by Yoon Ha Lee
“—bannermoth,” Jedao said, then stopped.
Kujen arched an eyebrow at him. “See, you haven’t forgotten everything.” His hands moved again. He had beautiful hands, with fingers tapering gracefully.
A fourth moth appeared above the central moth. It was broader and longer, and also had a spinal main gun.
“Cindermoth,” Kujen said. “There used to be six of them. Now only four remain, and they’re under Protector-General Inesser’s control. No one currently has a mothyard capable of building new ones, which buys us a little time. Anyway, that central one is a shearmoth, and it’s yours. I made an assistant name it, which was a mistake, but I hate naming things. Don’t look at me like that, I just design them.”
Kujen zeroed in on the spinal gun. “That’s the shear cannon,” he said. “It only functions in high calendar terrain, which is its main disadvantage, especially since you’re going to be fighting radicals and rebels and heretics.”
“So why bother with it at all?” Jedao said.
“It generates a pulse that warps spacetime,” Kujen said patiently. “Creating the pulse is an exotic effect. Once that’s done, however, it will continue to travel into any sort of terrain until it dissipates. I got the idea because of the way the mothdrive works, by grabbing onto spacetime and pulling itself along. Breeding the modification into the moth lineage took some time. But I think you’ll find it worthwhile.”
Jedao figured it out. “So you can fire it from our side of the border into theirs.”
“Yes.”
“I hope there are still conventional weapons,” Jedao said, giving Kujen a hard look. “Because if it’s a gravitational wave, it might yank formations out of place, but it’s just going to pass through the moths themselves. I can’t destroy them directly with it.”
Great, he thought. He’d just said “I,” as if he were going along with this.
Kujen made a pacifying gesture. “I wouldn’t stint on that. And it’s not entirely useless on that front—try it on a planet with oceans or atmosphere sometime, and you’ll get some interesting turbulence. Check the other statistics—”
The readout appeared in front of the images. Jedao went through all the listed weapons as well as the numbers of missiles and mines, plus the amount of space it had for necessaries like foam sealant and pickles. Apparently the Kel love of spiced cabbage pickles hadn’t changed. He gestured at the slate. Kujen handed it over so he could run his own queries. It took Jedao a few moments to work out the interface, but after a while he was able to call up some explanatory diagrams.
At first the numbers didn’t mean much. With some thought, however, he could see the shearmoth’s capabilities in his head; he could visualize the maneuvers it was capable of, how it would dance at his command. “How many of these do you have?” he asked, although he had already guessed the answer.
“Just the one,” Kujen said with what Jedao interpreted as real regret. “You don’t know what I had to do to source the materials needed to grow the mothdrive components. You’ll have to keep in mind that the shearmoth’s mothdrive and maneuver drives have better power to mass ratios than your bannermoths do, even if it’s larger. Don’t outrun them.”
Obligingly, Jedao looked up the profiles for both drives and was impressed by the differences. He ran some computations to compare the power draw over a spread of different accelerations. After a while he became aware of Kujen’s narrowed eyes. “Did I get something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” Kujen said after a subtle pause. “You homed right in on the intersection of those curves.”
Jedao had done that part in his head. Curious, but if the past years had magically fixed that part of his brain, he wasn’t going to say no to that either. “It had to be there somewhere,” he said. “If you assume the curves are approximated by—” He demonstrated.
“So I see,” Kujen said in a voice so dry that Jedao was reminded that he was lecturing the Nirai hexarch on mathematics elementary enough that he had probably figured it out as a small child. “Well, while the Kel have always preferred to throw you at strategic problems, it won’t hurt to round out your education. Considering the number of calendrical heresies flourishing out there, it can only help to develop your mathematical skills.”
“I would like that,” Jedao said, and was rewarded by Kujen’s half-laugh, half-smile.
“In the meantime,” Kujen said, “let’s deal with the practicalities. Set your uniform insignia. I had thought you’d remember, but since you don’t—the Kel like everything to be done according to protocol.”
