The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency)

by John Scalzi

  Her second thought, which she vocalized, was, “Oh, shit.” Whether one is theoretically expecting to get a toothbrush (or whatever) through the ribs, when the sharpened object is honing in on you, carried by someone who looks like her job on the outside was strangling livestock, it’s all right to let out a little profanity.

  To be honest, it was just a capper on a really less than spectacular month for Nadashe Nohamapetan.

  But then, she’d known the risks when she set up her brother Amit—in more than one sense of the term—with Grayland on that starship tour, and then shoved a shuttlecraft into the cargo bay at full speed. She knew them, and that they were manageable. After all, it was entirely reasonable to expect that the result of that would have been the emperox smeared over the deck of the bay, or sucked into the vacuum of space, or some combination of the two. The shuttle was big enough, it would be going fast enough, and the bay large enough. Really, it was just bad luck that the proximity alarms had triggered literally seconds too soon, giving Grayland just enough time to be shoved under a rapidly closing vacuum door.

  She then also managed to survive the newly constructed ship tearing itself apart due to rotational forces, sealed off in a passage tube that was slowly leaking air. Grayland should have been dead by shuttle, then by the deconstruction of the ship, and then finally by simple clean lack of oxygen.

  And that’s not even talking about the assassination attempt at her coronation.

  Grayland was, literally, a lucky bastard.

  Nadashe, not so much these days.

  “So here’s the rundown,” Cal Dorick, Nadashe’s personal lawyer, had told her shortly after she was taken into custody. “Murder in the first degree for Amit, murder in the first degree for the shuttle pilot, murder in the second degree for both Grayland and Amit’s security people, attempted murder for all the rest of the security contingents, attempted manslaughter for the starship crew—there are several dozen counts here—attempted murder of the emperox, attempted assassination of the emperox, which is technically a separate offense from attempted murder, and of course, treason.”

  “Is that all?” Nadashe asked.

  Dorick looked at her oddly, but went on. “For the moment. I understand the House of Nohamapetan—your house—is currently debating whether or not to ask the state to charge you with destruction of property. The House of Lagos, whose shuttle you stole, will almost certainly ask for those charges, but has not yet. And further charges may be added to the docket, pending further investigation.”

  “So what are we looking at?” Nadashe asked. “In terms of sentencing?”

  Dorick was dumbfounded. “Death, Nadashe,” he finally said. “For treason that’s traditionally the go-to sentence. You have a chance for death on the first-degree murder cases. For the second-degree charges, life imprisonment. Attempted assassination is typically a life sentence. Lesser sentences for the multiple attempted murders, but the state has already told me they will argue for them to be served consecutively, not concurrently.”

  Nadashe looked around the drab meeting room the two of them sat in, painted in industrial greens and grays. “So, best-case scenario is something like this, for the rest of my life, and the next several lives to boot.”

  “That’s the best-case scenario, yes,” Dorick said. “That’s the highly optimistic scenario.”

  “Any deals on the table?”

  “Not really,” Dorick said. “When the state believes you tried to assassinate the emperox, it’s going to want to set an example.”

  “Well,” Nadashe said, and folded her hands on the table between her and her personal lawyer. “That is simply unacceptable.”

  Dorick paused, appeared to be about to say something, and then closed his mouth. He adjusted his suit and then reached for his stylus and pad. “So, ‘not guilty’ is what I’m hearing from you.”

  “Of course. I’m entirely innocent.”

  “Of everything.”

  “Absolutely everything. The idea that I would try to kill Amit, my brother, who I loved, is offensive. And as for Grayland, her brother was once my fiancé. My brother was hoping to be her fiancé. There is no reason, given either of those, that I would want her dead. All of this is ludicrous. I’m not guilty of anything.”

  Dorick looked over.

  “What?” Nadashe said.

