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

the blanket so tight around my
legs I could barely move. I pulled off the covers and turned over again, facing
the console, the air cool on my bare skin.
    A button the size of a coin was glowing blue on the console.
I pushed it. “Yes?”
    “Soz.” Rex’s voice floated out of the speaker.
    My shoulder muscles relaxed. “Heya.”
    “Were you sleeping?”
    “No. I’ve just been lying here.”
    “Do you remember Jo Santis? That officer you bunked with
when we went for retraining a few years ago?”
    “Vaguely.” Whatever prompted him to ask a question like
that? “Why?”
    “She told me something about you. I’ve been thinking about
it.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that. What in a spacer’s helmet
had I done that some woman I barely knew would tell Rex and that he would find
thought-provoking after all these years? “What did she say?”
    “She told me you sleep naked.” I could almost see his wicked
grin. “That true?”
    Ah. I stretched my arms. “Maybe.” I almost added, Why don’t
you come and find out? But for some reason those words stayed in my throat.
Instead, I said, “I used to when I was a girl, when it was hot.” We hadn’t even
had fans to cool my father’s house.
    “Soz ...”
    “Yes?”
    “I can deal with the succession thing. It just caught me by
surprise.”
    I exhaled. “I should have said something before. I was
stupid.”
    “You’re never stupid.” He laughed. “Dense as hell sometimes.
But never stupid.”
    “Hey.” I smiled. “I’m still your CO, you know.”
    “I’d rather a wife.”
    “Me too.” After he retired, he would have to get my family’s
approval before we could marry. But he would pass. Even I could see how well
suited he and I were.
    “You want a wife too?” Rex asked.
    I laughed. “No. You. Husband.”
    His voice softened. “See you tomorrow, Soz.”
    “Night.”
    After we cut the connection, I still couldn’t sleep. Now it
was because I kept remembering how tightly his pants had fit. I was never going
to get any rest now. Finally I sat up and turned on the lamp over the bed. Soft
light diffused through its blue glass.
    The book Tiller had given me lay on the nightstand by the console.
I opened it to the title page. Verses on a Windowpane. A pen-and-ink
drawing below the title showed a window frosted with snow and ice. An
indistinct form was visible on the other side of the pane, someone or something
just barely discernible through the icy coating on the glass. The unknown
figure was drawing in the frost, tips of fingers showing against the window.
    As I flipped through the book, a tag fell out, a ticket stub
from the Arcade. It marked a page with a poem on it and another drawing of the
frosted window. Whatever had been on the other side of the glass was gone now.
The pane had shattered, its broken glass jutting up in shards that glistened
with ice on their edges. The poem was written in English, but my spinal node
translated it:
    A frame of stone. Silvered glass frosted with icy tears.
    My fist closes on the mirror; flesh traps ice. Brittle snaps
of breaking tears. I see you now standing behind me: always watching, always
waiting, never satisfied.
    I sheathe my heart, its bare softness guarded by ice.
    “For pugging sakes.” I closed the book. “What kind of poem
is that?” I dropped the book on the console and lay down again. What was Rex
doing right now? Sleeping? Did be sleep with his clothes on? Weird
images from the poem mixed in my mind with far more appealing images of Rex
minus his uniform.
    Finally I got up and got dressed. Then I went for a walk. It
was either that or take a cold shower.
    The crowds on the Arcade had thinned to almost nothing. I
walked through a south corner of Athens, then jogged along a path that crossed
the stubbly fields surrounding the Delos starport. When I reached the first
terminal, I went in on the upper level, where the arrival and departure gates
were located. The place had that latenight feel unique