The Quantum Rose

VI. Sword And Ballbow. Perturbations

A shudder racked Vyrl’s body, waking Kamoj. Deep in his dreams, he made a strangled noise, his face clenched. She pushed up on her elbow and massaged his head until he calmed.

When he was resting well again, she went outside and stood watching the forest. Morning had passed, bringing them into early afternoon. Overhead an “engine” rumbled. She wondered if it knew Vyrl was here.

When she returned to the cave, she found him sitting up. Although fatigue still lined his face, he looked more rested.

“Is there anyone out there?” he asked.

“I heard an engine. I didn’t see anyone, though.” She sat cross-legged in front of him. “May I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“What are you a prince of?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, really. I’m just a citizen of the Skolian Imperialate. It’s about nine hundred worlds governed by an assembly of elected counselors.”

“You are not a prince?”

“I’ve the title. But it doesn’t mean much.” He considered her. “Tell me what you know of Balumil’s history.”

She thought of the stories she had learned as a child. “Long ago the Current gave light and warmth to our houses. And voices.” Like Morlin, she realized. Vyrl had given the Quartz Palace back its voice. “Sailors brought the people here on ships that flew above the sky.”

“That fits.”

His response surprised her. She would have expected him to smile at their fanciful tales. “How does it fit?”

He rubbed his neck, working out the kinks that came from sleeping on the ground. “The ancient Ruby Empire established this colony. That’s why I know your language.”

It didn’t surprise her that their language had remained constant enough for him to understand. Her people never changed anything. Change brought upheaval, upheaval threatened revolution, and revolution was anathema.

But still, it had been a long time. “The sky sailors vanished five thousand years ago.”

“That’s when the Ruby Empire collapsed. Five thousand standard years ago.”

“Standard years?” That sounded like the scroll in Jax’s library.

“About the length of the year on Earth, or on the world Raylicon. Just a bit more than one of your short-years.” He stretched his arms. “Originally we all came from Earth.”

Earth. The word had an odd familiarity, in the same way as did the pupils of Vyrl’s eyes. “What is Earth?”

Softly he said, “Home, Kamoj. For all of us. Green hills, blue sky, sweet fresh air.”

His words evoked a sense of ancient mysteries, of mythical quetzals without scales flying in an eggshell blue sky. “If home is a place called Earth, why are we on Balumil?”

Dryly he said, “Many people would like the answer to that.” He pushed a lock of his hair behind his ear. “About six thousand years ago, around 4000 BC, an unknown race moved a population of people from Earth to the world we call Raylicon.” Anticipating her next question, he said, “We don’t know why. They disappeared without so much as a ‘Sorry about this.’” He shrugged. “My ancestors eventually developed interstellar travel and went searching for their lost home. Although they never found Earth, they built the Ruby Empire.” A grin flashed on his face. “But Earth found us. Just a few centuries ago.”

“Is that how your people were able to return to the stars?”

He scowled, obviously offended. “Of course not. We relearned interstellar propulsion ourselves, well before anyone from Earth showed up.” Then he laughed. “Ai, Kamoj, what a great surprise it must have been. When Earth’s emissaries reached the stars, they went looking for alien cultures and found us instead, their own siblings, busily rebuilding empires. Gave ‘em one hell of a shock.”

Smiling, she said, “You look quite smug about that.” When he chuckled, she asked, “And Balumil was a colony of your Ruby Empire?”

“That’s right. We’ve been reclaiming the old colonies and settling new worlds. We call ourselves Skolia now, though, or the Skolian Imperialate.”

She tried to fit it together. “How are you a prince?”

Vyrl shifted his weight. “My mother descends from the Ruby Dynasty.”

“Ruby Dynasty? From the Ruby Empire?”

“That’s right. The House of Skolia.”

“Skolia is your family name?” When he nodded, she spoke quietly. “You are a great man, to rule nine hundred worlds.”

He looked uncomfortable. “It’s a meaningless title. My family hasn’t ruled anything for thousands of years. I’m just a farmer.”

She sensed unspoken subtleties in his words. “Dazza’s people hold you prisoner because you have value to them.”

He stiffened. “I’m not their prisoner.” When she just looked at him, he said, “They have their reasons.”

“Good reasons or bad?”

The question seemed to surprise him. “Valid reasons.”

“Why?”

After a pause he said, “The Ruby Empire had a thriving slave trade. My ancestors in the Ruby Dynasty outlawed it. That was one reason the old empire fell. The Traders went to war against my family.” Tiredly he said, “Now it’s all started up again, even worse than before.”

She tensed. “Is that why you are a prisoner? Is Dazza a slave trader?”

He appeared taken aback by the question. “Good gods, of course not. Dazza Pacal is a colonel in the pharaoh’s army, the oldest branch of Imperial Space Command, the Skolian military. The army dates back to the Ruby Empire. One of my ancestors, the first Ruby Pharaoh, founded it.”

