Part Two: FORESHIRES HOLD

 

VIII
A Time To Search

 

Returning to the Foreshires Hold was like coming home. Almost. I had been stationed here a few years after receiving my commission. The barracks where I stayed then were part of a cramped building out in the countryside near Jacob's Military Institute, or JMI, about twenty kilometers from the city of Eos. Now my "rooms" were in the affluent section of Eos, in a venerable old building with luxury apartments. I would rather have stayed in the barracks. The spare living arrangements might have taken my mind off matters I didn't want to think about.

My assignment was to design a program to get JMI cadets into better physical shape. Two out of every eight days I worked with them, and the rest of the time their instructors carried out a schedule I had arranged. It was a good program. It would whip any cadet into top shape. But after I finished developing it, I didn't have a flaming thing to do. So for six of every eight days I sat in my penthouse and brooded. I knew what Kurj was up to. He wanted me to recover from whatever stress he imagined had interfered with my ability to function. I was a vital cog in his war machine, a cog he had decided needed refitting. So he gave me preposterous orders, stuck me in a beautiful city on a beautiful planet, and assumed nature would take care of the rest.

He was wrong. Nature did nothing. I sat in my apartment and stared at the walls until I was ready to explode. I had been a fool to consider leaving combat. I couldn't retire. It left a person too much time to think.

Kurj was right about one thing, though. The JMI program needed an overhaul. I reworked the cadets' schedule, everything from what they ate for breakfast to how many kilometers they ran to what scaffoldings they climbed. Only 14 percent of them could meet the physical requirements of the program when I first tested them.

Char Iaki, the Commandant at JMI, took me into his office one afternoon. He nodded toward the window. Outside, in the slanting light of Forshire's gilded sun, cadets were walking across the quad, heading to classes, the library, the simulation rooms.

"They need more time for class work," Char said. "They're too exhausted at the end of the day to move, let alone study."

"We had stricter requirements at the DMA," I said. The Dieshan Military Academy, which trained Jagernauts, lost half of each entering class by the time graduation came. But with reason. "These men and women have to be our best. If they can't make it, we need to find out now instead of when lives depend on their ability to operate under pressure."

"Training them," Iaki said dryly, "and breaking them are two different things."

So now I sat in my apartment and wondered if I were going overboard. Why bother training cadets at all? The Traders were inexorable. They would break us no matter how hard we fought. What was the use? We were all going to die, or worse, be devoured by the Aristo war machine.

Cut it out, I told myself. I picked up a holobook I had dropped on the sofa last night. The title glowed in rosy letters: Idioms from Afar. It was my hobby, learning figures of speech from other languages. My brother Kelric and I had done it all the time when we were young, always searching out clever turns of phrase. Sauscony está construyendo castillos en el aire. Sauscony is building castles in the air. Here was a good one from English: shot to high heaven.

I blew out a gust of air and set down the book. Then I went to a window in my living room and looked out at the countryside. The building stood at the edge of Jacob's Shire, a park of rolling hills covered with cloud-grass that rippled like golden clouds scudding across the land. The amber sun was low in the sky. It was a softer evening than on Diesha, shorter than on Delos.

Of all the places I had lived aside from my childhood home, I liked Foreshires best. It was the second world of an orangish star that had acquired the name Ruth from the explorer who discovered its planetary system. Prior to ISC occupation, the people here had simply numbered their twenty-three cities according to when each was built. Some poetry-minded administrator in Imperial Space Command had renamed this city Eos, after a dawn goddess he had read about in Allied mythology.

Kurj didn't have a poetic bone in his body, and he preferred literal names. But the mythology of Earth had always fascinated him, especially the works of a tragedian named Seneca. I had never read the stuff myself, and I doubted even Kurj knew why it enthralled him. Whatever the reason, he let Eos stand as the name for this city that before had been Ruth-2, * * *17.

