Regenesis

“I leave that to the wisdom of born‑men,” Grant said, and gave him a look that said he really wished he could. “Do you think there’ll be another?”

“No way to know. I think if they know where that came from, they’ll be watching. We’ll get an alert.”

“Well, I suppose it’s more comfortable upstairs,” Grant said.

So they went. So did the rest, except part of Ari’s staff, who might intend to keep the tunnel facilities active–in case.

Ari herself was over in Admin, now, Justin had no personal doubt, probably in ReseuneSec or up in Yanni’s office; and she’d put him in charge of Alpha Wing, a charge he took seriously. A little phone inquiry, once they’d gotten into their own apartment, proved Yvgenia Wojkowski was over in Admin, so was Patrick Emory. Sam Whitely was upriver, in his own hot spot, and Amy Carnath was in Novgorod, which was probably the worst place in the world to be at the moment. He checked on Stasi, Dan, and Will, who all returned com calls after the system had opened up again.

So he knew, at least, where all his Alpha Wing residents were. The Security office downstairs, where Mark and Gerry had gone, reported some members out on the grounds assessing damage and reporting to Ari, the rest accounted for as well.

So everybody was safe. Everybody he was remotely in charge of was accounted for; and those in charge of him were over in Admin, making contact with somebody, he hoped, who could at least have the decency to claim it was an accidental launch. A lie, at least, would be more welcome than a direct challenge.

Or maybe some fool had vastly exceeded orders.

Vid, coming from the news channels now, showed people, black figures, out by the impact site, under the streetlight. The bots were still scurrying around, probably held from intervening on the site until the investigation was done. A call over to hospital reached Ivanov himself, who said their patient was doing well and Hicks had opted to stay with him.

“A good idea,” Grant said. And made an executive decision and turned off the vid, which was only repeating, endlessly, all that it had.

Justin sat there a moment staring at the screen, just shaken. He wanted things to be right, and safe, and in good order. And dammit, the people in charge of the world weren’t acting sane, except Ari, except a handful of Councillors who were a long way from the halls of power down in Novgorod–sharing the shelters with Reseune’s citizens, was what, as helpless as the rest of them.

He took out his own com and called Jordan’s apartment, then, reaching a point of resolution to make up at least one point of discord in the world. It rang through, and Grant set a vodka under his hand. He took a sip of it, feeling at least a little calmer, hoping Jordan was. “Dad? Just checking on you. Are you all right over there?”

“Doing fine.” Jordan said. “I’m in the process of sending a letter to young sera’s office. I want it in writing. I’m clear. Absolved. I want it for the court. And I want my damned back pay.”

He didn’t know what he thought about the last. But he didn’t say so. Leave it to Jordan to think of that…but then…

“Well, good you’re all right, Dad. We’re back. We’re fine. ‘Night.”

“ ’Night,” Jordan said flatly, and Justin shut down the connection.

Dammit, he and Grant sat where they sat, knowing that if Defense had its way, Ari would be dead and God knew how long they’d live–but in Jordan’s way of thinking, Defense was only one among many obstacles to Jordan having his way, just one more annoying entity he’d dealt with in his life, one more power that didn’t give a damn for the rules.

So what if Defense fired a missile at them? Fine. It missed. Jordan wanted what he was due.

Maybe he was tired. Maybe it was just bone‑deep exhaustion hammering the last sense out of him, but after all their work over recent days, there ought to have been some sense of winning the round–getting Jordan vindicated–something.

He wished to hell Jordan had some soft, sentimental reaction in his soul, some sort of gratitude for being part of the team effort with Ari. Something he could take away with him tonight and feel good about.

But back pay, with a bloody great hole in the lawn, and no guarantee there wouldn’t be another hole in a significant building before morning, or the whole damned environmental envelope ruptured, AG in ruins, everything contaminated, as far as Reseune’s land ran?

Jordan was going to ask Ari for his back pay?

He had another sip of the vodka, he called Jordan back, and when Jordan answered, he said, “You’re welcome, Dad. On behalf of myself, and Grant, and Ari, you’re just fucking welcome.”

And hung up.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter iii

AUG 28, 2424

0439H

Vid worked intermittently. It came on–it went off. They had audio, at times, Yanni and Frank did, when they didn’t have image on the vid; and they kept it constantly on, a low static hiss for hours of the night, their tie to the outside world.

There was a report of a broadcast that had reached some parts of the network–reports of a missile strike that had come in at Reseune. The Carnath girl had made a try at finding out, young Quentin had risked his neck, and more particularly, his lungs, trying to rig an antenna to get something in from some more distant station that wasn’t being interfered with, and they’d still learned nothing more than that.

A storm had come in, unmoderated by the towers–rain had lashed the windows for hours, and they’d lost their watchers for a while, which tempted one to make a move, but Yanni nixed it, on the part of any of their security.

It still spat rain, an outside sound which confused itself with static noise from the vid, but Yanni waked with the distinct impression the static had somehow become words, and then he was sure it had. He came out of the bedroom into the sitting room to a white flicker of visual static. In that light, Frank was sitting on the edge of the chair.

Yanni didn’t ask. He took an adjacent chair and listened. In fitful reception from somewhere, maybe even from the Science tower, it was Ari’s voice, saying they were unharmed, despite a missile strike designed to hit the reporters at the airport. “ They missed us,” she said, saying nothing about Reseune’s defenses. And then a reporter, Yanni was relatively certain, said they were all unharmed, and that Reseune had taken measures to protect them. She must be down at the airport.

At this hour of the night.

Static took over again. They had a few bandit stations that operated intermittently and from non‑fixed points in the crisis, this and that Bureau, maybe–God knew what. They didn’t use call signs.

“We don’t know,” Yanni muttered, “how much of this the opposition intends we get. I don’t entirely trust the transmission.”

Frank nodded agreement. They were both short of sleep. There was constant harassment, maneuvering of agents around the building, communications that came and went. They hadn’t heard from Lynch, and were supposed to have heard; at the moment Yanni didn’t know whether he was still Proxy Councillor or Councillor for Science, whether Lynch was still alive or as dead as Spurlin and probably Jacques and probably Lao by now, give or take the mechanical support that reportedly sustained her.

They’d done all they could. They’d sent messages. Bogdanovitch, son of the late Councillor for State, and Proxy for the current one, Harad, had headed upriver by air. Then Harad himself had gone, or was supposed to have gone a few hours ago, last but him and Corain, holed up here in the hotel; young Bogdanovitch carried Corain’s Proxy as well–illegal, but Bogdanovitch didn’t need to show both, they hoped to God, just one of them. The document was signed. The name had yet to be filled in. Could be anybody. Corain’s wife. One of his kids. And they hoped not to get to that.

A pass by the window showed a sheet of water, nothing of the watchers at the curb. Tempting. Too tempting.

Easy to assume they could make a break for it. He hoped Harad had made it. He’d wanted to get Lynch on a plane sometime today, let him get to Reseune, because–never mind that Lynch hadn’t voted in the office for years–the point was that Lynch couldvote, if he got to the rest of the Council…and if Lynch just quietly disappeared, and dropped off the face of the planet, the Proxy for Science couldn’t name another proxy. It didn’t actually say he couldn’t. But there was that pernicious clause… and other powers not specifically named are reserved to the Council in special quorum.

Which was what it took to seat a new member, too. Eight of the Nine.

Now therewas a gaping great logical defect in a fairly new constitution, wasn’t it? The founders had been optimists.

So the meeting was supposed to happen on September 12. But the; hours were fast slipping away in which they could still do something–faster still, if Khalid had dared fire a missile at Reseune Airport. Planes weren’t that safe. Boats on the river wouldn’t be, if the renegade Proxy Councillor for Defense had given orders to prevent them moving…not to mention it was a long river with lonely spots where nobody observed what happened. Barge traffic was still snarled, with all its concomitant problems, but it was starting to move. A number of enterprising citizens had gotten together and cleared a warehouse by taking foodstuffs and distributing them to all comers; so there was room to offload an incoming barge or two, barges had gone out yesterday; but things were getting increasingly desperate in the city, and the mayor was ordering the police to take action to get dockworkers to the docks, failing which he threatened to hire any applicant to take the jobs.

That wasn’t going to be popular with the dockworkers.

Fact was, a city could only take so much disorder before things began to break; and patience was the first thing to go.

A rap came at his door. Frank got up from the chair, and drew a gun that was very rarely in evidence. Yanni went to the door, flicked on the outside vid, and opened it fast. It was Amy Carnath and Quentin behind her.

“Ser,” the girl said, “Quentin thinks we should move. They’re not out there.”

“Trap,” Frank said.

“When is it going to be better?” Amy asked, which was a good question, in Yanni’s estimation. “We go over to the hotel behind us. Frank and Quentin get the cars, and two other cars go out front, while they go around the block, and we go straight over the bridge; and then we all just go hard as we can for the airport.”

“Planes aren’t safe,” Yanni said. “They’re shooting missiles lately.”

“Boats are slower,” she said. She was a gawky kid. She’d begun to grow into the lanky, large‑eyed height; but at the moment she looked her youth, scared, but willing to try any damned thing, possibly because she didn’t adequately imagine failing. “Quentin and I will do it; we’ll get the car to the front, if you and Frank can get Councillor Corain to the curb.”

“Hell,” he said. “I’ve got files to wipe. I’m not ready for this.”

“She has a point.” Frank said suddenly. “Make a feint toward State. Two cars that way. Two more toward Lynch. One car gets us all to the airport.”

“We only have four cars,” Yanni said. “And the hotel bus.”

“Wouldn’t use it at the moment,” Frank said. “Or the cars they know. We take the executive car from the next building’s garage. Safer.”

“You’re agreeing with this,” Yanni said.

“The missile strike,” Frank said, “argues they’re fast losing their inhibitions. They’re feeling omnipotent–that, or something’s made them desperate.”

