Carnelians by Catherine Asaro Page B

for subservient, helpless slavery.
    “Why you stare at me?” he asked.
    She grinned. “Cause you’re just so ugly I can’t get over it.”
    He winced as if she had struck him. “My sorry.”
    “Red, I was joking! You’re gorgeous.”
    “Not. Admiral threw me away. Am hideous.”
    “He’s an idiot.” Gods, she was going to get herself killed if she kept this up, insulting Aristos and pounding powerful people. “Did he, um, I mean, did he make you . . .” She was too embarrassed to go any further.
    “He not want me for that,” Red said. “Only to provide. Has pretty girl providers for sex.”
    “Maybe that’s why he threw you away,” Aliana said. “Because you aren’t a girl.” She drew him away from the wall. “We have to get out of the city. I think we should hide on a boat.”
    “Not go back to your hexagon?”
    “Not a chance,” she said. “I don’t know if any holocams caught that fight. Most are broken in this part of town. But Red, I beat the cold crap out of those two. And they know what I look like.” She shook her head. “We got to run, sweet stuff, far and fast, before they find us.”
    He didn’t look convinced. “How?”
    Aliana grimaced. “I wish I knew.”
    “We’re losing her pulse,” Doctor Sashia shouted. She ran with med techs and Jagernauts down a metal corridor toward an air-speed tube, deep within the Orbiter’s hull. The air stretcher floated next to her, protecting its priceless cargo in a cocoon that blocked out physical, audio, visual, tactile, and neurological stresses. The nodes in Sashia’s spine linked to the stretcher’s EI brain, letting her analyze her patient even as they ran.
    The door of the air tube snapped open as they arrived. It took only seconds for Sashia, the techs, and the guards to cram into the car there. As it shot off toward the hospital, Sashia bent over the stretcher and administered a dose of psi-active drugs to her patient. Her hands were clammy.
    Her patient—the Ruby Pharaoh—was dying.
    “He’s lost too much blood!” Doctor Blueson called to his medical team. “Bring me more plasma, nanomed serum five-oh-nine.”
    Monitors blazed while slave-bots and Razers loomed around Blueson. The emperor lay collapsed on his back, the gaping wounds in his torso pumping blood as the medics desperately worked. Blood soaked Blueson’s hands, Jaibriol’s shredded clothes, the debris-strewn floor, everything in the ruins of the hall. The empress was in no better condition, and another team was working just as urgently to save her life.
    “Gods almighty,” a medic in the other group choked. “She’s pregnant! ”
    “Stabilize her!” Blueson shouted. He felt as if he were on an out of control racer rocketing off a cliff. He was only a lieutenant, but he had been the closest on hand when the explosion shook the palace. Now he was responsible for the lives of the emperor and empress, and gods help him, apparently for the long-awaited heir to the Carnelian Throne as well.
    A woman in the uniform of an ESComm colonel strode into the chaos. The badge on her uniform said Lyra Qoxdaughter. Everyone but the medics jumped to attention. Blueson shot her a harried glance but otherwise kept working on the emperor. So much blood and he couldn’t stop it, not even with adherents and injected meds.
    Qoxdaughter knelt next to him. Short yellow hair dusted with grey fell around her face as she helped Blueson close one of the wounds in Jaibriol’s torso. She spoke crisply. “Download.”
    The node in Blueson’s spine hurtled data at Qoxdaughter’s spinal node. As the emperor’s personal physician, she had a far greater rank than Blueson even beyond her military status. She could slave his node to hers and take what she needed. Of course she was privileged. She was the half-Aristo daughter of the emperor’s grandfather.
    “Your choice of nanomed series is odd,” she said as they worked. “I’ve never seen that combination before.”
    Blueson froze,