by John Scalzi
“I assure you I have no plans to purge you,” Chenevert said. “My dear Lord Marce. I am very fond of you. Yes, I was sleeping quite contentedly when you found me. It’s possible I could have slept until my power ran down and I drifted away into a quiet death. But I don’t regret you waking me. You have offered me a better life and a better purpose than I have had in years, and perhaps ever. And if our task fails and our effort is ultimately futile, it was still worth the fight. I will be forever grateful that I was able to fight this with you, and with your emperox. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Marce said. He got up to head for his stateroom.
“Cardenia was a remarkable person,” Chenevert said to him, as he left. “You were right to love her, Marce.”
“Thank you.”
“And she was right to love you.”
Marce had nothing to say to that. He nodded and left.
In his stateroom, Marce prepared for bed, and in doing so ran his eyes over the small collection of possessions he had to his name. One of them caught his eye, and he picked it up. It was the pocket watch, the first gift that Cardenia had ever given him.
He opened it, and his eyes fell on the Chinese markings, the inscription that Cardenia had put there.
This is our time.
“It was our time,” Marce said to Cardenia, who was not there. “And it was worth it. I just wish there had been more of it.”
Marce willed himself to sleep. Just before it came, he imagined he heard Cardenia saying his name. It comforted him, and he gave himself over to it, and slept.
Chapter 22
Nadashe’s people were waiting for the Our Love when it popped back into Hub space, because of course they fucking would be. Nadashe had probably had them stationed there since the moment the Our Love exited Hub, just in case the ship somehow discovered the ability to fucking reverse in the Flow and come back immediately.
Kiva was flattered that Nadashe’s people were waiting. It meant Nadashe had been expecting Kiva to subvert the crew of the Our Love somehow. She was happy not to disappoint.
The Our Love crew surrendered Kiva without a fight, per Kiva’s wishes, and fed Nadashe’s people a line about Robinette unexpectedly experiencing a natural death (which was not technically incorrect, as the vacuum of space is a natural phenomenon), and thus the ship returning immediately to Hub to await further instructions. It was a cover story Kiva thought might keep the Our Love from being blasted out of the stars upon its return. Kiva was not especially fond of the Our Love crew—her earlier assessment of the crew being the type of surly fuckups who could not hack it in polite society had not been challenged on the nine-day return trip—but they had done her a favor in being easily manipulated into a mutiny. She wanted to hold up her end of the deal.
Nadashe’s ships had jammed the Our Love’s communications, so Kiva had been unable to send a series of intended messages, including ones to Senia and to the House of Lagos’s legal team. She also wasn’t able to enable the transfer of one of Nadashe’s secret accounts to the Our Love’s on-ship data vault. Before she was taken from the ship, Kiva wiped the messages to Senia and to legal out of the mailing queue so as to prioritize the withdrawal, and left detailed instructions for now-captain Nomiek about how to get through the secret account’s security protocols. She recommended he grab the account immediately after his communications were unjammed and that he, the Our Love, and all of its crew lie real fucking low for a few months. The secret account Kiva was transferring over had forty-six million marks more in it than the sum she had agreed to provide. Kiva considered it a tip, and anyway, it wasn’t like it was her fucking money.
Once Kiva was on board Nadashe’s ship, it ignored the Our Love entirely, which was a mild relief to Kiva, and headed toward Hub. Or so she thought. It wasn’t until the ship docked at Xi’an, at the emperox’s private docking area, that Kiva began to think that while she was away something had gone seriously fucking awry.
That suspicion was confirmed when Kiva was escorted to the emperox’s private office and found Nadashe Nohamapetan sitting behind the emperox’s private desk.
“You have to be absolutely fucking kidding me,” Kiva said to Nadashe.
Nadashe smiled. “Lady Kiva. If I wished to have a private conversation with you, would you promise not to do anything stupid, like attempt to attack me?”
