“It’s a Cyteen-class planet in a million-year deepfreeze. Remember you’ll sit at Fargone, safe and warm and in all the comforts. You can socialize with Reseune staff—or not—at your pleasure, so long as you maintain cover. And you’ll have a planet to work with, a 30-billion-cred budget, for the next several years, and the warming—let me breach a little security here—is advanced beyond our first projections. We’re going to jumpstart it with a few limited impacts this year, followed up by five more solar satellites as well as the research station. How fast can you push it, if we gave you a wide-open budget? And, once it’s that far advanced, how soon until you no longer have to maintain cover?”
Lips went thin. But the eyes held thought. A lot of it. Fast. “Still a lot of practical unknowns with the snowball. Deep ocean. How much life is in the sea floor? How complex? You’ve got samples. The military is dialing up the heat with not a notion in hell what they’re doing, beyond polluting it with the Earth biome and making themselves a nice little salt puddle. Brilliant. Is Eversnow life going to fight back, and how hard? And what kind of a mess do we have if you change your mind on this one midway?”
“This will be a centuries-long program…with a massive budget, on a bipartisan agreement. It incidentally gets you out from under Defense, back into Science, and gives you absolute authority about what drops onto that world—which may be some little incentive.”
Guarded look, after a furtive spark. He had her. “Maybe.”
“So do you want your name on it? Yes or no? It’s yours, if you want it.”
“No communications restrictions. Free access to Fargone, free access to Cyteen Beta by shipmail, no damn censoring of my articles for publication, once the lid comes off. And a 2,000-standard-kilo personal-goods allowance.”
That mass was a heart-stopper, if it had been just any traveler. The usual was 40 standard kilos. No censorship on publication or scientific cross-communication, even with Earth and Alliance: that was worrisome—but it was no longer wartime and the lid was off. They just weren’t used to it.
And the ridiculous personal-goods travel allowance was minuscule, compared to the equipment they’d be moving out there—a whole lab, containerized, to the farthest station down that strand of stars. “No communications restrictions,” he agreed, “no publication restrictions—once the cover goes off, not from Reseune admin, not from the legislature. For what we intend to have known publicly, for the short term cover story, you’ll run a new ReseuneSpace lab division at Fargone, having to do with medical nanistics, in a very secure facility. Reseune itself will pay transport out. And it will pay transport back, if you decide at any point that you want to resign the post. Your 2000 kilo freight allowance, all right, granted. I’ll throw in a resettling bonus, apartment paid, station share paid—unless you go out to Eversnow, and then you’ll have to take that station as it is. But you’ll be in on a founder’s station share, on what’s slated to be a major waystation down that strand of stars—tell me where you can get that nowadays. You’ll have 10k a month, with equal pension when you retire. That’s the same as any Wing Director in Reseune. Out there, in Fargone’s economy, that 10k and apartment and station share is pretty damn extravagant.”
“Money’s not the issue. Freedom is. I’m spied on. Followed. For twenty-five damned years I’m hounded by Cyteen police, Reseune Security, Defense MPs…”
“I’m aware of that. And you know why.”
“I don’t control what shows up at the public library!”
“What shows up at your lectures is a problem you didn’t choose and don’t cultivate. We know that. Here, you’re a magnet for people with agendas. You won’t have that problem at Fargone—for one thing, you won’t have to give any public lectures. I don’t, frankly, encourage any publicity, for the initial period without cover, when, shall we say, political interest in your project is likely to be intense—even on Fargone. But there’s no Paxer problem on Fargone, no Abolitionists to speak of, or if there are, they’re the polite sort who simply write condemnatory letters to the station bulletin board, nothing violent. We appreciate that you’ve been discreet throughout your career. We have no doubts of your character, your credentials—” Give or take a certain bias toward voting the opposition in Science. “We certainly have no doubts of your administrative abilities in a lab operation, and none about your scientific expertise. You’ll be able to pick your staff from Beta: you have absolute authority-there. But I do need an answer, or I need to start looking out at Beta very quickly, because we are going to a vote tomorrow and I’m going to have to have some idea who we can put in. The bill will pass. I can present it for a vote with your name attached by cloakroom rumor, or not. We have a few Reseune personnel we could send out there, with less need of security, but you’re our first choice, one both sides of the aisle can agree on. And this is your one chance to ride it all the way from tomorrow’s vote to fund a ‘medical nanistics lab’—the project you’re signing onto.”
