Oh, to be sure. Sit in the damned sandbox and I’ll lend you my shovel, Valery. Damn your presumption. My patronage! Bloody hell if I’ll be used!
At first blush, she was just mad, damned mad, as Justin would put it. And then just generally upset.
Was that thing, that grinning devil gone to black in her vision—was that the experiential artform? Was that what Valery was now?
And connected to Gloria?
It wasn’t who she’d thought she was inviting back to Reseune, to do justice for, and about.
They’d had lives out there, at a place that wasn’t quite real to her. All these years of her life and theirs had gone by, and Ollie might be the same, and maybe Julia was, but they weren’t, not Gloria and not Valery, and in directions she hadn’t anticipated. She’d made a mistake.
But ships took months in passage—her letters to them had taken months in passage; their replies had taken months coming back, and by the time the reply got to her—her three invitees were already on a ship on the way here.
Damn!
BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter v
JULY 22, 2424
0834H
It was a luxurious office. It had the view from the cliffs on a windowlike screen—Justin liked it; Grant liked it. They were glad it was a feature. There was a little guppy tank in the corner—they’d had to laugh about that. It made this move, the last move, they hoped, a little more thoughtful. And their wall had a seascape, a strange thing to contemplate, sunlight through a breaking wave, vastly different colors than the yellow froth and desolate sands of Novgorod’s shoreline—which nobody wanted to visit.
“It’s from Earth,” Grant had surmised.
It could even have been Novgorod’s shore, when they first landed. Getting back to that would take the native microlife eating all the terrestrial microlife—and native life had a chance of doing that, now. In their own lifetime, one really good thing Denys had done was join Moreyville and Novgorod in cleaning up the Novaya Volga, building the coffer-dam and the treatment plant—probably it had taken the form of a deal, but Reseune stayed cleaner, and the river did, each in their own way. Some things did get better. He liked to think of the picture that way. Grant said he liked it.
So he could say yes, they loved it, when Ari asked the question. “Very nice.”
She wanted her lessons, as she called it, which consisted now of their working over sets. And she brought him things, her designs, her questions—good questions, that, if there were no Jordan anywhere on the horizon, would have kept him happily working for days.
As it was—
“Ari,” he said, when she arrived for her lesson today, and settled in with them, supplied with coffee and a morning cookie, and the tranquility of the room notwithstanding, his heart was beating overtime, doubt about what he wanted to do, doubt about how she’d take it—doubt about what sort of mess he was opening up to her.
But he couldn’t get what he wanted on his own. And he knew everything it could provoke, if it got back to Jordan, and everything it could provoke if Ari got too interested in it.
“Ari, I want a particular manual. Say it’s an actual current personal manual. It was once confiscated in security, in a computer. Can you get it?”
She held the coffee mug like a little kid with a cocoa, in both hands, and brought it down when he asked that question.
“We’re not talking about my getting Grant’s.”
“No,” he said. In point of fact, he was sure she had that.
“Paul’s?” she asked, straight to the mark, in a very limited range of likely manuals he’d be interested in, and he nodded.
“I can crack his storage,” she said. “No question. I haven’t, lately. I have the manual.”
Chilling confession. Honest, absolutely honest with him. He hadn’t expected the last, and realized he should have expected it. Probably ReseuneSec had its own supposedly current copy. Yanni had. Hell, there must be half a dozen copies floating about various offices.
“It’s mostly done in hand-notes,” he said carefully. “I’d be surprised if not.”
“Not surprisingly,” she said, “I’ve skimmed it. A lot of cryptic notes, a personal code.”
“Not surprisingly,” he agreed.
She didn’t ask the obvious question. She was being very good. His Ari…was being very good. And had several questions, likely, questions that would set her on her own quiet search.
“We’re worried about Paul,” he said. “Grant is worried about Paul.”
She looked from him to Grant. Grant said, “I’ll let Justin do the talking.”
“I want a copy of the manual,” Justin said, “and I want Jordan and Paul not to know it.”