Relief washed over Kamoj. “So it is your people who are holding you captive.”

“If you mean, did ISC bring me here, the answer is yes.” He shifted his weight. “I wouldn’t use the word ‘captive.’”

“Then why won’t they let you go?”

“Members of my family have neural structures that make our brains more sensitive to certain atomic and molecular interactions. What I told you last night. Our ancestors were designed that way.” At her puzzled look, he said, “It means we can power Ruby machines that have survived the millennia. We haven’t relearned the tech yet, but we can use what we have.”

“This is a thing of value?”

“Very much. It allows us to access universes with different laws and characteristics than the spacetime we inhabit. Relativity as we know it has no meaning there.”

She gave him a dubious look. “These odd-sounding things have value?”

Vyrl smiled at her expression. “Indeed. They make possible almost-instant communication. Signals are otherwise limited by the speed of light.”

“You mean by the Current?”

“That’s right.” His grin flashed again. “We can beat the Current, Kamoj. It gives ISC a speed and precision the Traders can’t match.” His smile faded. “It’s the only reason we’ve survived against them.”

That he could beat the Current impressed her. No wonder his family had such great value to his people. “But where is the rest of your family?”

This time his silence stretched out so long she wondered if she had given offense. Finally he said, “My father came from another of the rediscovered colonies.” He spoke with difficulty. “He was a simple man. A farmer. But he was also that one in a trillion, a Ruby psion.” Anger leaked into his voice. “We’re thoroughbreds, exotic and rare. For reasons our geneticists don’t yet understand, attempts to make us in the lab fail.” He shrugged, a gesture all the more eloquent for its attempt to indicate a nonchalance he obviously didn’t feel. “But my parents could have children. So the assembly made them do it.”

“Hai, Vyrl.” She watched his face, trying to understand the shadow on his mood. “And your ISC needs you to protect your people?” When he nodded, she asked, “What about Earth? Do they fight too?”

“They stayed neutral during the last war. But they provided protective custody for my family.” He pushed his hand through his curls. “The problem was, after the war ground to a stalemate, Earth refused to release us. I’m the only one they don’t have. ISC keeps me guarded because they fear I will be kidnapped or assassinated otherwise.”

“I see. I think.” Kamoj tilted her head. “Your own people hold you prisoner to keep you from being held prisoner by the allies who were supposed to protect you from being taken prisoner or murdered by your enemies.”

He gave a rueful laugh. “That about sums it up.”

She took his hand. “Why did you come here?”

His fingers curled around hers. “I asked ISC to let me live in an agrarian culture similar to that of my homeworld, Lyshriol. A place where life revolved around the land and the harvest.”

“So you really are a farmer.”

His face gentled. “Yes. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

That she understood. Lifting his hand, she kissed his knuckles. He pulled her into his arms and they sat in silence, listening to the rustle of the forest.

A twig cracked.

Vyrl swore under his breath. They stood up, and he went to the entrance, where he paused to one side, poised and tense.

A man stepped through the shimmer. He wasn’t one of Vyrl’s guards, however. Rather, he wore the garb of an Ironbridge stagman. An archer. He had his bow up and aimed at the place where Kamoj and Vyrl had been sitting just seconds ago.

Vyrl didn’t wait to see if the man meant to attack or only threaten. Lunging forward, he yanked the bow out of archer’s hands. When the startled stagman clenched his fists together and brought them up under Vyrl’s chin, Kamoj tensed, afraid the archer would snap back Vyrl’s head and injure his neck. But Vyrl twisted with an easy grace, making even the agile stagman look clumsy. The blow just glanced off his cheek.

Then Vyrl hauled off and socked the archer. Staggering back, the archer hit the wall and knocked his head on the rock. As he slumped to the ground, Vyrl lunged forward and pulled the man’s sword out of its sheath with a hiss of metal. While Vyrl stepped back, holding the sword, the dazed archer looked up at him.

“Does Ironbridge know you’re here?” Vyrl asked.

The stagman rubbed his face, recovering himself. Moving stiffly, he stood up and brushed off his clothes. Then he turned to Kamoj and said, “Slut.”

As Kamoj’s mouth fell open, Vyrl said, “Call her that again and you won’t have a tongue any more. What’s the matter with you?”

The man snorted. “Be quiet, boy.”

“Oh.” Kamoj finally understood. “Vyrl, he thinks you’re a farmhand.”

Vyrl regarded him. “Is that true?”

The stagman had the sense to start looking worried. “Yes.”

“I’m Havyrl Lionstar,” he said. “And if you ever call my wife a slut again, then after I cut out your tongue I’ll hang you upside down from a tower of the Quartz Palace and let the bi-hawks peck out your eyes.”

