Soulstar

by C. L. Polk

  “It’s an interesting story, Cousin,” Jamille said. “And it is as you said. Just a story. Not proof. Do you know what I think?”

  I knew she would deny it. That wasn’t why I was here. I’d brought a warning; that was all. But I breathed in the sweet cherry scent of her pipe and the charred wood smell of her murder and listened. “What?”

  “I think you should stay away from fires, Auntie. They’re dangerous. And coming too close could get you burned.”

  Her smile set my stomach to leaping. “Basil. Take Auntie home safely. You know where it is, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Basil said. “Come along, Mrs. Thorpe.”

  FIFTEEN

  Election Day

  Election Day dawned cool and bright, and I rose to meet it. I fell into bed nineteen hours later, weary to my bones.

  I was at the community hall first thing in the morning, frying up breakfast for volunteers. I left after the last dish was washed, toppling into my bed and sleeping like a log.

  I had waited for trains to come, for volunteers loaded with boxes full of votes and their tallies to arrive at the Riverside community hall. We worked around reporters, who acted as our scrutineers, asking questions about every step of our process. We added the results to wheeled chalkboards that listed every electoral riding in Aeland, reading the names of Free Democratic candidates at the top of almost every race.

  Millions of ballots showered votes on people who had hastily stood up and volunteered to run for their riding in Parliament. I watched the tallies fill slabs of slate. I watched the sealed boxes of returned ballots pile up. These boxes held the true will of the people.

  “Lock them up,” I said. “And guard them. We need to bring these boxes to the High Tribunal.”

  “Mrs. Thorpe, has it been your intention to dispute the election in court all along?” John Runson asked, and I wiped paper dust off my face.

  “Bringing the ballots to the High Tribunal has always been an option for further action.”

  “And are you confident of your victory in South Kingston over your challenger?”

  I smiled. “You never know what could happen. I’m pleased and humbled by the support Riverside has shown me in the campaign.”

  My political career was still in the air. Aeland didn’t start counting ballots until all ridings had returned. Rumors said Jarom had under a hundred voters in South Kingston–Riverside, but I had a hundred and fifteen voting collectives who had pooled their money and sent a representative to the ballots.

  A hundred and fifteen. Jacob won with only eighty. Agitated butterflies twirled in my stomach. The votes would show the seat was mine, and I’d lead the Solidarity Collective from my place in the Lower House.

  It hadn’t terrified me before. It hadn’t felt real before. To calm my trembling hands, I went out to the hall’s loading dock and carried ballot boxes with the rest.

  We cheered when the millionth vote arrived. We cheered when the first votes from nearby counties came in by train. We cheered to find that, when given a free vote, the people wanted the Free Democracy Party in charge.

  We cheered when the last box, transported by sled from the northern settlement of Agnestown, finally made it into the warmth of the community hall. We double-checked our figures. We audited random ballot boxes. We scrutinized, and inspected, and wrote the final figures on every single riding. Only seven ridings voted for their incumbent, and most of those had been in harmony with Jacob’s direction anyway.

  We had won Aeland’s first free election with a mighty, bellowing roar.

  The results on the King’s election didn’t tell nearly the same tale. Runners came in, reporting the results from distant ridings. They all said the same things, the results starting with Red Hawk. The in-country voters had chosen their incumbents, the results spiraling slowly, inevitably toward Kingston.

  West Kingston–Halston Park: Incumbent. West Kingston–Wellston Triangle: Incumbent. West Kingston–Central: Incumbent. The elite of Aeland voted in lockstep, and that was no surprise. I waited until the last messenger came in, breathless from running.

  I shook my braids off my shoulders. This was it.

  She shook her head at the offer of a glass of water and gasped out, “South Kingston–Riverside: Jarom Bay.”

  The room went up in surprise. “That can’t be!” someone shouted.

  “We had more votes! This is impossible!”

  The runner waved her hands. “Carlotta was scrutinizing the riding. There’s something rotten. Thirty votes were declared spoiled ballots and weren’t counted. Twenty-three of them were for Robin. Jarom Bay won by two votes. If they hadn’t disqualified those votes, you would have won.”

  The hall exploded with shouts. I shook, so angry I vibrated. Anyone voting for a collective would know better than to spoil a ballot. They were too careful to make that kind of mistake—to have twenty-three of them unclear or defaced was unbelievable.

  “Mrs. Thorpe,” a reporter asked. “Will you concede to Mr. Bay’s victory?”

  “Do you believe this is evidence of election tampering?”

  “Have you heard of other spoiled ballots in other ridings?”

  “Mrs. Thorpe, after the gigantic effort to hold a mock election which your people dominated, are you disappointed to lose in the legitimate election, or did you expect it?”

  He had cheated, and I hadn’t anticipated it. I should have. But I had been so busy with the free election I hadn’t taken much time to think about the seat I had been sure I would win. But the Bays had bribery in their blood, and I had dropped the ball by not telling my scrutineer to expect chicanery.

  It stung, losing to a thief. But it proved something to me: I couldn’t do two jobs at once.

