Wait. Wasn’t this place made from Jainan’s memories? Jainan couldn’t know those people; did that mean the Tau field was grabbing memories from Kiem’s own head now? The idea was skin-crawlingly unpleasant. He put up his hand to touch the helmet he knew he’d put on. He couldn’t feel it. His fingers seemed to graze his hair instead.
What was this event, anyway? When he looked around, he saw posting insignia from Rtul, Kaan, Thea, all the inner system planets. The officers were mainly Iskaners, though, so it must be an internal military thing. Some significant date, maybe. His mother had attended dinners like this. But this one—
Kiem’s head swiveled as if it were drawn to a magnetic point. He homed in on Jainan and Taam sitting at one of the long tables on the dais.
He pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. One of the other diners made an incomprehensible protesting sound, so Kiem said, “’Scuse me,” politely, and shoved his way between the tables until he was within earshot of Jainan. He raised his hand to catch Jainan’s attention. Jainan wasn’t looking at him. Kiem recognized the way he was sitting, taut and tense. He also recognized Taam’s manner, but only because he knew what people looked like when they were being drunk and loud at dinner. Taam looked too solid and confident to be a hallucination, and he wasn’t alone in enjoying the evening. Everyone at that end of the table was several glasses into the festivities. Except Jainan.
Then Kiem saw Aren sitting a few places down from Taam and froze. But Aren’s gaze went right through him as if they were strangers. Kiem recalled he was wearing the only headset. This Aren was just a memory, pulled from Jainan’s memory of the dinner.
Suddenly Jainan’s spine went rigid, and people were looking at him. Someone must have made a comment. The person next to him leaned over and clapped him on the shoulder. Jainan flinched.
Kiem couldn’t help himself: as he reached them, he grabbed the wrist of the offending officer. “You’re drunk,” he said. “Have some bloody manners.” The officer stared at him with outraged, slightly fuzzy eyes, and Kiem remembered it wasn’t real. He dropped their hand and turned. “Jainan…？”
Jainan was real. Kiem knew every tiny line and shadow on his face as Jainan stared up at him in shock, and he knew the way Jainan wiped the shock and rapidly replaced it with a mask of blankness.
“Prince Kiem?” Jainan said. “I didn’t realize Your Highness would be at this dinner.”
“Who the hell are—Kiem?” Taam said from the other side of Jainan. As he did, Jainan leaned back to allow him space. “What are you doing here? This isn’t for civvies.”
Kiem opened his mouth to say, Jainan, you’re in a Tau field. But then something strange happened. As he started to form the words, an invisible current around him took hold, and what came out was, “Yeah, not sure why I got the invitation.”
“Makes two of us,” Taam said. “Maybe your mother’s hoping we’ll rub off on you. What do you want?”
Kiem’s head felt fuzzy. He seemed to have forgotten his next line. He looked around for inspiration and caught Jainan’s frozen expression. Oh, yes. “I just wanted to see if Jainan was all right.”
Now Taam’s face took on a look of suspicion. “What does that mean? How do you know Jainan?”
Kiem frowned. “We’ve seen each other … around.”
“We haven’t,” Jainan said, quiet and tense. “Taam, I’ve barely met him.”
“Have you?” Taam said.
Kiem looked between the two of them. Something was wrong.
“People are looking,” Taam said. “Go and sit down, Kiem, they’re bringing out the next course.”
Kiem opened his mouth, and once again that strange thing happened where words he hadn’t planned came out. “Right,” he said. “Sorry to bother you.” He nodded—to Taam, not to Jainan—and turned away.
He was nearly back to his seat before his mind slipped out of the grip of the flowing current. He’d let himself be hijacked into being part of the scenario. Was that how Jainan saw him? Someone who’d abandon him at the first sign of trouble? He turned back, horrified, and saw Jainan hunched over his food with Taam pointedly ignoring him. “Jainan!” he shouted, throwing any attempt at subtlety to the winds. “This is the machine they put you in!”
Jainan looked up, bafflement on his face. Taam turned with an oath. “It’s called a Tau field!” Kiem said. He tried to stride back across the banqueting hall, but there were chairs in his way, and people getting up, shocked. He was making a scene. Damn right he was making a scene. “Aren put you in it to alter your memories! I think he’s trying to frame you! And where the hell does Taam get off, talking to you like that?” As he spoke, he saw Jainan mouth the word memories. And then the walls disappeared.
* * *
Kiem sat at a table—one of the curved, horseshoe-shaped ones used for duller meetings—in a conference room filled with thin white light. The sky beyond the windows was pale. He must be here for a meeting. He squinted at the others around the table, who all had an attenuated quality, as if the spectrum of the sun’s light had shifted slightly while Kiem hadn’t been paying attention.
It must be something to do with Thean affairs, because Jainan sat across from him, as did some of the staffers from the Thean embassy. Taam was also there—of course, Taam was heavily involved with Thea—and some other Iskat officials. An elderly man seemed to be presiding, but his head had nodded down to his chest, and every now and then, he gave a gentle snore.
“Next is the proposal for a replacement Thean Ambassador,” one of the officials said. “Objections? She looked at the elderly man, realized she would get nothing out of him, and turned to Taam.
“That woman they’ve put forward is a no,” Taam said, his elbow propped on the table and his forehead in his hand, as if it had been a long meeting already. “Tell them to find someone else.”
“Taam,” Jainan said quietly. “We’ve done this twice now.”
There was a general rustle around the table. “Count Jainan?” the official said, as if this was an unexpected turn of events.
Taam ignored her and spoke directly to Jainan. “And?”
Jainan looked unwell, but said, “The clans are getting impatient, Taam. Please, can we just confirm someone?”
Taam leaned in. “You want this woman,” he said, “because she’s a friend of your family. I’m losing patience for how everyone on Thea gets appointed because they’re someone’s brother’s aunt.”
“That isn’t true,” Jainan said. “Her clan is neutral toward Feria, but if you want an enemy of Feria’s, they can find one. We desperately need someone in the ambassador role. I promise I am not playing clan games—I am not Thean anymore, Taam.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Taam said, with the general air that they’d had this conversation before. “Moving on. Next item.”
Kiem had been keeping his mouth shut since his opinion didn’t seem wanted, but he wasn’t going to let that pass. “Hey,” he said. “Taam. Jainan’s right, you need someone to be”—he hesitated. The new Thean Ambassador? Didn’t Thea already have an ambassador?—“whatever job you’re talking about. Don’t ignore him.”