doors and nudged open the curtains. A man was patrolling the garden below. "Your guards are good."

"Apparently not good enough."

"None of this makes sense." I let the curtain close. "You have eleven guards, at least one with a biomech web in his body." I thought of the man with the providers. It wasn't easy even for an Aristo to acquire psions, let alone a guard. "Another one of them is in favor with a powerful Highton, one with far more rank than you could have at your age. And few people, especially at your age, want or need to undergo the invasive operation to implant a cyberlock in your brain. Since your guards hold its key instead of you, they must take their orders from someone else."

He stared at me. "How did you know all of that?"

I didn't. Most had been conjecture. But he had just verified it. "I'm good at what I do."

"Yes. You are."

Huh. No Aristo would concede that someone like me, who to them was no more than goods for sale, had competency at anything besides serving Aristos. They knew what we were capable of, but they never acknowledged it. Yes, this man had the mannerisms, the carriage, the accent of a Highton. But not the scorn. A true Aristo would have made no secret of his intent to punish my actions. I would have felt his contempt. But I felt nothing with this one. He looked annoyed and intrigued, but I felt none of it. Nothing. It was almost worse than the cavity.

Then it hit me. He had blocks in his mind. These weren't the instinctive psychological walls anyone could raise, empath or not. Elaborate mental barriers protected this man. He had been trained to stop his brain from transmitting to other empaths. I knew the great investment of time and effort it took to learn those barricading techniques. It had been part of my Jagernaut training. It was different from the mental doors I closed to let other empaths know my feelings were private. These were fortified protections that could be broken only by the force of a stronger mind.

But only psions built such barriers. Only psions. Normal people had neither the need nor the ability to do it. In fact, even with biomech enhancements, most Jagernauts couldn't erect barriers as strong as I detected in this man. He was blocking even me. That meant he had to be a potent telepath. But no Aristo could be a telepath. It just wasn't in their precious gene pool.

"Why do you look at me this way?" the Aristo asked.

"What way?" I asked, stalling for time while I thought.

"As if I am a laboratory specimen."

"I'm trying to figure out why a provider is traveling as a Highton."

His anger sparked. "You come up here, throwing insults and waving guns, demeaning my bloodlines. Well, I am not impressed. Go ahead, shoot. This is what Jagernauts do, isn't it? Kill without compunction."

I didn't need telepathy to see his anger was genuine. He believed he was a Highton. "We never kill without compunction. How could we? We're empaths. We feel what our targets feel."

"This thing you call empathy—it weakens the mind." His voice quieted. "It is a frailty. Those with weak minds must work that much harder to overcome their failings."

Where had all that come from? "Did your parents tell you that when they taught you to hide your telepathic abilities?"

He paled, and I was sure I had hit the truth. He was a telepath, which meant neither of his parents was Aristo. Someone had taken great pains to conceal that fact. Why? Yes, many Hightons had children with their providers, and they often elevated those offspring to high levels within their slave hierarchies. But to pass off such a child as a Highton—it would be a phenomenal "corruption" of their incessantly glorified bloodlines.

"How long did you think you could hide it?" I asked.

He stared at me. "What are you going to do?"

I couldn't believe it. He was afraid of me. I had felt many emotions from Hightons: lust, anger, obsession, disgust. But never fear. As far as they were concerned I was nothing but a provider, and they refused to acknowledge a provider could have the power needed to inspire their fear. Yet I felt his as clear and sharp as broken glass.

I felt his mind.

Sweat beaded on my temple. A moment ago his barriers had been impenetrable. Now they were dissolving. He was a mental fortress, one that should have taken a tortuous battle of wills to break, yet now I felt him. He had to be voluntarily dropping his walls; I had done nothing. But I sensed neither the intent from him to do so nor the realization it was happening.

He watched me with a healthy, sensual desire that caught me unprepared. Blood rushed to my face and to far more private places. Block! The synapse psicon flashed in my mind, and kept flashing, telling me the block wasn't working. Either his reactions were too intense to shut out or else I was feeling my own as well. What was going on? It was wrong, all wrong. No, it wasn't wrong, it was right, and that was what was wrong.