Kamoj wondered if he were serious. The stagman stared at him for a full count of five before he remembered himself. Then he dropped to one knee and lowered his head so his hair fell forward, leaving his neck bare. “I have no excuse, Governor Lionstar. Use my sword.”

Vyrl made an exasperated noise. “I’m not going to cut off your head. Get up and tell me why you were skulking around my woods.”

Moving with obvious, albeit belated, humility, the stagman stood up. “Please accept my most abject—”

“Just answer the question,” Vyrl said.

“I was riding to the Quartz Palace, bringing salutations from Ironbridge on your wedding.” The man paused. “When I came by here, I saw the bridle and thought a rider was in trouble. I investigated and heard voices. I recognized the woman.” He glanced at Kamoj, then quickly shifted his gaze to Vyrl. “I heard her call you a farmer and your agreement. It seemed that given the, uh, appearance of this matter, I ought to apprehend—I mean—what I thought—”

“I get the idea,” Vyrl said. “Why are you up here? The road to Ironbridge is on the other side of the palace.”

“I was coming from another errand for Governor Ironbridge.”

Vyrl motioned toward the entrance. “Outside.”

The man obeyed, his back stiff, either with fear or shame. Kamoj didn’t believe for one second Jax had sent “salutations.” He was having her watched.

As Vyrl followed the stagman, he nodded to Kamoj. At first she wasn’t sure what he wanted. Then she remembered. The mask. He couldn’t do something as simple as walk into the forest without endangering his life.

She retrieved the mask and also Vyrl’s cloak. With her arms full of Argalian wool, she stepped out into a breezy afternoon. Vyrl and the stagman were standing about twenty paces away, Vyrl still holding the sword. He looked as if he was threatening the stagman with the man’s own weapon, but as Kamoj came closer she realized he was only giving the archer directions to the road.

It didn’t surprise her that Vyrl intended to let him go. The archer looked tense, though. Disbelieving. That didn’t surprise her either. Had one of Vyrl’s stagmen attacked Jax, Ironbridge would have sent the attacker to prison, possibly even executed him.

Then, in her side vision, she saw the trees move. “Vyrl!” she shouted. “Look out!”

Vyrl spun around just as a bowball hurtled toward him, the kind with an arrow embedded in the marble. It slammed against his side, the arrow stabbing deep into his body. Then the weight of the falling ball yanked out the arrow, pulling shreds of muscle with it.

As blood spurted from the wound, Vyrl staggered, and the stagman lunged to regain his sword. He almost recovered it; Vyrl was already injured, and the stagman was well trained. But Vyrl handled the weapon like an extension of his body. Metal flashed in the dappled forest—and Vyrl thrust the blade into the stagman’s chest.

“No!” Dropping Vyrl’s cloak, Kamoj ran toward them. A second bowball whistled through the air and hit Vyrl. He was moving, so it missed his heart and slammed into his chest below his shoulder. This time he managed to grab the shaft of the arrow before the falling ball ripped it out of his body. The weight of the ball broke the arrow, leaving its upper end embedded in his muscles.

A great roaring noise filled the forest, and the cry of a siren. With shock, Kamoj realized the siren was coming out of Vyrl’s body. Wind thrashed the trees overhead.

As Kamoj came up to Vyrl, another ball hurtled between them. Vyrl tried to shove her away, to safety. “Stay back!” He had to shout to be heard above the noise.

He sank to his knees, his face contorted with pain. Blood soaked his shirt and pants, and the stagman lay dead at his feet. No, not dead; blood still pumped out of his wound. But Kamoj recognized mortal injuries: neither Vyrl nor the stagman would live much longer.

Dropping next to Vyrl, she pressed the mask over his face, trying to make it stay as he gasped for air. Before she had it in place, someone grabbed her arm and yanked her back. Twisting around, she found herself looking up a second Ironbridge stagman, another archer, almost certainly the one who had shot Vyrl. She struggled as he dragged her back, but she couldn’t pull free. Frantic, she threw the mask at Vyrl—and saw it hit the ground beyond his reach.

“Let me go!” she shouted at the stagman.

His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear him. The whole forest was in motion now, come alive, trees parting overhead while the wind roared.

Incredibly, Vyrl made it to his feet and stumbled toward them, his hand clutched on his side, blood running over his fingers. Then he fell, barely managing to put his hand out in time to cushion the impact. His face had gone pale, a mask of death to replace the silver mask that lay beyond his reach.

“Let go of me!” Kamoj shouted. Wrestling in the archer’s grip, she looked up—

And froze. A giant black and gold bird was cutting a swath through the trees, blasting away scales and dirt. The roar of its descent drowned out even the siren from Vyrl’s body.

As soon as the bird landed, its mouth gaped open. People ran out of its throat, Dazza and others in gray uniforms, all sheathed in shimmers that molded to their bodies. Two Lionstar stagmen came also, Azander and another man. The unfamiliar Lionstar man raised his arm and pointed a tube at the Ironbridge archer that held Kamoj.

