Istradez smiled ruefully at his brother. “I’ll leave you to the latest national emergency,” he said. “You know where I’ll be if you break your mirror.” He leaned in and embraced Mikodez, kissing him on the mouth. They were lovers on and off, something the rest of the family had regarded with bemusement. At least they keep each other occupied, had been their older mother’s opinion. As the two had been crèche-born exactly a year apart, family superstition considered it inevitable that the two would be particularly close. Mikodez didn’t have any particular interest in bedroom gyrations for their own sake, but he liked keeping Istradez happy.
Mikodez waved his brother off. “Yes, yes,” he said, “enjoy your date, and feel free to put the gory details in an appendix so I can skip it at my leisure.”
“I’ll tell you all about it in person,” Istradez said sweetly. “I’ll look in on our nephew for you while we’re at it.”
“Appreciate it.”
Istradez sauntered out with a very un-Mikodez-like gait.
Minutes after Istradez departed, Zehun requested entry into Mikodez’s office. Mikodez let Zehun in. He was always surprised that they were just a bit shorter than he was, as if he was still that cadet who had been called out for a surprise evaluation. (Late growth spurt.) Zehun had wrapped themselves in a shawl of maroon wool. They were getting on in years, and claimed that Mikodez kept his workspaces too cold.
A cat wriggled in Zehun’s arms: the orange tabby Jienji, who, like all of Zehun’s cats, was named after a notorious Shuos assassin. Even someone who liked cats as much as Zehun did was unlikely to run out of names anytime soon. At the first opportunity, Jienji squirmed free and leapt up onto Mikodez’s desk.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Mikodez said, scooping up the cat and depositing her back on the floor. He wasn’t about to lose his green onion to a feline nuisance. “So, Zehun, what’s so urgent that you had to interrupt my family time?” Ordinarily, after chatting with Istradez, the two of them would have gone to see their nephew afterward.
Zehun didn’t smile in response to his cajoling tone. He immediately went alert. “You’re going to love this,” they said. “Hexarch Nirai Kujen is confirmed missing.”
Mikodez didn’t waste time gaping. He turned to his terminal and said, “Details.”
Zehun gave him a file code. He brought it up. The report’s contents were, if anything, worse than he expected.
In theory, six factions shared rule of the hexarchate. Three high factions: Rahal, which governed the high calendar and set the law; Andan, with their financiers, diplomats, and artisans; and Shuos, which specialized either in information operations or backstabbing, depending on whom you asked. Three low factions: Kel, known best for their military; Vidona, which handled education and the ceremonial torture that was fundamental to the calendar’s remembrances; and Nirai, which consisted of the technicians and researchers.
‘High’ and ‘low’ were old designations, more a matter of tradition than actual power, which fluctuated according to resources, infighting, and the interplay between the current hexarchs. The Nirai were irregular in that their true hexarch, Kujen, was immortal. Or, more accurately, undead, a revenant who anchored himself to a living marionette to wield continued influence.
The Nirai’s public face was False Hexarch Faian. Kujen had selected her for a combination of administrative ability and a certain narrow genius in calendrical mechanics. Mikodez had always suspected that Kujen had known from the outset that Faian would develop a mind of her own.
Mikodez had also suspected that Kujen figured it out very quickly when Faian and the Rahal hexarch conspired to develop an alternate immortality device, one less inimical to its users’ sanity. Kujen called his the black cradle, and seemed perfectly happy with it, but Kujen was also psychotic. Most people who knew how the black cradle functioned considered it a glorified torture device.
Kujen had stood at an impasse with the other hexarchs for centuries. He would have disposed of the rest of them long ago if not for the fact that they did the tedious work of government so that he could focus on the research that was his passion. The hexarchs, especially Kel Tsoro, put up with this arrangement because Kujen offered ever-better mothdrives to convey people between the stars and ever deadlier weapons for Kel warmoths.
Now Kujen was gone, with no indication of his destination. This from a man who preferred to hole up with his projects for years at a time, allowing the false hexarch to attend official functions in his stead. Faian was apparently driving herself to distraction trying to determine what had become of Kujen and whether she should seize the opportunity to oust the man who had put her in power. Mikodez wished her luck. If he could find out as much, he would be surprised if Kujen didn’t know and have countermeasures in place. It was unlikely that Kujen had survived nine centuries of parasitism without picking up some basic survival skills.
Jienji had gotten bored of the desk and was busy shedding orange hairs on Mikodez’s carpet. Oh well, the carpet was largely self-cleaning, and the servitors would take care of anything the carpet didn’t eat. In point of fact, one had already swooped in and was methodically following the cat’s trail.
“You were right to bring this to me,” Mikodez said to Zehun, “although I’m not sure what we can do beyond monitoring the situation. The part that bothers me the most is the timing. It can’t be a coincidence.”
“When is anything a coincidence?” Zehun said. “I can only assume that Kujen insisted on the new, especially excessive retrieval protocols for General Jedao and his anchor to make us think that he was especially invested in sticking around to look at the test results.”
“He must have taken exception to the fact that Iruja and Faian are almost ready to seize immortality for themselves,” Mikodez said. For all the hexarchs. He planned on opting out—as much as he enjoyed chatting with Kujen about everything from Kel-shopping to budget management, he wasn’t convinced that immortality improved anyone’s psyche—but they didn’t need to know that.
“Even if he hasn’t hacked your contingency files,” Zehun said, “he has to have guessed that you’re the one responsible for offing him on the others’ behalf.”
“Well, yes,” Mikodez said. “It makes our conversations all the more entertaining. Still, he hates leaving his home station, and I don’t like the thought that he’s out of sight. Iruja will expect me to drag him back, if only to make sure that he won’t drop some crazy new superweapon before she can have her shot at immortality.” Never mind that Faian claimed that she could prevent aging, but a well-placed bullet would still kill you dead. Mikodez had long ago stopped expecting Iruja to be rational on the topic.
He frowned at the report. “Schedule a meeting with the relevant analysts in half an hour. That damn thing with the financial irregularities will have to wait until tomorrow morning.”
“I was hoping you’d seen this coming.”
“Since when do I anticipate things that you don’t?”
Zehun gave him that don’t play innocent cadet look he remembered so vividly from academy.
Mikodez grimaced. “I will be disappointed if you haven’t adequately pillaged my worst-case scenario files on the matter. The question is, will Faian break the news to the other hexarchs first, or should I preempt her? I almost wish it were a bomb. Kujen might be a splendid weapons designer, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the requisite experience launching surprise attacks without getting caught.”
“No, you have him confused with the other, much less dangerous sociopath in the hexarchate’s arsenal,” Zehun said, with the merest trace of sarcasm.
“Please,” Mikodez said. “Which do you think is more dangerous, the mathematician our entire way of life is chained to, or a mere general with a gift for self-destruction?”