Jedao hoped he would never get used to having a hexarch show him this much consideration. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing,” Jedao said, and nodded at Dhanneth, indicating that he should lead.
Dhanneth plunged directly toward a blank section of wall. Nirai technicians scattered to either side, some muttering what sounded like curses in various low languages. Jedao followed Dhanneth, not slowing even when it looked like they were going to crash into it like a pair of idiots. Sure enough, they passed through. It was like being engulfed by a mouth of uncomfortable ridged teeth, then being spit out again. He asked his augment how to repeat the trick and received a tutorial file.
They emerged in a different hallway, or maybe the previous one had changed garb for the occasion. This time the walls were hung with tapestries. Jedao was willing to wager that someone had woven and embroidered them by hand, down to the thousands of faceted seed beads and couched golden threads.
“You’ve got to tell me,” Jedao said, “how does variable layout work?”
“It’s based on some results in gate mechanics,” Dhanneth said. “Over my head, sir. The hexarch might be willing to discuss it with you sometime. From a practical standpoint, as long as we’re in communication with the station or moth’s grid and—sir!”
Jedao had stopped after the first sentence and knelt to inspect the floor. It wasn’t as solid as it seemed, especially the more he stood still. The carpet decomposed into silvery cobwebs the longer he looked, and the air smelled suddenly of dust, decaying leaves, corroded metal. Beneath the carpet, the floor was composed of gears rotating with an unceasing heartless click-tick-tock. Beyond the ticking, he heard a sudden faint singing in a voice at once too high and too deep to be human. He was tempted to reach down and—
Dhanneth had backtracked for Jedao. “Don’t do that, sir,” Dhanneth said. “The station doesn’t seem to like you. If this happens again, report it to the hexarch. He’ll be able to fix any fault in your augment or the grid’s programming. It’d be troublesome if the station cocooned you.” He said that last with a touch of malice.
“Cocoon?” Jedao said, straightening.
“You didn’t think the Nirai emblem was a moth for no reason, did you?”
“I have no idea what I thought.”
They resumed walking. Unfortunately, this gave Jedao time to think. His conversations went better when he just opened his mouth and talked. Not that he liked the things that came out of his mouth.
Kujen had given him a prototype for his command moth, fine. If Jedao had once been a general, he had been a moth commander before that. But he couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the swarm’s rightful general, and wishing they were here to offer advice, if nothing else.
“It’s no secret that the Kel despise me,” Jedao remarked to Dhanneth when they reached the door. It came after a long curve in the hallway and past an astonishing fall of silver-blue light.
Dhanneth halted and faced him. His mouth twisted. “It’s their duty to obey you, sir.”
Jedao stared at the door and its polished black surface. His reflection formed a ghost-blur. He couldn’t discern his eyes or the damnable gloves, just the barren fact of his silhouette. “You heard the things I said.”
“I imagine you had practical reasons for saying them,” Dhanneth said. “To use this swarm as a fighting force, you’re going to have to get the officers behind you. And the flip side of hierarchy is that we respect strength. While formation instinct is all very well, it doesn’t cover all the loopholes. One of the first things they teach officers is that subordinates can make things miserable for superiors they don’t respect.”
A warning. Dhanneth might not like him, but his advice was worth taking to heart. “I’ll bet,” Jedao said, and dismissed Dhanneth.
It hurt him that cold-blooded murderer appeared to be a valid subset of strong as far as the Kel were concerned. He couldn’t explain why. Weren’t the Kel already about shooting people? Except he could have sworn that there had been something in there about honor, too.
Bad enough that he was a mass murderer. And bad enough that a hexarch didn’t have any problems appointing him general in spite of it, but no one expected moral sense from someone that far up the food chain. No: the worst thing was that some of the Kel considered his ruthlessness a qualification, not an incentive to mutiny.
There has to be something better than this, Jedao thought. Even for Kujen, who didn’t care, and the Kel, who couldn’t disobey. But how could he get through to them?
CHAPTER EIGHT
BREZAN WOKE TO the sound of singing. The nice thing about sleeping with Andan-certified courtesans was that they all sang well. He tried not to think about how this one had long, rippling hair that reminded him of his former lover Tseya, although she didn’t resemble Tseya otherwise: short and plump rather than tall and slender, and with a fondness for the color purple. Tseya had always dressed, very properly, in Andan blue-and-silver or variations thereof. Also unlike Tseya, this courtesan, whose name was Irimi, liked tea rituals. Brezan endured her endless fussing over the positioning of teacups because the sex was fantastic.
“Damnation,” Brezan said after consulting his internal chronometer. “You could have woken me earlier. I’ve got that arbitration meeting about the strikes, don’t I?” A number of the doctors, who’d received training from the Medical branch of the Vidona, had gone on strike in Tauvit. He wanted to resolve that before it could fester. Tauvit wasn’t the only place where it was going on. Unsurprisingly, the Vidona and their supporters were among the most recalcitrant when it came to the new order.
Irimi left off singing and said, “You looked tired. Besides, your bodyguard left instructions to let you get rest for anything short of a crisis.”
Ah, yes. “Why,” Brezan said, keeping the sarcasm from his voice, “no worlds have blown up in the past day?”
“Not that I’ve heard of,” Irimi said placidly. Also unlike Tseya, she liked jewelry, a lot of it. This pale morning her outfit, such as it was, involved draperies of lavender lace interspersed with tiny, irregularly faceted amethyst beads. Brezan thought regretfully that he shouldn’t be thinking about how entertaining it would be to watch her undress. Irimi could draw out the act of disrobing beyond anything sensible.
After Brezan emerged from the shower and got dressed, Irimi had tea and breakfast waiting for him. He could have managed for himself. It seemed sometimes that no one was ever going to let him cook his own meals again. But Irimi doubled as security—Emio had vetted her, as she did anyone Brezan took to bed—and she insisted on tasting everything before he did. He had explained to her the ridiculousness of this procedure. Hell, Irimi had agreed that, given modern toxins, having a taster was pointless. But she said there was no harm in it either, and in certain matters she was a traditionalist.
The tea today came from a world Brezan had never heard of, and he couldn’t pronounce its name, either. It had odd, subtle floral notes. Brezan’s taste in tea ran to robust flavors, but he didn’t mind expanding his palate. Besides, it kept Irimi happy. (He compensated by treating himself to hard liquors in the evening.) Breakfast was a sort of crepe with a nutty filling topped with vanilla cream. Privately, he thought the cream’s sweetness overwhelmed the delicacy of the tea, but he wouldn’t have dreamed of criticizing the pairing. Irimi could be touchy about that sort of thing.