Vanosh smiled thinly and offered up a physical folder to Kiva, who took it. “That clock has been reset, Lady Kiva,” he said. “Nine months ago your sister ship, No, Sir, I Don’t Mean Maybe, arrived with a shipment of grapefruit graft stock that carried a new strain of virus. It spread through your licensed orchards and devastated your client’s crops.”

“All right, but so what?” Kiva said. “If it did happen, and I’m not going to stipulate it did until we have our own people take a look, then we’ll compensate the clients and plow under the orchards. It doesn’t have anything to do with this shipment of haverfruit.”

“It’s not that simple,” Vanosh said. “The virus is cross-compatible with some of End’s local crops, including banu, a staple down there. We’ve had to quarantine entire provinces to halt its spread. Food prices are through the roof. People are concerned about the possibility of famine. The Duke of End was already battling an insurgency. This has made it worse.” Vanosh leaned forward on the table, toward Lagos. “To put it bluntly, Lady Kiva, the House of Lagos has helped to destabilize this entire planet.”

Kiva stared at this official fuckwit in disbelief. “You can’t think we intended—”

Now it was Vanosh’s turn to cut off Lagos. “Lady Kiva, it doesn’t matter what your house intended, what matters is what it did. What it did in this case is pour oil onto a fire. Until this is resolved in a court of law, I’m afraid your trade rights for End are suspended.”

“I don’t know about any of this,” Kiva said.

“Everything about the virus is in the report.”

“Not about the fucking virus. About the destabilization and the famine or any of the rest of that crap. You can’t pin it on us.”

“It’s not all pinned onto your family, Lady Kiva, I assure you. But enough can be pinned to your family to have caused this suspension.”

“Is this is a squeeze?” Kiva asked.

Vanosh blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Is this a squeeze? Are you hitting us up for a bribe?”

“A bribe?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure what part of this discussion suggested to you that I was fishing for a bribe, Lady Kiva.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t be coy,” Kiva said, irritably. “Let’s pretend we’re all adults here and we don’t have to get cute about a business transaction. Tell me what you want”—she jabbed a thumb at Magnut, whose expression suggested he couldn’t believe this particular conversation was actually happening—“and Magnut here will take care of the rest.”

Vanosh turned to Magnut. “Do you bribe imperial customs officers often, Chief Purser Magnut?”