“Set? Shouldn’t there be pins for this stuff?”
“I really wish I’d had a better way to check what you do and don’t remember,” Kujen muttered. “The uniform will respond to your voice. Just tell it your name and rank and it will read the rest from your profile.”
Jedao did, and was surprised by the general’s wings above the Shuos eye, two things he didn’t remember earning. A full general, at that. Would that have made Ruo envious?
“Even if I’m forty-four,” Jedao said, incredulous and not a little regretful about the lost years, “that’s rather young.” The idea of appearing before the Kel in this uniform was daunting enough. Appearing before them while claiming to be a general—their general—seemed like it would invite them to put holes in him. He heard they had good aim.
“The Kel respect rank,” Kujen said. “They’ll respect yours.”
Will they now, Jedao thought. Only one way to find out. “These are real Kel,” he said, “serving on real moths, fighting a real war. And you’ve decided that for this to work, I have to be a real general for you.”
“That sums it up, yes.”
A bad situation. Nevertheless, he needed to stay alive long enough to figure out how to tilt the odds not only in his favor, but in favor of the Kel who would be coming into his care. “I don’t care how hacked up this hept—hexarchate of yours has become,” Jedao said, “or how good this shearmoth is. A swarm of 108 moths, however impressive, doesn’t leave us room for error. The only way this is possible is if I get good fast and we fight dirty.”
On impulse, Jedao saluted Kujen. The motion came disturbingly naturally. He said, in formal Kel fashion, “I’m your gun.” He felt he ought to commemorate the occasion somehow, even if the occasion was not remotely sane.
Kujen’s eyes lit. “I knew you’d come back to me,” he said. It wasn’t until much later that Jedao figured out what he meant by that.
CHAPTER TWO
Nine years ago
THE MORNING AFTER Cheris disappeared, taking the needlemoth with her, High General Kel Brezan was woken by a stranger in his bedroom on the cindermoth Hierarchy of Feasts. At first he thought a servitor had gotten confused about the time, because who in the name of fire and ash served tea at this hour? He’d made use of his uncomfortable new rank for once and ordered that no one disturb him for anything other than an emergency, because he needed a good night’s sleep before tackling the world’s problems.
Brezan had gone through the usual routine before going to sleep, including unwinding his chest wrap, because in times of crisis, chaos, and dire emergency, routines were all that kept him going. He might be the highest-ranking Kel remaining in the hexarchate, but that didn’t mean he wanted to remind the military of their hazy prejudice against a man who hadn’t had the fortune to be born a manform. Lose-lose situation all around: sex changes weren’t difficult, just time-consuming, except the Kel disapproved of those too, some stupid puritan streak. So he endured as he was. He hardly noticed it these days. Besides, given all the other reasons a Kel might have to hate him, he doubted his being a womanform made a damn bit of difference. In the meantime, he kept up the small fashion cues that clued in random people as to how he wanted to be regarded, like haircut and (when off-duty, which was going to be never again) style of jewelry.
“It’s an emergency,” a harsh, low voice said just as Brezan registered the sound of the doorway whisking shut.
The candlevines in the room brightened in response to the stranger, who wasn’t a stranger after all. It was one of the Kel sergeants who worked in Communications, a chubby woman with a habit of telling filthy jokes to anyone who’d stand still for them. Except Brezan had the feeling the woman wasn’t a Kel at all, not if she’d broken into his room.
“Hello, High General,” the woman said. She bore a tray with a steaming cup of tea.
“Are you a Shuos?” Brezan said. Might as well not waste any time.
“Very good,” she said.
“What’s your real name?”
She came forward, just slowly enough not to be threatening. “You’re asking the wrong question. It’s Shuos Emio, by the way. And you should have the tea. No poison, unless you count a few extra stimulants. You need to be awake for this conversation.”
