Read The Final Key: Part Two of Triad for Free Online Page B

through the palace until he reached the pharaoh's suite. In the Red Mountains on sparsely settled Diesha, they had no worries about space. Dehya's entire apartment on the Orbiter would fit in this living room. Origi-
    nally the jeweled mosaics on the walls had been abstract, but she arranged to have them redone when Eldrin came to live with her. Now they evoked the plains and spindled peaks of his home. Although he had never told her how much he missed Lyshriol, she knew. In the beginning, when it had been even harder for them to talk than now, she had showed affection with such unspoken gifts. It had taken him years to believe they were offerings of love from a pharaoh who had little ease with words.
    Eldrin roamed the suite, through alcoves shaped like flowers, bathrooms with tiled pools, and the bedroom with its tapestries and velvet-covered bed. He missed Dehya. Then again, he always missed her, even when he was on the Orbiter. She spent hours, sometimes days, working in the web. Their times together were too short, with too long between.
    His head throbbed. He needed his medicine to deal with the neurological knots that tangled his empath's mind. Hell, a good, stiff drink would help. He paced, agitated. Although the medicine eased his discomfort, he didn't like to depend on it. He wanted to deal with this himself.
    Finally he went to the console room. White Luminex stations glowed in the dim light. He settled into a chair within a circular console, and its exoskeleton folded around him. Prongs clicked into sockets in his ankles, wrists, lower spine, and neck. When the Assembly had first suggested putting biomech in his body, it had horrified him. They wanted him to become a telop, preparing for the day he might join the Dyad. Initially he had refused. Gradually, though, he had realized it would let him "meet" with Dehya in Kyle space. Finally he agreed. After a time, his fears that it would make him less human abated. He remained Eldrin. He hadn't become a machine.
    A visor lowered over his eyes and darkness surrounded him. The console accessed his brain directly; the visor was only to ensure that no view of his surroundings interfered with the virtual reality created in his mind.
    A "thought" came to him from the console, routed through his biomech web to the node in his spine. Welcome back to the palace, Your Majesty. What can I do for you this evening?
    My greetings, Etude, Eldrin answered, directing his thought to his personal EI. I would like to see my wife.
    A simple request—and it required the most advanced communications ever created by humanity. The console would access the Kyle mesh, and telops operating in the mesh would route his signal through Kyle space to the Orbiter. Eldrin needed no other protocols. His direct line to Dehya on the Orbiter would be more secure, better, and faster, than other lines. Being the Ruby Consort had advantages.
    Gradually the darkness eased. He was standing in a graceful room with high ceilings. Holoart swirled on the walls, behind a white sofa. The tables at either end of the couch were wood, a valuable material on a space habitat. His wife sat on the sofa, her black hair cascading over her shoulders, arms, and hips, making Eldrin want to fill his hands with it. Her green eyes tilted upward, fringed with black lashes. She had the face of a waif, heart-shaped. Her slender figure appeared delicate, as if she might break, but he knew a will of steel ran through her.
    Taquinil was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, his bangs tousled over bis forehead, his black hair brushing his collar. His eyes shimmered gold. He had grown since Eldrin had been home last year. People said he had Eldrin's features, but it was hard for Eldrin to tell. It just amazed him that he had sired such an incredible young man.
    The boy's face lit up. "Hoshpa!" He jumped to his feet, then remembered himself and spoke with impeccable manners. "My greetings, Father."
    Dehya smiled at Eldrin, and her voice came