Dhanneth closed his eyes. “You don’t know?”
“Let me,” Kujen said impatiently. “The Lanterners demanded autonomy. Kel Command assigned you to put them in their place. That eight-to-one battle? That was the Battle of Candle Arc, against the Lanterners. After that you harried them to their last stronghold, Hellspin Fortress. But Kel Command had pushed you too hard, and you snapped. You took out the Lanterners, all right, but you also blew up your own swarm.”
Jedao stared at him. “I what?” Don’t get distracted. Get the facts. The way Dhanneth’s jaw was set, he believed the story, incredible as it sounded. That worried Jedao. “How many died?”
“A million people altogether,” Kujen said. “Granted, we don’t care about the Lanterners”—Jedao was disturbed by the cavalier way Kujen said this, heretics or not—“but it makes the number easier to remember.”
The next question was going to be even uglier. “When was this?” He should have asked this earlier, when he learned the high calendar had destabilized.
“Four hundred and eight years ago.”
The edges of Jedao’s vision grayed. “Listen,” he said, “you can vivisect me for speaking out of turn, but you’re fucked in the head if you think the correct response to a psychotic mass-murdering traitor is to bring him back from the dead and hand him another army.”
“My options were limited,” Kujen said calmly. “I don’t just need someone good, I need someone spectacular. And you were available.”
Kujen didn’t get it. Granted, no one expected a hexarch to care about petty moral qualms. Jedao tried again. “I cannot imagine that Kel Command was stupid enough to knowingly field a general whom they suspected of being one million deaths’ worth of unstable. Were there any warning signs?”
His voice was shaking. He didn’t want to believe any of this. For that matter, he wasn’t sure what he wanted Kujen to say in response. Was it better to have a definite sign that you were about to lose your mind and slaughter people, or was it better to be taken by surprise? Of course, he imagined the people about to be targeted would appreciate a warning.
“Hexarch,” Dhanneth said after casting Jedao a worried look, “perhaps we could discuss this after breakfast.”
Jedao was impressed. In Dhanneth’s position, he wouldn’t have wanted to draw attention to himself.
“No, we’d better get it out of the way,” Kujen said. “There were no signs. You were an exemplary officer. We think it was the stress, but no one knows for sure. And with the holes in your memory, you can’t tell us yourself.”
Abruptly, Jedao hauled himself to his feet and walked to the other side of the room. He was tempted to punch the wall, but Kujen wouldn’t appreciate that, and it would upset Dhanneth, who had done nothing wrong. The fact that he was Dhanneth’s superior was ludicrous, but that wasn’t Dhanneth’s fault either.
On the other hand, Jedao now had some idea why Dhanneth was both hostile and trying to suppress signs of it. Because he’d been assigned as the aide to a mass murderer. Dhanneth couldn’t possibly have wanted the job.
Kujen approached him slowly, as if he expected him to bolt. “Jedao.”
Jedao didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“Jedao,” Kujen said, “you’re not to blame. You don’t remember it anyway.”
“If I did it,” Jedao said, “then I’m responsible whether or not I remember it. I assume that—” Actually. “Did I die in battle, or was I executed, or did I choke on a fishbone?”
“Executed.”
You’d think he would remember some of this, any of this. Jedao closed his eyes. Fragments came back to him: wrestling with Ruo, and the sharp, sour smell of the other cadet’s sweat; disassembling a sniper rifle while the instructor shouted in his ear; a silent room steeped in darkness. But the execution? He had no idea.
“Talk to me, Jedao.”
“Aren’t you worried that I’ll strangle you?” He hadn’t meant for that to slip out.
Kujen took hold of his shoulder and turned him around. His eyes were earnest. “I am one of very few people who will never judge you for anything you’ve done, or will do, whether you remember it or not,” he said. “Because it is impossible for you to shock me. As for my safety, I have my defenses. You needn’t worry on my behalf.”
Jedao wasn’t sure he liked that. “But you’re a hexarch.” New thought: “Where’s your security?”
Kujen shook his head. “So young. Come on, let’s eat. The servitors have been setting out the food.”
The argument worked. Jedao had no appetite, but that was no reason to starve Dhanneth. (He wasn’t worried about Kujen’s ability to fend for himself.) Numbly, Jedao returned to his seat.
The servitors arranged the food carefully. They were robots in the shapes of various animals, with grippers and limbs and blinking lights, about half his size, with the ability to levitate. Jedao wondered how much of the conversation they had overheard, and what they thought of the whole mess. Neither Kujen or Dhanneth took any notice of them, so he assumed he should do the same. Still, Jedao was obscurely disappointed in Dhanneth.
Another memory-flash, again of the woman and the robots. This time the woman was bent over—paperwork? The robots were blinking their lights at each other, presumably holding a conversation, even if he couldn’t understand the code. He felt an overwhelming rush of friendliness toward the robots—servitors—even though he didn’t know why. It had something to do with the woman, though. Something to investigate later.
“You’re not eating,” Kujen said with a note of distress at odds with Jedao’s impression of him as someone who viewed people in utilitarian terms. “And the major won’t eat unless you do. You know how Kel are.”
“Yes, of course,” Jedao said, opening his eyes, and picked up his chopsticks. The thought of eating repulsed him. Everything he tried had an odd metallic aftertaste. Neither Kujen nor Dhanneth gave any sign that anything was amiss, however. At least the tea was tolerable.
“I woke you early because I figured something like this would happen,” Kujen said briskly. “You can thank me for my foresight later.”
“I defer to your judgment,” Jedao said.
Kujen blinked at Jedao’s sudden formality. “It would have been impossible to catch you up on everything at once. You do see that? But it’s as well you have your composure back. Kel get panicky when their commanding officers lose it. How much do you remember about formation instinct?”
“Formation instinct?”
Kujen dithered over two pastries, which looked identical to Jedao, then selected the one closer to him. “It’s a Kel’s emotional need to maintain hierarchy. You’ll find it useful.”
Jedao saw Dhanneth stiffen out of the corner of his eye. He was going to have to look into that, too, part of a whole list of mysteries. Still, this explained what Kujen had meant when he said he could guarantee the swarm’s loyalty. And it might explain the mixed signals he was getting from Dhanneth, half solicitousness, half resentment. “When did Kel Command institute it? And how?”
The bigger question was, why would the average Kel go along with what sounded like mass brainwashing? One more thing he didn’t remember.
Dhanneth was resolutely cutting up a stuffed pancake. Even through the gloves Jedao could see that he had a death-grip on his chopsticks. For a moment, Jedao thought that Dhanneth was going to answer for Kujen. Then Dhanneth took a large bite and chewed determinedly.