The Bronze Skies Read online

  We continued until we reached a chamber at the bottom of the stairs. The Abaj touched the wall there in a fast pattern. A line of light appeared, gradually widening. He was opening a door.

  Deactivate infrared, I thought.

  The blaze of light from the Abaj vanished, but the light beyond remained, a cool blue glow. I followed him through the doorway—and froze. A cavernous command center spread out before us. Consoles filled the place, holos rotating in the air above them, and catwalks ran along the walls at different levels. Abaj walked among the equipment like giants in their milieu. Most weren’t wearing the robes that protected them from the desert above. They all dressed like my guide, in dark trousers and shirts bright in greens, blue, and gold. Some stood posted around the walls like standing stones, watching, analyzing, protecting. The air had an astringent smell as if they had scoured this center clean, down to the last speck of sand.

  Your heartbeat just spiked, Max said.

  I breathed in deeply, calming my surge of adrenalin. Did anyone else even know so many Abaj worked here, in such an incredible center? Probably the Majdas, but certainly none of my people, and we knew what went on below the desert better than anyone in Cries.

  None of the Abaj spoke. I doubted they even needed words. They were all Jagernauts. That put them among the one in a million humans with telepathic as well as empathic ability. The biomech in their bodies enhanced their abilities, creating neural meshes that linked them together.

  I strengthened my mental barriers, grateful for the training I received in the army to protect my thoughts. It was one of the first skills they thought us, in this universe where even your thoughts were no longer necessarily private.

  We crossed the room, passing Abaj warriors seated at consoles, encased in exoskeletons with visors over their eyes. Telops. They linked into the Kyle mesh. This must be how they monitored the orbital defenses for Raylicon, the best-defended planet in the Imperialate. Some who weren’t working turned their dark gazes our way; others ignored us. They showed no other reaction.

  Abaj were the exception to the matriarchal roots of Imperial Skolia. In these modern times, we had achieved an egalitarian society where women and men had equal rights, at least as long as you weren’t a Majda prince, but the remnants of our history hadn’t disappeared. The Abaj had been an anomaly. Male warriors. A mutation in their gene pool proved lethal to female fetuses. They hadn’t become extinct, though. They didn’t just look alike, they were identical, all of them clones.

  The Kyle genes that produced psions also carried harmful mutations, which was why empaths and telepaths had become so rare even though all of the original settlers had been psions. The small gene pool of our ancestors nearly killed them. Desperation forced them to learn genetic engineering, using the libraries in the abandoned starships. Kyle genes were recessive, so if you inherited lethal genes from only one parent, you survived. One of the worst mutations, the CK complex, was linked to the X chromosome. Men carried one X and one Y, so it didn’t affect them. If fact, CK suppressed other damaging mutations, which meant if you carried it unpaired, you were more likely to survive. As a result, after six thousand years, most male psions carried CK. Women had two X chromosomes; if a female fetus inherited CK on both, she died. It led to a crushing fatality rate among female psions.

  That rarity elevated female empaths and telepaths in our culture, like the Majdas. However, it became a curse for the strongest psions, the Ruby Dynasty. The Imperialate needed them; without Ruby psions, the Kyle web didn’t work. So the Assembly sought any means to control them. I didn’t envy the pharaoh, who had to survive the desperate politics of an empire where she served as a titular sovereign. I was beginning to understand why the Majdas felt so protective toward her. She didn’t have their military strength, so they provided it in their unswerving loyalty to the House of Skolia and the Pharaoh’s Army.

  Cloning psions proved difficult, though we didn’t yet know why. The stronger the psion, the greater the fatality rate. The ancient scientists had succeeded with only about thirty Abaj. All of the Abaj since then descended as clones of those thirty men. A chill went up my back as I realized I was seeing essentially the same warriors who had walked this planet thousands of years in our past. We lost so much in the Dark Ages after the fall of the Ruby Empire, but the Abaj survived in their secret cloisters, using cloning methods passed from generation to generation. They continued long after the knowledge of why those methods worked had vanished into a darkness that lasted four millennia.

