“Not that,” Kujen said, and riffled through the unused portion of the deck until he came up with a card. He showed it to Jedao: the Deuce of Gears, silver on a black field, like everything else in the Gears suit.
Jedao was watching Dhanneth out of the corner of his eye. Dhanneth’s shoulders tensed at the sight of the card as though—as though what? It wasn’t even a particularly unlucky card. “Cog in the machine” was what it connoted.
“Not familiar?” Kujen said.
“Should it be?” Jedao said, continuing to watch Dhanneth in his peripheral vision.
Kujen made a moue. “That’s gone too? You took a variant of it as your emblem, once upon a time.”
“Nirai colors, though?”
“You registered yours in gold gears on a red field,” Kujen said. “Quite fetching. You used to show me a whole routine of stupid card tricks based around it.”
That made more sense: Shuos colors. He didn’t know what to make of the card tricks, though, which he didn’t remember either, so he didn’t respond to that part. Certainly he couldn’t imagine himself amusing a hexarch, of all people, with something as trivial as magic tricks. “Should we switch it back to Nirai colors, considering...?”
“Nice thought,” Kujen said, “but it’ll be more intimidating in its historical form, so you ought to stick to the gold and red. I’ve scheduled a meeting with the Kel. Conference in person with your staff heads, tactical group commanders, and infantry colonels, plus the rest of the commanders in the rear. You’ll be able to hold virtual conferences with them after we get underway, of course.”
Jedao was halfway convinced that all that existed of the universe was this suite. If he stepped outside, he would fall into an infinite cushioning darkness.
The conviction must have shown in his face. Kujen said, “I wasn’t keeping you prisoner out of spite. Given your notoriety, I thought it best for you to be kept away from random Kel, or assassins for that matter, until you got your bearings. Any idea what you’re saying to your officers?”
“Yes,” Jedao lied. He had a speech; had even run it by Dhanneth. The original one had been no good, so he’d scrambled to write an appropriate substitution.
“I still think you should wear your medals, sir,” Dhanneth said.
Jedao had originally demurred on the grounds that the last thing a mass murderer should flaunt was a bunch of medals for things he couldn’t remember doing. If Dhanneth was bringing it up in front of Kujen, however, he felt strongly enough about the matter to corner him into it. Jedao looked at him with renewed respect.
Kujen figured it out immediately. “The major is right, you know. The Kel will respond better if they see that you take pride in your rank.”
That was perilously close to what Dhanneth had said, although Jedao hadn’t believed him. “I didn’t see any medals when I searched the drawers,” Jedao said, “and I wouldn’t know how to put them in the right order.”
“Your uniform does that for you,” Kujen said. “It reads the record out of your profile. No, really. Direct it to enter full formal, medals included.”
Jedao did so and was treated to the bizarre sight of his uniform changing, down to the sudden appearance of rows of medals beneath the general’s wings and Shuos eye. “I bet this makes for some interesting pranks,” he said.
“You’re not the first person to think of that. There’s some crypto involved so that people can’t randomly impersonate people, but the augment takes care of that so you don’t have to think about it.” Kujen looked Jedao over critically, then nodded. “It’ll do.”
After an abbreviated breakfast, they set out for the conference. “Try to keep up,” Kujen said, “since you’re not used to variable layout.”
“Variable what?”
“It’ll make more sense when you experience it.”
Jedao wasn’t sure what he had expected the halls of a Nirai station to look like. Gray and sterile, perhaps. He should have figured that a Nirai station hosting the Nirai hexarch himself would pay tribute to Kujen’s love of fine things. Ink paintings on heavy silk depicted birds in migration, only when he looked more closely, the black strokes that formed the birds’ wings were composed of tiny, impressionistic moths. The halls abounded with displays of orreries and astrolabes, abacuses with beads of jade and obsidian. And they were walking on carpet, iridescent gray with patterns on it in paler pearly gray, with pile so deep that if you lost a toe in it you’d never see it again.
More alarming was the fact that they were walking down an infinite corridor, which had no apparent end or, when Jedao glanced back, beginning either. He couldn’t see far into the distance, as though moisture hazed the air. The others’ unconcern told him this was nothing new, but he didn’t like it.
That wasn’t all. Jedao had a sudden sense of the whereness of the station and everything in it, based not in vision but on concentrations of mass. Kujen and Dhanneth appeared in this othersense just as they did in Jedao’s ordinary sight. Their surroundings, though, were confusingly knotted, as though spacetime itself was warped between two disparate points.
As a test, he slowed and closed his eyes. The othersense didn’t go away. In fact, now that he knew he had it, he couldn’t make it go away. Kujen and Dhanneth continued forward. He examined the rest of his surroundings—he could sense in all directions, a handy trick—and began detecting other moving masses that he suspected were either people or, for the smaller, denser ones, servitors.
Better not reveal this to anyone else until he knew more about where it had come from. He was pretty sure standard-issue humans didn’t randomly sense mass. He hurried to rejoin the other two.
At last they arrived at an enormous pair of doors. Jedao could have sworn that they materialized between one step and the next. The doors sheened black with a faint silver scatter as of stars, marked with the Nirai voidmoth emblem in brighter silver. They slid open at Kujen’s approach, unnervingly noiseless.
Jedao didn’t pause or look left or right, up or down, as he followed Kujen across the threshold, despite the way his back prickled. He had to get this right. There was no other option. Behind him, he heard Dhanneth’s ragged breathing, but he didn’t dare look around to see what the matter was.
Kujen had led them into a hall with a high arched ceiling and pillars of black veined with gold. More than the lanterns with their trapped, frantic moth-shapes throwing irregular shadows across the dark walls, Jedao noticed the Kel commanders, a row about ten across and ten deep.
The Kel commanders had, almost as one, knelt before Kujen. Jedao’s othersense was momentarily dizzied by the coordinated movement. Although the commanders’ attention should have been focused on the hexarch, he couldn’t escape their consternation. Some of it was directed at him, revulsion so strong he could feel its pressure. But some of them were eyeing Dhanneth with unambiguous shock. Did they consider Dhanneth to have sold out by serving him?
The temperature in the hall should have been comfortable, but all Jedao could think of was winter, bleak winds in a world frozen dark. There were black-and-gold uniforms everywhere, including his own. He craved any splash of color as relief from the monotony of all the black.
“I trust everyone slept well,” Kujen said. The light in his eyes suggested that he knew exactly what effect this setup was having on the Kel. “I promised you a new general. Here he is.” He waved a hand, indicating that everyone should stand.
Jedao hadn’t counted on such an abrupt introduction. The six staff heads in front exchanged stony glances. The commanders had faces as still and blank as ice. Jedao had no idea why he was smiling, or what to say, even if he’d memorized that speech beforehand. Not saying anything wasn’t an option, either, even in the face of their muted hostility. So he opened his mouth—