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Twenty miles an hour, thirty. The bus rumbled down the Grand Boulevard toward the Dead Forest Heliport.I can be on his doorstep in tenminutes. And suddenly Rachner was aware of the fizz barf that crusted his maw and eating hands, of the stains on his uniform. He brushed at his head, but there was nothing he could do about the uniform. A madman come to see a senile old coot. Maybe it was fitting. It also might be the last chance any of them had.
A decade earlier, in friendlier times, Hrunkner U
The main elevator was so large that even the reporters could get aboard, and they did so. The Southland press was a privileged class, explicitly protected by Parliament law—even on government property! The General did all right with the mob. Maybe she had learned from watching Sherkaner deal with journalists. Her combateers hulked i
A thousand feet underground, their elevator started sideways on an electric polyrail. The elevator's tall windows looked out on brightly lit industrial caves. The Southlanders had done a lot here and on the Coastal Arc, but they didn't have enough underground farms to support it all.
The two Elected Representatives who had greeted her at the airfield had once been powerful in the South. But times had changed: there had been assassinations, subornations, all Pedure's usual tricks—and lately a near-magical good luck on the Kindred side. Now these two were, at least publicly, alone in their friendliness for the Accord. Now they were regarded as toadies of a foreign king. The two stood close to the General, one close enough that he could talk with her behind a screen. Hopefully, only the General and Hrunkner U
"No disrespect, ma'am, but we had hoped that your king would come in his own person." The politico wore a finely tailored jacket and leggings—and an air of spiritual bedragglement.
The General nodded reassuringly. "I understand, sir. I'm here to make sure the right things can be done, and done safely. Will I be allowed to address Parliament?" In the present situation, Hrunk guessed that there was no "i
"Y-yes. We have set that up. But things have gone too far." He waved his watch hand. "I wouldn't put it past the Other Side to cause an elevator wreck and—"
"They let us get this far. If I can talk to Parliament, I think there will be an accommodation." General Smith smiled at the Southlander, an almost conspiratorial look.
Fifteen minutes later, the elevator had deposited them at the main esplanade. Three sides and the roof simply lifted off.That was an embellishment he hadn't seen before. U
Then the crush of police and politicians and reporters swept him off the platform...
...and they were climbing up the stairs of Parliament Hall.
At the top, Southland security finally separated them from the reporters and Smith's own combateers. They passed by five-ton timbered doors...into the hall itself. The hall had always been an underground affair, in earlier generations squatting just above the local deepness. Those early rulers had been more like bandits (or freedom fighters, depending on your source of propaganda) whose forces roamed the mountainous land.
Hrunkner had helped design this incarnation of Parliament Hall. It was one of the few projects he'd worked on where a major design goal was awesome appearance. It might not really be bombproof, but it looked damned spectacular:
The hall was a shallow bowl, with levels co
The doors swung closed behind them. The sound returned deep echoes from the dome and the far walls. In here, there would be just the Elected, their visitors, and—high above, Hrunker could see clusters of lenses—the news cameras. Across the curves of desks, almost every perch was filled. U
Smith and U
For this day of triumph, Tomas Nau had set North Paw's weather to be its su
And my task is to manage everything together,Tomas thought. Across the table from him sat Vinh and Trinli, working with the site monitoring he had assigned them. Trinli was essential to the cover story, the only Peddler that Tomas was confident would support the lies. Vinh...well, a credible excuse would take him offline for critical moments, but what he did see would corroborate Trinli. That would be tricky, but if there were any surprises...well, that was what Kal and his men were here to handle.
Ritser's presence was just a flat image, showing him sitting in the Captain's chair aboard theHand. None of his words would be heard by i
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