  “I mean, you did admit to treason,” Dorick said. “You suborned an entire ship full of Imperial Marines and sent it through the Flow shoal to End in order to support your attempted takeover of that planet. You said it to the emperox herself. And the entire executive committee.”

  “Excited utterance,” Nadashe said.

  “That’s not how ‘excited utterance’ works legally, but okay.”

  “Bravado in the heat of the moment,” Nadashe continued, undeterred. “Brought on by being accused of my own brother’s death. Honestly I don’t remember much of what I said at that point.”

  “There are recordings.”

  “I’m sure there are. But I’m fuzzy on the details. A psychological evaluation might be in order to confirm I have a gap in my memory there.”

  Dorick looked doubtful at this. “Grayland has ordered a top-to-bottom investigation of the service to find out who else you might have suborned.”

  “I haven’t suborned anyone. It was Amit.”

  “Amit.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your dead brother who was attempting to marry the emperox.”

  “He always believed in having a plan B.”

  “His plan B involved killing himself?”

  “People do dramatic things,” Nadashe said. “And I think you’ll find in your investigation that Amit had left instructions that in the event of his death the Prophecies of Rachela was to make its way to End.”

  “Will I, now,” Dorick said, making a note.

  “Absolutely.”

  “A claim that is entirely unverifiable because, if the emperox is correct, the Flow stream from End to here has already collapsed.”

  “If you believe such a thing, yes.”

  “Still, your operational knowledge of Amit’s plans appears extensive.”

  “I was investigating him.”

  Dorick looked up over his pad, eyebrows arched. “For treason.”

  “Among other things, yes.”

  “And you didn’t think to bring this to the attention of the emperox, the executive committee, or, for that matter, the appropriate law-enforcement authorities, of which there would be … several.”

  “Amit was my brother, Cal,” Nadashe said. “I had to be sure.”

  “So, to be clear, all of this…” Dorick waved the hand holding the stylus, in an effort to encompass the enormity of the crimes that Amit had attempted.

  “On Amit, yes.”

  “Is there anyone to corroborate any of your claims?”

  “My brother Ghreni,” Nadashe said. “The two of them were very close.”

  “Ghreni, also at End, and thus also unable to be called to corroborate your claims here.”

  “Yes. Unfortunate.”

  “Quite,” Dorick said, in a tone that was maybe two degrees off from being entirely sincere. Nadashe was glad her lawyer was quick on the uptake. “Well, this is certainly an alternate theory of the case, isn’t it.”

  “Yes,” Nadashe agreed.

  “One that will take some time to investigate. Weeks, certainly. Months, probably. Years?”

  “You should take all the time you need,” Nadashe said. “I am willing to wait for justice.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Dorick said, and paused. “This won’t be cheap. And to put this indelicately, the House of Nohamapetan is up in the air about whether to fund your defense.”

  Nadashe nodded. “Write this down.” She rattled off a long string of numbers. “Take that to the ImperialBanc in Hubfall. The branch across from the Guild House.”

  “If this account’s in your name it may have already been seized.”

  “It’s not
in my name. It’s in yours.”

  “Well,” Dorick said. “I wish I’d known about my windfall earlier.”

  “I’d have preferred you never knew about it at all,” Nadashe said. “And yet here we are.”

  Dorick nodded and stood. “The next time we meet will be at the arraignment.”

  “I want bail,” Nadashe said.

  “Let me remind you that you are to be charged with the attempted assassination of the emperox,” Dorick said. “Getting bail is optimistic.”

  “Try anyway.”

  Cal Dorick tried, arguing, not entirely unreasonably, that as an accused but entirely innocent attempted assassin, one of the other inmates might try to hurt or kill her out of a desire for notoriety, or a misplaced hope that murdering an attempted assassin of the emperox might better their own chance at a parole or commutation. The arraigning judge was, to put it mildly, not convinced. But he grudgingly admitted the need for extra security for Nadashe. After offering solitary confinement for the duration of her pretrial stay, the judge instead gave Nadashe her own cell in the medium-security wing of the Emperox Hanne II Secured Correctional Facility, thirty klicks outside of Hubfall.

