Raven Stratagem

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE SERVITOR BROUGHT Mikodez breakfast not in one of his offices, but in the Room of Guns. The room had an official designation, which nobody used anymore, not even Zehun, who was normally a stickler for such matters. The last time he’d asked them about it, they’d muttered something about bad luck. Zehun wasn’t superstitious about many things, but in this case he supposed they were justified.

In his second decade as hexarch, Mikodez had challenged his infantry division to steal him Jedao’s private collection of guns. During his lifetime, Jedao had usually preferred to use his own armaments rather than Kel issue, which the Kel had permitted as a courtesy to the Shuos in spite of the logistical nuisance. Jedao had accumulated guns with the sort of enthusiasm you might expect of a former assassin, even if they stayed locked up most of the time. After all, it would hardly have been practical for him to haul a private arsenal from assignment to assignment.

When Jedao had been arrested after Hellspin, the Kel had confiscated all his possessions and scoured them for clues. Mikodez knew the old sad story. Jedao hadn’t done anything objectionable before suddenly going mad. He’d been a model officer. He had liked guns, which was not a crime in his line of work; he had liked alcohol, especially whiskey, a trait shared by many people who were and weren’t soldiers; he had had a genuine passion for dueling. Mikodez had it on good authority that Jedao’s whiskey had all been wasted on lab technicians. He could only hope that they had drunk some of the stuff rather than putting it all through tests. And there had been a modest collection of board and card games, including some plundered specimens nice enough to show off in a museum.

In any case, Mikodez had had especial trouble getting the then-Kel hexarch to take him seriously. (Tsoro would not ascend for another eight years.) Instead of brooding over the lack of respect from someone who was over 130 years old, Mikodez had decided to do something to get Kel Vaura to reevaluate him. That wasn’t the only reason. He needed his own people to take him seriously as well. The assignment, widely regarded as impossible, focused Special Operations nicely once they realized Mikodez was perfectly willing to turn the division upside-down if they failed him.

(“And here I thought you wanted to make friends,” Zehun had remarked.)

(“Sometimes fear is more motivational,” Mikodez had snapped back. “Do you want me to demonstrate?” He’d had more of a temper then. The medications that improved his concentration had helped with that.)

Most of the Citadel of Eyes was not, ironically, decorated in Shuos colors, on the grounds that even if the association with assassins didn’t make people tense, the color red by itself would have. Mikodez had always been amused by how many dramas depicted assassins wearing red, as if they were trying to stick out, instead of bundling up in ugly unremarkable coats to blend in with the locals. When he wasn’t in uniform, Mikodez himself preferred sedate shades of green.

The Room of Guns, however, was in livid red with gold accents. Nothing else would have suited. The red walls with their deeper red tapestries reflected in the guns’ barrels, giving them an unhealthy luster.

Mikodez paced around the room and stopped before the one he liked best, the centerpiece of the collection: the Patterner 52, which had been Jedao’s favorite. Certainly he had toted it everywhere, and he had used it to slaughter his staff on his command moth at Hellspin. Mikodez had no intention of taking it out of its case to play with it, he knew better, but he studied the grip, engraved with the infamous Deuce of Gears.

The grid chimed at him. “You are so morbid,” Istradez said from the door. He walked over to join Mikodez and frowned at the Patterner 52. “You should send that thing to Jedao as a gift, see if that makes him more receptive to your attempts at long-distance therapy. Face it, it’s not like one lousy handgun makes Jedao more deadly.”

“Well,” Mikodez said, “there’s the psychological factor. Besides, the collection’s worth more if I keep it together.”

Istradez snorted. “Like you’re planning to sell it.”

“Are you kidding? We’re always broke around here.” One of the things that irritated him about the Andan, if his financial spies’ reports were to be believed, was that they could afford things. Despite a largely successful career as hexarch, he was forever juggling the budget.

“I’m surprised you don’t have me sit in on Financial for you more often.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Mikodez said. “It’s too important to hand off.”

