Primary Inversion (27 page)

      
I recognized far too many of them.

      
I was starting to shake. It wasn’t cold, but my body shook as if ice covered it. I walked around the Dome, looking at the panels, seeing more recent dates, seeing more familiar names. So many.
So many.
Why did I know so many of them? I remembered their faces, how they laughed, walked, spoke. Every name cursed me, an accusation that I lived when they had died. I wanted to run from this place, to hide, to bury my head in the oblivion of alcohol, of forgetfulness, of death. But I couldn’t stop reading, or walking, or remembering. I came closer and closer to the last panel, inexorably, unable to keep away. I didn’t want to go near it, but I couldn’t stop.

      
Then I was there. The dates were from the past year. His name was engraved at eye level, just a name, like all the others.

      
Kelricson Garlin Valdoria Skolia, Jagernaut Tertiary.

      
Kelric. My baby brother.

      
He had been Kurj’s third heir. The only other person besides Jaibriol Qox who had ever shared with me that miraculous joining of minds only two Rhon psions could know.

      
I took off my gloves and touched the marble, scraping my fingers along his name. Then, slowly, I slid to my knees, my hand dragging along the stone, my fingernails rasping over each name. I crumpled at the bottom with my fists clenched on my knees and my head bowed. And I cried.

      
I knelt there, my shoulders heaving, and I wept until it hurt.

X

A Time To Heal

The caroling of a bird pulled me awake. I lifted my head, confused. Why was I so stiff? I found myself looking across a stone floor to a stone panel. Then I remembered.

      
I was sitting with my back against a panel of the Dome and my knees pulled to my chest. Although the sun hadn’t yet risen, dawn was probably only a few minutes away. I put on my gloves, then rose to my feet and walked stiffly out of the monument, my mind slowly waking with the rest of the morning. The dawn’s chill cut the air, and dew covered my uniform. I felt exhausted, as if I had run a race all night.

      
I crossed a lawn to the highway, heading into Eos. Only a few flycars hovered along the road this early, sailing on air cushions above the blue tiles. Their passengers stared as they whirred past, but today I didn’t care. I didn’t have the energy. Nothing mattered except completing this walk. I kept my mind numb, afraid that if I let it function, I would never finish what I had started.

      
By the time I reached Eos, the sun had risen. The road became a wide boulevard that cut through the center of the city. Trees lined the street, though fewer than where I lived. Broad lawns of trimmed cloud-grass floated everywhere, stretching between government buildings and around ring shaped sculptures. Traffic hummed on the road, and pedestrians strode along the walkway, some glancing at me with wariness or curiosity, others absorbed in their own thoughts.

      
I kept going.

      
Eventually I reached the Imperial embassy. I climbed the wide steps, walked between the soaring columns, and entered a vaulted hall that arched high above my head. People sat on the benches lining the walls, engrossed in their own business: talking, reading, waiting. At the far end of the hall, a line of people waited to enter the embassy proper, to take care of whatever business had brought them here. I walked down the hall, my boots echoing on the marble floor, and joined the line.

      
I could have bypassed it. I could have gone to the front or to another entrance, or even gone home and had someone from the Embassy pick me up after I slept. Instead I waited. If I deviated from my path, I would never finish this walk.

      
The line went up a flight of stairs to where a woman stood at a podium. She gave each person directions and then sent them through a security check into the embassy. When I reached the front of the line, the woman smiled and spoke as if it were perfectly natural for a Jagernaut Primary to show up at her station.

      
“What can we do for you this morning?” she asked.

      
I couldn’t go on. I had made it this far, but I couldn’t go any further.

      
She tried again. “Can I direct you to an office?”

      
I just looked at her. And then I said, “I want to see the heartbender.”

      
The people behind me stopped talking. Everyone within earshot turned to look. The sudden silence jarred.

      
Whoever had chosen the embassy staff, chose well. The woman didn’t even blink. This was probably the only time in her career she had encountered the request, but she showed no hesitation. She touched a button on her podium, then spoke to me. “An escort will take you to see Tager.”

      
I looked past her to the wide marble hall that stretched far back into the embassy. Four men appeared at the end, striding toward us. They were big. I had no doubt they were also armed. 

      
She motioned to the security gate. “You can go on through, Primary.”

      
The gate was the usual arch monitored by guards. When I stepped through it, lights blazed, horns shrilled, buzzers buzzed. I hadn’t even thought to take off my Jumbler. The two guards dropped their hands to their guns, and the escorts coming to get me increased their speed, coming faster down the hall. I just stood, trying to stay numb.

      
No one spoke. No one asked for my weapons. The people in line stared, the woman at the podium waited, the guards watched. I felt their emotions like sandpaper on a raw wound. They feared that if they did the wrong thing it would set me off like an explosion. No one understood the truth, that the risk was to me, not to them. One wrong word, one wrong look, one wrong move from anyone, and I would beat it out of there so fast, they would hear the air whistle past my clothes.

      
The escort reached us, and the tallest man bowed. “Welcome.” He motioned toward the hall he had just come down, raising his arm as if I were a guest at an embassy dinner and he my host. He was undoubtedly one of the elite guards in their security force, but no sign hint of his status showed on his civilian clothes or in his gracious manner.

      
So I went with them. They took me through vaulted archways and polished corridors until we reached an office. Its walls were glass, dark and opaque on the outside, but I was sure whoever waited inside could see us.