“You’ll have it ten minutes after I get home. Now, if you really want it.”
“It’s possible I can read his notes,” he said, feeling ashamed of himself the whole way, going behind Jordan’s back, offering to open up a system that might reveal other things. “I used to be able to.” If he gave her the translation of the notes, and she might demand them—it would be a Rosetta stone for the rest, for anything he’d encoded. Total key, to anything ReseuneSec currently couldn’t read. And he didn’t want to know the rest, and he didn’t want to betray Jordan, and he wanted to ask the best mind of this age and the last one what he could do to fix what was the matter with Paul—but doing that would open up everything to her. Not just the manual. All the notes. All Jordan’s work.
And Jordan was hellishly protective of his ideas, his work—and her getting her hands on Paul—it was Jordan’s nightmare.
“I’m going to ask you for it,” he said to her, “and let me see if I can read it. And I’m going to ask you—not to ask me for the shorthand he uses.”
A little silence ensued. Ari thought about it, and had another sip of coffee, one-handed, this time, the other hand idle, elbow on chair arm…an attitude so, so like the first Ari that it chilled.
Eyes flicked up to his, and broke contact, self-protective, keeping thoughts private, as she nodded. “All right.”
“Ari, it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s what I owe him.”
“I won’t ask you another question,” she said. “And you know that’s hard for me.”
“If I can’t make sense of it,” he said, “I may come back to you.”
“You’re good.” she said, and oh, those eyes flickered like the activity-LEDs on a processor. She was. Processing. “If you do need me, ask. But it’s all yours.”
“You’re a—”
“Justin, if you say ‘good kid,’ all bets are off.”
“A good human being,” he amended that, unspoken. “You are.”
“I like that.” She smiled somberly. “I take that one. Grant, am I a good human being?”
“You’re a fine sample of the born-man sort,” Grant said, not too somberly. “Or you seem so to me. It’s beyond me to critique, beyond that.”
She smiled. The moment passed. She finished off the cooling coffee, and rotated her chair and poured herself another cup. “It’s a two-cup morning. I’ve been so damn busy with the move I haven’t got a thing done on the last set. I read the last of it this morning. But I’ve got one I want you to look at.”
“It wouldn’t be Jordan’s, would it?” Justin asked.
She had her sip. “Actually, it is. He told you about it?”
“He mentioned it. I was going to ask, actually.”
“So we’re doing a Jordan morning,” she said, and pulled out a convenient keyboard and touched the voice button, called the file, which was beta, and correspondingly large. “That’s it. Shall I store to Projects?”
“Do it,” Justin said. “Do you have some particular questions?”
“I don’t,” she said. “It’s a management tape, the type’s capable of an accurate memory and a strong work ethic. It’s just typical Jordan: I’ve looked at his work, at least skimmed through several, and it’s not old stuff—it’s using the modern interlinks, using them ve
ry appropriately. It’s a nice nested set of calls that play off secondary sets, don’t conflict with deep sets… I’m not finding a—”
Com went off. A worried look crossed her face.
“Not supposed to—” she began, which meant it was her Urgent list, the handful of people who could call her at any hour, and about that time there was a knock at the office door.
Grant started to get up. But Florian came on through.
“Sera,” Florian said, and the buzz from Ari’s com continued. “Sera.”
“Report,” she said, and Florian said,
“Spurlin is dead.”
Ari froze just a heartbeat, then located the phone, thumbed it on and said, “Ari.”
“Sera.” It was Catlin’s voice.
“Florian told me. Details?”
“Found by the maid this morning” Catlin’s voice came through. “Cause of death uncertain. Last contact yesterday night by the night staff at his residence. That’s all that’s known currently. Possible natural causes.”
“Possibly not,” Ari said. Her face was just a little pale. “I’m coming home,” she said.
Spurlin. Candidate in Defense. Khalid’s opposition. The one the polls said was in the lead by a wide margin. It wasn’t good news.
