The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(83)

“Oh, good,” Marce said, sleepily. “Ready for what?”

“To move things forward,” she said. “Will you help me?”

“Yes,” Marce said. “But does it have to be now? I’d like to go back to sleep.”

Cardenia let him go back to sleep, and then got up, walked over to the Memory Room, and let herself in.





Chapter

22

And just like that, everyone and all of their plans ran out of time.

Archbishop Gunda Korbijn was sitting in a small Xi’an Cathedral Complex courtyard, taking her morning tea, when the announcement came that the emperox would address the parliament that afternoon at 6 p.m. Korbijn read the announcement, nodded, finished her tea and then instructed Ubes Ici to make a call to Tinda Louentintu, chief of staff to the Countess Nohamapetan, and then to connect her in when he did.

Tinda Louentintu took the call, spoke very briefly to Archbishop Korbijn, no more than a few words, and then after an exchange of final pleasantries broke the connection and made a call to the Countess Nohamapetan, cloistered as she was in the Blame. Louentintu’s voice was jubilant.

On the Blame, the Countess Nohamapetan also expressed jubilance and then gave her chief of staff instructions on whom to reach and in what order. Some of those people would have their own people to contact, so were to be contacted first, followed by other people of importance, followed by others who, while not as important, would offer safety in numbers and a quorum. That finished, the countess connected with Jasin Wu.

Jasin Wu by this time had already heard about the parliamentary address and was about to start his own round of coded messages and calls when the countess called and reminded him of everything he already knew, as if he was her lackey and not the actual Managing Director of the Actual Largest and Most Important House in the Interdependency, Thank You Very Much. But Jasin held his irritation in check because he understood the value of long-term alliances and planning. When the call was done, he then proceeded with his own list, which included Admiral Emblad of the Imperial Navy, and then he had his assistant call Deran Wu’s assistant and invite his cousin to come to his office for a chat.

Deran Wu, also aware by this point of the announcement, went into his cousin’s office at his invitation, and when the assistants were cleared out and the door shut, went over their own mutual set of plans and contacts, which were different but related to the plans and contacts that the Countess Nohamapetan was aware of. The House of Wu may have found itself in an alliance of convenience with the House of Nohamapetan, but one thing that would be essential is for it to be made clear, quietly but definitively, that this was not an alliance of equals and that the House of Wu, both in its incarnation as a noble house and its soon-to-be-remodeled incarnation as the imperial house, was and would always be the senior partner.

After leaving his cousin’s office, Deran Wu did his own set of calls and messages as discussed, informed his assistant that he had an emergency meeting across town so to reschedule his meetings for the rest of the day, and then, when in the elevator down to his car, sent an encrypted message to Nadashe Nohamapetan, acknowledging that he was moving forward with their plan, and then, having done that, expressing in what he thought was a manner both jocular and sexy his own enthusiastic an ticipation of how the two of them would celebrate their imminent success. Then he went to his meeting, with someone who didn’t know he was coming.

Nadashe Nohamapetan read the second message from Deran Wu with mild disgust, then put the lesser Wu cousin out of her mind for the moment, because there were other more urgent things to worry about—namely, the transferring of close to a hundred million marks out of her secret accounts and into a secure and compact data crypt she had with her on the Blame. Nadashe had had a mild panic attack when a couple of her smaller secret accounts were locked and seized and decided now was the perfect time for her to get liquid.

A hundred million marks was nothing compared to her overall share of the House of Nohamapetan corporation, but seeing as she was temporarily and inconveniently meant to be dead, her ability to access her legitimate accounts had been severely compromised. Nadashe’s mother was meant to repatriate those shares to her own holdings, but hadn’t done so yet, and at this point a hundred million marks in liquidity was better than nothing.

Of course, if everything worked as planned, Nadashe would soon be back from the dead, for starters. But much of that depended on Deran, which is why Nadashe tolerated the appalling messages from him for now. The other part of it depended on another person entirely: Admiral Emblad of the Imperial Navy. Nadashe decided it was time to put in a call to him.

Admiral Lonsen Emblad was shocked to receive messages from a dead woman. But after her identity hash checked out and Emblad was sure it wasn’t a prankster or an agent of either Naval Intelligence or the Ministry of Investigation, he and Nadashe had a long and fruitful discussion detailing promises made, payments received and plans already long set in motion, and Nadashe’s expectation of those plans to continue apace. When Nadashe had hung up, Emblad mused on messages from the dead, and also on whom he would want to place his bet on: the House of Wu or the House of Nohamapetan. He had a few hours to decide. Admiral Emblad decided to do some of that thinking at the officers’ club, with a drink.

Kiva Lagos, who had been the one to fuck with Nadashe’s smaller accounts, just to see what whoever was withdrawing money would do about it, received notice of the parliamentary address while visiting with Senia Fundapellonan, who was celebrating having that fucking breathing tube removed from her throat. Kiva smiled at the announcement because she was aware that plans were now set in motion and it was going to be an absolute fucking delight to see how things played out.