“Ah—” With a stunned expression, the archer collapsed. The Lionstar man looked disconcerted, as if he hadn’t been sure what would happen when he did whatever he had done with the tube.

Kamoj tried to run to Vyrl, but one of the shimmer-sheathed strangers caught her and held her back. The other healers were kneeling around Vyrl. As one of them placed a translucent mask over his face, Dazza worked dials on a cylinder connected by a cord to the mask. Two other healers lifted him onto a stretcher.

Impossibly, the stretcher rose off the ground on its own. Grabbing its ends, the healers ran for the metal bird. Dazza went with them, running by the stretcher. Two more of Vyrl’s people laid the dying Ironbridge man on a second stretcher and followed the first group. The siren from Vyrl’s body still rang throughout the trees.

Kamoj struggled in the grip of the healer that held her. “Let me go with him!” she shouted. When he only tightened his grip, she screamed, “Let me go!”

Still running, Dazza glanced back. “Let her come,” she called. Then she disappeared into the bird’s throat.

The instant the healer released her, Kamoj took off. She had no time to consider the consequences of running into the mouth of a giant metal bird. Its jaw was already closing. She barely had time to race inside before it snapped shut behind her. Two more steps took her through the throat—and into a nightmare.

The bird’s stomach was a demon’s nest of tubes and metal curves, surfaces that gleamed, light panels, other things she had no names for, looping coils and projections like clawed hands.

Suddenly the bird lurched. Kamoj lost her balance and slid to one knee, her shoulder hitting the metal “wall” that lined the beast’s gut. A roaring filled the air and the bird vibrated around her. As it grumbled and boomed, a great invisible hand shoved her against the wall of its stomach.

The Lionstar stagman who had knocked out the Ironbridge archer knelt on one knee at her side, his presence both reassurance and an offer of protection. She managed to incline her head in gratitude. He nodded back, his face as pale as a white-skeeted snowlizard. She suspected he had no more love of riding in the innards of giant metal birds than did she.

A few paces away from them, Vyrl lay on a pallet enmeshed in coils and jointed metal arms. The siren coming from his body abruptly cut off, leaving a calm broken only by the muted clinks and hissing of the bird’s guts. The Ironbridge man lay on another pallet, surrounded by healers. Kamoj couldn’t tell what was happening with him, or even if he still lived.

Vyrl, however, was very much alive. He had ripped the mask off his face and was grabbing at a tube Dazza kept trying to press against his arm.

“I won’t be put to sleep like some wild animal!” he told her.

“Stop fighting,” Dazza said. “It will drive the arrows deeper into your body.”

Either he didn’t hear or didn’t care. He kept struggling, until finally the healers fastened down his limbs with straps. Still he fought, his face flushed as he strained against his bonds. It terrified Kamoj to see him that way, like a man possessed.

“Prince Havyrl, you have to hold still,” a man said. “We can’t get the arrows out.” In almost the same instant, Dazza said, “The sedative isn’t working,” and another man said, “I’ll try Perital.” As the man pressed a tube against Vyrl’s arm, Vyrl swore, the tendons in his necks as taut as cords. His eyes rolled back into his head and his body went rigid—no, not rigid, it was jerking—

Someone yelled, “What the—?” and a new siren went off. In the same instant, Dazza shouted, “Give me an air-syringe!” while a woman said, “Saints almighty, what kind of neural map is that?”

Vyrl’s entire body spasmed against the restraints, convulsing back and forth. As Dazza slapped another tube against his arm, someone else said, “I’m reading discharges all over his brain,” and another healer shouted, “We have to clear-damn! The arrow punctured his lung.”

Kamoj rocked back and forth, agonized. Vyrl was dying and she was helpless to do anything. Even his healers couldn’t stop the demon that wracked him like a stick-man made of twigs.

“Give him more meds!” Dazza said. “Double-dose the chest wound.”

“He’s got too many in his body already,” a man said.

“Do it!” Dazza ordered.

A woman said, “Heartbeat and blood pressure dropping below critical levels. Colonel, we’re losing him.”

“No. Gods, no.” Dazza gripped the pallet. “Vyrl, come back! Don’t let go. Not now. Not after you’ve come so far.”

“The nanomed concentration in his blood is too high,” a man said. “They’re starting to break down his tissues.”

“Clean them out,” Dazza said. “Neutralize now!”

Vyrl stopped jerking. As his body went limp, a healer said, “Neural inhibition working. Neurons fatiguing.” Riding on the tail end of her words, a man said, “His right lung collapsed,” and another said, “Med concentration decreasing.”

Dazza glanced at a man bent over a panel of lights. “Can we save the lung?”

“The meds got to the puncture site before we flushed,” he said. “I’ve got the pneumothorax under control and regeneration around the wound is taking.”