  We reached a dais on the far side of the room. An Abaj sat at a large console up there, his deep-set gaze never wavering as he watched us. Streaks of grey showed at his temples. If he was communicating with my escort, I couldn’t tell. My biomech could link to theirs only if they granted access, which none of them had done. I was surprised they even allowed me to enter this inner sanctum.

  The man on the dais had an even more imposing presence than the others, a sense of contained energy, like a weapon poised for release. His wrist gauntlets glowed with lights, embedded with so much tech-mech, they probably drew energy from the microfusion reactor that powered his body. This was the Uzan, the leader of the Abaj.

  He indicated a smart-chair across the console from him. When I sat down, the chair shifted, adapting to my weight, trying to ease my tension. It didn’t help. I sat on its edge.

  “I am told you work for the Ruby Pharaoh,” the Uzan said.

  I certainly hadn’t told him. “What makes you think that?”

  His voice rumbled with such resonance, I half expected the ground to shake. “The pharaoh requested your assistance. We serve the pharaoh. Ask your questions.”

  “How do you know she requested my assistance?”

  “We are Abaj,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  I tried a different tack. “What have you heard about the murder?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Your oath to the Ruby Dynasty includes a vow of secrecy, yes?” I motioned toward the rest of the center. “For all of you. So our discussion here is confidential.”

  “Yes, that is true.” His gaze never wavered. “Unless Pharaoh Dyhianna commands otherwise.”

  “I understand.” I told him what I knew. When I finished, I said, “The pharaoh says she doesn’t know why Secondary Calaj killed Ganz.”

  “And you question the veracity of what she told you.”

  Damn. I thought I’d hidden my doubts. I spoke carefully. “It seems—unusual.”

  His gaze never wavered. “It is unlikely she imagined what she described. Whether or not you would experience the events in the same manner, I can’t say. But you must begin from the assumption that she speaks a truth.”

  Interesting. “You say ‘a truth.’ You believe more than one exists?”

  “I don’t know.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the console, his green and gold shirt a contrast to his dark coloring. “If you think we are harboring the killer, you are wrong.”

  “I had wondered,” I admitted. “I’d have come here regardless, though. As Jagernauts, you more than anyone else can give me insight into her motives.”

  “Why? Jagernauts can’t commit murder.”

  “Supposedly.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “We don’t know for certain what happened,” I amended.

  “You think it didn’t happen?”

  “No, it happened. Calaj shot Tavan Ganz. I’m wondering if she believed he was an enemy of ISC.” That was no good, either; the J-Force couldn’t have its top officers executing people. It was better than the alternative, though, that Calaj had gone insane and was murdering the citizens she had sworn to protect.

  “If it were that simple,” the Uzan said, “Secondary Calaj would have reported him to her CO. Her involvement would have stopped there unless they asked her to act as their agent.”

  “She didn’t report him to anyone. As far as we can tell, they had no connection.”

  He shook
his head. “It is impossible for me to envision a scenario where a Jagernaut would commit such a murder. I use my spinal node continually. I’ve had it for fifty years. I cannot imagine any way in which it could let me commit murder. It would freeze me in place if I tried.”

  “What if it corrupted your thoughts, so you didn’t consider the act murder?”

  He motioned at the command center. “If it corrupted mine, it would have to corrupt every Abaj on Raylicon without any of us realizing it. We are all in contact. Hundreds of us.”

  “Most Jagernauts aren’t Abaj, though,” I said. “They work in squads of only four people.”

  “Have you talked to Calaj’s squad?”

  “Yes.” It had given me a grand total of zero insights. “None of them noticed anything unusual.”

  He rubbed his chin. “A squad monitors itself, as do their ships and the weapons platforms they work with. Have you checked those records?”

