The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency)

by John Scalzi

  “I didn’t choose. I just kept the elephant.”

  “Okay, but why give me this?” Kiva asked, setting the bracelet down on the desk. “I’m not mad at you for not seeing me since our little meeting with the emperox. We’re not dating.”

  “It’s not actually from me,” Fundapellonan said. “That’s a gift from the Countess Nohamapetan. Terhathum is famous for our topazes. Not that most people would know that, because the Nohamapetan monopoly is for maize and rice, and the House of Hoak doesn’t tell people where the topaz they sell comes from.”

  “And I get a gift from the countess why, exactly? Rumor is, she hates my fucking guts.”

  “The countess believes you and she may have gotten off on the wrong foot. And coming on the heels of the death of her daughter, I think she believes that it might be time to reassess relationships.” Fundapellonan pointed to the bracelet. “That bracelet is a token. I should tell you its financial value is negligible—it’s probably worth a thousand marks at most—but it belonged to Nadashe as she was growing up. The countess hopes that fact convinces you of her sincerity in wanting to make a new start between the two of you.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kiva said. She picked up the bracelet again, which to be fair was lovely, and looked at it. “You suggested this to her, didn’t you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I don’t know if you’ve ever met the Countess Nohamapetan, but she’s about as sentimental as a fucking alligator. There is no way in hell she got all mopey about her daughter, picked this thing up, and sent you here to help her realize a healing journey of the fucking soul.”

  “I think you may be underselling the countess.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You’re a doubter of the perfectibility of the human soul.”

  “I think to perfect a soul you have to have one to begin with.”

  “That’s mean, Kiva Lagos,” Fundapellonan said.

  Kiva shrugged.

  “Shall I tell the countess that you’ve rejected her gift?”

  “Sure, because I need to give her another reason to hate me, thanks.”

  Fundapellonan smiled. “Then I will just tell her that you expressed your delight and humble thanks.”

  “Yes, that sounds exactly like me.”

  “Just as much as the countess giving bracelets sounds like her.”

  “So you did suggest it to her.”

  “I might have said the bracelet would suit you.”

  “I’m not sure why. I don’t wear much jewelry.”

  “Maybe it was because I thought I’d like to see it on you.”

  Kiva put it on. “Well?”

  “It’s not bad,” Fundapellonan said, after a minute.

  “Fine, then.” Kiva took off the bracelet and set it back on the table. “Now that we’ve had our maudlin moment of gawking and sharing, do the thing so I can say no and we can get on with our lives.”

  “The countess invites you to reassess your stewardship of the House of Nohamapetan’s businesses here in the Hub system.”

  “All right.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure,” Kiva said, and counted to one in her head. “Now I’m done. And my answer to the countess is ‘fuck you.’ I already told her no once. She already took her case to the fucking emperox and was turned down. And not only did she say no, she explicitly said that I was to stay on and to have the full cooperation of the House of Nohamapetan in my investigation of the in-system. Which, by the way, I still don’t have, and it’s beginning to piss me off.”

  “I will communicate that issue to the countess.”

  “Do that. Also communicate to her the part where I said ‘fuck you.’ Make sure you phrase it precisely that way. And while you’re at it let her know that if you or anyone else shows up in this office again to suggest to me that I shouldn’t do the fucking job that the actual goddamn ruler of the entire known inhabited universe has told me to do, I’m going to start getting angry about it.”

  Fundapellonan blinked at this. “This is you not angry?”

  “You haven’t actually seen me angry yet.”

  “I’m going to make a note of that.”

  “And neither has the countess. And if she gets me angry, no amount of fucking friendship bracelets is going to help her.”

  “And there is nothing else that will cause you to reconsider your position?”

  Kiva tilted her head. “Again with the bribe offers.”

  Fundapellonan spread her hands. “I need to be able to go back and say I walked through the checklist.”

  “What else is on the checklist?”