“What time frame for my going out there?”
“Your departure within three months.”
“I’m not sure I can make that deadline. I have a residence. I have classes… I have to pack.”
“You’ll receive considerations. If you can’t sell the residence in the time provided, someone will buy it. That’s no problem. Set aside what you want to take. If you’re close, but a little over, between you and me, we can forgive a few kilos. Someone will have to take your classes.”
A shift of position in the chair, a deep breath. “Tell me. Does the Emory girl have any idea what you’re doing?”
Lie? He shrugged. “While I’m Director of Reseune, I am Director of Reseune. We have an understanding.”
A line deepened between her brows. “You mean I’ll be racing the next administration of Reseune. I do appreciate the honesty. It’s been rare, from your district.”
“I think the level of support you’ll have from her lies partly in your hands. Did I mention to you that Oliver AO Strassen is a person she regards as a father—and his word carries an enormous weight with her?”
God, he loved delivering that small punch. It got a blink of those dark eyes, a sudden reassessment of biases, realities, and the worth of Oliver Strassen. It drew her deeper and deeper into visualizing herself integrating into the society she’d live in—first step in a good sales job.
“If your operation is running well,” he continued, “well documented, all the earmarks of the project it ought to be—I’m sure Ollie Strassen’s word will carry an enormous weight with her. It’s a big boost for Fargone’s economy—that’s a great plus. I think when sera Emory assesses what is out there now, and what you’ll have done by then, she’ll agree. This is your project, on a platter. All the work you did back at the turn of the century can go into practical application. That is, if you want the job.”
“A snowball. A damn snowball.”
“A snowball third from its sun, with liquid water, an Earth genome puddle, and warming fast. And I assure you Fargone Station is absolutely the equivalent of Cyteen Station, all the amenities, an active social scene, every luxury you could ask. You’ll be well able to afford it. You know how a Wing Director can live.”
She drew a deep breath. “Have you got the paperwork?”
“I have it,” Yanni said, and quietly opened the folder on the table.
The next meeting of the day was not on Science turf. It was over across the ring of Bureau towers, under a hazy seaside sky, in the Defense Tower, and Yanni went there with his full entourage, pursued by an unruly handful of reporters who’d followed him over from Science—into a reception made doubly noisy by reporters hanging about the portico of Defense.
The news services sensibly hoped an unannounced visit from the Proxy Councillor of Science to the Defense Tower might have some meat to it, with the Council of the Nine in session and now in a one-day recess for reading and consultation. It was a particularly good story, since elections were in progress in Defense, and Khalid, who
had had a notably bad relationship with young Emory, was running against Spurlin, who was only slightly friendlier to Reseune. Current Councillor for Defense, Jacques, who’d been chair-warming for the old warhorse, Gorodin, who had just died in the post of Proxy Councillor—it was all very tangled—had not opted to defend his seat, but he had appointed Spurlin to be Proxy Councillor in the interim, so it was a wide-open and nasty contest. There had been talk Jacques might even resign and let Spurlin run as an incumbent. But it hadn’t happened.
“Are you pressuring Jacques to resign?” a reporter shouted at him. And another: “Do you have any comment. Proxy Councillor?”
He wasn’t throwing morsels of business to the media. Not on this. Not before the public deal was done. But he stopped, faced cameras, smiled in the sunny way he’d learned to put on when he was wearing his legislative persona. “There are a few items on the agenda that make sense to discuss with the outgoing councillor.”
“This is an unscheduled meeting, right?”
“…wide-ranging discussion on a number of issues where we can reach consensus, a few on budgetary matters.” If there was anything to make a reporter’s eyes glaze over, budget was it. Budget could lead to absolutely unmarketable footage, unless corruption was in it. And it wasn’t. Actually, and for once, corruption wasn’t the issue, and Jacques himself was never news.