Yanni cast a glance at the Carnath girl, said, “Stand there,” and went to the bedroom and threw on what he’d been wearing, casuals, two tees under a sweater. His coat was going to be no protection against the chill. When the weather got like this upriver, they headed for the storm tunnels. To do what they proposed to do, they’d have to hold their breath and make a dash for it through open space in the alley, trusting the downpour to wash noxious life down the gutters, this far in among city towers, building connected to building by overhangs spanning some of the alley, but it was sloppy and cold out there.

He came back to the main room and started putting on the coat. “Frank, what do we do?”

“Five minutes for me to brief Jack and Carl, you get Corain out of bed, and get downstairs.”

“Got it,” he said.

“Quentin, you take the south stairs. Meet you at the back door.”

“Yes, ser,” Quentin said.

“Then go.” Frank said, and it was just that fast. They were into it. Launched. Yanni looked at his watch, then walked over, picked up the briefcase, and laid a hand on young Amy’s shoulder.

“Here,” he said to her, getting her attention. “ Youtake the official briefcase.”

He had a gun in his own jacket pocket, courtesy of ReseuneSec. He didn’t plan to use it; he never in his life planned to draw it, but he made sure it was there, all the same.

He heard a quiet flurry exiting the room adjacent, where ReseuneSec was camped. Whatever orders Frank had given them, they were moving.

Three minutes. Frank and Quentin would be heading for the stairs.

Two minutes.

One. Their guards had left, somewhere. There wasn’t a sound, anywhere near.

“You stay with me,” he told Amy and waited the precise last seconds before he opened the door.

They headed out, then. Himself and the kid, out to rouse out Mikhail Corain, if their security moving into position hadn’t triggered Armageddon.

It hadn’t. At least that.

They made it down to Corain’s door, rapped softly, then louder, and there was a soft stir inside. Yanni stood against the door, trying to look casual.

“Mikhail.” he said. “Mikhail, it’s Yanni. Open up.”

Corain opened the door. Had on only underwear and the shirt he’d slept in. His hair stood on end. He turned an appalled look at young Carnath, and started to excuse himself.

“We’re going,” Yanni said, catching Corain’s arm. “Get dressed. Now.”

Corain just nodded, looked anxiously at Amy Carnath, then grabbed his pants off the fat armchair and pulled them on. “Shoes,” he said, searching.

“Here,” Amy said, and he found them and grabbed his coat. Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else but the coat.

Down the hall, then, over blue, figured carpet, to the emergency stairs, the same Frank would have used. Hadn’t moved this fast–

Hadn’t moved this fast, Yanni thought uneasily, since the day Ari had died. Since he’d gotten the advisement, and he’d known every plan he and Ari had ever made was upended, thrown into jeopardy.

Everything since, he’d improvised. Like this, like their escape. Granted they made it.

There was a man unconscious, at the bottom of the landing. He might be dead. He wasn’t hotel staff. He wasn’t theirs. He was wearing a rain‑spattered coat.

“God,” Corain said. Young Carnath didn’t say a thing, just stepped gingerly over the fallen man’s leg, and held onto the briefcase.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter iv

SEPTEMBER 4, 2424

0821H

The late Councillor Bogdanovitch’s son, his sister, and Councillor Harad had made it into Reseune Airport together, in an otherwise empty commercial plane out of Moreyville, and took up residence, young Bogdanovitch and his sister in vacant apartments in the Ed wing, Councillor Harad occupying Jordan’s old apartment.

And beyond that, on following days, things settled back to quiet, much too quiet, in Ari’s estimation. Hicks had transited from close confinement to medical leave, and Ari had assigned a licensed nurse to be living‑in, to be sure neither Kyle nor Hicks himself had rejuv issues–if you got supportive treatment fast, so Ivanov had said, you could sometimes prevent a rejuv collapse, so it was important to keep them both under observation while Kyle tried to get his mental bearings and settle down after the shock he’d had.

Not least–the nurse had a qualification in psych, and kept an eye out for that kind of problem, too. But Kyle couldn’t be questioned as yet. He wasn’t up to it: they had that from the nurse.

Jordan sent a nice letter saying back pay for the last two decades would be greatly appreciated. Ari wrote back saying there might be tax implications he might want to consider regarding a lump sum payment, but she’d start the procedures and pass it on to Yanni when he got there…

Yanni. Yanni was her overwhelming worry. Harad had said Yanni was supposed to have left close behind him, and now it was three days after Harad had arrived, with no Yanni, no word from Amy, who should still be in Novgorod. She’d never understood the phrase worried sick.

Now she did.

The last she’d heard, Amy and Quentin had been in Yanni’s and Corain’s hotel, and they’d been watched. Nearly under house arrest. She hoped for word from Lynch, of Science, in lieu of Yanni, maybe relaying some word or instruction from Yanni; but that didn’t come. What had come, via Harad and Bogdanovitch, was the news that Yanni had arranged a diversionary move toward Lynch, but that the crew who’d attempted it had swung back to the hotel with three cars cutting them off from that route.

And that was that–three days since Harad and young Bogdanovitch had been here, safe, and there was no Yanni, no Corain, no Amy, not a ripple out of ReseuneSec in Novgorod, and Amy didn’t answer Maddy’s discreet personal call.

The situation sent her back to Base One to make sure she understood the constitutional scenario if there was a near‑majority vote and there should be a Council seat vacated by disaster.

Dicey was what it seemed to her: there was a procedure by which the remaining Councillors could unanimously declare a Bureau seat could not be filled within the likely span of an emergency–but the sticky point was that “remaining Councillors” had to include Khalid, who naturally wouldn’t vote to unseat himself…except he hadn’t gotten seated, not officially, and needed a majority of living Councillors to beseated.

That was an interesting point of law, but it was also a real kink in the situation for Khalid. He’d alienated everybody. He was on a collision course with constitutional law–and that wasn’t a major point with most CITs, who didn’t understand it; but it was a nasty situation for Khalid on the one hand and for the constitution on the other.

You could think it’s just a document,she wrote to her successor, in the small hours of the morning, but it’s more. It represents a real point of consensus we haven’t got now, and a lot of people were willing to give up things they wanted so they could get that agreement. It was a point in human history where all of Union agreed to a set of priorities, and now we’ll either prove that agreement still binds everybody, or we’ll prove somebody with enough guns can run everything at any given moment; and that means no peace, even for them.

I never got excited about studying law–until we are a few missile launches away from not having any law at all.

We’ve got to get that consensus back. That means we’ve got to be able to tell people the constitution still works, and make them believe it. That’s why the forms matter. People have to see things done by the rules. We’ve got to make people feel safe again and make them believe that compromises are going to be binding.

Unfortunately people in Khalid’s own Bureau haven’t done anything to stop him.

His Bureau was taking his orders–or, at least, took them far enough to launch that missile. There hasn’t been another. Maybe that means that’s all they had, or all they can get to.

Maybe it means it even shocked people in Defense.

It should have. I hope it did.

She put in a once‑a‑day meeting with the reporters at the airport, who said the broadcasts were having a lot of trouble getting out at Novgorod and they weren’t sure about Planys; but they were still getting out intermittently there and fairly consistently in other places. People were sending bits all over the net, and Defense was trying to block it, but Defense couldn’t stop what other Bureaus ran. So that was doing some good.

She tried to improve her sleep patterns; she still found herself awake at night and napping on her arms on her desk, after being up at 0500h. She finally took to her proper bed in the thought that if she could sleep at all, at any time, she ought to, no matter what else was going on in the world, and no matter how worried she was about Yanni. But she wouldn’t take a sleeping pill.

She’d just about gotten to that nowhere state, all the same, when Florian’s voice said, “Sera. Sera, forgive me, but there’s a report Defense has just moved in on Planys. They’ve shut down all communication. We terminated accesses.”

Damn, she thought.

But she wasn’t wholly surprised.

And she had no doubt they’d be after whatever they could get, Library, all of it–but they hadn’t likely gotten anything. System had taken measures, that fast. They had it set up for Planys, for particular operations inside Reseune, for Strassenberg, for ReseuneSec offices in Novgorod: one System‑level irregularity, and System needed to be reset from Reseune Admin. One code, out of Base One, and it nuked accesses at any other given base until codes were reset.

That had happened, probably at the first probe they made into System. She was ahead of them that far.

She shoved herself up on one arm, and the other, and found the edge of the bed, raking hair out of her eyes and trying simultaneously to ask herself if there was any other thing she needed to think of, if they’d just lost Planys.

There wasn’t anything to do, was there? They’d known they could lose it, that fast, because a Defense installation was snuggled up against it, and Defense installations had guns and a lot of electronics, and they’d probably spent years preparing themselves to crack System.

That part hadn’t worked. She felt good about that.

“Tell Admin,” she said, and Florian called Catlin on com and told her to tell Chloe, while Ari was pulling on her boots. “Tell the Councillors,” she added. That was a new priority on their notification list, but they kept the Council, such as it was, as informed as Admin, where it regarded move’s by Defense. “I’ll be over there. I’ll go talk to the reporters. I’ll take calls from anybody on the ‘notify’ list.” She took a twist in her hair and jammed the skewer in slantwise. Which hurt, but she was in a hurry.

Joyesse showed up. “Coat,” Ari said. “Please.” And, “Florian? How did they do it?”

“There were already Defense personnel inside the labs. Fifty more Defense personnel arrived about midnight local. They took armed possession of the administrative offices and that was that: most people go offshift at 1600.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“ReseuneSec in uniform we’re roughed up,” Florian said as they entered the hall. Joyesse brought the coat and Ari turned and slipped it on. “That’s the last information we have. It may have gotten worse, but they have their standing orders.” Go to plainclothes, offer no resistence, destroy any records you can, those were the instructions. “Physical records they’ve undoubtedly got, undoubtedly some manuals. And the prior codes. They’ll be going over those with every expert they have, looking for some forgotten app they can still get into. They won’t find one.”

“Good. Then that’s gone by the book.” They reached the front door and Theo let them out.

“Catlin is talking with Chloe in Admin,” Florian said, and then pressed the com into his ear, intent on something for an instant. He suddenly stopped walking–and nothing distracted Florian. She stopped, there in the hall, among the paintings.