  “Yes, several times.” I’d spent the night going through every file the military provided for Calaj and her squad. All that endless, tedious work had turned up zilch. “It’s all in order.”

  He sat back in his chair. “Then how do you think I can help you?”

  “So far every method we’ve used to find Calaj has failed.” I tilted my head toward the center below. “You monitor an entire planet. And as Jagernauts, you’re better able to predict her actions.”

  “Ever since you contacted us, we have searched for Secondary Calaj. We haven’t found her.”

  I blinked, startled. I’d seen no sign of communication between him and anyone else here. Then again, the gauntlets on his wrist continually flickered with lights. “Maybe she’s left Raylicon.”

  “On what? Both we and ISC are monitoring all planetary traffic. She hasn’t left.”

  I scowled. “ISC can’t even locate the signature of her biomech web.”

  “It’s possible to mask biomech signals.” He considered me. “As I’ve no doubt you know.”

  Perceptive. I was good at hiding the signals from the biomech within my own body. In my line of work, it was a necessity. I tried to read his expression, with no success. “What would you do if you were Calaj?”

  “If I just wanted to hide,” he said, “I would go to a remote location, bringing whatever sensor shrouds and supplies I could carry, go underground, and stay on the move.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that answer. “What else would you want to do besides hide?”

  “You say the pharaoh believes Calaj will kill again.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she has to go to a place with people to kill.”

  “The City of Cries.”

  He regarded me steadily. “We can monitor the city in great detail. She isn’t there.”

  I knew of only one other possibility, one harder to monitor, not only because of its location and poverty, but also because of the cyber-wizards who hid their illegal activity. “The Undercity.”

  “It is a possibility.”

  Well, shit. I hated that thought just as much now as I had the other times it had occurred to me this past day. We already had enough trouble with our own killers in the Undercity; we didn’t need to import more of them from offworld.

  “It should be impossible for one of you to murder,” I said. “Yet it happened. I need to understand how the symbiosis works between a Jagernaut and their spinal node.”

  He studied me, his deep-set eyes revealing nothing.

  Then he said, “I can offer you more than insight.”

  III

  Radiance Denied

  The Abaj set me up at a telop console in the command center. Its silvery exoskeleton enclosed my body as if I were a crustacean, hard outside, soft inside. It reminded me of my early army days, when I had volunteered for any shift that offered an outlet for my insatiable need to learn. I’d even spent some time assigned to a dreadnought, though they were Imperial Fleet rather than Pharaoh’s Army. During my security detail with them, I’d often sat in a command chair like this, linked to a console. I knew even better now how to use the system, and I had the best tech-mech gauntlets on the market. I jacked the console prongs into my gauntlets, which linked to my biomech. Max blocked the wireless signals in the room, allowing only the direct connection, which was easier to secure. The visor lowered over my head, shutting out the blue light of the command center. Blackness surrounded me.

  Bhaaj, Max thought. The Uzan wants to link to me.

  Let him, I thought.

  The Uzan’s thought rumbled in my brain. Major?

  You have good biomech, I thought. Not many systems could link to my mind this way. His presence came with a sense of deserts and open spaces, the endless ride in the wind, the sun hot on his back. He was a reservoir of calm. His loyalty to the Ruby Dynasty, to Raylicon, and to the Imperialate permeated his thoughts. The good in him went deep, but so too did the capacity for violence, tempered like a blade. I picked up one other fact from this ageless warrior who led the guardians of Izu Yaxlan: he didn’t realize how much of himself he had just revealed.

  Another thought came into my mind, this one with a metallic feel. Attending.

  Who is that? I asked.

  My spinal node, the Uzan thought. He is called Az.

  Ah. I see. I had never had another person’s EI in my brain. I didn’t like it.

  Too crowded, Max agreed. Do you want me to shut them out?

  No, don’t do that. I directed a thought outward. Az, try to control my thoughts.

  Why? he asked. It serves no purpose.

  It is an experiment, the Uzan thought. Your purpose is to force the major to commit murder.

