Kosala: “I’m happy right now. I know I may sound as pissed as you’ve ever heard me—and you should be scared of me right now, Mycroft, you personally should, because you are not making soldiers of my Servicers, and there will be consequences for you, big ones—but under all that I’m happy. You know why? You know that fantasy, where you get to go back in time to the beginning of one of the World Wars and change things to stop it? Or make it a well-organized quick war without any atrocities? That’s the chance Jed’s given me right now, and I’m not throwing it away.”

I: “Providence—”

Kosala: “Is your sensayer’s business, Mycroft, not mine. I’m preparing for the war, don’t doubt that. I’ll build ten thousand hospitals before the Olympics start, but war ends when the sides agree on the terms of the peace, and now that Jed’s made sides for me to work with, it’s my turn to negotiate the terms. I don’t know whether I’ll succeed on the hundredth day of the war, the thousandth, or the negative-twentieth, but I will make peace. I’m already making it. Now get Jed to call me back. I don’t care what else you’re doing. They have to convince Cornel to offer amnesty if those who attacked Alexandria surrender. This can’t wait.”

I: “I’ll try, as soon as we’re done here, but—”

Kosala: “Succeed. Don’t make me send Heloïse.”

I: “Y-es, Chair Kosala.”

Kosala: “And keep Achilles away from my Servicers. It’s bad enough Achilles lied to me, but—”

I: “Lied to you? How?”

Kosala: “They said they’d help me work for peace, while all the time the two of you were training your private army.”

I: “That was no lie, Chair Kosala. Achilles wants to help peace, more than anything.”

Kosala: “You both believe the peace movement is doomed.”

I: “All mortal things are doomed: you, me, this peace, the Empire, this planet. Achilles doesn’t choose sides based on how likely things are to succeed, only whether they’re worth dying for.” I waited. “Chair Kosala?”

Kosala: “I heard you. If you mean it then tell Achilles too that, more than anything, I need Jed to talk to me.”

I: “I will.” I meant the pledge, but did not do it then, not yet, not with the gates before us.