Istradez smiled crookedly at him. “Of course it is.” He yawned hugely and stretched first one way, then the other. “I have to admit, it’s a nice collection, even if I only recognize half these things. Too bad hardly anyone has the clearance to come in here to appreciate it.”

“I was hoping you’d see something here that I don’t,” Mikodez said.

“What, reading oracles out of a bunch of rifles and revolvers like they’re tea leaves? I don’t think so. Besides,” and Istradez rested his hand casually on the side of the Patterner’s case, causing an informational display to come up, “I have spent the last few decades learning to think like you do. It’s surprisingly hard to unlearn.”

Mikodez saw the subtle tension in Istradez’s shoulders. Quietly but not silently, he slipped behind his brother and began rubbing his shoulders. Istradez sighed and relaxed, by slow degrees, under Mikodez’s touch.

“I hope you’re not going to give me one of those obnoxious memory tests after we leave this room for dinner,” Istradez murmured. Mikodez could feel the vibrations through his hands. “But I promise I’ve been doing my homework. I’m here to ask a favor.”

“More girlfriends?” Mikodez said. The Citadel was well staffed with courtesans with varying specialties. Between assignments, Istradez always took the opportunity to indulge. If he did so while being Mikodez, someone would have noticed the discrepancy. “If you’re getting jaded, I’m running out of—”

“Not that.” With perfect dignity, Istradez slid out from beneath Mikodez’s hands, made sure they were facing each other, then sank to his knees, head bowed. “Hexarch.”

The full obeisance to a hexarch looked so incongruous that Mikodez drew his breath in sharply. “Istra—”

Istradez didn’t raise his eyes. “I wish to beg to be considered for an assignment. I’m not a Shuos, but I understand that there’s some precedent for the use of outside agents.”

Mikodez had a bad feeling about where this was going. “Get up,” he said, more roughly than he had intended. “There’s no need for you to do that to your knees.”

“It’s kind of you to be concerned about the condition of my knees,” Istradez said, so straight-faced that Mikodez couldn’t tell if his brother was mocking him. “I mean it, though. I realize you’re holding me in reserve, Hexarch, but I believe I am uniquely qualified for this assignment.”

“And what assignment might that be?” It was cruel to make Istradez say it to his face. Nevertheless, he had to be sure.

Mikodez had half-expected Istradez’s composure to break, for that mirror-face to relax into the familiar wry grin. But no: Istradez’s eyelashes lowered, and his hand clenched slightly on his right knee. “I have heard that an assassination attempt on the hexarchs is in the works.”

“You’re not authorized for that information,” Mikodez said after a frozen second.

“I seduced someone on your staff,” Istradez said. “Occasionally there are people who would like to sleep with someone who looks as good as we do. I don’t think they even realized what they’d let slip.”

‘Someone’ could mean more than one someone. He’d have to deal with that later. “That’s very interesting,” Mikodez said, meaning it, “but the answer is no.”

“Hexarch,” Istradez said, in the most formal mode possible, “I understand that it’s a suicide mission.”

“You’ve heard my answer.”

Istradez drew a shuddering breath. “I recognize that my usefulness to you is nearing its end,” he said. “I beg for one last—”

“No, Istradez.”

“I got into the evaluation you had Spirel do,” Istradez said, with remarkably little bitterness. “You’re going to remove me from duty anyway, and then what will I do? Kick around here for the rest of my life? I don’t think so. Let me go, Miki.”

Mikodez knelt and gripped Istradez’s shoulders. “You do understand that ‘suicide mission’ means you don’t come back? Ever?”

“What were you going to do, send one of the others? I’m the best one for the job and you know it. Please, Miki.”

The sincerity blazing out of the familiar eyes shook him.

“I’m your gun, Miki.”

That forced a response out of him. “Don’t,” Mikodez whispered. “Please don’t. You’re no Kel.”

“I’m better than a Kel,” Istradez said. “Promise me you’ll think about it.”

“I’ll think about it,” Mikodez said at last. But they already knew what he had decided.

