“The situation is calendrical rot centered at the Fortress of Scattered Needles,” Subcommand Two said abruptly. A map imaged itself above the center of the table. “If this continues, the hexarchate’s control of the Entangled March will be threatened, and due to the march’s central position, the entire hexarchate will be threatened. As of the last report, the invariant ice shields are up at full strength. The initial task force sent to scour the rot was defeated.”
“Defeated or subverted, sir?” the Shuos said. It was a woman’s voice, cool and unintimidated.
“First the one, then the other,” Subcommand Two said. “The task force was a swarm of twenty-five, including a Rahal lensmoth. The lensmoth was the only one that returned, which is how we know what happened.”
Three and Four, Unhatched and the colonel, exchanged glances. So at least two of the Kel knew each other. That must be an uncomfortable position to be in.
Cheris wondered if they had additional information that she didn’t. The fact that a lensmoth had been dispatched was bad. The Rahal guarded their dedicated moths jealously. Just sending one to a system was usually enough to get it to back down from whatever heresy it was nurturing. However, the lensmoths’ reliance on exotic technologies made them useless in sufficiently advanced cases of calendrical heresy. In a way, it gave heretics an incentive to go radical as quickly as possible.
“The Rahal have ceded the matter to Kel Command,” Subcommand Two said, by which everyone understood that the Rahal expected Kel Command to bludgeon the Fortress until it was ready to be judged and punished. “In this instance, each of you is expendable, but success will not be without its rewards. Propose what seems appropriate to you. You will go in numbered order.”
One rose and saluted. It was like watching a living puppet, articulated in the right places yet subtly wrong in its movements. His plan involved a joint Kel-Shuos force and bombardment from outside the afflicted zone. Risky to trust invariant kinetics when the rot might give the rebels access to unknown countermeasures. The other problem was that One wanted the Fortress depopulated, which meant the Kel would have to rely on the Vidona to supply enough loyal citizens afterward to reestablish the appropriate consensus mechanics.
Two was the Rahal, and his proposal was simple: a lensmoth swarm to burn out the areas of heretic belief. The Rahal must be desperate to condone this. Despite their power, the Rahal’s combination of rigid honesty, abstract mindset, and asceticism meant that they were one of the poorer factions. The pragmatic problem was that lensmoths were a slow solution to a fast contagion. Cheris pored over the map and concluded that Two’s plan was workable, but only just, and only if carried out by people with a pathological ability to be precise about the geometries involved. Of course, finding Rahal with that trait wasn’t difficult.
Three and Four presented their plan together, an infantry assault using weapons from the Kel Arsenal. Cheris hadn’t even known about the neglect cannon.
Five made Cheris sit a little straighter. The Shuos wanted to requisition a weapon from the Andan Archives.
“We can’t assume access to Andan resources,” Subcommand Two said, the first time it had interrupted any of the proposals. The Andan were the third high faction, along with the Rahal and the Shuos, and they generally stayed out of military matters. They were known for their love, not to say control, of high culture, and their wealth. Significantly, they didn’t get along with the Shuos or the Kel.
“My pardon, Generals,” Five said, “but that’s not true. The Andan are as amenable to persuasion as anyone else. I wouldn’t have mentioned this if the means of persuasion didn’t exist.”
“Finish speaking,” Subcommand Two said after a pause.
“The Andan have a version of the Shuos shouter that works over a wider range of calendrical values,” Five said. “Evidence suggests that the survivors can be encouraged, with proper Vidona methods, to resume productive lives. In the interests of full disclosure, I note that the survival rate is around forty percent, and the rest are no longer able to function as sentients.”
Cheris was still convinced that all the eyes Half-Lidded were staring at her, and not at the composite that would choose from their proposals. The hell of it was, with a Shuos she wasn’t being paranoid.
“You have been heard,” Subcommand Two said after another long silence. “Next.”
Six started by recapitulating the previous proposals, from infantry assault to lensmoths to the Andan shouter, and then smiled. It was impossible to mistake her smile, for all that her silhouette had no mouth. You could hear it in the curve of her voice.
“Sacrifice some of the Nirai,” Six said. Cheris disliked her immediately. It was one thing to sacrifice Kel soldiers. That was the purpose of the Kel. But the Nirai existed to be researchers and engineers, not to die. “Have the Nirai concoct weapons for the heretics, and the heretics will turn those weapons upon each other before they turn them against us. Only after they’ve annihilated each other should we move in.”
It wasn’t the sort of plan you’d expect a Kel to propose, but all the Kel weren’t as straightforward as they were in the jokes, or they’d never win a battle. The idea was pragmatic, even probable. Cheris could think of historical instances where Shuos trickery had achieved much the same. But it bothered her anyway.
“Seven,” Subcommand Two said. “Do you have anything better to suggest?”
Cheris didn’t look at the ninefox’s eyes. “Five suggested one weapon,” she said. “I can do better. You can win this with one man.”
She had their attention.
“Specify,” Subcommand Two said. It knew. What other gambit could she have brought to the table?
“General Shuos Jedao.” There. She had said it.
“Sir,” Four said immediately, “I withdraw.”
This was both a good sign and a bad sign. It was a good sign because a fellow Kel, and the much-decorated colonel at that, recognized merit in the proposal. It was a bad sign for the same reason.
Four was the only one to withdraw. The Rahal’s posture was thoughtful. Cheris continued avoiding the eyes of the Shuos.
“How intriguing,” Subcommand Two said. This time it smiled directly at Cheris. “I will have to inform Hexarch Shuos Mikodez.” As a courtesy, of course, although General Jedao had been in Kel custody for 397 years. Before it finished speaking, the others’ silhouettes flickered out, leaving only a momentary gust of shadow-wind. The composite’s eyes were fox-yellow, now, and maliciously pleased.
Cheris realized how they had manipulated her with the gamecloth. What she still didn’t understand was why Kel Command hadn’t made the decision straight out.
“Sir,” she said with a questioning lift of her voice.
“General Jedao’s revival has been ordered,” Subcommand Two said. “The Burning Leaf is on its way to a transfer point so you can retrieve your weapon of choice. I recommend that you rest.”
Then Subcommand Two flickered out as well, leaving Cheris alone in a hall full of unanswered questions.
CHAPTER FOUR
A FEW PEOPLE always washed out of Kel Academy the first time they were asked to demonstrate a formation. Cheris remembered the occasion. She had stood next to a young man who was practically vibrating: a bad sign, but their instructors had been emphatic that the washouts weren’t easily predicted.