The Collapsing Empire

by John Scalzi

  “What do the MPs from End say?”

  “When I’ve spoken to them they tell me they’ve received no intelligence or instruction from their duke. They’re dubious that the current rebellion has the reach or means to attack the rest of the Interdependency—”

  “Of course they would say that,” Nadashe interjected.

  “—or the interest,” Ranatunga continued. “There have been innumerable rebellions on End before. It’s the nature of the place because it’s where the Interdependency sends its troublesome people. But it’s always kept those rebellions self-contained. So they’re skeptical.”

  “Which is cold comfort to the families of the victims,” Nadashe said.

  “Despite their skepticism, if a resolution for an imperial takeover of End were sent to the floor, it could expect support. Especially now that the attacks appear to be escalating.”

  “The guilds would also support it,” Nadashe said.

  “It would disrupt trade,” Cardenia noted.

  “It would temporarily disrupt trade to End. Which is preferable to attacks indefinitely disrupting trade across the Interdependency. And besides, End is End. It’s not a significant income generator for most houses and guilds. It’s one percent of my house’s gross revenues. I think it’s similar for most other houses.”

  Cardenia turned to Korbijn. “And what of the church?”

  “The church would have concerns on humanitarian grounds,” Korbijn said, “as we always do in times of conflict. But, remember, ma’am, the coronation bombing wasn’t only an attack on you. It was an attack on the church and on our cathedral. And in a larger sense, the church has concern for the safety of every soul in the Interdependency. If these bombings are indeed related to the rebellion on End, then for their sake we need to consider action.”

  Cardenia looked at the archbishop for a moment, thoughtful. “Thank you.”

  “What are your thoughts, Your Majesty?” Nadashe asked.

  “Our thoughts are that until we know definitively who is behind these bombings and what their goals are, we should not act upon End.” Cardenia held up her hand at Nadashe, who was clearly about to respond. “We do not disagree with the assessment that these appear to be the acts of terrorists from End. But to commit to a course of action of this magnitude without proof is folly. We will let the investigations continue.”

  “Parliament might get ahead of you on this, ma’am,” Ranatunga said. “Especially if the attacks continue.”

  “There will be pressure from the guilds as well,” Nadashe said.

  “We understand their urgency,” Cardenia said. “The troopship Prophecies of Rachela is stationed here at Hub. We can dispatch ten thousand marines to End immediately if necessary. But we would hope the committee would remind parliament and the guilds that we were the target of the first of these attacks. We were the first to lose people. We were the first to suffer. We suffer still. For all that, we counsel patience. The people of End will suffer, one way or another, if we take their independence. Let us be sure.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ranatunga said. Nadashe said nothing. Cardenia nodded to them all, dismissing them.

  “Lady Nadashe, we should like a word with you privately,” Cardenia said, as the other members of the executive committee dispersed.

  “Ma’am,” Nadashe said, and stayed.

  “I’ve received a letter of protest about your appointment to the executive committee,” Cardenia said, when they were alone, dropping the royal “we.” It was a signal to Nadashe that the discussion would be informal and off the record.

  “Let me guess,” Nadashe said. “From the House of Lagos.”

  “The House of Lagos is a signatory but not the only one.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “They’re concerned that the House of Nohamapetan has too much access to me, between your presence on the committee, your previous association with Rennered, and the fact that your brother Amit is actively trying to get me to marry him.”

  Nadashe smiled, thinly. “With respect, ma’am, ‘active’ is not the word I would use to describe it. Or perhaps more accurately, Amit is active. You are less so.”

  “I made it clear to Amit that I would be in mourning for Naffa Dolg for a year.”

  “Yes, you did. That is a substantial amount of time for mourning, ma’am.”