“Sera,” he said, “there’s a plane requesting a landing.”

Her heart leapt up in hope.

“It’s Defense, sera.” Florian was still listening. “General Awei, Klaus Awei, requesting permission to land, courier jet. Air Traffic Control requests Admin advice.”

“Permission granted,” she said. There was little else they could do; let automated defenses kick in and start something, or let that plane land. Military courier. If it landed instead of shooting, Defense was talking, and talking–that, she could do something with, even if it delivered a threat. “How far off?”

“How far off?” Florian asked ATC, having relayed her prior instruction; and he reported: “Fifteen minutes, sera.”

“Get a bus.”

“Sera, it’s dangerous.”

“The airport has tunnels, if they’re lying.” Her pulse had kicked up, a level of aggression she had to watch in herself, and question her own decisions. “If they’re going to talk, I’ll talk to them.”

“Yes, sera,” he said, and started relaying that information to Catlin and then to the Transport Office, which ran the buses.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter v

SEPTEMBER 8, 2424

0932H

The bus had gotten to the Wing One doors by the time they met Catlin there–Catlin carrying a rifle/launcher and Florian with only a small pistol. The two exchanged nods, a signal of some kind, the bus door opened, and Ari started to board. Florian interposed an arm between her and the door, saying, “The plane is coming in now, sera. Wait a moment.”

She stopped, and stood beside the bus, looking where Florian and Catlin looked. In a moment she saw a black dot in the east, across the river, coming in on the course most planes from Novgorod used.

“Landing to the north,” Catlin said as it banked, and it followed that route, rapidly becoming a distinct, swept‑winged shape.

“Gear down,” Florian noted in some relief, and leapt up to the bus deck in two strides. Ari climbed up, Catlin behind her.

“Field gate,” Ari said before she’d done more than grasp a seat back for support. “Onto the field to meet it. Go!”

The driver said, “Yes, sera,” and the bus hummed forward and gathered speed down the drive.

They veered onto the airport road, and Ari didn’t bother sitting down; neither did Catlin or Florian, and the bus wasted no time, heading down to the airport road, past where the crater in the lawn had been…work crews had righted the damaged lamp, earthmovers and bots had restored the area and put back sod, so there was very little but the seams in the new sod to say where the missile had been. The warehouses nearby, which had taken some damage, were getting new facing; those panels were a little brighter than the rest. Reseune didn’t admit its wounds. It fixed things, fast, all back to normal…on her orders, for morale. On principle.

And if Khalid had something to say, and sent some messenger to deliver threats, she’d hear what he had to say. The media could hear it, as far as she was concerned. And it could equally well hear her answer.

“The media can come out to the landing area if they want to,” she said. “This isn’t going to be off the record, whatever it is. We’re not playing that game.”

“Sera,” Catlin said, “you know this bus is no cover against what they have.”

“Reseune itself isn’t cover against what they have.” If they killed her, if they meant to kill her, it was for one reason; to get a new Reseune administration in charge of a new infant Ari–she sincerely believed it; and to get that, if it was war, Khalid would peel back layers of Reseune until they got what they wanted, with missile after missile, with a landing on that broad, bot‑defended shore, and killing anybody in their path.

She couldn’t win a war only on defense. Not against all the hardware Defense commanded.

She got one com call from Councillor deFranco as the bus was passing the gate–likely the landing was being carried on Reseune’s operations channel, not kept secret from the population; and she had someone else simultaneously trying to call her, probably Chavez or Harad. Either Florian or Catlin could have taken that call, but it wasn’t the moment to distract them from their contact with ReseuneSec.

“It’s a General Klaus Awei,” she said to deFranco.

“ Awei” DeFranco sounded surprised. “He hasn’t been Khalid’s.”

In a bleak landscape, thatwas interesting information. “I’m there.” she said, because the plane was stopped, and opening up, and their bus was pulling into its vicinity. “Call the others, sera. Tell them follow this on the news. I’m there. Got to go.”

She thumbed off, pocketed the com, grabbed the seat back for balance as the bus braked. Florian and Catlin were right with her as she handed her way to the bus steps, with the black, foreign shape of the military craft in the right side windows.

At the same moment she stepped down onto the ground, someone was exiting the still pinging plane, one man, then a second, both in plain flight gear. She walked ahead, closing the gap, taking a look at Marine General Awei–white‑haired man in the lead, to judge by the collar, lean and not looking like a desk‑sitter. He probably had piloted his way in. The man behind him was of lesser rank, carrying nothing but a sidearm and, a good sign, not touching that. Florian and Catlin were right behind her.

Meanwhile the media had exited the flat‑roofed terminal, a moderate distance away–she was conscious of that onrushing and disorderly humanity in the tail of her eye, but her attention was all for the general, his face, his expressions. His body language exuded dignity, reserve, assessing her, assessing Florian and Catlin…not sure, possibly, exactly who she was–or maybe not sure there weren’t snipers on the terminal roof.

She walked up and held out her hand with absolute assurance. “Ariane Emory,” she said. “General Awei, is it?”

“Sera Emory.” A reciprocal gesture, a large, calloused hand that enveloped hers. The man towered over her, over Florian andCatlin. He was like a living wall, and his hand was warm and strong, force matching her force, no more than that, a sign of basic good sense. “I’m here for the three branches of the service that don’tsupport Admiral Khalid.”

Several things immediately occurred to her; that the Fleet had run Defense since the founding of Union; that Fleet leadership had produced Azov, Gorodin, Jacques, Spurlin, and Khalid, none of whom had been straightforward in their dealings with Science; and that if another branch of the armed services should seize power in that Bureau, it might upend every entrenched structure inside Defense‑as‑it‑was. A veritable earthquake.

Thathad value.

Disorder, however, and professional revenge‑taking posed another kind of hazard.

“General,” she said warmly and by now the media had gotten close, and cameras were going. “You’re certainly welcome. We just had a missile come close to our hospital.”

“No more of those,” Awei said. “A force is in Svetlansk as we speak.”

That could be good news. Or not. “Admiral Khalid has taken Planys Labs,” she said bluntly, “as of this hour.”

“And he’s there,” Awei fired right back. “And not in Novgorod. My service holds the port, the airport, the broadcast stations, andthe power grid in the capital.”

Not hollow wares, then. Bad news out of Planys, but this man had deliberately landed himself where Council was, where the media was…claiming hehad Novgorod. And, effectively, he hopedto have Reseune…at least in the political sense.

“Then you’re here to talk to Council,” she said. Shewouldn’t fall into that pit, negotiating in front of cameras, worse, being seen to usurp what Council needed to be involved in. “Urgently so, I’ll imagine. Florian. Catlin. Advise Admin; buses up the hill; tell the Councillors. Let’s go into the terminal, General, if you please; it’s a more comfortable premises.”

“My pleasure,” Awei said, and Ari aimed him and his aide and her own two right through the ranks of the media.

There were immediate questions, and cameras. One question was: “How many troops do you have. General?” Which not even a fool would answer truthfully. And, “Are you officially challenging Khalid for the seat?”

Awei stopped right there and turned a calm stare on the cameras–no fool at all, Ari thought. Nobodywho’d be maneuvered by questions like that was fit to hold office. This man was laying his life on the line to take control, and he was smart. Maybe he was a man who wouldn’t be at all safe as an ally–if the constitution didn’t make the Bureaus equal, and impose iron‑clad quorum requirements among the Nine.

And stillwatch Defense, she thought, both glad and suspicious of a new presence in the game. And she thought, too, in a sub‑basement of her mind, Let him take on Khalid. Whether he lives or dies trying, we benefit.

Awei said, in that deep, even voice, addressing the media:

“We demand that the Admiral produce Councillor Jacques, alive. We demand that Admiral Khalid answer specific questions from his own service, regarding the murder of Councillor Spurlin. One dead, one disappeared Councillor for Defense–that needs answers. We’re not hearing them, and we remind everyone Admiral Khalid has not yet been seated in Council.”

Thatwas about as blunt as it got. Awei was trying a maneuver, and making his own bid for power–doing it on Reseune soil, no less. It was certainly a nervy try; it went clear to the heart of Defense, for certain. She approved of everything she heard, and her blood moved just a little faster.

“Reseune agrees with that demand,” she said sharply, and cameras refocused on her on the instant. “As of this hour, Admiral Khalid’s forces have intruded into PlanysLabs, onto Reseune territory. Records in Planys, as of this morning, are no longer secure, or safe. Within recent months, two senior Reseune personnel are dead under questionable circumstances, one of them at Planys, one at Novgorod. Furthermore, we’ve reinvestigated the charges against Jordan Warrick. We know he was falsely blamed for the death of my predecessor, and we question whether certain records pertinent to that case will exist past this evening, in the hands of Admiral Khalid’s forces.” Therewas a capper, without claiming anything specific. Let the media digest thatone, if Awei thought he could use Reseune Airport for his own stage and not pay rent, even as a friendly. “At the moment Defense has no Councillor and no Proxy Councillor seated among the Nine; and Reseune is extremely interested in what you have to say, General.”

Kingmaker he might intend to be, silver‑haired veteran clearly on old‑fashioned rejuv. He might be backed by a sizeable and formidable division of the service–and maybe he meant to be king, himself, disregarding the constitution as freely as Khalid.

On the other hand, Awei was here. Vice Admiral Tanya Bigelow, the candidate for Defense Proxy that Reseune had backed, hadn’t taken the initiative to get up here–if Bigelow was still alive or able to move. That was a fact worth noticing. For proof of any considerable opposition to Khalid’s takeover, they had nothing but one plane and a Marine general who had yet to demonstrate what, exactly, he commanded. And if Yanni showed up in the interim, backing Bigelow or some other candidate in Defense, therewas a potential embarrassment.

But she couldn’t wait to consult anybody, and there was suddenly a momentum going, where the media was concerned. Khalid had troops inside Planys, which the media couldn’t get visuals on; and Reseune had had a missile launched at them out of Svetlansk–which they had been able to get on camera for the whole immediate universe to see. Guess which was more impressed on public awareness. Now this man came screaming in out of the blue with a challenge and an offer; and she could prime the media and shove things into motion–if nothing else, throw a momentary obstacle into Khalid’s hitherto cascading rush to power.

