Majda frowned at her. "And its own mistakes?"

"Indeed." Roca knew her eyes were glinting. "Including the mistakes made by those generations that have lived the longest."

Lahaylia spoke dryly. "Wisdom has this peculiar tendency, Daughter. It tends to increase as one matures."

Roca put her hand on her hip. "Vibrancy and innovation also have a peculiar tendency, Mother. They annoy people who don't like change."

Lahaylia's lips quirked upward. "Ah, well, that is part of life." Her smile faded. "But so is the determination in people to fight for what they believe is right."

"And to stand firm in their resolve," Majda said. She seemed intrigued to see an argument between the pharaoh and her heir.

Roca didn't like the way the lines of support aligned here. Her mother and Kurj formed an inflexible bloc, one backed by Majda's support. There seemed no hope for compromise. At the same time, she knew they didn't like this schism any more than she did. They wouldn't back down on the invasion, but another type of bargain might be possible.

"I have other options in a.s.sembly," Roca said.

"What options?" Lahaylia said. "The a.s.sembly has voted for the invasion."

Roca answered in the deceptively quiet voice she had learned from her mother. "Nothing is ever set."

"And what of honor?" Majda demanded.

"Honor takes many forms," Roca answered.

"So your son tells me," Lahaylia said dryly.

"He says a lot of things." Roca wished Kurj would quit doing it, at least when it came to her husband.

"He seeks to protect Skolian honor," Lahaylia said.

Roca met her gaze. "I speak of personal honor."

"Yours?" Majda's sarcasm could have chilled ice.

Roca bit back the response she wanted to make:I honor my commitments, not betrothals others would force on me.Instead she said, "I deeply regret if my commitments have caused distress. But my vow to Eldrinson Valdoria is made. I stand by it."

"In other words," Lahaylia said, "if we quit opposing your ill-made marriage, you will quit opposing the invasion."

Put that bluntly, it sounded even more unpalatable. But the invasion would proceed and she would resist a divorce regardless of any bargain. Better a distasteful agreement than this constant battle with her family. "If you accept Eldri, Kurj may moderate his objections."

"I will never accept him," Lahaylia said flatly.

Roca's frustration welled. "Why the h.e.l.l not?"

"Everything about him is objectionable: common birth, lack of education, age, lifestyle."

Roca was acutely aware of Majda listening. But she had to speak. "He is one of the finest men I've ever known."

"You ask too much," Lahaylia said.

"What, it is too much to ask that my mother be happy for me?"

Lahaylia scowled. "You have duties. How you conduct yourself affects more than this family."

"Eldri is a Ruby psion."

"You didn't have to marry him to bed him."

"What, now you suggest I dishonor him?"

Lahaylia snorted. "Nowadays women go about compromising men's honor all the time and no one blinks. These purportedly despoiled fellows seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves." She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "Besides, you wouldn't have been the first Ruby heir to have a man on the side."

Majda gave the pharaoh a sour look. "On the side of what, Your Highness? Her marriage to my nephew?" She spoke grudgingly, to Roca. "It is true that you have treated the Skyfall man with honor, as you did my nephew in your visits to him."

In truth, Roca had never been attracted to Dayj, despite his good looks. It hadn't been hard to keep her hands off him during their constrained visits. But she could hardly reveal that to Vaj Majda. "Whatever the price," Roca said, "my marriage is made."

"And you wish us to stop trying to unmake it," Lahaylia said.

"Yes." Roca's gaze didn't waver.

Majda spoke. "I will not set myself against Kurj Skolia."

d.a.m.n.Majda knew perfectly well Kurj would never relent. "To cease an offense," Roca said, "isn't the same as setting yourself against an ally."

"Make your peace with Kurj," Lahaylia told her. "Then perhaps we can entertain this compromise."

Roca swallowed. "There is no peace between us."

Lahaylia's face changed, revealing a sadness Roca suspected she had meant to hide. The pharaoh lifted her hand as if to reach out to her daughter, but then she lowered it, her restraint taking over. But she couldn't hide the pain in her voice. "A child and parent shouldn't be so at odds."

"No," Roca said softly. "They shouldn't."

But she saw no way to heal the wounds that divided them.

Anger suffused the Imperator's home.

