Текст книги "Regenesis"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 44 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

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.”