Yoon Lee - Ninefox Gambit

The other cindermoth commander, dour-looking Commander Kel Paizan, shook his head. “Commander,” he said, “have some respect.”

“You should have shut her down yourself,” Jedao murmured.

Cheris was irritated not because he was wrong but because he was right and she knew it. “We’ll be going straight in,” she said. “I’ll transmit the intelligence we have, but it’s scant.”

“Subdisplay 17,” Jedao said, but this time Cheris was ahead of him. The subdisplay showed the head of the intelligence team, Captain-analyst Shuos Ko. Ko had a beard, which made him stand out. Kel men preferred to be clean-shaven.

“General,” Ko said, inclining his head. He had a bland, pleasant voice. Cheris wasn’t fooled. She had met servitors who exuded more personality, but that was probably the point. “We have some additional information that we can provide at your discretion. I think you’ll be interested in some of the traffic analysis that came out of the Fortress in the two days before it ceased communications with the hexarchate. It confirms that the rot was carefully orchestrated.”

“Thank you, I’d like to see that,” Cheris said.

Nerevor jumped in again. “What moth will you be bannering?” she asked. Her eyes gleamed.

Cheris had originally thought to banner the Sincere Greeting , as Commander Paizan was senior, but she changed her mind. She wanted to keep an eye on Nerevor, even if it violated custom. Besides, she knew the question was a trap.

“Good thought,” Jedao said as she spoke, “but control your face better. You keep being too easy to read.”

“I’ll be bannering the Unspoken Law ,” Cheris said. Interesting: Paizan had cause to be affronted, but the wry set of his mouth told her that he knew exactly what she was doing, and wasn’t going to object. And, before Nerevor could speak again, “We’ll be using the null emblem.” She watched Nerevor’s face. Her smile twisted at the commander’s momentary look of revulsion.

“Thought so,” Jedao said.

Null emblem. A featureless black banner. It was used only by generals in disgrace. Even newly promoted generals were permitted to use the default sword-and-feather emblem until they had a chance to register something.

At least this had knocked Nerevor off her stride. The other dubious advantage was that the heretics wouldn’t know who to expect when they saw the emblem.

“The Shuos team and I will board the Unspoken Law in two hours,” Cheris said. “Make the necessary arrangements.”

“Sir.”

Moments later, all the faces had blinked out and Cheris’s knees felt rubbery.

“Don’t rest yet,” Jedao said, not entirely humorously. “I assume you were watching people’s reactions. Give me your assessment.”

Mercifully, the subdisplays had been clearly labeled. Ordinarily she was all right at remembering names, but the stress had caused them to fly out of her head. “Nine seemed sympathetic, but she’s junior,” she said.

“That was Commander Kel Irio. Get used to remembering their names, not the numbers.”

“I know,” Cheris said doggedly. “Just let me get my thoughts together. I’m worried about Four. I mean Vidona Diaiya. She paid close attention to me when Commander Nerevor was speaking. Commander Kel Agath was completely unreadable, which is bad. And I gave up trying to keep track of the boxmoth commanders. But the big problem is going to be Commander Nerevor.”

“That’s my fault,” Jedao said, to her surprise. “I’ve fucked up your body language, so on top of issues with brevet rank, formation instinct isn’t telling her to recognize you as a Kel.”

“I never thought of that,” Cheris said. This wouldn’t have been an issue for him during his lifetime, presumably, since formation instinct had been invented some decades after his execution.

“It’s happened to my anchors before. You haven’t mentioned the Shuos captain.”

She bit her lip and tried to remember. “He slipped my mind, and he shouldn’t have.”

“Well, he’s professionally trained to fade into the background.”

“He was right there.”

“He also had the advantage of needing to focus on one person, rather than twenty-odd –”

“Twenty-four.”

“I stand corrected.”

“Was there anything about him I should have noticed?” Cheris asked. She pulled up the recording and scrubbed through it, but didn’t see anything obvious.

“Nothing useful. He’s hiding something, but that’s a given. Still, as they say, it’s good policy to keep one eye on a Shuos.”

The other half of that saying was that the Shuos inevitably had more eyes than you did, but she didn’t bring that up.

“Colonel Ragath looked politely bored,” Cheris said, “but I don’t think that’s unexpected. He’s waiting to see if we can even get the infantry onto the Fortress. Until then, he’ll be taking a nap.”

“Quite right. And I don’t think you need to worry about the boxmoth commanders. Don’t misunderstand me. Transport is important, but what the boxmoth commanders want out of you is reasonable schedules. We’re going to make sure that isn’t an issue.

“Anyway, bannering Unspoken Law was the right move. Nerevor may be eager to fight, but she’s going to see how far she can push you. I can’t wait to see what exchanges you two have at high table.”

Cheris couldn’t help but feel repelled by the situation.

Jedao noticed. “The other half of being a general is politics, Cheris. It’s regrettable but necessary. Anyway, let’s look at Captain-analyst Ko’s file while we have a moment.”

“I don’t like the implications,” Cheris said after they had gone through the analysis. “He thinks there’s a conspiracy too. Why would you let a conspiracy grow unchecked at a nexus fortress?”

She didn’t want to say aloud what he had to be thinking, too: that a conspiracy in the Fortress of Scattered Needles implied a conspiracy in the hexarchate entire, microcosm reflecting macrocosm.

“The people I want to hear from are the Rahal,” Jedao said, “and if they haven’t sent us anything, they’re not going to.”

Shuos Ko had even submitted the Rahal responses to his own inquiries. Cheris’s favorite, if you could call it that, was: Internal Rahal matter. Further questions will be subject to counter-investigation.

“What could be so important that it’s worth withholding information from us like this?” Cheris asked.

“Normally I’d say it’s characteristic of wolves to close ranks,” Jedao said, “but it looks like Kel Command is in it with them. I’m starting to wonder if the hexarchs are doing something devious.”

Cheris submitted a single query to the Rahal anyway, since they’d expect her to try. No luck.

“You should go meet Captain Ko,” Jedao said. “He’ll expect to get acquainted and it’s best to do so before you’re under Nerevor’s eye.”

“Do you have every minute of my time scheduled?”

“Call the servitors,” he said, “so they can shift your belongings.”

She couldn’t argue with that. The servitors arrived within two minutes, three snakeforms and a sturdier-looking beetleform. She asked them to give her regards to the Heron Company servitors, providing the routing information. To her surprise, the beetleform completed her sentence for her with a mischievous chirp: it already knew. In the past she’d had hints that the servitors talked to each other about humans far more than most people realized, but she’d never pressed to find out just how much, for everyone’s safety. Indeed, the beetleform hunkered down and went after her duffel bag, ordinary as you please. She told the servitors where it had to go, thinking it would have made more sense to carry it herself, and thanked them for their care. It was a pity she wouldn’t get a chance to get to know them better; she couldn’t imagine that Nirai servitors were less interested in math than Kel servitors. The four of them hummed their acknowledgment before heading out.