  “She was like a sister, Lady Nohamapetan. And the mourning period includes the other victims of the coronation bombing. To attempt to shorten that period now would be disrespectful to all their memories.” The third reason, which was to buy her time before considering Amit Nohamapetan as a husband, was left unsaid, but both Cardenia and Nadashe were aware of it as subtext. “Nevertheless the perception stands among many houses that yours has perhaps too much influence.”

  “I’d remind them that I was appointed by vote by the guilds. As the houses control their respective guilds, I am the choice of the majority of the houses.”

  “This is true. The letter reminds me, however, that while the custom is for the emperox to accept the selections of the church, guilds, and parliament for the executive committee, the emperox may reject or dismiss a member if they are not to their suiting. The letter also helpfully offers up several examples of when this has happened before.”

  “Do you plan to dismiss me, ma’am?” Nadashe asked, and Cardenia caught the undercurrent of tension in her voice.

  “I would not disrespect the guilds in that manner without cause,” Cardenia said. “But now that it has been pointed out to me, I acknowledge that the House of Nohamapetan is persistently and obviously a feature of my life, and the appearance of undue influence is an issue. It might be wise for your house to decide which it would prefer: a seat on the executive committee, or a chance at imperial consort.”

  “May I speak freely, ma’am?” Nadashe said, after a moment.

  “Please.”

  “You’re not really offering me much of a choice, are you? If I stay on the executive committee, you have an excuse to dismiss my brother’s suit, and you will still have the option of dismissing me from the committee if I become troublesome. If I abandon the committee, then you still have the option of dismissing my brother’s suit, which, to continue to speak freely, I don’t believe you’ve seriously considered, or plan to consider. If you want to dismiss me, or my brother, then do so. It’s your right and privilege as emperox. But don’t use this nonsense as an excuse.”

  Cardenia smiled at this and had a very slight twinge of regret that her preferences for sexual and romantic partners swung so heavily toward the opposite sex. Unlike her brother, Nadashe was not boring.

  And she would eat you alive, some part of her brain said. And, well, that was probably true. Nadashe would have no interest in being a quiet consort; she would want to rule. Which, if Cardenia was going to be entirely honest with herself, was not necessarily a bad thing. Cardenia never wanted to be emperox. All she wanted was to be the patron of a nice little arts charity or something. The idea of having an ambitious spouse who would be happy to handle the drudge work of running an empire had its appeal.

  As long as that spouse was following your agenda, her brain pointed out. Which would be a primary problem with Nadashe Nohamapetan. Whatever her plans were, they were made well in advance of Cardenia arriving on the throne. That would be a disqualifier on Nadashe’s part. Plus, Cardenia not really being interested in having sex with her was an issue. In mourning or not, it had been a damn long time since Cardenia had gotten laid.

  But you don’t want to have sex with Amit, either, her brain reminded her. Which was also true enough. He had the right gender but the wrong personality and was so transparently a puppet for his sister’s machinations that the only thing Cardenia could ever think while in his presence was When can I leave. It was also clear to Cardenia that Amit found her attractive, or attractive enough, anyway, which meant he would definitely want to have sex with her.

  If you don’t want to have sex with either of them, then y
ou might as well marry the one who won’t want to have sex with you either, her brain reasoned. This was an excellent point, except she didn’t know Nadashe’s sexuality, aside from “ambitious.” Nadashe would marry Cardenia, if that was on offer. Would she want everything else that was supposed to come with it? Possibly. But that’s not what Cardenia wanted.

  Not that you couldn’t get sex if you wanted, anyway. Which was also a thing. Political marriages were what they were, and the House of Murn, which controlled the sex work guild, had a thriving presence on Xi’an. She could very easily get as much service as she could stand. Certainly she wouldn’t be the first emperox to do so. She knew that from the Memory Room, where she foolishly asked the simulation of her father about his imperial marriage, and Attavio VI revealed the extent of his own extracurricular activity.

