The Moon's Shadow (20 page)

As they drew ahead of the others, the pressure on Jai’s mind became more manageable. He spoke in a low voice. “Thank you.”

“It is my honor.”

They were crossing a floor made from a steel-diamond composite. Robert stopped at a platform piled with crates and pulled out a chair with nervoplex padding. Jai hated nervoplex; it responded to his every move as if it were alive. He shook his head and sat on the edge of the platform instead, planting his well-shod feet on the floor. Resting his elbows on his knees, he lowered his head and drew in a shaky breath.

“Are you all right?” Robert asked.

Jai looked up. Robert had sat down on the platform, but not too close. Several hundred meters away, Corbal was speaking with the captain. The other Razers had dispersed throughout the cavern, some guarding Jai, others at consoles. One was running checks on a suit of power-armor, what ESComm commandos sometimes wore, becoming the walking fortresses known as waroids.

The group of Razers closest to Jai, including the medic, were speaking among themselves and checking palmtops, but Jai knew they were also keeping watch on him. The medic would want to treat his injuries. Had Jai been in any more serious trouble, he doubted they would have waited for his permission to approach.

“Your Highness?” Robert sounded worried.

Jai glanced at him. “I am fine.”

“Shall I bring the medic?”

“Not yet. Catch your breath.”

Resting his elbows on his knees, Robert clasped his hands. “It is my honor to serve Your Highness.”

“You always say that.” Jai spoke tiredly. “Everyone does. It loses its meaning.”

“I regret if it sounds false.” Robert seemed genuinely troubled. “Please be assured of my sincerity.”

Guilt tugged at Jai. When he eased his barriers, he could read Robert’s moods like holos in an open book. He knew his aide had never been anything but loyal.

Jai spoke quietly. “I greatly value your fidelity.”

Robert’s troubled expression calmed, but his worry for Jai didn’t fade. He glanced at the medic and beyond to where Corbal was conferring with the captain. Jai knew he should be over there, taking charge. But even if he could have endured so many Aristos up close, he wasn’t as well qualified as Corbal to deal with the situation. If he survived long enough, he would gain experience with Aristo culture, but he didn’t see how he would ever adapt to their cutthroat politics. He had begun to question whether he could truly function as emperor. He had no wish to adopt Highton mores or motivations. No doubt the Aristos would consider him hopelessly unsophisticated, but he had liked himself better before he became one of them in name, if not in his heart.

Jai inhaled deeply, trying to calm his agitation, then winced as pain shot through his torso.

“Your Highness.” Robert watched him with concern. “May I allow the medic to approach?”

“All right.” He couldn’t put it off forever. “Send the captain over too. I would like a report on the situation.”

“Yes, sir.” With obvious relief, Robert jumped up and bowed, then strode over to the medic. They conferred, and the medic headed toward Jai while Robert went on to where Corbal stood with the captain.

Jai steeled himself as the medic approached. After the requisite kneeling, the doctor stood and unhooked a holotape from his belt. “May I do a scan, Your Highness?”

“Yes. Certainly.” Jai wondered if it seemed as surreal to the medic as it did to him that they needed his permission to heal him. That was only true up to a point, though; if his life were in danger, they would save him first and apologize for touching his imperial personage later.

The medic sat on the platform and unrolled the tape. But when he tried to lay it against Jai’s neck, Jai jerked back, his reflexes kicking in before he could control them.

The doctor took his emperor’s peculiar behavior in stride. Instead of setting the tape against Jai’s neck, he pushed up the sleeve of Jai’s tunic and laid the tape on his forearm. Holos formed above it, views of Jai’s upper body: bones, organs, circulation, and more. The broken rib showed in his skeleton. Strange, that. He felt relatively little pain. Perhaps he had too much adrenaline pumping through his body to register how much he hurt.

The medic took an air-syringe off his belt and dialed in some drug Jai hoped would make him numb, not for the rib but because of how the Aristos and Razers affected his mind.

