Brezan had gone through the usual routine before going to sleep, including unwinding his chest wrap, because in times of crisis, chaos, and dire emergency, routines were all that kept him going. He might be the highest-ranking Kel remaining in the hexarchate, but that didn’t mean he wanted to remind the military of their hazy prejudice against a man who hadn’t had the fortune to be born a manform. Lose-lose situation all around: sex changes weren’t difficult, just time-consuming, except the Kel disapproved of those too, some stupid puritan streak. So he endured as he was. He hardly noticed it these days. Besides, given all the other reasons a Kel might have to hate him, he doubted his being a womanform made a damn bit of difference. In the meantime, he kept up the small fashion cues that clued in random people as to how he wanted to be regarded, like haircut and (when off-duty, which was going to be never again) style of jewelry.
“It’s an emergency,” a harsh, low voice said just as Brezan registered the sound of the doorway whisking shut.
Brezan startled awake and fumbled uselessly for his sidearm. He wasn’t paranoid enough to sleep with it on, a fact that he was starting to regret, even if he doubted he could have hit the intruder anywhere useful. More likely shoot himself in the foot or, if the universe was feeling particularly unjust, get the damn gun shot out of his hand again. He was never going to live that down.
The candlevines in the room brightened in response to the stranger, who wasn’t a stranger after all. It was one of the Kel sergeants who worked in Communications, a chubby woman with a habit of telling filthy jokes to anyone who’d stand still for them. Except Brezan had the feeling the woman wasn’t a Kel at all, not if she’d broken into his room.
“Hello, High General,” the woman said. She bore a tray with a steaming cup of tea.
“Are you a Shuos?” Brezan said. Might as well not waste any time.
“Very good,” she said.
“What’s your real name?”
She came forward, just slowly enough not to be threatening. “You’re asking the wrong question. It’s Shuos Emio, by the way. And you should have the tea. No poison, unless you count a few extra stimulants. You need to be awake for this conversation.”
“What,” Brezan said sarcastically, “I’m not awake enough already?” He kicked the sheets off and sat up, feeling weirdly vulnerable in his nightshirt and uncombed hair.
“Oh, you don’t need the stims for me,” Emio said. “But the hexarch needs to talk to you and you’ll need all your wits for that.”
“Hexarch” meaning Shuos Mikodez, one of the last people Brezan wanted to talk to. “He couldn’t call through regular channels?”
Emio gave him a look. “I can’t make you take this seriously,” she said, disturbingly casual, “but it’s in your best interests to. Because I have two pieces of news for you, and the hexarch will be your best friend dealing with them both.”
Brezan decided that it was unlikely that Emio would leave him in peace to get dressed. He strode over to the drawer and rummaged for his chest wrap and uniform. “All right,” he said, “tell me.”
“The first is that your revolution is already in danger.”
Brezan scoffed. “That’s all? It’s a revolution. It’s in danger by definition.”
Emio went on as if she hadn’t heard his outburst. “The second is that the person you were depending on to deal with this, Kel Cheris, has vanished.”
Brezan froze. “You can’t be serious.”
“Wasting time again,” Emio said. “You’ve run staff meetings before. Do you usually spend so much time on irrelevancies?”
As much as Brezan was starting to dislike Emio, he couldn’t argue the point. If she was telling the truth—and he had the sinking feeling that she was—then he needed to stop needling her and start preparing for a truly ugly situation. “You don’t know where Cheris went?”
He didn’t ask how much Emio knew about Cheris-Jedao and her role in the calendrical spike that had brought the entire hexarchate to a grinding halt. For one, he wouldn’t like the answer. For another, it didn’t matter at this point.
“If I did, would I have said that she vanished?” Emio said with maddening reasonableness. “And, you know, as far as the Kel are concerned, I’m just a sergeant. I didn’t have the authority to send everyone haring off on a search for her.”
“Wouldn’t have done any good,” Brezan said. “I assume she took the needlemoth.” It was the vessel she had arrived in, and it was equipped with a stealth system.
“Got it in one.”
By now Brezan had finished dressing, even if his uniform collar was crooked. If Emio cared, she kept it to herself. “I’m ready,” he said.
“No,” Emio said, “you need to eat and drink first.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I am quite serious.”
“Hexarch Mikodez gave you personal orders to that effect?”
Emio grimaced slightly. “Not the hexarch. His assistant Zehun. I can assure you that, in their way, Zehun is far more terrifying.”
Considering that Mikodez had just assassinated the other five hexarchs by way of declaring himself Cheris’s ally, Brezan doubted that very much. He wasn’t about to quibble, however. Brezan had vivid memories of his single encounter with Zehun, which had indeed been terrifying. He sat down at the table where Emio had deposited the tray and ate as quickly as his diminished appetite allowed.
“All right,” Brezan said. “I hope you have a secured line to the Citadel of Eyes or wherever the fuck the hexarch is hanging out these days, because I’m pretty sure if I try to call him it’ll just bounce.”
Emio didn’t dignify this with a reply. “Your terminal, if I may?”
Brezan made an impatient gesture. “Let’s get this over with.”
Emio leaned over the terminal and entered a long cryptic string of passphrases. “All right,” she said, “Line 6-1 to the Citadel of Eyes. It shouldn’t take long for the hexarch to pick up.”
Brezan resisted the impulse to spend the time waiting by checking his reflection in the terminal’s dark, glossy surface. If Hexarch Shuos Mikodez insisted on waking him in the middle of the night (revised calendar) to talk to him, Hexarch Shuos Mikodez could deal with imperfectly groomed hair and a crooked collar.
After two minutes, the display blazed to life. Brezan had never met Mikodez, but like any informed citizen he knew what the man looked like. Mikodez, unlike any number of Shuos, had never modded himself except to stay reasonably young the way any sensible person did. Glossy black hair with a long forelock framed a dark-skinned face, and earrings of red tassels and tiny gold beads swung from his ears. Aside from that, however, his red-and-gold uniform was entirely orthodox, vaguely military in style despite the desperately impractical colors. Then again, unless you were mucking around groundside, Brezan supposed it didn’t matter what colors you wore while swanning around space.
“High General,” Mikodez said. His voice was a surprisingly mild tenor. “Emio.”
Brezan fought back a surge of sheer atavistic terror. After all, if Mikodez had intended to assassinate him, he could have had Emio shoot him just minutes earlier.
Emio merely nodded and sat on the edge of Brezan’s desk. Under other circumstances, Brezan would have been even more aggravated. “Hexarch Mikodez,” he said. “You’ve got my attention. What’s so urgent?”