The Last Emperox

by John Scalzi

  Yes, this is all coming together nicely, Deran thought, took another sip of his tea, and collapsed dead, teacup tumbling beside him.

  Witka, turning back to him with a plate of food, screamed, dropped the plate to the floor and ran to Deran’s body. The rest of the board stood there, silently staring at the spectacle. After a minute Witka fled from the room, calling for medical help.

  The board members continued staring at Deran’s body.

  “Well, I didn’t do that,” Belment said, eventually.

  “Did anyone else?” Proster asked.

  There was a general murmur of denial.

  “Huh,” Proster said, and took a bite of his bread roll.

  “So, are we still going through with his plan?” Tiegan asked.

  Medics burst into the room before anyone could answer.

  Chapter 2

  At the same time Deran Wu was dropping dead on the highest floor of the Guild House, several stories down, Kiva Lagos was fighting the temptation to throw someone through one of its windows.

  “The fuck did you just say?” Kiva said to the man sitting on the other side of the desk from her.

  The man, Bagin Heuvel, senior trade negotiator for the House of Wolfe, didn’t blink. “You heard me perfectly well, Lady Kiva. The House of Wolfe intends to renegotiate our contracts with the House of Nohamapetan, of which you are the administrator. We would prefer those negotiations be handled positively and in the spirit of cooperation and mutual benefit. But if that’s not possible, and by your response I can see that it might not be, then we’ll be more than happy to file a suit in the Guild Court to seek relief.”

  “On what grounds, exactly?”

  “On the grounds that civilization is collapsing, Lady Kiva.”

  Kiva glanced over at Senia Fundapellonan, who was a lawyer for the House of Nohamapetan—well, had been one, until the Countess Nohamapetan accidentally had her shot while trying to assassinate Kiva, at which point Senia had switched sides and come to work for Kiva, who was now in charge of the House of Nohamapetan because the countess was in jail on a count of treason. Kiva had put Fundapellonan in charge of the House of Nohamapetan’s legal department, and also Kiva and Fundapellonan were totally doing it and doing it well—really, it was all kind of sudden and complicated—and Fundapellonan read her glance perfectly. “The contracts between our houses have no clause for any alleged collapse of civilization, Mr. Heuvel,” she said.

  “They do, however, have clauses regarding force majeure,” Heuvel said.

  “Force fucking majeure?” Kiva exclaimed.

  “I didn’t put the word ‘fucking’ in there, but otherwise, yes.”

  “Force majeure is for when an unspotted space rock suddenly destroys a whole fucking habitat,” Kiva said.

  “That is one example,” Heuvel agreed. “We argue the collapse of civilization is another.”

  “The key word is ‘suddenly.’”

  “Actually, the keywords are ‘collapse of civilization.’”

  “Lady Kiva is correct,” Fundapellonan interjected. “Force majeure is about unforeseen and unexpected events.”

  “Yes, like the collapse of our entire civilization,” Heuvel said.

  “Fucking years from now,” Kiva said.

  “During a time span in which significant elements of the contracts between our houses will not be able to be executed, exposing the House of Wolfe to significant civil and financial liability,” Heuvel said, raising a finger for emphasis. “If the current best estimates for the condition of the Flow streams within the Interdependency are correct, then the House of Wolfe will, through no fault of its own and entirely contingent upon forces that are not within its control, begin to default on its contractual obligations in ways that expose it to unacceptable levels of risk.”

  “Which is your problem.”

  Heuvel nodded. “I agree it is a problem. I don’t agree that it is only our problem. And the House of Wolfe is willing to go to court to make that argument.”

  “The Guild Court is not exactly known for its receptiveness to novel interpretation of contractual law,” Fundapellonan pointed out. “There’s several hundred years of case law that strongly suggests that if you file this suit, what will happen is that you’re laughed out of court and your client will end up paying our legal fees plus a significant penalty.”

  “That’s one possibility,” Heuvel said. “The other possibility is that the Guild Court will recognize that several hundred years of case law means nothing when the Interdependency is confronting an existential threat to its existence that literally has no parallel in all of recorded history.”

  “You’re expecting a lot from the Guild Court.”

  Heuvel shrugged. “They are trapped by this collapse just as much as any of the rest of us. We’re off the map entirely.” He turned his attention back to Kiva. “But as I said at the outset, we don’t actually want to have to go to court at all. We’re ready to renegotiate in good will, to the benefit of both of our houses.”

  “That’s not what you said.” Kiva stared back stonily at Heuvel. “What you said was, the House of Wolfe intends to renegotiate these contracts, or go to court.”

  “Yes,” Heuvel said. “So?”

  “So, you came here to tell me what was going to happen, not to ask for my help to make it happen.”

  “Obviously we will need your help to make it happen—”

  It was Kiva’s turn to hold up a finger. “But you weren’t asking for it. You were telling me what was going to happen, and expecting me to go along with it like it was already a done deal.”

  “I’m not sure why that matters.”

  “It matters because you’ve fucking pissed me off,” Kiva said. “I don’t like when people come into my office and tell me how I’m going to do things, as if I don’t have a say in the matter, and preemptively threaten to drag me into court to try to coerce my compliance.”