As the medic treated him, Jai stared out at the cavern. Seeing him, Corbal lifted his hand. Then the Xir lord approached, with the Razer captain at his side. Jai didn’t know much about the captain except that he was the son of a Red-Point Diamond Aristo and one of her providers. Razers rarely if ever used names; it had taken Jai weeks to find out that some people called this one Redson.

The captain bowed to him. “I am gratified to see you looking so well, Your Highness.”

Jai was tempted to say,
I look like hell.
Instead, he spoke in his carefully cultured Highton voice. “Thank you. Do you have information for me on this disruption?”

The captain glanced at Corbal, who inclined his head. Jai gritted his teeth. His Razers ought to ask his permission to speak to Corbal, not the reverse.

Redson did address Jai with deference, though. “It appears a traitor within the palace has given Qox security codes to another Highton Line. We are tracking the leak.”

Jai relaxed his barriers enough to absorb a sense of Redson’s mind. The captain had no idea what had happened, but he dreaded telling Jai, whose grandfather had thrown people in prison for having the wrong answers. Jai wanted to heave his purportedly revered ancestors into the ocean for making it near to impossible to do this job. How did they expect their staff to operate when everyone was afraid of being drawn and quartered for failing to achieve the impossible?

“Let me know as soon as you find out more.” Jai feared the answer to his next question. “Has anyone been hurt?”
Like Tarquine.

“We have reports that four taskmakers were killed in the explosions,” the captain said. “Sixteen injured.”

Heaviness settled over Jai. “We must take care of the families of those who were lost.”

Redson blinked. “Yes, sir.” He seemed surprised to have the emperor concern himself with the loss.

The captain still hadn’t told him what he wanted to know. Jai gave up trying to be oblique. “And Minister Iquar?”

“We believe she is safe,” Redson assured him.
We haven’t a damned clue,
he thought, with so much apprehension that Jai picked up the actual words.

Jai didn’t think he could live with himself if his attempt to marry Tarquine had caused her death. “Has anyone been apprehended? Any more explosions?”

“No more explosions,” Redson said.

Jai noticed what he didn’t say. “Do you have any idea who set the blasts?”

Sweat sheened the captain’s forehead. “We have many promising leads.”

In other words, they had no clue. Jai suspected that no matter what he asked, the guards wouldn’t admit their uncertainty. Their apprehension was too ingrained. “Very well. Let me know how the leads turn out.”

Redson bowed. “Most assuredly, Your Glorious Highness.”

Jai lifted his hand, dismissing the captain. Corbal was standing back, watching, but he didn’t interfere. As Redson returned to confer with his team, Jai raised his mental barriers again, with relief. Whatever painkiller the medic had given him, it wasn’t enough to mute the headache caused by his exposure to Aristo minds.

Jai couldn’t fathom how Aristos could bear to live this way, stiff and formal, with assassination just around the corner. They seemed to have no real friendships, the kind where you just enjoyed each other’s company, laughed about nothing, and trusted each other. He felt sorry for the Highton children growing up in this chill, deadly atmosphere. No wonder they turned out so strange as adults.

And yet…

Jai knew his father had treasured his memories of Ur Qox, Jai’s grandfather. Ur Qox had secluded his son in childhood, determined to protect his heir. Incredible as it seemed, he had loved his Ruby telepath son.

Jai laid his palm against his ribs. He felt no pain at all. His head hurt more from the presence of the half-Aristo medic. He inclined his head to the doctor. “You have done a fine job. You may go now.”

“But I should—” He stopped when Jai scowled at him. “Of course, Your Highness.” The doctor withdrew, leaving Jai with Corbal, which Jai doubted was likely to help his blood pressure. At least his bodyguards were standing far enough back to respect his reputed idiosyncratic need to surround himself with empty space.

Corbal frowned. “Good health benefits a sovereign.”

“I was tired of being poked.” Jai spoke bluntly, even for kin speech. “They have no idea who tried to blow me up, do they?”

Corbal sighed. “Do you know, Cousin, you might be more successful if you learned to master the intricacies of proper speech.”