I took a breath. Stay cool. Find out who he is. But how? I had a good starting point; if someone wanted him to pass as a Highton, they would have given him a Highton name.

"What surprises me," I said, "is that your parents gave you a name you obviously had no claim to."

The comment didn't provoke his anger, as I had hoped. He just shrugged. "I have far more right to it than the hundred or so others who have it."

Hundred. Given that only a few thousand Aristos existed, his name had to be a popular one. What were well known Aristo names? That was easy. Kryx, as in Kryx Tarque. I would never forget it. Vitar was another, Jaibriol, and . . .

Jaibriol. Jaibriol. Now I knew why Rex and I thought this man looked familiar, but neither Helda nor Taas recognized him. This false Aristo, this dove hiding in a night-wolf's body, was a living reminder of a dead Highton, a man who had died when Helda was a small girl and before Taas was born. Comtrace hadn't reported it because we had asked for a living Highton. This man resembled the late Emperor Jaibriol Qox, the father of the present Emperor.

A dramatic difference existed, however, between this man and holos I had seen of Jaibriol Qox. Although the previous Emperor had been handsome in his youth, his face had aged into harsh lines that showed his true nature. His son, the current Emperor, was a leaner, quieter ruler, softer-spoken—and just as vicious. The years had stamped that cruelty into his features, just as they had stamped it into his father's face. The man in front of me now showed no mark of that brutal nature.

The thought budding in my mind was absurd. It had to be wrong. But I had to test it. "How are you ever going to rule, Jaibriol? Your people will never accept a telepath as their Emperor."

He flushed. "Nothing is wrong with my mind. My people will accept me."

No. NO. It was a lie. It had to be. But his mind was opening up to me, leaving no room for misinterpretation. We had been wrong, all of us.

Emperor Ur Qox had an heir.

Somehow I spoke calmly. "You're descended from a provider. It's the only way you could be a psion. You have to get the genes from both parents." Both. Both. I stared at him. Now that I was looking for it, I couldn't mistake his Qox lineage. Not only did he bring to mind the late Jaibriol Qox, but I saw his resemblance to the present Emperor as well. "That means your father—the Emperor—is at most only half Highton. You can't be more than one quarter."

"Stop!" Jaibriol clenched his fist. "Stop your filthy insults."

His mental blocks were dissolving like salt in water. His mind was incredible. Beautiful. Sensual. I wanted him, just as an Earth salmon ready to spawn felt driven to swim upstream, against all obstacles, to reach home and reproduce. It made me want to strike out at him, furious that he—the Highton Heir—could so move me.

"They'll lust after your pain." I was losing my battle to stay cool. "All of them, your ministers, peers, women, guards, generals. Your life will be hell."

"You're insane."

"You don't know. You've had barriers protecting you. But you can't do it forever. If you slip once, just once, they'll know. You'll find out the truth about your precious Hightons. About your father. The man is a monster."

He pointed at the Jumbler I held. "This is all you understand. You see everything as war and hate. My father is a great man, far greater than you could ever comprehend."

"Where have you been for the last twenty years? In a cocoon?" I wanted to hit him. "Hightons torture people. Your father probably did it to your mother while he was siring you."

His face went white. "You are sick. Sick."

"You think I'm lying?" I waved my gun at him. "Fine. Come into my mind, phony Highton. You want to know what providing is like? Come and look. If you have the courage for it."

He watched me like a man balanced on a cliff staring at an abyss. And then he fell.

I had meant only to make him see what happened on Tams, to make that memory hurt him the way it hurt me. But I couldn't pull out of our link. His mind was too strong, more so even than I had expected given the warning of his immense barriers. We dropped together, melding as we plunged, a joining I had known only once before with a seven year old boy. Only this time it was with an adult, with an intensity heightened by anger and sexual desire, and it hit me like a tidal wave.