  “Lady Kiva, if I came across in such a manner, I apologize, it was unintentional—”

  “And now you’ve just fucking pissed me off twice, because you’re pretending like you did this shit accidentally. You’re a grown adult and the senior trade negotiator for an entire fucking house. And yes, the House of Wolfe is a truly minor fucking house—”

  “Hey—”

  “But even a minor fucking house has the resources to hire someone competent. So either you’ve managed to hide your absolute fucking incompetence from the House of Wolfe long enough to shit yourself upward into your current position, or you knew what you were doing the moment you sat down in that fucking chair and decided to insult my intelligence. So which is it?”

  Heuvel blinked, and then asked, “Why do you care?”

  “About your competence? I don’t, but I’m sure your boss might.”

  “No, I mean why do you care about this? This contract.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Countess Nohamapetan tried to murder you, Lady Kiva,” Heuvel said. Fundapellonan shifted uneasily in her chair at this; she had been the one hit by the bullet intended for Kiva, and it was only in the last week that she’d been cleared to go back to work. Her shoulder was still fucked up and in the slow process of healing. “The House of Nohamapetan is a house of traitors. Its head is in prison and its heirs are missing or dead. You’re in charge because it was assigned to you by the emperox. You have no allegiance to this house, my lady. So what if this contract is renegotiated? The worst-case scenario is that the House of Nohamapetan makes a slightly less immensely large pile of money than it did before. This traitor house. I don’t understand what the problem is here.”

  Kiva nodded at this and stood up, and came around the desk to Heuvel. Heuvel glanced over to Fundapellonan uncertainly; Fundapellonan shook her head ever so slightly, as if to say Too late to escape now. Kiva bent over to put herself eye to eye with Heuvel.

  “Well, since you asked,” she said, “I care because the emperox told me to care. I care because aside from the fuck
ing Nohamapetans, this house employs hundreds of thousands of people who now have to rely on me to look out for their best interest. I care because although you will never know this, running a whole fucking house is an immense responsibility, and maybe, I don’t know, I would like to be seen as good at my fucking job. I care because despite the name on the door, this is my fucking house now. I care because when you come into my house, into my office, and tell me what is going to happen, you insult me and you insult my house. And since I can tell you’re not the sort to show any actual goddamned initiative on your own part, you fucking cognitive mudfart, I care that your shitty little house is insulting me and my house—both of my houses, since I am still of House fucking Lagos. I care because I fucking care. And you and your shitty little house have picked the absolute wrong fucking individual to try to push around. Is this clear enough for you now, Mr. Heuvel? Or should I use smaller fucking words for you?”

  “No, I get it,” Heuvel said.

  “Good.” Kiva straightened up and leaned up against her desk. “Then here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go back to your bosses and tell them that the House of Nohamapetan thanks them for the offer, and our counteroffer is that the House of Wolfe goes and fucks itself sideways, because we’re not agreeing to change a single fucking comma in our current contracts. If the House of Wolfe wants to file a suit with the Guild Courts, they can go right ahead, because the House of Nohamapetan will tie that shit up, not only until the collapse of the Flow, but until the actual heat death of the observable fucking universe.” Kiva turned to Fundapellonan. “We have the resources for that, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Fundapellonan.

  Kiva turned back to Heuvel. “So if you want your great-great-great-grandchildren working on this as the oxygen leaks out of their habitat, go to court with this force majeure crap. We’ll be there, watching them turn blue. Until then, get the fuck out of my office.”

  “I enjoy watching you work,” Fundapellonan said, after Heuvel got the fuck out of Kiva’s office.

  “This isn’t the last time we’ll see this,” Kiva said.

  “The force majeure strategy? Probably not.” Fundapellonan gestured toward the direction that Heuvel had fucked off. “The House of Wolfe isn’t known for innovative legal strategies. I don’t think they thought it up on their own. If they didn’t, you can bet that someone else has already filed a case with the Guild Court. I can have someone follow up on it.”

  “Do that.”

  “Okay.” Fundapellonan made a note. “Of course, this does raise the question of why you care.”

  Kiva squinted at Fundapellonan. “Not you, too.”

  Fundapellonan smiled at this. “I know why you cared when it involved you and this house,” she said. “You caring when it doesn’t involve you is notable.”

  “That doesn’t sound great.”

  “You’re supremely self-interested. That’s not bad or good; it just is. So if you’re interested in this, you’re thinking about how it’s a pain in the ass for you.”

  “It’s a pain in the ass for me because that odious shitbug isn’t wrong,” Kiva said. “The collapse of the Flow is coming. If the Guild Court decides that the collapse of civilization means contracts are null, that’s chaos.”

  “You suddenly don’t like chaos.”

  “I don’t like it when it’s not working for me.”

  “See, this is what I mean by self-interested.”

  “In this case it wouldn’t be working for anyone,” Kiva said. “If the Guild Court lets one of these suits get by, it’ll kick the legs out from our entire economic system.”

  “Not like, say, the collapse of the Flow.”

