Raven Stratagem

by Yoon Ha Lee

  “Zehun!” Mikodez didn’t realize he had slammed his hands down on the desk until the pain hit a moment later. Considering what he kept in that desk, it was a great way to flirt with suicide himself. “You want an eternity of this? Being ruled by a man who’s ready to stab anyone who looks at him sideways? Because that’s what it would turn into.”

  “Security intercepted an attempt on you just four hours ago,” Zehun said pointedly. “The only reason you didn’t get the alert is that we’re dealing with a bigger emergency. This is the reality we live in.”

  “And having you killed because we’re having a policy dispute? Is that the reality we live in, too?”

  “You’ve always preferred to turn people into resources and not enemies, but not everyone is going to cooperate with that.”

  Mikodez studied Zehun’s face for signs that they were going to give up on him. He was very good at reading people, but Zehun was very good at hiding what they thought—they usually won at jeng-zai—so that was a wash. “Zehun,” he said, “the black cradle’s isolation is sideways to the point anyway. Thanks to Kujen’s narcissistic conviction that the universe can’t get by without him, we have the technology to kick death in the teeth. So sure, the unfortunate tendency of the body to give out over time has been dealt with. What I personally find infuriating is that everyone is obsessed with solving the wrong fucking problem. Granted, Kujen is psychotic so I don’t expect any better from him, but what good is immortality if nothing has been done to repair the fault lines in the human heart?”

  “Mikodez—”

  “We’re looking at an eternity of Iruja fussing over minutiae while ignoring the substance of the latest crisis,” Mikodez said. “An eternity of Shandal Yeng clutching silks to compensate for the fact that she can’t buy her children’s love. Nirai Faian trying to solve our problems by throwing equations at them. Vidona Psa inventing more excruciating remembrances because the heretics come so close to shutting down the system each time and he thinks brutalizing them will erode their determination. Or me, sticking knives in people because ruling a faction of people almost as paranoid as I am is the only entertainment that keeps my interest. Do you think I don’t know how bad my attention span is, even with the medications I take? At least Kel had the sense to opt out. Perhaps blowing up the system would be worse than having everyone be ruled by psychotic immortals, but I sure as hell refuse to become one of them.”

  “I’m not planning to betray you,” Zehun said softly.

  He hadn’t asked. “I have done many terrible things,” he said. “I have always done them because the alternative was worse. If I thought being a paranoid monster would help the situation, I wouldn’t think twice about signing on. But I don’t, and that’s that.”

  “Fine,” Zehun said. “We do it your way. I only hope you’re right.”

  “So do I,” Mikodez said.

  “I’ll check in with the mathematicians.”

  “All right.”

  When Zehun signed off, Mikodez began going through his desk and inventorying the cache of weapons in there, wondering when he had started losing count.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE SERVITOR BROUGHT Mikodez breakfast not in one of his offices, but in the Room of Guns. The room had an official designation, which nobody used anymore, not even Zehun, who was normally a stickler for such matters. The last time he’d asked them about it, they’d muttered something about bad luck. Zehun wasn’t superstitious about many things, but in this case he supposed they were justified.

  In his second decade as hexarch, Mikodez had challenged his infantry division to steal him Jedao’s private collection of guns. During his lifetime, Jedao had usually preferred to use his own armaments rather than Kel issue, which the Kel had permitted as a courtesy to the Shuos in spite of the logistical nuisance. Jedao had accumulated guns with the sort of enthusiasm you might expect of a former assassin, even if they stayed locked up most of the time. After all, it would hardly have been practical for him to haul a private arsenal from assignment to assignment.

  When Jedao had been arrested after Hellspin, the Kel had confiscated all his possessions and scoured them for clues. Mikodez knew the old sad story. Jedao hadn’t done anything objectionable before suddenly going mad. He’d been a model officer. He had liked guns, which was not a crime in his line of work; he had liked alcohol, especially whiskey, a trait shared by many people who were and weren’t soldiers; he had had a genuine passion for dueling. Mikodez had it on good authority that Jedao’s whiskey had all been wasted on lab technicians. He could only hope that they had drunk some of the stuff rather than putting it all through tests. And there had been a modest collection of board and card games, including some plundered specimens nice enough to show off in a museum.