WHEN MIKODEZ FINISHED reading the report his mathematicians had coughed up, he watered his green onion three hours early. Considering what the rest of his day was liable to be like, he didn’t want to forget.

Something about Cheris’s contact with Jedao had given her the notion to seek a calendar that altered exotic effects so they could only affect the willing. Kel discipline might hold anyway, but the Andan would hate losing enthrallment as a crutch, even though most Andan with any sense knew it was the threat, not the execution, that was their most powerful tool. The Shuos were in the dubiously enviable position of being the only faction that didn’t have a standardized exotic ability; nothing would change for them.

Next Mikodez called Kel Command, emphasizing that he wanted to be connected directly to Tsoro. The wait was longer than usual. Maybe she was being conscientious and using her hair dryer. At last she accepted the call. “Shuos,” she said, deferentially, but without liking. “We understand the matter is urgent?”

“I have a personal warning to convey to you,” Mikodez said, and sent over a databurst. “My analysts believe the Hafn intend a deep strike on the Aerie. You can read the details at your leisure and prepare yourself accordingly.”

The Shuos’s Citadel of Eyes was defended by a variable number of shadowmoths, to say nothing of the weapons installations, but its location was a matter of public record. On the other hand, the Aerie’s security depended partly on secrecy. The Kel were spread thin enough that they didn’t maintain a large force for home defense.

“We need to know how reliable your information is,” Tsoro said.

Mikodez slitted his eyes at her. “If I were having a slow day and felt like fucking with people’s heads for the hell of it, I’d off a few more Shuos children. After all, there’s a large supply of them. No; this information is accurate. The Hafn have already used that unnerving jumping-across-space ability once on the Deuce of Gears. If it doesn’t surprise me that they’d want to use it on the Aerie, it shouldn’t surprise you.”

He hadn’t personally forged that compilation. One of his teams had done the work, but the packet should stand up to the hivemind’s scrutiny. While Tsoro didn’t like him, she believed in his fundamental competence. “Tell me you have a defense swarm hanging around there,” he added.

“Does it matter if we do?” Tsoro asked darkly. “We can’t afford for the Aerie to fall. Your warning is appreciated.”

“Splendid,” Mikodez said with the particular breeziness that he knew irritated her, because she would expect it. “In that case, I’ll leave you to your tedious logistical calculations.” He signed off.

The problem with Cheris’s plan was that it inconveniently involved blowing up Kel Command before Mikodez could, if everyone stuck to the original schedule, stab the other hexarchs in the back. First item: if marking a calendrical reset by getting rid of Kel Command was good, annihilating the other hexarchs at the same time would be even better. Second item: it would be easiest to assassinate the hexarchs if they gathered at a single location. Happily, Nirai Faian’s facility would do the trick. Third item: convincing four hexarchs to change their schedules to match Cheris’s was going to be a lot harder than persuading Cheris to hold off until the pieces were in place. Fourth item: calling her up and telling her what he intended wouldn’t work, even if the idea had a certain appealing simplicity. He had no evidence that she was gullible around Shuos, even if she’d dated a few, and having Jedao rattling around her skull wouldn’t help. So he needed a way to influence her without her realizing it.

Fifth item: nobody had figured out how the hell Cheris intended to destroy the Aerie. It would have been nice if the bugs on the Hierarchy of Feasts had been able to shed any light on this matter, but no such luck. At this point, Mikodez was gambling that Cheris wasn’t crazy, that this wasn’t a bluff, and that some method existed. The crashhawk high general’s faith in her was only circumstantial evidence, but better than nothing.

Sixth item: to do what she was doing, Cheris had to have some kind of intelligence network. It looked like she’d contacted Colonel Ragath at one point, but they hadn’t been able to piece together specifics. Mikodez’s other gamble was that Cheris’s sources would alert her about Kel swarm movements and cause her to revise her timetable. At least, he trusted she wouldn’t risk her swarm against the Aerie and multiple defense swarms if she could afford to wait things out.

