Юн Ли - Raven Stratagem

He didn’t remember this time, either. “Not a counterfeit,” Mikodez said. “You were the prototype. Where do you think they got the idea?”

Jedao met Mikodez’s eyes. His face had cleared of all expression, an obvious tell. He was silent for a long time. “You’re not lying to me.”

“My dear,” Mikodez said, “I shouldn’t have to remind you that sometimes the truth serves better than a lie.”

A longer silence. “Why would they get rid of formation instinct if they’d managed to inject me with it? I would have assumed that they’d want to leash me as tightly as possible.” Brief pause. “At least now I understand why they didn’t—didn’t just kill me. If they thought they could do this. If they did .” Jedao drew a shuddering breath, regrouped.

“I don’t know why they uninjected you,” Mikodez said. Also true, although Jedao was unlikely to believe him. “But it should be obvious to you who would have that information, if you can track him down.”

There was a chance that Kel Command’s hive memory, never entirely reliable, had degraded over time. Mikodez and Jedao both knew that Nirai Kujen had perfect recall, however. Getting Jedao to retrieve Kujen was a long shot, but Mikodez had nothing to lose.

“At a guess,” Mikodez said, “they gave up on it because the results were unreliable. You’d be a lousy Kel candidate to begin with, so even with modern techniques a standard injection wouldn’t take. Who knows how long they spent getting a psych surgeon”—meaning Kujen—“to do a custom job.”

“It’s redundant for you to give me more reasons to avoid Kel Command,” Jedao said.

“That wasn’t why I told you.” Mostly true.

“Then—?”

“Because you deserve to know.”

Jedao’s eyes widened. Then he laughed.

“You’re one of mine,” Mikodez said. “I despise seeing my people mishandled, but until very recently you’ve been under Kel jurisdiction, so there was only so much I could do.”

“Yes,” Jedao said, growing distant. “I remember when they told me that Khiaz-zho had signed me over to the Kel Arsenal. I don’t know why it came as such a shock. But I deserved no less.” More silence.

“Whatever’s on your mind, you might as well ask.”

“Is it true that you assassinate Shuos cadets?”

Interesting. Jedao was trying to gauge his moral fiber. Kel Command would have been singularly unamused. Or possibly gone out to get collectively drunk. (Did they ever do that? Intelligence was unclear on that point.) “My dear,” Mikodez said, “I’m happy to tell you the dirt, but you’re not good enough to determine whether I’m lying or not.”

“Try me anyway,” Jedao said.

“The answer is yes. I specifically targeted two cadets, whom my agents successfully terminated. There were no secondary casualties. The cadets were part of a heretic plot to blow up Shuos Academy Tertiary. The details are messy. I didn’t have a lot of time. Since I didn’t fancy a panic, I had my agents shoot them while they were playing some drinking game. The plot came much closer to succeeding than I generally like to admit.”

“Why not release the truth after the matter had been handled? Your academy commandant should have been able to keep the lid on a little panic.”

“You didn’t ask when the incident happened.” Mikodez grimaced. “I was twenty-seven. It was my second year as hexarch, and I didn’t have a lot of credibility. I felt it was more useful for people to be afraid of what I might do to top that.”

Jedao laughed wryly. “I can’t say I envy you your job, Shuos-zho. I was never tempted to try for it.”

Mikodez believed him, which was just as well. The prospect of someone with Jedao’s psychological problems in charge of the Shuos appalled him. Jedao’s solution to people who disagreed with him was to shoot them. While even Jedao couldn’t shoot everyone in the hexarchate, the evidence to date suggested that he’d do a fantastic amount of damage on the way out.

Jedao did have a swarm—-Shandal Yeng’s anxiety wasn’t entirely unfounded—but Mikodez hoped that the Hafn would keep him occupied with something familiar and soothing until he could be stabilized. In any case, it was Mikodez’s turn. “Tell me something so I can settle a few bets around the Citadel,” he said idly. “How is Khiruev in bed?”

Jedao went ice-white.

Damn. That meant he’d been thinking about it. The taboo had not been as strong during Jedao’s lifetime. However, after the institution of formation instinct, due to the potential for abuse, Kel who had sex with other Kel were executed. Even Kel Command recognized the morale problems that would result. And Jedao, who had spent almost his entire adult career, and several lifetimes besides, in Kel service, thought of himself as a hawk.

“You wouldn’t entirely be to blame for gravitating toward hawks after the way Khiaz worked you over,” Mikodez said. As a matter of fact, her notes on all her victims were in his archives. (Heptarch Khiaz had been a very well-organized predator.) In Jedao’s case, she’d taken the extra step of allowing him to transfer out of her office when he was a young man, so that he thought he’d escaped being harassed by her. She’d waited until his promotion to brigadier general to strike.

“Shuos-zho,” Jedao said, in a voice so pleasant it was poisonous, “it’s no secret that I’m one of the hexarchate’s greatest monsters, but I draw the line at rape.”

“That’s fucking hilarious considering whose body you’re walking around in,” Mikodez observed.

Jedao’s face was recovering some of its color. “Kel Cheris had already died,” he said. “I didn’t see any harm in wringing some final use out of her carcass. The dead aren’t around to care.”

“You’re one of us, all right.”

“I’m so glad I have your approval, Shuos-zho, but feel free to get to the point.”

Jedao’s sexual hang-ups hadn’t been a concern while he was a revenant, but the fact that he had a body now complicated matters. “Never mind Khiruev, then,” Mikodez said. “At some point when you’re done walloping the Hafn, you ought to take some time off and try sex with someone who isn’t a Kel. I hear some people find it fulfilling.” Istradez always laughed whenever he heard of Mikodez giving this particular advice. But Jedao’s discomfited expression made the whole conversation worth it. “Unless you have some archaic problem with being a womanform?”

“Shuos-zho,” Jedao said patiently, “I haven’t had a dick in four hundred years. I got over it fast, promise.”

“It’s still frustrating that I can’t send over a licensed courtesan, although I’m not sure I can afford one good enough to work through your particular problems.”

“You say this like I’m going to have time for extracurricular activities. This fucking swarm doesn’t run itself, you know.”

“Tell me,” Mikodez said in exasperation, “what the hell would you do if there weren’t a war on?”

Jedao faltered. For a moment his eyes were wrenchingly young. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Which meant, although there was no way that Jedao was ready to admit it to himself, that he’d start a war just to have something to do.

“I’ve kept you long enough,” Mikodez said, “but one last thing.” The most important thing. “Does the term Mwen-denerra mean anything to you?”

Home of the Mwennin. The scatter-home, the braid of all the small communities bound by blood and custom.

Jedao cocked his head. “I can’t even tell you what language that’s from, Shuos-zho. Foreign? Hexarchate?”

“The hexarchs want to destroy it,” Mikodez said.