“How will we know if that’s correct?”
“When other ships scheduled to arrive at Hub don’t arrive, you’ll know.”
“Ships are often delayed in their departures and therefore their arrivals.”
Marce nodded. “It’ll be a couple of weeks at least before people begin to notice that ships are missing. Even then they’re likely to blame it on something else.”
“Like that civil war of yours.”
“It’s not my civil war,” Marce snorted, and then remembered who he was talking to. “Ma’am.”
The emperox ignored it. “Is there any way to use the collapse of this Flow stream? The one from End to here?”
“I can present the work and show the math behind it,” Marce said. “But I’m going to warn you ahead of time that anyone who isn’t already a Flow physicist isn’t going to follow it at all, and even then they will argue what it means. It will take time for them to go through my father’s work and his prediction model. But by then it won’t matter.”
“Because more Flow streams will have collapsed, and that will be the evidence.”
Marce nodded again. “Right.”
“You said you knew that the Flow stream from End to Hub has already collapsed.”
“It’s very likely, yes.”
“So you can predict the collapses.”
“We can give you probabilities on which ones are going to collapse and when. It’s not predicting. It’s looking at the data and offering the most probable outcomes.”
“Do you know which one is going to collapse next? I mean, which one is likeliest?”
“Yes. It’s likely to be the Flow stream from here to Terhathum. The model predicts it will collapse within the next six weeks.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. But it’s probable.”
“How probable? Give me a percentage.”
“I’d say about eighty percent chance you’ll have the Hub–Terhathum collapse within six weeks. After that it’s hazy but there’s an almost one hundred percent chance within a year.”
“That’s the streams to Terhathum and back?”
Marce shook his head. “No. The Flow streams to a system and from a system are not actually related.” He caught the emperox’s look at this. “I know, that’s not a fact anyone’s brain is comfortable with, but it’s true. Our model has a prediction from the stream from Terhathum to Hub, but it’s very fuzzy because it’s further out in time. It could happen in as soon as thirty-eight months and as late as eighty-seven months from now. The second of those dates is when we expect the final streams to close.”
“What will be the last stream to close?”
“Right now our prediction models have the stream to End closing sometime between eighty and eighty-seven months from now.”
“You carry all these numbers in your head?” the emperox asked.
“Not all of them,” Marce confessed. “Just the ones I thought you would ask me about. I have fifteen minutes with you, ma’am. I wanted to be efficient.”
“Do you find it at all ironic that End has the first Flow stream to collapse, and also might have the last?”
“It’s not ironic, ma’am, it’s coincidental. But I’m happy it’s likely to be the case. I want to be able to go home.”
The emperox gave Marce a look. “You traveled for the better part of a year without knowing whether or not you’d get a meeting with me.”
“Begging your pardon, but I wasn’t expecting to have a meeting with you at all. I was expecting your father. My condolences to you, also, ma’am.”
“Thank you. What would you have done if I hadn’t decided to see you?”
“I imagine I would have presented our data to the physicists at the University of Hubfall and told them it was their problem to get the information out to whomever wanted to listen. Then I might have taken a couple of days to sightsee and then headed out on the first ship going to End.”
“Is that your plan now? To return to End immediately?”
“My plan is done, ma’am. I’ve spoken to you. I am ready to give you the full report from my father, checked by me, which your father commissioned. You may pass it along to whomever you wish for verification and you may do with it whatever you like, in terms of policy. It doesn’t seem like I need to convince you of the reality of the data. I’m confident you will use it wisely, although whether everyone else will follow your lead is an open question.”
The door opened and Obelees Atek entered the room. Marce rose.
“Lord Marce, your plan is done, but I still may need you. Will you stay?”
“Ma’am, you are the emperox,” Marce said.
“No,” the emperox said, and for the first time, Marce heard exasperation in her voice. “Lord Marce, you’re not an office to redecorate. I am asking you to stay, to explain this to me further, and to assist me in explaining it to others. I am asking you to stay knowing right now there’s a risk involved for you, and that risk gets larger the longer this takes. I can command your assistance. But I am asking for your help.”
Marce looked at the emperox and was reminded again that whatever he was expecting from this meeting, this wasn’t it. “Ma’am, it would be my honor to assist you however I can,” he said.
The emperox broke into a grin. “Thank you, Lord Marce. I am off now to tour a new tenner but will be returning late this evening. Will you have a late supper with me? I have more questions.”
“Of course,” Marce said, and then hesitated.
The emperox caught it. “What is it?”
“I’m trying to figure out my personal logistics. I’m staying at a hotel on Imperial Station. My dinner clothes are there.”
“One, I’m going to be exhausted after touring this damn ship, so dinner will be very informal. Two, you’re on staff now.” The emperox turned to Obelees. “I’ve hired Lord Marce as a special assistant for science policy. Have someone retrieve his effects from Imperial Station. Please find him quarters in the staff wing suitable to his station.” She glanced over to Marce. “Make sure they don’t look like a museum exploded in them. And have someone give him an orientation.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Obelees said.
“See you soon,” the emperox said to Marce.
“Ma’am,” Marce said, and bowed. The emperox left her office. As soon as she crossed the threshold of the office door, three assistants and a bodyguard attached themselves to her and paced her as she walked through the anteroom.
Marce watched her go and then turned to Obelees. “I have no idea what just happened here,” he said.
Obelees smiled. “It seems you had a successful meeting, Lord Marce. Now, come with me and let’s see what we can find for you, apartment-wise.”
Chapter
16