  “That was it.”

  “Are you sure? We haven’t gotten to the veiled threats yet.”

  “No veiled threats.”

  “The countess must be off her game.”

  “Well, she is dealing with the death of her child. For the second time this year.”

  “There is that.” Kiva looked at the bracelet again, and then over to Fundapellonan. “What are you doing later?”

  “I’m busy.”

  “What about after that?”

  “I’m always busy.”

  “I know for a fact you’re not that busy.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you should come over.”

  “Maybe I’m avoiding you.”

  “You’re doing a fucking poor job of it, then, standing in my office.”

  “I was on assignment.”

  “Bearing gifts.”

  “From someone else.”

  “Which you chose.”

  “Yes I did.”

  “Come over later, and I’ll wear it for you. And not much else.”

  “Deal.”

  * * *

  “So why do you work for evil fucks?” Kiva asked Fundapellonan later, as they were lying in Kiva’s bed after some better-than-average sex.

  Fundapellonan looked over at Kiva, annoyed. “The House of Nohamapetan is not evil.”

  “Sounds like someone needs a refresher course on certain recent events.”

  “Fine,” Fundapellonan said. “Some members of the House of Nohamapetan may be evil.”

  “Fratricide. Murder. Attempted assassination. Embezzlement. Questionable taste in men. That’s just one of those motherfuckers.”

  “Are evil. Well, were evil.”

  “Still evil, just dead.”

  “But I didn’t even work for her.”

  “You work for her mom. Where did you think she got it?”

  “But I don’t even technically work for her. I work for the house.”

  “Which is run by the countess, your boss, and her family. You’re splitting hairs here pretty fucking fine.”

  “I’m a lawyer; that’s my actual job. Look, Kiva, I’m not arguing that the individual members of the Nohamapetan family are perfect angels, or even decent human beings. But I work for the house. And on a day-to-day basis the House of Nohamapetan is a middling decent noble house.”

  “If you say so.”

  Fundapellonan propped herself up on an elbow. “And what about the House of Lagos, hmmm? You probably won’t be entirely surprised to discover that before I met you I did a little, shall we say, opposition research on your house. Would you like a rundown on the labor issues and various other workplace and safety laws the House of Lagos endemically runs afoul of? How many times in the last two years alone the House of Lagos has been hauled up in front of the guilds for bad practices? How many marks the House of Lagos has as a line item in its annual budget for ‘conflict resolution’? You actually have a line item for payouts, and you don’t change your practices unless you overshoot that line item three years in a row. Which you’re about to do, by the way.”

  “I could do the same opposition research on the House of Nohamapetan and come away with a similar list.”

  “Which is my point exactly,” Fundapellonan said. “The house is a business; it needs representation; it’s not perfect but not
pure evil either.”

  “But your boss is.”

  “That stings, coming from a woman who charged refugees millions of marks to get on her ship to flee from a devastating civil war.”

  Kiva looked over. “Wow. You really did your research.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I needed the money.”

  Fundapellonan grinned and rolled on top of Kiva. “See, that is actually fucking evil, Kiva Lagos.”

  “And yet you’re still here with me.”

  Fundapellonan sat up with Kiva still underneath her. “Maybe I just like bad people.” She grabbed at Kiva’s wrist and slid the silver-and-topaz bracelet off it, and on to her own. She held it up to look at it.

  “It looks good on you,” Kiva said.

  “It’s nice with my skin tone,” Fundapellonan agreed, and then flew sideways off the bed.

  * * *

  “Hey,” Kiva said to Fundapellonan, several hours later.

  Fundapellonan tried to croak something, and Kiva moved her hand. “Don’t bother. You’ve got a tube in your throat. Your entire respiratory system is kind of fucked at the moment. Along with the rest of you. You were shot. Right off my fucking bed.”

  Fundapellonan’s eyes widened and she looked around frantically.