“What,” Brezan said sarcastically, “I’m not awake enough already?” He kicked the sheets off and sat up, feeling weirdly vulnerable in his nightshirt and uncombed hair.
“Oh, you don’t need the stims for me,” Emio said. “But the hexarch needs to talk to you and you’ll need all your wits for that.”
“Hexarch” meaning Shuos Mikodez, one of the last people Brezan wanted to talk to. “He couldn’t call through regular channels?”
Emio gave him a look. “I can’t make you take this seriously,” she said, disturbingly casual, “but it’s in your best interests to. Because I have two pieces of news for you, and the hexarch will be your best friend dealing with them both.”
Brezan decided that it was unlikely that Emio would leave him in peace to get dressed. He strode over to the drawer and rummaged for his chest wrap and uniform. “All right,” he said, “tell me.”
“The first is that your revolution is already in danger.”
Brezan scoffed. “That’s all? It’s a revolution. It’s in danger by definition.”
Emio went on as if she hadn’t heard his outburst. “The second is that the person you were depending on to deal with this, Kel Cheris, has vanished.”
Brezan froze. “You can’t be serious.”
“Wasting time again,” Emio said. “You’ve run staff meetings before. Do you usually spend so much time on irrelevancies?”
As much as Brezan was starting to dislike Emio, he couldn’t argue the point. If she was telling the truth—and he had the sinking feeling that she was—then he needed to stop needling her and start preparing for a truly ugly situation. “You don’t know where Cheris went?”
He didn’t ask how much Emio knew about Cheris-Jedao and her role in the calendrical spike that had brought the entire hexarchate to a grinding halt. For one, he wouldn’t like the answer. For another, it didn’t matter at this point.
“If I did, would I have said that she vanished?” Emio said with maddening reasonableness. “And, you know, as far as the Kel are concerned, I’m just a sergeant. I didn’t have the authority to send everyone haring off on a search for her.”
“Wouldn’t have done any good,” Brezan said. “I assume she took the needlemoth.” It was the vessel she had arrived in, and it was equipped with a stealth system.
“Got it in one.”
By now Brezan had finished dressing, even if his uniform collar was crooked. If Emio cared, she kept it to herself. “I’m ready,” he said.
“No,” Emio said, “you need to eat and drink first.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I am quite serious.”
“Hexarch Mikodez gave you personal orders to that effect?”
Emio grimaced slightly. “Not the hexarch. His assistant Zehun. I can assure you that, in their way, Zehun is far more terrifying.”
Considering that Mikodez had just assassinated the other five hexarchs by way of declaring himself Cheris’s ally, Brezan doubted that very much. He wasn’t about to quibble, however. Brezan had vivid memories of his single encounter with Zehun, which had indeed been terrifying. He sat down at the table where Emio had deposited the tray and ate as quickly as his diminished appetite allowed.
“All right,” Brezan said. “I hope you have a secured line to the Citadel of Eyes or wherever the fuck the hexarch is hanging out these days, because I’m pretty sure if I try to call him it’ll just bounce.”
Emio didn’t dignify this with a reply. “Your terminal, if I may?”
Brezan made an impatient gesture. “Let’s get this over with.”
Emio leaned over the terminal and entered a long cryptic string of passphrases. “All right,” she said, “Line 6-1 to the Citadel of Eyes. It shouldn’t take long for the hexarch to pick up.”
Brezan resisted the impulse to spend the time waiting by checking his reflection in the terminal’s dark, glossy surface. If Hexarch Shuos Mikodez insisted on waking him in the middle of the night (revised calendar) to talk to him, Hexarch Shuos Mikodez could deal with imperfectly groomed hair and a crooked collar.