“Fuck no,” Kiva said, and nodded her head at an object on the desk. “I would beat you to death with that fucking paperweight the first chance I got.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” Nadashe said, and nodded to the security personnel who had accompanied Kiva from the ship to the office. One of them forced Kiva into a very fine and extraordinarily expensive chair dating from the reign of Leo II, while another zipped her hands and feet to it with flexible ties.
“Snug?” Nadashe asked, after Kiva had been secured and the security detail had been dismissed to the other side of the door.
“Come over here and I’ll bite you.”
“That’s not my kink, but thank you for the offer.” Nadashe motioned to the office. “I understand that it might come as a shock to you that we are meeting in this place.”
“I’m not shocked,” Kiva said. “You’ve been trying to murder your way to this fucking office for years. I’m just disappointed that you finally managed to do it.”
“I didn’t murder anyone to get here.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know today was ‘insult Kiva Lagos’s intelligence’ day. If I had, I would have worn a festive party hat.”
“Have it your way,” Nadashe said. “The point is I will be the next emperox.”
“Why aren’t you the emperox already?” Kiva asked. “You’ve clearly been skulking around this fucking place for a bit. You’ve got your assholes all over it. What’s the holdup?”
Nadashe’s lips pressed thin. “A procedural detail with the Church of the Interdependency.”
Kiva chuckled at this. “I’m guessing Archbishop Korbijn told you to fuck yourself sideways.”
“Something like that.”
“I always liked her.”
“I didn’t,” Nadashe said. “The former Archbishop isn’t going to be around for much longer in any event.”
Kiva nodded. “Getting a jump on disappearing your enemies, I see.”
“She’s retiring from the priesthood after the coronation,” Nadashe said. “You don’t have to think so poorly of me, Kiva.”
“I’m not sure why not.”
“Well, you’re still alive, for one.”
This got a snort. “That’s just because I know where your money is.”
“Not just because of that.”
“I’m unconvinced,” Kiva said. “Two point seven billion marks in secret accounts is still a tidy sum, even for an incoming emperox. Well, two point six four four billion marks. I may have just overpaid for a mutiny with one of your smaller accounts.”
Nadashe smiled. “What if I told you that you could keep that two point six four four billion marks?”
“Then I’d say I wish I’d paid less for that mutiny.”
“Be serious for a moment, Kiva. We’ve never liked each other, and lately we’ve been legitimate enemies. But I’m about to be emperox. The last thing I want as I start my reign is contention and anger. I understand pissiness and attitude and performative rebellion are part of your brand”—Nadashe pointed at Kiva’s restraints—“but I also know that when push comes to shove, you keep your eye on business. Always have. I mean, hell. You somehow managed to make a profit on that trip to End after we sabotaged your haverfruit crops.”
“I fucking knew it!” Kiva exclaimed, triumphantly. “Your fucking brother. I’m gonna kill that little shit.”
“That seems unlikely at this point,” Nadashe observed.
“It’s on the agenda,” Kiva assured her.
Nadashe ignored this. “My point is this, Kiva: It’s time to put our differences aside. It’s time to do business.”
“All right,” Kiva said. “Let’s hear the business.”
“Here it is: I want your support. I want your house’s support.”
“I’m not my house. You’ll have to talk to my mother about that.”
“I did. One of my representatives did, anyway.”
“Yeah? How did that go?”
“She said that we could all fuck ourselves with a rented dick. The same rented dick.”
“That’s my mom,” Kiva said.
“I really thought it was just you who had that whole profanity tic.”
“Nope. It’s a family thing.”
“It’s not an attractive family trait.”
“It’s a better one than murdering family members and anyone else that gets in your way.”
“I suppose I walked into that, didn’t I.”
“You sure fucking did.”
“Let’s get back to it,” Nadashe said. “Your mother was not exactly forthcoming with her endorsement.”
“To be fair, you fake-murdered her child, who you actually kidnapped. This would not endear you to her.”
