Jaibriol swallowed. "Yes. I also." He watched the meadow below, where the Jagernauts and Althor had almost finished building a gazebo for the wedding. Vitar, Kai, and del-Kelric were running around the structure while Lisi watched them.
The pilot and first mate of Tailors Needle, the s.h.i.+p Soz had commandeered, were bringing over food for the celebration. All things considered, they were adapting well to their forced exile on Prism. Neither had a spouse nor children, so their situation hadn"t broken apart any families.
"Do you think Althor will be happy here?" Jaibriol asked.
Soz considered her brother. "I think so. He"s always liked this kind of life." Quietly she said, "He can"t be what he was. And he knows it. If he returned to his former life, he would face constant reminders of it. Here he will be a leader."
Cirrus strolled into the meadow, dressed for her wedding in baggy pants rolled up at the cuffs and a huge sweater that belonged to the largest Jagernaut. She had scrubbed herself clean of the gold dust as if shedding a hated sh.e.l.l.
"I don"t understand why she wanted to get married in those clothes," Soz said. "They"re so drab."
"After the life she"s been forced to live," Jaibriol said, "it wouldn"t surprise me if she never wanted to be looked at again." He started to say more, then stopped.
"What is it?" Soz asked.
"I wonder if it"s fair to Cirrus for Althor to marry her. Or fair to him."
"Why do you say that? They like each other."
"Like, yes."
Soz tilted her head. "I think she wants exactly what he has to offer-companions.h.i.+p, gentle affection, and a protector. It"s the symbolism too. As a provider she was forbidden to marry." She paused. "As to my brother, he can go either way. He seems genuinely happy with her."
Down in the meadow, Althor was talking to Cirrus. Kai ran up to them, said something, and took off before they could answer, leaving Cirrus and Althor laughing.
"They will be parents to my brother," Jaibriol said. "I would like to be sure he is well taken care of."
"Althor is a wonderful father," Soz said. "And you"ve seen Cirrus with Kai. It"s like magic."
Jaibriol curled his fingers around hers. "We should get down there. Everyone looks ready to start."
They stood up together, hand in hand, and walked to the future.
"I don"t understand," Mik Fresnel said. "It sounds like you"re asking me to be your bodyguard." He sat on his bed in the room he shared with Jay Rockworth in the inn on Delos and listened while Jay moved around in the bathroom, getting dressed after his shower.
"I just want you to come with me," Jai said. "I"d rather not go alone." He came out of the bathroom toweling his hair. Instead of his usual jeans and sweater, he had on black trousers and a black s.h.i.+rt, both with a cut as severe as it was expensive.
"Where did you get those clothes?" Mik asked.
"At a store. On the Arcade."
"They look like Aristo clothes."
Jay sat on his bed, across from Mik. He pulled away the towel-revealing hair that glittered in the light, like black diamonds.
Mik stared at him. "Have you flipped out? You look like a Highton."
Jai reached into his s.h.i.+rt pocket and took out a small case. With his eyes downcast, he removed a lens Mik had never known he wore, then repeated the procedure with his other eye. Then he looked up.
With red eyes.
Mik spoke uneasily. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"
"I want you to remember something," Jay said. "No matter what happens, no matter what you hear, know that I will never forget what we"ve seen." He stood up. "Come with me, Mik. Stand as my friend."
Still puzzled, Mik rose to his feet. "You know I"ll always stand by you."
Jai swallowed. "Thank you."
Together they went out into the drizzle that saturated the city of New Athens on Delos.
Corbal Xir stood at the window and watched the Delos rain. He still hadn"t made his decision.
The formal Highton language the boy had used in his message had made it possible for the note to reach him despite the various spies who intercepted it. They probably smirked over the content, a lost son claiming Xir blood. Ah well, b.a.s.t.a.r.d children have a tendency to show up, or so their thoughts would go. Corbal wondered if anyone had taken a strand of the hair to a.n.a.lyze. It didn"t matter. None of them had access to the right genetic files for verification.
Corbal had seen beyond the obvious message in that letter. With a sophisticated innuendo worthy of the most adept Highton, the boy told another story between the lines. So Corbal a.n.a.lyzed the hair himself.
The DNA match was exact.