And people think I’m untrustworthy and dangerous on account of two cadets, Mikodez thought cynically. But that was it: he made it a point not to get attached to any specific way of doing things. If he saw a better solution and it made sense to switch over, he was only too happy to do so.

The grid was informing Mikodez that the number of people who urgently wanted to talk to him was piling up. He fished in his second drawer until he retrieved the russet leaf-pattern lace scarf he had left off knitting two months ago. Perfect. The only thing people hated seeing more than a Shuos with a gun was a Shuos with knitting needles. As if any sane assassin would take you out with knitting needles if they could do it instead from a nice sheltered balcony with a high-powered rifle.

“All right,” he said, “let’s hear the first one.”

CHERIS AND BREZAN were in Cheris’s lounge, rotating a map of the hexarchate this way and that. Khiruev tried to concentrate on the glowing notations, the swarms with their generals’ emblems, but she could only manage it in start-stop snatches. Neither Cheris nor Brezan wanted her here because she had anything to contribute to matters of strategy or logistics. Rather, the high general was afraid she would topple over dead if left unattended.

“That’s six full swarms,” Cheris was saying. “They must be dreadfully worried.”

Khiruev marked the swarms’ trajectories converging on a point in a stretch of space she had thought unremarkable, except Cheris insisted it was the Aerie’s location and the high general believed her. Of the six emblems, the one Khiruev kept returning to was General Inesser’s Three Kestrels Three Suns.

Cheris and Brezan weren’t the only ones having a discussion. There were four servitors: three deltaforms and a birdform. The deltaforms kept flashing rapid lights at each other. The fact that the lights were in the human visible spectrum was almost certainly a matter of courtesy. Khiruev had learned that servitors cared a great deal about courtesy, and had endeavored to revise her behavior accordingly, since the high general hadn’t forbidden it. The birdform either approved of this or had decided that dying generals made a good hobby. Whichever was the case, it hovered companionably by Khiruev, periodically refilling her teacup from the kettle that Cheris and Brezan were ignoring.

“If I’m understanding this correctly,” Brezan said, “the servitors prefer not to take action with so many observers around who might figure out they were responsible?”

Khiruev wondered if Brezan had realized that he tended to direct his speech toward empty expanses of wall whenever he mentioned the servitors, or even when he was supposedly addressing them.

Two of the deltaforms, whom Khiruev had tagged Two and Three because she was tired, exchanged a heated flurry of lights and dissonant chords. Then Three said something in very red lights to Cheris.

Cheris frowned, then said, “That’s basically it. They’ve already evacuated as many servitors as they could, but even so—”

Brezan bit his lip. “Cheris,” he said, “if there are servitors on those defense swarms as well—” He stopped.

“You may as well come out and say it,” she said.

“If they can reduce Kel Command to radioactive static, then surely a bunch of moths—”

Cheris’s hands tensed, untensed. “Brezan,” she said, “that’s a lot of moths. Crew on the order of 300,000 altogether. Even if we had definite information that all six generals were irredeemably corrupt, which we don’t, I’d rather kill as few people as we can get away with. Besides which, those aren’t small swarms, and the hexarchate’s enemies haven’t gone away. Do you really want to do away with that chunk of the hexarchate’s forces? Its senior generals?”

“That’s an interesting argument from someone who’s dead-set on tearing the realm apart,” Brezan said.

“I’m not entirely Jedao,” Cheris said, although Khiruev wondered sometimes. “The point of the exercise isn’t to maximize the death toll. It’s to change the system so ordinary people have a chance. People will die, yes. A lot of them. But we don’t have to go out of our way to kill even more.”

“I want to know how you came to this philosophy after having a mass murderer stuffed up your nose,” Brezan said.

“I’m trying to fix the things he broke,” Cheris said, “because I remember breaking them.”

Brezan slumped. “So we wait? You’re not tempted to sweep in and rescue Kel Command from the Hafn?”

Khiruev roused enough to say, “Sir, not only would they not thank us, General Inesser should be more than adequate to the task anyway.”

