Ghreni gave a full-body shrug to this.
“That’s what I thought. Regardless, now we’re at peace, which we’re going to need for what comes next, and you, alas, are instrumental in keeping it. Which means that getting rid of you at this point would cause even more problems than it would solve. I could try arguing the point—I suppose I could contact Sir Ontain and make a fuss. But now that you know about the Flow stream collapse, you know we have bigger problems on our hands than rebellions and coups. So I’m going to offer you my support.”
“Really.” Ghreni blinked at this. “With all due respect, sir, I think you’re misjudging who needs whose support.”
“I’m not. You have some decisions to make that will decide whether humanity—the part of it here now, and the parts of it to come—survive the collapse. You’re ambitious and you’re greedy and you clearly were part of some larger plan by your house to take control of the Interdependency. Good.”
“Good?”
“That last part, yes. It means your ambition and greed are in service for something more than just yourself. It means that you might be something other than just a grasping sociopath. That you might actually care about the Interdependency, and the people in it, and what happens to them. If you do, or if at the very least you can learn to, then I’m here to help you. If you don’t, you might as well have those marines on the other side of the door shoot me now. At this point, it’s all the same to me. But if you are going to use me, and you should, I have some terms and requests. Some things I need from you, so I can trust that there is more to you than the shallow, self-centered hustler you’ve been up to this point. I need to believe you might actually be able to save the world.”
For the life of him, Ghreni had nothing to say to any of this. It was literally like his tongue and brain—his two advantages—had simply shriveled up and blown away.
Claremont peered at Ghreni closely. “You didn’t think this was how it was going to go, did you? Being duke? Getting everything you planned for?”
Ghreni opened his mouth to respond and croaked. He swallowed, embarrassed, and tried again. “No,” he said.
“Well, surprise, then, Lord Ghreni,” Claremont said. “And now, tell me: What’s it going to be? Are you going to use me, or not?”
PART THREE
Chapter
13
Less than ten minutes after Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby emerged out of the Flow in the Hub system and began its thirty-seven-hour real-space trip to Hub’s imperial station, a bomb went off in the entertainment district of the city of Chadwick, on Hub. The bomb had been placed in a restaurant and went off just after the lunch rush, killing ten people in the restaurant, two people on the street outside. The restaurant itself was gutted.
The response was quick. Automated fire suppression units sprang from their hidey-holes to minimize that threat; the public air systems in that area switched over to particulate filtering mode to keep the air breathable for the immediate environment. The massive doors to that section of Chadwick, so rarely activated, ground closed in order to seal off the spread of any possible conflagration, the damage of which would be horrifying in that enclosed, underground environment. Transport tubes in and out of Chadwick were shut down and physically sealed off. Until local and imperial authorities reopened the tubes, the only way in or out of Chadwick would be overland, in hard vacuum. But even the access tunnels to the surface were closed off and policed.
Not that it mattered. “They’ve looked at the security cameras for the week prior to the bombing, both from the restaurant and on the streets around it,” said Gjiven Lobland, the imperial investigator at the scene, in video piped into the executive committee’s meeting room at the imperial palace, three hours after the bombing. “There’s nothing. No drops, nothing left behind by a customer, no suspicious activity. We’ve identified all the patrons and staff who ate or worked there and we’re working through them, starting with the ones with criminal records. So far, all of them have come up clean.”
“So how did the bomb get in there?” asked Upeksha Ranatunga, representing parliament.
“We’re looking into it. What video we have shows the explosion originating in the back of the restaurant, in the storage areas. We have the forensics people in there now.”
“If it went off in the storage areas then it might be something that was delivered,” Archbishop Korbijn said. “In which case it could have been something that had been sitting there for days, or weeks.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Lobland agreed. “We’ve got investigators looking through delivery records. We’ll find it.”
“Has anyone claimed responsibility?” Cardenia asked.
“No, Your Majesty. Not yet. We’re monitoring communications planetwide. When we know, you will know.”
Cardenia nodded and motioned for the feed to be cut.
“I think we know who this is,” a voice said, down the table.
Cardenia looked up and saw Nadashe Nohamapetan, the most recently installed member of the executive committee. She had replaced Samman Temamenan, who unfortunately had to go and die on Cardenia, opening up the slot. Cardenia regretted Temamenan’s death, on several levels.
“You’re going to say the End separatists,” Cardenia said.
“It’s the fourth bombing in the last two months on Hub,” Nadashe said. “All with basically the same modus operandi. We have reports of similar activity in three other systems as well, all of which began after news of your coronation and the bombing of it reached those systems.”
“They could be copycats,” Ranatunga said. “And we apprehended the coronation bombers.”
“We killed the coronation bombers,” Korbijn amended.
“Alleged coronation bombers,” Cardenia added. The two alleged bombers had indeed originated out of End but otherwise very little was known about them, except that they blew themselves up with a small bomb just before imperial forces slammed down their door, and that the apartment they were found in on Hub had physical evidence linking them to the coronation bombing.
“We killed two individuals,” Nadashe said. “We don’t know if we got rid of their whole cell or network.”
“What do you suggest we do, Lady Nadashe?” Korbijn asked. “Other than what we’re already doing, which is substantial?”
“Archbishop, I agree that our local and imperial investigators are doing everything they can. The problem isn’t here. It’s on End. It’s time for the Interdependency to step in and take control of the planet and snip out the rebellion there.”
“As you’ve said before, and as you’ve had your members of parliament suggest,” Ranatunga said.
“It’s not only the MPs from Terhathum who believe this, Minister Ranatunga.”
“When I said ‘your members of parliament’ I wasn’t referring to just the ones from your home system, Lady Nadashe. I was also referring to the ones from other systems that you’ve purchased for this crusade of yours.”
Nadashe appeared to bristle. “I resent the implication that the House of Nohamapetan is acting improperly, or indeed any differently than any other house or guild when it has an interest.”
“And what is your interest, Lady Nadashe?” Cardenia asked.
“Our interest is avoiding the possible disruption of trade, and in the lives of the citizens of the Interdependency. It’s also in our interest to make sure that those who attack the emperox are seen to be punished. An emperox who is seen as weak or vulnerable invites chaos.”
“You would have us subjugate a constituent system of the Interdependency for the optics,” Cardenia said.
“Not only for the optics,” Nadashe said. “And not primarily for the optics. But for the optics, too? Certainly.”