Marce stopped trying to scan the work, which would require hours for him to read and ingest, and looked to his father. “You’re sure about this.”
“Do you think I would tell you if I wasn’t?” Jamies said. “Have you ever known me to be anything other than exceptionally careful about this hypothesis? Do you think I didn’t throw everything I could at it to disprove it? Do you think I want it to be accurate?”
Marce shook his head. “No, Dad.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Marce. I need you to read it. I need you to tell me if there’s anything I’m missing. Anything I’ve overlooked. Because as much as the scientist in me is thrilled to have made this leap in understanding the physics of the Flow…”
“… as a human being you want to be wrong,” Marce finished.
“Yes,” Jamies said. “Yes, I very much do.”
For as long as Marce could remember, Dad had called it “the Family Secret”: his father’s examination of navigation data from every ship that had ever come to End over the last four decades. Officially Count Claremont’s role for the empire was chief imperial auditor for End. He examined the data to assure that none of the ships ever deviated from the imperially approved trade route—and thereby avoided the trade tariffs and other taxes that were required of them—that were often planned years or even decades in advance. In this, the count was one of dozens of chief imperial auditors, one in every system, who made sure money stayed where it was supposed to stay: in the pocket of the emperox first, guilds second, and everyone else somewhere rather further down the line.
In reality, Jamies, Count Claremont, didn’t give a shit about any of that nonsense. He performed the role of chief imperial auditor well enough, primarily by delegating it to underlings with the admonition that any graft too obvious to be ignored would have to be punished. But that wasn’t why he came to End, or why his friend, the Emperox Attavio VI, had sent him. He had been sent to examine the navigational data of the ships for discrepancies, but not of trade. He was looking for data that backed up his hypothesis, first formulated while he was still an undergraduate at the University of Hubfall, that the Flow streams that defined the Interdependency did not benefit from “robustness through resonance”—the theory that the unusual density and interaction of Flow streams within the Interdependency helped to create a stable waveform within the Flow that would keep those streams open and unchanging for millennia.
Jamies read the math behind the theory and surmised what others didn’t, or did and preferred not to believe: that “robustness through resonance” was data-fudging nonsense, and that the collapse of the Flow streams to Earth and Dalasysla were precursors, rather than the exceptions that modern Flow theory held them out to be. He said as much to his friend Batrin, the newly crowned Emperox Attavio VI, showed him the data, and warned him that a collapse could happen within the century.
Batrin saw the possibility of validity in the data. He also recognized that it represented a threat to the trade and stability of the Interdependency, and would likely be considered blasphemy by the church. So he did two things for his friend Jamies. First, he bribed him into silence by making him a count. Then he sent him to End, as far as he could be sent in the whole of the Interdependency, and gave him a job that would give him the data he needed to verify or dismiss his hypothesis, and told him to tell no one but him about the work.
Which Jamies did, mostly. First he told his wife, Guice, and then after their twin children Marce and Vrenna were old enough, told them too. He assumed the emperox wouldn’t mind. Guice took the secret to her tragic, early grave. Vrenna kept the secret because she was good at secrets. Marce kept it because once he showed enough interest and aptitude in the physics of the Flow, Jamies relied on him to check his work.
Now, all the years of quiet, methodical data collection and interpretation had paid off. Jamies, Count Claremont, had verified the most important discovery in human experience since the discovery of the Flow itself. If it were known to other scientists, they’d shovel every single possible award they offered onto him.
That is, if the Interdependency were still around for them to do so.
“So it’s true, then,” Vrenna said, to her father and brother. “The Flow is collapsing.”
“The Flow is the Flow,” Jamies said. “It doesn’t do anything. Our access to it, on the other hand, is definitely going away. The unusual stability of the Flow streams that have allowed the development of the Interdependency is coming to an end. One by one, the streams are going to dry up. One by one, the systems of the Interdependency are going to find themselves alone. For a long time. Possibly forever.”
“How long do we have?” Vrenna asked.
“Ten years,” Marce said. “At the outside.” He glanced over to his father. “If Dad’s models are perfectly accurate, less than that. Probably closer to seven or eight years before all the local Flow streams are gone. Most of them will be gone before then.”
Jamies turned toward his son. “And that’s why you must go.”
“Wait, what?” Marce said.
“You have to go,” Jamies repeated.
“Where?”
“To Hub, of course. You have to take this data to the emperox.”
“I thought you were sending regular updates to the emperox,” Vrenna said, to her father.
“I have been, obviously. The data is encrypted and sent monthly via outgoing ships.”
“So send this the same way,” Marce said.
Jamies shook his head. “You don’t understand. It’s one thing to keep the emperox updated when I’m just crunching through the data and refining the model. It’s another thing entirely when the model is verified, and real, and a threat to the Interdependency. He’s going to need someone to walk him through it all. And then walk everyone else through it. And then argue with everyone from scientists to politicians who want to poke holes in it for their own purposes. Someone needs to go.”
“I agree,” Marce said. “And that person should be you.”
Jamies opened his mouth but then Doung Xavos, the count’s secretary, poked his head into the room. “My lord, Lord Ghreni Nohamapetan is here to see you. He says he comes at the request of the duke.”
“Bring him,” Jamies said, and looked at his children.
“Should we go?” Vrenna asked.
“I’d rather you stayed.” Jamies gestured at the monitor spilling out the news of the revolution; it switched itself off. Jamies sat at his desk and encouraged his children to sit as well. They did.
Lord Ghreni Nohamapetan entered the room, clad in black, and Marce watched as the noble went to greet his father. Ghreni and the Claremont siblings were of an age, but the two of them had never socialized extensively with the Nohamapetan scion; he’d arrived to End only a few years prior to handle his house’s interests. They’d seen him once or twice at functions at the duke’s palace and had once been formally introduced to him. Marce recalled Ghreni scanning the both of them quickly, to see if there was any political advantage in knowing either, and when the apparent answer was “no,” politely ignoring them from there on out. Marce was still mildly annoyed by this; Vrenna found it amusing, because of course she would.
“Count Claremont,” Ghreni Nohamapetan said, bowing.
“Lord Ghreni,” Jamies said. “A pleasure.” He gestured toward Marce and Vrenna, who stood. “You remember my children, no doubt.”
“Of course. Lord Marce, Lady Vrenna.” Ghreni gave a head nod to each, which they returned before sitting again. Formalities thus satisfied, he turned his attention back to their father. “My lord, my duke has sent me on a mission of some delicacy, and I wonder if it might be better if we spoke alone.”