  “Relax, relax, hey, relax,” Kiva said. “You’re fine. You’re safe. Well, you’re not fine. You almost died several times. But you’re not going to die now. And you’re very safe. I called in a favor.” Kiva made a sweeping motion with her hand. “Welcome to the emperox’s private medical suite at Brighton Palace.”

  Fundapellonan eyes, already wide, became like plates.

  “Don’t worry, I’m paying.”

  This got Fundapellonan’s eyes to shrink a little.

  “Let me catch you up on events,” Kiva said. “You were shot in the chest. The bullet came through the sliding glass door. I’m on the seventeenth fucking floor, so it’s unlikely it was a random occurrence. My best guess is that someone meant to shoot me and shot you instead. I think this because, no offense, more people probably want me dead than want you dead, including your own actual fucking boss. Does that sound like a reasonable guess to you?”

  Fundapellonan nodded, very very slightly.

  “Did you tell anyone at House of Nohamapetan you were coming to see me tonight?”

  Fundapellonan was still for this, still looking at Kiva.

  “I’m not angry at you, Senia. I don’t think you set me up. But I need to know if you told anyone at the House of Nohamapetan that you were going to see me.”

  Nod.

  “Did you tell them I said I would wear the bracelet for you?”

  Nod.

  Kiva smiled. “That’s how I know you didn’t set me up. If you had set me up, there is no way in fucking hell that you would have put on the bracelet. And I would be dead. You saved my life tonight, Senia. You took a bullet for me.”

  Fundapellonan’s eyes squinted.

  “Yes, I know. If it was all the same you would have preferred not to. But I still appreciate it. Also, thank you for not dying on me. I’m not saying that because I like you or anything. It’s just having someone murdered in your house is not great for property values.”

  The squint was back.

  “Too soon. Okay. Fair. Well, how about this, then. One, you should clearly quit your job because your boss, who is fucking evil, probably just had you shot. And yes, I know she was aiming at me, but the very fact she was willing to take a shot at me while you were there should let you know she was perfectly fine with you as collateral damage, or blowing my brains out while you watched. Two, if you do quit your job at the House of Nohamapetan, you have a job at the House of Lagos. Yes, we have shaky labor practices. Maybe you can help us fix that. Three, no matter what you do, remember you fucking deserve better than this. And four, do you remember how I said you haven’t seen me angry?”

  Fundapellonan nodded.

  “Well, that’s about to fucking change.”

  * * *

  Kiva tickled the nose of Tinda Louentintu, the Countess Nohamapetan’s chief of staff. Louentintu snorted in her sleep, swatted at her nose, and then rolled onto her side.

  Kiva watched this fucking piece of shit snore lightly for a few more minutes. Then she went to the bathroom of Louentintu’s hotel room, set down the universal room key she had just paid an outrageous sum for to one of the hotel’s less ethically minded assistant managers, unwrapped one of the hygienically sealed glasses on the sink, filled it with water, walked back to the bed and poured it into Louentintu’s ears and face. Louentintu came up, awake and sputtering.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake,” Kiva said. “Hi, I’m Kiva Lagos.” Then she punched Louentintu square in the face.

  There was a crunch, and blood burst out of Louentintu’s nose. She gasped and put her hands to her face and came away with bloody fingers. She looked up at Kiva, asked, “Why?” and then screamed as Kiva punched her right flat square in her fucking nose again.

  “I’m sorry, did you have a question?” Kiva asked. She shook out her hand, grimacing. She was pretty fucking sure she just broke a finger on the nose of this thundering twat, but she wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that, so she drew her hand back again, ready to punch. “Go ahead, ask another fucking question, you feculent pile of shit.”

  Louentintu shut up. Then Kiva fucking punched her again. Louentintu went down onto her pillows, blood everywhere, her breathing making a horrible fucking noise through her broken nose.