“Justin, I’m sorry,” Ari said, and set down a mostly full cup of coffee and snatched up her jacket.
She left with Florian, leaving Jordan’s file up on the computer. Justin shut it down, and looked at Grant.
“This is bad,” he said, and tried to think what the constitution said about a candidate dying after the vote was taken. “If he wins—does it go to his Proxy-designate? Or what?”
“Don’t ask me, born-man. It’s your system. I certainly hope it has an answer.”
“I don’t even know if he’s got a Proxy-designate. God, I don’t want that bastard in. This is one time I wish the Nine were elected by general ballot.” He turned to the console, keyed Voice, said, “Search: Constitutional law: elections: Council of the Nine: candidate death.”
The computer didn’t take long. It flashed up a lengthy piece of legal language.
“Search in document: if an elected candidate dies; second condition: before official announcement of results of election: question: who succeeds?”
The computer took about a heartbeat. The answer flashed up:
1. ) Current office-holder may hold office for entirety of vacated term.
2. ) Current office-holder [a] may appoint Proxy Councillor [b]. service of [b] to run concurrent with [a]’s term of office.
3) Current office-holder [a] may leave office at end of [a]’s previously elected term, in which case the runner-up [b] in the election may succeed to office and serve for the two-year term.
4) In the case of death of all candidates and the incumbent, the office settles on the Secretary of the Bureau, to run for the elected term.
5) Announcement of results irrelevant. Delivery of all precinct results to Cyteen Station data storage constitutes valid election. Exception: conditions of war or natural disaster preventing the transmission of or timely arrival of precinct results to Cyteen Station will, after one month, disallow those precincts from the result tally. The tally of results at Cyteen Station will proceed on that date and results will he official as of 0001h on the expiration of the deadline for receipt of ballots. Exception: a quorum of precincts [66%] must arrive by one month after the expected date. Failure of a quorum of precincts to report by one month after the expected date will invalidate the election, in which case current officeholders will continue in office as if re-elected.
Precedents: no dates, no instances available.
“It says,” Justin began.
“I have it,” Grant said grimly. “A first in Union history, it seems.”
“Jacques is all prepared to resign,” Justin said. “But the proxy can only be valid if he stays in office.”
“Is that actually a problem?” Grant asked.
“I don’t know,” Justin said. “It’s certainly better than the alternative.”
A light flashed on the screen. Ari. He keyed it. It wasn’t a message. It was the arrival of the manual he’d requested. The universe was tottering, peace and war possibly at issue, and she remembered his document. He understood that mind. She probably didn’t even strongly register doing it—it was just on her agenda and it went, probably with three and four other things and the staff requests, because that mind was clearing chaff, fast, not for an emergency response, but for a policy consideration.
Call to Yanni was next. He’d bet on it.
BOOK THREE Section 4 Chapter vi
JULY 22, 2424
0911H
“Yanni?” Ari said.
“I have the report.” Yanni’s answer came back to her. Yanni was already in his office, ordinary day begun. It wasn’t an ordinary day.
“Natural causes?”
“Still in question.”
“I’m questioning it. This isn’t good.”
“Understatement,” Yanni said. “Listen, I’ve got a call in to Jacques. Hicks has people on the way to Jacques, who’s still at home.”
“Have we had contact with him?”
“He knows.”
“Thank God he’s alive. Keep him that way.”
“We’re working on that. I’m ordering up Reseune One.”
She drew a deep breath. “Yanni, what you need to do you can do from here.”
“Impossible.”
“Not impossible.”
“Appearances, Ari. I have to get to the capital. There’s no question of it.”
“I want agents with Lynch. Fast.”
“I’m ahead of you on that one. Hicks has got a team headed for his office, too. They’ll do all driving, all transport, all meals.”
“Hicks. Yanni, I’m not that confident in Hicks. He makes mistakes.”
“It happens to all of us.”
“I’m saying I don’t trust him, Yanni! If we lose Lynch, you lose the proxy, and we revert, God, where do we revert? The Secretary for Science?”
