The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(79)

“Created the Rupture?” Marce said. “We initiated a Flow stream collapse?”

“You did. Or your ancestors did, anyway.”

“That’s not physically possible.”

“You say that, and yet it happened.”

“Do you know how to do it?” Grayland asked Chenevert.

“Me, definitely not. The scientists of Ponthieu and the Assembly? Not that I know of, as of three hundred years ago. It was something you had, and you didn’t share it, I suspect because you didn’t want to, you just wanted to be shut of us. And now it appears that you’ve lost the knowledge as well. I can’t say I see this as a bad thing, Lord Marce, Your Majesty.”

“You can verify this?” Marce said. “This history you’re talking about.”

“It’s in our history books.”

“And you brought those?” Grayland asked.

Chenevert smiled. “Your Majesty, when I left Ponthieu, I was leaving forever. I assure you, I have brought everything.”





Chapter

21

“What do you know about the Free Systems?” Cardenia asked Rachela I, in the Memory Room.

“They were one of the predecessors to the Interdependency,” Rachela I said. “Although by the time we were forming the Interdependency, nobody called them that.”

“Why not?”

“That loose alliance of systems had fallen apart centuries earlier.”

“And why was that?”

“For the same reason many alliances fall apart—competing interests, lack of economic enthusiasm, stupid or venal rulers, and simple neglect, or some combination of each.”

“I’m the emperox of the Interdependency,” Cardenia said. “My mother was a historian. How do I not know about the Free Systems?”

“You did know about them, but you weren’t aware of that particular label. Pedagogy varies over time. It’s possible that when and where you grew up, it wasn’t considered important.”

“That sounds evasive to me,” Cardenia said.

“I’m aware that you are addressing me with some hostility in your voice,” Rachela I said. “But I am not in any way trying to be evasive to you. Remember I have no ego to bruise and no need to justify either my actions or the actions of others. If I sound evasive to you, it’s possible you’re phrasing your questions in a way that sounds to you in your current emotional state as evasive.”

“The problem is not you, it’s me, is what you’re saying,” Cardenia said.

“Basically.”

“You know, I met a computer simulation of a human today who could be evasive, if he wanted to.”

“Okay,” Rachela I said. “I, however, cannot.”

Cardenia took a breath and tried to center herself because, damn it, Rachela was right; she was a little hostile at the moment and it was making her ask the wrong questions. After a minute, during which time the image of Rachela I stood quietly waiting, just like a computer simulation would, she tried again.

“Are you aware of any attempt in your time to stop teaching the time of our history in which the Free Systems existed?”

“No. It wasn’t something that either I or my contemporaries considered.”

“Did you ever try to censor or alter histories at all?”

“After I became emperox, my propagandists worked to sell the story of the creation of the Interdependency that we wanted to see propagated into the future, particularly with respect, as we’ve spoken before, about the prophecies. By the time I died, our angle on it, or something very close to it, was the generally accepted view of events. Of course there were alternate versions, but those tended to be less mainstream and their authors not tenured at the best schools. Additionally, we created blasphemy laws, which we used infrequently but that had the intended effect of further entrenching the official story.”

“But you didn’t actively work to change or alter the history of the period of time before the Interdependency.”

“Not unless it was directly prior to the Interdependency—that is, during the period of time we were trying to create it.”

“Have you ever heard of the Assembly?”

“That is a very vague question. ‘The Assembly’ could be any number of things.”

Cardenia bit the inside of her cheek to avoid snapping at Rachela I, who would not be bothered by it, which would just make Cardenia angrier.

“Are you aware of a political entity called the Assembly, comprised of states in star systems that are not nor ever have been part of what is now the Interdependency,” she asked, very specifically.

“No.”

“Have you heard of the Tripartition Treaty?” Cardenia referred to the treaty by the specific name Chenevert had given her for it.

“No.”

“Have you ever heard of an event called the Rupture, in which the Free Systems were cut off from other human states?”

“No.”

“How did Earth become inaccessible to the Interdependency systems?”

“There was a collapse of the Flow streams to and from it.”

“How did that collapse happen?”

“It was a natural event,” Rachela I said.