“You were discharged from the military,” Jainan said, his voice rough. “Why?”
“Well,” Audel said, still looking uncomfortable. “Technically Prince Taam, you know. He questioned some of my results; they made his unit look bad. But Prince Taam wasn’t actually the root cause. I knew I wasn’t suited to it from about week two. A bad decision on my part, but they do have all the funding. I tried to resign several times. The last time was a month before it all kicked off.”
“You … were trying to leave the military anyway?” Jainan said. “It wasn’t because of Taam?”
“No, it was honestly quite a relief when they kicked me out,” Audel said. “I was more than ready to go. The military doesn’t nurture intellectual freedom; I imagine that won’t come as a surprise, but I was seduced by not having to write grant applications.”
“Ah,” Kiem said, with a wash of relief. He didn’t particularly want to get one of Jainan’s friends in trouble. “Professor Audel. I don’t suppose you have a … copy of that resignation? Before Taam’s complaint?”
Audel thought, frustratingly not seeming to give it much weight. “Yes, I suppose so, somewhere,” she said. “Why do you want it?”
“It would be really helpful,” Kiem said. “Resolution business—don’t ask, it will do your head in, and I think it’s confidential. But right now would be good.”
Jainan looked a little less ill when Kiem ended the call. He sat on one of the room’s two stools and raised one finger to his temple, rubbing a tiny circle. “I don’t like this,” he said tonelessly.
This, Kiem was starting to recognize, was the equivalent of a less controlled person sinking to the floor with their head in their hands. “No,” he said. “I’m not a huge fan either. At least this stops Internal Security from going after you, I suppose. Or it will when Aren sends them the evidence. You didn’t try and hack into their systems.”
“It absolutely won’t stop them,” Jainan said, his voice strained. “They will want to investigate both possibilities. And we have not been cooperative. They will find out I didn’t tell them about Taam’s secret message account. They will find out we have been here.”
“Then what do you want to do?” Kiem said. “Just call up Internal Security and have a friendly chat about everything we know?”
Jainan didn’t answer. His wristband flashed with a message, and Kiem’s did at the same time. Kiem looked down long enough to see it was Audel’s note, then looked back up at Jainan.
“You do, don’t you?” Kiem said slowly. “You think we should do that.” He dropped onto the bunk mattress and swung his feet up onto the other stool. “Okay, let’s be good citizens. I’ll give Rakal a buzz.”
Jainan raised his head, startled. “You will?”
“Now that sounded like a dare,” Kiem said. He couldn’t quite believe he was at the point in his life where he had Internal Security on his regular contact list, but here he was. “Agent Rakal,” he said expansively, as their face flickered up on screen. Rakal, a now-familiar collection of sharp angles and hostility, gave him an impressively stony stare from behind their desk. “How are you? How’s the secrets business? Have we got some exciting things to tell you.”
A few minutes later—Kiem had drafted Jainan in to explain the finer points of his research into Taam’s finances, which Jainan did in the sharded-glass voice that came out of him under severe pressure—Rakal unbent enough to give them a single nod. It was a lot easier to explain this stuff to someone easygoing like Aren, but Kiem would take any acknowledgement he could get. “You’ve done the right thing bringing us your information,” Rakal said crisply. “We were aware of significant parts of it. I would like to interview both of you.”
Internal Security preferred to do things in person. Kiem assumed it was because it was harder to intimidate someone over a net link. “Great,” Kiem said. “Well, we’re kind of on a trip right now. I’m scheduled for a school visit this afternoon, and Jainan’s staying—”
“Cut it short,” Rakal said. “Return to the palace.”
Kiem cast a glance beside him at Jainan, out of the visuals. Jainan’s head was bowed, his hands clenched into fists on the table. “You’ll have to wait a couple of days. We’re busy.”
“Prince Kiem,” Rakal said, not shifting their expression by as much as a millimeter. “I am loath to do this, but this is a command in the Imperial Voice.”
Jainan took a quick breath. “A what?”
Kiem took his feet off the stool in front of him and sat up. He wouldn’t put it past Rakal to bluff. “Prove it.”
Rakal picked a metal lump out of a case on their desk and touched it to their wristband. A blob of something gold and wax-like started in the middle of Kiem’s screen and expanded like liquid. Kiem’s wristband started to buzz. The gold reached the edge and, through some hypnotic effect, seemed to bleed onto the stool below the screen. It coagulated into an intricate woven pattern.
When it was done, an Imperial crest sat over the screen like a spider. A smaller version had crept over Kiem’s wristband itself. Kiem groaned.
“What is that?” Jainan muttered.
“The Emperor,” Kiem said. “She’s given them a seal to carry out things in her voice. I wonder when she started to take an interest? Either way, we don’t have a bloody choice now.”
Rakal’s face appeared again as the golden crest faded. “I trust that makes things clear,” they said. “I will send details of the interview to your aide. Report as soon as you return to the palace.”
The screens flickered out of view. Jainan let out a long breath and unfurled his clenched hands finger by finger, flexing them as if to check they still worked. “I am sorry.”
“They were obviously going to do that anyway,” Kiem said, though he had the uneasy feeling things were getting out of control. He and Jainan would have to cross that bridge when they came to it. “Let’s tell the Kingfisher lot that we’re leaving.”
Aren took it in his stride when they found him in the main office. “Nothing to hide and nothing to fear, eh?” he said. “At least let Jainan stay to talk to the Systems team.”
“I must go,” Jainan said. He had the odd, choppy rhythm that meant most of his mind was on something else. “We must both go.”
“Can’t disobey the Imperial Voice, you know?” Kiem said. He tried to make it casual, because it was that or admit to a growing frustration with the whole palace establishment that his mother would have dubbed sulking. “Thanks for your help. If the Auditor asks you, tell him we’re trying to get him some answers.”
The first five minutes after leaving the base, Kiem and Jainan sat in the flybug in total silence. The buildings grew smaller in the tundra underneath them. Kiem bit his tongue every few seconds, aware that being annoyed at Internal Security wouldn’t help and that Jainan probably wanted space to prepare for the interview. He took one hand out of the steering mesh to file their new flight plan.