The Last Emperox

by John Scalzi

  “Can we not coordinate to have our ships arrive at the same time?”

  “And present too many targets to destroy them all at once?” Hurnen shook her head. “No. Flow shoals aren’t wide enough to accommodate more than one or two ships at most, and even ships that leave Hub space simultaneously may not arrive simultaneously. It’s not an exact science.”

  Grayland glanced over at Marce at this. Marce knew why she did, and it was a little moment between the two of them, but neither of them said anything about it. “So we are abandoning End to the Nohamapetans,” she said to Hurnen.

  “No, ma’am,” Hurnen replied, crisply. “But neither do we wish to commit our forces and ships to a plan that will expose both to unnecessarily high rates of attrition.”

  “You don’t want your people to die.”

  “Not if we can avoid it, ma’am.”

  “Can you avoid it?”

  “We’re working on that.”

  “Maybe we can help,” Grayland said.

  At this Marce noticed something the emperox had told him she was entirely expecting: a pair of tolerant and amused, and perhaps maybe-just-a-little condescending, smiles on the faces of her chiefs. Hurnen and Bren had momentarily stopped seeing Grayland and saw Cardenia instead. “We are always open to suggestion, Your Majesty,” Hurnen said.

  Grayland turned to Marce. “Tell them.”

  “Just after the attempted coup, I mentioned to the emperox that I might have found a way to sneak into End,” Marce said to the chiefs.

  “What?” General Bren said, confused.

  “As the Flow streams are collapsing, some new ones are opening. Temporary streams, through a phenomenon I and my late colleague Hatide Roynold called ‘evanescence.’ These new streams last anywhere from minutes to years. My predictive models suggest an evanescent Flow stream will be opening up into End.”

  “Your ‘predictive models.’”

  “Yes. When I first mentioned it to the emperox, I had just newly modeled the data and my confidence in it was not high. I’ve worked on it since. My confidence is higher now.”

  “How much more confident?”

  “Confident enough that I would take a ship into it myself.”

  “Lord Marce was the one who discovered the emergent Flow stream to Dalasýsla,” Grayland said. “He has since predicted other new streams whose existences have been confirmed by local scientists. If he has high confidence in a prediction, we trust him.”

  Admiral Hurnen had a brief expression cross her face, quickly removed but nevertheless one that Marce registered. He knew it was Of course you’re confident in his prediction, you’re fucking him. Marce looked over to Grayland and noticed she’d caught it too, and that she didn’t appreciate it even as she realized it was entirely fair. “Of course, neither Lord Marce nor we expect you to take our word for it. Lord Marce’s data will be available for your own scientists to examine and verify.”

  “Who else has seen it?” Hurnen asked.

  “No one,” Marce said. “When I informed the emperox about it, she asked me to separate out that information from the data I was sharing with other scientists. No one else has that particular data, and no one else’s models have that particular evanescent Flow stream appearing.”

  “Unless someone else has seen it and kept it to themselves, like you did,” Bren said.

  Marce nodded. “That’s possible. The one thing I would say here is that for better or worse, every scientist working the data is working off models my father originated and that I refined. I know what the hole in my own public data looks like and how it affects the models derived from it. It’s very small, mathematically speaking, but it’s there. I’d notice if someone was hiding the same the data I was. I’d see it in the models.”

  “You’re confident of that?”

  Marce shrugged. “It’s just math.”

  “You understand that the fate of dozens of ships and thousands of my people would be riding on your math,” Hurnen said.

  “It’s more than that, Admiral,” Grayland said. “It’s the fate of billions.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Hurnen accepted the correction. “However, it will be my people’s fate first.”

  Grayland nodded. “If Lord Marce’s data is satisfactory, then how long will it take to assemble the ships and plan a campaign?”

  Hurnen turned to Marce. “In your model, where does the Flow stream originate and what’s the transit time?”

  “It originates in the Ikoyi system,” Marce said.

  “That’s the home system of House of Lagos,” Bren said.

  “Yes.”

  “Does this present issues, General?” Grayland asked.

  “They’re touchy.”

  “Let us handle that part,” Grayland suggested.

  Bren smiled at this. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “The transit time to End would be three months,” Marce continued.

  Hurnen’s eyebrows raised. “Really.” The trip from Hub to End was a nine-month journey.

  “There’s a catch,” Marce warned.

  “What is it?”

  “I predict the Flow stream from Ikoyi to End will only be open for about five months.”

  “When does it open?”

  “About three weeks from now.”

  “And we don’t want to be in the Flow stream when it shuts off,” Bren said.

  “No,” Marce said. “Some Flow streams collapse from one end or the other; others collapse intermittently; others collapse all at once. This will be one of those ‘collapse all at once’ ones.”

  Hurnen turned to Grayland. “What I’m hearing is at best we have three months to assemble and task a group suitable to retake End before that stream collapses and takes any ship still inside with it.”

  “Yes,” Grayland said. “Is it possible?”

  “It’s … difficult.”

  There’s that word again, Marce thought. Grayland had noticed it too. “That is not what we asked,” she said.

