The biography spent a whole chapter explaining not the actual mathematics, which its author/illustrator had deemed too technical for a general audience, but a simpler analogy. The actual mathematics either wasn’t as terrifying as the author/illustrator thought it was, or some of the education Jedao couldn’t remember receiving had included very good teaching. Jedao silently apologized to whoever the teacher had been.
Think of normal spacetime, said the author/illustrator, as a hypersurface. Each point on that surface had a tangent space associated with it. The tangent space could be considered a linearization of the area around the point, with extraneous information knifed away. Anyone stuck in the region of a threshold winnower’s effect was painfully affected by the linearization. (More footnotes explained hypersurfaces, tangent spaces, and linearizations.)
At that point Jedao caught himself stabbing the margins of the panels with his stylus and made himself stop. He brought up the winnower’s specifications and scowled at them. What am I missing?
He was looking at the problem from the wrong angle. In spite of Kujen’s assurances that the winnower would work in Compact territory, the design would only function in high calendar terrain.
Why would he give me a weapon that doesn’t—
Kujen didn’t think much of Jedao’s technical ability or mathematical acumen. Which, fair enough, he wasn’t a mathematician. But he could follow the mathematics curriculum required by Kel Academy, and then some.
Was Kujen lying to Jedao about the math? Thinking, perhaps, that Jedao wouldn’t think to check? Surely Kujen wasn’t so willfully malicious as to give him a weapon that had no hope of functioning.
Which meant Kujen was lying about the terrain. They weren’t attacking the Compact after all. They were attacking the Protectorate. After all, when had Jedao had the opportunity to scout for himself? He relied on the information that Kujen gave him, or that people dominated by Kujen presented to him.
I have to stop this.
Too bad stealing high explosives and blowing himself up with the command moth and its freight of winnowers wouldn’t do the trick. Now, more than ever, it was imperative that he stop Kujen. And to do that, he needed more allies.
“EXPLAIN IT TO me again,” Jedao said to Dhanneth after the staff officers had left.
The table was full of demolished platters, each one shaped like a leaf or a moth’s wing, lacquerware with abalone inlay. Jedao had eaten so the others didn’t feel inhibited.
Dhanneth reviewed the logistical tables and the calendrical terrain gradients with him. Not for the first time, Jedao wondered what had prevented Dhanneth from being promoted long ago. Despite his subdued manner, he spoke as knowledgeably about the machineries of war as the staffers. “There’s a reason you didn’t ask this earlier,” Dhanneth said.
When Kujen had granted Jedao access to the staff officers, Jedao had hoped to use the opportunity to examine formation mechanics in a natural setting. He’d gotten the opportunity, all right. It hadn’t done any good.
Jedao was studying formations out of desperation, because they were the one weapon he had access to. Privately, he doubted Kujen would have given all the Kel a way to hurt him, yet he remembered the oddity of Kujen refusing to attend infantry drill. An ordinary precaution? But why, when he claimed he had nothing to fear from death?
In his spare time he read instructional texts on formation mechanics, on the pretext that he wanted to understand swarm tactics better. He didn’t know if Kujen was falling for it. In all likelihood, it was a dead end and Kujen knew he had nothing to fear.
No help for it. He couldn’t ask Dhanneth about the subject openly, so he changed the subject. “I want to ask you about a Kel,” he said. “High General Kel Brezan.”
“Crashhawk,” Dhanneth said. “Our target.”
“What do you think of him?”
Dhanneth glowered. “He’s the enemy, sir.”
Dhanneth’s profile claimed he had no personal connection to Brezan. But Jedao also suspected Dhanneth’s profile of having large gaps in it. He narrowed his eyes.
Dhanneth yielded too quickly. “I know what it is to disobey,” he said, which was peculiar. Jedao had never known Dhanneth to be anything but perfectly obedient.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I quarreled with the hexarch once.”
That Jedao hadn’t expected. “About what?”
“We had a disagreement. I am Kel, sir. He is not, but he is a hexarch. I was in error.”
Well, that shed approximately zero light on the subject. He rephrased. “Do you remember the specifics?”
“A little,” Dhanneth said slowly.
Shit. What if Jedao wasn’t the only one running around with amnesia? He’d never stopped to consider that. “Did you have an encounter with Cheris the memory vampire?”
Dhanneth shook his head. “No. The hexarch decided that I would perform my duties more adequately if I didn’t remember.”
Jedao’s heart dropped. Dhanneth was wrong, of course. Presumably even Kujen had come to the same conclusion. If there was any time- or cost-effective way to churn out amnesiac, obedient, self-effacing, useful soldiers, Kujen would be manufacturing them by the millions. Except, it seemed, the process broke the victims.
On the other hand, Kujen would keep trying until he got it right. A 900-year-old ghost would have great stores of patience.
How many times had Jedao himself been wiped clean for Kujen’s benefit? Had he undergone this cycle of discovery and rebellion before? It didn’t matter. He was still obliged to assassinate Kujen.
What do you know about this? he asked the Revenant.
Know about what? it said. There was a distinct chill in its voice. At least it was talking to him.
Either it couldn’t read his mind or it was faking. Jedao explained the situation while Dhanneth watched him with haunted eyes.
There were others before you, the Revenant said. They didn’t last long. Flawed. He would have continued his experiments for years yet, except he grew concerned about the rift between the successor states.
Jedao hesitated, then: Are there more?
The Revenant said slowly, None that are awake. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more, though.
Jedao bit the inside of his mouth at the hot surge of jealousy that went through him. It was followed by a wave of shame. What had Kujen done with the failures? But he could guess the answer to that question.
“Sir?” Dhanneth said, worried.
Jedao had an idea. Not a good one. But he was out of those anyway. “Give me your hand, Commander.”
Jedao’s heart contracted painfully at the way Dhanneth complied without hesitation. I should not be doing this.
Talaw hated him, and the staffers weren’t much better. Dhanneth, at least, showed no disgust around him—quite the opposite. As two people much disliked by the other Kel, they had something in common. Jedao didn’t know whether Dhanneth would prioritize obedience to a Nirai hexarch or a Shuos general. It wasn’t much of a chance, but he’d take it.
Jedao leaned in, heart beating rapidly at the sudden proximity to another man. If only—but no. Dhanneth was a Kel, and his subordinate. Even if Dhanneth were interested in him, it was forbidden. And Jedao was painfully aware that no one would ever want him, not that way. Even Ruo hadn’t wanted him, not that he remembered.