Kingmaker in Defense. Awei might be–or not. History was full of actions like Awei’s, and some of them died, and some of them fell, soon after.

The smart ones didn’t try to use anybody smarter than they were. Let him figure in the next few hours that that was what he had just met. She could support him…if Klaus Awei was smart enough to figure who’d just settled the mantle of legitimacy about hisshoulders in front of the media, and whose support could make his survival in his bid just a little more likely than any other claimant. She read people pretty damned well–and Klaus Awei, for all his larger‑than‑life presence, already knew he was taking a chance. He’d known exactly where media exposure and significant images could be had, and if he was telling the truth, he had control of the Novgorod vid apparatus, which meant word would get out much wider than it had been.

He hadn’t established himself in Novgorod and tempted Councilinto coming back to the capital and appealing to him for rescue, which argued good manners–or suggested his base might be small and fragile down there, if it existed at all. Or it could argue he wasn’t going to go for political process at all: he was a military man, commanding an organization that moved fast: forces already in Svetlansk, he’d said, while he was here, taking the publicly political option.

He had a real chance, if Council backed him‑‑and if media simultaneously got the word out.

“What’s this about Jordan Warrick?” a reporter yelled then, and Ari turned, slowly, solemnly, with the cameras all going, and all other questions silent. “What about Jordan Warrick?” the reporter repeated, exactly the side issue she’d wanted.

“A covert operation wanted my predecessor dead,” she said. “Now the same people would like to see medead…along with a lot of other people that stand in their way. The general has come here, I gather, driven by conscience–and if it’s not proper for Reseune to say how Defense should manage its internal business, I can at least say I’m in favor of protecting the independence of the Bureaus, with respect for other Bureaus’ territory andproperty, and the right of allUnion citizens, to elect a candidate in their Bureau and see that candidate liveto take office.”

That created three and four more questions, about on the level of: Are you talking about Spurlin, young sera? Then, more important, a question she wanted: Have you had any word from the Councillor for Science?

“I hopefor it,” she shot back and, seeing the good general was not accustomed to the shouted‑questions kind of news conference, which was absolutely her element, she made a gesture of invitation toward the terminal. “The Councillors are on their way down, or they’ll be in touch fairly soon. Wait and we’ll give you a news conference.” And to Awei alone, “General, there’s a private conference room, and I imagine you and your companion would appreciate a cup of coffee, at the least.”

“Coffee,” Awei said. It had become a steady march toward the terminal doors. Florian and Catlin’s presence meant questioners didn’t get that close, or press up against them: the reporters that had covered Reseune for years had long since understood that about ReseuneSec and azi bodyguards. They knew the distance, knew it to an exactitude and kept it, shoving each other rather than infringing on that imaginary line that triggered armed reaction from security.

At the doors, she called back to them almost cheerfully, and with real affection, she knew no few of them, had known them for years, “Give me about an hour. I’ll talk to you. I promise!”

It took half an hour for Council to get down to the airport–deFranco and Chavez were the first to arrive, in no more than ten minutes, if that. Ludmilla deFranco met them in the conference room, quite forth rightly shook Awei’s hand, and asked about conditions in Novgorod; Chavez started to pour himself a cup of coffee and didn’t get to carry it back to the table himself. Airport hospitality staff arrived in the room with a far more elaborate and finer coffee service than what the machine provided. They swept recyclable cups aside, poured coffee into fine china, and saw the general and the Councillors seated at the conference table with a full choice of cream, sweetener, sugar, spice, and wafers; the same for her, who sat at the far end of the table, and the same for the general’s aide, who stayed standing, but who did take a cup of coffee.

“We have order in Novgorod,” Awei had said, in answer to the former question…which might be an hour by hour situation, Ari thought, knowing the conditions that had kept Yanni and Amy pinned down; and she didn’t know where they were. They could have gotten loose, could be somewhere in military hands…of either side.

Asking Awei, however, was asking a large predator for help, opened bidding for that help, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that at this point.

“What is your position, General,” deFranco asked, briskly stirring spice into her coffee, “since, as Councillor Corain said in his report, nothing at this point will induce the Council to seat Admiral Khalid?”

“That’s not a concern,” Awei said.

Encouraging, Ari thought, but letting the hearer fill in the blanks. She didn’t let her eyes dart, didn’t give visual cues what she thought, any more than she could help. She signaled to Catlin and said, very quietly, as Catlin moved close, “Report on the general,” and then listened to Awei and deFranco exchange several more questions.

“What is the situation at Novgorod,” deFranco asked, then, “besides orderly?”

“We’re trying to get citizens back to work, which means safety down on the docks and safety for transport moving through the city–in some neighborhoods, that’s a problem. We’re getting a little resistence from Fleet MP’s assigned to the docks and elsewhere; we’re negotiating that at higher levels. A Council directive would go a long way toward improving that situation. Which brings us to the specifics: I have a short list of resolutions that we’d like to see passed.”

We. Always the undefined “we.” Ari wished deFranco would eventually ask who “we” was. She didn’t want to do it.

Councillor Harogo and Councillor Tien showed up at the door at that point, with four ReseuneSec agents for an escort, three men and a woman who likewise took up station with Florian and Catlin. Ari stood up. The others did. There were more handshakes, more exchanges, politeness with very little substance in the questions. Lastly Harad came in, State, looking cautious, but willing to welcome the general.

Coffee, all around, except Harad: tea for him, with cream and sweetener. Awei’s aide, who was listening to something, much as Florian and Catlin were doing, moved close to Awei and said something Ari was sure ReseuneSec would manage to pick up; she couldn’t hear it. It might just be an advisement to the general that someone was monitoring. It could be business going on elsewhere in the world.

“We have a quorum for ordinary business at this point,” Harad said. “Shall I chair?”

“Seconded,” deFranco murmured; it wasn’t strict protocols, in Ari’s estimation, but nobody objected. Harad asked, “Who’s recording?”

“I’m sure Reseune is,” Tien said wryly, “and probably the good general, but I’ll keep notes, for the record.”

“Those present,” Harad said, and they proceeded to an informal roll call–leaving out Information, a fact which Ari noted, and didn’t take in the least as a slight. Where Council’s quorum stood, the five for ordinary business, and the eight for special business–that was something Harad didn’t give away for free. They mustered the basic five without her, and she didn’t say a thing, just sat with her chin on her hand, and trusted records were being kept.

“We’ll dispense with the reading of the last session’s business,” Harad said, and proceeded on to the general’s list, first being a Council resolution on the situation on Novgorod docks, requesting the Fleet’s military police to withdraw to quarters; a second resolution giving General Awei provisional authority to arrest and detain inside the city of Novgorod; a third, Council condemnation of the missile attack on Reseune.

Nice politics. Ari made a note, signaled Florian, and said, “Give this to deFranco,” and Florian quietly walked to the other end of the table and did that.

It suggested a fourth Council resolution, condemning the intrusion of Defense personnel into Reseune Administrative Territory property at Planys, and requiring the release of all arrested personnel and surrender of all confiscated materials.

It took very little arguing of specific language, and, her little test, and probably something at least deFranco noted, the general quite readily supported it.

So it joined the list up for consideration.

Then came a fifth prospective Council action, on Awei’s list, a grant of authority to Awei, with powers of arrest and detention, to investigate the death of Councillor‑elect Spurlin and the disappearance of current Councillor Jacques. It was a simple Council directive, but, Chavez noted, operationally unprecedented in scope. They had, Harad said, the Office of Inquiry doing the same.

Damn it, Ari thought, pass it. Don’t hang us up on territoriality. But she kept her mouth shut.

It hadn’t made it onto the list yet. Then Ludmilla deFranco moved for a twenty‑minute recess. That. Ari had learned, was where Council intended to do some off the record maneuvering.

“Sera.” Catlin came to Ari’s elbow as Council collectively took a rest‑room break. Catlin delivered a set of printout, with her standard request, a summation sheet on top. It was ReseuneSec’s answer to her question on Awei. He had not served in combat, had served at Gehenna during the Alliance‑Union investigation–interesting; had managed the Fargone Hospital facility, which was only partially a hospital, and had more to do with the Defense base at Eversnow– therewas a major caution, considering Defense might have killed her predecessor in an as‑yet unproven relationship to that project.

Awei could be, she thought uneasily, a worse problem than Khalid, if Awei was deeply embedded in the coverup of military activity on that iceball.

She asked herself whether it was a good idea or not to let Awei know she knew certain things–until they’d gotten maximum good out of Awei. She’d watched the man across the table, watched his eyes, and she had at least some confidence she was reading him consistently. That was one thing in his favor.

But he was also old in his business, knew how to keep his face quiet, and clearly, to her observation at the moment, knew how to talk to Councillors who came at him with sharp questions; no fool, not in the least.

She’d have about the first instant to read past that considerable skill at not being read, if she broached her topic with him.

If she didn’t, they could possibly haveAwei and his service running Defense in fairly short order, unless they first used him to get rid of Khalid and then appointed Bigelow, out of the Fleet, to do things as they’d always been done. Council was certainly capable of doing that, and if Bigelow was more energetic than she’d yet showed, who knew? She might turn up as Councillor for Defense and Awei might be assigned back to Eversnow.

He didn’t command all the strings that could be pulled. Council hadn’t been prepared for the blow that had come against it–an outright campaign of assassination and brute force. Defense had those weapons to use. They could still have one sticky mess on their hands.

But she was still the kid. The observer in this meeting. Awei had had a taste of her style out by the plane. But he might not be totally on his guard against a question coming from her.

It had better be a good one. A really good one.

She decided on another cup of coffee, and, the serving staff having come back, now that they were in recess, she moved up close to the general, who was standing by the window having his own cup refilled.

“General.” she said pleasantly, and got his attention. “ Whoin Defense ordered my predecessor killed?”