I understood why someone would wax romantic about this place. It evoked reams of poetry from its people, the descendents of colonists who had settled here one hundred years ago. At this latitude, 30 degrees north, the planet's rings spanned the sky in a bridge, reaching their highest point directly south. Had I been at the equator, they would have gone straight overhead in a strip so narrow it almost vanished. Here they curved in a wider band, their lower edge 41 degrees above the horizon and the upper edge 45 degrees above it. Most of the arch was a pale whitish-gold, but as it curved to the mountain-rimmed horizon in the east and west, it shaded into a orange, then pink, and finally red.

I wondered what it had been like all those centuries ago when an asteroid glanced off Forshires' surface. It couldn't have been too catastrophic given that the planet was well on its way to healing, with only the rings as evidence of the event. The plants and animals were still adjusting, though. Friction with the upper atmosphere and collisions between rocks caused chunks of material to fall from the rings to the planet. They showered like meteors in the night sky. Dust floated in the air, chemical impurities and ash, a natural smog that never blew away. The amber sunlight also peaked closer to the red end of the spectrum than on most habitable worlds. It all came together to give this world a golden sky instead of the blue more common on planets with oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres.

For all its beauty, the sky looked strange to me. I didn't want to look at pretty sky anyway. I wanted to see people. Real people. Not robots or machines or Jagernauts. Normal people.

I bent down and rubbed my calf, working out a cramp. The gravity here was on the heavy side, though no more so than on the world where I had grown up. But it took me a while to adapt after I had been on Diesha or in space.

I went to a window that faced west, toward the city. A boulevard far below basked in the gilded evening light. Most of the street was hidden; the lush trees created a green canopy that started a few meters below the level of my apartment and rolled out west and north for kilometers. It was like being above leafy green clouds. A tower poked above the trees nearby, and others showed farther in the distance. Although they were the same as this one where I lived—metal and casecrete—they looked like delicate constructs of rosewood, ivory and ebony, as if an artist had crafted them to hang against the gold sky. Each curved in a crescent reminiscent of the rings. The convex side on the tower nearest me faced to the west, but others faced in other directions.

I peered down at the boulevard. Wasn't anyone around? Here and there, when the wind blew aside the leaves, I glimpsed the pale blue stones that paved the empty street.

A couple appeared, strolling along. They wore skimpy clothes that reminded me of rose and grey petals fluttering in the breeze. It was hard to see from up here, but it looked like the woman was laughing. The man laughed as well, a big fellow with dark hair and a big laugh. Like Rex.

I turned away from the window. What was the blazes wrong with my brother, sending me here with nothing to do but think?

Well, I didn't have to sit like a lump. I could go out. Do something. But what? The only people I knew on Forshires were military personnel. I kept getting asked to formal dinners at the Imperial Embassy where I stood around in my gold dress-uniform, with its glittering pants and tunic and sash, and that saber hanging at my hip, serving no useful purpose other than to glint along with everything else. It was awful.

I squinted at the wall console, a mesh system known as a Pak 20. It could do anything for me. Almost anything. I didn't think husband-providing was within its capabilities. Hell, maybe it could even do that. Virtual reality in the bedroom.

"Pako," I said. "I want some clothes."

A light glowed on the console. "Dress or duty uniform?" Pako asked.

"Not a uniform. Clothes. You know, like normal people wear."

"What style?"

Style? "I don't know. Pick something. What a woman here would wear to go for a walk."

Pako's screen came on and a holo appeared, a naked image of me standing in the air. It startled me to see how young I looked. Clothes appeared on the image, a bare-shouldered wrap that barely covered my breasts and buttocks.

"Is this acceptable?" Pako asked.

I reddened. "I said clothes. Not scraps."

The wrap changed to a filmy blue dress that came almost to my knees. "Is this acceptable?"

It was still less than I usually wore, but compared to what I had seen—or not seen—on the people here, it was conservative. "I guess so. Send it over."

