The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency) Read online

  “I have my beam array on and ready to fire on anything that moves,” Chenevert said.

  Hanton nodded at this. “I’ll be looking for incoming trouble over here.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Hanton,” Chenevert replied. “Be on a particular lookout for missiles.”

  Marce thought that was a kind choice on Chenevert’s part. Chenevert was a computer and effectively the ship itself. He needed a human to inform him of incoming objects about as much as a parent working on a project needs a toddler to hand over tools. But Chenevert understood that Hanton needed to do something with himself in the moment and was happy to oblige him.

  It made Marce wonder again who and what Chenevert had been in his non-computer, non–sentient ship days. In his conversations with Chenevert during the eight-day return trip, the virtual human had been garrulously vague on the subject, preferring to redirect Marce into discussions of the Interdependency instead. It was a subject Chenevert found endlessly fascinating, and to be fair, inasmuch as he and his ragtag company had basically dragooned Chenevert and the Auvergne, Marce thought it was only fair to get his virtual friend as much up to speed as he could.

  What little Marce could get out of Chenevert in terms of this own personal specifics was that he’d been very wealthy, although whether from his own efforts or through family money was left unspecified; that one day he and a couple hundred of his closest friends decided to take a pleasure cruise on the Auvergne, along with a substantial percentage of each of their personal fortunes and possessions; and on that day they suddenly found themselves obliged to depart from Chenevert’s home world in something of a rush, via the Flow, and eventually found themselves in Dalasýslan space, unable to return.

  “You were refugees,” Marce had suggested.

  “We preferred to think of ourselves as temporary expatriates,” Chenevert said. “We had every intention of returning one day, but then physics happened.”

  “The Flow stream you used to get to Dalasýsla collapsed.”

  “Yes.” Chenevert frowned at this, and Marce was reminded again at how good the simulation of him being an actual human was. “We could have used having you around then, Lord Marce. You seem to understand all of this better than anyone else I’ve known.”

  “There was someone else who knew it as well as I do,” Marce said.

  “Of course. I’m very sorry about your friend Dr. Roynold, Lord Marce. I know you grieve for her. And for the entire lost crew of the Bransid.”

  Marce nodded. “And you, Monsieur Chenevert? Do you miss the people who came with you on your journey?”

  “Yes, certainly, although it was so long ago now.”

  “Not that long ago for you. You said you slept through the last three hundred years.”

  “Mostly slept, yes. A tiny bit of my brain woke up every now and again to check on the ship and keep it running. It’s the virtual person equivalent of waking up briefly to scratch your nose when you have an itch, and then falling right back to sleep.”

  “Still.”

  “Yes. Well, the thing was, Lord Marce, when I left my fellow shipmates they had abandoned me. In the best way, because they had found a way to revivify Dalasýsla, and to invite the few remaining natives of the system to come live with them. They left me because they had a better place to be, and for that reason I was happy to see them go.”

  “How were they able to do that? Get Dalasýsla running again? It had been dead for centuries by that time.”

  Chenevert shook his head. “Not dead, Lord Marce. Dormant. Whatever collapse befell the habitat, the problem was not in its physical plant. Oh, the habitat had been damaged, and it had been scavenged, by the time we got to it. When I say my people got Dalasýsla running again, you should understand it was on a limited basis, relative to what it was before. But there was enough there that it could easily house my crew and the thousand or so Dalasýslans that still existed, spread across smaller habitats and ships.”

  “It’s amazing that there were any at all for you to find. For people to survive that long isolation.”

  “Yes, remarkable. But also depressing, isn’t it, Lord Marce? There were once millions of Dalasýslans, living rich and comfortable lives, and that number was winnowed down to a mere few hanging on by the proverbial fingernails. Not because they were cut off from the rest of the universe but because in the first few critical years after being cut off, they lost their collective minds. Or enough of them did that the others had to spend precious time dealing with them, and not the larger situation.”

  “People can be a problem,” Marce acknowledged. “But your people didn’t seem to have those issues.”

  “Not at first, at least,” Chenevert said. “But then you told me that Dalasýsla was only made functional again for a few short decades. Whatever chaos visited the original Dalasýslans also seems to have visited them.”

  “You were asleep by then?”

  “Yes. I was awake long enough to see them get the habitat up and running again, and then I put myself to sleep.”

  “When did you”—Marce motioned to Chenevert—“make the transition?”

  “Almost as soon as we arrived,” Chenevert said. “I was already dying when we left, Lord Marce. I used to like to joke that I was like Moses. I took my people out of Egypt and showed them the promised land, but wasn’t able to go there myself. I was told I was being melodramatic, which was entirely correct. I like a bit of melodrama now and then. And also, I wasn’t too worried about it. I knew when my body died, I had this to look forward to. It made death rather less traumatic.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “It’s very old tech,” Chenevert said. “Some improvements have been made to it, but it’s basically a centuries-old design. Given your reaction I don’t assume anything like it is very common in the Interdependency.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Well, it is also very expensive and fussy. You have to really want it. I did, and took it with me, and integrated it into the ship.”