  In any case, Mikodez had had especial trouble getting the then-Kel hexarch to take him seriously. (Tsoro would not ascend for another eight years.) Instead of brooding over the lack of respect from someone who was over 130 years old, Mikodez had decided to do something to get Kel Vaura to reevaluate him. That wasn’t the only reason. He needed his own people to take him seriously as well. The assignment, widely regarded as impossible, focused Special Operations nicely once they realized Mikodez was perfectly willing to turn the division upside-down if they failed him.

  (“And here I thought you wanted to make friends,” Zehun had remarked.)

  (“Sometimes fear is more motivational,” Mikodez had snapped back. “Do you want me to demonstrate?” He’d had more of a temper then. The medications that improved his concentration had helped with that.)

  Most of the Citadel of Eyes was not, ironically, decorated in Shuos colors, on the grounds that even if the association with assassins didn’t make people tense, the color red by itself would have. Mikodez had always been amused by how many dramas depicted assassins wearing red, as if they were trying to stick out, instead of bundling up in ugly unremarkable coats to blend in with the locals. When he wasn’t in uniform, Mikodez himself preferred sedate shades of green.

  The Room of Guns, however, was in livid red with gold accents. Nothing else would have suited. The red walls with their deeper red tapestries reflected in the guns’ barrels, giving them an unhealthy luster.

  Mikodez paced around the room and stopped before the one he liked best, the centerpiece of the collection: the Patterner 52, which had been Jedao’s favorite. Certainly he had toted it everywhere, and he had used it to slaughter his staff on his command moth at Hellspin. Mikodez had no intention of taking it out of its case to play with it, he knew better, but he studied the grip, engraved with the infamous Deuce of Gears.

  The grid chimed at him. “You are so morbid,” Istradez said from the door. He walked over to join Mikodez and frowned at the Patterner 52. “You should send that thing to Jedao as a gift, see if that makes him more receptive to your attempts at long-distance therapy. Face it, it’s not like one lousy handgun makes Jedao more deadly.”

  “Well,” Mikodez said, “there’s the psychological factor. Besides, the collection’s worth more if I keep it together.”

  Istradez snorted. “Like you’re planning to sell it.”

  “Are you kidding? We’re always broke around here.” One of the things that irritated him about the Andan, if his financial spies’ reports were to be believed, was that they could afford things. Despite a largely successful career as hexarch, he was forever juggling the budget.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have me sit in on Financial for you more often.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Mikodez said. “It’s too important to hand off.”

  Istradez smiled crookedly at him. “Of course it is.” He yawned hugely and stretched first one way, then the other. “I have to admit, it’s a nice collection, even if I only recognize half these things. Too bad hardly anyone has the clearance to come in here to appreciate it.”

  “I was hoping you’d see something here that I don’t,” Mikodez said.

  “What, reading oracles out of a bun
ch of rifles and revolvers like they’re tea leaves? I don’t think so. Besides,” and Istradez rested his hand casually on the side of the Patterner’s case, causing an informational display to come up, “I have spent the last few decades learning to think like you do. It’s surprisingly hard to unlearn.”

  Mikodez saw the subtle tension in Istradez’s shoulders. Quietly but not silently, he slipped behind his brother and began rubbing his shoulders. Istradez sighed and relaxed, by slow degrees, under Mikodez’s touch.

  “I hope you’re not going to give me one of those obnoxious memory tests after we leave this room for dinner,” Istradez murmured. Mikodez could feel the vibrations through his hands. “But I promise I’ve been doing my homework. I’m here to ask a favor.”

