The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(12)

“I didn’t know him,” Attavio VI said. “I knew his father. The House of Assan is a close political ally to the House of Wu.”

Cardenia nodded again. “It’s why Lord Teran was placed on the committee, I think. The guilds thought they needed to make it up to me for putting Nadashe Nohamapetan on the committee first. But I’m not sure Lord Teran is any better. With Nadashe Nohamapetan, at least, you knew she was plotting for herself and her family. I’m not at all sure what Lord Teran is up to.”

“You could find out,” Attavio VI suggested.

“I don’t think we’re there yet.”

“You’re the emperox. You’re always there yet.”

*

Lord Teran Assan swiped his hand over the lock for his suite in the family apartments in Xi’an. His suite was currently minimally appointed; most of his belongings were still in his larger apartments in Hubfall, where prior to his current assignment he’d been acting as the House of Assan’s managing director for operations in-system.

Assan’s ascent to the imperial executive committee was a coup for the House of Assan, which had been angling to be on the committee for literally centuries. It was always denied a spot because the House of Assan was famously allied with the House of Wu, and the House of Wu was nominally headed by the emperox. In point of fact the emperoxs almost never meddled in the day-to-day operations of the House of Wu. The Wu board of directors, assembled from ranking cousins of the Wu family, would resent it intensely, and anyway the emperox had the rest of the Interdependency to run.

Nevertheless the other guilds, and their respective noble houses, believed the Assan-Wu relationship too close for political comfort. The last thing they wanted on the executive committee was another potential reflexive cheerleader for the policies of whomever was the sitting emperox at the time.

But then Nadashe Nohamapetan had to go and try to assassinate Grayland II—once for sure, possibly twice (the jury was still out on that one; actually the jury had yet to be empaneled for that one, but the metaphor still held), and regardless of that did manage to kill her older brother in the process, foment a rebellion on the planet of End with the help of her other brother, and generally act in all sorts of obviously traitorous ways.

Suddenly, a little light fluffing of the emperox seemed like just what the guilds had ordered. And so, enter, for the first time, the House of Assan onto the executive committee. Assan was obliged, as the ranking family member in-system, to take on the responsibility.

Assan thought it was a real waste of his time. Grayland (and here Assan winced involuntarily, because he had met the emperox when she was still Cardenia Wu-Patrick and not been impressed by her in any way whatsoever; she was about as qualified to be emperox as Assan was qualified to juggle knives) was obliged to meet with the committee and hear their concerns and advice. But she wasn’t obliged to consider or follow them in any substantial manner, and it was clear by the end of Assan’s first meeting, nearly a month prior now, that Grayland mostly came to the meetings to get them over with.

This was especially problematic because Grayland, immediately prior to his arrival on the committee, had dropped her nonsense about the shift in the Flow streams, trotting out some twit named Lord Marce who purported to have evidence of the same. Marce was, it had to be said, not exactly the most convincing of public speakers, either in front of the committee or testifying in front of parliament. And while the growing lack of shipping from End was beginning to concern a number of houses (including Assan’s—the emperox was correct that one of their fivers, the And for This Gift I Feel Blessed, was now worryingly overdue), the fact that the emperox’s lackey announced that the next Flow stream to collapse would be to the home system of the Nohamapetans was a little on the nose.

It hadn’t happened yet, in any event. Until (or if) it did, there were all sorts of reasons for ships to be held up at End without the drastic explanation of a Flow stream collapse. Including an imperial freeze on spaceship movement.

Which led to the question of what, exactly, it was that Grayland II was actually playing at. And how long she thought she could play at it before it all fell down around her. And whether these goddamned “visions” of hers were now just another tactic to keep her whatever damn fool game she was running going for a few more days or weeks.

All things considered, Assan felt he should have just stayed in his office and stuck to his own business.

Which was not to say that he wasn’t going to use his current situation to his own advantage.

Assan walked over to his bar, put ice in a tumbler, poured whiskey over it, and then called Jasin Wu, board member for the House of Wu, on a secure line.

“You wanted a report on this session?” Assan asked.

Jasin grunted and Assan hit the highlights, including the discussion of Grayland’s visions. “She asked us to have faith,” Assan finished up.

“For fuck’s sake,” Jasin Wu said, disgusted. “The House of Wu makes starships. She’s wandering around saying the Flow is collapsing. We’ve had orders drop forty percent off their usual clip. It’s like she’s trying to destroy her own family.”

“She never really was part of the family, was she,” Assan murmured. “It was Rennered who was supposed to take over everything.”

“Until he drove a car into a wall, yes,” Jasin said. “Stupid. That is, if Nadashe Nohamapetan didn’t have him killed by messing with his car.”