“You might be a Hafn, or you might be freelancing,” he went on. “I don’t really care at this point. The part that’s relevant to me is that you’re not with the hexarchate. That could be very useful.”
“Jedao,” Vahenz said, “I don’t have any plans of teaming up with you and conquering the universe. Especially since you have a talent for betrayal with a side of attempted omnicide.”
He had stopped entirely. She waited; no sense in blowing things by getting impatient. “If you’re anything like me,” he said, “and I have some reason to believe that you are, you find your superiors’ lack of vision deeply regrettable. Anyway, how will it hurt you to hear me out? You should be asking me why, if I am so good at shooting people in the back of the head, the Kel have been making a point of using me as their pet general for the last 400 fucking years.”
All right, she had to admit he had her attention. Maybe this was the part where he trotted out whatever pretty rationalization he had for his past behavior. “Is this the part where we see who knows more Kel jokes?” Vahenz said sardonically.
“Kel Command keeps a file of them, did you know that? But back to the subject. Let’s think about this. The first time they pulled me out of the black cradle, the senior high generals remembered what I’d done. It was a fresh wound. They remembered having dinner with me. Losing games of jeng-zai to me. Hell, I danced with some of their kids at the damn ceremonies. I wasn’t a historical figure, I was a real person. I was better than their generals – but that made me more of a risk. So why use an undead traitor?”
“Jedao,” Vahenz said, “you clearly have a point to make. You might as well go ahead and make it.” She could feel the pistol’s grip in her fingers, the precise weight of it.
“I want to offer you my service.”
Vahenz couldn’t help it. She laughed so hard it almost became a coughing fit. “Come again?”
“I’m deadly serious.”
“You don’t even know my name.”
“I’m not fussy,” Jedao said. “Let me hit this from another angle, then. What do you know about the invention of formation instinct?”
“I confess I’m stumped,” Vahenz said, which was unusual. She had made a point of being well-informed on the hexarchate’s history, especially the parts it didn’t like to remember. “I had some impression that the Nirai developed it for the Kel, but I couldn’t provide citations.”
“The Nirai like doing a lot of things for the Kel,” Jedao said. “Codependent, really.”
Vahenz didn’t trust the direction that this discussion was going in. “If you’re implying what I think you’re implying—”
“I’m not a Kel,” Jedao said, abruptly savage, “but they did their best to make me like one. You ever wonder who the prototype was for formation instinct? I’m saying I have to serve someone. If it’s not you, it’s going to be whoever next shows up on this fucking wreck. Even if it’s the fucking Kel again. Four hundred years and they weren’t going to let me out without some kind of assurance that I was going to do as they told me. I’m just lucky the weapon they used to ‘kill’ me didn’t work the way they were told it would, and that I have a brief window of freedom.”
An interesting story. Almost plausible, even. But Vahenz knew how good he was at being plausible.
The lights flickered left, flickered right. She didn’t even notice them anymore.
“One more angle,” Jedao said, and Vahenz thought he was going to dredge up some bit of history regarding Shuos cadets, or game design, or vengeful commanders, but instead what she got was: “What do you know about geese?”
Vahenz blinked. “Unlike certain undead generals,” she said, “I don’t have a whole lot to do with fowl other than eating them.” She knew he had grown up on a farm of some sort, although what this had to do with –
“Then you don’t know about goslings.”
“They’re tasty?”
“Well, that too. But the thing about goslings is that just after they hatch, they’ll imprint on the first thing they see moving near them as a parent. When I was a boy I thought this was hilarious. It became less hilarious when I had a full-grown goose following me to school and making a nuisance of herself.”
“You’re a resurrecting gosling,” Vahenz said, entertained in spite of herself.
“Something like, yes.”
“All right,” Vahenz said, weighing her options. “I want a token of – good faith, say.” She was remembering how he’d landed his infantry on the Fortress in the first place, the sacrifice of Commander Kel Nerevor. Besides, if she got him where she could see him, she would be in a better position to assess his sincerity. Body language counted for something, even with a Shuos. She backed up to another crystal pillar – the whole moth was riddled with them, might make a great museum concept – and positioned herself behind it, poking out just enough of her head and the muzzle of her pistol that she could get a clear shot. “Come out where I can see you. The same doorway you came through. If I catch a shadow of a weapon, I’ll char you down to particles.”
If Jedao hesitated – but he didn’t. He came around the corner and down the corrugated hall, dragging himself as though he had taken an injury to one of his legs. Vahenz’s suit informed her that it was holding the temperature constant, but she felt as though pinpricks of ice were forming underneath her skin.
Although Jedao’s body belonged to a young woman, his face was drawn and ghastly pale, streaked with sweat and dust, and bruised heavily on one side. There was a cut across his forehead, visible beneath the disheveled hair. Blood had smeared down and sideways from the cut and dried in ugly crusts. With a curiously affecting dignity, although not grace, he lurched down to both knees in the antiquated obeisance to a heptarch. Well, almost the obeisance. He kept both hands where she could see them, instead of folding the left behind his back. How considerate of him.
There was a terrible barbed clarity in Jedao’s eyes, as though the universe had constricted to a circle with her at its center. She had seen its like in Kel who had been fledge-nulled. On the other hand, Vahenz also thought she saw an odd amber spark in them, which she didn’t remember from the earlier communication, but that could have been a trick of the sputtering lights. “If you want me to beg,” Jedao said, looking straight toward her, his voice hungry, “I will beg.”
Too tempting. “How do you know I won’t be worse for you than the Kel were?” Vahenz said in a purr. She was almost starting to think that he wasn’t making up his story. Which was too bad for him: once she found out how much he knew about the carrion bomb, she was going to shoot him anyway.
His laughter was mocking. “Worse, what do I care about worse? You’re more competent. And you’re not the Kel. Everything else, that’s just details. I’m not in a position to care about details anymore. You own me now. I hate you already, but you’ll find a way to deal with that or you’re not worth my time anyway.” His voice grew eerily soft. “Just point me in a direction and tell me who to shoot. I like shooting people so long as I don’t have to stop.”
Well, if Jedao hadn’t been psychotic before, he certainly was now. Why anyone thought a crazy asset was worth cultivating in these circumstances, even a crazy asset with an obnoxious habit of winning battles, was beyond her. As she questioned him about the carrion bomb attack, keeping her voice conversational, she prepared to fire. His eyes didn’t so much as track the pistol’s movements.
Before she had a chance to squeeze the trigger, however, a light came from the center of a servitor clinging to the wall. It had finally had a chance to get into position while she was focused on the interrogation. The laser fried the back of her head and cooked her brain, and she fell without finishing her sentence.