"Of course, Your Majesty."
The cat leaped from her lap and crossed to rub itself against the Emperor's legs. Nara Oxham rose, her mind numbed by the depth of the sovereign's hunger for revenge against Laurent. She forced herself to look again into the arid space of his emotions, searching for what he feared so much.
But there was nothing there but satisfaction.
After the rituals of parting, as she walked through the obscenely gilded garden, Nara's mind rang with one imperative. She had to warn Laurent. The Lynx could handle two escort craft, provided her captain was wary. But if he assumed they were friendly, they could overwhelm the frigate with a single stroke.
Then, as her eyes traced a swath of red flowers decorating an inverted sand dune, Oxham saw it, the shape hidden in the Emperor's satisfaction. It grew clearer with every step away from his icy presence.
This was the trap. This was the mistake of which Niles had warned her. It had nothing to do with Laurent Zai.
The Emperor wanted her, Nara Oxham. He had somehow learned of their relationship, their previous communication. He knew that she would warn Zai.
And, of course, he was right.
There was no choice but to walk into this trap, eyes open.
It was the only way to save her lover.
Captain Laurent Zai stood at the extreme of the observation blister.
He looked up at the object, its shape ominously black this far from the Legis sun. It boiled like a dark cloud presaging a storm. According to the DA staff assigned to monitor its movements, it had grown gradually more active over the last few weeks. Its attempts to signal the Lynx had grown in number and subtlety: There were signs scrawled huge upon its surface, old codes flashed at obscure frequencies, cryptic phrases in local Legis dialects that somehow made their way into the ship's internal channels. It was all the Lynx's Al could do to forestall the mind's attempts at communication. Finally, Zai had been forced to cut off all but the crudest level of sensor scrutiny of the object.
The Lynx had shut its ears. The Apparatus had demanded it.
Ever since the Rix prisoner had attempted to deliver Alexander's "message," His Majesty's Representatives had behaved as if they were victorious boarders on a captured enemy ship. Their watchful gaze seemed to penetrate every deck of the Lynx. It was all ExO Hobbes could do to track the various bugs that the Apparatus had placed in the ship's functions. This invasion of his ship appalled Zai, but he was powerless against the imperative of an Imperial writ, the scope of which seemed to expand daily.
Adept Trevim had sealed up the Rix prisoner's cell as tight as a tomb, and posted an Apparatus guard with her at all times. The Adept had also taken personal control over the Lynx's external communications. Every outgoing message required her approval now. And, of course, Trevim had commanded that the frigate blind itself from any and all signs emanating from the object.
Of course, there were rumors. Some crew thought they knew what the Rix artifact was trying to say. But the stories were contradictory and absurd, just the chatter of a bored crew. ExO Hobbes had even detected a rumor that the suicide of Data Master Kax a few weeks ago had been related to a message from the object that he had deciphered. But the theory conveniently ignored the fact the man's immune system had rejected his artificial eyes; a lifelong data analyst, he had simply gone mad from blindness.
Zai touched the plastic membrane between himself and the void, feeling the cold on the other side. He wondered what weapon the object had offered him.
Then he pushed the disloyal thoughts aside, and turned to his more important business here.
A senatorial missive awaited his attention. From Nara Oxham, His Majesty's Representative from Vasthold. August and luminous, the message hovered against the blackness of space, its security icons slowly coiling around themselves like tree snakes crowding a branch.
He opened it.
Zai smiled as his lover's words appeared. He imagined her voice.
Laurent, it read, / wish I could start tenderly. But instead I have to warn you of danger.
Zai blinked his eyes, and shook his head at this beginning. All his life, he had been taught that warcraft brought meaning and order to existence, but this conflict with the Rix despoiled everything it touched.
He continued.
The ships sent to rendezvous with the Lynx are governed by two sets of orders. The open dictate is to escort you here to Home in safety, but there is also an Imperial writ carried by a few officers. It can be triggered by a single word from the Emperor. If he gives the command, the task force is to destroy your ship and the war prize in a surprise attack.
Laurent Zai straightened. It was just as the Rixwoman had said: The Emperor wanted to destroy him, the Lynx, and the object. The dead man's hunger for revenge was insatiable. What was he hiding?
Zai's anger quickly turned to concern, however. This was confidential intelligence data from outside the chain of command, from the War Council itself.
"What have you done, Nara?" he whispered, his heart sinking.
Supposedly, the Emperor will only invoke the writ if the object threatens the Empire. But I have felt. . . I know that he intends to kill you all. I've been close to the Emperor since joining the council, and I can read him now.
Of course, Nara had used her empathy on the man. As Zai continued, the realization dawned that Nara's ability had doomed her. She had broken the hundred-year rule.
He's terribly afraid of something, Laurent. Something that the Rix mind knows. Something that it discovered on Legis.
The words of his lover echoing those of the Rixwoman sent a chill through Zai.
He'll go to any length to prevent this knowledge from reaching the rest of the Empire, Laurent. I've seen it myself. He even pressed the War Council to approve a genocide. The Apparatus was ready to release a nuclear attack on Legis XV, with dirty weapons. They would have killed hundreds of millions just to destroy the compound mind.
Zai closed his eyes. If Nara was right, then the Rixwoman had told the truth.
He'll kill you, Laurent. The Emperor so fears the mind, he would destroy a world.
Laurent Zai nodded slowly, straightening as if a weight were lifting from him.
Take care, beloved. Return to me.
Captain Zai nodded again as the missive refolded itself, disappearing to a bright mote of synesthesia against the void. Suddenly, a wave of nausea struck him, and he had to reach out one hand to the blis 283 ter's wall to hold himself upright. The plastic felt reassuringly solid and cold. Real.