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

to starports, with their
cool lights that never went off and their chrome and glass halls. I paced along
its artificially bright corridors like a thug in black boots.
    Eventually I came to one of the ubiquitous security checkpoints,
a simple arch about two meters tall. Unlike its crude predecessors that
predated the interstellar age, this arch made multiple recordings of anyone
passing under it, everything from magnetic resonance scans to an analysis of
the person’s skeletal structure. The computer attached to it analyzed the data,
and also the behavior of the travelers as they passed through it.
    Two guards staffed the checkpoint, a man and a woman who
were checking a line of bored people through the arch. I got into the line for
no other reason than the fact that it was someplace to go. Anything was better
than returning to the inn, where all I could find to do was read weird poems
about sheathing bare hearts, whatever that meant.
    As the line moved forward more people queued up behind me,
most of them looking half asleep. When my turn came, I stalked through the arch
and sent the console into shock. Lights flashed and alarms shrilled loud enough
to wake up every person in the entire area.
    The guards stepped in front of me. The woman looked at the
bands on my jacket, then spoke to me in English. “I’m sorry, Primary. But we
can’t let you through until we find out the problem.”
    I nodded. Although Skolian law gave Jagernauts the right to
carry weapons in boarding areas of spaceports without a permit, Allied law didn’t.
So we compromised; they could take my weapons until I left the area.
    I pulled the switchblade out of my boot. As I straightened
up with it, both guards drew their burn-lasers. I handed it to the woman. She
blinked, then reholstered her gun and took my knife. Next I gave her the
thorn-tube I had hidden in the sleeve of my jacket, and the tiny dart thrower
tucked under my belt. She turned the weapons over in her hands as if she didn’t
know what to do with them.
    “Is that all?” she asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    The man indicated the metal studs on my jacket. “Those will
still set off the alarms.”
    I took off the jacket and handed it to him. Underneath I was
wearing a Regulation Class Six Garment, Upper Body Issue, Type 3; in other
words, a plain black pullover. But when the man glanced at my pants, which also
had metal studs on them, I said, “I not give you those.”
    He reddened. “I didn’t mean—of course not.”
    I tapped my torso, then my head, then my thighs. “Got
biomech in here.”
    He blew out a gust of air. “Well, give it another try and we’ll
see what happens.”
    I went around and walked under the arch again. The alarms
were just as loud now as the first time. The guards were very polite while they
scanned me for more weapons. They were very polite when they asked me to go
through three more times and submit to three more scans so that they could
verify it was the metal on my uniform and the biomech web in my body that were
setting off the alarms. Meanwhile the line of people behind me grew longer and
longer.
    Finally the woman said, “She’s clean.”
    The man nodded. “All right. You can go on through, Primary.”
    Someone in the line clapped. I laughed—and half of the waiting
people jumped. They must have seen too many Jagernaut-runs-amok movies.
    Once I made it through the checkpoint, though, I had no idea
where to go. So I walked. And walked. Eventually I stopped near a deserted
gate. I stood in front of its door, staring at my reflection in the windowpane
that made up its upper half.
    “Want to retire?” I asked the woman staring at me. Perhaps
it was time to let go, to rest, to give myself the peace I needed to clean out
that file of suppressed memories.
    Small footsteps sounded nearby. A child’s voice spoke in English.
“Do you have a motorcycle?”
    I looked down to see a girl of about five gazing up at me
with her big eyes. I smiled and tried out my