It arrived within minutes, delivered by a young man in a blue uniform who smiled shyly. Shoes came with it, blue slippers with little silver bells that hung around the edge at the ankle. After the boy left, I put on the dress. The whole thing was lace. What was the function of that? The neckline went too low. And it had no sleeves, just straps that crossed in the back. I felt naked.

"So what?" I muttered. Then I went out for a walk.

Outside, I had no idea where to go. This district had few buildings, mostly just trees and plazas with those blue tiles. Some paths had rose and gold mosaics swirling through the blue. Mercifully, no nervoplex showed anywhere.

I crossed the street to a park. For a while I wandered down paths under the trees. The air quality was good tonight, the concentration of dust low enough that it didn't bother me. People strolled by, nodded, wished me a good evening. Men smiled at me. Everyone wore those shoes with the bells, so a sweet, faint music filled the park. It had to be a new style; I had never seen it before. Then again, I had never taken a walk like this. I felt like an intruder. I didn't belong here. This lovely evening was for normal people.

Eventually I came to a cafe with an giltwood sign that said, Heather's Dream. I wondered what Heather dreamed. Curious, I pushed open the door.

A big woman in an apron appeared, smiling broadly. "Good. You're right on time."

"I am?" I asked.

She bustled me over to a crescent-shaped table of unpolished wood and sat me down on a bench in its concave side. "Here you go."

A youth who couldn't have been much more than twenty slid into the seat next to me. "Hello," he said. "I'm Pulli."

As I blinked at him, the woman said, "Do either of you want a drink?"

"Rootberry juice for me," Pulli said.

Rootberry juice? People who drank rootberry juice took vitamins and ate noxious vegetables that looked like miniature cabbages. Why had the woman put me here with this Pulli person?

Before I could escape, more people showed up, then more, and even more. They crowded around the table, filling up its convex and concave sides, ordering drinks and introducing themselves. Within moments I was surrounded by a herd of rootberry drinkers. Everyone was talking at once, saying where they lived, what they did for a living, where they went to school. They were university students and young professionals, all glowing with health.

A lanky man folded himself in on my left, grinning at me. "So, Green Eyes, you got a name?"

"It's not Green Eyes," I said.

He laughed. "I'm Hilten. Raik Hilten. Everyone calls me Hilt."

I nodded, wondering how I was going to extract myself from Hilt and his healthy friends.

At the far end of the table a woman stood up. "All right everyone, let's get to business. I'm Delia, your excursion leader. We'll only go a few kilometers tonight. Next time we'll do a full day, but I wanted you to meet each other first." She smiled. "Well, happy hikers, let's catch the trail."

For flaming sake. I had been trapped by a gang of rootberry-guzzling happy hikers. As the group squeezed out from the table, I prepared to make my escape.

Hilt stood up with me and took hold of my arm. "Listen, Green Eyes. You can have the honor of being my partner tonight."

"Thanks, but I can't stay." Call me Green Eyes again, I thought, and I'll dump a pitcher of rootberry juice over your head.

Someone nudged my mind with silent laughter at my image of Hilt doused in juice. I turned and found myself looking at a youth across the buzzing group, a man with bronze curls and brown eyes. He smiled at me. His touch on my mind hadn't been strong, but it was enough to reveal he was an empath. He was also gorgeous, shy, marvelously well built, and bore absolutely no resemblance to either Rex or Jaibriol. I smiled back at him. Maybe I would stick with the group after all.

So I went for a hike with a crowd of exceedingly healthy people I had never seen before in my life. It was an easy walk along dirt paths that meandered through the cloud-grass of Jacob's Shire, a chance for members in a newly formed hiking club to meet each other. The youth who had touched my mind turned out to be Jarith, a music student at the conservatory.

I should have enjoyed the walk. Here I was, on a beautiful evening in a beautiful place and with beautiful people. But I couldn't relax. What was I doing, acting normal? I was an impostor, pretending I had the right to behave like everyone else.

Stop it, I told myself. I had earned the right to enjoy one evening's rest.