  The correctional facility was deemed “secured” because there was no underground passenger rail in or out of the facility. The only way in or out was overland. As Hub was a tidally locked airless planet where the temperature was either 300 degrees or -200 degrees centigrade, depending which side of the planetary terminator line one chose to wander off from, the overland route was not, shall we say, a pleasant drive in the best of circumstances. Only approved vehicles were allowed to approach. Unapproved vehicles approaching the facility were warned at three thousand meters, targeted at two thousand meters and destroyed one klick out. No one was going to go up to the surface of the planet for alone time.

  In the month after her arrival Nadashe kept to herself, stayed out of everyone’s way and avoided trouble. This was aided by the fact that she was ordered to take meals by herself, which were brought to her cell, and that her shower time was taken in the infirmary area, which had stalls and secured bathing facilities. Once a week she met with Dorick, who kept her up to date on the outside world, informing her of how the House of Lagos was given administration of Nohamapetan businesses in-system, how Grayland II had sparked a social and political crisis by warning about the upcoming collapse of the Flow streams, and more recently how the emperox had begun to claim religious visions, like Rachela in the early days of the Interdependency.

  Nadashe, who had more context than nearly everyone else in the universe for these last two actions, said nothing to her lawyer about her thoughts and instead focused on the House of Lagos taking over the House of Nohamapetan’s administration. “Who’s their point person?” she asked.

  “Lady Kiva Lagos,” Dorick said.

  “Oh. Her.”

  “You two know each other?”

  “She used Ghreni as a boy toy when we were in college. How is she running the house’s business?”

  “From the outside, she seems to be doing fine.”

  “And from the inside?”

  “No one from the inside is talking that much to me at the moment.”

  “Well, that’s rude.”

  Dorick shrugged. “You are accused of murdering the head of the company and destroying its newest and most expensive ship. For which, incidentally, the insurance policy has been voided. Since you were an officer of the company at the time of the alleged incident, the insurers are arguing attempted insurance fraud.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Given the cost, that would normally make the House of Nohamapetan have a vested interest in you being found not guilty. But since you are trying to pin everything on Amit…” Dorick shrugged. “It’s not inclined to participate. Especially now that Kiva Lagos is running things.”

  “For now.”

  Dorick nodded. “It seems likely your mother will dispatch one of your cousins and a phalanx of lawyers from Terhathum to wrest control back. But they haven’t arrived yet, and considering that Grayland suggests that the Flow stream to Terhathum may be on the verge of collapse, that adds another level of … drama to the situation. I’ll be subpoenaing people and documents soon enough, but as you’ve said, we’re not in a rush.”

  Nadashe filed that away. “And how goes the delaying of the trial date?”

  “Surprisingly well. The prosecution wants more time to lay out its own case. It wants to make this as open-and-shut as possible. I am encouraging them to take as much time as they like.”

  “Good.”

  “Is there a reason for the delay, other than possibly keeping you alive that much longer?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” Nadashe asked.

  “It is,” Dorick said. “But as your lawyer I would prefer to know if there is anything else that’s going on relevant to the case.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Dorick opened up a physical folder and pulled out an actual piece of paper and slid it over to Nadashe. “I got a call the other night. You might find the substance of the call of interest.”

  Nadashe read the paper silently. “Now, there’s nothing there that I found particularly relevant to your legal case, so I don’t feel obliged to share it with the prosecution as I might normally,” Dorick continued. “That is, unless you tell me it is relevant, in which case I will share it.”

  Nadashe slid the paper back to Dorick. “I don’t think it’s relevant, no. Seems like someone might be trying to prank you or to get you to act in a certain way.”

  “That’s a distinct possibility,” Dorick said, taking the paper back. “This is obviously a high-profile case, and I do get a lot of crank messages about it.”

  “Do let me know if you get any similar messages.”