Fast change in the eyes. Muscle twitch. As good as a truther unless there’d been a psych plant to prevent a reaction. Did he really want to answer that question? He wasn’t at all sure.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but an investigation might be in order.”

He wasn’t lying. But he also kept some thought in reserve.

“Easy to accuse Khalid,” she said. “Possibly it would even be accurate.”

“He couldn’t originate the order, young sera.”

A little surprising, that answer. Accurate. Maybe trying to shift her exes higher up…maybe to Gorodin. But there was more than one way to originate an order, she thought. First, if you were head of Intelligence, you supplied the information behind it and that made the conclusion obvious. Interesting choice of answers, and she didn’t detect guilt in the man, just impatience with her, an awareness of everything going on in the room, in which he thought he had much more at stake, and, still, something still in reserve.

“You’re hiding something,” she said, and thatgot a reaction, quick as an explosion–in the tiny muscles of the iris, in the momentary glitch in the neck.

“You’re a very interesting young woman, Sera Emory.”

“What do you nothave, that you don’t want to let us know about?”

He didn’t get caught this time. He smiled in a very controlled, patronizing way. “I never met your predecessor. Was she this full of questions?”

“Something major,” she answered her own question. “You lack something, and that makes you think you may lose this fight. You’re making your move as early as you can and as late as you dare. For one thing, you don’t control the Fleet, and the Fleet has been in power since Union began. You don’t think you can pry their hands off that power. You have to worry about assassination, for another thing…” She was watching his eyes as she ran through that shopping list, and saw reactions that said she was getting closer. “And you have about twenty‑four hours to make your bid good, which is why you came here looking for Council backing, because all the people currently backing you are going to be in a lot of trouble, real soon, if you don’t gain momentum fast, and you care about that. Good. That makes me feel better.”

He looked at her in some disquiet. “And do you have a conclusion to this observation, Sera? Or is it a fortune‑telling act?”

“Oh, it’s not that hard to say, you came here to get a Council directive, which will make you look a lot more legitimate, you know there’s not a special quorum here, but you doknow there’s an ordinary quorum, which is enough for a directive. You’d probably like a Council resolution to say definitively that there’s no way in hell they’ll seat Khalid, and they might do that, but I don’t think it would look good politically. I’d advise not, if you have that in mind. Better you act as Council’s enforcement, then let Council get together, vacate the Defense seat and appoint a pro tem…assuming Jacques is dead, which seems fairly likely; or in Khalid’s hands, as insurance, in which case Jacques can be gotten out alive, and he could appoint youas proxy–he’ll do what he’s told to do. Am I following this correctly? You’ve got your troops, you’ve got a few important people hanging back, waiting to see how this goes, and whether or not you can outmaneuver Khalid, who’s just taken the other continent this morning because he’s having to jump fast and you caught him a little by surprise. His being there makes logistics a lot more difficult for you to get at him, but you’re after Svetlansk, where possibly you can keep him defending.”

A slow, grim honesty arrived in those same eyes. “say Svetlansk won’t be a problem. Planys, however, is. He’s shifted certain of his assets across the water. He has time, there. He can politic with the station over our heads. Two warships up there, if you want the truth.”

“Reseune hasassets across the water,” she said. “I can getyou precise recon at any time you want it. It’ll be a snapshot, so only ask for it once, but I can deliver it.”

He was still for a moment–more than silent; still, controlled, wary. Then his eyes flicked aside, beyond her, about where Florian and Catlin would be standing.

“Numbers before this morning would be very useful, sera,” he said then. “Placement of forces likewise.”

“Catlin,” she said, knowing Catlin and Florian had heard every word, “provide the general with that information.”

“Yes, sera,” Catlin said.

The clock, meanwhile, had reached straight up, and their twenty‑minute recess was done. While she’d occupied the general, Councillors had been discussing, intensely, and now took their seats with a grim look.

Ari went up the table before deFranco, caught her for a moment for a quiet word before she took her seat. “I think he’s here without wider support in Defense, except his own branch. He’s looking for legitimacy. He’s got forces actively moving in or on Svetlansk. The directives he’s got will give him momentum… mightsway elements of the Fleet, but I didn’t get that from him, and I don’t think he’s remotely counting on it. Call on him to support the Council by armed force where needful. Call on all the armed services to support the Council and defend its premises.”

That happened to be Reseune–and they were in extraordinary danger at the moment, with that plane sitting on its runway, and unproven actions going on in Svetlansk.

DeFranco nodded, walked over, and spoke intensely to Harad, who then spoke at some length to Harogo.

And Harogo, once they were seated, made the motion to consider an amendment to the last‑proposed directive.

They passed the Council directive. The added portion read: support the Council, defend its premises and protect the premises of all Bureaus, cities, institutions and territories, by force of arms where need be.

Awei drew in a large breath, then–satisfied, it seemed.

“Sera,” Florian said. He’d left the room during the last of the session. He had a printout in hand, and handed it to her. “The Planys report.”

It was a single page. It gave a breakdown of Defense numbers at the airport, numbers inside Planys.

“That’s of this morning, sera, at the point we shut System down.”

“Good,” she said. “As far as we know, System remains intact?”

“Likely it does.”

It was earnest of what they could get, when they needed it. She went to the general, who was taking leave of the Councillors, and handed him the paper. “Numbers and locations of non‑Reseune individuals the hour of the takeover. You get Khalid to defend his airport, and his base, and let us know when you need it, ser.”

Awei looked past Ari, directly at Catlin and Florian, whose faces wouldn’t give him a thing.

And back to her, maybe wanting to know a lot more, wondering if he had credit enough to ask it.

“Right before the shutdown,” she said. “Best information we’ve got.”

“Sera, Reseune has air cover while I’m here. But best you get your people and essential operations underground over the next number of hours. We can’t defend against what may happen on the station.”

Up where the weathermakers were. When the atmospheric controls were, and the bulk of the power generation.

Not to mention hostile action from ships that might be in port.

She had the picture. Awei turned to the several Councillors, who wished him well.

So did she, and said so, before they took it to the media, outside, and provided the literal text of the resolutions.

The resolutions were going onto the airwaves.

The whole world was about to know for certain the Council was behind Klaus Awei’s actions, past and future.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter vi

SEPT 8, 2424

1040H

The first message Justin got said, simply, as a flasher on the corner of the screen of his office computer: Wing Directors: red alert is in progress.

The second, popping up in quick succession, and overlaying it, said: Justin, you’re in charge of Alpha Wing. Call ReseuneSec if you have to find me.

Meanwhile their office vid, up on the wall, had started rerunning the short news conference, on a split screen with the general’s plane taking off.

It didn’t take much imagination to know it was no drill, some threat was imminent, and that meant prepare to head for the tunnels.

“Better shut down the office,” Justin said, feeling a little queasy. “Damn, we’re not getting much outstanding work done, at this rate.”

“Better pack for this one,” Grant said. “Trigger the warning on the List?”

“You know, I hategetting used to this. Yes, fire it off. Our neighbors know the drill better than we do.” He tried to think of what he should pack, what it would take to keep his sanity if it came to several days in the tunnels, and, with no functioning sense of priorities, he gathered up current notes on a non‑classified set. “Take a case or two with you, or we’ll both go crazy.”

“Game, batteries, and motion charger, check,” Grant said. “Still in the briefcase from the last time. I hate getting used to it, too–just as a useful check on my sensibilities. I distinctly recall being told to appeal to my Supervisor if Ifeel stress coming on.”

“Do you?” Justin asked soberly, turning to look at him.

Grant rudely shoved him into motion. “It’s a condition of life, lately. Move. I want to get upstairs and pack some necessities this time. Let’s be practical about this.”

Mark and Gerry showed up in the open doorway; word had spread.

“Ser,” Gerry said, “An alert’s in progress.”

“We know. Thanks. Get on the com.” Justin said, settling his coat on, “call everybody in the Wing and tell them this is a real alert, if they have any doubt of it. All staff to go to the tunnels, prepare for a stay’. When you’ve done that, supply yourselves out of your office for at least a three‑day stay and report to the storm tunnel.”

“Yes, ser,” Mark said, and the two of them went off at fair speed–which left them time to get upstairs in good order and pack a bag between them.

Grant looked a little overwhelmed as they were leaving–again. He cast a look around the room, as if memorizing it, and then looked at Justin with a little sigh as if to say he was ready for most anything.

Grant was Justin’s overriding thought. Grant’s stability, he didn’t question. It was a sensible worry whether they could both get through the next few days alive. He didn’t know everything they were up against, but the thought of the station in orbit deciding just to flip the switch and shut down the towers until Reseune gave up, or Defense landing troops on their very close‑in river shore, troops to break into the tunnels and force their way in–

That wasn’t a prospect he wanted to contemplate. They were Warricks, Grant no less than he was. No question they’d be targets along with Jordan. They always had been. And there wasn’t a damned thing he personally could do about it, but have a short mental list of one bolt hole after another if it got to that.

Planys wasn’t theirs this morning. That news had mixed with the news of the landing; and he wasn’t the only one who’d be upset with that news. He phoned Jordan on his way down from their apartment. “Dad,” he said, when only the message function answered his call, “take this one very seriously. Paul, take care. Both of you.”

They ended up with the lift all to themselves.

Back to the tunnel he’d gotten to know–all the comforts, as far as sieges went.

And settled in to wait.

The galley served modest sandwiches, which Ari’s staff said would be available at any time. They had coffee and fruit tea. Tommy and Mika Carnath arrived, exhausted and short of breath, from across the complex, and said they’d been held up a while, getting back, because they’d had to walk all the way around from the labs. They weren’t letting people traverse the open spaces, and they were too young to rate a seat on the trams. Yvgenia Wojkowski arrived, and said she’d been delayed by a phone call from a cousin in Novgorod asking what had happened, but she had just told her to watch the news. Maddy Strassen came in with her companion Samara, and settled in. The news services, broadcasting in Novgorod, and visible on the general monitor, showed, intermittent with rebroadcasts of the Council news conference and the general’s plane taking off, tranquil views of the city, a small amount of traffic moving on the roads, subways running, mostly empty, on a sunny day.