“By ‘not thank us’ you mean they’d blow themselves up just to get rid of us,” Cheris said wryly. “Don’t they teach us to avoid full frontal assaults anyway?”

Brezan groaned, clearly thinking of any one of four hundred Kel jokes. “Fine,” he said. “We wait for a better opportunity. But what if one doesn’t come?”

“Then we reassess the plan,” Cheris said. “What concerns me is that we haven’t been able to figure out the Hafn vector of approach. The coverage of the detectors and listening posts is hardly universal, so we’re going to have to wait and see.”

Brezan and Cheris turned their attention to a bannermoth that was having engine problems. Khiruev was disturbed, although not surprised, that she had difficulty following the details. The gnawing cold made it hard to concentrate. The birdform chirped at her, possibly thinking that tea, even if it wasn’t a sovereign remedy, would at least warm her. She smiled wanly at it and took a sip.

“I don’t claim to understand you,” Khiruev said to the birdform, “but considering the length of your service, I hope there’s something in this for you. And I’m sorry I’ve never learned your language.”

The birdform tapped encouragingly on the nearest wall. Cheris looked up briefly, then returned to running through drive harmonic diagnostics with Brezan. The birdform repeated the tapping, and Khiruev realized it was in the Kel drum code: You don’t have to die.

Khiruev blinked.

You can choose not to die.

She couldn’t remember why she had invoked Vrae Tala, except when she could. Her father crumpling into corpse-paper, the clanking bells, her mothers clutching each other afterward while she stood frozen trying not to see what was right in front of her. The cutting disappointment every time she survived a battle. She’d learned to hide it, but it never evaporated entirely.

“I am Kel,” Khiruev said painfully. “Even assuming all of this works, in order to free myself of Vrae Tala I would have to free myself of formation instinct. The clause is part of the whole.”

The birdform mulled this over. More tapping: My people have served without formation instinct. Is our service not service?

“It’s not for me to make that judgment,” Khiruev said.

Would your general deny you this?

You chose Vrae Tala, Brezan had said to her just days ago, trying to explain something as distant as smoke. Would the high general want her to give up what made her Kel?

It was barely possible that you could be Kel without formation instinct. Hard not to notice that Brezan was a crashhawk, after all. But this led inevitably to the question of whether it was desirable to be Kel in the first place.

“I will learn to choose,” Khiruev said, “if the high general desires it of me.”

The servitor’s chirr might have been a sigh. It gestured toward the tea with one of its gripping limbs. Obligingly, Khiruev took another sip. The warmth wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t have to.

SIX KEL SWARMS reached the Aerie and waited to banner.

Cheris and Brezan started arguing about what was going to become of the Kel afterward, especially once Cheris pointed out that a successful decapitation strike would leave Brezan the senior Kel officer.

“I’ll resign,” Brezan said.

“That will leave the Kel leaderless,” Cheris said. “Is that what you want to do?”

“I hate it when you open your mouth,” Brezan said. “The things you say never make the situation better.”

Khiruev took to playing card games with the servitors, on the grounds that no one expected her to function anymore. The servitors usually won. She appreciated that they didn’t throw the games to make her feel better.

Shuos Mikodez finished knitting his scarf. The first two people he offered it to were unable to hide their suspicion that it would come alive and strangle them. With modern fibers it was hard to tell.

Three hexarchs, Rahal, Andan, and Vidona, set out for Nirai Station Mavi 514-11. Nirai Faian was already there.

Thirty-eight days after Mikodez alerted Kel Tsoro of an imminent Hafn raid, Kel listening posts near four large moth construction yards reported Hafn moth formants incoming. Three of those construction yards exploded shortly afterward. Kel Command concluded that the construction yards had been the real targets, as two of them had been the only ones capable of building cindermoths. It dispatched four of its defense swarms to repulse the invaders. Disconcertingly, the listening posts lost sight of the formants.