“The hell with proper speech. I want to know who tried to kill us.”

“Antagonizing people isn’t the way to find out.”

“Who do you think did it?”

Corbal finally relented. “Probably Raziquon’s kin.”

“I should think they would be relieved he is away.” He had ordered Raziquon put into a real prison, with no luxuries, servants, providers, or any other privileges such as Corbal had enjoyed during his ESComm custody, the pleasures an Aristo took for granted. “Now they don’t have to put up with him.”

“Jaibriol.”

“Jaibriol, what? The man is insane.”

“He is perfectly sane.” Corbal’s manner cooled. “Questions of sanity are far more likely to arise over your behavior.”

“He deserves to be in prison.”

“You didn’t have enough evidence.”

“I had Sunrise’s testimony.”

“She is a
provider.
”

“So?”

Corbal made an incredulous noise. “You are hopeless.”

Jai crossed his arms. “If his kin killed Tarquine, I will execute Raziquon.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“Damn it, Corbal, she is my
wife.
”

“Not yet.”

Jai clenched his fists. “For all I know, you set this up to stop the marriage.”

Corbal raised an eyebrow. “Setting up my own death would be rather ill considered on my part.”

“You don’t look dead to me.”

“We were lucky.”

“Maybe.” Jaibriol stood up, wincing as pain stabbed his torso. “But this assassination is more Xirad Kaliga’s style. He framed you in his own home.”

“You have no proof of that, either.”

“He did it, Corbal. You know it. The only reason he isn’t in prison, too, is because you interfered when I tried to put him there.”

His cousin shook his head. “Don’t be foolish. Kaliga controls ESComm. Push him, and you’re pushing the entire military. Take on your Joint Commanders and you won’t survive a day.”

Before Jai could respond, a rumble vibrated through the floor. Jai froze, his pulse surging as he imagined the cavern collapsing. Then he realized the rumble came from the plug that had brought them here. Slowly and smoothly, it rose from the floor, ascending until it disappeared into the chute in the ceiling.

“Why did it do that?” Jai asked. His bodyguards were moving into formation around him and Corbal.

Corbal pressed the cuff of his tunic and the gold designs on it flickered into an active comm mesh. “Captain, what’s going on?”

Redson’s voice came out of the comm. “A precaution, Lord Xir. We’re closing the chute.”

Jai stiffened, his claustrophobia returning. He could almost feel the weight of the palace above them. “How do they know this place won’t cave in?”

“The walls are held by a quasis grid.” Corbal motioned toward a line of shadowed machines against the curving wall of the cavern. “Those are the generators.”

Jai took time to absorb that. ESComm kept a tight rein on its quasis generators, yet he counted five here. Aquasis field fixed the quantum wave function of anything it touched. The affected system didn’t freeze; its atoms continued to move as they had when they went into quasis. But their behavior couldn’t change, not even one particle. On a macroscopic scale, everything in the field became rigid. In theory, even explosions couldn’t deform it, though if you hit it enough times, the quasis would fail. He suspected that the fields here formed a grid that reinforced the cavern, rather than a solid surface, so communications and the plug could pass through.

The floor shuddered.

Jai froze. Had he been wrong about the strength of the quasis fields—but no, the vibration wasn’t from an explosion or structural collapse. The elevator reappeared, coming down from the ceiling. People crammed it: Razers, aides, soldiers, even waroids.

A tall figure stood in their midst.

The woman wore a dark red dress, ankle-length and gleaming like carnelians. Her hair fell in a shimmering black waterfall over her shoulders. She stood tall and proud, a fiery goddess in the midst of dark warriors.

His bride had arrived.

A
s the lift settled onto the floor, Jai’s mouth went dry. Tarquine stood regally, devastating in her red dress, which clung to her long curves from neck to ankle.

“It would seem she survived,” Corbal said dryly.

Jai knew Corbal was studying him. Ignoring his cousin’s scrutiny, he headed for his bride. Corbal came with him.

“You can wait for me back at the platform,” Jai said.