Corbal was tired. He had lived a long time. He didn"t want to rule Eube. Even with the potential for glory, vengeance, and sheer power, he didn"t want the throne. Now a new voice had spoken. No doubt existed: that message had come from one of his relatives. But this was no illegitimate son of the Xir line.
Jaibriol II had left an heir.
It would invigorate Eube. With Jaibriol III on the throne, a vital young emperor just beginning his ascendance, victory was complete. Corbal had checked pictures of the boy. He was the image of his father, even taller and more cla.s.sic of feature, with a robust quality most Highton bloodlines had lost. Eube needed him. The decimated empire crawling on its knees needed this miracle.
However, Corbal also knew the rest.
Corbal had given up what made him Highton. He made the choice when he could no longer justify taking his pleasure at the pain of others. He knew the changes in his DNA, knew them well. And so he recognized the anomalies in the boy"s gene map. When he realized the magnitude of what he was uncovering, he tried ever more obscure tests, going far past what was needed for proper determination of the youth"s heritage. He pulled out the records of past emperors and tore them apart. Many had been tampered with. It took him a long time to uncover the truth.
Eube Qox had been pure Highton.
Jaibriol I had been pure Highton.
Ur Qox had been half Highton.
Jaibriol II had been one-fourth.
Jaibriol III was one-eighth.
In Corbal"s darker moments, he suspected the ident.i.ty of the boy"s mother. It didn"t matter. A Highton mother could be created. What mattered now was his decision.
I can walk away from this, he thought, watching the rain. I can a.s.sume the throne and start over.
Or I can even the balance.
And there lay the crux of the matter. Jaibriol III hadn"t come to claim the throne. Corbal sensed the boy had even less interest in it than he. In the oldest tradition of Eube, Jaibriol III had come to trade.
Corbal knew his limitations. He had told Calope the truth. He liked owning slaves. He liked his providers, even loved some of them. Eldrin Valdoria pleased him no end. That Eldrin loathed him made no difference; Corbal was the owner and Eldrin the owned.
Yet Corbal questioned his actions. It had taken him a century to learn compa.s.sion. He lived now with the guilt for what he had inflicted on his providers before he changed himself so he could never again transcend. What would he learn in another century? How long would it take to reach whatever enlightened state waited the final evolution of the Highton mind? Centuries? Millennia?
And what would the Hightons have done to humanity by then?
Perhaps his guilt was misplaced. Perhaps he and Calope, in their doddering old age, had lost their intellectual ac.u.men. Maybe in making it impossible to transcend, he had made himself less than human and as a result confused weakness with compa.s.sion. He didn"t know the answers.
No Highton had ever before asked such questions.
Jai was halfway across the plaza when a group came out of the Eubian emba.s.sy. Through the drizzle and distance, he couldn"t see their faces. What did they come to say? Yes or no? He prayed the answer was no and hated himself for that hope.
He stopped in the center of the plaza with Mik. The Traders walked toward them, six men total. Four were large, bodyguards it looked like, probably Razers. Watching them, Jai wished he had brought more people. He had been naive, a.s.suming that regardless of the answer, it would be given with honor. What if he was wrong?
He could make out the tallest man now. Corbal Xir. It wasn"t until the Traders reached him, however, that he recognized the sixth man. He knew then that his life had changed forever.
Eldrin Valdoria stood with a numb expression, arms locked behind his back, a collar glittering around his neck. He watched Jai with no sign of recognition. Corbal spoke to him in a low voice, and Eldrin tilted his head as if unsure whether or not to believe whatever he heard.
Corbal turned to Jai. "I suggest we make a simultaneous exchange. You and Prince Eldrin walk forward at the same time."
"Very well." Jai turned and offered Mik his hand. "Thanks for coming."
Mik shook his hand. "I"m not sure what you"re doing with this, but I"ll remember what you said."
Jai nodded. Then he turned and saw his uncle watching him. Jai could feel his mind. Until this moment no one had given Eldrin an inkling of the offered trade. He hadn"t even known he was on Delos.
"Are you ready?" Jai asked.
Eldrin took a breath. "Yes."
