While Mikodez ate, he had the grid run some searches. He poured himself more citron tea while going over the results, applying the occasional extra filter, not that those helped much. Nothing new with the Rahal, but he liked to check them first just to get them out of the way, and also just in case they surprised him. Once some Rahal magistrate had tried to bring cooking measures in line with some obscure lemma. That experiment hadn’t lasted long.
Shuos next, because the received wisdom—that the Shuos were their own worst enemy—had a lot of basis in truth. Mikodez held off on the ordinary business of approving promotions, demotions, and the occasional assassination; that could wait for later. Interestingly, the commandant of Shuos Academy Tertiary was still waffling over whether to make an attempt on the hexarch’s seat. Mikodez wished the man would make up his mind already. It was hard to find good, not to say loyal, commandants. Still, nothing of crushing urgency.
Andan was more interesting. One of his senior analysts thought Shandal Yeng had discovered some of their taps and was feeding them disinformation. Shandal Yeng was also spending a lot of time in elaborate meals with various offspring and the current consort. Mikodez remembered the time years ago he had attended one such dinner with Nirai Kujen. Conversation had centered around museum pieces, and Mikodez had amused himself thinking up heists. Kujen, who could be surprisingly passionate about beautiful architecture but didn’t care about the buildings’ contents, spent the evening seducing one of Shandal Yeng’s sons, Nezhe. As for Kujen’s anchor’s opinion of the whole affair, who knew. But it hadn’t been hard to figure out that Shandal Yeng was cozying up to Kujen on account of immortality. Too bad Mikodez hadn’t been able to eavesdrop on the conversation the two of them had late that night. Judging by the way they behaved toward each other ever after, the quarrel must have been spectacular.
As usual with the Andan, there was a lot of activity but none on the level of a code red nine. That brought Mikodez to the next faction, Nirai. The current hexarch didn’t worry him. Faian had a disturbing honest streak that was going to doom her, unending life or no. Unfortunately, Nirai Kujen had contrived to vanish so thoroughly that none of Mikodez’s agents had been able to sniff out his current location even now, and it was too much to hope that someone had accidentally winged Kujen with a genial gun. Mikodez was paranoid as a job requirement, but he feared few people in the hexarchate. Kujen was one of them. Until he had more information, however, he couldn’t do much else. He discarded the idea that Cheris and Kujen had allied with each other, which was one small mercy. Given the personalities involved, he couldn’t imagine such an arrangement lasting for long.
Kel and Vidona were business as usual. As far as Mikodez could tell, the Kel were occupied with logistics. The Vidona were having internal problems related to the interpretation of a remembrance that might have been fraudulently declared. They wanted to settle the matter before it came to the attention of Rahal Iruja. Riveting bedtime reading if you were into that sort of thing.
Zehun was right. The rest of the day passed quietly. Mikodez got through the next five days with the aid of drugs. Sleeping pills, to be exact.
The green onion was flourishing, but then, he was very diligent about watering it.
On the evening of the fifth day, Mikodez got a call on Line 6 while he was in the shower. Especially surprising because he was technically supposed to be meditating for a remembrance so he’d thought he’d at least be safe from that line. “Do you mind?” he said to the grid. “Tell them to hold and I will be there in three minutes.”
It took five because that one damn button on his uniform hated him. He needed to go back to old-fashioned stupid fabrics instead of the programmable kind the Kel were so infatuated with.
“All right,” Mikodez said when he was minimally presentable, “connect me.” Within seconds, the five other hexarchs were glowering at him.
After examining him, Rahal Iruja said, “Mikodez, is your hair dripping?”
He’d known she’d disapprove. She sounded remarkably like one of his fathers, but he knew better than to say that out loud. “Look, Hexarch,” he said, “it was either my clothes or the hair dryer. Did you really want me to pick the other one?”
“Is the whole Citadel of Eyes run like this?”
“Hexarch,” Mikodez said, “be reasonable. I hire staff as little like me as possible or we’d get nothing done.”
“We’ll talk later,” Iruja said, which made him groan inwardly because she had an excellent memory. “Hexarch Tsoro wanted to announce a change in plans.”
“I apologize for the late notice,” Kel Tsoro said. Mikodez wasn’t the only person who started; no point hiding his reaction. Tsoro had used an archaic version of the first person pronoun, one that was specifically singular, instead of the equally archaic plural that the hivemind had employed for centuries. (The modern form of the high language rarely inflected for number.) From the sardonic curl to her mouth, Tsoro knew the effect she was having. “The deliberations took time and could not be hurried. On behalf of the Kel, I am declining immortality.”
Nirai Faian looked like she’d been slapped, but then, she seemed to think immortality could serve some humanitarian purpose, rather than calcifying existing power structures or triggering wars.
“Explain yourself,” Iruja said coolly.
“Rahal,” Tsoro said, “I may be the will of the Kel, but I am still Kel. The Kel are made to serve. Part of that service is death. I will not order my soldiers to risk their lives when I can endure forever, nor will I stifle the officers below me by making it impossible for them to hope for advancement.”
Vidona Psa didn’t seem to be able to decide between admiration and incredulity. “Tsoro,” he said, “that’s all very noble, but few Kel have any chance of becoming generals, let alone hexarch. You may feel this way now, but decades down the line, when death comes knocking—”
“Death,” Tsoro said, biting down on the word. “What do you know about death, Vidona? The scars are gone, but I once took a bullet that scarcely missed my heart. I was a junior lieutenant in a battle so small that even I wouldn’t remember its name if I hadn’t almost died. It was a long time ago, but I remember. I would die before I forget. If I live forever, I will certainly forget.”
Iruja looked unmoved by this, and said only, “Do you wish to send someone in your place? A subordinate?”
“I refuse,” Tsoro said, “on behalf of the Kel.”
No wonder the argument Tsoro had alluded to had taken so long. She would have had to subdue every dissenter in the hivemind. Formation instinct was one thing, but the prospect of immortality would have been one hell of an incentive even for a component of the composite. Still, since she had won, Kel hierarchy and the hivemind’s extreme conservatism now worked in her favor.
Of course, if Cheris’s assassination plot was real, she would decapitate the Kel. Mikodez could warn Tsoro right now, but he had a little time yet, and he was determined to hear back from his mathematicians if possible. If he decided to foil Cheris, he could always call another meeting, this time with dry hair.
Andan Shandal Yeng spoke for the first time. “It’s your pyre, Tsoro,” she said, “but we’ll honor it.”
The scorn in Tsoro’s eyes was faint, but not faint enough. “There’s no honor,” she said. “Only duty.”
“Does anyone else have any surprise announcements we need to know about before we send Faian off to recalibrate?” Iruja said. She was eyeing Mikodez. “Why were you shirking a remembrance, anyway?”
It had been too much to hope she’d forgotten about that. Too bad he didn’t know what excuse Kel Tsoro had given Iruja so he could use it for inspiration. “My older sibling sent me some handmade soap and I had to try it,” Mikodez said. “Should I pass some on to you? Unless you’re allergic to plum blossoms or something.”
“Next time Wolf Hall has a soap shortage, I’ll keep that in mind,” Iruja said dryly. “Don’t let me catch you at this again. All right. Anything else?” Silence. “Then I trust we can return to what we’re supposed to be doing.”