Chapter 18
LOSHAM
The Bach playing through the room's hidden speakers had been on a continuous loop since Losham had arrived at six that morning.
He didn't particularly care for Bach. He preferred the Italians, Vivaldi when he wanted vigor, and Pergolesi when he wanted melancholy, but Bach had the advantage of being densely structured, and dense structure interfered with surveillance microphones.
If anyone was listening, they would have a hard time picking words out of the layered counterpoint.
Rami was setting chairs around the dining table that Losham had appropriated for his desk. The hotel's largest guest suite could host dinners for twelve, but today it was going to seat ten and no dinner would be served.
Today, he was going to discuss with Dave his assassination plot, and he was nervous.
He had been anxious ever since he'd arrived at the conclusion that his brothers needed to be eliminated, and thinking it over during the weekend had only intensified the stress instead of relieving it.
Usually, planning and strategizing relaxed Losham, but this time the stakes were personal because it was his neck on the line, literally, and he hadn't formed any concrete plan yet.
Rami was stressed too.
"What's troubling you?" he asked his assistant.
"The plot is half-baked." Rami aligned the sixth chair so it was the same distance from the fifth as the fifth was from the fourth.
"I know. I hope Dave will provide fresh insight."
Rami shook his head. "With all due respect to Dave, the combined life experience of the Eight is a fraction of yours, so I doubt they will have anything brilliant to add. If they fail to kill even one of the three, the survivor will fortify his guard and turn against you."
"I'm aware."
"They will start with the Eight, then your regular guards and all of your supporters, and they will save us for last."
"Yes, Rami. I'm aware."
Losham pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "I don't have a choice. If I do nothing, my brothers will eventually realize that I'm bluffing about our father, and they'll move on me. We have a window. The window will close. We use it or we lose it."
"You can't make a move like that until you are certain that it will work perfectly. There is another way."
Rami's way was to run. To leave the island and the seat of power that Losham had grabbed and live in luxury abroad on the fortune he'd amassed for himself during his years in America.
He could live like a king, not beholden to anyone, but he would forfeit the power he was holding now, and Losham wasn't willing to do that.
"There isn't. I'm not running."
Shaking his head, Rami finished aligning the last chair and stepped back to inspect his work.
"The Eight are the strongest when they are together. That's why they almost never split. Splitting them into four teams of two will weaken them significantly."
"It has occurred to me."
"The army is not loyal to you yet. Dave's compulsion rounds are not nearly as effective as Lord Navuh's blanket influence.
So even if Dave manages the simultaneous assassinations, and you walk out of this room as the last one standing, you're going to have a rebellion on your hands within a day, most likely led by the junior brothers. "
Losham let out a breath. He'd been turning these problems over in his head, and Rami wasn't contributing anything new.
The junior brothers were an obstacle, but he wasn't overly worried about them. They were junior not because they were younger than the others but because they were less capable, and his father hadn't believed they were worthy of promotion.
In fact, Losham was starting to suspect that they hadn't been born to the harem ladies but to Dormants in the breeding enclosure.
No one other than the women in the enclosure would have known that some of the brothers hadn't been brought from the harem as babies.
But the women had no contact with anyone on the outside, and they didn't know what happened to the boys once they left the enclosure.
They wouldn't have known who had been promoted and who hadn't.
Besides, those who might have known anything were probably dead by now.
The more he thought about this, the more sense it made to him. It was definitely something that his father would have done to fortify the line of his so-called sons.
At least Losham knew for sure that he had been born to one of the ladies. He even had a picture of her. He hadn't been born to some commoner in the breeding enclosure. His sense of superiority, which had suffered a blow when he'd realized that he might not be Navuh's son, had just gotten a boost.
"Some of these I have answers for," he told Rami. "Some I don't. I will work through them with the Eight."
Rami knew him well enough to hear in his tone that it was time to drop the subject, and for a long moment he didn't say anything and focused on arranging Losham's paperwork on the desk.