They walked forward, pa.s.sing each other on the right. It took six steps, and then Jai was among the Traders. He turned and saw Eldrin join Mik. As his uncle looked back at him, the Razers closed around Jai. Then they and Corbal Xir started for the Eubian emba.s.sy, taking him with them, cutting him off from his former life forever.
Jai set his shoulders and faced his unwanted future. He knew he had a great deal to learn. Self-protection. Intrigue. Deception. He had no desire for the t.i.tle he had just accepted, but he meant to be sure of one thing. He would be no puppet emperor.
It never struck him as a self-sacrifice that he gave up his life, his happiness, perhaps even his humanity, to make possible the dream of peace humanity craved. Knowing the legacy of the Hightons who had produced him, he felt as if he carried a guilt so deep it crushed him. At least with this trade, he could ensure one thing.
His parents hadn"t died in vain.
With the psiberweb gone, Roca and Eldrinson had no way to attend the ISC funeral service, even as simulacrums. But they saw a recording later. ISC gave full military honors to Soz, with all the pomp and ritual due an Imperator. So too they honored Althor. Leaders from across the free worlds attended. Cannons thundered and music played.
Eldrinson and Roca held a private ceremony in Sweden. Accompanied by their daughter-in-law Ami, her two-year-old child Kurjson, the soldiers in the United Nations peace-keeping unit that guarded them, and Tiller Smith, the Allied Liaison to the Ruby Dynasty, they went to a wind-torn section of coast on the Gulf of Bothnia. On a cliff lush with trees, above an isolated beach with icy rolling waves, they spoke for their children, quiet words drifting on the wind. Tiller also gave a eulogy for Soz, who had been his patron when he was the only Allied citizen ever admitted to the Skolian inst.i.tute that trained psions.
So the parents mourned their children. Eighteen years ago Kelric had died, their beloved youngest. Twice they had mourned Sauscony, the grief no less the second time than the first. They lost Althor, first to Eubian violence and then to death. They lost Kurj just as they had begun to find the complex man beneath the hardened exterior. They lost Dehya and Taquinil to a void neither understood and Eldrin to the h.e.l.l of Trader slavery.
Most of all they mourned the death of hope, represented by their children who had envisioned a universe better than they knew and died for it. Had the deaths realized that dream, they could have endured the grief. But that was not to be.
After the ceremony, they returned to the countryside estate where they now lived. Feeling at a loss, Eldrinson wandered into the web room. A telop was there, plugged into a control chair. Eldrinson went over and watched lights flicker on the console in front of her.
He spoke in Skolian Flag, the only language they had in common. "It almost looks as if you"re linked into the psiberweb."
She smiled. "I"m trying to re-form the link we had here."
Eldrinson nodded. It was a way to rebuild, link by link. With only one person in the Triad, and he forbidden the use of a Lock, rebuilding even a limited psiberweb would take years. But this was better than nothing. Perhaps he could help. It would give him something to do, to stop him from dwelling on the knowledge that he had outlived so many of his children.
The telop was watching him. "I"m off duty now," she said. "You"re welcome to use it if you would like."
"I might sit for a while," he said.
She disengaged herself from the chair, then bowed to him and withdrew, leaving him privacy.
Eldrinson settled into the chair. Open gate, he thought.
Nothing happened.
He let his mind soak into the tenuous s.p.a.ce the telop had created and tried again. Open gate.
No response.
Ah, well. It had been worth a try.
A voice came from across the room. "Eldri?"
He turned to see his wife, a golden sight that soothed him. "My greetings, beautiful lady."
Her face gentled at the nickname, but then her smile faded. "A stars.h.i.+p landed in London with a recording of the funeral ceremonies from Glory. It"s on the news now."
"All right." Eldrinson detached himself from the mesh. As he slid out of the chair, he glanced at the console screen in front of it, which showed a record of his commands: Open gate.
Open gate.
He was about to turn away when he saw a third line. For an instant he froze. Then he touched the screen, wonder filling him.
"Eldri?" Roca came over. "What is it?"
"They"re here."
She smiled. "Who?"
He felt a curious sensation. Given what he had been feeling lately, it took a moment to identify. Joy. He pointed to the third line on the screen: I exist.
"What did you mean?" Roca asked.
"I didn"t input it."