  “Do you like being a ship?”

  “It’s mostly very pleasant,” Chenevert said. “I miss certain physical things, like eating and sex. Sometimes I debate myself which I miss more. At the moment eating has the edge. But I like still being alive most of all.”

  “And yet you put yourself to sleep.”

  “Well, that was a practical decision. I was operating on the idea that one day the Flow streams that had trapped us at Dalasýsla might reopen, and whoever of my crew was left might want to go back to see if the situation had improved. Alternately that others might come, and if they weren’t friendly for whatever reason, it would be useful to have a ship with weapons nearby. I had thought this might be in the twenty- or thirty-year window, rather than three hundred years.”

  “You could have woken yourself up.”

  “I enjoyed sleeping. I never did enough of it when I was human. I think I’m almost caught up now.”

  “The Dalasýslans—the ones now—remember you and your crew telling them that others would come. It’s one reason they didn’t seem all that surprised when we arrived. It was almost like prophecy for them.”

  “I don’t know that we tried to make it sound like that,” Chenevert said. “I think we had just made the point that more people might come if the Flow stream ever opened up again. Time has a funny way of distorting things, Lord Marce. But then, you did also arrive just as they needed you. And you bought them a considerable amount of time with your gifts.”

  “A wrecked spaceship and two shuttles that will run out of power soon,” Marce said.

  “Or perhaps they won’t run out of power soon, because the Dalasýslans are exceedingly clever. No one can scavenge and make do like a Dalasýslan. That was certainly the case in my time, and it appears to be the case now. And while your arrival might not have actually been divinely ordained, the fact that you arrived when you did and gave them so many tools to survive must have looked miraculous to them. In which case the ‘prophecy’ came true for
them. Or true enough, which in my experience is how prophecy works.”

  “You have much experience with prophecy?” Marce asked.

  “Enough, in this case,” Chenevert said. “Speaking of which, talk to me more about your Interdependent Church.” And then the two of them went on, talking about everything possible except too much of Chenevert’s life.

  As they counted down the seconds until they arrived in Hub space, Marce decided whatever Chenevert had been in his previous life, in this one he seemed a pretty decent fellow.

  “Here we go,” Hanton said, watching his monitor. “Aaaaaaand … arrival. We’re in Hub space.”

  “I’m not seeing anything being flung at us with murderous intent,” Chenevert said to Hanton, after a few seconds. “You?”

  “Nothing coming at us,” Hanton agreed. “I do see three small objects floating by the Flow shoal.”

  “I see them too,” Chenevert said. On the command monitor one of these objects appeared as the Auvergne’s cameras zoomed in on it.

  “It’s a monitoring craft,” Sergeant Sherrill said. “They’re at nearly every exit shoal. Records the ship and its arrival time against filed schedules.”

  “I can guarantee there were no filed schedules for this ship,” Marce said. “Or this exit shoal.”

  “Is it an Interdependency monitor? Or one from the Wus?” PFC Gamis asked.

  “They’re all made by the Wus no matter what,” Hanton said. “Shipbuilding is their specialty.”

  “Regardless of whose it is, we’re spotted,” Sherrill said, and looked over to Marce. “What do you want to do?”

  “I think we need to march right down the lane,” Marce said.

  “Sir?”

  “Send a message to Xi’an traffic control to inform the emperox that her spy ship the Samuel III is back from her secret mission and ready to dock and report,” Marce said. “And send it out in the open.”

  “Because spy ships do that,” Gamis said.

  “Spy ships that don’t want to run the risk of being hit by long-range missiles from the Wus between here and Xi’an do, yes.”

  “The Samuel III?” Chenevert asked.

  “It’s an inside joke between me and the emperox,” Marce told him. “I’ll explain it later.”

  “I’m just impressed you know the emperox well enough to have inside jokes with her.”

  “Well, you know,” Marce said, awkwardly. “She’s pretty approachable.”

  “Indeed,” murmured Chenevert, clearly reappraising Marce, who felt deeply uncomfortable being reappraised.

  “Could you send that message, please?” he said, to change the subject.

  “Already done, since we were already being hailed by Xi’an traffic control,” Chenevert said.

  “Are you sure it’s Xi’an?” Gamis asked Chenevert. “You’re new here.”

  “I’m monitoring other chatter from the same source,” Chenevert said. “If your friends the Wus are planning to lure us in, they’re doing so very elaborately.”

  “You never know,” Gamis said, defensively.

  “No, you never do,” Chenevert said. “Although in this case, it seems unlikely, as we’ve just been directed to the private imperial docks. I’ve been told a detail has been detached to escort us in.” He looked over at Marce. “You need to teach me your inside jokes.”

  * * *

  The Auvergne was met at the private imperial docking area by a shuttle full of imperial guards, who went through the ship stem to stern, removing the crew of the Princess, who had been kept reasonably comfortably in three staterooms, as they did so. When the Princess’s crew had departed on the shuttle and a small contingent of imperial guards were left behind, a second shuttle arrived, this one carrying several other guards and the emperox.

  “Lord Marce,” Grayland said as she exited the shuttle. “It pleases us to see you again.”

