“There’s a difference to me, which is what matters. Either your duke will take care of this problem, or soon some rebel or another will petition me to be the new duke when all your nonsense is over.”
“And what will you do then?”
“I suppose that might depend on whether the current duke’s head is still on his shoulders. Until then, a friendly admonition, Lord Ghreni. The Count of Claremont and his family and his lands are under the emperox’s protection. Which means they are under my protection. If I hear any more rumors of you interfering with them, either at the behest of the duke, or under your initiative, I promise that you will see what imperial intervention looks like, and you will not be happy about it. Are we clear?”
They were clear.
And then there was point seven, which was the coded note Ghreni had received from General Livy Onjsten, leader of the rebellion, which read:
Where are those weapons? You said you would have them to us by now. We undertook this last offensive on the basis of you getting those to us. We have our asses hanging out here. If we don’t get them soon—or if the duke’s troops get them instead of us—we’re in real trouble.
Remember what I told you when we started this on your behalf. You’re in this with us. We rise, you rise. We fall, you fall.
If we fall because of you, you will fall so much harder.
—LO
Why is everyone threatening me today? Ghreni asked himself.
Well, and the answer to that was because he’d overleveraged himself—and his house, and all their assets on End—in order to topple the current duke and install himself as the Duke of End. He’d overleveraged himself, and now all his precisely timed, precisely laid plans were on the verge of teetering over and collapsing.
This is what happens when you risk it all, Ghreni thought. It’s never going to run smoothly.
True enough. But it shouldn’t be this rough. Not now. Not all of a sudden.
At least the Duke of End wasn’t yelling at him.
His tablet pinged. It was the duke calling. “You’re kidnapping nobles now?” he yelled.
Ghreni smiled grimly in spite of himself. “That’s not quite how it happened, Your Grace.”
“Don’t ‘Your Grace’ me, Ghreni. I just got an earload from Sir Ontain about it. Says you grabbed young Lord Marce Claremont right off the street in front of his apartment.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I asked Lord Marce to meet with me in order to see if I could get him to convince his father to be more active in defending End.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he was leaving the planet within hours and was not in a position to plead our case.”
“How did Sir Ontain get kidnapping out of that?”
“I may have been slightly overzealous in trying to convince Lord Marce to assist us. The conversation became heated. The rest of it is our enemies exaggerating and that exaggeration getting back to the Count of Claremont, and, I imagine, him complaining to Sir Ontain, and then him complaining to you. He did the same to me, sir, just a few moments ago.”
“What did you tell him?”
“What I just told you, in slightly less detail with slightly fewer affirmations.”
“We can’t be going about antagonizing the nobles, Ghreni. Not now. And especially not Claremont. Ontain and his marines are practically the count’s bodyguards. And if word gets around to the other nobles that we’re trying to strong-arm the count, or threatening his children … well. We need their support right now, is what I’m saying.”
“I understand entirely, sir. But as I said, this is just misunderstanding and rumor.”
“Then you won’t mind apologizing to the Count of Claremont personally.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“I’ve invited the count this morning to a small meeting. More of drinks and a chat, really, at Weatherfair.” That would be the duke’s “getaway” palace, not far outside the city. “You and me and him. There you’ll explain the entire situation to him, and apologize to him.”
“Sir, for what? As I said, this is entirely a misunderstanding.”
“Then you’ll apologize for the misunderstanding. Ghreni, it doesn’t matter whether you actually have anything to apologize for. The act of apologizing is the thing. You should know that already. That’s basic diplomacy.”
“The meeting will be just the three of us?”
“Yes. I think that’s best. No need to make a spectacle about it. The word will get out anyway.”
“The Lady Vrenna will not be there?”
“The count’s daughter? No. Why?”
“Just checking.”
“We could invite her if you like.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Then I’ll see you in a few hours. Dress casually. Practice groveling.” The duke disconnected.
And that was point eight.
So, to recap: People wanted Ghreni dead or at least seriously injured, his plans to maneuver himself to a dukedom through fomenting a revolution were falling apart at a rapidly accelerating rate, and in a few hours he’d have to feign regret for an incident he’d have to maintain never happened, even though it had and Ghreni had absolutely no regrets doing it, save that it didn’t go to plan. Unless something miraculous happened in short order, Ghreni would be dead or in jail and the House of Nohamapetan legally on the hook of his actions.
The worst of it was, none of this was originally his idea.
* * *
By the time they were all in their teenage years, it was clear to anyone who cared to look that each of the Nohamapetan scions had a certain leading characteristic. Amit was the conventional one—unoriginal, unthreatening, but always ready to be out front for family and house, a tractable figurehead who would one day publicly take the reins of the House of Nohamapetan. Ghreni was the useful one, the one good with people, the “salesman”—or the confidence man—the one who could intrigue you with an idea and get you to sign your name on the line, whether or not you really understood what you were buying.
But it was Nadashe, the sister, who was the brains of the operation. She was the one who told the figurehead what to say, and pointed the salesman at the mark, and set into motion the plans that would take years, or even decades, to come to their fruition.