      
A door in the glass slid open. Past it, a man stood in the center of the room regarding us. When my escort stopped at the door, I glanced at them, first right, then left. They just stood there. So I walked into the office alone. It was big, with a white carpet so thick it covered the toes of my boots. The glass shelves lining the walls held delicate vases, glass statues, other knick-knacks. The paintings on the walls were attractive enough to please the eye without being distracting. 

      
I walked over to the man. He seemed a normal person with brown hair and a lean build.

      
“Are you the heartbender?” I asked. It wasn’t his true title, of course. His official designation would be Imperial Space Command Class A6 Psychiatrist.

      
“Yes. I’m Jak Tager.” He glanced at the escort and lifted his hand. The door immediately shut, leaving me in private with Jak Tager, Class A6 heartwrencher.

      
I went to a shelf and peered at a glass vase. “You have a lot of breakable stuff in here.”

      
He came over to join me. “I guess I do.”

      
He hardly looked like a world class mental health expert. The woman at the security check had just called him Tager. “Are you a doctor?”

      
He nodded. “I have a medical degree and also a doctorate in psychology.”

      
“How many patients do you have?”

      
He smiled slightly. “One.”

      
“Does that include me?”

      
“Yes.”

      
I snorted. “Then what do you do with all your time?”

      
“Research.” He seemed pleased by my interest. “I study the psychological effects of human-biomechanical interfaces.”

      
Gods almighty. He was
that
Tager. I had read his work myself. The man was the undisputed expert on the effects of biomech on the people who carried them in their bodies. I had never realized his actual occupation was heartbender. It meant that in addition to his scientific accomplishments he also had an ISC commission, most likely from JMI or the Dieshan Military Academy.

      
I had no idea what to make of him. He looked so normal. Ten years ago, when I had gone to the heartbender after the Tams incident, I asked her how many patients she had seen in her career. She told me eight.
Eight.
In twenty-five years, and that included me who saw her only twice.

      
I hadn’t wanted to see her. I had gone because I was forced. Yes, my CO had chosen well. Had I had any inclination to accept help, she could have given it. She was the one I wanted to talk to now. But that was irrelevant. Tager was my only choice, and for some stupid reason I didn’t want to talk to a man. I didn’t know why. I just didn’t want to do it.

      
I exhaled. “Maybe I made a mistake coming here. I’m wasting your time.”

      
“What made you decide to come?” he asked.

      
“No problem, really.” After a moment I added, “I’ve just done a few things lately that are—a little strange.”

      
“Strange in what way?”

      
“Last night I pointed a primed Jumbler at my head.”

      
Tager spoke quietly. “Tell me about it.”

      
“I was talking to this singer in a pub. I was drunk. I put the gun against my head without the safety on. My hand wasn’t steady.” I stopped. I didn’t want to talk to this stranger, not about last night and not about anything.

      
Except this time I had come of my own free will, looking for something, I didn’t know what, but I wouldn’t find it unless I made an effort. I took a breath and tried again. “Two nights ago I almost killed a man, an ordinary civilian, just because he pushed me up against the wall. I don’t know why. Well, yes, I think he’s obnoxious. I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me. But that’s all.”

      
Tager was still watching me with that look of his, like he genuinely wanted to understand. Well, that was his job, after all. He had to look that way.

      
“How did it happen?” he asked.

      
“I didn’t like how he touched me.” I was getting uncomfortable, really uncomfortable, far more than what I was saying warranted. “I snapped. I don’t know why.”

      
“What did you do?”

      
“I broke a glass and almost stabbed him.”

      
“Why didn’t you like the way he touched you?” Tager spoke carefully, but not like the people at the security check who had been afraid I would explode. With Tager it was as if I was someone he respected, which was absurd considering I had known him less than five minutes. Respect had to be earned, and I had done nothing to earn his yet.

      
“He touched the strap of my dress.” Relating the incident made me feel foolish. To say I had overreacted was an understatement. “Then he put his hand between my breasts and pushed me against the wall.”

      
Tager didn’t try to hide his surprise. “Did he know you were a Primary?”

      
“No. I had just met him in a hiking club.”      

      
“Did he threaten you?”

      
“No.”

      
“You’re sure?”

      
“Of course I’m sure.”

      
“Why?” Tager asked.

      
I frowned at him. “What do you mean, why? Because I know.”

      
“How?”

      
Why was he asking me that? “I’m an empath, that’s how.” I scowled. “He made some crack about me being a bitch. But he wouldn’t have tried anything violent.”

      
“And you sure?”

      
“Yes, I’m sure. You got a problem with that?”

      
“Your reflexes wouldn’t activate without a reason.”

      
Is this how he earned his probably stratospheric salary, by stating the obvious to his one and only patient? “You’re the heartbender. You tell me what the problem is.”

      
Tager exhaled. “You have to give me some help.”

      
“That what you learned from all those degrees? Have the patient diagnose herself?”

      
He showed no irritation, just continued in his quiet voice. “I need you to tell me more.”

      
Something was odd about the way he watched me. I had seen that look before. For some reason it eased my anger. “Like what?”

      
“Have you done anything else recently that is out of character?”

      
I finally recognized his expression. My mother got that look when someone she cared about was in pain. And his concern felt genuine. He wasn’t giving me a trained mask he wore for patients, however few he had. I mattered to him. But why? Why should he feel compassion for me, a person he had never met before, a biosynthetic marvel of fake humanity?

      
“No,” I said. “I haven’t done anything else strange. I’m only myself.” That was strange enough. “Maybe I should go home. I’m just tired, that’s all. I walked a long way yesterday.”