Jaibriol Qox was Rhon.

I could smell him, a musky, masculine scent that muddied my thoughts. Pheromones, Rhon pheromones. My whole body reacted. He picked up my arousal through our mental link and fed it back to me, exciting me even more. It multiplied Jaibriol's reaction as well, locking us into a double feedback loop that fast became overwhelming in its intensity. Had our natures been incompatible, it would have been revolting. But he fit. He was an aphrodisiac, firm and masculine, warm, inviting . . .

I fell into his memories like a diver plummeting into the ocean. His thoughts curled around me as if I were the only solidity in the sea of loneliness where he had lived for so long. He had spent the entire twenty-two years of his life, until a few weeks ago, living alone . . .only the visits of his tutors broke his solitude . . .his father rarely came to see him—

The demands of his life leave him no time, Jaibriol thought. He has more than me to consider. He is Emperor of Eube.

I recognized what he couldn't see: to his father, he was the ultimate provider. Somewhere within himself Qox had found the decency to leave the boy alone, avoiding him rather than risk giving in to the drive to torture his own son.

Too late I realized that as soon as I formed those thoughts, Jaibriol knew them. His mouth opened, then shut again. How can you believe such a thing? he thought.

Jaibriol—I'm sorry. I had to pull out of this link. I couldn't let this happen. I couldn't react with such sympathy to the Highton Heir.

Then I saw his mother, the Empress . . .tall, regal in a black and gold dress. Gold glistened on her wrists and throat, diamonds sparkled on her ears. Her hair fell to her waist like black silk. Her eyes were rubies, red and clear. Her face, so lovely, so regal—so icy, as hard and as cold as diamond. Why did she hate me? What horrible thing had I done, that my mother despised my every word, every move, every breath?

I watched his face, wanting to touch his cheek, his lips. Jaibriol, can't you see? You don't have even a remote resemblance to the Empress. She can't be your mother, not if you're Rhon and she's Highton.

Stop! He took hold of my lower arms, gripping them hard. I am not a provider.

Despite his denial, he had to suspect the truth. How long had it taken his grandfather to find a provider who carried the full set of Rhon genes? Years? Decades? He must have used that provider to sire a son who was half Qox and half Rhon. That ensured his genes remained in the Qox bloodline and required the least deviation from Highton behavior. That he even managed to break those ingrained patterns of conduct enough to father a son who was half Highton astounded me. The son he created—Jaibriol's father—must have completed the process. How? Engineered a son from his own genes? Or did he find a second provider to carry his Rhon heir?

The Emperor must have falsified the bloodline. He had means available to no other Highton. I also had no doubt he murdered all of those who made the verifications, executing the death sentence himself, in secret, leaving no witnesses to the truth of his son's heritage.

No. Jaibriol's thoughts shimmered like tears on a mirror. You're wrong. Wrong!

Jaibriol—I'm sorry. I tried to pull back from him. But it was impossible—so lonely—his life had been so lonely. The only constant in it was his father.

He is a great man, Jaibriol thought. I will never be worthy of his name.

Don't worship him. It will only hurt you.

I don't worship him. I love him.

He left you with no one.

He brought tutors. Jaibriol formed an image in his mind, an elderly man with grey hair and large eyes. I loved Marlin. He taught me to sing. His voice was magnificent. On my sixth birthday he gave me a hunter-pup. And he encouraged my hobbies.

Hobbies?

Jaibriol showed me his library on the estate where he lived. He let me see him studying, singing, writing, training, building, researching. His "hobbies." He had nothing else to do. He spoke fourteen languages, played seven instruments, had a voice that spanned four octaves, excelled at seven sports. He knew the histories and geographies of a hundred worlds and more, had studied mathematics and science at the doctorate level, could debate the works of both human and non-human philosophers.

I stared at him. Don't you realize what you've accomplished?