The colonel nodded, then turned to a woman who was studying a collection of ghosts above a silver platform. “What happened to him?” Dazza asked.

“That was a grand mal seizure,” the woman said. “A generalized tonic-clonic attack, like an epileptic convulsion. I haven’t tracked down the cause yet.”

“There!” a man said. He held up the arrow that had been in Vyrl’s chest. When Kamoj saw blood gush out of Vyrl’s wound, bile rose in her throat. It wasn’t the blood; she had tended injured farm hands with wounds just as serious. But it had never been her husband before, bleeding away his life. His lung had collapsed. How could he survive such wounds?

Someone said, “We have the second one,” and held up part of another bloody arrow. Kamoj hadn’t even realized part of that one had stayed in Vyrl’s body. Other healers attached patches to the inside of his elbows while a man pressed a tube against his neck.

“Colonel, I’ve got what caused his seizure.” That came from the woman bent over the silver ghosts. “The last sedative, the Perital, interacted with the alcohol in his bloodstream. It set off a reaction in the series-N nanomeds he carries, which acted on the psiamine receptors in his brain. With all those extra neural structures he has up there, it was too much. His neurons started firing like mad and the excitation spread.” She glanced at the doctor. “His brain went into overload.”

Dazza nodded tiredly. “Log the whole cycle, Lieutenant. Next time we’ll know.”

A man’s voice came out of the air. “Colonel Pacal, shall I take the shuttle up to the Ascendant?”

“Yes,” Dazza said.

“No,” Vyrl whispered.

Dazza leaned over him, two tears running down her cheeks. “Holy saints, Vyrl, don’t you ever stop arguing?”

Opening his eyes, he looked up at her. “Never want… see that medical bay again.”

Her voice gentled. “We need its equipment.”

“Everything you need… at palace.”

“I’ll feel better with you on the ship.”

“Won’t go back there.”

“I can have Jak Tager meet us at the docking bay—”

“No! Told you. Don’t need him.”

“Vyrl, I’m sorry. But I want you on the cruiser.”

His eyes closed. “Then the hell with you.”

“Doctor-Colonel,” Kamoj said.

Dazza looked up. “Kamoj? Are you hurt?”

“No, ma’am.” She tried to make her voice calm, so Dazza would listen to her, but it made the words come out stilted. “If you break the spirit of a greenglass, you can still force it to serve you. But it will serve neither willingly nor well. Break the king of the stags and the entire herd dies.”

“What the hell?” a healer said. Another said, “She’s just a kid. She’s probably scared.”

“No.” Dazza was watching Kamoj. “I know what she means.” She pushed her hand through the silver tendrils of her hair. Then she said, “Major, change of orders. Take us to the palace.”

The disembodied voice said, “Will do, ma’am.”

Kamoj closed her eyes with relief. When she opened them, Azander was watching her from the other side of the bird, where he stood against a wall. He nodded as if to thank her for intervening on Vyrl’s behalf. Then he dropped his gaze to indicate respect. She swallowed, grateful he saw her as an ally now instead of an enemy.

“Colonel Pacal.” One of the healers working on the Ironbridge man spoke. “We’ve a problem.”

“What’s wrong?” Dazza asked.

“We’re having trouble replicating this man’s erythrocytes. We need a transfusion from someone native to this biosphere.”

“Do you have a compatible donor listed in the files?” Dazza asked.

“We aren’t sure.” The healer glanced up at Azander. “Can you try? You’re the closest match.”

Azander nodded, seeming to understand the odd words. He moved away from the wall and knelt by the Ironbridge soldier. The healers attached tubes to his arms that went to their various machines. Silent and tense, they concentrated on their displays, their faces furrowed as the studied the flickering ghosts.

Suddenly one of them said, “It’s good.”

With obvious relief, the healers made more adjustments to their boxes, then used the tubes to connect Azander with the dying stagman. Soon red liquid was moving through the tubes. Azander remained utterly still, like a statue, staring at the liquid as it flowed, his face pale. With a jolt, Kamoj realized his blood was in those tubes.

Finally a healer said, “We have replication.” Others went to work on Azander and his blood stopped flowing. Soon they had him free of their machines.

“Will your patient survive?” Dazza asked.

A healer working on the Ironbridge archer said, “It looks like it.”

Kamoj stared at them. Who were these people, that they could give life to a man who for all intents and purposes was already dead?

Turning back to Vyrl, Kamoj saw he had succumbed to the sleep makers. Or she thought he had. Then he mumbled something.

Dazza leaned closer. “Again?”

“Kamoj,” he said.

“She’s here,” Dazza said. “We’re going to the palace.”

“Good…” Vyrl’s breathing eased into sleep.

