That gave her pause. In Iotaca, Optical Fiber was the full name of Lyode’s husband, Opter Sunsmith. If their line ran true, their children would inherit the sunsmith talents. Opter’s brother Gallium Phosphide Sunsmith worked in the sunshop with him. Other provinces had other gifts, such as the Amperman and Ohmston lines in Ironbridge. The Argali temple was dedicated to sun spirits, like the Glories and Airy Rainbows, but Kamoj had always seen them as guardians or even servants of the Sunsmith line, rather than deities.
“Why do you think we worship the Current?” she asked.
“Don’t you?”
“The Current just is. Like rain, clouds, and sun.”
“Not like the sun,” Vyrl said. “It is the sun. Well, not just the sun. But light.”
“Of course, Prince Havyrl.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“That?”
“Prince Whatsit. You’re my wife. Call me Vyrl.”
“Yes, Vyrl.”
“Why are you so formal? Last night, I even thought you were afraid—” Suddenly he stopped. “Saints almighty. I am an idiot.”
Kamoj blinked, again caught off guard. Never, in a hundred Long Years, would Jax have ever said such a thing about himself.
“You had no choice, did you?” Vyrl said.
“Choice?”
“About the marriage. Bloody flaming hell. I should have seen it before. That wasn’t a dowry. It was a purchase order.” He pulled Greypoint to a halt and dismounted, swinging his leg over the stag’s back and landing on the ground with leonine grace. Greypoint danced sideways, and Kamoj had to grab the bridle to keep from falling.
Standing with his back to her, Vyrl looked normal, a man with a mane of tawny hair. Then he turned and she saw the silver mask on his face. She tensed, almost as unsettled now by that blank expanse of metal as the first time she had seen it.
He peeled off the mask. “I hate this thing.”
“Vyrl, no. You need to breathe.”
“You must hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.” Every time she thought she began to understand him, he went off on a rant again.
He crumpled the mask. “You think you have to say that.”
Although she meant what she said, his words gave her pause. Had Jax asked if she hated him, certainly she would have denied it. Otherwise he would have hit her.
Vyrl was concentrating as if she were a tangle of threads he was trying to unravel. “I’m not going to beat you. Gods, Kamoj, I would never do such a thing.”
Her face gentled. “I like being with you. It’s just…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t understand you.”
Vyrl gave her a rueful smile. “That makes two of us.” He pressed the mask onto his face, then came over and reached for her. As he helped her off the stag, she put her arms around his neck and hugged him. He held her with her feet dangling in the air while he pressed his lips against her hair.
“I have a place out here where I go to be alone,” he said. Then he set her down on the ground and took her hand.
They went to an outcropping of moss-covered slabs half-buried in the ground. Bridle bells clinked as Greypoint followed them. Vyrl stopped and rubbed his mount’s neck, pressing on the scales in that way greenglass stags liked. Greypoint stood quietly, patient while Vyrl removed the bridle and tended him. The stag pushed his long snout against Vyrl’s palm, nipping at his fingers with fangs that could have torn Vyrl to pieces, had Greypoint wanted. Then the greenglass took off, running in a graceful six-legged lope among the trees.
Vyrl glanced at Kamoj. “Don’t worry. He’ll come back.”
She spoke softly. “I know.” Greypoint’s behavior told her far more than Vyrl realized. After working all her life in the glasshouses stables at Argali, she knew greenglass stags. Greypoint was wild, never broken or tamed. A gifted stagman might attract the interest of a wild stag, but never one as high-strung and powerful as Greypoint. That the animal freely chose to follow Vyrl impressed her more than all Vyrl’s wealth, titles, and palace repairs.
Vyrl led her through an opening in the rocks into a small cave. It had a roof half again as tall as Vyrl and a floor of packed dirt, with boulders jutting out here and there. He knelt at a platform beside the entrance and ran his fingers over its dark surface. Despite all the wonders Kamoj had seen here, it still stunned her when lights appeared within the platform, glowing and winking. A hum began, and a shimmer curtain appeared in the entrance of the cave, blending into the rocks on either side.
Vyrl sat back on his heels. “The generator will bring the atmosphere to normal. Normal for me, that is.”
She stood just inside the entrance. “Why can’t you breathe the air?”
“A lot of reasons. Too much carbon dioxide. Too little oxygen. All the scale dust in it.” He seemed distracted, either tired or depressed. “The irradiation from your sun is lower than the human standard. That means it doesn’t give Balumil as much light. The extra carbon dioxide helps keeps the temperature up.” He touched the mask on his face. “This concentrates oxygen and filters out CO2. It also filters out impurities that gives gamma humanoids a severe form of asthma. Fatal, in fact, if we breathe it too long.”
“Gamma humanoid?”
“Like me.” He pressed his palm against his chest. “I can tolerate the air here for a short time, but some people can’t bear it even for a few seconds.”
“It doesn’t bother me at all.”
Vyrl smiled. “You’re a theta.” He took off his mask and dropped it on the console. “Your lungs have filters that mine lack. Your people’s hemoglobin was redesigned and your circulatory system responds to different partial pressures of oxygen and carbon dioxide.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “This world is almost uninhabitable for those of us without your modifications, especially during winter and summer. That’s why your ancestors wore space suits.”
“Space suits?”
“You know those pictures of ancient stagmen in full-body diskmail?” When she nodded, he said, “Those are space suits.”
She poked her finger into the shimmer curtain. “And this?”
“It’s an airlock. It surrounds the cave.” He paused. “I’m not sure how to describe it in a way that would make sense to you.”
“Tell me in your own words then. I like to hear them.” Now that she knew he wasn’t mocking her ignorance, she found a beauty in his words, the promise of knowledge and wonders.
“The curtain is a membrane,” he said. “A modified lipid bilayer.” He tapped the platform. “This applies an electric potential to it. There are enzymes in the membrane, like keys, but so tiny you can’t see them. They fit certain receptor molecules. Certain locks. Different potentials activate different keys. When a key opens a lock, it changes the permeability of the membrane.” He paused, lines of fatigue deep on his face.
“Are you all right?” Kamoj asked.
“Yes. Fine.” He stood up. “Right now the membrane won’t let air pass, but water can diffuse through it just fine. The generator recycles our air, so we don’t suffocate. It also seeds the air with nanomeds that take dust out of the air.”
Kamoj thought of the firepuff fly that had stuck to the shimmer in her chamber last night. “The curtain lets us pass through it.”
“On this setting, yes. We’re easily strong enough to push through it. Your body becomes part of the interface, keeping the seal.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. “A picoweb within the membrane remembers its original form, so after you pass, the curtain returns to normal.”
“Vyrl, are you sure you are all right?”
“It’s just a headache.” He pulled a bottle out of his cloak and unscrewed the top. Then he drank deeply, tilting his head back as he swallowed.