“Prepare for what?”
“The collapsing empire,” Jamies said. “And the darkness that follows.”
Chapter
5
Kiva Lagos didn’t get a miracle, but as far as she was concerned over the next week she got the next best thing: Sivouren Donher.
“He’s one of our franchisees,” Gazson Magnut said, speaking of the pompous-looking man currently loitering on the floor of the hold the Yes, Sir was operating out of in the imperial station. The franchisee was standing by a stack of haverfruit crates, the fruit inside of which had now come close to peak ripeness. The entire hold was saturated with a heavy floral scent that in the next few days would rapidly descend into rancidity. Magnut and Lagos were in a spare office given over by the station to the hold’s current occupants; they were staring down at the poor bastard.
“Okay,” Kiva said. “So fucking what?”
“He wants to buy passage for himself and his family. On the Yes, Sir.”
“Off of End? To where?”
“He said that he would figure that out later.”
Kiva snorted at this. “It’s not like there’s anywhere in the Interdependency that isn’t already maxed out in population. They haven’t built a new outpost or dug out a new city in decades.”
“I pointed that out to him. He said that would be his problem.”
Kiva looked at the man again. “We’re not running a cruise line here, Gazson.”
“No, ma’am,” Magnut agreed. “But if I may say so, it wouldn’t really do us any harm, either. We’re not running a full crew at this point, and we’re not recruiting as many new crew as I’d like here on End. If nothing else we can put him and his family on custodial detail and make them pay for the privilege.”
“Why are you having trouble hiring?”
Gazson shrugged. “There’s a war on.”
Kiva pointed. “He wants to leave.”
“It’s not the same, ma’am. He wants to leave forever and take his family with him. Everyone who has family here wants to be with them right now. Down on the surface there are huge numbers of people moving away from the open war zones. There’s a refugee crisis down there. Honestly, even if we hadn’t been barred from selling the haverfruit we wouldn’t have sold much anyway. There’s almost no market right now.”
“We still would have had our license fees and profits,” Kiva noted. Then she stopped, looked again at the man in her hold. “What’s this dude’s name again?” she asked Gazson.
“Sivouren Donher.”
“Has he been a good franchisee for us?”
“One of our most successful. It’s one of the reasons why he’s asking. I think he thinks we owe him.”
“Does he,” Kiva said. “Then I guess you better bring him up.”
Gazson nodded and went to retrieve him.
Close up Sivouren Donher was middle-aged, a little puffy, and had a look on his face that twitched between arrogance and anxiety so quickly that Kiva was certain he wasn’t aware his head was doing that. It was a look of someone who until the last few days was pretty sure he could ride out whatever nonsense this rebellion was about, and then suddenly realized he couldn’t.
“Lady Kiva,” Donher said, bowing. He looked at the seat Gazson Magnut had recently vacated in order to retrieve him. He clearly expected that he would be offered a seat, this meeting being between equals and all.
“You want off End,” Kiva said, not offering the seat. Magnut, who stood in the corner of the room, also not taking the seat, raised his eyebrows ever so slightly at the intentional breach of courtesy.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kiva nodded in the direction of Magnut. “Gazson here tells me that you’re one of our most successful franchisees.”
Donher smiled and nodded. “I have done well for your family, Lady Kiva.”
“Define ‘well’ for me.”
“For this current payment period, House of Lagos received four million marks from my companies. Uh, will receive, once the current unpleasantness you are having with the Duke of End is resolved.”
“Four million marks,” Kiva said. “That’s not bad. That’s not bad at all.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“So why the fuck would I want to mess with that?”
Donher blinked. “Ma’am?”
“You’re one of my biggest moneymakers. If you leave End, that money dries up. Logic dictates I tell you to go back to your orchards and factories and keep at it.”
“Ma’am … there’s a war on.”
“And? My people here tell me you idiots do this shit on a regular basis. In a few months you’ll all be back to life as usual.”
“Not this time, ma’am. This one is different. The duke is about to be overthrown. People who are known to be in his favor are being targeted and killed. They and their families.”
“And I suppose you are best friends with the duke, aren’t you?”
“I am frequently at court, ma’am. As is my wife, who is especially close to the duchess. We have had them to our estate on occasion.”
Kiva squinted. “But you’re not noble yourself.”
“No, ma’am.” Donher shrugged. “There was some talk of knighting me this year. My wife and I made a considerable donation to the duke’s hospital charity. But such things are up in the air right now.”
“Uh-huh.” Kiva looked this fearful little social climber up and down and figured she had his number, all right. “Four million.”
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
“You’re not just asking me for passage, Donher. You’re also asking me to let you out of your franchise deal with the House of Lagos. To abandon our income on this planet. Fine. That’ll cost you four million marks.”
“I have reached an agreement with my senior vice president to continue operations—” Donher stammered.
Kiva cut him off. “Our agreement is with you, Donher.”
“With my companies, ma’am—”
“They’re not your companies anymore,” Kiva said, cutting him off again. “You’re getting your ass out of town. We never made an agreement with whoever the fuck this senior vice president is. We don’t know if they’re competent to find their asshole with a flashlight and a map. We, the House of Lagos, are going to have to vet your company again. We are going to have to assess whether this vice president is worth doing business with. If he’s not, we are going to have to pull the franchise, which will inevitably lead to a bunch of legal stupidity and this asshole suing us, and then we are going to lose money because of it.”
“Lady Kiva, I can assure you—”
“You can’t assure me of a goddamned thing, Donher. Not anymore. You’re already off the playing board. You’re literally fucking useless to me right now. The only assurance here is money. A lot of it. In this case, four million marks. In cash, on the proverbial goddamned barrelhead. That’s the deal.”