"I have some interesting news from the brothel."
Losham arched a brow. "Do tell."
Naturally, Rami didn't use the brothel's services, but he regularly gathered information for Losham by striking up conversations with people and listening to gossip.
"The Eight requested a woman on Friday."
"That is interesting. They haven't availed themselves of the brothel's services since they escaped the lab. I thought that their sex drive was gone because of the new drug protocol Petrov and Volkov designed for them. I wonder what has changed."
"Indeed. I was told that the woman stayed the night and they'd escorted her back to the brothel in the morning."
There were several possible explanations, and Losham disliked all of them.
It was possible that the Eight's drug protocol had lost its efficacy in some dimension they hadn't anticipated, and that suppressed urges were leaking back through.
It was also possible that the Eight were experimenting with social or emotional behaviors they'd previously shed, in which case something in their cognitive architecture was changing in unpredictable ways.
The other and simpler explanation was that they were trying to project an image of normalcy, but then the question was, why now?
They hadn't made an effort to hide their lack of interest in sex before. They simply didn't seem to care what others thought of them.
He should visit the lab and have a talk with the scientists about the protocol. He also needed to check on their progress on the human-enhancement formulation.
A knock at the door announced the arrival of the Eight, and Rami walked over and opened it for them.
"Good morning," he greeted them. "Please, come in."
The Eight entered in their usual formation, with Number One leading the procession.
"Good morning," Number One said.
"Please, sit down." Losham gestured at the eight chairs, six across the table from him, and one on each side.
There was a fractional pause. They didn't look at each other, but he had the distinct impression that they had just consulted with each other about the unusual instruction. Normally, only Number One sat at the table, and the others arrayed themselves along the wall.
Number One inclined his head and walked to the chair at the far end of the table, and the other seven followed.
It looked like a war council, and in a way, it was.
"I have several things to discuss with you this morning," Losham said. "And I want to discuss them with all eight of you."
Again, there was a pause, and Losham imagined them talking it over inside their hive mind.
"You are always discussing things with the Eight of us," Number One said. "Even if I'm the only one with you in the room."
Losham smiled. "Intellectually, I know that, but I'm an old immortal who is set in his ways. I prefer to watch the face of everyone I'm talking to."
Number One nodded while the others remained expressionless.
"Let's first talk about the wire," he started. "I'm sure you are anxious to hear how it went."
"We don't get anxious," Number One said. "But we are curious."
"Same thing." Losham waved a dismissive hand.
"The human male I selected for the task entered the harem yesterday afternoon wearing the wire and asking the staff all the questions I told him to ask.
Your compulsion held, and the staff confirmed every element of the story.
The lord is sequestered in his apartment, and only the ladies are allowed to see him.
I forwarded four hours of recordings to my brothers, and they had no choice but to accept that I have been telling them the truth. "
Number One inclined his head. "That's good."
"Indeed. The wire stopped working at approximately three in the morning, which was the upper limit of how long we expected the device to function.
It died exactly on schedule. The human is now permanently assigned to the harem's gardening staff, where he'll continue to live under your compulsion.
If and when your compulsion begins to fray, no one outside the harem will learn the truth because the device is no longer transmitting. "
Number Three moved his hand a fraction to the left, but his expression didn't change.
"Number Three. You have a thought you would like to share with me?"
There was a split-second hesitation before Number Three replied, "The compulsion will not fray anytime soon. It will hold for months, perhaps even longer."
"That's reassuring. Thank you." Losham returned his gaze to Number One. "My brothers are appeased for now, but they won't stay pacified for long. We have a short window of opportunity, and we need to use it."
Number One waited, his expression as impassive as always, but there was curiosity in his eyes, and it was reflected in the eyes of the other seven.
"I thought about ways to solve the situation, and the only sure way for us to stay in power is to assassinate all three of my senior brothers."