  Bhaaj! Max thought. I’m dropping you out of this link.

  No, I answered. Let the experiment play out.

  A thought formed in my mind, not words exactly, more a sense of meaning that my mind translated into words. Kill the Abaj who brought you here.

  An impulse came to me, but it felt foreign. Intrusive. Metallic.

  No, I will not, I thought.

  Kill the Abaj.

  Go away.

  Kill the Abaj.

  Screw you, I told it.

  Shutdown protocol, Az thought.

  I’m kicking his ass out of here, Max thought.

  Disengage, the Uzan thought.

  The metallic sense disappeared from my mind.

  Bhaaj, are you all right? Max asked.

  I’m fine. I focused my thought toward the Uzan. Are you all right?

  Yes, he answered.

  Yes, Max also thought. He must have thought I meant him, which actually, I should have.

  This is confusing. I was getting a headache. Is Az all right?

  I am operational again, Az thought.

  Again? Did something make you inoperational?

  The situation mandated my deactivation.

  What situation?

  My attempt to coerce you to commit murder, Az answered.

  Could you have stopped yourself from deactivating? I asked.

  Not unless the moral code of the four of us in this link changed.

  That wasn’t the answer I had expected, which was a flat denial. Do you mean that if all four of us in this link agreed that the other Jagernaut should die, you wouldn’t have shut down?

  I would still have deactivated. The context is wrong. Before I could respond, Az added, You will ask if we could change the context to justify murder. The answer is no.

  My headache was getting worse. Why is the answer no?

  Bhaaj, I’m getting strange readings on your neural activity, Max thought.

  What? I couldn’t concentrate on his words.

  Your neurons, Max thought. Too many are firing at once.

  Too much neural activity, Az thought. In the same instant, the Uzan though, Major Bhaajan, your spinal node is overloading.

  A wave of disorientation swept over me. I had the oddest sensation, as if my brain were spinning inside my head. It started out unpleasant and grew wors
e, like a whirlwind of mental pain.

  Bhaaj, get out! Max shouted.

  Dropping link, the Uzan thought, his words echoing as if they came from two different places. Or maybe that came from him and Az at the same time. I couldn’t think—I was dissolving—

  Everything abruptly stopped, as if I had dropped into a mental vacuum. I stood in a blank space where four of us had crowded together an instant ago. That emptiness disturbed me even more than the storm of sensations. What if I were trapped here forever—

  With a whir, the visor retracted from my head. I gulped and opened my eyes into blue light. I couldn’t see anything, just blue everywhere. It lasted a moment before my mind reset and I could see again. The Uzan was standing over me, and this time I could read his expression just fine. He was worried. Behind him, the Jagernaut that Az had commanded me to kill was working at his console, reading whatever output scrolled across its screens.

  “Gods,” I muttered.

  “Are you all right?” the Uzan asked.

  “Yes. Fine.” It wasn’t true; I felt shaken and my head throbbed. “Let’s not do that again.”

  I’d never have expected an Abaj to show relief, but his was undeniable. “Yes. I agree.”

  “What happened?”

  “You received too much neural input. Your spinal node tried to shut down your brain.”

  I liked the sound of that about as much as I liked the prospect of getting punched in the gut. I glanced at the Abaj at the console, the one who had escorted me into this center. He had turned to watch us. “Sorry,” I said. “I’d never have done it.”

  “I know.” He went back to work.

  The Uzan touched a panel on the arm of my chair. With a click, my exoskeleton retracted as if it were a chrysalis allowing me to emerge. I stood up, then froze as dizziness swept over me. When it receded, I scowled at the Uzan. “You could have warned me.”

  “Actually, not,” he said. “I didn’t know it would affect you this way.”

  “Do you think Calaj reacted this way?” If so, I understood why they all said her EI couldn’t have influenced her to commit murder.

  “She would have an even stronger reaction against it,” the Uzan said.