“Which is why if you endorsed me after all this, it would be such a powerful statement. It could convince your family and house to come into line as well. I want all the houses behind me as I take the throne, Kiva. Not just some of them. All of them.”
“And in return I get what?”
“You keep the secret accounts, to start. Two billion plus marks, all yours, free and clear. I won’t even make you pay taxes on them.”
“And.”
“I don’t put House of Lagos under investigation for various frauds and illegal business practices, or place your house under imperial administration while we audit every single inch of your business, going back a hundred years or more. Sound at all familiar?”
Kiva ignored the provocation. “And,” she said.
“You’ll succeed your mother as the head of the House of Lagos.”
“That won’t go over well with at least five of my siblings,” Kiva said.
“You’ll have the emperox on your side. They’ll have to get used to disappointment.”
Kiva nodded. “And.”
“And ice cream,” Nadashe said, exasperated. “What else more do you want?”
“I want your brother Ghreni’s head on a fucking spike,” Kiva said.
“Why?”
“Because he pissed me off and messed with my business and at one point would have tried to kill me on End, because he deluded himself that he could get away with that shit.”
“He was going to kill you himself?”
“He was going to try, anyway.”
“Yeah,” Nadashe said. “I don’t see that working out for him.”
“It really would not have. But it’s still a mark against him in my book.”
“I can’t give you him right away,” Nadashe said. “I still need him for a while. Until I can move the imperial house to End.”
“How long is that going to be?”
“Maybe five years.”
“Five years!” Kiva exclaimed.
“Would have been slightly sooner if not for Archbishop Korbijn.”
“So in five years, you cut him loose.”
“Yes,” Nadashe said. “He’s yours. You’ll have to come to End to get him, though.”
“We’re all coming to End, sooner or later.”
“Which is the other thing,” Nadashe said. “I can offer the House of Lagos a discount on shoal fees to End. Those are going to be getting very expensive in the next few years.”
“I can only imagine,” Kiva said. “So, to sum up, if I endorse you as emperox, and get the House of Lagos to come around and endorse you too, I get two and a half billion marks, tax free, the directorship of my House, cheap fees to End when we move everything over there, and I get to murder the fuck out of that miserable block of constipation that you call your brother. In five years.”
“That sounds about right,” Nadashe said.
“That’s a pretty good deal,” Kiva admitted.
“So you’ll take it,” Nadashe prompted.
“Fuck no,” Kiva said. “I’m not that gullible, sister. I just wanted to see what you would pretend to offer. Selling out your brother was an especially nice touch.”
“What?” Nadashe was confused.
“You’re not under the impression I think you’ll live up to your agreements, are you?” Kiva said. “You’re fucking trash, Nadashe. Your whole family is trash. Traitorous, murdering garbage, from your fucking glitterdumpster of a mother on down. Once you’re emperox, you won’t give a goddamn about house endorsements or promises or loyalty. You’re going to pick us apart and you’re going to use the collapse of the Flow to do it. You’ll turn on me the moment you can’t get anything more out of me. You’ll turn on my house. You’ll turn on everyone, sooner or later. You won’t care, because you’ll be on End while everyone else dies slowly in space. So, yeah, fuck you, Nadashe. Fuck you and your fucking deal.”
“Well,” Nadashe said, when Kiva was done. “That was quite a little speech.”
“It had its moments,” Kiva allowed.
“I’m glad we had this time together. You know, it’s been a while since we were in the same room at the same time. I think university was the last time it happened.”
“I didn’t miss you much.”
“Likewise, I assure you.”
“So now what?” Kiva asked. “Are you killing me now, or are you saving me for a special occasion?”
“It won’t be that special,” Nadashe said. “No, I’m not going to kill you. I do still want that money back, since you didn’t want it. And you still have use to me as a hostage. For now.”
“So where are you going to put me?”