  “Now that we’ve gotten the preliminaries out of the way, let me explain why I’m here,” Kiva said. “Tonight a friend of mine—and an employee of your boss, you walking fucking wastestream—was shot right in front of me. One second she was on top of me, showing off a nice piece of jewelry, and the next she was two fucking meters away on the floor with a hole in her chest. It was a fucking miracle she survived.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Louentintu said, in between snorts.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” Kiva said. “I will fucking drag you off this bloody fucking bed and launch you right off the goddamned balcony and I won’t give a shit what happens to me after. So if you want to see if you can fucking fly, lady, tell me one more time you don’t have the first fucking idea of what I’m talking about.”

  Louentintu was silent.

  “Now, we both know who that bullet was meant for,” Kiva continued. “But it happened to go through Senia Fundapellonan instead. Well, fine. That face bashing I just gave you was meant for the Countess Nohamapetan. I guess my aim is as bad as hers. The difference is that Senia didn’t fucking deserve what happened to her. You, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter. I know that when the Countess Nohamapetan takes a shit, you wipe her ass for her.

  “So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to take that newly fucked-up face of yours and you’re going to go up the six floors to where your boss is sleeping, and you’re going to wake her up. You’re going to tell her that she fucking missed. And you’re going to tell her that tomorrow bright and early I’m walking into the fucking Guild House and going up to my office and I’m going to sit in my nice fucking chair behind my nice fucking desk with my nice fucking tea, and then I’m going to rip her fucking business apart.

  “Every minute of every day of the rest of my natural life will be dedicated to doing to her house what I just did to your shitty, complicit nose. I already have enough on the countess’s greedy, asshole family to make the guilds seriously consider disenfranchising the house and throwing every last one of you into prison. And that was just me farting around. Imagine what I will do now that I am fucking motivated.”

  “Or,” Louentintu said.

  “What?”

  “I said ‘or.’” Louentintu’s nose had stopped bleeding and she had wiped her face on her sheet, making a bloody mess of both. “When someone comes in and makes threats there is always an ‘or.’ ‘Give me what I
want, or I will burn your house down.’ You’ve made the threat, Lady Kiva. I’m waiting to hear the ‘or.’”

  “How’s your nose?” Kiva asked.

  “It’s been better.”

  Kiva nodded at this and punched Louentintu in the nose again. Louentintu slumped back against her headboard.

  “That was the ‘or,’” Kiva said. “Make sure the countess gets it. And tell her to get her ass out of Hubfall. She’s got a great big fucking spaceship. From now on, she can sleep there.”

  Chapter

  14

  The spaceship was large, like a tenner, and featured a ring, like a tenner. Unlike a tenner, the ring wasn’t rotating, providing itself with the force to pin people and objects down to the inside of its walls. Lights were on here and there across the ship. If Marce had to guess, he’d say the ship’s power and systems were intermittent, at best. The ship was indeed “warm,” but that warm was only relative to the space around it. Except for one arc of its ring, the ship registered a temperature of a couple of degrees above zero, Celsius.

  What was interesting about the ship was not the ship itself, but the swarm of objects around it: dozens of small cylindrical objects, each no longer than thirty meters wide, connected to one or more other similar objects by cables, rotating around a central point, which was itself connected to the larger ship. Marce looked at one of the cables in his crew’s ready room on the Bransid, and saw something moving on it: a small container, attached to a mechanized pulley. As he watched, the pulley brought the container to one of the cylinders, which swallowed it up.

  “Are we actually seeing this?” asked Jill Seve, watching the container disappear. She was a navy linguist, and had a degree in anthropology as well, which Admiral Emblad had decided was close enough for this mission.

  “Oh, we’re seeing it,” said Plenn Gitsen, the naval biologist. “Are we believing it, is the actual question.”

  “I mean, how the fuck are people actually alive out here?” Seve asked. “How long has it been since the collapse of the Flow stream?”

  “Eight hundred years,” Roynold said. She was standing by Marce, watching the monitor.