“You could say ‘thank you,’” Kiva said, and noticed Vrenna smiling.
“I don’t think I will,” Marce said.
“Okay. But either way, let’s table this and move on, shall we?”
Marce lapsed into silence, next to his still grinning sister, and Kiva noted that both of them were attractive, Marce in a nerdy, probably attentive and considerate way, and Vrenna in a way that suggested that it was fifty/fifty whether your bedframe would be a pile of kindling at the end of a fuck date. Whether Kiva had wanted to admit it or not, Ghreni’s totally insincere attempt at a rendezvous had reminded her it’d been a week since her last attempt at an orgasm, with that assistant purser, and in the time since she was either too busy or too pissed off even to rock herself off.
This qualified as an absolute fucking tragedy, no pun intended, which Kiva would need to attend to one way or another. She idly wondered whether either of the Claremont twins would be the sort to assist her in this regard. She decided that Marce probably wouldn’t, at least not at the moment—he still seemed put out at the idea that Kiva was fine letting him be snatched for three million marks, and honestly, that was totally fair—but maybe Vrenna might. Kiva regretted that time, necessity, and circumstances made following up on that an impossibility.
“Lady Kiva?” Vrenna prompted.
“I’m sorry,” Kiva said. “I got distracted thinking about sex.”
Vrenna smiled. “We still have the problem of getting Marce onto your ship,” she said. “Ghreni Nohamapetan still plans to have people on hand at Imperial Station in order to grab him.”
“Ghreni is looking at the front door,” Kiva said. “He’s not looking at the servants’ entrance.”
“What does that mean?” Marce asked.
Kiva looked at him. “That means you’re not coming onto the Yes, Sir as Marce Claremont, you’re coming on as Kristian Jansen, crew member.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“I imagine that when you booked passage Gazson Magnut tried to sell you some forged travel documents.”
“He did. I didn’t need to get them.”
“Well, now you do. More accurately, they’ve been gotten for you.”
“For which you’ll no doubt charge me,” Marce said.
“I’m charging you at cost, not the ridiculous fucking markup we’re charging everyone else.”
“Travel documents aren’t going to be enough,” Vrenna said. “Crew on trade ships have to have biometrics as well. With all due respect, if Nohamapetan is willing to pay three million marks to get Marce, he’s going to be checking the servant entrance as well, and that includes getting into Imperial Station’s biometric database.”
“You act like this is our first time smuggling someone on as a crew member,” Kiva said. She turned back to Marce. “Shave your head, you’re getting a dermal wig with cultivated hair. Scalp and beard. If anyone plucks a hair out of your head, the DNA would match Kristian, not you. You’ll get contacts to fake iris and retinal patterns, and you’ll get a thumb pad with the correct thumbprint and DNA. We’ll put lifts in your shoes. You won’t look like you. Unless they take a blood sample you’ll be fine.”
“And if they take a blood sample?” Marce asked.
“Well, then, I guess you’re fucked, aren’t you? But they don’t do that.”
“No one will notice you’ve manufactured a human out of thin air,” Vrenna said.
“‘Kristian’ has worked for us before,” Kiva said. “We have one or two of these for every system we work. So does every other house.”
“Why?” Marce asked.
“Because sometimes someone important fucks up and has to leave town in a hurry before someone like her,” Kiva jerked a thumb at Vrenna, “catches up with them and sends them into a hole. It’s entirely possible Ghreni will be using one of these himself soon, at the rate he’s going.”
“So I’ll have to be ‘Kristian’ this entire trip.”
“That’ll be your name, yes. Once we get into the Flow you can ditch the fake parts. We’ll update you in the system. One catch: You’re going to have to be an actual crew member the entire trip.”
“Why does he have to do that?” Vrenna asked.
“Because ‘Kristian’ is taking the place of an actual crew member. You take up crew space, you take up crew responsibilities. That’s the deal.”
“I don’t suppose I’ll get paid.”
“Sure you’ll get paid. Standard rates. Not that you’ll be able to spend them anywhere, it’s a straight shot to Hub.”
“And a refund on the passage fee we gave you?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Marce smiled. “Just checking.”
“I’ll be charging you for the new identity too, by the way. Also at cost. Not cheap.”
“How do we get out of here, now?” Vrenna asked. “You know Nohamapetan will have people watching this building if he doesn’t have them doing that already.”
“Neither of you leaves yet.” Kiva pointed to Marce. “He stays here and we’ll bring in our people to work on him. Then he can walk out as Kristian.” She pointed at Vrenna. “You’ll have to wait until we’re gone. Sorry.”
Vrenna shrugged. “It’s not the worst place I’ve been holed up.”
Kiva nodded, and then stood up. “I’m heading back to the ship.” She nodded to Vrenna. “I’ll never see you again, which I figure is a tragedy.” Vrenna smiled at this. Kiva turned her attention to Marce. “You I’ll see on the ship, but we won’t exactly be socializing. So, nice to meet you, welcome to the Yes, Sir, and thank you for allowing me to screw Ghreni Nohamapetan one more time before I never have to fucking see him again.”
Marce smiled and nodded, and then Kiva was out of the conference room. Her local staff had already been briefed on what to do with the Claremont siblings and were warned that if their identity or location were leaked to anyone that the House of Lagos would make it a priority to fuck with the lives of everyone in their family for six generations at least. She was reasonably confident that no one would talk.
As she got into her fortified groundcar to head back to port, taking a circuitous route to avoid the neighborhoods where the fighting was still going on, or that had been reduced to rubble, Kiva reflected on two things.
The first was that the civil war on End both took and gave away—it fucked her and the House of Lagos with regard to the haverfruit and their monopolies, but sent enough rich people scurrying her way that her trip ended up making a profit. When that profit was added to the licensing and other fees that would eventually be recouped here on End, the House of Lagos would be in a very good position, with regard to other houses, and its ability to exercise power among them. Kiva had pulled out a save, and that was something she could use at home.
The second was that while she let the Claremont twins listen along to her conversation with Ghreni Nohamapetan, they didn’t know one important piece of information that Kiva did, discovered through the graces of the investigators that Magnut paid a frankly rapacious amount of money to in order to discover: The Duke of End never told Ghreni Nohamapetan to ask the Count of Claremont to release imperial funds. And he certainly never authorized Ghreni to fucking kidnap one of the count’s children and hold him for ransom. He did both of those things on his own.
What the fuck are you up to, Ghreni? Kiva asked herself, as her groundcar lumbered off to port. What are you planning?
And while we’re at it, what is the rest of your fucking family planning, too?
Chapter