“So I could.” Corbal continued on at his side.

He didn’t want to argue with Corbal when Tarquine could see. She was stepping off the lift, watching their approach. Jai was having trouble breathing. He might as well have heart failure now and get it over with, because he wasn’t going to survive the wedding night if she kept looking at him like that. She let her gaze travel upward, moving up his legs like a caress, taking in his hips, gliding over his torso and chest. By the time she reached his face, his cheeks were so hot, he wondered that he didn’t incinerate.

He made himself walk slowly. As he reached Tarquine, she murmured, “My greetings, Your Highness.”

At least I’ll die happy,
Jai thought. “You look lovely, Minister Iquar.”

She inclined her head.

Jai indicated the cavern. “I had intended to offer you a better wedding hall, but I’m afraid this will have to do.” In his side vision, he saw Corbal stiffen, a familiar scowl on his face. Even the Razers looked flustered this time. No one expected the imperial marriage to happen here in a bunker, or safe room, or whatever they called this place. Jai didn’t care. He had no intention of letting whoever had tried to assassinate him win. He would marry Tarquine now.

Robert performed the ceremony.

Jai asked him to officiate because Robert had so savored the preparations. It only seemed right that at least one person should enjoy the wedding. Jai was too agitated. He and Tarquine stood side by side, surrounded by guards, many armed with laser carbines now in addition to the miniature arsenals they carried on their hips, boots, and belts. Waroids in full armor patrolled the perimeter of the area.

Robert read the vows, and Jai and Tarquine gave their agreement. Tarquine’s personal aide had brought the Iquar documents and Robert had the Qox documents. So Jai and Tarquine signed the contracts, and gave their retinal scans and voice imprints, fulfilling the legal requirements.

Then it was done. Eube once again had an empress. It remained only to name a moon after her.

Jai turned to Tarquine, running through phrases in his mind, searching for the right words to greet his new wife. She regarded him with her dark gaze, her lips parted. Before Jai could decide what to say to her, Robert motioned to him. The aide and Captain Redson were talking urgently, in low voices.

Jai held back his sigh. Perhaps, in another century, he might actually hold a conversation with Tarquine.

“Is there a problem?” he asked Robert.

“We have news of the Skolians,” Robert said. “The Ruby Pharaoh.”

Sweat beaded Jai’s temples. The Pharaoh was his aunt. “What news?”

Captain Redson spoke, agitation marking his usually implacable demeanor. “ESComm intercepted a broadcast from Earth. Ships are carrying it throughout Allied, Skolian, and Eubian space.”

“It’s that important?” Jai asked. Without the Kyle web, it was hard to spread news in a timely fashion to the star-flung settlements of humanity. It would travel fast only if its importance justified the immense effort of so many ships carrying it quickly among the various worlds and habitats.

Jai caught a thought from Redson’s mind: the captain would have rather been anywhere but here right now, giving this news to the emperor. But he spoke with laudable composure. “The Skolians sent a commando team to Earth. It rescued the members of the Ruby Dynasty imprisoned there.”

Jai blinked. “The Ruby Pharaoh was on Earth?”
That
fit none of the rumors he had heard.

“No, Your Highness.” Redson was almost stuttering. “She has taken command of the military.”

“She can’t,” Jai said. “Her title is titular.”

Robert was reading from his palmtop. “It isn’t clear—reports are conflicting—but it looks like she instigated a coup over the Skolian government, backed by the most powerful branch of ISC, the Imperial Fleet.”

Jai stared at him. What the blazes were the Skolians doing? ISC meant Imperial Space Command, the combined military forces of the Skolian Imperialate. The name “Imperialate” was historical, given that an Assembly of elected councilors governed the Skolians. The reign of the Ruby Dynasty had ended long ago. But if the military had supported his aunt in a coup, it meant the Ruby Pharaoh once again ruled. Such a political upheaval could shatter the fragile balance among Skolia, Eube, and the Allieds.

Another thought hit Jai: his uncle Kelric had been on Earth. If ISC had freed the Ruby Dynasty, that included Kelric. He truly was Imperator now.

