Carnelians by Catherine Asaro Read Free Book Online Page A

insanity.”
    “We can figure out how to make it work.” He rubbed his shoulder, trying to ease the stiff muscles. His knee joints hurt, too. Damn war injuries. “If anyone can help me do that, it’s you.”
    She tilted her head, studying him. Her eyes were green, like the foliage deep in a forest, but a translucent film covered them, the vestigial inner eyelid she had inherited from her father. In Dehya, the lid was almost invisible, just a trace of gold and rosy hues. Sunrise eyes, people called them. They were beautiful, large and heavily fringed with black lashes, and right now they were filled with her suspicion that he had gone nuts.
    “What makes you think I want to make it work?” she asked.
    “You supported the peace treaty,” Kelric said. “If we plan to trade with the Eubians instead of trying to annihilate them, we have a million details we need to work out, everything from minor import tariffs to how a civilization like ours that considers human freedom an inalienable right is going to trade with an empire whose economy is based on slavery.”
    “I agree, we need a summit,” she said. “But this idea to have us all meet face to face is crazy. The delegates from both governments would probably rather be dropped on a hill of starving vampire-ants.”
    Kelric gave a startled snort of laughter. “That’s a lovely thought.”
    “Yes, well, I can’t imagine a bigger security nightmare than putting a bunch of Trader sadists with delusions of godhood into the same hall as our vociferously contentious Assembly councilors. They’d all want to strangle each other.”
    “It would be a security problem,” he admitted. To describe it more accurately would involve profanity he didn’t use around Dehya.
    “We can do the summit in a virtual reality simulation,” she said. “We stay here, the Traders stay there, and everyone is safe. The Kyle web will give us almost instantaneous communications.”
    Kelric scowled at her. “It’s too easy to lie in virtual reality. And don’t tell me about how we have all these wonderful protocols to prevent it. Everyone cheats.”
    “That may be,” she said. “But a virtual summit is the best we’re going to get.”
    “Nothing is impossible.”
    A hum interrupted their argument, coming from a gold square in the table. Kelric touched the panel. “Skolia here.”
    A holo appeared above the table, the head and shoulders of Admiral Chad Barzun, Kelric’s top naval commander. Normally the granite-haired officer had a gratifyingly calm and solid demeanor, but today he looked frazzled.
    “Sir, we have a situation,” Chad told him.
    Damn. Anything the even-keeled Barzun described as a “situation” was more likely a disaster of interstellar proportions, like a declaration of war from the Traders. “What is it?” Kelric asked.
    “It’s your brother,” Chad said. “Prince Del-Kurj.”
    Kelric winced. That could be even more stressful than a new war. “What’s he done?”
    “One of his songs has been released.”
    “A lot of his songs have been released,” Kelric said. “Granted, they’re loud. But the last time I checked, shouting rock music didn’t qualify as a star-spanning crisis.”
    Chad cleared his throat. “Sir, it’s ‘Carnelians Finale.’ ”
    Hell and damnation. Suppressing the “Finale” had been the only tri-lateral agreement ever made between Skolia, Eube, and Allied Worlds of Earth. It hadn’t been easy, but they had managed to erase the song off the interstellar meshes before it exploded relations between Eube and Skolia.
    Now here it was again, just as Skolia and Eube were embarking on an already nearly impossible peace process.
    Aliana grunted as she strained to throw Tide over her hip. It didn’t work; he was as immobile as reinforced zirconablock. Not that she’d ever actually seen zirconablock, which was supposedly the heaviest substance in the universe. Like yeah, heavier than a black hole. Tide was still a chunk, though. She