Tell that to Rex, I thought. Tell the providers while they scream. Tell that to Tams Station.

I pushed my hand through my hair. My arm was shaking. What was wrong with me? Hilt had been talking to me for several moments, and I had no idea what he said. I could face death in combat a thousand different ways, yet I couldn't deal with a simple conversation.

We climbed to the top of a hill that let us look out across the countryside. The sun was dropping to the horizon in the west where the rings met the mountains, though this early in the summer it was too far north to sink behind that great arch. In the distance, the roofs of Jacob's Military Institute reflected its rays like liquid glass.

Hilt motioned toward JMI. "Take a look, Soz. That's where they train the robots."

I glanced at him. "Robots?"

He wasn't smiling any more. "That's right. Robots trained to salute and kill."

It took conscious effort for me to remain calm, an effort far out of proportion to his comment. "Those cadets you call robots are all that stand between you and the Traders."

Hilt scowled. "Don't tell me you're one of those."

"One of what?"

"Parrots of the empire, our dearly beloved military dictatorship."

A woman named Mika spoke. "You have it wrong, Hilt. For a dictatorship you need a dictator. We don't have a dictator. We have a Triad." Dryly she said, "That's three dictators, my friend."

"That's absurd," Pulli said. "The Assembly rules Skolia. Not the Triad."

"If you believe that, you are woefully naive," Mika said.

"What Triad?" Hilt demanded. "Everyone knows Lord Valdoria is just a propaganda figurehead they prop up there because the people love him."

I went rigid. He was talking about my father. Eldrinson Althor Valdoria. True, he became an interstellar potentate by accident. A simple farmer from a backwater planet, he had neither the interest nor knowledge to rule the Imperialate. The only reason he ever left home was because of his epilepsy; without treatment, he suffered such severe convulsions he could barely function.

A memory jumped into my mind: twenty-seven years ago, the Traders had tried to assassinate Kurj. Only a Dyad existed then, Kurj as Imperator and my aunt as Assembly Key. After the attempt, while Kurj lay near death, the Traders launched an assault against our capital world. In the ensuing chaos, my aunt's bodyguards whisked her to the hidden base Safelanding. Then the Traders penetrated our computer defenses—and crashed the Kyle-Mesh.

The entire interstellar network collapsed. Telops managed minor patches, but only Kurj or my aunt had both the Rhon strength and Dyad access required to restart the system. But my aunt was unreachable at Safelanding and Kurj was in a coma. It left Skolia blind and deaf, floundering like a crippled animal with its brain gutted.

The Traders moved in for the kill. But they had miscalculated. My father—the "nobody" of the Rhon—had been at an ISC hospital, seeing the doctors who monitored his epilepsy. When the Kyle-Mesh failed, he had been only a few minutes away from one of its control centers. So the desperate Skolian military had sent him in to join the Dyad and make in a Triad.

No one knew what would happen when my father joined Kurj and my aunt in that circle of power. It might disintegrate, unable to spread itself over three such disparate minds. Or it could overload, killing them all in one galaxy-wide short circuit. Or maybe, just maybe, my father would survive long enough to repower it. Never mind that he had no idea how it worked, that he came from a society so primitive it had no electricity, that he might die from a mental overload even if the system survived. It was either put him in the Triad or let Skolia fall to the Traders.

No one expected what happened. My father told me later that the Kyle-Mesh had looked like a toy that day, like the nets that we, his children, used to play with when we were small. Except this sparkling net was broken. So he fixed it—and reactivated the star-spanning brain of Skolia.

He didn't understand the technology. To this day he can't access it without help. But none of that matters. Once he enters Kyle space, he becomes it, supporting the mesh like the ocean supports a huge net floating within it. He handles it with an innate gift no one else in my family can match.

My voice came out cold enough to chill ice. "Without that man you so blithely call a figurehead, you wouldn't be standing here free to insult the Rhon. You'd be a Trader slave, mister."