  “Of course.”

  On the way back to her cell Nadashe mused on the note Dorick had showed her, from Teran Assan, whom she knew socially. Assan was both a grasping social climber and a prick with a too-high opinion of himself, but he’d also been useful more than once with inside information about his own house and the House of Wu. The fact that he was taking up her seat on the executive committee and was now wanting to share information about the emperox and his contacts within the House of Wu was very interesting.

  Nadashe knew this largesse would not come free and that at some point there would need to be payment of one sort or another. But that was for another time. For now, Nadashe’s brain was busy putting puzzle pieces together.

  So busy, in fact, that she didn’t notice the assassin with the toothbrush shiv until she was roughly three steps in front of her and closing fast.

  “Oh, shit,” Nadashe said, and then the assassin reached out, hooked Nadashe by the neck, pushed her down to the deck and drove the toothbrush shiv into the carotid artery of the woman behind Nadashe, who had been closing in on her with a different shiv entirely, this one sharpened from a spoon.

  Spoon Shiv, clearly surprised by the sudden appearance both of the toothbrush shiv–wielding woman, and the toothbrush shiv now lodged in her neck, dropped her own shiv and pawed ineffectually at the toothbrush in her artery. Toothbrush lady slapped her hands aside, and with an open palm drove the toothbrush farther in, eliciting a strangulated gasp. Then she grabbed Spoon Shiv by the front of her prison shirt and hurled her over the side of the railing. Spoon Shiv dropped the four meters to the prison deck, made a wet thud, and died.

  Toothbrush looked down, and then picked up Spoon Shiv’s weapon. She brandished it at Nadashe. “Don’t bring a spoon to a toothbrush fight,” she said. She tossed it into the nearest cell.

  “What?” Nadashe said, confused.

  Toothbrush motioned in the direction of Spoon Shiv. “You know who that was from?”

  Nadashe collected herself. “I assume Grayland.”

  “Close but no. That was from Jasin Wu.”

  “Okay,” Nadashe said. “And who are you from?”

  “I’m from Deran Wu. And I have
a proposition, from him, to you.”

  By now the guards and other inmates had crowded around Spoon Shiv’s corpse, looking up to see Nadashe there.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Toothbrush said. “That’s fixable.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Do you want to hear the proposition?”

  Nadashe looked back to Toothbrush.

  And thought to herself, Well, this took longer than I expected, too.

  “I’m listening,” she said to Toothbrush, and noticed the guards coming up the stairs to them. “Better make it quick.”

  Chapter

  4

  Kiva Lagos looked around the empty warehouse that she stood in the middle of, and then turned to Gaye Patz. “You brought me down here to look at fucking nothing,” she said.

  Gaye Patz, the House of Lagos’s top forensic accountant, nodded. “You are looking at nothing,” she agreed. “But what you are supposed to be looking at is a warehouse filled with several million marks of Nohamapetan grain and other merchandise, ready to be shipped.”

  Kiva blinked at this. “So was it shipped?”

  “It might have been,” Patz said. “But if it was, it wasn’t done legally, or to the legal buyers. And it’s more likely that none of it arrived here at all. Ten million marks’ worth of inventory, vanished.”

  “But on the books,” Kiva said.

  “Yes. On the books, it’s all here. Along with another forty million or so marks of inventory that’s supposed to be in other Nohamapetan warehouses across Hub, which is also not there.”

  “Merchandise we’ve already accepted the fucking money for.”

  Patz nodded. “Everything that was supposed to be in this warehouse was ordered and paid for. Everything in those other warehouses was also ordered and paid for. The House of Nohamapetan—and now you, because you’ve been given the responsibility for administering the Nohamapetans’ business—is on the hook for that forty million marks’ worth of merchandise. But there’s good news.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “The inventory was destined to go out of the system. The emperox says the Flow streams are collapsing, so it’s possible they’ll do so before you’re legally required to fulfill the order.”