Cyteen

"I'll talk to them. Have we got reporters down there?"

"Plenty."

"I'll talk to them."

"Sera, you're in shock."

"That's several of us, isn't it? Damn, get me a mirror and some makeup. We're in a war, hear me?"

The mirror in the ped-tu

The dark blue sweater and pants showed soot, but water and rubbing at least got the worst off and ground the rest in. He went through an entire stock of soap packets and dried his hair and his shoulders under the blowers, looked up again and saw a face shockingly pale. He was starting to need a shave. His sweater was burned and snagged, he had a tear above the knee and a gash I where the tear was. Anyone who saw him, he thought, would report him to the police.

And that would catch him up in Cyteen law.

He leaned against the sink and wiped cold water across his face, clamping his jaws against a sick feeling that had been with him since he had come to. Thoughts started trying to insinuate themselves up to a conscious, emotional level: It was Ari's wall; whoever did this was staff—whoever did this—

Abban. Giraud's orders. But I'm only the incidental target. If she's dead—The thought was incredible to him. Shattering. Ariane Emory had years to live. Ariane Emory had a century yet, was part of the world, part of his thinking, was—like air and gravity—there.

— someone else is in charge, someone else—wanting—someone to blame. Paxers. Jordan.

Amy Carnath waiting in the apartment, with Grant, with Security—if Ari's dead—what can anyone do—

They've got Jordan, got Grant—I'm the only one still free—the only one who can make them trouble—

Something was wrong. Grant heard the Minder-call in the other bedroom—they had given him Justin's, which was his own as well, out of courtesy, he thought, as the larger room, or perhaps because they had known. Florian had re-set the Minder to respond to Amy Carnath, so nothing of what it was saying got to him, but he reckoned that it was not minor if it wakened young sera in the small hours of the night. After that he heard both Amy and Quentin stirring about and talking together in voices he could not quite hear with his ear to the door.

He slammed the door with his open palm. "Young sera, is something wrong?"

No answer. "Young sera? Please?"

Damn.

He went back to the large and unaccustomedly empty bed, lay staring at the ceiling with the lights on and tried to tell himself it was nothing.

But finally sera Amy came on the Minder to say: "Grant, are you awake?"

"Yes, sera."

"There's been an incident in Novgorod. Someone bombed the hotel. Ari's all right. She's coming on vid. Do you want to come to the living room?"

"Yes, sera." He did not panic. He got up, got his robe, and went to the door, which Quentin opened for him. "Thank you," he said, and walked ahead of Quentin as far as his own living room, where Amy was sitting on the couch.

He took the other side of the U, Quentin took the middle, between him and Amy; and he sat with his arms folded against too much chill, watching the images of emergency vehicles, smoke billowing from breached seals on the hotel's top two floors.

"Were people killed?" he asked quietly, refusing to panic. Sera Amy was not cruel. She would not bring him out here to psych him: he believed that, but it was a thin thread.

"Five of Security," Amy said. "They say the Paxers got a bomb in. They aren't saying how. I don't know any more than that. We're not supposed to do things on the phones that give away where people are or what's going on or when they're going to be places. That's the Rule."

Grant looked at her past Quentin. Not panicking, not yet; but the adrenaline flood was there, threatening shivers, pure fight-flight conflict.

"I had a call from Dr. Nye warning me not to let you loose," Amy said. "He says he'd really like me to send you downstairs to Security, but I told him no. I lied to him. I said you were locked up."

"Thank you," Grant said, because something seemed called for.

And watched the vid.

Makeup covered the minor burns, but she left the visible bruise and the burn on her cheek; she put two pins in her hair, but she let it fly loose about her face. She had a clean sweater in her luggage that Security had rescued from the suite, but she chose to meet the cameras in what she was wearing, the tailored, gray satin blouse, with the blood and the burns and the soot, and the watermark the firefighting foam had made.

She was also sure, having stalled off twice, that the clips would hit the morning news with full exposure in Novgorod.

"They tried," she said grimly, in answer to the first question, which asked her reaction to what had happened; and she confronted the cameras with a rapid-fire series of answers that got around the fine question of who had done it and gave her the launching point that she wanted—

"We are very well, thank you. And I have a personal statement, which I'll give you first. Then questions.

"I don't know yet why this happened. I know part of it; and it was an attempt not quite to silence me, because I have no voice in politics—but to kill me before I do come of age enough to acquire one.

"It was a power move of some kind, because whoever did it wanted power without process. It cost the lives of brave people who tried despite fire and the dangers of more explosions, to rescue me and others; more, it was a clear attempt to destroy the political process, no matter who instigated it, no matter who perpetrated it. I don't think that the Paxers had anything to do with this. That they're anxious to claim they had is typical of the breed: and they hope to benefit from it— benefitfrom it, because that's exactly what's going on: that a handful of individuals too few to make a party and incapable of wi

"Let me tell you also that within an hour of the disaster, Chairman Harad and members of the Council, Simon Jacques and Mikhail Corain, called me to express their profound outrage. Everyone,no matter what political party, understands what's threatened by actions like this. I don't need to say that to the people of Novgorod, who've held out against the tactics of the extremists and who've equally well held out against offers of help from the central government. I take my example from Novgorod. People can persuade me with ideas but there's no way in hell they're going to move me with violence or the possibility of violence.

"This isn't the first time in history someone's tried this; and by everything I've ever learned, the answer that works with them is exactly the land of contempt Novgorod turns on them and their ideas—contempt, but no patience, nopatience. Every time the Council sits to debate honest differences, everybodywins, precisely because civilization is working and the majority and the minority are trying to work out a fair compromise that protects the people they represent. That's why these types who want their own way above all have to destroy that; and that's precisely why the best answer is a consensus of all the elected bodies that ideas are valuable, peaceful voices deserve serious consideration, human needs have to be dealt with in a wise distribution of resources, and the principle of life itself has to be high on our list of values, just under our regard for the quality of life and the freedom to speak our opinions. Whoever did this, from whatever misguided notion of right above the law, he hasn't scared me into retreat, he's made me know how important law is; and I will run for office, someday; I'll run, and I'll respect the vote in my electorate, whatever the outcome, because an honest contest is one thing, but creating chaos to undermine the people's chosen representative isn't dissent, it's sabotage of the process, the same as the bombers are trying, and I'll have no part of that either."