“One, his name is Ferd, and not ‘dipshit.’ Two, I’m offended you think I’m running a scam on him.”
“You got him to shake off a multimillion-mark bribe.”
“See, I told you it was a bribe. I was right.”
“No one passes up that much unless they’ve got something better on offer.”
“I can’t possibly speak to that, Kiva. Certainly not to you.”
“Come on, Ghreni. This isn’t about the virus. And we’re on fucking End. It’s going to take me nine months to get back to Hub and another three from there to Ikoyi. Anything you tell me now is going to be dead news then.”
Ghreni looked around, and then started walking again. Kiva caught up. “Tell me. Tell me what you have planned for End.”
“Your first error, Kiva, is assuming that anything I’m doing here has to do with just this planet.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I know you don’t. I didn’t intend for you to.” Ghreni stopped again, and then pointed. “Take this hall. Then the second left, and then the first right after that. You’ll be back to the same lobby you came in from.”
Kiva nodded. “You were never one to go all the way to the end of things, were you, Ghreni?”
“You might be surprised.” He leaned in and gave Kiva a peck on the cheek. “Good-bye, my dear Kiva. I wasn’t ever expecting to see you again, you know. No one important really ever comes to End. And I don’t expect to see you again after this. But I am fond of you, in spite of everything. So I’m glad we got a moment for this.”
“Whatever this is.”
Ghreni smiled. “You’ll have a name for it soon,” he said, and walked off.
*
“Hit me with it,” Kiva said, back on Yes, Sir, with Captain Blinnikka and Gazson Magnut.
“We were supposed to take receipt of roughly sixty million marks’ worth of licensing fees and royalties here on End,” Magnut said. “We’re going to come away with zero, all in escrow, and we probably won’t get it back. We estimated that the haverfruit would generate twenty million marks for the product on hand and another ten million marks in initial license fees and stock sales. We’re coming away with another zero for that. We have another roughly ten million marks in miscellaneous cargo picked up at other stops that we’re not being allowed to unload and sell, so zero for that, too. There’s about a million marks’ worth of cargo being sent to End that we’re acting as shipping for, and that was allowed to be unloaded, but has been placed in quarantine for several weeks in a hold open to the vacuum of space. We’ll be gone when the delivery happens and the fees will be held for the next Lagos ship to arrive. Which is the I Think We’re Alone Now, which will be along in twenty standard months.”
“So, a hundred-million-mark loss,” Kiva said.
“We netted forty million marks on the last three stops, so it’s a net sixty-million-mark loss, more or less. And this is the last stop on the itinerary. Then back to Hub to transfer to Ikoyi.”
Lagos nodded. Using the Flow there were several ways to get to End, but only one way to get back—the Flow stream from End to Hub. Sooner or later, all streams flowed into Hub. But what that meant was there was no other chance to recoup losses between End and Hub.
“I’m open to ideas, here,” Kiva said. “Tomi?”
“The whole point was to introduce haverfruit to End,” the captain said. “Everyone else in the Interdependency is already full up on it. We can harvest what we have—we’re going to have to, at this point—vacuum flash out the water and sell the concentrate at Hub. But your family already has licensees there. They could complain to the imperial trade commission if we came in and undersold them.”
“The captain’s right,” Magnut said. “And even if we matched prices we’d create a glut. We’d pick up a few million marks at most, and piss off the licensees the House of Lagos needs for long-term profits.”
“So what we’re saying is we’re fucked.”
“That would be the gist of it, yes, ma’am.”
Kiva put her head in her hands for a couple of moments, then looked over to Blinnikka. “When do we leave End?”
“We have some ship maintenance we’re taking care of while we’re here at Imperial Station, and Gazson here is taking on some additional crew to make up for the ones we lost at Lankaran. We’re here for another week.”
“Can we stretch that?”
“Not really,” Blinnikka said. “Our current dock is claimed nine days from now. Imperial Station needs a full day for cargo clearance and reset. We have seven days and then we have to move.”
“Then seven days it is.”
“Seven days for what?” Magnut asked.
“For a fucking miracle to happen and save our asses,” Kiva said. “That’s not too much to ask for, is it?”
Chapter
3
Technically speaking, upon the moment of the death of Emperox Attavio IV, Cardenia became the new emperox. Realistically speaking, nothing is ever that simple.
“You are going to have to officially declare a period of mourning,” Naffa Dolg said to her, in what had suddenly and officially become her office. It was now only moments after her father had died; his body was currently being removed from his bedroom—her bedroom—via a litter that had borne the bodies of nearly all the emperoxs who had been lucky enough to actually die at home. Cardenia had seen the litter, stored away in one of the other rooms in the private apartment, and thought it a ghastly bit of business, and realized that one day, it was very likely her bones would be carted out on it too. Tradition had its downsides.
Cardenia laughed to herself.
“Car?” Naffa said.
“I’m having morbid thoughts,” Cardenia said.
“I can give you a couple of minutes for yourself.”
“But only a couple.”
“The transition of emperoxs is a busy time,” Naffa said, as gently as possible.
“How long is the official mourning period supposed to be?”
“It’s traditionally five standard days.”
Cardenia nodded. “The rest of the Interdependency gets five days. I get five minutes.”
“I’m going to come back,” Naffa said, getting up.
“No.” Cardenia shook her head. “Keep me busy, Naf.”
Naffa kept her busy.
First: the official declaration of mourning. Cardenia went down the hall to the office of Gell Deng, her father’s (and now, unless she chose otherwise, her) personal secretary, who would transmit the order. Cardenia was worried that she would have to dictate something that sounded official, but Deng had the declaration already ready for her—which shouldn’t have surprised her. Many emperoxs had come and gone during the time of the Interdependency.
Cardenia read over the declaration, its contents hallowed by time and consecrated by tradition, found the language ossified and musty, but was in no condition mentally to revise. So she nodded her assent, took a pen to sign, and then hesitated.
“What is it, Your Majesty?” Deng said, and some part of Cardenia’s brain noted that this was the first time anyone had called her that officially.
“I don’t know how to sign this,” Cardenia said. “I haven’t chosen my official name yet.”
“If you prefer, you may simply sign it with the imperial seal for now.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Deng got out wax and seal, melted the wax, and gave the seal to Cardenia to press. She did, the seal lifting off the imperial green wax, revealing the crest of the Wu family with the imperial crown above it. Her crown.
Cardenia handed the seal back to Deng and noticed he was crying. “This makes it official,” he said to her. “You are the emperox now, Your Majesty.”
“How long did you serve my father?” Cardenia asked.
“Thirty-nine years,” Deng said, and looked about to break down. Impulsively Cardenia reached over and hugged him, and after a moment broke the hug.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You’re the emperox, ma’am,” Deng said. “You can do anything you want.”
“Keep me from inappropriate familiarity from now on, please,” Cardenia said to Naffa, after they left the secretary’s office.
“I thought it was sweet,” Naffa said. “That poor old man. He’s had a rough day.”