The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(64)

Marce considered what to tell Chenevert about the Dalasyslans and how to say it. “It’s complicated,” he finally settled on. “But the last three hundred years have not been great for them.”

“Oh,” Chenevert said. “Oh, dear.”

“Are you sure the engines will come back online?” Marce asked.

“They should,” Chenevert said. “I’ve been asleep, but the Auvergne has done regular checkups on its systems and processes. I can tell you every system on the ship is functional.”

“What about weapons?” Sherrill asked.

“This is not a warship,” Chenevert said. “No missiles or physical weaponry, and after three centuries those would be of questionable utility anyway. But as it happens, before I left Ponthieu I had cause to install an array of beam weapons.”

“What was the cause?” Gamis asked.

“Let’s just say that I anticipated that when I needed to leave Ponthieu, it would be suddenly, and that I might be chased. And that those chasing me might prefer that if I couldn’t be caught, that I should be rendered into very small pieces.”

“What are you, a criminal?”

“That would depend on who you ask, Private Gamis,” Chenevert said. “Although anyone you might ask that of is now dead.”

“The beam weapons,” Sherrill asked. “Do they work?”

“They should once the engines are spun up. They are not routed through the engines, of course. But they draw power from them.”

“You’re thinking we should go after the other ship,” Marce said to Sherrill.

“I would if it were my ship,” Sherrill said. “But it’s not my ship.”

Everyone turned to Chenevert.

“Well, this is all very sudden,” Chenevert said. “I sleep for three hundred years, wake up to four strangers on my ship and not fifteen minutes later am asked to ride into battle for them. That’s a very different situation than just offering temporary hospitality.”

“Is that a no?” Sherrill asked.

“It’s an ‘I’m giving it thought.’” Chenevert turned to Marce. “We have another six hours at least before the engines are spun up, Lord Marce. I suggest we spend it with you getting me up to speed on current events.”

“That’s a lot,” Marce said.

Chenevert nodded. “Just the last three hundred years will do.”





Chapter

17

Nadashe had not seen her mother in this much of a state for years. Part of that was Kiva Lagos having turned Tinda Louentintu into a punching bag, although that was less about the well-being of poor Louentintu than it was about Lagos sending the message for the countess to get the fuck off her planet. The countess did get the fuck off the planet and returned to the Blame in a fury.

But that was only a small part. The larger part was that Jasin and Deran Wu were coming for a clandestine visit to the Blame, to meet Nadashe and to detail to the countess all their plotting in this exciting nascent conspiracy they had going. Nadashe’s brain put sarcastic emphasis on the word “exciting” here, because to date, it had been anything but that to her. In point of fact her only role in the current conspiracy to overthrow Grayland II was to be married off.

This rankled Nadashe. She had no problem with being married off when she was a full participant in a scheme; that’s how it had worked with Rennered Wu, the crown prince. Nadashe had gone into that one with eyes open and with full consent and active participation. She had wooed Rennered by letting him think he was the one who had been doing the wooing, charmed him and amused him and fucked him and complemented his skills all well enough that Rennered would think the match was something more than a practical political union.

It would have meant that Nadashe had to wear a mask for the rest of her life (well, the rest of Rennered’s life, at least)—one that showed what could be thought of as love for the man. Nadashe had been willing to do that, in return for everything she and the House of Nohamapetan would have gotten out of it. And anyway she hadn’t hated Rennered. He was shallow and had a facile intelligence at best—this was why Amit had liked him so well, since they were cut from the same thin cloth—and he was led by his dick enough that Nadashe had known that it was a thing she would be required to manage, since she wouldn’t be able to curtail it entirely. But he was not a horrible person, or cruel. He was appropriately respectful and affectionate and knew the correct times and place for each, and he was tractable. Nadashe could have easily worked with that.

And then one day suddenly he wasn’t affectionate and tractable, and he was going to call off the announcement of their engagement. Aside from the massive loss of face Nadashe would endure, which was significant but something she could live with, the House of Nohamapetan would suffer a significant decline in its status. All the other houses had been doing business with the Nohamapetans with the implicit understanding that in a generation, one of its own would be on the throne. With the name Wu, to be sure, but there was no one who thought that once Nadashe was the emperox’s wife, the Nohamapetans would not be the ones running the show. Everyone acted accordingly.

But if Nadashe was thrown over, all that went by the wayside. And then the other houses would begin their own frantic competition for the crown. The emperox’s marriages were almost always political unions in one way or another.