Юн Ли - Revenant Gun

“Because when I took the hexarch’s seat,” Mikodez said, “my duty was to look after the welfare of the Shuos. For decades that meant preserving the status quo. Don’t think I didn’t look into alternatives; I did. But as you’re about to discover, ripping out a government by the roots and replacing it with something new? That’s not trivial work.”

“Spoken like someone who knows.”

“Oh, we stole that from the Andan,” Mikodez said. “First Contact has a large body of research on how to transition governments and sociocultural structures. The problem is, all of it goes in the wrong direction—taking salvageable heretics and integrating them into the hexarchate. We want to go in the opposite direction, and in an opposite direction toward something that’s never existed in our realm before. I imagine a lot of people will revolt or flee or die before it’s all settled.”

Brezan gave him a hard look. “You say that so cavalierly.”

“I’m not the only one who made this world, Brezan.”

Brezan flushed. He couldn’t deny the charge. After all, he’d had his chance to turn Cheris over to Kel Command. Instead he’d joined up with her. Not for the first time, he thought about Tseya, the Andan agent whom he’d accompanied to assassinate Cheris, who’d once been his lover. At the time the two of them had thought Cheris was Jedao. Cheris herself had done everything possible to confuse people on that point.

Cheris had offered Brezan the prospect of a better world, one in which people didn’t have to be ritually tortured to death to preserve the high calendar’s workings. He’d believed her. And he’d betrayed Kel Command, and his family, and his lover Tseya, on the strength of that belief. He was already starting to wonder if he’d messed up.

“Someone’s going to have to take charge of the provisional government,” Brezan said. “I’d hoped it was going to be Cheris. But I see now that that wouldn’t have worked.”

Even so, he was angry, bitterly angry, that Cheris hadn’t stuck around to help unfuck the revolution she’d instigated. He stared down at his hand and saw that it had balled into a fist. With an effort, he unclenched his fingers.

“She wouldn’t have done you much good,” Mikodez said briskly. “What she and Jedao have in common is that their vocabulary for fixing problems is mainly limited to shooting them. That’s all very well when you’re on the battlefield. It’s not very useful in the rest of the real world.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from a Shuos.”

“There are a lot of problems that can be solved more fruitfully by not shooting things.”

“I’ll take that under consideration,” Brezan said. “So. I can’t rely on Cheris, and considering that she’s more of a crashhawk than I am, it might be just as well that she’s gone away. What else do I need to know?”

“Three things for now,” Mikodez said. “First, Kel Inesser”—the hexarchate’s senior field general—“is going to be a problem.” He explained that she’d rallied a not insignificant number of Kel swarms to her banner and had declared herself Protector-General. “I give her points for creativity. Presumably she didn’t claim the hexarch’s seat because of, well, you.”

Brezan barked a laugh. “Like I’m a threat to Inesser .” A general who’d been generaling since before his parents’ births? And Brezan had no field command experience himself. Until recently, his job had involved sitting on his ass in Personnel. “So you want me to convince people that a complete unknown is a better leader?”

“You’re a complete unknown representing a change in regime,” Mikodez said. “Inesser is sticking to the high calendar. For some people, that means a lot, if you can back it up with guns.”

“Yes, about that,” Brezan said. “I’ve only got the one swarm, and General Khiruev is, as I assume you’ve heard, still not in the best of health. Unless you’re offering.”

“I am,” Mikodez said. “Because your second problem is that with Kel Command obliterated, nobody’s providing strategic guidance to anyone’s swarms anymore. It’s not going to take long for all the foreigners to take advantage of the situation.”

Brezan had thought of that for himself. It was impossible not to. Kel swarms customarily received their orders from Kel Command, which had taken care of analyzing the broader strategic picture. Even General Inesser—Protector-General Inesser, whatever—was going to have issues reorganizing her forces to deal with the sudden lack of command and control.

“You have a solution to that, don’t you?” Brezan said, giving Mikodez a hard look. “Because it hasn’t escaped my attention that the Shuos are the only faction who have made it out of this whole disaster intact.”

“Very good,” Mikodez said. “There may be some hope for you after all. Yes, I’m offering the services of the Shuos. We have most of the Kel listening posts bugged anyway as a precaution.”

Precaution my ass , Brezan thought, but he didn’t interrupt.

“With your leave, High General, we could perform the function that Kel Command used to. I already have a bunch of analysts hanging around here doing this work anyway.”

The fact the Mikodez had suddenly resumed addressing Brezan by his erstwhile title didn’t escape him. Perhaps Mikodez fancied himself a puppet-master; thought that crashhawks were easily manipulated. Brezan hoped to prove him wrong, not out of spite, but because interstellar government was too important to hand over out of naivety. While Brezan didn’t have much leverage at the moment, he could do something with the fact that Mikodez had just made himself almost as notorious as Jedao.

“I accept,” Brezan said, because he wanted to preserve the idea that he had choices. “So what’s the third problem?”

Mikodez fiddled with an earring, the first sign of nerves he’d shown. “One of the hexarchs isn’t dead.”

Brezan frowned. “Cheris’s—sources were convinced that you were the only one who’d gotten away.” How much did Mikodez know about the servitors’ role as spies, anyway? “Another double?”

“No,” Mikodez said after a long moment. “It wasn’t a double. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Do tell.”

“Nirai Faian was a false hexarch,” Mikodez said. “Something like a senior administrator, while the real hexarch went about his business elsewhere.”

“Sounds paranoid,” Brezan said. “Do we need to assassinate the real one, then?” He meant it as a joke.

He should have known not to joke about assassination around a Shuos. “I’ve been trying to figure out how since I learned of his existence,” Mikodez said seriously. “His name is Nirai Kujen. You won’t have heard of him”—Brezan made an assenting gesture—“but in a way, everything you know depends on him. He invented the modern mothdrive almost nine centuries ago. The high calendar is his creation. And so is the black cradle.”

Brezan stared at Mikodez, appalled. But his mind was already racing. “Immortal, then,” he said. “Like Jedao.”

“Like Jedao,” Mikodez said, “except without some of the limitations that made it possible to control Jedao. Well, to the extent that Jedao was ever controllable, which is an open question. But that argument is moot.”

“Is he a danger to you?” Brezan said. Because he could think of only one reason why someone like Mikodez would care.

“He’s a danger to everyone.”

“Nine hundred years, you say, and he’s not the one who exploded the hexarchate. If he invented the mothdrive—”

Mikodez shook his head. “Kujen has always been good at buying people’s favor. Don’t get drawn in. He’s brilliant, but the hexarchate is a big place. Even if revolutions aren’t friendly to research divisions, you’ll eventually be able to find other technicians who can offer useful innovations without requiring you to sell your conscience down the river.”