It vibrated through the stone mansion where Jarac lived, high on a hill of Valley. The house had many windows and s.p.a.cious rooms to accommodate his large size, filling it with light and air. Given the perfect weather of the Orbiter, the windows needed no gla.s.s. The main entrance had no doors.

Today, an inexplicable brooding filled his home. Jarac paced from room to room trying to fathom it.

Finally he left. He walked across Valley, past the house Dehya shared with her husband, Seth Rockworth, then past the home where Roca lived with her new son. It wasn't until he had traversed the length of Valley that he reached Kurj's house. In some ways, it resembled his own, large in dimension and simple in style. But it had accents: arched eaves, beveled gla.s.s, a slanted roof. Its windows were designed so someone inside could see out, but no one could see in. It reminded Jarac of the inner eyelids Kurj often kept lowered.

When Jarac touched the pager at the entrance, the door shimmered and vanished, offering admittance.

This surprised him; given his current strained relationship with Kurj, he hadn't expected his grandson to put him on the list of visitors with automatic permission to enter.

He found Kurj in his office, sprawled behind his desk, studying a doc.u.ment on a screen in front of him, his inner lids lowered. He was clenching a light-stylus in his hand so tightly, his knuckles had turned white.

"Bad news?" Jarac asked.

Kurj jerked up his head. Then he threw the stylus on his desk. "Did you send Banner Highchief to try talking me into negotiating with the Traders?"

"No."

Kurj stood up, rising to his full height, one hand on his back as he stretched. "She wants me to reconsider my vote on the invasion."

Jarac felt tempted to say,So do I,but that was the wrong approach with Kurj, reminding him of his subordinate position. He had grown more and more restless these past years, impatient for more authority.

Jarac waited.

"I told her I would think about it," Kurj finally said.

"And have you?"

He crossed his muscled arms. "No."

They faced each other across the desk. Jarac knew his grandson had more to say. He wished he could find a way past Kurj's emotional armor, but it had no c.h.i.n.ks. The days when Kurj was a laughing child running to him with arms outstretched were long and forever gone.

After a while Kurj spoke in a quieter voice. "When I was a pilot, I partic.i.p.ated in an engagement against a Trader frigate. Its Aristo commander had a psion, a youth he had captured by raiding a Skolian commercial liner." His fingers were pressing his desk so hard, tendons stood out on the back of his hands. "The Traders were using the psion to detect our forces. They had already killed his parents, using them for the same purpose. I picked up the youth's mind at the same time he detected me."

"What happened?" Jarac asked, dreading the answer.

A muscle twitched in Kurj's cheek. "He wasn't revealing enough about our forces. So they 'encouraged' him." He made a visible effort to speak evenly. "While they were torturing him, I couldn't break my connection with his mind."

Jarac felt the horror in Kurj's mind. "What did you do?"

His jaw tightened. "I blew up the frigate. I couldn't free that boy, but I could end his agony." His hand curled into a fist. "And I rid the universe of the monster who had destroyed his life."

Jarac spoke quietly. "If I could free you from those memories by taking them into myself, I would do it in an instant."

"You've never fought." Kurj's voice grated. "You weren't a military officer when you became Imperator. How can you lead ISC when you don't burn inside?"

"And what would you have me do? Destroy us in the blaze of my hatred?"

"You have no right to be a man of peace."

Jarac's voice took on an edge. "It makes no difference, does it? No matter how hard I work toward peace, we will have a war."

Kurj fell silent then. Jarac didn't push. His grandson had said his piece and would add no more. In that rationing of words, he and Jarac were alike.

Then Kurj said, "I received the report on Eldrinson from the medical team that went to Skyfall."

That caught Jarac off guard. "What does it say?"

Kurj jabbed a panel on his desk and it ejected a copy of the report on Eldrinson. He gave it to Jarac. As Jarac scanned the report, his relief grew. Both psychologists rated Eldrinson Valdoria as above average in intelligence. Tyra Meson called his spatial perception "spectacular." Both she and Undell considered him competent to sign a marriage contract with Roca. The doctor's opinion was less definitive, but even he acknowledged that the initial reports on Eldrinson were wrong.

Jarac raised his eyebrow at Kurj. "Even your handpicked doctor won't judge him incompetent."

