The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency)

by John Scalzi

  Grayland blinked at this. “And why is that, Lady Kiva?”

  “Widespread graft, ma’am. I instituted an audit when you asked me to supervise the in-system businesses of the Nohamapetans, and we have uncovered substantial business discrepancies, all of which will affect revenues and profits. We are still uncovering them. It will take months to get a full account, and meanwhile we are in a position of having to deal with make-goods with our customers, as well as fines and penalties which will be assessed by your own Ministry of Revenue.”

  “This is unhappy news,” Grayland said.

  “I can have a full report sent to you, if you would like,” Kiva said, helpfully. “It has already been sent to the Ministry of Revenue.”

  “Thank you, Lady Kiva. We would like that very much.”

  “And if I may,” Kiva continued, “I can offer you a solution to this unfortunate problem.”

  “We are listening.”

  “No doubt the countess had no intention of offering you nothing when she offered you this year’s in-system profits, Your Majesty. Her own accountants were misled and deceived, and as she is newly arrived in-system, I have not had an opportunity to get her or her people up to speed on the financial affairs of the local business. This is almost certainly an innocent mistake. And truth be told, if the graft were not as endemic and widespread as it is, the House of Nohamapetan would be having a banner year, profit-wise.”

  “What do you suggest, Lady Kiva?” Grayland asked.

  “Simple, Your Majesty. I will have my accountants provide you an amount that represents the sum of local profits for the last twelve months, without the graft and penalties. The countess may then present to the Naffa Dolg Foundation a donation of that sum, from the House of Nohamapetan general coffers. Everyone wins.”

  Grayland nodded and turned back to the Countess Nohamapetan. “If the countess will accept this small emendation to her generous offer, as we are sure she will, then we will be delighted to accept her gracious gesture.”

  Suck on that, you duplicitous crab, Kiva thought. The countess thought she was testing Grayland, and it turned out she was the one who got schooled. The emperox had turned her slap of a gift around and shoved her face right into it.

  The Countess Nohamapetan allowed herself roughly a second and a half to blink in surprise. And then, “Of course, Your Majesty. It will be exactly so.”

  “Wonderful.” Grayland turned to Kiva. “When may we expect that number?”

  “I can have it to you tomorrow, Your Majesty.”

  “We will expect it then.” Over to the countess again. “And the Naffa Dolg Foundation may expect your contribution quickly after? Within the week?”

  “Of course,” the countess said.

  Grayland nodded. “You are very lucky to have Lady Kiva as your director, Countess Nohamapetan,” she said. “Aside from her clever solution to this minor problem, her uncovering of the widespread graft and corruption within your organization must be a great relief to you.”

  “Yes, quite,” the countess answered, not looking at Kiva at all.

  “It would have been unfortunate if such practices had leapfrogged from the in-system organization to the Nohamapetan organization at large,” Grayland continued. “Then the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Justice would be obliged to step in.” She glanced over to Kiva. “But you do not believe that such a thing is the case?”

  “Not yet, Your Majesty,” Lady Kiva said. “But of course our investigation is not yet over.”

  “How long do you think it will take, Lady Kiva?”

  “Given the complexity of the House of Nohamapetan income streams and books, and the sophistication of the skimming from each, several more months, I think.”

  “Several more months,” Grayland said, with a very slight emphasis on the word “months.”

  “At least, yes,” Kiva amended.

  Grayland returned her attention to the Countess Nohamapetan. “We have no doubt you are extending your director here every courtesy and cooperation while she sounds the extent of your local organization’s issues, Countess.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, but—”

  “Yes, Countess?”

  “—while Lady Kiva has shown great ingenuity—”

  “The countess is too kind with her praise,” Kiva interjected, knocking the countess off-balance. “I must admit, however, that there was almost no ingenuity on my part here. To discover these lapses, all it took were fresh eyes.”

  “Someone from the outside, you would say, Lady Kiva?” Grayland asked.

  “Perhaps that’s all that was needed, yes,” Kiva replied.

  Grayland slapped the arms of her throne, lightly. “In that case, we believe it’s best to have those outside eyes continue to look into the issues with the in-system Nohamapetan business, and to help this branch of a great house return to form. And of course, in your continuing role as director, Lady Kiva, you will remain in contact with the countess directly, to keep her informed on what you find, as you will keep us informed, to the same extent.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Kiva said.

  “The House of Nohamapetan is of great interest to us, Lady Kiva,” Grayland said. “You have a great responsibility, both to it, and to us.”

  “I understand,” Kiva intoned. She glanced over at the countess, who it must be said was holding her outrage in admirably.

  “Now, Countess, let us discuss your daughter,” Grayland said.

  “Ma’am?” the Countess Nohamapetan said, thrown entirely off track by this.

  “Our understanding was that this was the reason for your visit,” Grayland said.

  “In fact, ma’am, we came to discuss the matter of Lady Kiva—”

  “Well, we’ve settled that, have we not?” Grayland asked. “And on the matter of your daughter, we have an interest to speak to you. If you wish to hear it.”

