“Go on,” Mikodez said. “You must already have an opinion.”
“If your mind is already made up, I don’t see why I’m here.”
“Well, aren’t we in a mood.”
“I’m entitled to be old and crotchety,” Zehun retorted. “As you keep reminding me, I have great-grandchildren.” Zehun eyed the knitting needles.
Mikodez tapped his fingers on the side of his desk, then stopped. It was a bad time to annoy his most trusted adviser, not that there was ever a good time for that. “I’m serious. I need your evaluation.”
“Is it going to do you any good?”
“You normally don’t ask that.”
“Name one thing about this creation of Kujen’s that’s ‘normal,’” Zehun said. They brushed their hair out of their eyes, or would have if it had been out of place to begin with, a rare nervous tic. “Did you see the anomalous cognitive batteries? Unlike the other one, he has no dyscalculia, or if he does, it’s better hidden. In fact, all the mathematical scores have shot up through the roof. What the hell experiments was Kujen running?”
“Jedao didn’t mention anything of the sort. And it’s not like we’re going to let him run around conducting calendrical warfare. I doubt lack of dyscalculia lets him do anything the original wasn’t already doing with the aid of computer algebra systems and pet Doctrine officers.”
Zehun shook their head. “What concerns me more is he retains the original’s ability to make everyone’s judgment go to hell. Witness the way he played Cheris, who should have known better.”
“We should consider him a real Shuos just on that qualification alone.”
Zehun shot him an irritated look. “Don’t be glib.”
“What is it you think I’m going to do that has you so upset, anyway?”
Zehun’s frown answered him. “You’re going to make him live.”
Mikodez turned his most insincere smile on Zehun. He could do sarcasm as well as anyone else. “He surrendered to Inesser. I doubt anyone can make him do anything.”
“Mikodez,” Zehun said, “please take me seriously.”
“It’s not like you to circle the point like a lost vulture.”
“Nag, nag, nag,” Zehun said, but their heart wasn’t in it. “He reminds me of your nephew. Which, fair enough, it’s not like we don’t process our share of broken children in the course of any given crisis. No, the real issue is that he’s suicidal. If he hasn’t inherited the original Jedao’s modus of gaming other people into executing him, I’ll eat my cats. Or have you forgotten what he got Cheris to do? If he’s made to live, he will be your enemy forever.”
“I’m hurt that you think I can’t handle him.”
Zehun rolled their eyes.
“No, really.”
“Need I remind you how Cheris led you around by the nose ten years ago?”
“That was Cheris.”
“Being Jedao. You’re just making my point for me.” Zehun sighed. “He’s not the man who betrayed his government so comprehensively that they’ll remember him when everything else is ashes. But he claims he destroyed Nirai fucking Kujen. He’s too dangerous to keep around as an emergency backup weapon. Fucking euthanize him already.”
“You’re not giving the boy enough credit,” Mikodez said. Zehun’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t rehabilitate Jedao. On that point you are correct. But if I give him the opportunity, he’ll do the job himself.”
This Jedao was crazy in the same way the original had been, with one important difference. The original had been obsessed with fixing the hexarchate. This one was obsessed with fixing himself, even if he was convinced he had already failed.
Zehun glowered. “You’re going to insist on keeping him here?”
Mikodez shrugged. “What, because there’s some other site with security as good as the Citadel’s? Besides, if he gets anything past us here, we deserve it.”
“That’s atrocious logic.”
“It was a—”
“—very bad joke. Which is what makes it so unfunny.”
Mikodez leaned back and rested an elbow on his desk. “You’re going to find this even more unfunny,” he said. This time he didn’t smile at all. “I’m going to interview him in person. He needs a gesture of trust. He’ll get it.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Zehun said. “Do you want to be assassinated too?”
“Let me put it to you this way,” Mikodez said. “Four centuries of torture and imprisonment and slavery didn’t help the original Jedao’s condition. Whatever this one is lying to us about, it didn’t help him either.” He could imagine what Kujen had put his pet general through. “It’s stupid to keep doing what doesn’t work. Maybe kindness will.”
Zehun considered that. “Our profession is about calculated risks anyway. Inesser is laughing her ass off at us, you know. Make all the Kel jokes you like, she would have rammed through the world’s fastest court-martial and decapitated him already.”
“You mean she wouldn’t risk a second Hellspin even if he had the opportunity and chose not to,” Mikodez said. He gave Zehun a hard, bright smile. “I haven’t forgotten that Jedao in any incarnation is a traitor. I’m going to give him a chance to finish the job.”
MIKODEZ WASN’T SO foolhardy as to bring Jedao into any of his offices. The Citadel’s system of clearances was a nuisance he had grown accustomed to long ago. Zehun had rationalized parts of it after his accession. Even so, the creeping intersection between regulations, tradition, and expedience meant that Zehun was probably the only person who fully understood the system.
Nor was Mikodez interested in talking to Jedao in an interrogation chamber, even one as superficially pleasant as the one he’d been held in for the last few weeks. So Mikodez set himself up in one of the conference rooms and had it decorated with an ink painting on lustrous silk, bright colors depicting a fox and her kits. (He didn’t feel the need to get creative with the decor.)
An indicator lit up. A message informed him that his visitor was ready. “Bring him in,” Mikodez said.
The doors opened. Four guards escorted Jedao in. The telltale flicker-shimmer of the restraints caught Mikodez’s eye. “Jedao,” Mikodez said. “Please have a seat.” To the guards: “Leave him.”
“Hexarch,” the senior guard said in that resigned Why do I work for a suicidal man? tone that many of Mikodez’s subordinates developed. She left the protest there.
Mikodez cleared his throat. The guards went, although he heard a distinct sigh.
Jedao placed his hands on the table where their nakedness could not be mistaken. “Shuos-zho,” he said. “Forgive me. After being raised in improper service, I don’t know what the correct forms are.”
“Considering all the things I could charge you with, Jedao,” Mikodez said mildly, “you’re concerned about a rather minor point of etiquette.” Just how much of the jurisdiction squabble had he heard of?
“In my position, Shuos-zho,” Jedao said, “I am concerned with whatever you want me to be.” Throughout he spoke with a formality level that the Shuos considered archaic, including the -zho honorific, although the Rahal and Andan sometimes still used such speech.
“I’m curious,” Mikodez said. “What do you think I require of you?”
“My service is owed to you. It was all along.” Jedao was still trying to be brave. “I expect you will execute me, or torture me until I die.”