Jai was painfully aware of Tarquine at his side. Better than anyone else here, she could predict what Kelric would do now. But even if Jai had been in private with her, where he could have asked a direct question without insult, he didn’t think he could bear to hear her speak of Kelric, the man she truly wanted, the one who was far more her match than Jai would ever be.

Somehow he kept his face composed as he turned to his wife. “The Ministry of Finance must have interests that will be affected by changes in the status of the Ruby Dynasty.” There: indirect and understated. Much more appropriate than
What do you think about your former pleasure slave becoming Imperator?

Her face was unreadable. “Many observers might assume it makes no difference to the Finance Ministry where peace talks between our people and the Skolians take place. But our offices have a great deal invested in the outcome.”

The talks. With a start, Jai realized everything had changed. The Skolians had agreed to talks when they were prisoners on Earth. They had more options now. And the Ruby Pharaoh hadn’t agreed to anything. With the might of ISC behind her, she would be a formidable foe if she chose war over peace.

Jai knew he needed to deal with these new developments, but he couldn’t do much, trapped here while his people tried to figure out who wanted to kill him. He turned to Redson. “How long until we can return to the palace?”

The captain scanned his palmtop. “Security is doing a final check. Then we can go back up.”

“Good.” It would be a relief to escape this cavern and its oppressive sense of burial. Soon he would be free.

Until the next assassination attempt.

Kelricson Valdoria, Imperator of Skolia, stood on the dais. Light bathed him, slanting through windows in the cathedral-like Hall of Chambers on Parthonia, the capital world of Skolia. Media teams surrounded the dais. Soon they would broadcast the speech of Dyhianna Selei, the Ruby Pharaoh, the woman he knew as Dehya, his aunt, his mother’s older sister. Dehya had re-created a fledgling psiberweb. Telops would use the newly birthed web to send her words throughout space faster than any ship could carry them.

Only a few days had passed since ISC had freed the Ruby Dynasty from Earth. But in the months prior to that, Kelric had been healing. He would never have made it to Earth if not for Jeejon. She had lived on an asteroid near the border of Skolian and Eubian territory, an outpost that the Allieds had liberated from Eube during the war. It was the only place his ship had enough fuel to reach after he escaped the Sphinx Sector Rim Base. By that time he had no more than days to live. Jeejon thought him crazy when he told her he was the Imperator, but she helped him anyway. She was his age, fifty-seven, a Eubian taskmaker.
Former
taskmaker. Now she was the consort of the Imperator. He had married her on Earth.

Kelric stood waiting on the dais with Dehya, his aunt, a slender woman with her dark hair swept up on her head. The streaks of gray in it hinted at her age, but she otherwise appeared young. Only the timeless quality of her gaze revealed the truth: she was over one and a half centuries old. Although she was the Pharaoh and he the Imperator, they both dressed simply, Dehya in a blue jumpsuit and Kelric in gold trousers and tunic. Neither of them wore medals or ornamentation. Their Jagernaut bodyguards paced the hall, cyberwarriors in black. Less visible, but just as deadly, Evolving Intelligence defense computers monitored the great hall.

Trillions of people would receive this broadcast through the psiberweb, and in months to come ships would carry it to places the newborn web didn’t yet reach. When the media tech gave the signal, Dehya began. She had a strong voice, melodic and clear. “My people, I greet you. I come before you today with great hope.”

Dehya’s advisers had written the speech. They had wanted Kelric to speak as well, but he refused. Taciturn even in personal conversation, he dreaded public speaking. He preferred to stand in silence, a bulwark to protect Dehya, Eldrinson, and himself—Pharaoh, Assembly Key, and Imperator. The Mind, the Heart, and the Fist of Skolia. The Triad.

“It has been five thousand years since the height of the Ruby Empire,” Dehya continued. “Almost six thousand since the Ruby Dynasty first rose to power. Throughout our history, Skolia has been our heart. Now today we honor that heart with the advent of a new and greater era.”

