The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1)(23)

“I was fond of you. You were also inconvenient until the moment you were needed for succession. When you became the crown princess I was relieved you didn’t hate me. You couldn’t have been blamed if you had.”

“When you died you said you wished you had had time to love me better.”

Attavio VI nodded. “That sounds like something I would say. I imagine I meant it in the moment.”

“You don’t remember it.”

“Not yet. My final moments have not yet been uploaded.”

Cardenia dropped the subject. “I chose the imperial name of Grayland II, as you suggested.”

“Yes. That information, at least, is in our database. And, good.”

“I read up on her.”

“Yes, I had planned to ask you to.”

“You did, before you died. Why did you ask me to name myself for her?”

“Because I hoped it would inspire you to take seriously what’s coming next, and what it would require from you,” Attavio VI said. “Do you know about the Count of Claremont, on End?”

“I do,” Cardenia said. “An old lover of yours.”

Attavio VI smiled. “No, not at all. A friend. A very good friend, and a scientist. One who brought me information that no one else had, and that no one else would have wanted to see. One who needed to do his work and research insulated from the stupidities of court, and government, and even of the community of scientists in the Interdependency. He’s someone who has been collecting data for more than thirty years now. He knows more about what’s coming next than anyone else. A thing you must be prepared for. A thing you are not in the least prepared for, now. And a thing I worry that you will not be strong enough to see through.”

Cardenia stared at the apparition of Attavio VI, which stood there, a small, pleasant, distracted smile on its face.

“Well?” Cardenia said, finally. “What is it?”





Chapter

4

“Who here knows what the Interdependency is?” Marce Claremont asked, from the well of the planetarium.

From the chairs of the planetarium, the hands of several eight-year-olds shot upward. Marce scanned the hands, looking for the one who seemed to most urgently need to answer the question. He picked a hand sitting in the second arc of chairs. “Yes? You.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” the child said. Behind the child, Marce saw one of the adult chaperones roll her eyes, get up, grab the child by the hand, and start walking him to the bathrooms. Then he picked another kid.

“It’s the nation of systems we all live in,” said the girl.

“That’s right,” Marce said, and pressed a button on his tablet to dim the lights and start his presentation. “It’s the nation of systems in which we live. But what does that really mean?”

Before he could continue, the planetarium rocked slightly as what sounded like two interceptors buzzed the university science center the planetarium was part of. The children started at the noise, the chaperones trying to hush them and telling them everything would be all right.

Marce doubted everything was actually going to be all right. The University of Opole, which housed the science center, was far from the capital and the focus of the fighting. But in the last week things had taken a decisive turn against the duke and his loyalist forces, and now even the far provinces had sprouted rebels, and the violence that came with revolution.

He’d been surprised when this bus full of children had showed up at the science center today; he had assumed that all the schools had canceled their classes, like the university had. Then he saw the look on the faces of the adults who had brought the children. They appeared grimly determined to give the kids as commonplace an experience as they could, for as long as they could.

Marce, who was in point of fact the only member of the non-janitorial staff to show up on this particular morning, and then only to collect some materials that were not already on the network, didn’t dare let them down. He brought them all down to the planetarium and dug into his brain to remember the standard presentation about the Interdependency that the tour docents usually gave.

“It’s all right,” he said, to the children. “Those aircraft were just passing by. We’re just on their flight path, that’s all. The university is safe.” This was also probably not true, since the University of Opole had more than its share of rebel sympathizers, ranging from stoned students looking for a movement to join, to reflexively contrarian professors who enjoyed sticking it to the duke while still retaining tenure. Most of them, students and faculty, were probably down in a cellar at the moment. Marce, who was personally resolutely apolitical, for all the good it did him, did not blame them at all.

Be that as it may, there was no point panicking eight-year-olds about the possibility of the university being occupied either by rebels or by the duke’s troops. Right now, Marce’s job was keeping them distracted. Today might be the last relatively normal day they’d have for a while. Might as well make the most of it.

Marce touched his tablet again, and a star field leapt out of the projector into the empty space above the well of the planetarium, accompanied by soothing, tinkling music. The eight-year-olds, apprehensive just five seconds earlier, oohed and aahed at the sight. So did the adults.

“What you’re seeing now are all the stars that exist in the area that holds the Interdependency,” Marce said. “From Hub to End, all of the stars we live around are here. Does anyone want to guess which one we are?”