He looked so pale. But Kamoj saw no blood, neither on his body nor spilled onto the bird’s guts. In fact, she couldn’t see his wounds at all. Where ragged gashes had rent his body, now new skin showed. Then she realized the “skin” was a bandage.

“Colonel.” The voice came out of the air. “We’re coming into the palace.”

Dazza glanced at the healers around the Ironbridge man. “As soon as we have Prince Havyrl off the shuttle, take your patient up to the Ascendant. I don’t want him anywhere near the palace until we figure out why the two of them were trying to kill each other.”

An odd sensation came over Kamoj, as if she were falling. The bird jolted and its dull thunder stopped. In a whoosh of air its mouth gaped open, leaving only a shimmer. Sunshine poured into the stomach.

With the Lionstar stagman at her side, Kamoj walked through the mouth. Incredibly, they came out onto the courtyard in front of the palace. The stagman glanced at her and spread his hands, the disquiet on his face mirroring what she felt. Only moments ago they had been in the forest.

The healers brought Vyrl out on the floating stretcher, with a silver sheet over his body. Servants threw open the doors of the palace and the healers strode inside.

Kamoj slept in a sitting position, leaning against the headboard of the bed. Vyrl lay next to her, either asleep or unconscious. Each time she awoke, she saw Dazza in an armchair by the nightstand, watching Vyrl, dozing, or studying images in her book-box.

Sometimes the colonel spoke to the nightstand. Different voices answered, most in unfamiliar languages. A few used their odd Bridge dialect. Dazza discussed Azander’s paramedic training with one, saying she wanted more of the household staff to learn it. Another voice told her the Ironbridge stagman was recovering on the Ascendant. Later someone said a delegation from the Ascendant had gone to Ironbridge to speak to Jax.

From what Kamoj gathered, it sounded like Vyrl’s people were holding the second Ironbridge archer in Argali, until they decided what to do about his shooting Vyrl. Apparently the Lionstar stagman had knocked him out with a sleep weapon. Kamoj didn’t understand how a tube could carry sleep or how a person could throw that sleep at others, but nevertheless, it had happened.

She was dozing when a rustle of sheets woke her. She opened her eyes to see Vyrl jerking, restless with his dreams. Dazza sat slumped in her chair, asleep, but when Vyrl groaned she snapped awake. The doctor took one look at him, then opened her case and removed a black tube. She stood up, leaning over Vyrl as she brought the tube to his neck.

“Wait,” Kamoj said. “He hates that.”

Dazza exhaled. “I know. But if he jerks like that, it could tear open his wounds.”

Vyrl’s fingers curled into claws. His breathing had grown ragged and his forehead contorted as if he were in pain.

“There might be another way.” Kamoj slid the pillow out from under his head and put herself in its place, sitting cross-legged with his head in her lap, his curls spread across her legs in red-gold profusion. Then she massaged his head. As she worked, his face relaxed and his breath slowed to an even rhythm.

“Well, I’ll take a launch off a lily-pad,” Dazza said.

Kamoj looked up at her. “Ma’am?”

Smiling, Dazza said, “It seems you’re effective alternative medicine.”

Kamoj hesitated. “May I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

“That sound Vyrl’s body was making today, when he was hurt. How did it do that?”

“He has an implant,” Dazza said. “If he’s in trouble, it sets off alarms, including the siren. It also activates a neutrino beacon. That’s how we found him.” She paused, her head tilted as she considered Kamoj. “May I ask a question?”

It felt odd to have the doctor request permission to seek information. Kamoj had no idea what position “colonel” occupied in the hierarchy of things, but Dazza clearly ranked high among Vyrl’s people.

“I will answer to the best of my ability,” Kamoj said.

“Why did Vyrl try to kill the Ironbridge man?”

“Because he tried to kill Vyrl.”

“The Ironbridge soldiers claim they acted in self-defense.” Dazza settled back into her chair. “We’ve done scans on them. They’re both telling the truth as they see it.”

“Didn’t know who I was,” Vyrl mumbled. He opened his eyes and looked at Dazza, his gaze bleary.

She leaned forward. “How are you feeling?”

“Lousy.” He closed his eyes. “Flaming sedatives.”

“I’m sorry,” Dazza said. “But I had to do what I thought necessary.” With the look of someone who already knew what response she was going to get, she added, “That’s why I’ve posted Jagernauts as your bodyguards. You will have two with you at all times, even in the palace. Right now they’re on the landing of this suite.”

His eyes snapped open. “Damn it, Colonel. I’m tired of privacy being a luxury I’m forbidden.”

She crossed her arms. “What did you expect? That ISC would stand by while you steal state-of-the-art special operations gear, ride off in a drunken rage, and almost get yourself killed?”

Vyrl scowled at her.

In a quieter voice, Dazza said, “Why would an Ironbridge archer try to kill you?”