I've done nothing. He showed no pride. He had no referent for his achievements. I am a failure as a son. Why else would my father hide me? He paused, then made himself continue. Marlin stopped coming to see me. This always happened. They came for a while, then disappeared. Only my father always returned. His next thought was more ragged. My nurse—Camyllia. She was there when I was small. She took me for walks, played with me, sang me to sleep, and comforted me if I woke up afraid. She let me feel as if every moment we spent together was precious beyond words, that it would never come again so she had to make it the best it could be. He drew in a shaky breath. Then she went away. Father said she was sick . . .that she . . .died.

I saw Camyllia in his mind, a beautiful young woman, a brown-eyed version of Jaibriol. With her hair and eyes altered to look Highton, she could have been his twin. But I had no doubt it had been Jaibriol's eyes and hair that had been altered. Camyllia wasn't his sister. She was his mother.

As soon as that thought formed, I imagined a blanket over my mind, hiding it from Jaibriol. His father would have killed anyone who knew his son's true identity. That the mother had convinced Qox to let her live long enough for Jaibriol to remember her was as astonishing as it was heart wrenching.

Jaibriol saw through the cover I had laid over my thoughts. No. You're wrong. A tear ran down his face. Wrong.

Your father loved you. I made myself believe it so Jaibriol would. He isolated you because it was the only way to make sure no one hurt you. If any hint of what you truly are escapes, it will destroy you. Not to mention his father. He needed you to grow strong and learn to protect yourself.

His grip on my arm tightened. How can you think you know anything about my father's love? You're a Jagernaut. A killer. How can you feel love at all?

As soon as he formed the question, my mind responded. I tried to hold back, but he swept into my memories. He saw my childhood, a girl surrounded by an intense and loving family. He felt what it was like to live with other empaths, the fulfillment, and the gaping lack of it in his own life. He saw Rex, Helda, and Taas, understood how close we were. He saw me working with them, especially Rex, including on Tams—

And he found Tarque.

As his face contorted, he sank to his knees, pulling me with him until we were kneeling face to face on the carpet. He bowed his head and leaned forward, his grip so tight on my arms that his knuckles turned white. Even when his forehead came to rest against mine, he didn't look up, just kept staring at the floor. I dropped my Jumbler and clenched the cloth of his sleeves while my mind heaved a blanket of denial over the memory. But he whipped the blanket whipped away, and it flew out of our mental the tempest like a rag caught by the wind.

While Jaibriol battled with my memories of Tarque, I shook with my own nightmare. I knew why Jaibriol existed. He had a purpose his father and grandfather considered even more important than the purity of the Qox bloodline. They had created him for one reason and one alone—to take control of the Kyle-Mesh. Through him, the Traders would conquer Skolia.

Gradually our minds separated, like a storm abating. No one, not even the Rhon, could sustain the intensity of that contact for long. I became aware of the room again. Jaibriol and I were leaning into each other, he holding my arms as if he were my lover. I had gripped his sleeves so hard, the cloth had ripped in my hands. His face was wet with tears and I felt them on mine too. My Jumbler lay on the floor.

Jaibriol sat up, still holding on to me. "My father is not evil." His voice shook. "Hightons are not evil. You will see. You are wrong."

"You were there with me. You felt it."

The door's pager chimed, followed by a voice coming over the comm. "Prince Jaibriol?"

He dropped my arms as if they burned. For a moment I was afraid he wouldn't answer, forcing the guards to find out why. Then he drew in a ragged breath and spoke loudly. "What is it?"

"We're ready to re-activate the cyberlock, Your Highness."

Both Jaibriol and I stood up. Then he bent down and picked up my Jumbler.

The blood drained form my face. How could I have lost my weapon to him? He couldn't use it; the gun was keyed to my brain waves. But now that he had it, my bluff was worthless. And he knew my identity. All he had to do was say, "The Primary is in here."

Jaibriol handed me the Jumbler. "Go."

I backed into my hiding place behind the wardrobe. "The guards. In the garden."

He wiped his cheeks on his sleeve. Then he went to the door and touched a panel, turning off the lights. When the door slid open, the shadows hid his face. Cloth crinkled as a guard bowed.