It was reassuring to know the city was functioning. It showed barges backed up for days on the river, and then showed one barge leaving, which was promising.

“We have news, ser,” Mark said, coming over to him. “Svetlansk Airport has had several aircraft disabled.”

“So something’s going on up there.” Grant commented, after. “The general was telling the truth in that much.”

“We can hope so,” Justin said. There were a handful of places of any size in the civilized world, and Svetlansk had always seemed as remote as another world. Since the missile event, it hadn’t seemed that remote. It didn’t at the moment.

An hour later there was an interruption on the vid to say that there was going to be a three‑hour shutdown of the just‑opened Port of Novgorod, due to security concerns. That wasn’tgood news.

Then Ari called in, just on general address. “This is Ariane Emory. We haven’t gotten much news, except there’s been a ground attack on Svetlansk Airport, damaging several Fleet aircraft. We’re getting two planes in fairly continual pattern between us and Novgorod, which we think is their origin. We have absolutely nothing reported off the coast in the direction of Planys and hope to keep it that way…”

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter vii

SEPT 8, 2424

1538H

“…There’s a small situation at the port in Novgorod that seems to be a labor issue. Waiting is all we can do at this point. We’re limiting our own communications for security reasons. I’ll be back in touch when there’s news.”

Ari shut the mike down. There was a small firefight going on up in Svetlansk, as best they could figure, and since that had started, they weren’t getting any satellite images out of Cyteen Alpha Station–disturbing as it might be. Images continued uninterrupted from remote Beta, and she hoped it was Alpha making a declaration of neutrality in the immediate situation, and nothing worse, like Alpha taking sides, or Alpha engaged in its own struggle against elements of the Fleet up there.

Catlin and Florian, meanwhile, had joined several of ReseuneSec’s seniors in organizing a defense of Reseune, framed in several contingencies: an invasion from water, from the air, the very low probability of anyone moving in by land after an air landing–getting down of! the cliffs wouldn’t be easy. And an assault from air or space, in which case they tucked low and defense became herjob as long as their communications held out, which meant, among other things, keeping a handful of unruly media people under cover.

Defense was not something on which the first Ari had an outstanding lot to say. A search after similar incidents turned up nothing but a few boatloads of Abolitionists bent on kidnapping azi to “free” them, lunatic‑venture…nothing like having a missile threat to contend with. They hadn’t guarded the boat launch in those days, they hadn’t built the coffer‑dam, the lock system, and the filtration until Giraud and Denys took over. It turned out being defensive, in plans her security was making, but it had been ecological in origin, pushed by the company working remediation in Swigert Bay.

Meanwhile they had planes patrolling the skies, but suddenly had very little information regarding air traffic–the station supplied most of that kind of information. And that provided a major screen for anybody doing anything.

She made a try at contacting Alpha Station, ordinarily a matter of picking up the phone. It took a considerable wait, on a line that should have gone straight through to Station Admin.

It still did, finally, at least as far as a live Assistant Stationmaster. “This is Ariane Emory, at Reseune. We’re not receiving air traffic information. For all we know nobody in the world is receiving information. We have a rogue Fleet officer in Planys, possibly with missiles under his direction, aimed at the population of Novgorod. Are you willing to take the responsibility when this situation goes to the national court with criminal charges, ser?”

“ Let me get the Stationmaster,” the reply came back, and five minutes more of waiting and she had the Alpha Stationmaster. Emil Erikssen was his name, and she effectively repeated what she had just said to the Assistant Stationmaster, including the bit about personal responsibility and criminal charges. “We have no way of sounding an alarm if we get another missile fired at us. We hada missile land within 800 meters of our hospital and 15 meters off a public thoroughfare, ser. Whatever’s going on up there, the ordinary citizens of this planet and the Council rely on youfor services that mean life and death. Don’t give us promises.”

“We are supporting the atmospherics systems and the power grid,”the answer came back. “Fleet assets have just been destroyed or compromised. We are not providing general positional information to enable counterattacks until we have contact with Council.”

“We appreciate your position, but if you want the Council, ser, you just stay connected.” She punched buttons on her pocket com, and rang Ludmilla deFranco. “Sera. I have the Alpha Stationmaster. He needs a Council resolution before he’ll provide the global net.”

“Let me talk to him,”deFranco said, and she punched more buttons, and got four more Councillors. “We are sitting in shelters here,”deFranco said in some heat, “having already had one missile fired at us by a fool, and if you want a directive, ser, you’ll have it.”

“This is Harad, of State,”Councillor Harad broke in. “The directive already exists, Alpha Station, in our recent instruction to General Awei to defend the Council. Facimile transmission follows. We direct you turn on current global positional and traffic data. We’ll get you a specific directive on both orders inside five minutes if you have any doubt.”

There was a lengthy delay on the other side.

Catlin came to her desk, leaned over, com pressed firmly into her ear, and said, “Geosats are transmitting again.”

They had eyes.

That had gone all right, hadn’t it? Pity they couldn’t have been selective–but the system wasn’t set up that way Alpha could shut down satellites from transmission. But once they did transmit–anybody could use the information.

And about forty seconds later, the airport called Reseune Admin, “ We have regained image.” Likewise at the port.

The outage had lasted about thirty minutes, from the initial action at Svetlansk to the restoration of geosat transmission.

Fleet property had gotten damaged at Svetlansk, no word about personnel. They’d howled in indignation, more than likely.

So had the planet immediately involved…howled, now, and there’d be some consideration of the measures Alpha Station had taken, if she had anything to say about it. There hadn’tbeen civilian planes in the air when ATC’s long vision went out, but there could have been. There hadn’t, however, been guidance for more missiles for a bit, either. So it was a toss‑up. She couldn’t say the Alpha Stationmaster had been wrong; and he couldn’t be in a comfortable position, watching his government come apart, down on the planet, and two halves of Defense starting shooting at each other. They’d gotten into it step by step; for Alpha Station, there’d been a succession of small startling shocks, mostly in the last week.

So Alpha Station had wanted it stopped. She could understand that. Maybe Khalid would be beseiging his own sources up on station, urging Fleet authorities up then to shut the geosats down again to protect his operations at Planys. And maybe Fleet would start agitating on his behalf, or even issuing threats, but Alpha was a power, too, a de facto sovereign state like Reseune Territories, and Khalid couldn’t trump a Council directive.

Hadhim, she did.

She shoved back from the console in the Admin storm tunnels, and spun about to find Florian in the doorway, Florian with a decided grin on his face.

“Yanni,” Florian said, “and Councillor Corain, Amy, and Frank, and Quentin AQ. They’re down at the port.”

Her heart leapt up. “In Novgorod?”

“No, sera. At ourport, the riverside. Rafael’s sending a bus.”

“Are we sure?” she asked.

“Yes, sera!”

She spun the chair about again, and this time punched in every Councillor they had resident. They were immediate on the answer, Harad, deFranco, Chavez, Tien, and, last, Harogo. She said, “Yanni and Mikhael Corain have just arrived at the port. Would you like to meet them in Admin?”

“Finally!”Harad said, and Chavez: “About damned time.”

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter viii

SEPT 8, 2424

1621H

Directive control stayed in Ari’s pocket–literally–via her com, which she kept on, with Admin connected, continually. Florian and Catlin were linked into Rafael’s operation, specifically to senior ReseuneSec officers; and to Wes and Marco, who were doing the same, out of Alpha Wing Ops; she was linked to Admin, namely Chloe, and the department heads, who’d gotten the heads‑up from Chloe via Yanni’s office. “Call Councillor Corain’s family,” she told Chloe, afterthought, but one she didn’t want to omit. “Tell them Corain is coming in, but tell them stay to the tunnels.”

Immediately after, she headed upstairs and down the long lower hall in Admin, in close company with Florian and Catlin and two of the regular ReseuneSec personnel.

The Councillors, starting from storm tunnels in Wing One and Ed, reported themselves headed over via the cross tunnels, with their aides–they might come upstairs, if they insisted. Nobody was going to argue protocols with Harad or deFranco, or even Corain’s wife. All Ari’s attention was focused on having Yanni and Corain and Amy across that open space and down in the tunnels as fast as they could get them there, and she listened to the infrequent information from Admin, hoping not to hear warnings, hoping the moderate communications traffic hadn’t helped the opposition.

The bus at least was wasting no time…two buses, it became evident as she reached the locked doors–one bus veering off to Ed, one coming up toward them. “One is a decoy,” Florian said, and Catlin meanwhile called Rafael, signaling the physical lock to be taken off the Admin front doors and left off until she sent word they had the party inside.

Florian swung a door open. The bus came up under the portico, squealed to a hard stop, and its door flew open. Quentin exited instantly and held up his hands for Amy, who flung herself off the bus. Frank came next, with the briefcase, and held out a hand to steady Yanni coming down: and the third and last CIT was Mikhail Corain, looking to be on his last legs–all of them freshly scrubbed, wearing work blues, still damp from decon and reeking of potent disinfectant.

“Inside,” Florian said. “Inside, quickly, ser.”

“Amy, Yanni,” Ari said, and embraced Amy with one arm and Yanni with the other. “Where have you been?”

“In a shipping container,” Yanni said. “Hard on old bones, I’ll tell you.”

“You took a barge all the way up?”

“Only thing we could get to,” Amy said. “And it got stalled. We’re safe. Hid out in sealed cargo, shipped for Reseune.”

“She bought candy bars,” Yanni said, “and water before we tried it. She, bright young woman, had credit chits for the vending machines on the docks; card use, and they’d have found us.” Frank had an arm around him, and Frank didn’t look much better. The guards they’d brought moved to provide support, one to Yanni, one to Mikhail Corain. Young Quentin AQ lent a shoulder to Frank, who looked about ready to collapse in his tracks, but who wasn’t surrendering the briefcase.

“We got boarded,” Amy said. “And stalled forever while they searched things. But they didn’t get down to our container.”