  “More girlfriends?” Mikodez said. The Citadel was well staffed with courtesans with varying specialties. Between assignments, Istradez always took the opportunity to indulge. If he did so while being Mikodez, someone would have noticed the discrepancy. “If you’re getting jaded, I’m running out of—”

  “Not that.” With perfect dignity, Istradez slid out from beneath Mikodez’s hands, made sure they were facing each other, then sank to his knees, head bowed. “Hexarch.”

  The full obeisance to a hexarch looked so incongruous that Mikodez drew his breath in sharply. “Istra—”

  Istradez didn’t raise his eyes. “I wish to beg to be considered for an assignment. I’m not a Shuos, but I understand that there’s some precedent for the use of outside agents.”

  Mikodez had a bad feeling about where this was going. “Get up,” he said, more roughly than he had intended. “There’s no need for you to do that to your knees.”

  “It’s kind of you to be concerned about the condition of my knees,” Istradez said, so straight-faced that Mikodez couldn’t tell if his brother was mocking him. “I mean it, though. I realize you’re holding me in reserve, Hexarch, but I believe I am uniquely qualified for this assignment.”

  “And what assignment might that be?” It was cruel to make Istradez say it to his face. Nevertheless, he had to be sure.

  Mikodez had half-expected Istradez’s composure to break, for that mirror-face to relax into the familiar wry grin. But no: Istradez’s eyelashes lowered, and his hand clenched slightly on his right knee. “I have heard that an assassination attempt on the hexarchs is in the works.”

  “You’re not authorized for that information,” Mikodez said after a frozen second.

  “I seduced someone on your staff,” Istradez said. “Occasionally there are people who would like to sleep with someone who looks as good as we do. I don’t think they even realized what they’d let slip.”

  ‘Someone’ could mean more than one someone. He’d have to deal with that later. “That’s very interesting,” Mikodez said, meaning it, “but the answer is no.”

  “Hexarch,” Istradez said, in the most formal mode possible, “I understand that it’s a suicide mission.”

  “You’ve heard my answer.”

  Istradez drew a shuddering breath. “I recognize that my usefulness to you is nearing its end,” he said. “I beg for one last—”

  “No, Istradez.”

  “I got into the evaluation you had Spirel do,” Istradez said, with remarkably little bitterness. “You’re going to remove me from duty anyway, and then what will I do? Kick around here for the rest of my life? I don’t think so. Let me go, Miki.”

  Mikodez knelt and gripped Istradez’s shoulders. “You do understand that ‘suicide mission’ means you don’t come back? Ever?”

  “What were you going to do, send one of the others? I’m the best one for the job and you know it. Please, Miki.”

  The sincerity blazing out of the familiar eyes shook him.

  “I’m your gun, Miki.”

  That forced a response out of him. “Don’t,” Mikodez whispered. “Please don’t. You’re no Kel.”

  “I’m better than a Kel,” Istradez said. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Mikodez said at last. But they already knew what he had decided.

  WHEN MIKODEZ FINISHED reading the report his mathematicians had coughed up, he watered his green onion three hours early. Considering what the rest of his day was liable to be like, he didn’t want to forget.

  Something about Cheris’s contact with Jedao had given her the notion to seek a calendar that altered exotic effects so they could only affect the willing. Kel discipline might hold anyway, but the Andan would hate losing enthrallment as a crutch, even though most Andan with any sense knew it was the threat, not the execution, that was their most powerful tool. The Shuos were in the dubiously enviable position of being the only faction that didn’t have a standardized exotic ability; nothing would change for them.

  Next Mikodez called Kel Command, emphasizing that he wanted to be connected directly to Tsoro. The wait was longer than usual. Maybe she was being conscientious and using her hair dryer. At last she accepted the call. “Shuos,” she said, deferentially, but without liking. “We understand the matter is urgent?”

  “I have a personal warning to convey to you,” Mikodez said, and sent over a databurst. “My analysts believe the Hafn intend a deep strike on the Aerie. You can read the details at your leisure and prepare yourself accordingly.”