Hilt snorted. "I always wonder if you people who spew out Imperial propaganda have any comprehension of reality."

Pulli spoke uneasily. "Maybe we shouldn't be having this discussion."

"That's the whole point." Hilt's voice snapped. "We're so oppressed by the Rhon we're afraid to discuss them. All that's allowed is worship. Well, I don't worship tyrants."

Gods. Where had that come from? "Why do you think the Rhon oppresses you?" I asked.

"I know what you're going to say," Hilt told me.

That was a good feat, considering I didn't. "What?"

"That the ISC 'occupies' planets for their own good."

"We don't live in a gentle universe," I said. "To survive, we need strength, and that includes people, territory, and resources. It we don't get them first, the Traders or the Allieds will."

"That's one hell of a justification," Hilt said. "What makes it any more right for the Rhon to do the conquering instead of the Traders or the Allieds?"

Rebeka, another woman in the group, spoke up. "The Allieds don't conquer anyone. They offer citizenship as a choice."

I glanced at her. "You think we ought to do the same?"

She spoke carefully. "Doesn't it bother you that we're forced to follow laws enforced by the leaders of a military occupation who never gave us a choice?"

My anger flared. "You don't think Imperial law is just?"

"You're missing my point," Rebeka said. "When ISC occupied this world, they took everything, even the name of our planet. We never had the right to choose."

"To choose what?" Why was I so incensed? "If Foreshires hadn't become part of the Skolian Imperialate, you would still be struggling to survive instead of enjoying the affluence that lets you join hiking clubs and spend your time strolling in meadows."

Rebeka spoke quietly. "No, we weren't rich before. But we had the right to be ourselves."

Hilt was watching me closely. "Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that people want responsibility for their own lives?"

"The Allieds have a luxury we don't share." Even I could hear how bitter I sounded. "As long as we and the Traders claw at each other's throats, Earth is free to do as she pleases. So fine. Good for Earth. If we ever adopted her practices, it would kill us."

"You're certainly cynical," Mika said.

Hilt snorted. "I'm not sure I believe the Traders are such a big threat. What better evil than the Aristos could the Rhon conjure up to divert attention from their own flaws?"

My face went hot. "If you think the Traders are no threat, you're a fool."

"Right," Hilt said. "Now you're going to spout off the List of Aristo Evils. Come on, Soz. I mean, have you ever actually seen a provider?"

I froze as the memories jumping into my mind: Tarque, kneeling over me on his bed while I screamed and screamed and screamed—

"Leave her alone!"

Everyone spun around. It was Jarith who had spoken, the youth from the music school.

The others stared at the usually soft-spoken musician. He reddened but he didn't back down. "Stop it," he said.

"Why?" Hilt demanded.

Rebeka spoke to Hilt in a low voice. "He's an empath."

Hilt blinked at Jarith. Then he turned back to me. "What did I say?"

I swallowed. "You asked me if I had ever seen a provider. The answer is yes."

Everyone went silent then. I had no intention of elaborating and no one asked me to. The look on Jarith's face had been enough to tell them the details were better left unsaid.

Rebeka motioned toward the far side of the hill, where the rest of the group had started to walk. "They're leaving."

So we followed. Conversation began again, fitfully at first and with more ease as it drifted to less volatile subjects. I stayed out of it. I hadn't felt much like talking before and now I just wanted to get out of here. The worst of it was that they were right. People needed freedom to thrive. But they were wrong about the Rhon. We had no more freedom than they. We were locked in a war that left us no choices.

Was I truly fool enough to believe Jaibriol could make a difference? He was the one who would change. He would do what he had to do to survive. He would become Highton. And I would watch, hating myself for wanting to believe otherwise, hating myself for loving him.

I can't bear this, I thought. My mind is going to implode.

Jarith came up alongside me. "I'm sorry about eavesdropping."

"Eavesdropping?"

"Your image—of the Aristo." He paled. "It was so vivid."

"You don't need to apologize. I practically shouted it at you."