As she did that first night, when the siblings were all gathered in Xi’an to celebrate the birthday of Rennered Wu, the crown prince, whom Nadashe had so recently begun negotiations with, in regards to a marriage.
“He’s a prick,” Ghreni had said, to his sister, after the three of them had departed the festivities and decamped to the Nohamapetan apartments, not too far from the imperial palace.
“I kind of like him,” Amit replied. Amit was lounged on a chaise, a glass of Nohamapetan shiraz in his hand. The shiraz was contraband, or would be if anyone other than the Nohamapetans themselves were to drink it; the House of Patric owned the monopoly on grapes and all their products. But when the Interdependency was formed, and the monopolies parceled out, the existing Nohamapetan grape stock was grandfathered in, for the family’s private use only. The house’s famous shiraz, acknowledged to be one of the finest outside the now-lost environs of Earth, was now accessible only if one was a Nohamapetan. Or one of their guests, for a small private party or perhaps even something more intimate. It was not unheard of for especially fervent oenophiles to proposition Nohamapetans on the chance there might be a particularly vintage bottle in the offing.
“You would,” Ghreni said. From his point of view, Rennered Wu and his brother were cut out of the same boring, playboy-ish cloth. Ghreni didn’t dislike Amit, nor did Amit dislike Ghreni, but in their adult years they didn’t spend all that much time with each other. They both had friends who were more suitably interesting to each of them.
Ghreni didn’t spend that much time with his sister, either, although not for lack of interest. It’s just that Nadashe had plans. When they involved Ghreni, he saw her. When they didn??
?t, he didn’t. The fact that she had dragged them both back to her apartments, minus their escorts for the evening, meant that her plans involved them in some way.
But she wasn’t telling them what they were yet, so Ghreni decided to needle her, just for fun. “And what’s your excuse, Nada? Why are you consorting with that stiff Rennered?”
Nadashe, standing behind Amit’s chaise, reached over and took her brother’s wineglass from him and took a swig. Amit protested mildly but shut up when it was returned to him. “You mean, aside from the fact that one day he will be emperox and that allying with the imperial house will give our family an unassailable position among the guilds, and that one of my children will be the next emperox, forever embedding our interests into the fabric of the Interdependency?”
“Yes,” Ghreni said. “Besides that.”
“He’s an acceptable dancer.”
“Well,” Ghreni said, looking over to his brother, who rolled his eyes. “That’s something.”
“There’s also another reason, which is why I brought the two of you here tonight.” She took the glass from Amit again.
“Stop that,” Amit said.
“No,” Nadashe said, and walked the glass over to the bar. “I need you sober for this part. You’ll get the glass back when I’m done.”
“I already don’t like whatever this is,” Amit said.
“What’s going on, Nada?” Ghreni asked.
“Just the future,” Nadashe replied, and then told the house computer to dim the lights and bring a presentation on a monitor. The presentation contained a map of the Interdependency, with the major Flow streams highlighted, all centering on Hub.
“This is the future?” Amit asked.
“This is the present,” Nadashe said. Then she snapped her fingers and the map changed—not the star systems of the Interdependency but the Flow streams, which rearranged themselves, drastically in some cases. Most notably, the space around Hub, previously crowded with the inward and outgoing vectors of the Flow, was now populated by only three streams, two incoming and one outgoing. A different system was now the hub of the majority of Flow streams, its space crowded with the representations of the traffic going in and going out.
It was End.
“This is the future,” Nadashe said.
Ghreni got up and walked closer to the monitor, studying the new map. “Where did you get this?”
“I have a friend from university who grew up to be a Flow physicist,” she said. “My friend was casting about for something to do her doctoral thesis on and she came across a monograph about a potential long-term shift in the Flow. The person who wrote the monograph never did anything with it. She tracked down his information and he’d become a tax collector for the Interdependency. So she followed up, worked the data, and came to the conclusion that after more than a thousand years of relative stability, the Flow streams are about to shift, probably to this map.”
“When?” Amit asked.
“She says the data indicate it’s already starting. First slowly but then quicker and quicker. It’ll probably start in the next decade.” Nadashe pointed at the monitor. “This map is likely to be what the Interdependency looks like in thirty years, she says.”
Ghreni furrowed his brow. “‘Likely’? What does that mean?”
“She’s modeling what she sees as the most probable pattern of collapses and shifts, based on her data set. She says this pattern has an eighty-five percent probability of being what things will be once the pattern stabilizes. And when it stabilizes, it’ll likely hold for another thousand years.”
Ghreni pointed. “And she’s sure End is going to be the place all those streams are going to focus on.”
Nadashe nodded. “She says that’s actually the most predictable part of the shift. It’s happened before, apparently. The shift of the Flow streams. Her data suggests the locus of the Flow activity switches off between Hub and End every thousand or two thousand years. There’s a less than one chance in a hundred thousand that some other system will be the focus of the Flow streams.”