  This squicked out Cardenia, not for the fact of the sex, but because she, like most people, preferred not to picture a parent going at it. Cardenia wasn’t opposed to sex work or getting sex that way, if one were feeling a need and it was the easiest way to deal with it. But she didn’t want that as the default for her. Or to have lovers on the side doing the job of a spouse. If she was going to be married, she wanted a spouse who would be the focus for all of that. Call her old-fashioned.

  And beyond all this nonsense about sex, the issue of children: conventionally solvable with Amit Nohamapetan, technically solvable with Nadashe, but leaving unanswered the question of whether she wanted children with either. She didn’t care for the Nohamapetans much. She had no doubt she would love any child she had, but she was worried that she wouldn’t like them, if the Nohamapetan personality set was the dominant one.

  And none of any of that changed the fact that when it came right down to it, Cardenia didn’t want to marry either Amit or Nadashe Nohamapetan, not only because she didn’t find either attractive but because she resented being forced into a political marriage at all. She resented the Nohamapetans for pressing a claim that she had not been party to. She resented the executive committee for tacitly and explicitly promoting their suit. She resented the political realities with the guilds that made a marriage to a Nohamapetan a prudent move, in terms of the emperox retaining and exercising power. She resented her brother for dying, and she resented her father for suggesting that she didn’t have to marry a Nohamapetan, after all, when every other person, faction, and reality itself, strongly suggested otherwise.

  My life sucks, Cardenia thought to herself. I am emperox of all humanity, and my life sucks. She laughed a little bit at that.

  “Ma’am?” Nadashe said, bringing her out of her reverie.

  “Sorry,” Cardenia said. “I was thinking about our predicament.”

  “May I offer a suggestion?” Nadashe asked.

  “You may.”

  “For my house and for my brother I would be willing to give up my seat on the council, but only if it were because you agreed to marriage. So let me suggest this. While you are in mourning, spend significant time with Amit. Not merely formal settings but situations where the two of you could be yourselves with each other, if you were together. Where you might learn to see him as a partner. A consort. A spouse. On the anniversary of your coronation, tell him whether you accept him. If you do, I’ll resign from the executive committee. But if not, I’ll stay on, and at least Amit and my house have an answer. But I would need your promise that you wouldn’t then attempt to dismiss me from the committee. Is that acceptable?”

  Cardenia thought about it. “I think so,” she said.

  “Good,” Nadashe said. “In that case, I have an invitation for you, from Amit. Your construction yards have just completed the House of Nohamapetan’s latest tenner, the If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out. He invites you to a private tour of the ship, with him.”

  “When?”

  “In two days.”

  “And your brother issued this invitation when?”

  “Yesterday. He would have sent it directly but I’m on the committee and he knew I’d see you.”

  “And you anticipated us having this conversation, Nadashe?”

  Nadashe smiled. “No, ma’am. I wouldn’t have imagined that the House of Lagos would convince other houses to try to have me removed, although I’m not surprised now that I know. Or could know that you and I would make a deal because of it. No, the thing is, ma’am, Amit actually seems to like you. So he asked me to intercede on his behalf.”

  “You’re a good sister.”

  “I’m an adequate sister,” Nadashe said. “I mean, I was going to see you anyway. It wasn’t any extra effort.”

  They both had a laugh at that.

  Shortly thereafter Cardenia was back in her private wing, with Gell Deng. “I’d like you to keep me updated on the latest about the bombing today,” she said. “Not just from the news feeds.”

  “Of course, ma’am,” Deng said.

  “Also, I’ve agreed to tour a new ship with Amit Nohamapetan two days from now. Please contact his people and make the arrangements. Allow for two hours, plus travel. Late afternoon.”

  Deng raised his eyebrows slightly at this but otherwise said nothing on it directly. Instead he said, “The Imperial Guard will want blueprints and a proposed tour path.”

  “I don’t think there is a proposed tour path. It’s meant to be informal.”

  “The Imperial Guard will be very unhappy about that.”