He didn't probe, but I felt what he wanted to ask. Was it you on that bed? I shook my head, not wanting to pursue the subject, and let him interpret that however he wanted.

"I hope you're not angry with the others," he said. "They're just not used to hearing such a conservative line."

"You think I'm conservative?"

He laughed. "Ultra." A grimace chased across his face like a cloud scudding over the sun. "Don't worry about Hilt. He gives me a labor too."

Translate last sentence from Jarith, I thought.

It's slang, my node answered. To give a labor: to behave in a confrontational manner.

I couldn't fathom why anyone would give Jarith a hard time about anything. "What for?"

"He says I'm apathetic. He thinks I should fight for what I believe in." Jarith shrugged. "I guess I'm just not political. I'd rather sing."

I sighed. Here was this gentle youth with the face of an angel and no political opinions. Pako couldn't have found me a better companion if I had programmed it to search the planet.

Right, I thought. What's the problem, Soz? You can't deal with anyone who challenges you?

I gritted my teeth. I dealt with people who challenged me all the time. All day long, every day, every year, every decade. I deserved a rest.

You're not resting, my inner voice answered. You're hiding.

Shut up, I told it.

"Some of us are going to a holomovie," Jarith said. "Would you like to come?"

Good gods. He was asking me for a date. At least, I thought that was what he was doing. It had been so long since I had socialized that way, I wasn't sure if I remembered what qualified as a date. Maybe when people went in a group it had some other name. Gang date? No, that sounded too weird.

Who cared what it was called? What was wrong with me, having conversations in my head?

"Yes," I said. "I'd like to go." I had almost nothing in common with these people, but going to a movie with anyone right now was better than returning to my empty apartment.

After we washed up at the café, we strolled through the park outside. Jarith came, also Hilt and Rebeka and a handful of others, everyone wearing chiming shoes now instead of hiking boots. As the sun set behind the hills, the horizon lit up with a spectacular red fire and the sky turned dark bronze. The shining rings arched across it, pale amber at their apex and a rich crimson at the western horizon. In the east, the shadow of Foreshires fell across the arch, and it looked like a mythical dragon had taken a bite of it, leaving the edges red and the center black.

As the sun disappeared, the evening grew chill. Hilt lent me his sweater. Mercifully, conversation stayed light, just a lazy discussion about what holomovie to see. I had no opinion. I had absolutely no idea what was out. We solved the problem by walking into the first theater we found, which was playing something called "Brain Warp." The holos outside showed a Jagernaut, feet planted wide, blasting away with his Jumbler. Half the shows nowadays had soldiers as heroes.

We sat on a plush rug in a circular theater with about two hundred other people. Jarith and I reclined on cushions, talking about his classes at the university. Rebeka and Hilt were eating, and Pulli bought another glass of that godawful rootberry juice.

After a few moments the lights went out. Music swelled, the urgent beat of a drum overlaid with a melody on horns and strings. Suddenly we were in a field near JMI. A Jagernaut stood nearby, a handsome man with dark hair, sculpted muscles, and a Jumbler snug in a holster on his hip. He took off jogging and we "jogged" with him, following at whatever distance the director had thought would give us the optimum view of the action.

Within minutes I knew I shouldn't have come. I saw how the movie was going to end almost as soon as it began. The Jagernaut went on a mission to rescue a beautiful and remarkably buxom woman who supposedly had been abducted by the Traders but was actually a Highton spy. The Traders caught the Jagernaut, planted a trigger in his brain, and let him go. We were supposed to wonder what horrible fate would befall our unsuspecting hero when the villains set off the trigger.

The movie made no attempt at accuracy. When the Jagernaut went to see a heartbender, the doctor's office was in a hospital. You never found a heartbender in a hospital. It was hard enough already to convince one of us to go for help. Faced with the prospect of walking into the hospital, a blatant admission of "Yes, I'm screwed up," most of us would head in the opposite direction. A true heartbender had an office somewhere innocuous, a place with no associations to mental health, usually a government building.