“We’ve got a medic downstairs,” Ari said, trying to move them on, get the whole party back down to safety. They had a whole clinic. It was part of Admin’s storm season routine, to handle decon, or anything else needful, and right now it was five water‑deprived, underweight refugees. And she wanted them moved, before a dozen reporters dug in down at the airport managed to get the news out; she started moving Amy along, her arm about her. It was, by the layout of the older buildings, a fair walk back–not to create a people‑jam near the building entry in the event of an alert; that had been the theory…but it made it a lengthy hike.

The lift had made a trip down and back, meanwhile, and brought up Mikhail Corain’s wile and two ReseuneSec officers. The lady gave a little cry and rushed to embrace her husband.

“In, ser, in, quickly.” Catlin said briskly, and got them in; the rest of them found room; and the lift dropped down again, a far reach to the tunnels–Catlin keyed off the security stop, and it took them straight on down.

Doors opened. More security met them, more of Ser Corain’s excited family, observing enough of the security line to let them exit the lift before they closed around him. Councillors were right behind–Harad, Tien, deFranco, Harogo and Chavez, all there to see with their own eyes.

“Medical,” Ari said, and Florian called them. Yanni had stumbled on the way down the upstairs hall. Corain had family to buoy him up; Yanni just slumped a little, home and safe, and Ari caught his hand and found it cold.

“Yanni,” she said. “Hold on. Medics are bringing a stretcher.”

“No damned way,” Yanni said. “Didn’t come here to be carried down the damned hall. Harad! How’s the vote stand?”

“Special quorum,” Harad said, and came and put a light hand on Yanni’s shoulder. “Proxy, man. We haven’t seen Lynch.”

“Ari’s already taken,” Yanni said hoarsely. “If I fall over, if I fall over–” Deep breath. “Justin Warrick’s my Proxy.”

“Is he here?” Harad asked.

Ari said, “Alpha Wing. I can get him.”

“I’m notfalling over,” Yanni snapped. “Have we got our quorum? Mikhail, dammit, get yourself over here! First business, move to seat Ariane Emory as Councillor for Information, Catherine Lao being deceased. We can do it here in the hallway.”

“Second,” deFranco said.

“Moved and seconded to seat Ariane Emory for Information,” Harad said. “Are we recording this?”

“We have a record going,” Chavez said.

“Voice vote.” Harad said, and the Councillors called it out, over the confused buzz of the curious and the office workers from Admin, who’d come to see the commotion. “Science, aye.” “Industry, aye.” “Finance, aye.” “Transportation, aye.” “Trade, aye.” “Internal affairs, aye.” “Citizens, aye.” That, a hoarse voice from Mikhail Corain. And lastly, deep and strong, “State, aye. The Council of the Nine welcomes the new Councillor for Information and invites her, officially if figuratively, to take her seat. So ordered, this date, the eighth of September, the year 2424.”

“Move to seat Vladislaw Khalid, Proxy Councillor for Defense,” de‑Franco said.

“Second,” Yanni said, “for purposes of the vote. Science votes nay.”

“Industry, nay.” “Finance, nay.” “Transportation, nay.” “Trade, nay.” “Internal affairs, nay.”

There was a brief pause. A gap. “Information, nay,” Ari said, and immediately after, “Citizens, nay” from Mikhail Corain, and then Harad, “State votes nay. The motion fails. Council will not seat the candidate, and calls on Defense to name a new Proxy. In the absence and presumed death of the Councillor for Defense, the Council calls on the Secretary for the Bureau of Defense to assume the office of Proxy until such time as a duly elected Councillor for Defense may register a Proxy for the consideration of the Council of the Nine. So ordered, this date, the eighth of September, the year 2424. In absence of the appointed Proxy for the Bureau of Defense, the chair of the Council of the Nine declares the Defense seat vacant pending elections in that Bureau, and calls for nominations to be placed before the electorate, none dissenting? So ordered, this date, the eighth of September, the year 2424. The chair moves for the declaration of martial law.”

“Second,” Harogo said. “Move for declaration of unanimity, all seated members being present.”

“Second,” deFranco said.

“Any opposed?” Harad asked, and read the date. Then, “Chair moves to appoint Marine General Klaus Awei as provisional commander of all Union armed forces, to restore order and return control to civil authorities within forty‑eight hours.”

“Second,” deFranco said, and Yanni said, in a hoarse whisper, “Science votes aye,” before his knees buckled and he began to slip toward the floor. Frank made a grab for him. Ari did. The two ReseuneSec azi were more effective, kept his head from hitting the floor, picked him up, and carried him.

The medics that had come up to the area and stopped were equally fast, sliding a gurney into the area. Yanni was on his way to the clinic without ever hitting the ground, and Ari glanced in that direction and toward the Council chair, and knew where the Proxy for Information had to be…it had cost too much, already, even to wonder. The vote went on. She cast her vote for Information, and the vote went past her, and concluded with the Chairman’s reading of the date.

“Are we done, ser?” she asked Harad.

“Move to adjourn,” Harad said.

“Move to adjourn,” she said.

“Second,” deFranco said.

“None opposing, we stand adjourned,” Harad said, and meanwhile Tien had taken hold of Mikhail Corain’s arm. Tien said, “We’d better get him down there, too.”

Frank had already gone, staying with Yanni all the way. Ari slipped her arm through Amy’s, locked fingers with hers, and stayed to catch Harad as Councillors and family members began to move in various directions. “Copy of that vote, to the airport, ser? Can Reseune help?”

“We need urgently to transmit the file,” Harad said. “Transmission to secure storage, Hall of the Nine, transmit to the media, replication far and fast: official transmission, all Bureau offices, city and district offices, station offices, ships in space…” It was official litany, the places that record had to go. She didn’t have it memorized, but she said, “Ops can do that, ser. If you go with Catlin, she’ll assist.”

“Yes, sera,” Catlin said, and went off with the Council Chairman, through a throng of the curious and the concerned. Florian stayed right by Ari’s side.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter ix

SEPT 8, 2424

1715H

Pocket com went off. Jordan, Justin thought; but it wasn’t.

“Justin?”Ari said. “Just so you know, Yanni’s back.”

“That’s great news,” he said. He was glad. He was very glad, and he thumbed the com over to speaker so Grant could hear. It immediately got Mark and Gerry’s attention, and Maddy Strassen’s, with, “Just so you know, too, you’re Proxy Councillor for Science.”

“You’re not serious.” Stupid thing to say to Ari, in the depths of a storm tunnel. “You are serious.”

“Entirely serious,”she said, “and Yanni’s in the clinic, with dehydration and exhaustion, they’re telling me, and the Council’s just voted to unseat Khalid and given a Marine general the go‑ahead to go after him, just so you’re up to the moment on what’s going on.”

“Why me?” he asked. It was all good news–if it didn’t get another missile aimed at them. “why not you?”

“Because I’m Councillor for Information,”she said. “Yanni and Frank and Councillor Corain are all in the clinic; so are Amy and Quentin, but she’s a lot better than they are, and Quentin’s doing fine. Yanni just fell over. The doctors don’t know yet what’s going on with him.”A pause for breath. “It’s going to be a dicey few hours, Justin. It is. But we got the vote through. We’re transmitting it. Any minute they’ll know it at the port, and they’ll know it in Novgorod, and up at Alpha and over in Planys, more’s the point. That’s where we don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what the base over there might have to defend itself, but we’re just hoping it doesn’t have long‑range stuff so just batten down and hope along with the rest of us. If Council reconvenes you’re going to have to get over here on the run. Are you all right there?”

“Fine,” he said. “We’re all fine.”

“Good,”she said. “Good. Take care. Florian says keep your heads down. All of you.”

“Proxy Councillor,” Grant said in amazement.

“It gives me another reason to wish Yanni well,” he said, and looked around him at a set of young, so veryyoung faces, even the ReseuneSec agents, dismayed to realize every one of them was looking at him the way he’d always looked at Yanni.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter x

SEPT 8, 2424

1927H

A long, long silence prevailed in communications…with the airport, with the city, with the Bureaus, and with the station overhead…not to mention the two aircraft that laced the skies, zigging and zagging, occasionally going down to one plane as one aircraft landed down at Novgorod Airport. Those two planes didn’t talk to Reseune ATC and it didn’t seem a politic time to be trying to pry into the Defense system. Ari just took what she had, which was a fair amount of knowledge she couldreach.

She wasn’t alone in ReseuneSec Ops. Amy had come back to sit in the little room, and regale her quietly with an account of how they haddodged people trying to track them from the hotel, and taken out toward the docks instead. They’d walked the last bit, Amy said, so as not to leave their stolen car too obviously close to the barge they’d picked.

“They were moving out a few barges. This stack of containers was ready to load on. It was construction stuff, for Reseune,” Amy said, sipping juice by tiny, tiny degrees, and with a monitor patch taped to her wrist. “So Frank got us into a container, got the door to stay shut while they loaded us on, way down deep in the hold, and later on, when we were running out of air, Quentin shot three holes in the plastic and we used one of Yanni’s tees for a filter. The medics don’t think we got any contamination, being down deep, but they shot us full of stuff, in case. And we didn’tknow Defense people would stop us once we got underway and start searching the barge and all. They did, about halfway up the river, but they didn’t get to the bottom containers, maybe because they expected us to leave a trail for the sniffers, walking aboard, I’m not sure. But we’d come on with the loading machinery You look awfully tired, Ari. When did yousleep?”

“I’m not sure I remember what that is,” she said. She liked hearing Amy’s voice near at hand. She wanted to hear from Sam, and they hadn’t; she wanted to hear from Awei that his forces weren’t losing, wherever they were, and the silence around that operation was thorough.

She was supposed to talk to the media–her security wouldn’t let her go down to the airport, but they were going to bring three representatives up to Admin for the first time to hear a report–and she didn’t know where she was going to get the strength to sound as if the momentum of the Council action was still going.