“All right, but so what?” Amit said.
“So whoever controls the system the Flow streams are focused in controls the Interdependency,” Ghreni said.
“At least one brother is paying attention,” Nadashe said, smiling.
“But we don’t control that system,” Amit pointed out. “We’re in the Terhathum system.”
“That’s the present,” Nadashe said, and then pointed again at the monitor. “This is the future.”
“There’s already a Duke of End,” Ghreni told his sister.
“There is one,” Nadashe agreed. “But historically they don’t stick around very long. They get deposed often enough that when there’s yet another rebellion, the Interdependency’s policy is to let them fight it out and then pass on the dukedom to whoever’s left standing.”
“You want to depose the current duke?”
“No, I want you to depose him, Ghreni.”
“What? Why me?”
“Because Amit’s busy preparing to take over the family business, and I’m busy trying to merge our line with the emperox’s. You’re the only one not currently busy.”
“I’m busy,” Ghreni said, and he was. He was a vice president of marketing for the house, which was a suitable position for him, given his age and work experience. After a certain point in time he’d leave that position to become part of the house board of directors and he’d have the option of coasting, just as third children of all the major houses did.
“You’re not that busy. And besides if we put you in charge of our interests on End, that would be a promotion. Which would look good for you, and is a natural progression in your career.”
“But it’s on End.”
“And?”
“There’s nothing on End. That’s why it’s called End.”
“The future is on End, Ghreni. We’re going to need you there so we can be ready when it happens.”
“You’re already planning to marry into the imperial house, Nada,” Amit said. “If you’re going to do that, then why do we even need Ghreni on End?”
“You want to answer that one?” Nadashe asked Ghreni.
“Because whoever is running End will be in a good position to challenge the emperox for power,” Ghreni said, to his brother. “The whole reason the House of Wu is the imperial house is because they control the space around Hub. You can’t dip a toe into it without paying tolls and tariffs and taxes. If that all shifts to End, one of the emperox’s biggest revenue sources dries up.”
“We marry into the House of Wu to get power now,” Nadashe continued. “We secure End to stay in power when things shift. And if our families hold both Hub and End, we’ll keep the Interdependency from falling apart in a civil war.”
“Which would be bad for business,” Amit concluded. “Everyone’s, including ours.”
Ghreni looked at the monitor again. “You want to risk a lot on a doctoral thesis, sis.”
Nadashe shrugged. “Worse-case scenario, we’re wrong about the shift. The result is you’re Duke of End and I’m the imperial consort.”
“Actually the worst-case scenario is you don’t marry Rennered and Ghreni is arrested for treason, and the shift happens anyway,” Amit pointed out.
“You’re not helping,” Ghreni said, to his brother.
“I’m just making sure we’re clear on what the failure states are,” Amit replied. “I know you two think I’m not as smart as either of you, and you’re right. I’m not. But I’m smart enough to know this plan of yours, Nadashe, has a lot of risk and a more than minor chance of failure. If this is going to work, you’re going to need me to keep feathers unruffled with the house board.”
“Only if we tell them,” Nadashe said.
Amit snorted. “You want to run a planetary coup clandestinely, out of the House of Nohamapetan?”
“Why not? Use local funds. It’s End, we can keep the expenditures off the books for years if
we have to. If we’re smart about it, we don’t have to tell the board until after it’s done.”
“Oh, dear,” Amit said, and got up from the chaise. “I actually am going to need a drink for this.” He went to the bar.
“We keep it quiet. Just between us.”
“Even with local funds we won’t be able to keep this quiet,” Ghreni said. “Especially if we are running the rebellion.”
“This is a place where some or another group revolts against the sitting duke a couple of times a decade,” Nadashe pointed out. “You don’t have to run it. You find one that’s already running.”
“And you think the current duke will somehow sit still for this.”
“Depends on whether he figures out you’re involved. If you make yourself useful to him, he might not.”
“Lots of moving parts on this one,” Amit said, from the bar.
“He’s not wrong,” Ghreni agreed. He pointed to the monitor, with the map still open. “And there’s no guarantee your physicist friend isn’t a complete fraud. Why isn’t this actual news, Nadashe? You’d think this would be something people might be concerned about. The fact I’ve never heard of this before suggests to me there’s less here than meets the eye.”
“She came to me with it exclusively,” Nadashe said.
“Why did she do that?”
“She needed money and she thought this would be something she could trade for it. I paid her way through the rest of her doctoral thesis—not on this—and she worked on this for me.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s a friend of mine from university. I told you this already.”
“Does she have a name?”
“Hatide Roynold.”
“Did I meet her?”
Nadashe snorted at this. “No. As difficult as it may be for you to accept this, Ghreni, you didn’t manage to meet and have sex with all of my university friends.”
“This data she has for you isn’t peer reviewed?” Amit asked. His glass was full of shiraz again.
“No. Obviously we didn’t want it leaked. I think she may have at some point tried to correspond with the tax collector whose work she was following up on, but I don’t think anything came of that.”