  Hurnen grimaced. “I understand that, ma’am.”

  “Then let us be clear, Admiral Hurnen, General Bren,” Grayland said, fixing both with her eyes as she said their names. “We have no intention of leaving End to the Nohamapetans. They are a threat to the current citizens of the planet, and they are a threat to anyone who flees there for refuge. Those refugees are already on their way, Admiral. There will be many more before all this is done. If this is possible, then we will have it done, difficult or not.”

  “It’s possible, Your Majesty,” Bren said. “But with all respect, you have to be aware of what you’re asking. You’re asking for a massive and sudden commitment of forces that will have to be assembled from the systems we can reach and which can send ships and personnel to the Ikoyi system in time to use the Flow stream before it collapses. Every ship, every marine, every crew member we send to End is taking a one-way trip. They are not going to see their spouses or families or children again. Everyone who joins the service understands they are making a commitment, one that takes them from home, sometimes for years. But, Your Majesty, what you’re asking here is for more than a commitment. In a very real sense, you’re asking them to give their lives.”

  Grayland considered this. “You think there will be mutinies over this order.”

  Bren looked as if he’d been slapped. “I said no such thing—ma’am.” The last bit of that was added hastily; Marce noted that Grayland deigned to let it pass.

  “It’s not only the crews and marines, ma’am,” Hurnen said. “Those ships aren’t coming back either.” She turned to Marce. “Unless you predict a Flow stream exiting End space in the near future.”

  “I don’t,” Marce said.

  Hurnen nodded. “Then there are that many fewer ships we have for the unrest we all know is coming.”

  “We can make more ships,” Grayland said.

  “Your cousins are filling up their dance card quickly,” Hurnen said, referring to the House of Wu.

  “We’re sure
they are,” Grayland said, dryly. “However, we can make the argument that the needs of the Imperial Navy take precedence. As for the crews and marines…” Grayland turned her attention back to Bren. “If we cannot return them to their families, then perhaps we should bring their families to them.”

  “You’re talking about sending these families to End,” Hurnen said.

  “Yes. After a suitable amount of time that would be required to end the Nohamapetan threat and to establish stability on End.”

  “The logistics of that are—”

  “Difficult, yes,” Grayland finished the sentence. “As will be the logistics of creating the fleet that we send to End. Admiral. General. Please understand that we do not expect any of this to be simple or easy. Likewise understand that moving forward, we do not expect anything to be simple or easy. We all have difficult choices to make, and sacrifices that will be required of all of us. Perhaps you will be so kind as to lead by example.”

  “Yes, well.” Hurnen and Bren looked at each other again, and then rose from their seats. “We need to go find out what ships and people are available to us on short notice. We will have that to you by morning.”

  “Thank you, Admiral,” Grayland said.

  Hurnen nodded to Marce. “And you will send us over that data for our people to check. We need to go over that with a microscope.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You understand that if our people find anything questionable with your data, we can’t move forward.”

  Marce nodded. “If your people have any questions, I will be happy to address them.”

  The admiral gave Marce a look that he was pretty sure translated as You better not be wasting my time, boytoy, then there were the usual departing pleasantries, and then Marce and Grayland were alone again, for the minute or so it would take for Grayland’s people to bring on the next appointment.

  Grayland sighed and looked over at Marce and was Cardenia again.

  “I don’t think they like the plan,” Marce said.

  “I know they don’t like it,” Cardenia said. “That whole ‘if there’s a problem with the data’ bit was the admiral trying to find a way out of it.”

  “There’s not a problem with the data,” Marce assured her.

  “That doesn’t mean they won’t find a problem.”

  “And if they do, the math will show the problem is them, not the data.”

  Cardenia stretched. “I wish I had your confidence.”

  “I think you have enough.”

  “Not in myself, in them.” Cardenia motioned toward the door. “I’m mildly annoyed they’re already discounting your work because of your relationship with me.”

  Marce grinned. “Oh, you noticed that.”

  “Was gonna punch her right in her snout.”

  “That probably wouldn’t have been wise.”

  “It would have felt good. For about five seconds. I’m sorry they doubt your work.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Marce said.

  “It kind of is,” Cardenia reminded him.

  “Well, fine. It’s your fault, but I don’t mind. Overall it works out well for me.”

  “I’m glad you think so, Lord Marce.”

  Marce smiled again. “Thank you, ma’am.” He stood up and bowed, elaborately, which made Cardenia giggle. “Will there be anything else?”

  “Not at the moment. Maybe later.” Cardenia groaned. “Much later, because my schedule is ridiculous today. I’ll be lucky if I’m done before midnight. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. I have work of my own.”

  “Yes. Saving us all through mathematics.” Cardenia smiled. “Which is why I see so little of you these days.”

  “It’s not the only reason, Miss I-have-meetings-until-midnight.”

  “Sure, use my own words against me. Well, at the very least, when you take a break, think of me.”

  “I’m probably not going to take a break before I collapse into bed.”

  “Fine, then, Lord Marce. Dream of me instead.”

  * * *

  In his sleep, Marce Claremont dreamed of mathematics.

