Юн Ли - Revenant Gun

The people who came after Cheris were gentler. They spoke in soft, worried voices. He dreamt once that they had opened him up and were piecing his skull back together, but it was knitting itself back into shape faster than they could work.

Cheris came in once after the surgery. He saw her as if she stood a great distance above him. That, too, seemed appropriate.

“Court-martial,” Jedao said, or thought he said. “Fire.” Then, because her expression kept not changing , and he dared not hope for mercy, “Turn me over to the Vidona.” The worst thing, being cast out as a heretic.

Inhyeng had given him an inkling that he would find dying difficult. The Vidona already possessed expertise in keeping people alive. That combination, plus his history, meant he would be in a great deal of pain for a long period of time.

“You’re very lucky,” Cheris said, still with that coldness upon her. He had the impression that she didn’t think he understood much of what she was saying, which was true. For that matter, he was positive that she didn’t think he was lucky, either. “You are going out of my care. I have no more claim on you, and there’s a jurisdiction squabble that I don’t plan on getting involved in.”

He didn’t know what that meant. He kept silent, too afraid to ask her. Had he failed to kill Kujen after all? What would Kujen do to him next?

Her face didn’t soften, but she took this much pity on him. “Among the people involved, Hexarch Shuos Mikodez has claimed you. He wants you alive. That’s not true of some of the others. Either way, I expect we shall never see each other again. If we do, I advise you that I will have been researching ways to make sure you stay dead.”

Jedao shuddered. “I will count on it.”

“One thing more. On Commander Talaw’s behalf, because they have endured a great deal, and I could not deny their request.”

Cheris came forward then. She pressed a small wooden box into his hand. He stared at it: Talaw’s deck of jeng-zai cards.

After she had left, Jedao began to cry.

HEXARCH SHUOS MIKODEZ was pacing in his favorite office. To one side were neatly stacked trays containing everything from fancy yarns to fishing lures to decorative paper. To another was a potted silver orchid. One of the flowers was blemished, but for a silver orchid that wasn’t unusual. His desk took up a great chunk of corner. He’d once had a potted green onion on it, but it reminded him too much of the brother he’d lost nine years ago, and he’d found a better use for it. Above the desk glowed an image of strange violet pillars on a world he had never visited, as well as the usual displays informing him of everything from shadowmoth deployments to morale assessments to his next appointment with the Propaganda head.

His assistant, Shuos Zehun, occupied one of the office’s two other chairs. Zehun had brought their newest kitten, Jedao, with them, possibly to spite him. Jedao-the-kitten was busy chasing a cat toy decorated with a bright feather, and kept thudding into walls and corners in her enthusiasm.

Mikodez’s fingers flickered over his terminal, paused; flickered again. An image of their problem blazed up before them.

Jedao-not-the-kitten was under spider restraints. No one had wanted to take any chances after taking him into custody from Inesser. He sat in a chair under guard by four Shuos, with more monitoring him from outside the room. Mikodez had ordered that Jedao be provided a basic Shuos uniform as a courtesy. The uniform’s red and gold, ordinarily so unremarkable in the Citadel of Eyes, transformed Jedao almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Beyond the unsettling sight of Jedao with naked hands, he was much too thin.

Jedao himself sat passively, unresisting. He had made no attempt to escape. Mikodez hadn’t been so careless as to allow him to enter the Citadel conscious. Jedao had been under sedation-lock. The guards had taken him directly to Medical for processing and an additional examination, especially after the stunt Cheris had pulled, before releasing him to the interrogators.

Mikodez and Zehun had reviewed the interrogation videos, both Cheris’s and their own, separately. He had thought hard about the selection of the interrogators. They had needed what he called “extra special top clearance with extra cookies,” which included agreeing to potential mindwipe. Mikodez used mindwipe as a last resort with the Citadel’s permanent staff, but there was nothing usual about ensuring their safety from a Jedao, any Jedao.

People who didn’t know Mikodez were surprised by his anti-torture policy or flat-out refused to believe in it. The Shuos had enough of an image problem without further alienating the populace. (Assassinating the other hexarchs hadn’t improved matters on that front, as Propaganda liked to remind him.) Besides, if all you wanted was to get people to babble whatever came to mind in a desperate attempt to avoid pain, you were a terrible strategist.

Jedao’s interrogators worked in teams, monitoring each other. Holding Jedao prisoner required diverting all these people, some of the best in their fields, from their ordinary assignments. But Mikodez had known this would be the case when he took charge of Jedao.

The first thing the interrogators did was introduce themselves and explain the rules of the interrogation. They offered tea and crackers. Jedao refused both. He had been refusing everything but water.

They asked him for his name. He answered readily, in a slow, colorless voice. They asked him to recount everything he remembered from the beginning. His account had gaps. He faltered every time Nirai Kujen came up, came to a dead stop at every mention of one Kel Dhanneth. The interrogators noted the gaps, let him finish, started going over the whole thing from the beginning again. Jedao became visibly rattled, but his story didn’t change.

Mikodez paid as much attention to Jedao’s body language and expressions as to the things he was saying in that emotionless, dried-out voice. Fox and hound , Mikodez thought, he’s trying to be brave. Meaning Jedao was afraid, and Mikodez had leverage after all.

Zehun’s kitten had flopped over next to a bin of knitting needles and was batting at a mote of dust. When it became clear that Mikodez would not speak first, Zehun said, “Make up your mind before Jedao deteriorates further. Because your best options are mutually exclusive.”

“Go on,” Mikodez said. “You must already have an opinion.”

“If your mind is already made up, I don’t see why I’m here.”

“Well, aren’t we in a mood.”

“I’m entitled to be old and crotchety,” Zehun retorted. “As you keep reminding me, I have great-grandchildren.” Zehun eyed the knitting needles.

Mikodez tapped his fingers on the side of his desk, then stopped. It was a bad time to annoy his most trusted adviser, not that there was ever a good time for that. “I’m serious. I need your evaluation.”

“Is it going to do you any good?”

“You normally don’t ask that.”

“Name one thing about this creation of Kujen’s that’s ‘normal,’” Zehun said. They brushed their hair out of their eyes, or would have if it had been out of place to begin with, a rare nervous tic. “Did you see the anomalous cognitive batteries? Unlike the other one, he has no dyscalculia, or if he does, it’s better hidden. In fact, all the mathematical scores have shot up through the roof. What the hell experiments was Kujen running?”

“Jedao didn’t mention anything of the sort. And it’s not like we’re going to let him run around conducting calendrical warfare. I doubt lack of dyscalculia lets him do anything the original wasn’t already doing with the aid of computer algebra systems and pet Doctrine officers.”