After two minutes, the display blazed to life. Brezan had never met Mikodez, but like any informed citizen he knew what the man looked like. Mikodez, unlike any number of Shuos, had never modded himself except to stay reasonably young the way any sensible person did. Glossy black hair with a long forelock framed a dark-skinned face, and earrings of red tassels and tiny gold beads swung from his ears. Aside from that, however, his red-and-gold uniform was entirely orthodox, vaguely military in style despite the desperately impractical colors. Then again, unless you were mucking around groundside, Brezan supposed it didn’t matter what colors you wore while swanning around space.
“High General,” Mikodez said. His voice was a surprisingly mild tenor. “Emio.”
Brezan fought back a surge of sheer atavistic terror. After all, if Mikodez had intended to assassinate him, he could have had Emio shoot him just minutes earlier.
Emio merely nodded and sat on the edge of Brezan’s desk. Under other circumstances, Brezan would have been even more aggravated. “Hexarch Mikodez,” he said. “You’ve got my attention. What’s so urgent?”
Mikodez grinned at Brezan. It almost made him look friendly, except Brezan wasn’t fooled. No one in control of that many assassins and spies could ever be friendly. “Sorry you had to meet your new bodyguard so precipitously,” Mikodez said, “but it couldn’t be helped.”
“If the situation is so fucked that I’m in immediate danger of getting offed,” Brezan said, “I’m not sure what difference one bodyguard is going to make. Even a superpowered Shuos bodyguard.” He cocked an eyebrow at Emio, daring her to say something.
“Only in the line of duty,” she said, unruffled.
“You’re in desperate need of a briefing,” Mikodez said, “especially if Cheris isn’t sticking around to take up the reins. I apologize for not getting in touch earlier, except I had to get briefed first, if you see what I mean.”
“Yes,” Brezan said sourly. “As far as I can tell, that means I get to stick around holding together the hexarchate until a decent provisional government can be put in place.” Which was going to be interesting because he was by no means a political theorist, and he automatically distrusted any that Mikodez, of all people, might offer to provide him. It wasn’t entirely clear to him, or to anyone, what laws the hexarchate now followed. Would its currency remain in place, and how was he going to persuade the Andan into helping him stabilize the markets? What would happen to all the Vidona? What would they do for jobs now? And the problems only began there.
“Worse than that,” Mikodez said, sobering. “You’re probably going to have to strong-arm people into following your new calendar and signing on to your government. Where by ‘strong-arm’ I m
ean sweet-talk. Normally I would offer the services of my Propaganda division, but right now my popularity is at an all-time low. You want to be seen cooperating with me as little as possible.”
Brezan avoided mentioning that he wanted not to have to cooperate with Mikodez, period, not least because he didn’t see that he had much choice. “Well,” he said, “that’s one thing I can do better than Cheris. Not because I’m particularly charismatic or interesting, but because by now everyone thinks she’s Jedao.”
“Charisma is just a matter of practice,” Mikodez said, waving a hand. “Admittedly, you’re not going to have much time. I’ll coach you, but it will only work if you take me seriously.”
It was only now penetrating that Shuos Mikodez seriously meant to back Brezan as the new head of state. “What’s in it for you?” Brezan asked.
“Stability,” Mikodez said with disarming frankness. “The Shuos already have issues on that front, despite my efforts.”
“That makes no sense,” Brezan said, unimpressed. “Why not blow up Cheris instead while you had the chance?”
“Because Cheris wasn’t the only one who objected to the remembrances,” Mikodez said. Suddenly all trace of humor left his voice. “Oh, I suppose the chocolate festivals and the New Year’s gift exchange are harmless enough. But the torture? All those lives cut up? It’s wasteful.”
Brezan bared his teeth at Mikodez. “I notice you didn’t say ‘wrong.’ If it mattered to you so much, why didn’t you do anything decades ago?”
“Because when I took the hexarch’s seat,” Mikodez said, “my duty was to look after the welfare of the Shuos. For decades that meant preserving the status quo. Don’t think I didn’t look into alternatives; I did. But as you’re about to discover, ripping out a government by the roots and replacing it with something new? That’s not trivial work.”
“Spoken like someone who knows.”