Even more grating, the "hero" spent most of his time breaking the code of honor we lived by. He cheated, lied, treated his lovers like dirt, and showed no hint of remorse when he went into combat. It was absurd. He was supposed to be an empath, for flaming sake.

The worst part was that the actor looked like Rex, who would never stoop to the behavior this guy inflicted on the galaxy. Yes, Rex had women everywhere. And yes, they were attracted to him because he was glamorous, handsome, and charming. But they fell in love with him because he was a good, decent human being who treated people well. This insipid holomovie was an insult to him.

When the movie reached its climax, big surprise—the Jagernaut went berserk. The Traders activated his trigger, and he lost his wits in a crowded plaza, shouting and mowing down buildings with his Jumbler. I was so mad by then that I got up and stalked out of the theater, right through the crazy Jagernaut, to the accompaniment of loud protests from the rest of the audience.

I was in the lobby outside when Jarith emerged from the theater and strode after me. "Soz, wait."

I stopped at the exit and waited for him, breathing too hard. As he reached me, Hilt and Rebeka came out of the theater. They milled around a bit until they saw us, then headed in our direction.

Jarith spoke softly. "What is it? What's tearing you up inside?"

"Nothing is tearing me up." I was so angry I could hardly speak. "I just don't enjoy trash."

Hilt and Rebeka reached us in time to hear my last comment. Hilt scowled at me. "You know, this attitude of yours is getting tiresome."

I wanted to hit him in the face. I hadn't been this angry in I didn't know how long. But why? So it was a stupid movie. So what? "Go to hell," I said.

Rebeka lay her hand on my arm. "It's only a holomovie."

I pulled away from her. "It's an offense to the people who go out there and risk their lives everyday so kids like you can live safe and healthy and free to watch banal movies."

I expected Hilt to tell me I was being an idiot. Instead he just shrugged. "I don't see why you're making such a big deal about it. No one ever meant for 'Brain Warp' to be a political statement or a work of art."

"Listen," Rebeka said. "Maybe we all got off to the wrong start. How about if we try again? Why don't we forget this movie and go for drinks somewhere?"

I knew the last thing I could handle was drinks with them. I made myself speak in an apologetic voice. "I'm pretty tired. I guess I'm on a short fuse. I should go home and sleep." The words were a cover. I wouldn't sleep. But I had to say something.

Neither Rebeka nor Hilt looked disappointed that I wouldn't join them. Jarith kept watching me. He stood silently while I said good-bye to the others, but after they headed back to the theater he said, "May I walk you home?"

Huh. No one had done that in decades. My shoulders relaxed. "That would be nice."

As we strolled across the park, I tried to think of something to say. No clever lines came. For that matter, no stupid lines came either.

When we stopped outside my apartment building, Jarith gaped up at it. "You live here?"

"When I'm on Forshires," I said.

He smiled at me. "You travel a lot?"

"Some." I wanted him to come upstairs and keep me company, real company, the way a man could help a woman hold the night at bay. I wanted him to make love to me again and again until his warm masculinity banished the ghosts that haunted my mind.

Jarith whistled. "I've never known anyone who could afford a place like this."

Okay, I told myself. There's your opening. Ask him up.

What if he said no?

"Are you going back to the movie?" I asked.

"Just to get my coat." He grimaced. "I promised to meet some people to study later. We have an art exam tomorrow."

"Oh." An exam. What was wrong with me, lusting after an artist, someone with all of the aesthetic qualities I lacked. It could never work.

Jarith hesitated. "Would you like to get together again?"

I couldn't. Shouldn't. So of course, I said, "Yes, sure."

"Some of us are going to the beach on Tillsmorn. Why don't you come? We'll meet you here at noon."

I smiled. "All right."

"Well. Good." He grinned at me. "See you." Then he took off back toward the theater.