After a pause, Vyrl answered. “Because of what he saw. It probably looked like I was threatening the other Ironbridge man with his own sword. And I had Kamoj. The archer was defending his partner and Kamoj’s honor. Or else he thought like the first one, that Kamoj was committing adultery with me.”

“Adultery?” Dazza asked. “With her own husband?”

“Interesting concept, yes?” Vyrl hesitated. “The stagman… ?”

“He will live,” Dazza said. As relief sped across Vyrl’s face, she added, “You damn near killed him. Why did you stab him? He was just trying to recover his weapon.”

“Why do you think? Someone shot me. Then this one lunged at me. I reacted in reflex.”

“I hadn’t realized you knew how to use a sword like that.”

He shrugged. “I learned on Lyshriol.”

“You trained with swords on your home planet?”

“All highborn boys do there. It’s part of the culture.”

“It just seems so—” Dazza squinted at him. “Barbaric.”

Vyrl scowled. “What, if I crisped him with a laser carbine, that would be civilized? Hell, we could be really civilized and have the Ascendant drop an antimatter bomb on Ironbridge.”

Dazza didn’t answer, and Kamoj could tell Vyrl’s words bothered her. She had been prepared to hate Dazza, after what Vyrl had told her this afternoon. Instead she kept remembering Dazza’s tears, so uncharacteristic of the craggy colonel, when the doctor realized Vyrl was going to live.

“What I don’t understand,” Vyrl said, “is why Ironbridge stagmen are prowling around my woods.”

Dazza glanced at Kamoj. “Would you feel more comfortable if I told him?”

Kamoj nodded, wondering what Dazza knew.

“Told me what?” Vyrl asked.

“We sent people down to talk with Maxard Argali,” she said. “It seems your bride was betrothed to Jax Ironbridge.”

Vyrl stared up at Kamoj. Mortified, she averted her eyes.

“Their marriage was arranged years ago,” Dazza said. “Apparently Ironbridge is quite fond of her.”

Kamoj almost gagged. If Jax was fond of her, she would hate to see how he treated people he didn’t like.

Vyrl spoke gently. “Look at me, water sprite.” When she met his gaze, he said, “I’m sorry. I should have realized a woman such as yourself would already be spoken for.”

She wished she could disappear into the woodwork. Vyrl glanced at Dazza and tilted his head toward the door.

“Uh-ah, yes, well.” The colonel stood up. “I have to check in with the Ascendant. I’ll look in on you later.”

When Kamoj and Vyrl were alone, he said, “I truly am sorry. I figured there might be others, but I assumed if something was serious, you would refuse my offer. It didn’t occur to me that you would have no choice.” After a moment he added, “Or maybe I didn’t want it to occur to me.”

“You established your bid legally,” Kamoj replied. “No one could match it.”

“I don’t get it,” Vyrl said. “How did the concepts of slavery and a dowry get mixed up together here?”

“Slavery? What do you man?”

“Don’t you hear what you’re saying? I outbid him for you. How can you not hate me?”

“You did nothing wrong.”

“I bought another human being. That’s wrong. On top of which, it was a woman who had already given her word to another man.” Dryly he added, “A woman younger than most of my granddaughters.”

Granddaughters? Older than her? Surely she heard wrong.

Then again, Jax was Vyrl’s age and he had illegitimate children everywhere, some of them adults with their own children. That, she realized, was what bothered her. Not that Vyrl had children but how he came about them. With Jax she had almost managed to convince herself she didn’t care what he did. With Vyrl, an agony of jealousy rose in her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She stopped massaging his head. “Nothing.”

“Something about my children,” he said. “Their mother?”

“Men can marry only one woman here. Perhaps in your Imperial court it is different.”

He laughed. “Concubines and court intrigue? Gods, Kamoj, that isn’t me. I may have more titles than I know what to do with, but I’m still a farm boy from nowhere. All I ever wanted was my wife, my family, and my land.”

She spoke with care. “Then you are widowed?”

“I married my childhood sweetheart when we were kids.” In a voice soft with sorrow, he added, “Ten years ago she took a fall in the Backbone Mountains. She died instantly.”

“Hai,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.” His voice gentled. “We had many good years, twelve beautiful children, over forty grandchildren so far, and gods know how many great-grandchildren.” He paused, squinting at her. “I get mixed up which of the new ones are grandchildren and which are great-grand. There’s even a few great-greats in there.”

She stared at him. “But you are so young.”

“People marry young where I come from. I was fourteen.” He laughed. “When I told Dazza that, she nearly went through the wall. Legal age in the overall Imperialate culture is twenty-five, and the average number of children for a conventional couple is two. By the time I was ‘legal,’ I had six children.”

It didn’t sound odd to Kamoj. In her experience, people married young and had as many children as possible, with the hope that at least some would survive until adulthood, and perhaps, if the family was lucky, even prosper.