  I turned away from the reporters. I shuffled ballot boxes on top of one of the folding tables near the front of the crowd and clambered to stand on them.

  I had written a speech. I tossed it aside as the crowd quieted to hear me.

  “You’re expecting me to fight these results,” I said. “You’re expecting me to question the validity of spoiled ballots, to drag the matter into court, to fight for the seat of South Kingston–Riverside, for the right to speak for the largest electoral riding in Aeland and its one hundred and twenty-nine thousand constituents. But that’s not what’s important.”

  Confused silence. My supporters glanced at each other. Some of them looked at me, pleading with their expressions. Don’t give up. Don’t give in, their faces said. Fight this.

  I swept my arms wide, taking in the slate chalkboards. “This is what’s important. The will of the people. Not the hundred and some votes for a seat in the Lower House. The six million votes from all over the country. This is the will of the true Aeland. This is what our country wants. And I mean to give it to them.”

  A few murmurs, but I paid them no mind. “If not for tampering, the King’s election would have invited me to sit in the Lower House of Parliament, one protesting voice in a small party. But the people have commanded the Free Democracy Party to lead the country and serve their will. And so I say: I am grateful and humbled by your support, and I accept the position of Prime Minister of Aeland as the leader of the Free Democracy Party.”

  Gasps. My own people gawped at me in utter shock. The journalists leaned closer. “Does this mean—”

  “I care not a bit for the King’s election. My place is in your service. My heart and my hands belong to Aeland. And so I call upon every member of my party elected by the people to come and serve the people. Do you want us?”

  My volunteers cheered. “Yes!”

  “Do you call on us?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then I send this message across Aeland, from the Elected Member of Agnestown to the Elected Member of the Ayersian Archipelago: Come to Kingston. Show up to Government House. We’re going to have our first session witnessed by the people whose mandate we obey. For the sake of the people of Aeland, we’re going to get to work.”

  * * * />
  THE MOB THAT WOULD GOVERN, the Kingston Herald proclaimed, with a crowd photo of people raising their fists. I studied it, but the picture was cropped to only show an endless sea of people, yellow ribbons on the sleeves of their coats, most of them surplus Service coats the army had produced in anticipation of the Laneeri War before the standard uniform issue kit changed to suit the conditions of the tropics. I couldn’t tell where it had actually been taken.

  The Star of Kingston had a full-body picture of me standing on a ballot box, my expression captured as I spoke. I looked angry. I pointed toward the headline, a single evocative word: UPSTART!

  I picked up a copy of the Herald and read the article, but Jedrus slid it out of my hands. “Later.”

  I reached for the paper again. “They’re saying I’m grasping for power, using the threat of a violent mob to prop me up—”

  Jedrus hid it behind kher back. “And that’s nonsense. Put it out of your mind and eat your breakfast.”

  I followed kher out of the parlor and across the hall. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’ll blow away in a stiff wind if you don’t have some eggs.”

  Grumbling, I took a seat at the table and poked at goose sausage. “They’re making us look like brutes. That’s not what I want for the people’s government. We’re just making our presence known. We’re going to talk about what’s important to us.”

  “And you’re going to fight to have the election legitimized in court,” Jedrus said. “What if the tribunal says yes?”

  “What if the sky turned bright purple?”

  Zelind entered the dining room with one last platter of sweet toast and sat beside me. “You don’t know they’ll deny all your points.”

  “It’s a nice thought,” I said, cutting my sausage into tiny bites. “I don’t know if they want to be responsible for upending all order and tradition. Not yet.”

  “You have a storage room filled with millions of votes,” Zelind said. “But let’s do something nice today. You won’t have much time for fun when you’re prime minister.”

  “You won’t have much time for fun when you’re an energy tycoon.”

  “So how about we go skating again?” Zelind asked, heaping four slices of toast on kher plate. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Unless we get swarmed by photographers.”

  “Then it’ll be an opportunity. How can they demonize skating?”

  “They might find a way,” I said.

  The loud rap of the door knocker made everyone jump, but Amos was off the bench and out of the dining room in a trice.

  “Robin, go and see who it is,” Aunt Bernie said, and I followed down the hall to find a court clerk with a sealed scroll. A lawsuit?

  Then I saw the ribbon. Not red, for criminal charges. Not blue, for a civil case. Purple, signifying a royal order. This was the official word of King Severin. That document must be an order for me to stop calling myself prime minister. He must have hated the idea, to send a royal order so quickly.

  “I guess that’s for me,” I said. “I’m Robin Thorpe.”

  The clerk twitched the tube out of my reach. “The order is for Zelind Thorpe.”

  Zelind? And then I realized what it must be. That bastard. That villain! He couldn’t just demand Zelind’s invention!

  The clerk’s shoulders went up. “I just deliver them.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I hastily fixed my expression to something more neutral. “I’ll get kher.”

  “I’m here,” Zelind said. “It’s for me? Is there a reply needed?”

  “Not at the moment,” the clerk said. “I just deliver them. Good morning.”

  The clerk handed the scrolled paper to Zelind and left, walking to the bicycle parked on the road.

  Zelind stared at the tube in kher hands. “Do you want to wager on what it is?”