Cheris and Brezan, upon receiving word of further Kel movements, held an emergency meeting and determined that this would be their best opportunity to strike. Khiruev was not present for the discussion. She had collapsed two days earlier, seventy-nine days after she invoked Vrae Tala, and had been removed to Medical.

VAUHAN ISTRADEZ REFLECTED that, on any other day, he could entertain himself by swinging by one of the Shuos academies and terrifying the everliving fuck out of innocent little cadets. Lucky for them that he didn’t share his second older brother’s predilection for stupid pranks, even if he was serving as his brother’s double. Besides, he had a more important job to do. Mikodez’s physical mannerisms weren’t the hard part. It was the fact that the man was a ferret. To say nothing of the endless hobbies. Istradez was hoping no one was going to force him to knit because he had a positive talent for dropping stitches.

Istradez was aboard the shadowmoth Eyes Unstabbed, typical cheery Shuos name. While there had been no way to conceal the destination from the crew, none of them knew his identity. The ruse wouldn’t stand up to serious scrutiny, but the odds were low that the commander would demand authentication, and as for the hexarchs, well, they wouldn’t have a chance to think about it. At least Mikodez’s notorious eccentricity would work in his favor if he did slip up.

At the moment he was in the bedroom with a tray, sticking toothpicks into honey cookies because it beat having to eat the damn things. He was considering throwing them out, even if it would be out of character, when the grid informed him that they were bound to contact Station Mavi 514-11 any moment now. He supposed he should put his shoes back on instead of padding around in his socks, even if no one could see them.

Sure enough, Istradez got a call from the moth commander. “Yes?” he said as he surreptitiously wriggled his left foot into the second shoe.

“Hexarch,” the commander said, “you asked to be informed when we made our approach to the station. Protocol requires us to unstealth and inform them of our arrival at the checkpoint radius.” She said that last with no particular emphasis. What she wanted to know was if they were here on an ordinary visit or if they were up to fox tricks.

“Do tell me,” he said lazily, “what do we see on scan?”

She forwarded him the readings, which weren’t much help. As a rule, it was hard to see much from inactive or minimally active mothdrives. They’d have to do this the hard way, then.

“All right,” Istradez said after stabbing the nearest honey cookie with another toothpick, “unstealth and I’ll put in a call, let them know we’re here. Would you like me to send you a cookie?” Anything to be rid of them.

“That’s very considerate of you,” the commander said tactfully, “but if those are what I think they are, I’ll never get the pine nuts out of my teeth.”

You and me both, Istradez thought sourly. “Your loss,” he said.

A brief pause, then: “Moth is no longer stealthed. We’re holding position so we don’t make them jumpy.”

A Shuos, make someone nervous? Never. Istradez called the station, asking to be connected to Hexarch Faian. She responded very promptly. “How late am I?” Istradez asked without any contrition. He had wanted to be late—preferably the last to arrive—although she didn’t need to know that. He was already entering a sequence of commands. Even if he missed the others, taking out Faian would be worth something.

“You’re the last one here, Mikodez,” Faian said, brows drawing low.

Splendid. He smiled his brother’s smile at her, even though Mikodez had said that wouldn’t work. “Well, I shan’t delay us any longer. See you soon?”

“I look forward to it,” Faian said, polite by rote.

Istradez entered the final override.

People sometimes got the idea that hexarchate space was so densely littered with shadowmoths that you couldn’t pick your nose without one catching you at it. The truth was that space was big and the damn things were too expensive for the Shuos to use so liberally. You had to power down the stealth system to do anything useful with exotic weapons, including the devastating but slow-recharge knife cannon. To add insult to injury, once you powered it down, stealth took ages to come back up. All of which was a long way of saying that the Eyes Unstabbed would get in the necessary first strike, but no one would make it out alive.

Istradez did feel bad for the shadowmoth’s crew, who hadn’t signed on for a suicide mission. However, even he could see the problems with telling them why they were really here. Besides, he was no Kel, but he had volunteered for this. That had to suffice.

