Skyfall by Catherine Asaro Page B

them from his grandfather. They covered his eyes with gold films. He could see through them, but to everyone else they were opaque, making him a cipher.
    Kurj and Jarac could have passed as twins, if not for the gray in Jarac’s hair. But no one confused them. Where Jarac was kind, Kurj was hard; where Jarac smiled, Kurj showed no emotion. As Imperator, Jarac headed Imperial Space Command, the military. His title was hereditary; he split the actual command among his senior officers. With a proclivity for peace, he chose commanders who understood but didn’t relish war.
    Roca was next in line to become Imperator, a title she would someday assume by joining the Dyad, the power link that controlled the interstellar information network known as the Kyle web. Kurj was next after her, though he had far more interest than she in the title. He knew Roca intended to delegate authority much as Jarac did now, and that she shared her father’s preferences for diplomacy over warfare.
    Kurj had other ideas.
    In his younger days, Kurj had flown a starfighter in the J-Forces, a branch of the military. He had fast become known as a ruthless and versatile pilot, earning rapid promotions until he attained the rank of Primary, equivalent to an admiral or general. At thirty-five, he was the youngest officer to hold such a high position. Now he oversaw all the J-Forces.
    He had two obsessions.
    His first was Eube, that vast empire his people called the Traders. Its aristocratic rulers based their economy on the buying and selling of people. The Trader Aristos enslaved over a trillion people on hundreds of worlds and habitats. Given the chance, they would conquer Skolia and subjugate her people as well.
    As a pilot, Kurj had experienced Aristo inhumanity firsthand. The agony of their captives stabbed his empath’s mind, even reaching from one ship to another. He felt Aristos savoring the deaths of the soldiers they killed. When his units had liberated Eubian captives, he felt the suffering behind their traumatized silences. He took it all in, shell-shocked and unwilling, until finally he could bear it no more. He raised impenetrable mental shields, cutting himself off from all emotion. Driven by his memories of a stepfather who had brutalized his mother as Aristos brutalized their slaves, he swore nothing could appease his hatred for the Traders except their destruction.
    His second obsession was Roca.
     
    “You lost her?” Kurj slowly stood up behind the massive desk in his office. “How the hell could you lose her?”
    Sweat beaded the forehead of the man facing him, an J-Forces officer named Render. “We aren’t sure how the Councilor gave us the slip, sir, but she disappeared two days ago.”
    Kurj restrained the urge to grit his teeth. “I want every operative you have on the search. Find my mother. Understand?”
    “Yes, sir!”
    “And one more thing, Quaternary Render,” Kurj added in a deceptively quiet voice.
    Render stared at him. Prior to entering Kurj’s office, the man had held the rank of Secondary, roughly equivalent to a lieutenant colonel in other branches of the military. Kurj had just demoted him to the lowest rank in the J-Force.
    “Yes, sir?”
    Kurj watched the man through the gold sheen of his inner lids. Render couldn’t see his eyes, only an unbroken shimmer. “If you find my mother—and she is unharmed—you may manage to stay out of prison.”
    Render swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
    “Good. Dismissed.”
    Render saluted, crossing his clenched fists at the wrists and raising them to Kurj, his arms out straight. Then he left—fast.
    Alone now, Kurj paced along the window-wall behind his desk. Lost in thought, he only glanced at the spectacular landscape outside, far below his office in the Orbiter, the space station where he worked. Military experts had developed its biosphere to provide an optimum working environment for the powers of Skolia, but today he barely noticed the rolling hills, lush forests, or