  “Then have them inform Nohamapetan’s people that there needs to be a tour path, but don’t tell me. I want to be surprised.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Also, you asked to be told if there was ever news from the Count of Claremont on End.”

  “Yes?” In the first week of her reign, Cardenia had sent a letter to the count informing him of Attavio VI’s passing and requesting the latest on his research. It would still be far too early for the count to respond directly to that letter.

  “It’s not the Count of Claremont himself, but his son, Lord Marce Claremont. He just now arrived on a Lagos fiver and will be at Imperial Station in roughly thirty hours. He requests an audience with you.”

  “His son?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We’re sure about that relationship?”

  “The note came with the same security cipher the Count of Claremont used on all his correspondence. It’s legitimate.”

  “Did something happen to the count?”

  “The request doesn’t say. Would you like to schedule him, or should I shunt him off?” The Office of the Emperox had more than three dozen protocol officers to meet with low-level officials, apparatchiks, and flunkeys. If any of them were important enough to escalate, Deng would get a report and decide whether to bring it to the emperox’s attention.

  “Schedule him.”

  “I can give him fifteen minutes prior to your walkabout with Amit Nohamapetan, whatever time that is. That should be enough time for Lord Claremont to disembark and catch a shuttle to Xi’an.”

  “Have someone meet him. It’s probably his first time off End. I don’t want him to get lost.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do I have anything else for the rest of the day?”

  “Only a few minor things. Nothing that won’t keep.”

  Cardenia nodded. “Then I’m going to speak to my ancestors for a while. About political marriages.”

  “They would know all about those, ma’am.”

  “Yes they would.” Cardenia nodded and headed off to the Memory Room.

  Chapter

  14

  “We have two very real problems,” Kiva said to Countess Huma Lagos, her mother and the sitting matriarch of the House of Lagos. “One is bigger than the other.”

  “Let’s start with the smaller one,” Huma suggested.

  “The fucking Nohamapetans,” Kiva said.

  Huma laughed.

  The two were in the Hub offices for the House of Lagos in the Guild House, the single largest commercial building on Hub. The Guild House was seven hundred years old an
d populated by some of the oldest and most influential houses in the Interdependency, with smaller buildings holding lesser houses clustered around it like supplicants. The proximity of a house’s headquarters on Hub to the Guild House was a rough map of the political influence it wielded. Lagos was in the Guild House, on three low-level floors. The House of Nohamapetan was a few stories up but held only one floor and a half interest on another. The House of Wu, the imperial house, held the twelve stories at the top, including the roof, high up enough that one could practically reach up and touch the top of the Hubfall habitat dome the Guild House resided in.

  Countess Lagos wasn’t typically at Guild House. She ran the house from the Lagos home system of Ikoyi, and let a cousin serve as the director at Hub and at Xi’an. But the countess had arrived at Hub a week earlier to sit in on the final negotiations for a cross-licensing agreement with the House of Jemisin. Count Jemisin was scheduled to arrive in two days; in the meantime Kiva preferred presenting her issues to her mother rather than Lord Pretar, the Lagos senior director at Hub, whom Kiva had always considered an officious cockwomble.

  “What are our problems with the Nohamapetans?” Huma asked. “Aside from the usual ones?”

  “One, I’m certain the Nohamapetans sabotaged our product on End by introducing a virus and causing the duke there to embargo us and escrow our money. Two, I’m also certain it was Ghreni Nohamapetan, their director on End, who convinced the duke to escrow our money and then use it to fund his current civil war against rebels. Third, pretty sure the Nohamapetans, and specifically Ghreni Nohamapetan, are actually behind the rebellion on End, but I can’t prove that. Fourth and most importantly, motherfucking Ghreni Nohamapetan tried to put a bomb on our ship and then sent fucking pirates after us.”

  Huma Lagos silently considered what her daughter was saying to her. Then, “Just out of curiosity, if this is the smaller problem, what is the bigger problem?”