The call indicator wasn’t going away. Kujen sighed. Time to wake Mahar up. Kujen inspected the anchor’s current dream. For someone who had always eaten well, Mahar was surprisingly obsessed with food. This time it was tender bamboo shoots and strips of meat in sweet sauce, bowls of fruit slices garnished with edible petals, fragrant rice, jasmine tea, everything. For his part, Kujen remembered the taste of food vividly. One of the great benefits of being a revenant was never having to starve again, although Mahar needed to remember to eat so Kujen would have a functional marionette.
Kujen inserted an image of an hourglass onto the dinner table. This time the running sand was green-blue. It changed each time. He could control Mahar’s dreams in exacting detail when he cared to, but here there was no need. It hadn’t been difficult to convince Kel Command that giving Jedao the same modification would be a terrible idea. Jedao had already been hard enough to control.
Kujen waited until Mahar stirred. It wasn’t as though he was the one in a tearing hurry. Besides, needling Shandal Yeng was always fun.
Mahar sat up and stretched. The bedsheets were tangled in his legs. He began extricating himself from them. “Emergency?” he said drowsily.
“Just make yourself presentable,” Kujen said. “It’s either the Andan hexarch or her latest consort.”
“Shandal Yeng doesn’t have consorts so much as social rivals she’s decided to take down personally,” Mahar said.
“You’re only sixty-four,” Kujen said as Mahar dressed in silk and velvet, all black and gray and glints of silver, and agate earrings in each ear. “Isn’t that a little young to be so cynical?”
“Your bad habits are contagious.”
Kujen laughed obligingly.
His anchor’s idea of ‘presentable’ was terribly involved. Kujen didn’t disapprove. He insisted on beautiful, mathematically trained men for anchors where possible. If he was going to be alive forever, he might as well enjoy the view and avail himself of decent conversation. His anchors varied in their attention to fashion. This one liked ruffles and scarves, even if the taste for odd knots was a new development. Kujen had grown up paying great attention to fashion, due to his first profession. He had seen a great many trends come and go. At the moment, he supported anything that confused Shandal Yeng, and he was also for letting Mahar enjoy himself once in a while. It made for a smoother working relationship.
Kujen didn’t impute impatience to the call indicator’s steady blinking, once per second in accordance with the local calendar he had devised. But there was no ambiguity about Shandal Yeng’s expression when Mahar activated the line. She wasn’t smiling, for one. She was much less exasperating when she wasn’t smiling.
“I didn’t realize those high collars were in fashion again,” Mahar said, “or I’d have scared up a tailor.”
Most people slipped and thought of Mahar as Kujen himself, an illusion both of them worked hard to maintain. Kujen could step in and use Mahar as a puppet, but it took a great deal of concentration. In most cases Mahar did just fine on his own. (This was another black cradle modification Jedao had not been permitted during his missions for Kel Command. Naturally, Kujen had bent the rules on certain private occasions. He wasn’t worried about his ability to outmaneuver a mere Shuos.) Suitable long-term anchor candidates were rare, and required extensive psych surgery and training. Kujen made sure to keep a supply on hand at all times.
The Andan hexarch was looking at Mahar with shadowed eyes. “You’ve done a good job hiding,” she said, “and I’m glad your self-imposed exile hasn’t killed your interest in making sartorial statements. But I have no heart for discussing your fashion choices right now.” That had to be a first. The Andan prided themselves on using appearances against people. “I hear you have your own immortality device. Not the black cradle, a completely new one.”
To Mahar, Kujen said irritably, “We need to check for leaks again, don’t we.” To Shandal Yeng, through Mahar: “Before you go any further with that thought, what happened to Faian? I left a perfectly good researcher in charge. I’m positive she’s smart enough to follow the instructions on the technology I left for the rest of you.”
Curious: she was shaking her head. “Everyone I paid to make an assessment says she’s doing fine. You chose well. But I felt it was better to approach the one who trained her.”
“Wonderful, a business proposal,” Mahar said subvocally, so only Kujen could hear him.
“I don’t know,” Kujen said. “Desperation is a refreshing look on her.”
Shandal Yeng straightened. “I believe you’ve met my child Andan Nezhe.”
Kujen finally knew where this was going. “The one I slept with?” Nezhe’s relationship with their mother had always been tempestuous. Shandal Yeng had not approved of her second-born fucking a rival hexarch, which was why Nezhe had done it. Nor had she approved of Nezhe’s insistence on training in special operations instead of settling in for a lifetime of sycophancy.
“I want to share immortality with her. It may be my last chance to win her back.”
Ah. Nezhe must be a woman these days. Mahar gave Shandal Yeng a long look. “Let me guess,” he said. “Faian turned you flat down.”
Unsurprising. Faian had always had a subterranean legalistic streak. “Listen,” Kujen said, “last time I checked you had six living”—acknowledged—“children.”
“I should think you would appreciate my restraint,” Shandal Yeng said archly. “Whatever it costs—”
“I don’t care about the six million ways that people wreck their lives,” Kujen said, “but I happen to appreciate that eternity is a very long time. I’m going to do you the favor of giving you sound counsel, and you’re going to listen. First of all, you can’t bribe love out of people.” He was pretty sure that what Nezhe wanted, if anything, was her mother’s affection, not the latest luxury. Even a luxury as good as immortality. “Second, take immortality for yourself and forget about your children, as per the original plan—yes, I listen in when I get bored—or else offer immortality to all of them. If you’re determined to be surrounded by your spawn, Mikodez will say yes because he’s got a soft spot for kids, even grown-up kids, plus he’ll get front seats to the ensuing chaos, and Tsoro’s always been old-fashioned about family. As for the rest, you’re an Andan. You can be persuasive.
“If you do it the way you propose—just the one child—she’ll grow to hate you. If her siblings were expendable, she’ll always wonder if you’ll discard her next. Eventually she’ll try to assassinate you, or if you’re lucky, she’ll simply leave.”
Shandal Yeng narrowed her eyes. “What a droll analysis from someone who’s never had to sit through a dinner with all his children squabbling over pittances of power.”
Kujen had sired a couple children centuries ago, during his first life, but had no idea whether any of them had survived, let alone their descendants. He didn’t particularly miss the experience. “You know,” he said, “the Andan aren’t the only ones who study human nature.”
“That may be so,” she said, “but Nezhe is the one I want. I need her, Kujen. For all the trouble she’s caused me, she’s the most brilliant of my children. I shouldn’t have to explain to you what it’s like to face a future with no family.”
The number of people who had tried arguments like this on him over the years was astonishing, even if no one at this end of time knew that he was responsible for the deaths of his mother and sister. “Don’t appeal to my better nature,” he said. “I’ve spent the last several centuries brainwashing people to pass the time. I have nothing to offer on that front.”
“How interesting,” Shandal Yeng said, “when you just offered me family advice. For a mathematician, your grasp of logic is terrible.”
“Never ascribe to irrational benevolence what selfishness will explain,” Kujen said cheerfully. “Remember that you’re asking me to contemplate eternity with you and your guest list. It’s in my interest to have you in a good mood so I don’t have to listen to the backbiting. Trust me on this. Whatever the hell your children hate about you or each other, find a way to make things right. If you want to bring them all with you into a drearily long future, you can surely win the other hexarchs’ support.” Good luck with Faian, stubborn Faian—but that wasn’t his problem.
“And if I insist that I only want Nezhe?”