“That would be it,” Yanni said, “who would immediately reappoint me Proxy Councillor and I’d be back in. I’m damned hard to get rid of, so don’t worry too much.”
“Not if you’re not in Novgorod, I don’t need to worry too much, and I don’t want you to go.”
“The man could have had a heart attack.”
“And you know he didn’t. Yanni, I can’t lose you. I can’t. You want me trying to figure things out day to day and running everything into the ground. You’re risking too much. Easier to send me, for God’s sake. I’m duplicatable. Your knowledge isn’t in databanks.”
“Bad joke, young lady, and you’re not going. I need to talk directly to Jacques and to Corain and to Lynch: there’s no substitute in virtuality for a face-to-face. You know that or you don’t know anything.”
“Don’t read me lessons, Yanni Schwartz. And don’t be a damned fool. You know what I can do if you push me, and I’ll do it!”
“Don’t be a child. And that is being a child, Ari.”
“Fine. You’re not going.”
“Ari, do I have to come there and have this out?”
“Don’t bother. Reseune One isn’t going to budge off the strip, so you might as well release your call on it. How is it going to look if you go flying in there to consult with the election results not even read yet? We may have to deal with Khalid. Let’s not start it off with a media show and get caught in statements before we even know what the man died of. And let’s not be caught negotiating with Corain before the man is buried. Or shot into the sun. Or whatever he wants done with him.”
“Fine. And when they read the results, and it’s Spurlin, then what do you think we’re going to do? I’ve got to talk to Jacques, and I can’t call him here to do it, because we can’t have him step down. The man has a lucrative job lined up, he wants it, we bent his arm and got him that job to get him out of the post, and now he’s got the offer,
he wants it. He wants to be rich and comfortable and safe, and the man who’s supposed to replace him just fucking died, pardon my language, but he died, he may have been murdered, and that’s not going to dispose an old man ready to retire to stand his ground.”
“This is Defense! He’s a Marine officer!”
“He did his fighting mostly behind a desk, if you recall.”
“Well, I don’t personally recall the whole War, and you do, and that’s just one of the reasons why I need you not-dead at the moment, Yanni. Call Jacques: tell him hold pat. Get them to hold the job for him. If anybody killed Spurlin, it’d look really peculiar if Jacques drops dead next, so he’s safe. Tell him that. Maybe that will encourage him.”
A silence on the other end. “I’m not sure it’s quite illegal to bribe Jacques with a job, but it’s not the sort of thing we want on the news, Ari.”
“Well? We already have, haven’t we, to get him not to run again? So now we change our minds and we bribe him to keep it until somebody besides Khalid can organize another challenge. Send Frank to tell him so. Frank doesn’t get the attention you do.”
“I’m not sending Frank.”
“Why not? Because it’s dangerous?”
“Ari, you’re taking up my time and I’ve got business to do.”
“That plane’s not moving. Think of other ways to do it.” She hung up on him. And immediately used Base One to put an executive hold on Reseune One, and to forbid fueling.
Then she put in a call to Amy and Maddy, and told them individually, but they’d already gotten the news, Amy had called Maddy, Amy and Maddy were both taking the morning off and stood ready to come back home. So did Tommy Carnath, Maddy said, who’d told Mischa, and most everybody else must be getting it on the news by now. Sam—Sam was still out on site. “Come here,” she told Maddy. “Bring everybody.”
And she called Rafael, and briefed him, with orders to stand by. Florian and Catlin were more than briefed: they were in the security station with Wes and Marco, pulling up Novgorod data as fast as they could and monitoring police reports, which was all they could get out of Defense. Military Police were investigating, standing off the Novgorod authorities, Military Police currently under Councillor Jacques’ direction…that was a damned uneasy arrangement. But there was one other investigative authority, and that was the Council of the Nine itself, with its Office of Inquiry, which could cross jurisdictional lines, and which reported straight to the Council.