“Sure,” Kiem said. He looked behind him—Jainan understood the impulse, the remnants felt like a buzzing presence just behind your shoulder, wherever you turned—and shook himself. “I’d offer to help, but you know, I add up two and two and get fried fish.”
“Fried whitebait,” Bel said absentmindedly. Jainan followed her gaze to the pristine display of food: white seafood with carefully arranged splashes of color from herbs and vegetables in glittering tiered trays. Iskat haute cuisine had an almost forensic air. “Salmon. Is that Eisafan saltfish?”
“Leave some for us,” Kiem said.
“If you’re quick.” She flashed both of them a sideways smile. “Oh, and don’t forget you have to leave early. You have the Thean embassy reception straight afterward.”
The Thean reception. Jainan swallowed on a suddenly dry throat. “I assumed we weren’t going.”
“Oh,” Kiem said. He stopped in his tracks, his expression suddenly guilty. “Ah. Shit. Sorry. I may have assumed we were. They phrased the invite like you knew about it already. I’ll tell them we had a change of plan.”
“You’ve accepted,” Jainan said blankly. “Oh. I didn’t mean—I’ll go. Naturally.” He was rattled; he would usually have phrased that more smoothly.
A gong sounded to signal the start of the ceremony. Jainan shoved everything out of his mind to deal with later. Ambassador Suleri met them at the front of the room; he gave Jainan a crisp, polite greeting and a set of keys. The embassy had arranged everything. Jainan was only required to take the keys to the Auditor.
The formal part of the ceremony was over quickly. The Auditor dealt with all the representatives exactly the same, from Eisafan’s twenty-person entourage to Jainan and Kiem, unaccompanied, and didn’t show a flicker of recognition. The presence of the remnants was much worse when you were close; all of the representatives kept giving little starts at nothing and glancing at thin air as if they’d just seen someone they knew. The Auditor’s staff took the keys, opening boxes and running handheld scanners across the remnants inside.
“Now what?” Kiem said under his breath. “What does he do with them? They make my skin crawl.”
“It was in the briefing,” Jainan said, then realized his mistake when Kiem took on the embarrassed, sidelong look of someone who hadn’t read it. “Ah. The tests take several days. When they’ve finished, they’ll be put in cold storage on the Resolution ship. The Resolution apparently uses an ice planet to store them—it’s a strategy for long-term neutralization.”
Kiem looked doubtful, but at that moment Bel muttered something under her breath and tapped Kiem’s elbow. “Look over there,” she said. “That’s quite a special guest.”
“Who?” Kiem said. He scanned the far end of the stateroom, which was crowded with knots of commercial moguls and their guests. Bel indicated a heavyset man in spacer fashion of a style that wasn’t Iskat or Thean.
“That man is Evn Afkeli.” Bel turned so her back was to the knot of people. “He runs one of the big raider congloms—the Blue Star. He’s the one who spaces merchants whose companies don’t pay ransoms.”
Raiders. Jainan had to think for a moment before he recognized what Bel was talking about: the organized crime gangs that hopped among the asteroid belts and outer worlds, hijacking ships on minor routes and running their tendrils into planetside businesses. He remembered reading that they found an open harbor in Sefala, where the Empire struggled to keep order.
“Someone invited a Sefalan pirate to lunch?” Kiem said in a murmur no louder than Bel’s. “How does that work?”
“Evn Afkeli’s a legitimate businessman,” Bel said. “The Guard doesn’t have anything on him.”
“What a chance,” Kiem said. He was starting to grin. “Think I’ll go over and say hi.”
“Don’t,” Jainan said. He didn’t realize how sharply it had come out until he saw Kiem’s sideways look. Jainan was on edge: the buzzing of the remnants behind his shoulder seemed to be trying to materialize into some kind of presence. “Sorry,” he said, making an effort to cover it up. Kiem would do what he liked. “Of course. Would you like me to come?” He couldn’t even put words to the flood of repulsion that welled up in him.
“You know what,” Kiem said, “I changed my mind.”
The raider’s face was set in deep, serious lines and barely moved at all as he spoke to a military officer. The lack of expression sent an unpleasant prickle down Jainan’s back. “How do you know his name?”
Bel shook her head. “She’s being modest,” Kiem said. “She used to work for the Sefalan Guard.”
“I’m not being modest,” Bel said, “I’m reminding you that raiders are bad news, since you seem to have missed that from all the Iskat children’s animations about them.”
“Modest and has a full range of helpful tips,” Kiem said cheerfully. “Hey, they’re seating people. Care to accompany me to dinner, Your Grace?” He gave a mock bow and offered his arm.
Jainan smiled mechanically and took it. Bel slipped off toward the drinks table as Jainan followed Kiem to the other side of the hall from the Sefalan, and steeled himself for the long and awkward meal that was to follow.
He hadn’t factored in how it would feel to be accompanied by a different partner. Kiem seemed to recover quickly from the eerie aura of the remnants that made all the guests constantly cast nervous glances at empty air, and he promptly made fast friends with the person on the other side of him. He introduced them to Jainan as Master Sergeant Vignar, who ran logistics at Central One HQ. Ten minutes later Vignar and Kiem appeared to have bonded for life over old dartcar races. Jainan concentrated on his food, made small talk with the Kaani treaty representative opposite him, and monitored Kiem with half an ear. At first he split his attention, but as he made his way through the sweet course, he realized he wasn’t going to have to jump in, or run two conversations simultaneously, or field Kiem’s bad mood. He could feel his own state of mind improving as the meal went on.
The Kaani representative, a tall, elegant person with a habitual air of finding amusement at someone else’s expense, picked at the remains of their sweet course while watching Jainan.
“It’s good to see you at events again,” they said.
“Thank you,” Jainan said warily, as if it wasn’t compulsory. Kaan’s representative had come to the palace after him and Jainan hadn’t seen them around much. Kaan scoffed at the concept of gender, but their representative had capitulated to Iskat custom far enough to have a glass bead braided into the hair by their ear. Jainan was so out of touch he couldn’t even remember their name.
“I was starting to think,” the representative continued, “that our hosts had just decided to abandon your treaty.”
Jainan’s hand tightened around his fork. His first panicked thought was whether Kiem had heard, but Kiem was still embroiled in his dartcar conversation. Jainan kept his voice level with an effort. “Excuse me?”