Nadashe smiled. “I have just the place. I hope you like toothbrush shivs.”
Which is how Kiva found herself, a few short hours later, at the Emperox Hanne II Secured Correctional Facility, thirty klicks outside of Hubfall. It was the same facility that Nadashe had found herself in, after she had been accused of murder and treason. Shoving Kiva into it probably counted as ironic commentary for Nadashe.
Kiva was surprisingly fine with it, to be honest. She wasn’t being actively murdered, which was a thing she wouldn’t have guessed, given Nadashe and her tendencies toward homicide, and her cell was both larger and smelled nicer than the broom closet she’d been shoved into on the Our Love. The cell’s toilet wasn’t even chemical.
Philosophically she was less fine with the fact she was an actual and genuine political prisoner, since she was being held without any official charges, without representation and without anyone knowing that she was alive. She hadn’t even been checked in to the facility under her name; as far as the Emperox Hanne II Secured Correctional Facility was concerned, Kiva’s name was Mavel Biggs. Kiva remembered that as being the name of one of the minor characters in the terrible novel she had been reading on the Our Love. That was some fucking irony for you.
Kiva idly wondered if she was the only political prisoner at the facility, but there was no way for her to know. She was held in solitary, ostensibly for her own protection against a shivving from a toothbrush or any other implement, but in reality to keep her from speaking to other prisoners, to whom she might blab about her actual identity, and who might in turn tell their lawyers or family members, who in turn might tell someone who actually cared, and so on. It was not uniformly terrible, since it meant her meals were brought to her, she had the exercise area to herself for the hour she had out of her cell, and she was given a one-way tablet to keep her amused. She found herself bingeing The Emperoxs again, because it was there and it was distracting eye candy. The days began to flow together.
It was the tablet that told her, under its news heading, that the Church of the Interdependency’s convocation of bishops had finally, after a rather contentious debate that took weeks longer than expected, selected a new archbishop of Xi’an: the former Bishop Cole, of the Sparta habitat, whic
h was located in a long orbit of the Hub system’s sun. Kiva looked at Bishop Cole—a stocky, bearded fellow who bore a look of quiet exasperation—and wondered what he had done to be stuck with the thankless task of coronating Nadashe Nohamapetan. He didn’t look like he’d enjoy it. But then, Kiva wasn’t sure, aside from Nadashe herself, how anyone would enjoy it.
With the next archbishop selected, the coronation of Nadashe Nohamapetan could finally be scheduled. It was to be in three days, at noon. Nadashe had unusually kept her personal name as her imperial name; she was to be the Emperox Nadashe I. Kiva was not surprised. Nadashe was an egotistical fuck.
Kiva did not imagine that she would be sprung from her current circumstances once Nadashe became emperox. She fully expected to be lost in the shuffle from now until the end of time. Or at least until Nadashe was fully ensconced in her new imperial digs on End, five some odd years from now. Once she was there, and the Flow stream from Hub to End collapsed, Kiva didn’t imagine that her own fate would be any different than that of anyone else left behind—slow death. Whether it was in this cell or outside of it hardly made a difference.
Kiva’s tablet suddenly went blank.
“Fuck,” she said. The tablet was Kiva’s sanity check—without something to keep her busy, solitary would drive her loopy in a probably surprisingly short amount of time.
The lights in the Emperox Hanne II Secured Correctional Facility suddenly went out. All of them. All at once.
“Fuck,” Kiva said again, this time with more urgency. Loss of power was no joke. The correctional facility, like every habitat on Hub, was underground, below the surface of an airless planet whose surface temperature ranged from murderously cold to murderously hot, depending on where one was standing on its tidally locked surface. The facility was on the murderously cold side of the terminator line. Without power, it would start getting cold. And stuffy, since the air exchangers and scrubbers would be off-line as well. If the power stayed off, it would be a race to discover whether everyone in the facility would die of cold or carbon dioxide asphyxiation.