  The Shuos’s Citadel of Eyes was defended by a variable number of shadowmoths, to say nothing of the weapons installations, but its location was a matter of public record. On the other hand, the Aerie’s security depended partly on secrecy. The Kel were spread thin enough that they didn’t maintain a large force for home defense.

  “We need to know how reliable your information is,” Tsoro said.

  Mikodez slitted his eyes at her. “If I were having a slow day and felt like fucking with people’s heads for the hell of it, I’d off a few more Shuos children. After all, there’s a large supply of them. No; this information is accurate. The Hafn have already used that unnerving jumping-across-space ability once on the Deuce of Gears. If it doesn’t surprise me that they’d want to use it on the Aerie, it shouldn’t surprise you.”

  He hadn’t personally forged that compilation. One of his teams had done the work, but the packet should stand up to the hivemind’s scrutiny. While Tsoro didn’t like him, she believed in his fundamental competence. “Tell me you have a defense swarm hanging around there,” he added.

  “Does it matter if we do?” Tsoro asked darkly. “We can’t afford for the Aerie to fall. Your warning is appreciated.”

  “Splendid,” Mikodez said with the particular breeziness that he knew irritated her, because she would expect it. “In that case, I’ll leave you to your tedious logistical calculations.” He signed off.

  The problem with Cheris’s plan was that it inconveniently involved blowing up Kel Command before Mikodez could, if everyone stuck to the original schedule, stab the other hexarchs in the back. First item: if marking a calendrical reset by getting rid of Kel Command was good, annihilating the other hexarchs at the same time would be even better. Second item: it would be easiest to assassinate the hexarchs if they gathered at a single location. Happily, Nirai Faian’s facility would do the trick. Third item: convincing four hexarchs to change their schedules to match Cheris’s was going to be a lot harder than persuading Cheris to hold off until the pieces were in place. Fourth item: calling her up and telling her what he intended wouldn’t work, even if the idea had a certain appealing simplicity. He had no evidence that she was gullible around Shuos, even if she’d dated a few, and having Jedao rattling around her skull wouldn’t help. So he needed a way to influence her without her realizing it.

  Fifth item: nobody had figured out how the hell Cheris intended to destroy the Aerie. It would have been nice if the bugs on the Hierarchy of Feasts had been able to shed any light on this matter, but no such luck. At this point, Mikodez was gambling that Cheris wasn’t crazy, that this wasn’t a bluff, and that some method existed. The crashhawk high general’s faith in
her was only circumstantial evidence, but better than nothing.

  Sixth item: to do what she was doing, Cheris had to have some kind of intelligence network. It looked like she’d contacted Colonel Ragath at one point, but they hadn’t been able to piece together specifics. Mikodez’s other gamble was that Cheris’s sources would alert her about Kel swarm movements and cause her to revise her timetable. At least, he trusted she wouldn’t risk her swarm against the Aerie and multiple defense swarms if she could afford to wait things out.

  And people think I’m untrustworthy and dangerous on account of two cadets, Mikodez thought cynically. But that was it: he made it a point not to get attached to any specific way of doing things. If he saw a better solution and it made sense to switch over, he was only too happy to do so.

  The grid was informing Mikodez that the number of people who urgently wanted to talk to him was piling up. He fished in his second drawer until he retrieved the russet leaf-pattern lace scarf he had left off knitting two months ago. Perfect. The only thing people hated seeing more than a Shuos with a gun was a Shuos with knitting needles. As if any sane assassin would take you out with knitting needles if they could do it instead from a nice sheltered balcony with a high-powered rifle.

  “All right,” he said, “let’s hear the first one.”

  CHERIS AND BREZAN were in Cheris’s lounge, rotating a map of the hexarchate this way and that. Khiruev tried to concentrate on the glowing notations, the swarms with their generals’ emblems, but she could only manage it in start-stop snatches. Neither Cheris nor Brezan wanted her here because she had anything to contribute to matters of strategy or logistics. Rather, the high general was afraid she would topple over dead if left unattended.

  “That’s six full swarms,” Cheris was saying. “They must be dreadfully worried.”