Regenesis

“It’s never happened.”

“It can happen. That’s the point. We can refuse to seat whoever they name. We can force them to another election. And another. We can take them outof the political process.”

“And into something altogether unthinkable,” Corain said. “My God, Schwartz.”

“Exactly. They think we’ll fold. We don’t fold. If we do, there’s alreadybeen a coup. What more are we afraid of?”

Corain sat and stared at him, and finally rotated his coffee mug full circle, handle back to his hand.

“Unanimity minus one,” Corain said.

“We can do it. No debate, no reasoning, just a straightforward vote: the part where we all vote to seat the new Councillor, and everybody goes to lunch? This time we vote no.”

“We can’t find Edgerton,” Corain said. “Lao maybe dead tomorrow. If we lose her–we devolve down to the Secretary of Information, with the Proxy in doubt and Edgerton missing. If we call a vote and fail the majority, because somebody doesn’t show–that’s all it takes. Spurlin being murdered–that’s just real fresh in memory.”

“They mean it to be. They mean us to be afraid. They mean us to play by rules they’re not even going to worry about. We’re worried about unanimous votes and legalities. The man who ordered Spurlin killed wasn’t worried about the legalities. He won’t be when he plans his next move. He’s already over the line. And I could be killed, and you could, Lao’s terribly vulnerable. Pretty soon we’ve got a Council full of shiny new Proxies without a clue who to trust, and a strong, strong likelihood that just one of them will fold and let him take the seat.”

“And Edgerton…”

“As long as Lao’s alive, she can name another Proxy,” he said. “As long as the media can come and go, that word can get out, and she can take the Proxy back and name somebody we canfind. Mark my word, media access may not last, if Khalid decides to shut it down. There won’t be media at all where the bodies really start to fall. