Юн Ли - Revenant Gun

Brezan decided that it was unlikely that Emio would leave him in peace to get dressed. He strode over to the drawer and rummaged for his chest wrap and uniform. “All right,” he said, “tell me.”

“The first is that your revolution is already in danger.”

Brezan scoffed. “That’s all? It’s a revolution. It’s in danger by definition.”

Emio went on as if she hadn’t heard his outburst. “The second is that the person you were depending on to deal with this, Kel Cheris, has vanished.”

Brezan froze. “You can’t be serious.”

“Wasting time again,” Emio said. “You’ve run staff meetings before. Do you usually spend so much time on irrelevancies?”

As much as Brezan was starting to dislike Emio, he couldn’t argue the point. If she was telling the truth—and he had the sinking feeling that she was—then he needed to stop needling her and start preparing for a truly ugly situation. “You don’t know where Cheris went?”

He didn’t ask how much Emio knew about Cheris-Jedao and her role in the calendrical spike that had brought the entire hexarchate to a grinding halt. For one, he wouldn’t like the answer. For another, it didn’t matter at this point.

“If I did, would I have said that she vanished?” Emio said with maddening reasonableness. “And, you know, as far as the Kel are concerned, I’m just a sergeant. I didn’t have the authority to send everyone haring off on a search for her.”

“Wouldn’t have done any good,” Brezan said. “I assume she took the needlemoth.” It was the vessel she had arrived in, and it was equipped with a stealth system.

“Got it in one.”

By now Brezan had finished dressing, even if his uniform collar was crooked. If Emio cared, she kept it to herself. “I’m ready,” he said.

“No,” Emio said, “you need to eat and drink first.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I am quite serious.”

“Hexarch Mikodez gave you personal orders to that effect?”

Emio grimaced slightly. “Not the hexarch. His assistant Zehun. I can assure you that, in their way, Zehun is far more terrifying.”

Considering that Mikodez had just assassinated the other five hexarchs by way of declaring himself Cheris’s ally, Brezan doubted that very much. He wasn’t about to quibble, however. Brezan had vivid memories of his single encounter with Zehun, which had indeed been terrifying. He sat down at the table where Emio had deposited the tray and ate as quickly as his diminished appetite allowed.

“All right,” Brezan said. “I hope you have a secured line to the Citadel of Eyes or wherever the fuck the hexarch is hanging out these days, because I’m pretty sure if I try to call him it’ll just bounce.”

Emio didn’t dignify this with a reply. “Your terminal, if I may?”

Brezan made an impatient gesture. “Let’s get this over with.”

Emio leaned over the terminal and entered a long cryptic string of passphrases. “All right,” she said, “Line 6-1 to the Citadel of Eyes. It shouldn’t take long for the hexarch to pick up.”

Brezan resisted the impulse to spend the time waiting by checking his reflection in the terminal’s dark, glossy surface. If Hexarch Shuos Mikodez insisted on waking him in the middle of the night (revised calendar) to talk to him, Hexarch Shuos Mikodez could deal with imperfectly groomed hair and a crooked collar.

After two minutes, the display blazed to life. Brezan had never met Mikodez, but like any informed citizen he knew what the man looked like. Mikodez, unlike any number of Shuos, had never modded himself except to stay reasonably young the way any sensible person did. Glossy black hair with a long forelock framed a dark-skinned face, and earrings of red tassels and tiny gold beads swung from his ears. Aside from that, however, his red-and-gold uniform was entirely orthodox, vaguely military in style despite the desperately impractical colors. Then again, unless you were mucking around groundside, Brezan supposed it didn’t matter what colors you wore while swanning around space.

“High General,” Mikodez said. His voice was a surprisingly mild tenor. “Emio.”

Brezan fought back a surge of sheer atavistic terror. After all, if Mikodez had intended to assassinate him, he could have had Emio shoot him just minutes earlier.

Emio merely nodded and sat on the edge of Brezan’s desk. Under other circumstances, Brezan would have been even more aggravated. “Hexarch Mikodez,” he said. “You’ve got my attention. What’s so urgent?”

Mikodez grinned at Brezan. It almost made him look friendly, except Brezan wasn’t fooled. No one in control of that many assassins and spies could ever be friendly . “Sorry you had to meet your new bodyguard so precipitously,” Mikodez said, “but it couldn’t be helped.”

“If the situation is so fucked that I’m in immediate danger of getting offed,” Brezan said, “I’m not sure what difference one bodyguard is going to make. Even a superpowered Shuos bodyguard.” He cocked an eyebrow at Emio, daring her to say something.

“Only in the line of duty,” she said, unruffled.

“You’re in desperate need of a briefing,” Mikodez said, “especially if Cheris isn’t sticking around to take up the reins. I apologize for not getting in touch earlier, except I had to get briefed first, if you see what I mean.”

“Yes,” Brezan said sourly. “As far as I can tell, that means I get to stick around holding together the hexarchate until a decent provisional government can be put in place.” Which was going to be interesting because he was by no means a political theorist, and he automatically distrusted any that Mikodez, of all people, might offer to provide him. It wasn’t entirely clear to him, or to anyone, what laws the hexarchate now followed. Would its currency remain in place, and how was he going to persuade the Andan into helping him stabilize the markets? What would happen to all the Vidona? What would they do for jobs now? And the problems only began there.

“Worse than that,” Mikodez said, sobering. “You’re probably going to have to strong-arm people into following your new calendar and signing on to your government. Where by ‘strong-arm’ I mean sweet-talk. Normally I would offer the services of my Propaganda division, but right now my popularity is at an all-time low. You want to be seen cooperating with me as little as possible.”

Brezan avoided mentioning that he wanted not to have to cooperate with Mikodez, period, not least because he didn’t see that he had much choice. “Well,” he said, “that’s one thing I can do better than Cheris. Not because I’m particularly charismatic or interesting, but because by now everyone thinks she’s Jedao.”

“Charisma is just a matter of practice,” Mikodez said, waving a hand. “Admittedly, you’re not going to have much time. I’ll coach you, but it will only work if you take me seriously.”

It was only now penetrating that Shuos Mikodez seriously meant to back Brezan as the new head of state. “What’s in it for you?” Brezan asked.

“Stability,” Mikodez said with disarming frankness. “The Shuos already have issues on that front, despite my efforts.”

“That makes no sense,” Brezan said, unimpressed. “Why not blow up Cheris instead while you had the chance?”

“Because Cheris wasn’t the only one who objected to the remembrances,” Mikodez said. Suddenly all trace of humor left his voice. “Oh, I suppose the chocolate festivals and the New Year’s gift exchange are harmless enough. But the torture? All those lives cut up? It’s wasteful.”

Brezan bared his teeth at Mikodez. “I notice you didn’t say ‘wrong.’ If it mattered to you so much, why didn’t you do anything decades ago?”