"I was resting," Jaibriol said. "You will have to wait until tomorrow to turn on the lock."

"I'm sorry. Terribly sorry." The guard sounded nervous. "I'm afraid we have to do it now."

Anger mixed with fear stabbed my mind. Neither emotion was mine. Although I could read Jaibriol well enough to realize he was barriered to everyone else, he and I were in a link neither of us could break. Our meld had receded to a bearable intensity, but the connection remained. It was physical as well. The memory of his scent, his closeness, his muscled legs under my hands—my body responded with a surge of desire so intense I almost dropped the Jumbler again.

Block! The psicon flashed erratically, then popped and fizzled like a wet firecracker.

Overlaid on that unwanted arousal was another emotion, Jaibriol's loathing for the cyberlock, hateful, suffocating, dizzying . . .

I knew from my own experience that turning on the cyberlock was like being hit by vertigo that kept going until the lock deactivated. I wondered why Jaibriol's father had sent him here if the risk was so great, he thought his son needed cyberlock protection. In our joining I had found only a sense that Jaibriol wasn't sure himself.

"You will wait until tomorrow to turn it on," Jaibriol told the guard.

"I–I'm afraid I can't do that, sir."

Jaibriol spoke in a chillingly perfect Highton accent. "I'm ordering you to do it."

"I'm s–sorry. I'm v–very sorry." The man's voice kept shaking. "I–I have orders from your father."

"Give me six hours without it."

"I can't. I–I'm t–truly sorry, sir. A lot could happen in six hours."

"Two hours," Jaibriol said. "Or I shall be displeased."

"Your Highness, I can't," he said miserably. "If anything happened to you, the Emperor would execute me."

"Nothing will happen."

"I—six hours—it's a long time?" He sounded as if he were asking rather than telling.

Jaibriol's face eased into a smile. "I've heard your daughter is a gifted seamstress."

"Sir, please, my daughter has never offended any—"

"No, no." Jaibriol spoke pleasantly. "I have heard good reports. Has she applied to the Tailor's Guild?"

The guard hesitated. "She was turned down. She as no Aristo blood, you see."

"Perhaps I can mention her name to the Guild Master."

The guard's uniform crackled again and again, multiple bows this time. "Thank you, sir. Your Greatness. Your Exalted Highness." The words tumbled out over one another. "Thank you."

"Yes?" Jaibriol didn't sound pleasant anymore.

The guard took a breath. "Prince Jaibriol, before we activate the cyberlock I must oversee repairs to the security system. That will take me two hours. At least." He paused. "Possibly three. Will you need me before then?"

I almost snorted. Although the virus I had unleashed was effective, I doubted it would take even an hour to clean out the system.

Jaibriol's voice relaxed. "No, I won't be needing you. Take care of security."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you find the Primary?"

"No, sir. She went into the park and destroyed trees and power lines. Then she disappeared."

"Who is the guard I just saw down in the garden under my balcony?"

"Rak."

Jaibriol stiffened as if he had been struck. I caught a vivid image from him of the guard with the providers. Unease stabbed at me, a fear of Rak he never understood—

Block! The fear receded, but my psicon kept flashing.

"Send Rak to the control center," Jaibriol said. "He's to file a report immediately."

"Yes, Your Highness." The guard's uniform crackled.

After Jaibriol closed the door, he came over to me. "Sauscony—"

It was unsettling to hear a Highton speak my name with such longing. "Yes?"

"Stay with me."

"You know I can't do that."

He touched my cheek. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye," I whispered.

I went to the balcony and checked outside. Rak was walking across the lawn, headed for the house. The gardens were dark; either my mad virus had overloaded the system or someone had turned off the power and shut down the wildly sweeping flood lights. Two other guards were moving among the trees in another garden, but with the lights out, the balcony and trellis were dark.

It took me only seconds to slip down the trellis. I crept along the wall, hiding in shadows. Then I ran across the street and into the darkened park.