Yanni was back, and Yanni was doing all right, but they weren’t telling him about all the problems. She had Harad and deFranco to make decisions about the outside world, but meanwhile she had to figure whether to try to make contact with Strassenberg or just let them lie low; and whether to let techs go up to the babies in the wombs or just leave them on auto. She’d decided in the positive on that and told them to just be ready to dive for cover. The skies had stayed quiet.

Keywork. She thought better that way. No verbals. Idiom crept in, imprecise. Even the Base One AI wasn’t entirely safe, not when it came to sequencing orders. She did it.

Amy fell silent, just watching, maybe interpreting. Amy was all right. She’d been there since childhood, almost the first. Amy didn’t know all the tools she had under hand nowadays. Amy could use Base One’s functions, but nobody could quite useBase One, except her, except Florian and Catlin, and anybody she let have just one little tag end of a command that Base One could execute.

Executewas a dangerous word. A meaningful word.

She stacked up commands, things to cascade once the first button was pushed–knowing if she got it wrong, she’d expose Reseune agents over in Planys, and elsewhere. The whole Planys‑base ReseuneSec organization was out there for her to use. She could access everything about the agents there, names, numbers, experience, rank, and how deeply embedded.

Maybe she should bring up the first Ari. Maybe she should give her a chance to argue with her plan. But she knew the keywords. She knew what Ari had told her. Politics matters. Perception matters. Assassination breeds assassination. War breeds war.

And after all the philosophy: If you have any choice, don’t be perceived to have struck first.

In going after Reseune, Khalid had given her everything she needed.

She pushed a button. She stored the orders, left them waiting in System on this side of the ocean. When the pipeline opened, it would open wide, and the chain would cascade in nanoseconds.

An hour later Catlin and Florian both lifted their heads from the console. “Awei is calling,” Florian said. “He says–now is the time, sera. He needs the data.”

The sequence was prepared. The orders were prepared. They’d probably lose System in Planys once the intruders retaliated. They’d very possibly lose a dozen personnel.

Execute.

The order went out. Spanned the ocean. Touched off quiet alerts first, PlanysLabs staff to take cover–or take action, if they were linked into System; and certain azi staff staved potentially linked in, if they could.

System in Planys came all the way up. Took a snapshot. Locked doors. Located faces. Fired that information off to Reseune and Awei, and sounded the intrusion alert in Planys’ hallways–just to create maximum confusion.

Ari sat with chin on fist, looking at Planys’ readouts. A few went out, quickly extinguished. But the room where a major part of System actually sat was deeply buried, difficult to find. That was what Base One said about it…

Planys System was a lot like Base One. It moved. It created power‑out conditions. It turned out lights. It locked and unlocked doors for a handful of agents whose faces the Planys System knew, individuals who could go like ghosts where they needed to go.

Meanwhile it produced maps for the general, and located vehicles, aircraft, personnel whose faces weren’tknown to System.

The intruders figured out they were in trouble. Some eyes went out. Some stayed.

Florian and Catlin handled communications as needed. Amy hovered close, watching, in total silence.

They had found the Enemy.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter xi

SEPT 9, 2424

1303H

It wasn’t where Justin had planned to be, not at all where he wanted to be. The Council convened in a session open to the media, down at Reseune Airport–at the farthest remove from Reseune Admin they could manage, as he understood the intent; appearances. But things were still all on end, and though Councillor Corain had managed to get out of his hospital bed and show up for the session, using a chair for the most part, Yanni was having a heart replacement, and was in no shape to take the Science seat. Ari was holding the Information seat–had been besieged by reporters; it was their Bureau she represented, and Catherine Lao’s death was officially reported in Novgorod: yes, she said, she hoped to attend the funeral; so did all the Council.

Justin had his own share: did he count his appointment permanent, did he believe Yanni would resume the seat?–”I certainly look forward to that, ser,” he said, and having found one question he actually could answer, he felt a sort of calm settle over him like a blanket. Standing near the table that served as the official desk, he looked toward Grant, over by the door, caught his eye, and then realized that that was Paul, who’d just arrived by Grant, right next to young Sam Whitely, who’d just come in to meet Ari right before the session started.

And if Paul was here–

Jordan came into the room, quietly wearing the usual ugly tweed coat, stood there in camouflage…come to see his son take a Council post, or to see his old enemy’s replicate take her place on Council; or come to raise hell, Justin had no idea. At the moment Jordan exchanged a quiet word with Paul, and Paul with Grant.

Tap of the gavel. Time to settle. Ari had told him he shouldn’t sit yet. He had to beseated, by a vote. The Nine–eight, this afternoon. Ari among them, took their places, and Harad rapped the gavel–possibly even the real gavel–three times.

“Council is in session,” Harad said. “First item of business is to seat Justin Warrick as Proxy for Science. Does someone want to make the motion?”

“Moved,” Ari said.

“Seconded.” From Mikhail Corain. Thatconstellation of agreements was a new one. Even a novice on Council knew that.

“All in favor. All opposed. None objecting, record a unanimous vote, Defense being absent this afternoon, no proxy in attendance.” The gavel banged. “ Seconditem of business. The Councillor for Information is deceased, as of 0300h this morning. The Proxy for Information succeeds automatically to the seat.” Bang of the gavel. “ Thirditem of business. The Proxy Councillor for Defense is deceased…”

A strong murmur broke out among the reporters, and the gavel went down again, twice.

“At 0211h on this date, Admiral Vladislaw Khalid was discovered dead in a hallway of PlanysLabs, along with four of his aides. A force of Marines acting directly under the command of General Klaus Awei landed at adjacent Pierce Field and Fleet Command at 0131h this morning, and General Awei is en route to Planys, pursuant to Council directives. General Awei will take personal command of operations at and near Pierce, pursuant to the Council Directive of the eighth of September, 2424.”

Understatement, Justin thought. It had been messy what happened at PlanysLabs: they’d gotten the images. And nobody officially knew who had shot Khalid, but Ari had told him privately it had been ReseuneSec, and they didn’t want any investigation, so Science should stand with her if there was any suggestion of it.

“There being no Councillor present for Defense, the Chair of the Council moves a resolution that if Councillor Jacques does not personally and within twenty‑four hours make contact with Council, Council will deem that the seat for Defense is vacant and that the Secretary for Defense, Hariman Leontide, will serve pending elections in that Bureau. The Chair has received notice from General Awei’s office that he has begun a filing for that seat. We will accordingly be holding elections for Defense.”

Thatwas a lengthy process. Notice of filing had to reach all stations, a matter of months; and then anyone at those stations also filing had to communicate that news to reach all stations, for everybody’s consideration. Three months for campaigning, and the months of voting…not only for Defense, but also for Citizens. Corain was assuredly going to file to keep his seat, and the man who’d filed against him would have a hard time out‑campaigning the long‑serving Councillor who’d opposed Khalid in Novgorod, stowed away in a cargo container, and left a hospital bed to be here for today’s public session in front of the cameras. The opposition wasn’t going to top that one.

And there’d be elections in Information. Ari wanted to appoint another Proxy, and said she had in mind one of the senior reporters who’d been covering Reseune all her life; that man would then file for the seat–file for it, and win, if they were lucky. Reseune had had a lifelong ally in Catherine Lao, and without Lao–they needed an ally, to keep the balance on Council what it was.

Himself, he just hoped Yanni would get through recovery all right.

He caught Grant’s eye, while business proceeded. Didn’t quite look at Jordan, didn’t want to give him any encouragement, or start anything.

But Jordan had showed up. To see his son sit where he had wanted to be. Justin was convinced of it.

BOOK THREE Section 6 Chapter xii

NOVEMBER 24, 2424

0745H

The tanks changed, contracted, tilted– pushedtheir contents out onto soft foam.

Abban AB and Seely AS came gently into the world within seconds of each other–were severed from the umbilicals, caught up in azi arms, encouraged to draw their first breaths, again, within seconds of each other.

They were wrapped in soft blankets, hugged in living arms, carried, separately to cradles, which, sealed, would speak to them reassuringly and insulate them from all shocks, all stress, on their way to the creches. They were not scheduled to meet for years. And then the records would see they did.

Giraud slid down into the tray–slid onto foam, startling sensation, and once the nurses had gotten him free of the umbilical, and gotten him breathing, Nelly wiped him vigorously and hugged him.

She was older, Nelly was, years older than when she’d been Ari’s nanny… Ari watched her with a little worry, a little jealousy still. Nelly was sweet, was what she was, just kind, and sweet, and loved babies until they got to be older, and contrary minded, and did things Nelly couldn’t understand. That was why Uncle Denys had had to send Nelly away from her–because she’d have driven Nelly into therapy.

She worried just a little that Giraud was going to be a handful for Nelly–but Nelly was experienced, no question, and she’d made the assignment herself; Yanni needed the help.

Nelly carried Giraud over to Yanni–put the blanket‑wrapped bundle into Yanni’s arms, and Yanni, thin from his recent ordeal, and ordered not to lift heavy things, took up a hell of a burden, took it up as gingerly as if it were a ticking bomb, and then moved the blanket to look in its face, and touched it, and was, Ari thought, pretty well committed. Yanni had found arguments against it. But there was nobody better, nobody in all the world, who’d know how to keep ahead of Giraud Nye. For the next few months, Nelly would do most of the work.

And that was that. Giraud was in the world. He had his CIT number from birth–the law had changed; she was why it had. He’d be Giraud Nye from this day on, and systems would recognize him–if they weren’t locked against him; and they were, thank God and Base One.

She cast a look at Florian and Catlin as they fell in with her, on her way out of the labs. “I think we’ll walk across,” she said. She’d had enough of the tunnels. “It’s a sunny day.”

“You didn’t bring enough coat, sera,” Florian said.

“I won’t freeze,” she said.

There might be a nip in the morning air, weather advisories said so. But the pale sun had warmth, still, in autumn.

They went out in the daylight, under Cyteen’s morning sky. There was color still in the east, a warm blush of dawn on the cliffs that rimmed Reseune, and a gentle breeze was moving. Florian was right, the coat wasn’t quite enough, and the chill got through, but that was proof the world was random and she was alive in it.

That was all she asked of the day.