  There was only one thing it could be. “Just open it.”

  Zelind broke the seal, untied the ribbon, and read. “His Majesty demands that I relinquish my right of invention to the Thorpe turbine within the next three days.” Zelind let the paper curl shut. “There’s no mention of cash prizes or medals. I guess revoking them is my punishment.”

  Severin had the power to do this. He was the King, Parliament was out of session, and the only oversight he could have had was the advice of the Chancellor, if he had bothered to consult her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It shouldn’t have come to this. I’m not sure you can fight it in court.”

  “I’m not going to fight it,” Zelind said.

  “You have to do something,” I said. “There has to be something you can do.”

  “There is,” Zelind said. “Put on your coat. I’ll be right back.”

  Zelind took the stairs two at a time. Khe didn’t seem like someone about to admit defeat. I buttoned up my coat and boots, and Zelind came back, bearing the turbine model and a stack of papers.

  I pulled Zelind’s double-breasted coat off a hanger. “Are you sure you just want to surrender your rights? It’s your invention.”

  “It is,” Zelind said, grinning. “But we can’t disobey a king, can we? Hold this.”

  Khe handed over the turbine. It was lighter than I had supposed. “You’re plotting something.”

  “Me?” Zelind said, kher expression innocent. “I’m shocked that you would suggest such a thing.”

  I couldn’t help the smile blooming over my face. This glimpse of Zelind, the mischievous, clever Zelind from our schooldays who used to mix fun and trouble, was sunshine peeking through the clouds.

  “What are you planning?”

  “The King wants me to surrender the rights to my invention,” Zelind said. “So I’m going to relinquish them to the public wealth. We’re going to visit every newspaper office in town with copies of the original plans and building instructions, and then anyone can build a turbine, and anyone can go into business building them for others. That’s news, isn’t it? How to get the lights back on?”

  Oh. It was pure Zelind—clever, defiant, and subversive. I laughed. We were courting trouble, but it was too perfect.

  “Where to first?”

  “Merchant Printers,” Zelind said. “We need to leave behind copies for the papers.”

  * * *

  The Riverside Examiner took the materials and stopped the presses, but the Herald and the Star offered tea, wheat cookies, and disinterested questions. When I asked for John Runson at the Star, he wasn’t available.

  “They’re not going to print it,” Zelind said. “Even after I showed them the light.”

  “The Examiner will, at least. They’ll just get the scoop, is all.”

  “I could make more copies. I could send my last copy to Mechanics and Devices. They might publish it.”

  They’d be fools not to, but Zelind continued on kher glum-shouldered way to the palace, waiting in line at the security booth. I didn’t know how to cheer kher up and settled for running my hand along kher arm for comfort.

  And then it was our turn. “Do you have an appointment?”

  Zelind shook kher head. “I just have this order.”

  The guard slipped on glasses that magnified his eyes and looked over the document King Severin had sent. “You can leave the materials here.”

  Zelind backed up a step. “I don’t think I should do that.”

  “You’ve been ordered to,” the guard said. “Are you disobeying a royal order?”

  “I am taking great pains to make sure that I do not,” Zelind said. “I think I’ll feel safer if I take this to the Chancellor.”

  “Do you have an appointment with the Chancellor?” the guard asked, and his blank expression paired with his intent stare unnerved me.

  “We don’t need one,” I said. “The Chancellor is a friend. Good afternoon!”

  Zelind clutched kher materials to kher chest. We hurried out of line, walking fast and squinting into the wind.

  “I don’t like this,” Zelind said. “This device is to
o important to leave to the mercies of a bureaucratic internal mail system.”

  “You could have surrendered it and let it get lost,” I said.

  “If the papers had been more keen I probably would have,” Zelind said. “But this will turn on the lights and power the coldboxes, and that’s more important than being petty.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “This way.”

  We trotted up the steps of Government House and through the corridors that branched to more junior offices before we came to Grace’s. A tidily dressed young white woman, buttoned to the neck and ornamented with a hand-painted scarf, looked up from her typing and smiled.

  “You must be Robin Thorpe,” she said. “Chancellor Hensley has an appointment, but if you’d care to wait?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “We just need to drop something off.”

  “If she can’t see you, would you care to leave it with me?” the secretary asked.

  “That would be fine. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  The secretary nodded. “It’s Onora. I’m Onora Wright.”

  Zelind cocked kher head. “Any connection to Clan Wright of the Clever Hands?”

  “You know them,” she said. “I married in three years ago.”

  Zelind’s smile was sad. “I knew Audric Wright. He was in Clarity House.”

  Dismay blanketed Onora’s face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know him.”

  Behind us, the door opened, and Miles stepped inside. “Robin! Good! I’ve come to force my sister to eat. You should come too.”

  “The Chancellor is with the King,” Onora said.

  Zelind and I glanced at each other. “I’m sorry,” Zelind said. “I didn’t know.”

  “He probably won’t be long. He just dropped in.”

  Miles claimed a seat next to the fireplace. “Then we’ll wait. What have you got there, Zelind? It looks like a model box. Is that your invention?”