The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(84)

In the meantime she caught Fundapellonan up on the events of the day, because these days Fundapellonan had no love left for the Nohamapetans, and it would give her joy to hear of their travails, and also because Kiva just liked talking to her. Kiva considered that she might be developing a thing for Fundapellonan, which on one hand would be a very not-Kiva thing to do, but on the other hand who gave a fuck if it was “not-Kiva,” because she wasn’t some fucking fictional character destined to do whatever some goddamn hack wanted her to do.

Fundapellonan smiled at Kiva, because she kind of liked her too.

Marce Claremont did not have to be informed about the parliamentary address because he had been there when the decision had been made, a fact that still stunned and amazed him. Not about being there when the decision was made so much as where the decision was made—the emperox’s bed—and what he was doing there when it had been made, which was lying there naked after some really enjoyable morning sex. By now Marce was aware he was falling more than a little bit in love with Cardenia, not because she was the emperox (that part sort of scared the crap out of him, in point of fact) but because they were awkward in complementary ways.

And while he was now happy being a little in love with Cardenia, there was already a beginning melancholy background hum to Marce’s emotions because he knew the relationship was doomed, not because they weren’t compatible but because she was emperox, and he really was below her station. Emperoxs didn’t marry for love, and they don’t marry people who are lords basically by courtesy. Difficult times were coming, and Cardenia was going to be making some hard choices. Marce was, in a small and nearly subconscious way, preparing himself for when the hard choice Cardenia was going to have to make involved him.

Until then, however, he was doing what she asked of him: running the data he and Roynold (Come on, it was pretty much all Roynold, his brain said) had gathered from Dalasysla, adding it to the data set she and he had already had, and then adding to that the frankly astounding amount of historical Flow stream data that Chenevert had in his possession for the Assembly and for Earth and even the Free Systems. All the data in question was no younger than three hundred and sometimes as much as fifteen hundred years old. But it meant that Marce’s understanding of the general topography of the Flow was tripling, and with that information came more, newer and hopefully better understandings of how the Flow moved in their area of space. If Chenevert were something more than virtual, Marce would have hugged him.

Tomas Reynauld Chenevert, the former Tomas XII, who if he wanted to be truthful about it had not been entirely unjustly overthrown, was aware of the parliamentary address but was not particularly concerned about it because he did not see that it involved his current interests to any significant extent. At the moment he was more interested in the small agent program that he had sequestered in a virtual sandbox environment. The agent program had tried to access the Auvergne and had been flummoxed by its entirely different—and in this part of space, unique—processing environment. Chenevert had snagged it, pulled it apart momentarily to understand its code and its programming, and understood it to be an agent of the semiautonomous AI that Emperox Grayland II had mentioned.

Chenevert thought about everything that could be done with the agent, decided at this point small steps were best, and sent the thing on its way with an invitation by Chenevert to its boss, to meet.

Jiyi, who had not received that invitation yet, knew about the parliamentary address because Emperox Grayland II had spent a significant part of the early morning discussing it with the imperial avatars in the Memory Room, most especially Rachela I and Attavio VI, and with Jiyi itself about information it had, outside of the realm of knowledge of the emperoxs themselves. Jiyi, which had no emotions or feelings in itself, outside of accessing the recorded thoughts and emotions of the emperoxs and having their avatars describe them to the current emperox, did not think anything in itself one way or another about the parliamentary address. If it had been asked to consider it, it would probably say it would have to wait until the current emperox, Grayland II, was dead and asked about it by her successor in order to give it any thought.

The current emperox, Grayland II, who was not dead yet, did not need to be informed about the parliamentary address since she was the one who was giving it, and the one who had informed everyone when it would be. And after sufficient time had passed for the announcement to diffuse into the world. Grayland II ordered something else: individual invitations to a special reception prior to the address, beginning at 4 p.m., at the imperial palace ballroom. The reception would be short, to allow for all assembled, including the emperox herself, to make their way from the imperial palace to the parliament, on the other end of the Xi’an habitat. But, the invitations said, it promised to be unforgettable.

Each invitation came with a small printed note from the emperox herself that said that the recipient was to be recognized for their achievements and service to the Interdependency. Regrets were not to be accepted, presence required by imperial command, arrivals no later than 4:10 p.m.

Grayland was not really worried about the attendance. She was certain no one invited would want to miss it.

*

Kiva had arrived, as requested, at 4 p.m. sharp, dressed in a ridiculous fucking pantsuit that was nevertheless somehow in fashion and therefore acceptable for an event like this, whatever the hell that was; Grayland’s assistant was light on details but stressed that the emperox herself had requested Kiva’s presence. Well, okay, fine. It looked like to Kiva that maybe the two of them might end up doing each other’s hair and giggling about boys after all.