I went upstairs. My place seemed dark even after I turned on every light. I had lamps all over, graceful flowers of glass tinted to diffuse their light into a pleasant glow. The walls were paneled in giltwood. Windows arched everywhere, letting in copious ringlight from the sky. The carpet was white, the silky cushions on the sofa were white, the sculpted moldings on the doors were white. The place was gorgeous. But tonight it looked dark and cold and empty.

I was at the bar pouring a glass of whiskey when Pako said, "You have a visitor."

I looked up, eager despite myself. Had Jarith returned to help me chase away the loneliness? "Who is it?"

Pako's screen cleared to show the steps outside the apartment. Hilt stood out there, shivering in the chill air.

"Damn," I muttered. I went to the console and flicked on the comm. "Yes?"

His voice came over the speaker. "You forgot to give back my sweater."

"Oh. Sorry." I had forgotten I still had it on. "Pako, let him up."

A few moments later a knock sounded at my door. When I opened it, Hilt stood there. "Hey, Green Eyes, you've got some place here."

"How did you know where I lived?" I asked.

"Jarith told me."

I gave him his sweater. "Thanks for letting me wear it." Then I started to close the door.

Hilt pushed open the door and walked into the apartment. "You make a lot more sense now."

I regarded him from the doorway. "I don't recall inviting you in."

"No wonder you come down on such a traditionalist line. You're Money." He turned to me. "I'll bet it's Old Money too."

"Good-night, Hilt."

He came back over to me. "The Ice Princess. Of course you support Rhon politics." He slid his finger along the strap of my dress, following it down my front until his hand came to rest between my breasts. "You have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo."

I pushed away his hand. "Get out."

He pressed me against the wall, his face so close to mine, he was almost kissing me. "Someone ought to crack open that Ice Bitch crust of yours."

I snapped. I shouldn't have, but I did. My combat reflexes weren't supposed to kick in unless I was threatened with direct violence. And Hilt wasn't. He was abrasive and obnoxious and I didn't like him, but he was no rapist. A simple "stop it" would have been enough.

But I didn't tell him to stop it. I tried to kill him.

By the time my reflexes registered on my mind, I had already shattered my whiskey tumbler against the wall behind me and was stabbing a dagger of glass at Hilt's chest. Blood poured from my hand where the glass shredded my skin. When the signal from my brain finally stopped my thrust, the shard was less than a centimeter from his body. It happened so fast that even after I stopped, Hilt just stood there, staring at the dagger. Finally he drew in a breath. Then he took the glass out of my hand. I looked at the blood running all over my skin, my arm, my dress.

"You'd better get a doctor," Hilt said.

"It's nothing. I'll clean it up."

I expected him to call the police then. Instead he spoke quietly. "I'm sorry. I was out of line."

He was out of line? I had almost just killed him. What was wrong with me?

"I'll call the hospital," he said.

I had to struggle to keep my voice calm. "No. Just go."

He looked at the blood gushing out of my hand. "That looks— "

"Go."

"All right." Hilt opened the door. "I'll check on you tomorrow."

"It isn't necessary." I closed the door after him and locked it.

Pako spoke. "I can have medical help here within one minute."

I went to the bar, turned on the waterfount, and stuck my hand into the arching spouts of water. "No. I'm fine." The water running into the sink turned red.

After I cleaned and bandaged my hand, I poured another drink. If I got drunk enough, I wouldn't be able to think. And right now I didn't want to think.

"I have pending business for you," Pako said. "Your meshmail has been waiting for six hours."

"I'll check it tomorrow."

"One of the messages requires attention."

I scowled at the console. "All right. Play it."

The voice of Char Iaki, the Commandant at JMI, floated into the room. "Sorry to disturb you, Primary Valdoria. We've had to postpone tomorrow's training session with the flyers because of an engine failure. Can you do your lecture instead?"

He must have meant the lecture I was supposed to give about mesh-human interfaces. "Pako, tell him tomorrow is fine."

Then I got drunk. Very drunk.