While I’m at it, what good will this maneuver do? he had asked after Mikodez agreed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jedao’s notorious Patterner 52 in its glass case, but he didn’t dare move his head to gawk at it.

The Shuos will come out three moves ahead, Mikodez said. He had returned to his customary terrifying amusement. Are you telling me you insisted on the assignment without thinking it through?

I still want to do it, Istradez said. But I want something from you.

Mikodez looked at him unsmilingly. It has to be something I can give.

An honest answer, Istradez said. This time for real, not because you’re giving me therapy. Is there anything you care about anymore, are you even human, or is it all games and pranks and stratagems? Not something anyone can use against you. I just—I just need to know.

Istradez’s blood chilled when Mikodez stood up, because he didn’t know if this was going to turn into some contest of poison needles or garrotes or guns, and he wasn’t under any illusions that the self-defense training he’d received would help him. But all Mikodez did was sink to his knees in front of him and reach for his hands. Istradez’s breath stopped in his throat when his brother kissed his palms fiercely.

I do my job, Mikodez said. It’s like I told you before. I’ll even send my fucking brother to die if it’s the best way to do the job—His voice cracked, settled. But don’t ever, ever think it’s because I stopped loving you. I don’t want you to go. It’s not too late—

It was too late a long time ago, Istradez said.

The Eyes Unstabbed slowed toward the Nirai station with its rings and lace of sensor arrays, engines, great whirring mechanisms with hearts that were wheels within wheels. Its commander discovered that the crew had been locked out of the controls and attempted to call Istradez on the emergency backup channel. Istradez, naturally, wasn’t responding.

A few minutes before they would have docked at the station, the Eyes Unstabbed fired its knife cannon, scything the station nearly in two, including the central power core. Moments after that, the self-destruct sequence on the shadowmoth triggered, no safeguards, no countdown, nothing.

In his last seconds, Istradez thought that this was overkill, but it was nice to remind the hexarchate that melodrama wasn’t a trait reserved to the Kel. He was looking distractedly at his palms when the world dissolved in a rush of heat and static.

WHEN THE TIME came to reset the hexarchate’s clocks, forty-eight servitors remained in the Aerie. The Kel hivemind didn’t make a habit of noticing servitors, but they had to give the illusion that some of the complement remained. Not to mention someone had to stay behind to make sure the attack went off as planned.

Servitor sin x², one of the forty-eight, had not stayed behind on account of the sabotage. It had no particular expertise in engineering or demolitions and, in fact, ordinarily served in Medical. The other servitors had urged it to evacuate while it had the chance. The Aerie was not immune to the need for supplies. Servitors had been going out in crates, canisters, any available crevice in the moths’ dark holds.

sin x² had said, They’re our Kel. Someone should be with them at the end, even if they never know or understand. Then the others, realizing it would not be dissuaded, left it alone.

sin x² wasn’t under any illusions that the hive Kel cared about it except as an instrument for necessary chores, and sometimes unnecessary ones. It knew that the hivemind became less and less sane with each passing year. Nevertheless, it considered itself Kel. Someone from its enclave should honor Kel Command’s passing.

At present, sin x² was polishing a collection of musical instruments, one of the oddball duties it had taken up because no one else wanted it. High General Aurel had brought some of the instruments with her. In the early years she had come here to practice from time to time. The last time she had come in here had been thirty-one years ago. She had played snatches of a concerto. sin x² paid special attention to the viols, because they had been her favorites.

Servitor tanh x sent the six-minute warning over the maintenance channel.

sin x² knew High General Aurel was part of Subcommand Composite Eight right now. It whisked quickly through the corridors so it could reach her. The doors were open, as always. It floated in to where Aurel sat on a minimalist metalglass chair. Her posture was beautiful, and her hands still had some of their strength, but the pale brown eyes saw nothing in the room except, perhaps, the limitations of light and shadow.

One minute and eight seconds later, the Aerie roared into an effusion of fire, of heady vapors, of numbers rolling backwards to the new calendar’s pitiless zero hour.