  “The end is coming,” Kiva said. “I’m not sure why we want it come faster.” She pointed in the direction Heuvel had left. “People will fucking starve because of him or someone like him.”

  “To be fair to poor Mr. Heuvel, he was only following orders, and he was fulfilling his fiduciary duty,” Fundapellonan said. “If you told me to go to some other house with the same foolish plan, I’d be obliged to do it.”

  “I hope you’d punch me in the face first.”

  “My shoulder is still messed up. I’d have to kick you in the ass instead.”

  “You’d still do it.”

  “At this point I don’t think I’d have to. You’re self-interested, but it seems your self-interest has expanded somewhat. At least temporarily.”

  “Don’t get used to it.”

  “I won’t.” Fundapellonan got up out of her chair, using her uninjured arm to steady herself as she did so. “In the meantime I’ll head back to legal to get a team together to respond just in case the House of Wolfe hasn’t had the fear of Kiva Lagos sufficiently instilled into it. What about you?”

  Kiva looked at her desk clock. “I have to catch a shuttle to Xi’an in half an hour. Fucking executive committee meeting.”

  Fundapellonan smiled. “You can’t fool me; you love being on that.”

  Kiva grunted at that. The executive committee consisted of three ministers of parliament, three members of the Church of the Interdependency and three members of the guild houses. Kiva had been drafted to it after a coup attempt against the emperox ensnarled roughly a third of the houses. The emperox decided she needed a safe vote on the committee, and Kiva was it. Kiva was aware of the irony of her, of all people, being a safe vote.

  “You should bring up your concerns about this force majeure nonsense at the meeting,” Fundapellonan said. “Either Grayland or the parliament can cut it off at the pass.”

  “The Guild Court wouldn’t like that,” Kiva said. The Guild Court was notoriously prickly about its perceived independence.

  “No they wouldn’t,” Fundapellonan agreed. “But that’s not your problem.” She left, and Kiva watched her go, in part because she was enjoying the view and in part because she was still thinking about the showdown they’d just had with fucking Heuvel.

  Senia Fundapellonan was not wrong about Kiva; Kiva was extremely self-interested. Senia thought that was neither good nor bad, but Kiva was of a different mind about that. She thought it was pretty much the only way to be in a universe that didn’t care about anyone’s life one way or another, and in a civilization that was designed to keep the rich as rich as possible and the poor from actively starving so they wouldn’t think to rise up and behead the rich. An uncaring universe and a fundamentally static civilization would smother anyone who didn’t keep themselves and their own concerns front and center.

  Kiva wasn’t wrong about this, at least as it applied to her. Her policy of “fuck you, what’s in it for me” had taken her in the space of a couple of years from being the mostly superfluous sixth child of an only moderately influential noblewoman to being the de facto head of one of the most powerful houses in the Interdependency, as well as having a seat on the executive committee and the favor of the emperox. Admittedly Kiva’s philosophy of pragmatic, committed selfishness wouldn’t work as well for just about anyone else as it had for her, but fuck them, they weren’t Kiva. Which, again, was right to the point.

  For all that, the higher Kiva ascended the steps of power, the more she realized that her policy of selfishness had, shall we say, certain limits. Perhaps in a different era, when in fact civilization was not just a few short years from falling down a deep, dark fucking hole, she could have contentedly continued on a path of self-regard, secure in the knowledge that ultimately it wouldn’t matter what she did anyway. She was just a speck of animated carbon that would be eternally inanimate soon enough, so might as well go ahead and have another muffin, or lay that cute redhead, or whatever. The universe was not intentionally designed to absorb Kiva’s selfishness, but it certainly wasn’t hurt by it in any noticeable way.

  But Kiva was aware that her time now was not that time. Her time was human civilization fucking imploding, taking the individual humans with it—including her. The time span she was likely to be around (barring assassination, uninte
ntional overdoses and falls down flights of stairs) now exceeded that of the civilization she lived in. Which meant that some portion of her life—possibly decades—would become exceedingly fucking uncomfortable unless things were done by people in positions of power to avoid that.

  The thing was, it was turning out that people in positions in power were, well, extremely self-interested. Just like Kiva was.

  Which, again, would be fine, if human civilization was not coming to an actual fucking end.

  But it actually fucking was.

  So it was a problem.

  And it was how you got things like Bagin fucking shittoad Heuvel and his similarly feculent amphibian bosses, happy to throw the economic underpinnings of society under a bus in order to save a few marks that wouldn’t matter anyway when civilization collapsed and their plump, soggy asses started looking tasty to the starving crowds. Bagin fucking shittoad Heuvel and his bosses weren’t thinking about anything other than what was in it for them in the very short term.

  Kiva couldn’t say that she was fundamentally any different—or hadn’t been until possibly right around the time Heuvel opened his smarmy little mouth—but she did realize that at the moment, the number of fundamentally selfish and self-interested people that human civilization could tolerate, particularly in the social tranche that could actually have an impact on the fate of humanity, had shrunk considerably. Kiva had been struck by a realization that, if not exactly an epiphany, was certainly enough to make her stop in her tracks:

  Either she was going to have to become less fundamentally selfish, or she was going to have to find a way to make others less so.