  “Your Majesty,” Marce said. He was aware that Grayland was using her royal “we” voice for the benefit of the Imperial Guard, and not as a distancing tactic, and in this very formal moment his brain flashed back to Cardenia and him naked in her bed, because brains were like that. He very much hated his brain for it. “It is likewise a pleasure to see you.”

  Grayland looked around and then returned her gaze to Marce. “The Samuel III, is it.”

  “Actually the Auvergne, ma’am.”

  “Lord Marce, this is not the ship you left on.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “And while we are happy to know that we possess a spy ship so secret that even we were not aware that we possessed it, nevertheless we are concerned about the disposition of the Oliveer Bransid and her crew.”

  “The Bransid was attacked, and her crew lost, except for me and five others.”

  “By whom?”

  “A ship that followed us from Hub space, ma’am. We captured her crew and brought them with us. Your guards took them off the ship to be held more securely than here.”

  “And your friend, Dr. Roynold?”

  Marce looked down and shook his head, silently.

  “We are deeply sorry for you, Lord Marce,” Grayland said.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “We have many matters we wish to discuss with you, but perhaps a shuttle bay receiving area is not the best place for that. Would you accompany us back to the palace for further discussion?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. But before that, I would ask you to come with me for a moment first.”

  “For what purpose, Lord Marce?”

  “There’s someone on the ship I think you should meet.”

  “They may accompany us to the palace, Lord Marce. As may the rest of your remaining crew.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. The thing is, it’s not quite that simple.”

  A few minutes later, and after having been briefly introduced to the remainder of the crew, Grayland and Marce stepped into the bridge. A guard had entered with them, but Grayland dismissed him with a nod. The guard scowled but left.

  “Marce, I really am sorry about Roynold,” Grayland said, quietly. “I know she was important to you.”

  “Thank you—” Marce stopped and smiled. “I almost just called you ‘Cardenia’ in public.”

  “Don’t do that. I don’t mind that you almost did. I like it. Just, yeah. Don’t do that.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  Grayland looked around. “Aren’t I supposed to be meeting someone?”

  “Yes,” Marce said. “Monsieur Chenevert, you can come out now.”

  Chenevert appeared, shimmering, which struck Marce as a very showoff-y way to do it. Grayland’s eyes got wide as he did so. Chenevert walked over to Grayland and offered an elaborate bow. “Your Majesty,” he said.

  Grayland stared, and then smiled, and then did something that Marce was not expecting. She offered a similarly elaborate bow. “Your Majesty,” she said, to Chenevert.

  Who was delighted. “I am found out!” he exclaimed. “And so early. Your dear Lord Marce never suspected.”

  “He doesn’t know what I know,” Grayland said.

  Chenevert turned to Marce. “I can see why you like her,” he said. “I very much like her already.”

  “Uh … what?” Marce said, to both of them.

  “Your friend here—” Grayland turned back to Chenevert. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Tomas Reynauld Chenevert.”

  “Your friend Tomas Reynauld Chenevert is royalty. A king? Emperor? Grand Duke?”

  “Merely a king, Your Majesty.”

  “That’s all,” Grayland mocked lightly.

  “I’m not an empress like some. But it’s not ‘empress’ here, is it?”

  “Emperox. Not gender-specific.”

  Chenevert pointed to Marce. “And yet this one is a lord and his father a count.”

  “You’re expecting logic from royal titles?”

  “Point.”

  “You’re a king?” Marce said, to Chenevert.

/>   “Yes. Well.” Chenevert made a motion with his hand. “Was a king. I’m dead now, and the executive power of the throne traditionally ceases on demise. Also, I was overthrown. So there was some argument whether I was still a king even when I was alive. I say yes, but then I would.”

  “I have some people here who would very much like to do that to me,” Grayland said. “Overthrow me, I mean.”

  “I would recommend against it,” Chenevert advised.

  “Not a great career move?”

  “It frees up your schedule, which is honestly fantastic. But the people who removed you then usually want to kill you too. And that’s inconvenient. Any assassination attempts against you yet?”

  “A couple.”

  “Aw. You’re just a baby at this,” Chenevert said.

  “If I could jump in here,” Marce said, and turned to Grayland. “How did you know he’s a king? Was a king?”

  Grayland waved at Chenevert. “Because he’s this.”

  “What does this have to do with him being a king?”

  “You have a something like this too,” Chenevert said to Grayland. “Equally impressive. Equally expensive. Equally invasive.”

  Grayland nodded. “I have something called a Memory Room. All of the previous emperoxs are there. Their memories are there, at least. But you’re different. They have the memories and can tell you what the emperox was thinking or feeling at the time, but they don’t have the emotions themselves. But you seem all there.”

  “I am all there. Or at least it feels that way on the inside. My family made improvements to the software over time. You may be running a very early build of it.”

  “I always assumed it was ordered made by Rachela. The first of our emperoxs.”

  Chenevert shook his head. “If it’s the same as what we had, it’s from much earlier than that. It originally dates back to Earth. Your people and my people got it just before the Rupture.”