Primary Inversion (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Paperback by Catherine Asaro

noise Trader uniforms made when someone bent at the waist.
The door whispered shut and the pound of boots receded through the house.
    The Aristo turned to me. “What do you want?”
    I went to the console, keeping my empty gun trained on my
hostage, and turned off the speakers. Alarms still blared in the rest of the
mansion, but at least it was quieter in here.
    “Have a seat,” I said. “We’re going to talk.”
    He made no move to sit. “I have nothing to say to you.”
    “You didn’t feel that way in the bar.”
    Unexpectedly, he smiled. “No, I didn’t.”
    There should have been a law against an Aristo having such a
beautiful smile. No, he couldn’t be an Aristo. Not with a smile like that. “I
don’t believe you’re a Highton,” I said.
    “Why?”
    His surprise sounded genuine. If he was a fake, either he
didn’t know it or he was an astoundingly good actor. But I couldn’t be sure. At
close range, I could pick up an Aristo’s emotions easily; their lack of empathy
had no effect on how an empath perceived them. But I picked up zilch from this
one. Nothing. He was a blank wall.
    I moved to the balcony doors and nudged open the curtains. A
man was patrolling the garden below. “Your guards are good.”
    “Apparently not good enough.”
    “None of this makes sense.” I let the curtain close again. “You
have eleven guards, and at least one of them has a biomech web in his body.” I
thought of the guard with the providers. “Another is in favor with a powerful
Highton, one with far more rank than you could have at your age. And few
people, especially at your age, want or need to undergo the invasive operation
that’s left you with a cyberlock in your brain. Since your guards hold the key
to the lock instead of you, they must take their orders from someone else.”
    He stared at me. “How did you know all of that?”
    I didn’t. Most of it had been conjecture. But he had just
verified it. “I’m good at what I do.”
    “Yes. You are.”
    I blinked. No Aristo would openly concede that someone like
me, who to them was no more than goods for barter, had competency at anything
besides serving Aristos. They knew perfectly well what we were capable of, but
they never acknowledged it. Yes, this man had the mannerisms, the carriage, the
accent of a Highton. But not the scorn. A true Aristo would have made no secret
of his intent to punish me for my actions. I would have felt his contempt.
But I felt nothing with this one. He looked both annoyed and intrigued, but I
felt none of it. Nothing. It was almost worse than the cavity.
    Then it hit me. He had blocks in his mind. These
weren’t the instinctive psychological walls anyone could raise, empath or not.
Elaborate mental barriers protected this man. He had been trained to stop his
KEB from transmitting to other empaths. I knew the huge investment of time and
effort it took to learn those barricading techniques. It had been part of my
Jagernaut training. It was different from the mental doors I closed to let
other empaths know my feelings were private. These were fortified protections
that could be broken only by the force of a stronger mind.
    But only psions built such barriers. Only psions.
Normal people had neither the need nor the ability to do it. In fact, even with
biomech enhancements most psibernauts couldn’t erect barriers as strong as I
detected in this man. He was blocking out even me. That meant he had to be a
potent telepath. But no Aristo could be a psion. It just plain wasn’t in their
precious gene pool.
    “Why do you look at me this way?” the Aristo asked.
    “What way?” I said.
    “As if I am a laboratory specimen.”
    “I’m trying to figure out why a provider is traveling as a
Highton.”
    His anger sparked. “You come up here, throwing insults and waving
guns, demeaning my bloodlines. Well, I am not impressed. Go ahead, shoot. This
is what Jagernauts do, isn’t it? Kill without compunction.”
    I didn’t need telepathy