The call from Ghreni Nohamapetan after he lost Marce Claremont had to be one of the most satisfying calls Kiva had ever gotten in her life.
“Marce Claremont is gone,” he said.
“Who?” Kiva replied.
“Don’t fuck with me, Kiva. I want to know where he is.”
“I couldn’t tell you where he is. It’s not my job to keep track of him. My job, as I understood it, was to tell you if he tried to book passage on my ship. He did, and I told you. You were supposed to wait until he was about to board to snatch him, if I remember correctly. You decided not to wait. So it looks like this one is on you.”
“The people I had with Claremont tell me they were attacked by a woman.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“It was Vrenna Claremont.”
“You mean the sister who had years of training to murder people for the state, and then became a cop? Yes, that would be my logical guess too.”
“I want to know how she came to find out we were targeting her brother.”
“So ask her.”
“Kiva.”
“I didn’t tell her, if that’s what you were asking. Why would I tell her? I had three million marks riding on you snatching him.”
“Someone in your crew told them.”
“Or, and here’s just a theory, when you tried to extort the Count of Claremont in front of his adult children and you didn’t immediately get what you wanted, maybe they figured an asshole like you would try to force his hand with something like kidnapping, so they made preparations, particularly the one of them who was a fucking soldier and is now a goddamned cop, Ghreni.”
There was silence on the other end of the call for a moment. Then, “I’d like to know how you heard about that.”
“Because Marce Claremont fucking told us,” Kiva said. “He told my chief purser about it when he was booking passage, and then my purser told me, because his job is to tell me things that will affect my ship’s bottom line. Are you really such a smug asshole that you didn’t think the Claremont kids wouldn’t talk about that? If there wasn’t a fucking war going on and the rule of law wasn’t basically suspended while the duke thrashes about for a few more days before the end, your ass would already be in jail for extortion, with the duke letting you be the fall guy. For fuck’s sake, Ghreni. You tried to extort an imperial official in front of a fucking cop. You have to be spectacularly dense to try to pull a stunt like that.”
There was another silence, and Kiva merrily counted off the seconds before Ghreni spoke again. She got to six.
“Have you heard from Marce or Vrenna Claremont?”
Kiva snorted. “Why the fuck would I hear from them? I’m not the one they were dealing with. It’s doubtful they have the first clue who I am. If they were going to contact anyone, it would be my chief purser. And before you ask, they haven’t contacted him since you pulled your stupid stunt. If I were going to guess, I’d suspect they’re probably trying to book passage on another ship leaving End.”
“Which ones are leaving in the same time frame as yours?”
“Do I look like a fucking traffic controller to you, Ghreni? I don’t know, and I don’t really care.”
“I’d like you to delay your departure.”
“Why would I do that? Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, our spot at Imperial Station is already scheduled to be taken over by another ship. We’ve got nowhere to stay.”
“Your ship could stay within system.”
“Or we could leave when we’re supposed to, because we’ve got a fucking schedule and you don’t make it.”
“I would owe you a favor,” Ghreni said.
Kiva laughed out loud at this. Then, “Say that again, Ghreni. I want to see if I’ll laugh as much a second time.”
“We used to be friends.”
“We used to fuck each other. It’s not the same thing. Which you of all people know.”
More silence. Then, “I’d like to talk about the three million marks.”
“I’m sure you would.”
“I don’t have Claremont. I’m not sure why you should have my three million marks.”
“I should have them because the deal was I let you know if he booked passage. He did. The rest was up to you. It’s not my fault you hire incompetents.”
“Kiva, if I find out that you were behind him escaping, you won’t like it.”
“Well, I have two responses to that. One, fuck you, you shitty little example of a human. Two, if I were behind it, what the fuck could you do to me? I’m leaving End, you asshole. I’ll be back home within the year and I’ll be taking a job at corporate. I’ve done my time on a ship. You, meanwhile, will still be here, a pimple on the ass end of space. So threaten all you want, you amoral fuck. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Ghreni sighed. “Kiva. Despite everything I still like you a little bit.”
“I’m touched, Ghreni. Really, I am.”
“This is why I’m telling you now that you have no idea what’s coming, and why in the end it wouldn’t be a bad thing to stay on my good side.”
“I’m perfectly happy to stay on your good side, Ghreni. What I’m not perfectly happy to do is give you back three fucking million marks because you didn’t think through the terms of the deal. Or to pretend to be intimidated by you huffing and puffing at me about how you’ll make me regret crossing you. Grow the fuck up, Ghreni.”
“I’d like you to tell me if the Claremonts contact you. And by ‘you,’ I mean any member of your crew.”
“I’ll be happy to do that for another half million marks.”
“Kiva.”