  Kiva saw the countess momentarily and almost imperceptibly weigh her desire to revisit the matter of extracting Kiva from her business against the possibility of irritating this emperox who was currently in the process of railroading her sorry ass all around the room. She took the cowardly way out. “I am happy to speak of my daughter, ma’am.”

  “Your daughter is accused of some of the most grievous crimes, Countess. Murder. Attempted assassination. Treason. These crimes, if she is found guilty of them, come with the penalty of death.”

  The countess paled a bit at this. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “It grieves me that she finds herself in this position, Countess Nohamapetan. At one point, we thought she might be our sister, married to our brother Rennered, who was to be emperox. Things would be very different now, had he lived to succeed our father.”

  “Yes, they would,” the countess said. “They would indeed.”

  “We cannot say what may have led Nadashe to the crimes she is accused of. We cannot stop what must happen. She must be tried. And when tried, if she is found guilty, she must be punished. We must all face the law, and justice. You understand this, Countess Nohamapetan?”

  “I do.” The countess looked down at the room’s exquisite mosaic floor.

  Grayland nodded. “Nadashe must face the law, and must face justice, and must be punished,” she repeated. “And yet, in earnest of my brother’s love for her, and to honor the loyalty you have pledged your house to, I can offer some mercy.”

  The countess looked up. “Your Majesty?”

  “Life instead of death,” Grayland said. “If she is found guilty of any of the capital crimes she is accused of, and is sentenced to death, I will commute the sentence to life imprisonment. And she will serve that sentence here on Xi’an, at Silent Water.”

  Kiva blinked at this. Silent Water wasn’t so much a penitentiary as it was a vacation camp you couldn’t leave. It was where ministers of parliament went when they were caught taking bribes, or accountants caught embezzling funds. It was the only penal facility on Xi’an, on the basis that one doesn’t want to house hardened
criminals in the same habitat as the emperox. To house Nadashe there when she straight-up murdered dozens of people, including her brother, was giving her a huge fucking break. Grayland might as well be giving her an ice cream cone while she was at it.

  “Is that acceptable to you, Countess Nohamapetan?” Grayland asked.

  Kiva watched the Countess Nohamapetan roll through several sets of emotion on her face, some so quickly that Kiva wasn’t sure she actually saw them. Then the countess looked directly at Grayland again, and gave that fucked-up curtsey-bow-whatever again.

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” she said to the emperox. “Thank you.”

  Grayland nodded and stood. “We have accomplished much today,” she said. “We are glad of it. And now you must excuse us, as we have another appointment which we will soon be late for. Countess Nohamapetan, Lady Kiva, Ms. Fundapellonan.” Grayland gave a small bow, which the three of them returned and held until the emperox had made it to the door behind the dais from which she had entered.

  The door closed.

  “What the fuck were you even doing here?” the Countess Nohamapetan lashed at Fundapellonan. Fundapellonan opened her mouth to reply, but the countess stormed off toward the entrance, looking like the world’s most pissed-off peacock.

  Kiva watched her go. “I don’t know what she’s so upset about,” she said to Fundapellonan. “I thought that went very well.”

  Fundapellonan looked at Kiva with narrowed eyes. “This was a setup,” she said.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Kiva said. “Your boss walks in here with an obvious plan to insult Grayland, and when her ass is handed to her, you whine about a setup?” She nodded in the direction of the departed, furious countess. “This wasn’t a setup. It was a massacre, pure and simple. Your boss made the mistake of assuming the emperox was weak and got stuffed. She got stuffed so hard you never had a chance to make the argument that I should be out of a job.”

  “And you didn’t speak to the emperox about this at all.”

  “We’re not friends,” Kiva said. “We don’t have fucking sleepovers where we style each other’s hair and giggle about boys. This is the second time I’ve ever met her.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Kiva said. “The way she crushed your boss just now was fucking spectacular. She didn’t get a chance to object to me. You didn’t get to bring in your sabotage gambit. The emperox made it clear that she was going to watch what happened to me and your local businesses very closely. Then she rubbed the countess’s nose in the fact her daughter was a murderer and a traitor, and made her thank her for telling her that her kid would spend the rest of her life in prison.”

  Fundapellonan looked at Kiva strangely. “Is that what you thought just happened?”

  “I was here for it, so yes, actually.”

  Fundapellonan shook her head. “You don’t understand. When Grayland said that she would commute Nadashe’s death sentence and house her on Xi’an, she wasn’t being gracious. She wasn’t even rubbing the countess’s nose in the fact that Nadashe will be in prison all her life. She was telling the countess that she was making Nadashe a hostage. Right here on Xi’an. Where the emperox can get to her if the countess ever gets out of line again. How could you miss that, Kiva? How could you miss that the emperox made an enemy of the countess today? Countess Nadashe will never forget what Grayland did today. And she will never, ever forgive it.”

  Chapter

  8

  Grayland II did have another appointment that she was about to be late for—truth to be told, she always had an appointment that she was about to be late for—but the appointment she was about to be late for was one where, at least, she would not have to be Grayland II. She was meant to be having a meeting with Marce Claremont, which meant she would get to be Cardenia Wu-Patrick for the thirty minutes or so they would have together.