Frank and black-uniformed ReseuneSec had meanwhile opened an avenue for him toward the door and during that second of glaze-over, he took it, while building security held the doors: press was allowed to besiege the outdoor carport. They couldn’t, however, block the lobby.
Upstairs via the lobby lift, in relative calm, up to the fourteenth floor. As Proxy Councillor for Defense, Spurlin had an office there. Khalid’s was somewhat higher up—clear up on Cyteen Station, as happened—and that was about as close as Yanni hoped to see him.
It wasn’t a loving relationship, even so, his personal acquaintance with Spurlin. His own predecessor, Giraud Nye, had had a relatively cozy relationship with Defense, when Gorodin was in office, much less so with Khalid—the first Ari had had at least a reasonably good one with Azov, and then Gorodin, during the war years when Defense had had to rely heavily on Reseune. But young Ari had started a war with Defense and ruffled some egos mightily—especially Khalid’s. Spurlin remained a bit of a cipher…but he was far more acceptable to Reseune.
Votes were coming in electronically, ship-mailed from time-lagged stations, to be opened simultaneously on Cyteen Station as polls closed on Cyteen itself. That would happen in July, given the longest round trip of messages, which was Fargone. But he owned one advantage in going into a negotiation with Defense, whoever ended up at the helm: Defense could look forward to a few years of fairly reasonable, low-key Yanni Schwartz before they had to deal with a sharp witted and adult Ari Two, whose agendas were as yet unknown—and the military didn’t like unknowns. It preferred the devil they knew. Khalid, if he won, certainly had rather deal with him; and Spurlin certainly didn’t want him making any cozy deals with Khalid. Jacques—nobody cared, nowadays, what Jacques thought.
He took Frank in with him on this one, Frank carrying a briefcase that never strayed far from his side. Communications, that was. Defense knew it, probably had a truther aimed at the room, would run electronic surveillance to see if any signal went out from that briefcase, and God knew what other probes it brought to bear, trying to penetrate the secrets in it.
Yanni didn’t sit down. Since there was no Spurlin as yet, he made himself at home. He drew Frank a cup of coffee, indicated a chair to the side, where Frank ensconced himself—they’d been together lifelong, he and Frank, close as brothers. He wasn’t comfortable outside Reseune when circumstances excluded Frank, was much more at ease in a room where Frank was, and he took himself and a second cup of coffee to a seat at the oversized conference table.
Spurlin came in, a walking stormfront of a man, with uniformed aides, who dispensed papers, water, glasses, and old-fashioned pens and notepads, God knew what they were supposed to do with those.
The aides settled primly around the edges. An ache hit the roots of Yanni’s teeth as Spurlin lowered his wide-shouldered, uniformed and be-medaled bulk into the head chair. A silencer had started running, to prevent any eavesdropping.
“Admiral,” Yanni said with a dip of his head.
“Ser,” Spurlin answered. It had a note of question.
“Patil just agreed to terms,” Yanni said plainly. “No alterations worth mentioning, except a 2,000-kilo mass limit and freedom to publish after the cover’s lifted.” He eased back in his chair, a little less ramrod straight. “Well. So we’re all go.”
“We’re go.”
“We’ll handle communication with our own people at Fargone. There’s a freighter going out on the twenty-fourth.”
“Skip the freighter. No Alliance transport.” Freighters were that, Alliance merchanters, plying the routes between Union stations. “We have a courier. It can leave after the vote tomorrow.”
Low mass, big engines, faster by a classified number of days—especially if the courier was ready to launch. And no Alliance snoopery, though if they black-boxed it, there was no likelihood Alliance would snoop at all. Yanni nodded. “If speed is an issue. We have the appropriate orders ready. We can make your schedule.”
“You were that convinced she’d do it,” Spurlin said.
“I thought she would, yes,” Yanni said. “A research scientist, with a life’s-work project backed up on hold for decades? I was very sure she’d do it.”
