Part 57 (1/2)

Jaibriol the Third had no idea he was a miracle.

But Seth didn't know how to ease Jai's pain, or the pain of the other children, who had learned of their parents' deaths in the harshest way possible. They had all been in the living room a few days previous, Lisi and Jai playing chess, Vitar reading, del-Kelric building with blocks, and Seth watching an old movie, half-asleep. A broadcast interrupted the movie, news that came with no warning. Jaibriol Qox and Sauscony Valdoria had died in the final battle of the Radiance War. That the children had to learn it from an impersonal news broadcast convinced Seth that if fates truly existed, they had no heart.

Now Jai stood by the hall mirror, holding a holograph.

”You don't have to do this,” Seth said.

”I can't go unless you sign.” Jai gave him the graph.

Seth scanned it, cycling through the forms in its memory. They were straightforward, permission forms for Jai to join the Dawn Corps, a humanitarian organization formed in the wake of war. No one knew the exact situation between Eube and Skolia yet, but rumors proliferated. Some said ESComm was broken; others said it was the Ruby Dynasty. This much was clear: the galaxywide collapse of the psiberweb had destroyed communications throughout settled s.p.a.ce, ESComm was either decimated or destroyed, and the governments of both Skolia and Eube were in chaos. Eubian slaves were pouring into Skolian and Allied worlds asking for sanctuary. People everywhere were spilling across boundaries: soldiers, merchants, pirates, scouts, even Aristos, mixing on worlds where no one knew who claimed what.

Then came the survivors of Onyx.

It started as a trickle, a few s.h.i.+ps running fast and hard. Then they came by the thousands, limping into ports across the stars. The flow turned into tens of thousands, then millions, then tens of millions.

Then billions.

Two billion people escaped the ma.s.sacre of Onyx. When history turned its critical focus on the Radiance War, none doubted certain names would rise in honor: Starjack Tahota and those who had died with her so that billions could live. And Althor Valdoria.

The survivors of Onyx made it out because ESComm knew too little about the Onyx periphery defenses to stop the evacuation. Althor Valdoria never divulged to his captors his knowledge of the Onyx defenses, at a price to himself too grim for most even to imagine. And so two billion people survived.

In the aftermath of Radiance, the Allied Worlds of Earth moved into the chaos, treading with care, still too small to reach openly for what their mammoth neighbors had lost, but strong enough to take advantage of a situation that let them increase their power base. They also stepped in to help. The military needed volunteers to organize relief efforts, relocate refugees, and carry out the million and one other details of cleaning up after a war with no clear winner. So the Dawn Corps was born.

”But why now?” Seth asked. ”Can't you give yourself more time?” Time to mourn.

Jai watched him with an unsettling intensity. ”Have you read The Ascendance of Eube?”

Quietly Seth said, ”Yes.”

”It was written by my grandfather's grandfather.”

”You aren't responsible for the sins of your fathers.”

”I'm two parts of a whole, one Skolia, the other Qox.” Jai spread his hands. ”Do I believe the Skolians, that my father was a s.a.d.i.s.tic monster? The Eubians, that my mother was an obsessed dictator? The Allieds, who say both were flawed?” He watched Seth with a haunted gaze. ”Or do I believe what I remember, that they were the most decent human beings I've ever known?”

”Believe your heart.” Seth's voice gentled. ”To raise children such as you four, they must have been remarkable.”

”I have to know they died for something,” Jai said.

Seth indicated the holograph. ”How will this give you answers?”

”I need to go out there. See for myself.”

”But to leave now-” Seth shook his head. ”Your sister and brothers need you.”

”No.” The voice came from behind them. Seth turned to see Lisi in the archway to the living room. At fourteen, she already showed signs of her Ruby grandmother's striking presence. Vitar stood with her, eight now, with his mother's eyes and hair and his father's Highton features. Three-year-old del-Kelric hung onto Lisi, his gold hair and skin gleaming, his red eyes solemn.

”We've talked about it,” Lisi said. ”We want him to go.” Her voice caught. ”We have to know, Seth. It's all wrong. What people say about them. It's all wrong. Isn't it?”

Seth longed to take away their pain. ”Of course it is.”

”Will you do this for us?” Jai asked.

Seth turned to him. ”Do you have a lightpen?”

Jai gave him one. And so Seth signed.

Corbal Xir walked through the empty Hall of Circles, one of the few undamaged sections of the palace. At its center, he mounted the steps to the dais. Then he sat on the Carnelian Throne.

He had never wanted to be emperor. That he had no interest in politics, that he far more preferred working out trade agreements to royal intrigue, that he felt too old now, at 132-none of that mattered to the DNA in his body.

A rustle came from the benches in the Circles. He looked to see a woman get up from one and walk toward him, a tall figure with glittering hair. White hair. Like his. She came up the dais and sat in a chair someone had left next to the throne.

”Have they brought him in yet?” she asked.

Corbal shook his head. ”The last I heard, they were at the starport.”

She looked around the Hall. ”It's yours. I don't want it.”

”No?” He regarded Calope Muze, High Judge of the Hightons, the only other Aris...o...b..sides himself with Qox blood. ”The Carnelian Throne promises great power.”

”Even more so, now.”

That surprised him. ”It would seem less so to me.”

Calope turned to him. ”The Ruby Pharaoh is dead. Her heir is dead. The Imperator is dead. The Allieds hold the Web Key and his wife on Earth and the rest of the Rhon on their own home world. They won't let them go, Corbal. They've made that clear. And why? To ensure power for Earth, yes, but even more because they fear the war will start again if they do.” She clenched her fist on her knee. ”The Ruby Dynasty is broken. After so many centuries, they're finally broken.”

He scowled at her. ”We too are broken. ISC shattered ESComm and put a spike through its brain. And you want to rejoice.”

”We won. We have a Lock and a Key.”

”So why don't you want the Carnelian Throne?”

Calope shrugged. ”I'm an old woman. I would rather spend time with my providers.”

He considered her. ”I had a request from one of Empress Viquara's providers. Her favorite, in fact. A boy named Cayson.”

Calope smiled. ”I remember him. Charming.”

”He wants me to sell him to you. He says you are 'kind.'”

She chuckled. ”With such a fellow, how could one be anything but kind?”

He watched her for a long time. Finally he said, ”How long has your hair been white?”

”You are rather blunt today, dear Cousin.”