  The fact that the meeting was thirty minutes was in itself something of a luxury. To get thirty minutes with the emperox these days you had to be the minister of state or the archbishop of Xi’an, or some major human habitat had to be on fire. But Marce Claremont got thirty minutes because one, he was the linchpin to understanding the changes in the Flow that were currently affecting the Interdependency, and no other Flow scientists had caught up with him; and two, Cardenia had a crush on him and liked spending time looking at him.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” asked her assistant Obelees Atek, who was ferrying her to the next appointment.

  “I’m fine,” Cardenia said. “Why?”

  “You look a little flushed all of a sudden.”

  This made Cardenia flush a little more. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I was thinking back on something the Countess Nohamapetan said.”

  “That bad, ma’am?”

  “It could have been worse,” Cardenia said, although at the moment she wasn’t sure how. Cardenia was aware the countess had been furious at the outcome of the meeting; she’d been sure she was going to roll the emperox and take back control of her local holdings.

  This is the nice thing about being underestimated, Cardenia thought. It wasn’t the first time recently that she’d outmaneuvered someone because that other person thought she was slow, or naive, or simply too nice to be anything more than an obstacle to be maneuvered, or to be maneuvered around. Cardenia remembered that when she’d started as the emperox, she felt mildly offended that people thought she could be flattered or intellectually bullied into a position or decision.

  Then she’d spent time talking to the ghosts of her predecessors in the Memory Room and learned just how much flattery and bullying had worked over the centuries. It didn’t leave her with a positive impression either of the former emperoxs or of the people who wheedled concessions out of them. She also learned the value of letting people assume she was less than capable, up until the moment she disabused them of the notion. Like she just had with the Countess Nohamapetan. The countess wouldn’t do that again.

  That’s not necessarily a good thing, one part of Cardenia’s mind pointed out. And that was true enough. You were underestimated once, and then when you rubbed someone’s face in it, forever after, that trick was out of the toolbox.

  I’m the emperox, Cardenia thought. I do have other tricks.

  And that was also true enough.

  Enough of the Countess Nohamapetan, another part of Cardenia’s brain said. We were thinking about Marce. This part of her brain, Cardenia realized, might be a swoony fifteen-year-old.

  But, well. Marce. There was a puzzle, wasn’t it.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Cardenia had admitted to the ghost of her father, Attavio VI, in the Memory Room, the night before.

  “Have sex with him,” Attavio VI said.

  “It’s not that simple,” Cardenia protested.

  “It is, actually,” Attavio VI replied. “You’re the emperox.”

  “And, what? I just command him into my bed?”

  “It’s been done before.”

  “Not by me,” Cardenia said. “Leaving everything else aside, I’m not built that way.”

  “Then invite him,” Attavio VI. “Less problematic. Mostly equal success rate, historically speaking.”

  “How often did you do that?” Cardenia asked.

  “Before I answer I will remind you that I as a computer simulation of your father have no ego to defend, and thus will answer entirely truthfully,” Attavio VI said. “I mention this because at several points in the past I answered questions for you and it made you unhappy. Perhaps you might ask the question of another emperox, to whom you are not emotionally attached.”

  “You’re saying the answer will make me unhappy?”

  “Yes, basically.”

  “Well, now I have to know,” Cardenia said.

  “I did all the time,” Attavio VI said. “It was a pretty great perk of being emperox.”

  “Oh, God,” Cardenia said, and buried her face in her hands. “You’re right. I didn’t want to
know.”

  “It worked on your mother,” Attavio VI said.

  “I especially didn’t need to know that.”

  “In her case it led to something more. But you have to know it started because I invited her, and like nearly everyone else, she didn’t refuse.”

  “You understand that doesn’t make it better, right?” Cardenia said.

  “I never coerced anyone,” Attavio VI said. “I was turned down from time to time, and I never asked again in those cases. There’s never a need for that, especially when you’re emperox.”

  “And you don’t think being emperox wasn’t a substantial factor in people accepting. That they might feel pressure to have sex with you because you could, say, wreck their lives.”

  “There’s no need for that, either,” Attavio VI said. “It’s just sex. And it worked the other way as well. There were people who wanted to have sex with me because I was the emperox. They wanted a story to tell their grandchildren. They wanted it more than I did.”

  “And you fulfilled their wishes, because you were selfless,” Cardenia said, sarcastically.

  “No, I did it because I wanted sex too,” Attavio VI said. “Just not as much.”

  “Remind me never to ask you for romantic advice ever again.”

  “I have recorded that request and will remind you of it should this ever come up again.”

  “Thank you.”

  “With that said, you have to be aware that you will never stop being the emperox,” Attavio VI said. “You will always be more powerful than the people you will be interested in. If you don’t want to be alone, or to have your sexual and emotional needs tended to by a professional, you will have to accept that is part of your landscape.”

  “I haven’t had sex since I’ve been emperox,” Cardenia admitted.

  “That doesn’t seem healthy.”

  “I don’t like it much either. But that’s part of the problem too. I don’t want Marce to think I’d be using him strictly for tension release.”

  “I’m not sure I’m qualified to talk to you about this,” Attavio VI said. “I’m a computer simulation of your father, not a licensed relationship therapist.”