“Her Paxer constituency really isn’t going to like her taking a Reseune post. Domestic security had better take hold and look sharp when that news breaks.”
The Paxers, the peace party, had fallen on hard times after the War. They weren’t the threat they had been. They’d had a spate of bombings. A certain number of their intellectuals showed up at Patil’s public lectures. So, shadier and more violent, did a few of the Rocher Party, the Abolitionists. But it was a public forum, the Franklin Lecture Series, sponsored by a Centrist-leaning agricultural processing consortium, and as much as Patil’s speeches usually generated web chatter, she didn’t participate in the fringe-element chat. She more or less politely dealt with everyone who actually showed up; but she had a sharp manner when asked a stupid question, and only the intellectuals tended to ask her questions, not the subway-bombing lunatic fringe—they probably lived in terror of her. So did the tea-sipping social set who’d attend any function on the library circuit.
“ReseuneSec is going on alert when Patil’s acceptance of a post goes public,” Yanni said.
“My office will be on it,” Spurlin said. Spurlin’s specific office was system defense. He was a post-war admiral, never in combat. Khalid had that advantage, that he had fought against the Mazianni, the former Earth Company Fleet. “But this is supposing it goes through. Corain’s not entirely a surety yet. It could all fall apart.”
“I’m pretty confident he’ll go with us on this,” Yanni said. “Lao’s with us.” That was no news. Lao of Information was battling rejuv failure herself, another election they were going to suffer, but she was at the session, holding out on painkillers, Reseune’s old friend. “I’m scheduled to talk with Corain this evening. But don’t give any interviews until after the vote. It’ll look bad.”
Spurlin had no sense of humor. At all. “Your man at Fargone. The azi…”
“CIT,” Yanni corrected him.
“Ex-azi. Emory’s man. Is he up to handling the security aspects of this? And what will he be telling the girl?”
“I have less doubt of Ollie Strassen than I do of anyone else involved in this undertaking, ser. And he doesn’t communicate with young Emory, never has. We have very efficient management out there. Check your records.”
“So now you have a program.”
“We will have a program.” Yanni gave a small shrug. He wasn’t really comfortable with Spurlin. The privacy screen made his sinuses ache
. And he was anxious to have the meeting done, in token of which he drank half the very expensive cup of coffee at one go. “Patil will be drawing her own complement from Beta Station, perfectly current with the research. So you’ll have plenty of sources who’ll talk to you very nicely, I’m sure.”
A brow lifted. Spurlin looked marginally happier with that thought: the military fairly well ran Beta, and that was insystem, definitely familiar territory, familiar channels. “So you get your new lab.”
“And you get a planet,” Yanni said wryly.
“Humanity gets a planet,” Spurlin said. That was the theory. Humanity couldn’t live on Pell without supplementals, and the fungi were lethal over time. Humanity couldn’t actually live on Cyteen—if the weather-makers and the precip towers ever failed, they were all dead in a day. Humanity did too damned well at surviving on Gehenna, and if all of them could turn up dead in a day, it would make everybody sleep easier at night. They hoped eventually to do better at Eversnow—a viable planet, one they could entirely terraform and render completely habitable, right down to the oxygen balance—and where people could come and go without turning themselves into such deeply acculturated specialists they couldn’t integrate with spacefaring society.
And not the only such planet, hereafter: once they’d proven the case and established the precedent for terraforming a marginal world, once they’d gotten past the emotional nonsense that bacteria counted as life on a world, young Emory would see the benefit.
That meant activation of the Arks, a use for the stored genetics. A new Eden.
A reserve Earth, in case the unthinkable ever happened.
“I have Patil’s name on the contract,” Yanni said. “But first out there and setting up at Fargone Station…will be ReseuneSec.”
That didn’t make Spurlin happy, but Yanni said it anyway: “ReseuneSec, for a Reseune installation. We’ll establish connections, set up the labs. Our setup won’t bother your military ‘hospital’ there in the least. But where it regards our tech and birthlabs, we don’t admit anybody but Reseune personnel. That never changes.”
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