Kelric waited for her next words:
With a smooth transition to the new government, the Ruby Dynasty again assumes full sovereignty of the Skolian Imperialate.
That one phrase had caused relentless debate among her speechwriters. It was the closest they wanted Dehya to come in acknowledging the price of the coup that had made her a true Pharaoh—she would have to order the execution of the First Councilor, the head of the government she had deposed, a distinguished leader who had been her friend and colleague for decades.

Dehya spoke stiffly. “With a smooth transition to the new government—” Then she stopped.

Kelric tensed, as did many of the people watching the techs record this broadcast. His older brother, Eldrin, was leaning against a column, his arms crossed. It gratified Kelric to see his brother free from the Traders; he would wonder for the rest of his life why Jaibriol Qox had shown Eldrin mercy, trading himself so Eldrin could go free.

Dehya was watching Eldrin, too, her husband of over fifty years, a marriage between kin, one forced by the Assembly to produce more Ruby psions. The match, however unwillingly made, had become a union of love. But the Assembly had again and again shattered the Ruby Dynasty in its desperation to control them, an irony given that destabilizing the Rubies destabilized Skolia. So Dehya had overthrown the government. But that coup could destroy the fragile bubble of peace that protected humanity in the aftermath of the Radiance War. Executing the First Councilor, the elected leader of Skolia, would create havoc.

Dehya suddenly finished her sentence in a ringing voice. “We will meld an alliance unlike any Skolia has known before.”

Kelric blinked.
That
wasn’t part of the script.

“Several ten days ago,” Dehya said, “the government of Skolia shifted from the Assembly to the Ruby Dynasty. I stand before you now as full sovereign. During the Ruby Empire, the rule of the Dynasty was absolute.”

The media techs were scrambling to make sure they caught every detail of this unexpected change from the planned speech. Some spoke hurriedly into comms, their attention split between Dehya and whatever protests they were hearing.

“Skolia has identified itself for six millennia through the Ruby Empire,” Dehya said. “Yet in this modern age, we chose a representative government instead.” She paused. “And so it should be.”

The techs froze. Kelric wondered what the blazes Dehya was doing. She had just gone to great lengths to overthrow that representative government. Her mind was guarded; he couldn’t feel her thoughts, only her tension.

Dehya spoke slowly, as if even she wasn’t sure what she would say next. “The uneasy meld of modern politics with ancient tradition has often rent our civilization. We think of ourselves as an ancient race from Raylicon, yet compared to humanity on Earth we are incredibly young. We have no history prior to six thousand years ago, only distant memories of our birth world. We are new. Raw. At this crucial time in our growth, we dare not destabilize Skolia. We need
both
the Ruby Dynasty and Assembly.”

Kelric began to see her intent. She spoke the essence of their dilemma: six thousand years ago, some unknown race had moved humans from Earth to the planet Raylicon and then vanished, stranding the displaced humans with no explanation. Since that time, their people had evolved independent of Earth. They thought of themselves as Skolians, children of the Ruby Empire, which had arisen five thousand years ago. They weren’t ready to cut those ties, but modern civilization had outgrown that method of governance.

“For that reason,” Dehya continued, “our government will join old and new. The Ruby Dynasty and Assembly will share the governance of Skolia. So begins our future.” She turned to another holocam, as the techs had previously instructed. But instead of finishing with the planned tribute to the Ruby Dynasty, she said, “I accept the offer of Jaibriol the Third, Emperor of Eube, to meet at the peace table. Let us work together—Skolian, Trader, and Allied—to heal the rifts that have divided our common humanity.”

The Hall became a tumult, as people shouted questions. Kelric and Dehya stood together, surrounded by their bodyguards. Kelric wondered at this decision Dehya had so precipitously announced. He could see its promise; a joined government would return to the Skolian people the heritage that defined them, but retain the stability of the Assembly. Nor would they have to execute the First Councilor; he would be a part of this melded government.

Dehya’s idea was a good one.

It was also going to be one holy hell of a mess.