“A what?”
Jedao sighed. “An obscure experimental form of government where citizens choose their own leaders or policies by voting on them.”
Cheris tried to imagine this and failed. How could you form a stable regime this way? Wouldn’t it destroy the reliability of the calendar and all its associated technology?
“That was the rest of the heptarchate’s reaction to the Liozh heresy, I’m told. Except they used a lot of guns to express their opinion.”
A message from Shuos Ko. “I’ll hear it,” Cheris said.
“Three things, sir,” Ko said. “First, one of the infiltrators got a partial personnel dump out of a terminal before she had to scoot. The dump is weeks out of date and we’re still sifting through it, but we’re in luck. I’ve got positive identification on the speaker. She’s Inaiga Zai, a clerk who works for a Doctrine subsidiary in the Anemone Ward.”
“A clerk?” Cheris said incredulously. And one with no faction affiliation, judging by the name.
“I don’t believe it for a second either, sir. Her profile is designed to bore us to sleep, with a dash of petty embezzlement so she doesn’t look too clean.”
“I imagine all the shield operators have such cover identities,” Jedao said.
Cheris repeated this to Ko.
“No proof,” Ko said, “but I agree. Unfortunately, no lasting success putting logic worms in the Fortress’s grid, so that’s all we have on Zai.
“Second, which General Jedao may have told you already, Zai is using the Liozh ceremonial outfit as a calendrical focus. It’s odd, because only one person in six is going to be the kind of antiquarian enthusiast who’d even care—”
“Not true,” Jedao said.
Ko saw Cheris frowning and stopped speaking.
“People have trouble thinking of the Liozh as anything but failures. But there was a time when they brought something valuable to the heptarchate. They were the idealists and philosophers. They were our leaders and our conscience. No wonder they developed a taste for heresy.”
Cheris repeated this to Ko, except the first and last bits. She couldn’t reconcile Jedao’s earlier callousness with the way he spoke of the Liozh now. What did he really think of them?
“For that to show up in the Fortress’s atmospherics,” Ko said, “someone would have had to do a lot of low-media groundwork over a period of time. I’d be worried if the foreigners are that deeply entrenched.
“But the third point is possible good news, sir.” Ko’s usual implacability was replaced by a certain restrained triumph. “Properly, this should be reported by Captain Damiod, but he, ah, felt he was close to a breakthrough and asked me to do so on his behalf.”
Cheris suppressed a smile. She could interpret Nirai for “I’m busy calculating, don’t waste my time with people” as well as anyone else. “Go on,” she said.
“Captain Damiod thinks there’s a potential exploit in the way they’re encrypting their messages.” Before Cheris could ask, Ko held up a hand. “The work is preliminary and may not bear fruit. But essentially, someone screwed up. 67 Snake’s seed parameters are driven by a combination of user input – the irregular time between keystrokes – and a synchronizer set to work with a high calendar clock. When the Fortress recalibrated its time servers to conform with the heretical calendar, they forgot to rewrite the synchronizer to work with the new setup.”
“I’m not a cryptosystems specialist,” Cheris said, “but I’m guessing this isn’t a fast crack.”
“No, sir.”
“As time permits,” Cheris said, “I would like you to continue work on a dummy cryptosystem with the parameters I sent you.” Something that looked formidable but could be cracked within a reasonable period of time by a diligent attacker. “We may need it in the near future.”
“Of course, sir.” That was all.
“Sir, do you have a response for Inaiga Zai?” It was Commander Hazan, who had been replaying the message with the sound off so he could scrutinize Zai’s expressions. Zai had good control of her face and hands.
“Unfortunately, there’s not a lot you can offer Zai,” Jedao said. “The heretics know the Vidona are coming for them, and even if you were authorized to make promises, they wouldn’t believe you. Their only choice is to fight.”
“Some indication from Kel Command would be useful right now,” Cheris said aloud. “Communications, top priority message to be relayed to Kel Command.”
“Are you certain, sir?” Hazan asked.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but it was a legitimate question. “We’ve heard nothing back from Kel Command,” she said, although she had reported regularly. “With this deadline, word might not reach them in time. If we send a relay message with the right tags, there’s a chance some local general will listen in and respond. Do you wish to log an objection, Commander?”
Nerevor would have, but Nerevor was gone. Cheris suspected that Hazan would be satisfied with the offer.
She was right. “That’s not necessary, sir,” Hazan said. “I concede your logic.”
Cheris updated Kel Command on the situation, asked for further details on Inaiga Zai, and requested the status of the nearby borders. “Does that cover everything?” she asked Jedao subvocally.
“The data dump ought to take care of any lingering questions,” he said. “Might as well send it on its way.”
Communications looked at her anxiously, but did as told.
The Fortress quieted. Every so often a Shuos reported in, and even more rarely Colonel Ragath contacted the command moth, but the situation had settled into a toothy status quo. Every so often Cheris checked the plot showing Kel positions, where the heretics were standing out of the way, and the corrosion gradient’s extent.
After a while, Cheris excused herself from the command center. Three servitors escorted her, unbidden. Two were deltaforms, differentiated by yellow and purple lights, and one was a snakeform. They accompanied her into her quarters. The rooms that had seemed so oversized before scarcely registered as worthy of notice. She stopped before the ashhawk emblem, trying to find some trace of herself in the fierce raptor’s beak, the black wings, the outstretched talons. Sheathed Wings: that was all she was.
The snakeform asked if Cheris was hungry. She demurred. She could tell Jedao disapproved, even if he wasn’t saying anything. “It must be convenient to run on power cores,” she said.
The snakeform made an equivocal noise. Clearly it agreed with Jedao.
“They’re very solicitous of you,” Jedao said.
“They like company,” Cheris said subvocally. “I should think you’d understand that.”
“True.”
The response to her message came in the middle of a drama episode about, as far as she or the servitors could tell, five Kel, an Andan duelist’s telescoping hairpins, and a dinner party gone horribly wrong. The purple deltaform paused the episode for her.
“Communications, sir,” the lieutenant’s voice said from the terminal. “It’s not Kel Command—”
So much for that.
“– but there’s a signature match for Brigadier General Kel Marish, bannering the Higher Higher Highest. The transmission request has urgent priority, for your eyes only.”
The servitors were already clearing out.
Kel Marish of the Eyespike emblem. She had once shouted down a court-martial charging her with overly creative interpretation of orders against the Haussen heretics, and won. Cheris was remembering that her luck this entire campaign was bad.
“Send it through,” Cheris said. Of all the generals to reach.
Kel Marish wore her uniform with a casual air, even though no single crease was out of place. She had the kind of face you’d expect a card shark to develop among challenging opponents, all ascetic angles and unreadable eyes in a blunt dark face. “Brevet General Kel Cheris,” she said, not insultingly but formally. “If Kel Command hasn’t seen fit to share this information with you, I oughtn’t either, but I feel you can’t adequately discharge your duty otherwise.”