This was involved enough that it wasn’t until three hours later that he noticed he’d received an additional note from the mail service, informing him that his mail would not be delivered on time. The reason was “drone failure,” which meant the drone was defective in some way. The information in the drone, including his report, would be transferred to a different drone (there were dozens parked out near the Flow shoal) and then sent through.
Ghreni noted this and was about to click through when he noticed two other reports of delays due to material failure. As he read the third one a fourth entered into his queue.
Ghreni pinged his assistant. “What’s going on with the mail drones?” he said.
“I don’t know, sir,” was the reply. “Everyone’s complaining about it. All the mail is bouncing from one drone to another.”
Before Ghreni could respond to this his tablet pinged to let him know Sir Ontain Mount was trying to reach him. He disconnected from his assistant without acknowledgement and hailed Mount.
“We seem to have a problem,” Mount said.
“With the treaty discussions?” Ghreni asked.
“No, something else. A fiver named Because I Said So just reported in to Imperial Station. It was about to translate into the Flow.”
“Is there a problem with the ship?”
“This ship is fine. It’s the Flow shoal.”
“What about it?”
“It isn’t there, Lord Ghreni. It’s entirely gone.”
Several hours and a number of semi-frantic meetings later Ghreni returned to the hospital and to the Count of Claremont’s room.
“Oh good, you’re back,” Claremont said. He pointed at the Imperial Marines. “I’ve been told I’m fine and they’re going to release me now. They’re about to hand me over to the local authorities, which I suppose are your people now. I’m going to jail, apparently.”
“I need the room,” Ghreni said, to everyone who was not the count. The room cleared out. Ghreni turned his attention back to Claremont. “You knew. About the Flow.”
Claremont nodded. “It was possible that it hadn’t collapsed yet when you sent along your report, in which case this would be a different conversation. For now, at least. But if it hadn’t collapsed today, it would have been tomorrow, or the next day. Within a week, in any event. And we’d be having this conversation then.”
“If the Flow stream collapsed then you sent your son to his death.”
“No. I predicted this stream is collapsing from the entrance shoal. The exit shoal will be open for months yet. Not that it will matter. Nothing else can get into it, so for all purposes once the stream empties of ships currently in it, it’s gone. Everyone who’s on End will be here for the duration.”
“And how long is that? How long is ‘the duration’?”
“Why, Lord Ghreni. That’s forever, of course.”
Ghreni had nothing to say to this.
“There is one thing,” Claremont said.
“What is it?”
“The Flow stream out from End is closed. But I predict the Flow stream to End will stay open for several years yet. It’s already showing some signs of decay. But it should hold for a while. It might even be the last Flow stream in the Interdependency to collapse entirely.”
“What does that mean?” Ghreni asked.
“It means we should be getting ready for visitors.”
“Visitors.”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“As many who can make it here alive, I expect,” Claremont said, and then clapped his hands together. “Now, Lord Ghreni. You’re a murderer and a usurper, and you tried to hurt my son. In a perfect world you’d be dead or rotting in jail for what you’ve been doing for the last few years. Either option would be fine by me. But right now, for better or worse, you’re the Duke of End. I suppose now that you’re duke you’ve magically found a way to end the rebellion, yes?”
Ghreni nodded.
“Which means you were actively involved in the rebellion in some horribly duplicitous way, yes?”
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.