“‘Kiva’ what, Ghreni? We’re doing business here. You want information. You were willing to pay for that information before. I’m letting you have more information. At a substantial discount from before.”
“You know I’ll still have people at Imperial Station looking for him to board your ship.”
“Of course. I would too, in your shoes. But I don’t think you’re going to find him. If he has any brains at all he’ll find someone else to get him off this fucking rock. Which I will note is fine with me. I already have his half million marks for passage, nonrefundable. Which I will note was the amount that finally pushed this whole fucking shitbag of a trip into the black. Well, that and your three million marks.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“Where are you now? On the station or on the planet?”
“I’m on the planet having meetings with our people here before we head out. Tell your fucking duke we’ll expect our money back with interest. That is, if he manages to keep his head for the next week, which I’m officially doubting and which would not bother me at all.”
“Would you like to have dinner?”
“What?” Kiva said.
“Would you like to have dinner before you go?”
“You know of a restaurant that’s open during a civil war?”
“We could have it at my place.”
Kiva laughed. “You’re actually literally still trying to fuck me.”
“I’m not going to lie. I wouldn’t mind. We did it pretty well, before everything.”
“Yes, we did,” Kiva admitted. “The actual fucking was good, Ghreni. It’s the metaphorical fucking I’m not in the mood to forgive. Now or ever.”
“Fair enough. Let me know if the Claremonts contact you.”
“You know the fee.”
“Fine.”
“Good doing business with you, Ghreni.”
Ghreni snorted and broke the connection.
“You know that he would have tried to kill you if you went to dinner with him,” Vrenna Claremont said. She and Marce were sitting with Kiva in a conference room at the House of Lagos’s local offices.
“I would have broken his goddamned spine,” Kiva said. Vrenna smiled at this.
“I’d like to go back to the part where you told Ghreni Nohamapetan that I booked passage from you,” Marce said.
“What about it?”
“You told him?”
“You already know I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed the three million marks he offered for the information.”
“Yeah, but then he grabbed me and held me hostage and planned to torture and maybe kill me.”
Kiva shrugged. “We told your sister immediately after they grabbed you, because I had people watching you. And then we gave her all the information she needed to find you and get you. Hell, we even gave her your rucksack with the adorable little stuffed pig in it as proof we weren’t fucking around.”
“I still could have been hurt. Or I could have died.”
“You weren’t and didn’t.”
“But—”
Kiva held up a hand. “Can I just wrap up this whole line of conversation by saying I really don’t give a shit whether you’re upset? If you were actually hurt, or dead, then I’d say sorry. But you’re not, so suck it up. The way I see it, if Ghreni wanted you bad enough to give me three million fucking marks for you, then sooner or later he would have just tried to grab you anyway, whether or not I told him anything. Since that was the case, I decided to get paid. This trip was in the red, now it’s not. And we did give your sister information to save your ass. Stop whining about it, for fuck’s sake.”
“I … I literally don’t know what to say to that,” Marce said.
“You could say ‘thank you,’” Kiva said, and noticed Vrenna smiling.
“I don’t think I will,” Marce said.
“Okay. But either way, let’s table this and move on, shall we?”
Marce lapsed into silence, next to his still grinning sister, and Kiva noted that both of them were attractive, Marce in a nerdy, probably attentive and considerate way, and Vrenna in a way that suggested that it was fifty/fifty whether your bedframe would be a pile of kindling at the end of a fuck date. Whether Kiva had wanted to admit it or not, Ghreni’s totally insincere attempt at a rendezvous had reminded her it’d been a week since her last attempt at an orgasm, with that assistant purser, and in the time since she was either too busy or too pissed off even to rock herself off.
This qualified as an absolute fucking tragedy, no pun intended, which Kiva would need to attend to one way or another. She idly wondered whether either of the Claremont twins would be the sort to assist her in this regard. She decided that Marce probably wouldn’t, at least not at the moment—he still seemed put out at the idea that Kiva was fine letting him be snatched for three million marks, and honestly, that was totally fair—but maybe Vrenna might. Kiva regretted that time, necessity, and circumstances made following up on that an impossibility.
“Lady Kiva?” Vrenna prompted.
“I’m sorry,” Kiva said. “I got distracted thinking about sex.”
Vrenna smiled. “We still have the problem of getting Marce onto your ship,” she said. “Ghreni Nohamapetan still plans to have people on hand at Imperial Station in order to grab him.”
“Ghreni is looking at the front door,” Kiva said. “He’s not looking at the servants’ entrance.”
“What does that mean?” Marce asked.
Kiva looked at him. “That means you’re not coming onto the Yes, Sir as Marce Claremont, you’re coming on as Kristian Jansen, crew member.”
“How am I going to do that?”
“I imagine that when you booked passage Gazson Magnut tried to sell you some forged travel documents.”