But the numbers and his age still didn’t fit. She struggled to work it out. Although she was better at mathematics than most people, she usually had wires with beads to do problems as difficult as this one. No matter how she looked at it, she kept coming up with the same impossible results.

Finally she said, “Even if your children married as young as you did, I don’t see how you could have so many descendants, especially great-grandchildren and great-greats.”

“Why? I’m sixty-three.”

Her mouth fell open. “What? No. That can’t be.”

“It’s true.” He grinned. “But if you want to tell me how young I look, I won’t object.”

She smiled. “You can angle for compliments all you wish, my handsome husband. But I still don’t understand. How can you look so young?”

“Good genes and exercise, I suppose. Also, the nanomeds in my body do some repairs, enough to help delay aging.” He hesitated. “Did you really mean what you said this afternoon, about wanting me to stay with you?”

“Yes.”

“Even though you could have your betrothed back if we arranged for me to ‘die’?”

“Jax Ironbridge is a—” The word slug tempted her, but she held it back. No more appropriate word came, though. She kept imagining a slug making its way through the mud.

Vyrl laughed. “You can compare my competition to all the slimy creatures you want.”

“I would never speak ill of Ironbridge’s good name.”

“You’re tact is laudable.” He closed his eyes. “I like your worm images better, though.”

She stroked his forehead. “Lionstar Province has no worms.”

A guilty look passed over his face. “I don’t really have a province on this planet.”

“Of course you do.”

“I do?”

“Argali and our villages.” She thought of Azander. “Your stagmen come from outlying hamlets, yes?”

“That’s right.”

“Most of those hamlets were originally part of the North Sky Islands. But they’ve become unattached.” It appalled Kamoj, actually. Rather than trying to support villages so distant and so impoverished, past governors of the Islands had ignored them, until finally, after many generations, the villages lost all association with their former province-and with that, their last hope of survival. “If their stagmen are your sworn liegemen, then you are also now the authority in their villages.”

He opened his eyes. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“A union such as ours is a merger. A business arrangement. In marrying me, you agreed to help support my people.”

“In other words, responsibilities come with power.”

She took a breath. “Yes.”

“Such as?”

“Food. Work. Tools. Shelter.” Softly she said, “Survival.”

Vyrl considered her. Then he reached out and pressed a turquoise stone on the nightstand.

A voice floated into the air. “Colonel Pacal here.”

“Dazza, when is Morlin coming back up?” Vyrl asked.

“I’m not sure. The techs are replacing the fiberoptics. Is there a problem?”

“No. I just need some information.”

“Maybe I can help.”

He scowled. “Yes, but Morlin never argues with me.”

Dryly Dazza said, “What are you about to do that you think will start an argument?”

“Do you remember our decision to minimize interactions with the native culture here?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we may have a problem.”

“What problem?”

“It seems that by marrying Kamoj, I’ve set myself up as a sort of sovereign in Argali.”

Dazza made an exasperated noise. “That’s hardly what I call ‘minimizing interactions.’”

“I want to send some techs to the villages.”

“Why? The villages have no tech for techs to work on.”

“That’s the point. These people have a killing winter coming. We can heat their houses.”

After a pause, Dazza said, “I’ll assign a group to it.”

“Discreetly, though. I don’t want to scare anyone. Dress them in native clothes and send some of my stagmen with them.”

“All right.”

“Some of the houses are old enough to have web systems—”

“Vyrl.” Her voice had a warning note. “Don’t push it.”

“Can you go down to Argali too?” he asked.

“Me? Why?”

“See if they need medical help.”

Her voice turned dry again. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m an ISC colonel. I have responsibilities.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.”

The silence stretched out. Finally Dazza said, “I have some residents up on the Ascendant who are just out of medical school. They could benefit from the experience.”

Vyrl smiled. “Good.”

“We should send agriculturists too,” she said.

“We already have one.” His voice grew animated. “Dazza, listen. I’ve been working on quad-grains. Give me a few years and I could engineer crops and livestock that would increase production here tenfold.”

“We don’t have a few years.”

“Just think about it.”

She exhaled. “All right.”

“Good.” Vyrl grinned. Then he yawned and turned his head until his lips touched Kamoj’s thigh.

Tears gathered in Kamoj’s eyes. Softly she said, “Thank you, beautiful lion.”

“Vyrl?” Dazza asked.

“I’m sleeping,” he mumbled.

“Ah,” the colonel said. “Good-night, Governor Argali.”

Kamoj blinked at the phrase. “Good-night?” When no answer came, she said, “Dazza?” The nightstand remained quiet.

So she stroked Vyrl’s hair and watched stars move across the patch of sky visible through the window on the other side of the room. Could he truly warm their houses in winter? Heal their ills? Help them grow ten times as much food? It was remarkable how, when life seemed to reach its worst, things could turn about this way. Surely all would be well now.

Surely Vyrl wouldn’t drink anymore.