  Mathematics were not the usual dream material for Marce. Most of his dreams, historically speaking, were the standard rehashing of the events of the last few days in an inchoate, plotless manner, with or without pants. Occasionally he would dream he was back at school, simultaneously being a student and teaching a graduate class on physics, once again only intermittently wearing trousers. During the nine-month journey from End to Hub he’d hardly dreamed at all—ship’s crew told him that was not unusual, and they suspected that somehow the Flow affected their sleep—and when he did it was often of the hills of his province, green and calm, upon which Marce would stand. He never noted in these cases whether he was wearing pants or not. It did not seem relevant at the time.

  But now, math.

  Wild math. Incomprehensible math. Math of the sort that would tease and puzzle the greatest minds of any age, much less his own.

  Marce could not have begun to describe these dreams to anyone. These dreams of math were not usually visual in any significant sense; it was not a question of seeing numbers or equations or anything else that Marce would have otherwise dreamed of. Nor were they focused on sound or any other usual sense. Marce’s dreams were saturated instead with the nature and meaning of mathematics—the overwhelming presence of the discipline, the vastness of its influence, the pertinence of it for everything that Marce did and was, and for the civilization he wanted to preserve.

  Marce was not ignorant as to why he was dreaming of math. Math was encompassing nearly all of his life at present, as he sifted through the centuries of data on the Flow. He was looking for patterns or sense to how the Flow interacted with normal physical space and how it might be induced, if that was the best word to use, to save billions from the fate of isolation and slow death. If the Flow could be induced, it would not speak to Marce in any human language. It would speak to him in mathematics.

  The Flow, it had to be said, was not easily induced.

  Nor could Marce reason with it, or bargain with it, or plead, wheedle or threaten. The Flow was not human or concerned with human things. One could anthropomorphize the Flow all one wanted, but the Flow would not agree or consent to it. It was literally alien to this universe. The only way to understand it was to take it on its own terms.

  And so Marce did, spending nearly the entirety of his days working the math, trying to solve the problems that only he had the experience to solve.

  It was, in its way, incredibly isolating. Marce was not lonely—he was in a relationship, and in his time at Hub and Xi’an he had made friends, and allies and professional colleagues—but for all that he was mostly alone in his head. He saw friends less often; colleagues would report findings or ask his advice on a particular problem with the Flow and then recede back to their own isolations.

  He had once started to mention the isolating nature of his work to his girlfriend, until halfway through expressing the thought he realized she was in fact the emperox of the Interdependency. The isolating nature of his one thing was a molehill compared to the isolating mountain of the literally dozens of things she was also currently dealing with. He changed the topic mid-sentence. His girlfriend the emperox found his verbal fumbling charming.

  It all had to come out somewhere. It came out in Marce’s dreams, his subconscious trying to solve what his conscious brain was finding unsolvable.

  Marce understood why he was dreaming his mathematical dreams and even appreciated it in an intellectual sense. It didn’t make it less enervating. To work on mathematics all day and to dream of mathematics all night meant Marce woke up all mathed out.

  Which normally would not be a problem; Marce could just take a vacation. But when civilization was literally on the verge of ending, vacations felt more indulgent than usual.

  So it went, for weeks. Math awake, math asleep, math everywhere and all the time, with Marce no closer to a solution t
o the problems weighing on him.

  But this night Marce had a different dream.

  Which was still in and about mathematics, so that part wasn’t any different. What was different was that for the first time, the dream was not generalized mathematical anxiety. In his dream, and rare for his dreaming experience, Marce actually saw an equation. It was as clear as it could be in a dream, which was to say, full of shifting bits and squiggly lines that moved when you looked directly at them.

  Nevertheless, when he looked at the equation, he knew what it was describing: an unstable Flow shoal, shrinking and receding at the same time, moving through space in a way that Flow shoals didn’t, or at least weren’t supposed to, or ever did, except maybe once.

  Which is when Marce’s conscious mind intruded into his dream. I’ve seen this before, it said. Where have I seen this before?

  Marce snapped awake, sat up in bed, and reached over to his nightstand for his tablet. It lit up, awaiting his instructions.

  “Mnungh,” murmured Cardenia, who, as she had promised, had come to bed well past midnight, only briefly acknowledging the mostly sleeping Marce before collapsing into her own pillow. “Bright.”

  “Sorry,” Marce said, and got out of bed, naked, so the tablet glare wouldn’t bother Cardenia. He settled in a chair, and pulled up the files of data that his father had collected over thirty years—data collected from the trade ships that plied the Flow from one system to the next, registering the minute shifts and changes to the Flow that could be gleaned by how the ships entered, moved through and exited the medium.

  Marce was looking for one thing in particular, and very near the end of his father’s data, he found it: an anomalous Flow shoal, discovered by a ship that had accidentally exited the Flow when the stream it was in experienced something akin to a rupture, spilling the ship into normal space light-years from where it was supposed to be and trillions of miles from any system inhabited by humans. The ship had spotted the anomalous Flow shoal and had raced toward it, barely entering it before it had closed in on itself. It had been a freak event. One of a kind. Temporary.