“He did. I didn’t need to get them.”
“Well, now you do. More accurately, they’ve been gotten for you.”
“For which you’ll no doubt charge me,” Marce said.
“I’m charging you at cost, not the ridiculous fucking markup we’re charging everyone else.”
“Travel documents aren’t going to be enough,” Vrenna said. “Crew on trade ships have to have biometrics as well. With all due respect, if Nohamapetan is willing to pay three million marks to get Marce, he’s going to be checking the servant entrance as well, and that includes getting into Imperial Station’s biometric database.”
“You act like this is our first time smuggling someone on as a crew member,” Kiva said. She turned back to Marce. “Shave your head, you’re getting a dermal wig with cultivated hair. Scalp and beard. If anyone plucks a hair out of your head, the DNA would match Kristian, not you. You’ll get contacts to fake iris and retinal patterns, and you’ll get a thumb pad with the correct thumbprint and DNA. We’ll put lifts in your shoes. You won’t look like you. Unless they take a blood sample you’ll be fine.”
“And if they take a blood sample?” Marce asked.
“Well, then, I guess you’re fucked, aren’t you? But they don’t do that.”
“No one will notice you’ve manufactured a human out of thin air,” Vrenna said.
“‘Kristian’ has worked for us before,” Kiva said. “We have one or two of these for every system we work. So does every other house.”
“Why?” Marce asked.
“Because sometimes someone important fucks up and has to leave town in a hurry before someone like her,” Kiva jerked a thumb at Vrenna, “catches up with them and sends them into a hole. It’s entirely possible Ghreni will be using one of these himself soon, at the rate he’s going.”
“So I’ll have to be ‘Kristian’ this entire trip.”
“That’ll be your name, yes. Once we get into the Flow you can ditch the fake parts. We’ll update you in the system. One catch: You’re going to have to be an actual crew member the entire trip.”
“Why does he have to do that?” Vrenna asked.
“Because ‘Kristian’ is taking the place of an actual crew member. You take up crew space, you take up crew responsibilities. That’s the deal.”
“I don’t suppose I’ll get paid.”
“Sure you’ll get paid. Standard rates. Not that you’ll be able to spend them anywhere, it’s a straight shot to Hub.”
“And a refund on the passage fee we gave you?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Marce smiled. “Just checking.”
“I’ll be charging you for the new identity too, by the way. Also at cost. Not cheap.”
“How do we get out of here, now?” Vrenna asked. “You know Nohamapetan will have people watching this building if he doesn’t have them doing that already.”
“Neither of you leaves yet.” Kiva pointed to Marce. “He stays here and we’ll bring in our people to work on him. Then he can walk out as Kristian.” She pointed at Vrenna. “You’ll have to wait until we’re gone. Sorry.”
Vrenna shrugged. “It’s not the worst place I’ve been holed up.”
Kiva nodded, and then stood up. “I’m heading back to the ship.” She nodded to Vrenna. “I’ll never see you again, which I figure is a tragedy.” Vrenna smiled at this. Kiva turned her attention to Marce. “You I’ll see on the ship, but we won’t exactly be socializing. So, nice to meet you, welcome to the Yes, Sir, and thank you for allowing me to screw Ghreni Nohamapetan one more time before I never have to fucking see him again.”
Marce smiled and nodded, and then Kiva was out of the conference room. Her local staff had already been briefed on what to do with the Claremont siblings and were warned that if their identity or location were leaked to anyone that the House of Lagos would make it a priority to fuck with the lives of everyone in their family for six generations at least. She was reasonably confident that no one would talk.
As she got into her fortified groundcar to head back to port, taking a circuitous route to avoid the neighborhoods where the fighting was still going on, or that had been reduced to rubble, Kiva reflected on two things.
The first was that the civil war on End both took and gave away—it fucked her and the House of Lagos with regard to the haverfruit and their monopolies, but sent enough rich people scurrying her way that her trip ended up making a profit. When that profit was added to the licensing and other fees that would eventually be recouped here on End, the House of Lagos would be in a very good position, with regard to other houses, and its ability to exercise power among them. Kiva had pulled out a save, and that was something she could use at home.
The second was that while she let the Claremont twins listen along to her conversation with Ghreni Nohamapetan, they didn’t know one important piece of information that Kiva did, discovered through the graces of the investigators that Magnut paid a frankly rapacious amount of money to in order to discover:
The Duke of End never told Ghreni Nohamapetan to ask the Count of Claremont to release imperial funds. And he certainly never authorized Ghreni to fucking kidnap one of the count’s children and hold him for ransom. He did both of those things on his own.
What the fuck are you up to, Ghreni? Kiva asked herself, as her groundcar lumbered off to port. What are you planning?
And while we’re at it, what is the rest of your fucking family planning, too?