Fleet ships had priority.
Shards had priority.
Shards could—if Three Azimuth and Eleven Laurel had meant what he was sure they’d meant—talk faster, one to another, than a message could pass through jumpgates.
And Her Brilliance the Emperor didn’t know about that, at all. The only person—well, the only person who wasn’t a Shard pilot and wasn’t in the Ministry of War—who knew about that, was him. Eight Antidote, imperial heir.
He wasn’t Emperor of all Teixcalaan. Not yet. Not for a long time, probably. But he was the closest thing. His word—his orders—they’d open doors all through Palace-Earth. They’d open doors all through the City.
They would, if there wasn’t another order that superseded them, one from the actual Emperor, be as powerful as any order in all of the Empire.
He needed a sealed imperial infofiche stick. And he needed—he needed a Shard. Or a Shard pilot, but just the Shard would do.
He was still standing just inside the doorway of his room. There was a City-eye camera pointed right at him, he knew that. One on the door, one on the window, one on the window in the bathroom. The City always there, the algorithm watching him, keeping him safe. He tried not to let his expression change. Not show that he was shivering, exhausted-sick, and so full up with the possibility of doing something that he thought he might burst. He needed to be entirely—him. Normal. Disappointed and angry and definitely, definitely not picking up the open, empty infofiche stick made of animal bone that Nineteen Adze had sent him when she’d summoned him to talk to her, nights ago. The infofiche stick carved with the imprint of the sun-spear throne. Definitely not picking that up off his desk, along with one of the automatic wax-seals that didn’t need to be heated up, and going into the bathroom, and taking off all his clothes to stand in the shower—without turning on the shower, he wasn’t stupid, getting an infofiche stick wet while it was open would fry it—facing the tiled corner, away from the camera he knew about and any other cameras he didn’t.
He didn’t need to not be seen forever. He just needed to not be seen for long enough.
It took longer than he wanted, though, to compose the order. He’d never written one before, and his first try sounded like he was pretending to be a character in Dawn with Encroaching Clouds, all ancient verb forms that no one used anymore, even in imperial proclamations. His second try was simpler, and it sounded more like him—which meant it sounded like a kid, probably, but he’d rather sound like a kid than like a fake holodrama emperor.
His Excellency Eight Antidote, Imperial Associate, Heir to the Sun-Spear Throne, he composed, drawing the glyphs in light, on behalf of the government of the star-encompassing Teixcalaanli Empire, to the yaotlek Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus of the Tenth Legion: Teixcalaan is civilization, and it is our job to safeguard it. This order forbids the use of civilization-destroying weapons or tactics on the alien threat beyond Parzrawantlak Sector, including nuclear strikes on civilian-occupied planetary systems, except in cases where such weapons or tactics are the only thing standing between us and certain civilization-wide death.
That was probably strong enough. He wondered if he was in the process of setting policy for Emperors to come, and decided that he could do that, if he wanted. He was himself, and Nineteen Adze had let him be, and this was what he knew was true and right and Teixcalaanli.
He sealed the stick. His autoseals all had his name-glyph on them, but that was fine. He was enough. He had to keep believing that.
Now he just had to get the stick in the interstellar mail—and find a Shard pilot or a Shard itself to try to talk to—
Which meant he was going to have to go back to Inmost Province Spaceport. Immediately the hollowness of his stomach turned into a horrible churning. He didn’t want to. Inmost Province Spaceport was where he’d been when the subway derailment happened. The alarms and the panicking people and everyone knowing what to do except him and no way to get home and incendiary devices, and he still hadn’t heard anything from Five Agate about whether it had been an incendiary, like the one that had killed that woman out in Belltown—or anything about whether it had been his own fault it had happened, someone trying to kill him.
Even before the derailment he’d been terrified.
Terrified and stupid and alone with too many people, and he was so embarrassed about that he thought he might die. Even if no one was trying to kill him, he might die all on his own if he kept feeling this squirmingly pathetic.
But he had to go back. There wasn’t anybody else to do it for him. And he didn’t know where else but the Inmost Province Spaceport he’d find either a Shard pilot or an Information Ministry kiosk for sending imperial messages through the inter-jumpgate mail. His stomach felt like it was crawling up his throat.
Right out loud, he said, “Oh fuck,” for the first time in his life, like a grown person would. And then he threw up, turning his head away from the infofiche stick, keeping it clean.
“Oh, I’m alive, Mallow,” said Twenty Cicada, hardly audible through the hiss and pop of static. Three Seagrass leaned closer to the comms console, as if that would help her hear, even though she knew it wouldn’t do anything at all. “For the moment. I’m trying to figure out if the heat or these claws will get me first—don’t worry, I’m not being chased, I’m a—well, a hostage that talks, or draws at least. I can’t talk long. They aren’t very interested in our unmusical mouth noises, and you summoned all the singers back up to the ship.”
“Don’t talk,” said Nine Hibiscus. “Don’t talk to me. Talk to them. And don’t die. This line is open, and I will send Shards for you—”
“If I needed Shards, I’d already be dead by the time they arrived. Hush. I think they’re drawing fractals. Or—mycelium—”
More static. And silence.
Into that silence, Three Seagrass said, with all the vicious brightness she could summon, “See? Still talking. So I think we should wait for official word from the Emperor before you send in that strike force—because you know that the instant you attack that planetary system, he’ll die down there on Peloa. And for what, yaotlek? What sacrifice are you making?”
Nine Hibiscus turned to her slowly—it was more threatening than a fast wheel would be. Ah, Three Seagrass thought, weight, weight for the wheel, I see, and tried not to let anyone know she wanted to have hysterics. Hysterics were for after the negotiation!
“I’ve already sent to the Emperor for confirmation, Envoy. No need to reiterate that argument.”
“Of course,” Three Seagrass told her, light, light, easy—and then whirled, within her triangle, to face Darj Tarats. “Tell us, Councilor,” she said, dropping a level of formality and making herself sound vicious and bored, a poet having to speak to an illiterate at court (and wasn’t this whole negotiation a sort of version of that hoary old trope? With Nine Hibiscus standing in for the Emperor and the bridge for the glittering fan-vaults of Palace-Earth—ah, but she missed the City, for the first time in a while, and intensely), “just how do you suppose that Ambassador Dzmare is responsible for your purported sudden invasion? As far as I am aware—and I have been with the Ambassador since you so kindly allowed me to borrow her from her deserved vacation at home—she has done nothing but contribute to the universal effort to minimize casualties and elucidate meaning out of meaningless conflict. What is it you said she’d failed to do? Communicate with you? Councilor, when would she have had time?”