“No person of that name is on record,” the grid said again.
Well, it had been worth a try. Besides, he supposed that Shuos Academy wasn’t in the habit of handing over cadet records to the Nirai or to Kel warmoths.
“Major Dhanneth is at the door,” the grid said.
Jedao consulted his augment: almost time for high table. “Let him in.”
The doors opened. Dhanneth saluted him. “Ready, sir?”
“I want a watch,” Jedao said.
“Sir?”
“It’s odd having a built-in clock, that’s all.”
“No one makes them anymore,” Dhanneth said.
“Of course,” Jedao said, a little sadly. He should have realized that just looking at people’s wrists. “Let’s go.”
They weren’t the first to reach the high hall, but rank meant everyone else was captive to his schedule. Five minutes early: well within what the Kel considered acceptable. Jedao had a brief impression of ashes and hellsparks and unsmiling eyes as the Kel rose. Jedao saluted them, waited while they returned the gesture, then proceeded to his seat. He could tell because of the dreadful golden Deuce of Gears cup. Maybe it was meant as a backup projectile if anyone boarded the command moth.
Dhanneth slid into place down at the end of the table, his face composed. If this was what formation instinct did for you, Jedao wanted some for himself. The officers at the head table inclined their heads to him as they took their seats. Notably, they avoided looking at Dhanneth. Dhanneth was not doing a very good job of concealing his distress at the snub. Everyone else was watching the head table intently.
Jedao sat, determined not to be seen to hurry, and poured water from the provided pitcher into the cup. At least, it had better be water. He didn’t want to get through this with the “help” of some intoxicant. Then he smiled before remembering what a bad idea it was. His officers stiffened. He made himself take the requisite sip as if he hadn’t noticed. (The cup was every bit as heavy as it looked. Definitely a projectile.) They couldn’t spend the entire voyage flinching from each other. Not that he expected the Kel to warm to him, but they needed to achieve a working relationship sooner rather than later. Kel hierarchy meant that he had to make the overtures.
The water’s cold left his mouth numb and made his teeth ache. He passed the cup to his right. Commander Talaw received it with a steady hand. Around the table the cup went, refilled once halfway. Dhanneth took the last sip, a very small one. Again, no one looked at him except Jedao. Were elite assassin-bodyguards reviled that much? Jedao was starting to feel bad for Dhanneth.
The rest of the Kel soldiers in the hall eased little by little as the ritual continued. Still, the silence had the potential to become smothering. Jedao didn’t want to reveal the extent of his amnesia, although odds were that he’d slip and it’d come out anyway, so he said, “This is a stupid thing to be dying of curiosity about, but what is in these rolls?” Some of the Kel had been peering at the wrappers. He could play on mutual suspicion of unfamiliar rations.
Talaw’s executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Meraun, calmly took one of the rolls to her plate and dissected it with her chopsticks. This revealed either a purple vegetable or mushrooms, hard to tell. The other officers’ reactions ranged from bemusement to resignation. “The servitors are getting creative again, sir,” Meraun said. “The hexarch’s bases don’t carry the same staples that Kel logisticians are used to. So the servitors must have made compromises.”
So the servitors did all the cooking? Did they do all the cleaning, too, and the nasty chores that you’d ordinarily use to punish people with too many demerits? Why did the servitors put up with this? Were they sentient at all, or if they were sentient, did they have formation instinct, too?
His list of questions that he couldn’t ask anyone around him was only getting longer. Instead, he asked, “What were you expecting in that roll instead?”
Meraun rattled off a list of vegetables. She smiled suddenly and added, “If you’re waiting for a poison-taster—”
The officer next to Meraun had gone expressionless in her direction. Jedao smiled just as hard back at Meraun and obtained his own roll from the platter. “I’m sorry,” he said, “are you starting a food fight with a Shuos? I hear our aim isn’t as good as yours.”
He’d said something wrong. People had recoiled as though he’d been sarcastic, and not just one or two of them, but the entire room, although he’d meant the words literally. Am I secretly a crack shot? Because I’m so likely to get into a firefight on my command moth. To distract them, he took a bite of the roll and made a face at its bitterness. It wouldn’t hurt for them to see that he had ordinary human reactions to food.
Dhanneth said reluctantly, “Sir, you may find the fishcakes more to your liking.”
A fleeting hint of frustration passed over Talaw’s face when Dhanneth spoke. They deliberately looked away from him.
What is going on? Jedao wondered, except he still couldn’t come out and ask. “Thank you,” he said, because he didn’t like the fact that the Kel were showing open disrespect to his aide. “I’ll try that.”
At least the business of chewing meant this line of conversation could die an honorable death. Dhanneth was right. The fishcakes tasted bland, but if you used the sour-sweet dipping sauce judiciously, they became palatable. Jedao tried a little of everything in the hopes of finding something that didn’t trigger the odd aftertaste, with no luck. Oh well, at least he was in no danger of starving.
Kujen swept in partway through the meal. He was splendid in a necklace of silver wire and agate, a shirt of sleek black silk, and a dark gray coat with a foam-rush of lace at the sleeves. The creases in his pants could have been used for rulers. Jedao hated to think how many closets it took to contain Kujen’s wardrobe. The evidence suggested that he didn’t like to repeat himself.
The high table didn’t have a seat for the hexarch. Dhanneth rose immediately to offer his. The faces watching Kujen were intent as fire, the eyes of the Kel dark and unfriendly. The exception was the Strategy head, Ahanar, who stared at a far wall in obvious discomfort.
Jedao attempted to check Dhanneth, disliking the mood in the room. “I’m done,” Jedao said to Kujen. “Take mine instead.”
The Kel tensed further, except for Meraun, who reached for another roll as she looked at Jedao, Kujen, and Dhanneth with the air of an interested festival-goer, and a captain at a lower table who was compulsively stabbing a recalcitrant cucumber with her chopstick.
“It’s not necessary, sir,” Dhanneth said. This should have settled the matter. Instead, the tension increased.
“I’ll judge that,” Jedao said. He had meant to speak mildly. The way Dhanneth’s dark face stilled told him he had failed.
Kujen intervened. “I won’t make a habit of this,” he said to Jedao, “because high table is high table, but I need to speak to you and it can’t wait.”
Jedao didn’t believe that in the slightest. He would have liked to stay and fumble his way through the rest of dinner despite the prickly atmosphere, because he couldn’t spend the rest of the voyage avoiding his own officers. On the other hand, he couldn’t refuse the hexarch, either. He excused himself. The hush that followed them was frosty.
Kujen’s own silence made Jedao edgy all the way back to Kujen’s conference room. Kujen paused in the doorway after it opened. Jedao looked around the room, which was appointed with fantastic models of buildings, all bird-curves and starry angles and tiny glittering windows. Then Kujen stalked into the room and pivoted on his heel. Jedao entered and sank to his knees in the full obeisance to a hexarch.