Юн Ли - Raven Stratagem

“I think I’m being adequately punished for my lapse in judgment,” Zehun said. They looked at Mikodez unsmilingly. “Forty years of stability in the Shuos. You have no idea what it was like to be Shuos before that; you can’t. You’re proposing turning the whole hexarchate topsy-turvy. That doesn’t bother you even a little?”

“That’s only if Cheris fails,” Mikodez said. “Have you given the mathematicians their marching orders?”

“It’s embarrassing that you’re asking,” Zehun said. “Of course I have. I’m also giving them whatever the hell they want for breakfast because I’m sure you don’t want to rely on cranky mathematicians for urgently important policy results.”

“I’m glad I can count on you to have common sense so I don’t have to.”

Zehun snorted.

“Well, keep an eye on the mathematicians. I hear it’s easier to check someone else’s work than hash it out from scratch, but it’s not my field.” He wasn’t under any illusions that the introductory calendrical math he’d studied as a cadet qualified him to inspect whatever Cheris was up to. “In the meantime, I am going to review my colleagues’ plan to see if there are any last-minute changes I should know about.”

“You really should get sleep instead.”

Mikodez fixed her with a stare. “Zehun-ye,” he said, using the instructor honorific, “we’re looking at high treason and a calendrical disruption that could be as bad as the one after Hellspin Fortress, and you think I’m going to be able to fall asleep?”

Zehun sighed. “Fine. Rest when you can, seriously, and I’ll keep you apprised of any developments. I’m having breakfast sent up so you don’t forget to eat yourself.”

“That was eight years ago,” he protested, “and I get nagged enough by Istradez as it stands. Can’t you let it rest?”

“Shut up and get to work.”

Mikodez grinned at Zehun. “If that’s not motivational, I don’t know what is.” He signed off before Zehun could get in a rejoinder. He knew they hated it when he did that, so he saved it for special occasions. You couldn’t get much more special than ‘oh, and by the way, our government and way of life might be ending in fourteen days.’

Breakfast arrived promptly, borne by an unsmiling guard who refused the persimmon candy on the tray when Mikodez offered it to her. On any other day he would have amused himself by wheedling her to take it, but Zehun would find out and yell at him for harassing the staff. Besides, he liked the candies.

He only ended up eating a third of what was on the tray, mostly because Zehun seemed to think he needed a lot more fuel than was the case. The last time he’d suggested that he could give them a vacation so they could spoil their grandchildren (four of them, a fifth on the way), they had retaliated by scrambling his noncritical custom grid interfaces. Served him right. In the dramas people shied from Shuos assassins and saboteurs, but the ones you had to watch out for were the bureaucrats .

While Mikodez ate, he had the grid run some searches. He poured himself more citron tea while going over the results, applying the occasional extra filter, not that those helped much. Nothing new with the Rahal, but he liked to check them first just to get them out of the way, and also just in case they surprised him. Once some Rahal magistrate had tried to bring cooking measures in line with some obscure lemma. That experiment hadn’t lasted long.

Shuos next, because the received wisdom—that the Shuos were their own worst enemy—had a lot of basis in truth. Mikodez held off on the ordinary business of approving promotions, demotions, and the occasional assassination; that could wait for later. Interestingly, the commandant of Shuos Academy Tertiary was still waffling over whether to make an attempt on the hexarch’s seat. Mikodez wished the man would make up his mind already. It was hard to find good, not to say loyal, commandants. Still, nothing of crushing urgency.

Andan was more interesting. One of his senior analysts thought Shandal Yeng had discovered some of their taps and was feeding them disinformation. Shandal Yeng was also spending a lot of time in elaborate meals with various offspring and the current consort. Mikodez remembered the time years ago he had attended one such dinner with Nirai Kujen. Conversation had centered around museum pieces, and Mikodez had amused himself thinking up heists. Kujen, who could be surprisingly passionate about beautiful architecture but didn’t care about the buildings’ contents, spent the evening seducing one of Shandal Yeng’s sons, Nezhe. As for Kujen’s anchor’s opinion of the whole affair, who knew. But it hadn’t been hard to figure out that Shandal Yeng was cozying up to Kujen on account of immortality. Too bad Mikodez hadn’t been able to eavesdrop on the conversation the two of them had late that night. Judging by the way they behaved toward each other ever after, the quarrel must have been spectacular.

As usual with the Andan, there was a lot of activity but none on the level of a code red nine. That brought Mikodez to the next faction, Nirai. The current hexarch didn’t worry him. Faian had a disturbing honest streak that was going to doom her, unending life or no. Unfortunately, Nirai Kujen had contrived to vanish so thoroughly that none of Mikodez’s agents had been able to sniff out his current location even now, and it was too much to hope that someone had accidentally winged Kujen with a genial gun. Mikodez was paranoid as a job requirement, but he feared few people in the hexarchate. Kujen was one of them. Until he had more information, however, he couldn’t do much else. He discarded the idea that Cheris and Kujen had allied with each other, which was one small mercy. Given the personalities involved, he couldn’t imagine such an arrangement lasting for long.

Kel and Vidona were business as usual. As far as Mikodez could tell, the Kel were occupied with logistics. The Vidona were having internal problems related to the interpretation of a remembrance that might have been fraudulently declared. They wanted to settle the matter before it came to the attention of Rahal Iruja. Riveting bedtime reading if you were into that sort of thing.

Zehun was right. The rest of the day passed quietly. Mikodez got through the next five days with the aid of drugs. Sleeping pills, to be exact.

The green onion was flourishing, but then, he was very diligent about watering it.

On the evening of the fifth day, Mikodez got a call on Line 6 while he was in the shower. Especially surprising because he was technically supposed to be meditating for a remembrance so he’d thought he’d at least be safe from that line. “Do you mind ?” he said to the grid. “Tell them to hold and I will be there in three minutes.”

It took five because that one damn button on his uniform hated him. He needed to go back to old-fashioned stupid fabrics instead of the programmable kind the Kel were so infatuated with.

“All right,” Mikodez said when he was minimally presentable, “connect me.” Within seconds, the five other hexarchs were glowering at him.

After examining him, Rahal Iruja said, “Mikodez, is your hair dripping?”

He’d known she’d disapprove. She sounded remarkably like one of his fathers, but he knew better than to say that out loud. “Look, Hexarch,” he said, “it was either my clothes or the hair dryer. Did you really want me to pick the other one?”

“Is the whole Citadel of Eyes run like this?”

“Hexarch,” Mikodez said, “be reasonable. I hire staff as little like me as possible or we’d get nothing done.”

“We’ll talk later,” Iruja said, which made him groan inwardly because she had an excellent memory. “Hexarch Tsoro wanted to announce a change in plans.”