The Final Key: Part Two of Triad by Catherine Asaro Read Free Book Online Page A

find a console. Control chairs were more advanced consoles and allowed a person to act as an operator in the mesh. They were the goal coveted by those who desired influence within whatever hierarchies of power defined their lives. Command chairs were even rarer, and only the most highly placed operators had access to them. Such chairs allowed their user to command vital resources, such as a battle cruiser or Assembly communications. They offered great power.
    They were nothing compared to the Dyad Chairs.
    The Dyad Chairs came from the Ruby Empire. Only seven had survived, all built with ancient technology that modern scientists had yet to reproduce. They dwarfed even the mas-
    sive command chairs such as the one where Kurj sat in the War Room. To use them required a mental power greater than most humans possessed. Only a Rhon psion could operate one, and in practice, only the Dyad could survive the immense force of its mind.
    Dehya had already settled into the technological throne. Robot arms and conduits surrounded her, and panels enclosed her in a maze of chrome and composites. The exo-skeleton sheathed her body with a silvery mesh. As techs fastened her into it all, the equipment adjusted around her body. The Chair was the terminus of a robot arm that could carry it anywhere within the chamber. The holodome glowed above them with holostars: sapphire and topaz, ruby and diamond. It produced the only light, and cast pale luminance over Dehya and the techs.
    Whenever Eldrin entered this room, he sensed its banked power, which extended into Kyle space as well as the real universe. Fear made him edgy when he saw Dehya in the Chair. She seemed fragile, her face dominated by large green eyes, her body caught in a machine with a mind too strange to comprehend. It responded only in this chamber, when it was lifted up to the holodome, though why, no one knew. Nor did anyone know why the Chairs allowed the Dyad members to operate their functions. Every time Dehya sat in one, Eldrin feared she risked igniting its unfathomable mind. His apprehension was all the more intense because he couldn't imagine what it might do to her. Chairs were too different, their intelligence too alien. They had almost no intersection with human thought.
    Taquinil stood near the Chair, watching with concern while the techs strapped his mother in. Eldrin felt a pang, seeing his son, so bright and vibrant, but also so vulnerable. He stood with a lanky man in the uniform of the Pharaoh's Army. Major Faryl. Eldrin gritted his teeth.
    Dehya smiled at Taquinil and lifted her hand. He waved at her with a small child's trust that all would be well. As Eldrin thought of his wife, she looked across the room. When she saw him, her smile took on a sultry hint of what waited when he came home. He flushed, hoping no one else noticed the change.
    My greetings, husband. Her thought came into his mind like dusk and wine, you handsome there. Eldrin smiled. Dehya, behave. Her lips curved. 'Never.
    Seeing her focus shift, several techs glanced in his direction. As soon as Taquinil caught sight of him, his face filled with relief. Eldrin knew how much it unsettled the boy to see his mother in that mammoth Chair, even if he had a child's naive belief that his parents actually knew what they were doing.
    Taquinil ran across the room. "My greetings, Hoshpa." He stopped at the holopad and motioned excitedly at the Chair. "Can you feel? It is alive! It talks to us."
    "Yes. It does." Eldrin doubted anyone in the room besides Dehya and Taquinil could feel the intelligence of the Chair. To most people it was just a big piece of equipment. He stretched his arm out to his son, but they couldn't touch. He was no more than a projection of light. As his hand went beyond the boundary of the holopad, it vanished. He drew it back, making it reappear, and Taquinil laughed. The boy's smile was strained, though. Eldrin felt the same way. He had been away from his family for too long. It hurt like