Kurj crossed his arms.

Jarac sighed. "Why don't you go talk to this man your mother married?" He set down the holosheet.

"Perhaps you will find him less objectionable than you expect."

"How can you accept him? That marriage is a travesty."

"Roca loves him. He makes her happy. That makes me happy."

Kurj gave a dismissive jerk with his hand. "All sorts of things make us 'happy' that are wrong."

"You must make peace with this."

"Why? So you don't feel threatened by my anger?"

"No." In truth, it unsettled Jarac to hear Kurj acknowledge what usually went unspoken between them, the tension born of Kurj's conviction he was better fit to rule as Imperator. They both knew it could be decades before Kurj a.s.sumed the t.i.tle, possibly even centuries, given that Roca was next in line.

Kurj pushed his hand across the short cut of his metallic hair, so unlike Jarac's s.h.a.ggy mane. "I would wish that life could have given us kinder roles to play."

"Yes." Jarac spoke quietly. "I, too."

DNA molecules rotated, helices in neon colors wrapped around his neck, choking, choking, choking...

Kurj sat bolt upright, staring into the darkness, his heart pounding. As it slowed, he took a deep breath.

His biomech web registered that he had held his breath for more than two minutes.

Callie lay on the other side of his bed, asleep. He leaned over her, brushing back her hair, but he didn't wake her. Instead he slid out of bed and pulled on the black robe he had thrown over a chair. Then he left the bedroom and walked through his house. It remained silent but aware of him, always aware, never sleeping.

In his office, he brought up the DNA records for his father, Tokaba Ryestar, and compared them to Eldrinson's genetic map. Hehadto find defects in Eldrinson's DNA, proof it would contaminate the Ruby Dynasty. A way had to exist to negate this last, d.a.m.ning report. But he had to show that whatever flaw existed in Eldrinson didn't apply to Tokaba, who had also brought new blood into the Ruby Dynasty and sired a Ruby son. Surely a dramatic and usable difference existed between Tokaba's DNA and that of a barbarian on a backward planet. He had to prove Eldrinson's flaws.

Kurj had more trouble than he expected in his investigation. Several systems he needed to access were unusually well secured, challenging his most sophisticated EIs. But gradually he uncovered the story. His conception had involved years of work by a team of scientists. The a.s.sembly had set up an entire program dedicated to that one purpose. Desperate to ensure the Ruby Dynasty would provide heirs for the Kyle web, they had insisted the doctors do whatever possible to make it happen, regardless of what that meant to Roca and Tokaba, even if the failures of Roca's pregnancies brought them immeasurable grief.

Kurj clenched his teeth, his resentment hot within him. Yet he understood their desperation. He felt it every time he let himself acknowledge how little stood between his people and enslavement by the Trader Aristos. Only a gossamer, indefinable web protected them, one that didn't even exist in the s.p.a.cetime universe. But no matter how much he understood their motivation, nothing would ease his anger at the pain his family had suffered as the a.s.sembly sought to control and manipulate their lives.

The more he investigated his birth, the more he understood why his mother called him a miracle child.

The odds against his conception had been so high, it made him feel strange, unreal. He followed the trail through ever more abstruse networks, searching out his heredity. Finally he left s.p.a.cetime and plunged into the Kyle web, becoming a cowled figure striding across a stark grid.

The more he searched, the more puzzled he became. On the surface, Tokaba's DNA map seemed reasonable, but the deeper Kurj delved, the more anomalies he found. The shade of blue it predicted for Tokaba's eyes wasn't quite the same as the true color. His hair should have been a slightly darker brown. He had always joked about how it curled in the fog, but according to his DNA, it should have stayed straight.

Kurj continued to search, probing forgotten nooks in the web, following the oddly confused trail left by the geneticists and a.s.sembly. His cowled avatar climbed down the grid, deeper and deeper, until no light filtered down from above and fluorescent data-fish swam by his body.

Someone had hidden the trail.

At first he thought the files he was searching out had degraded over the years, but gradually he realized someone had deliberately erased them. He sank into areas that even the most adept telops didn't know existed. In a data-grotto encrusted with corrupted files, he found traces of an encryption scheme used by the a.s.sembly long ago. They had retired it just before his birth. He cast about, searching for whatever it had hidden.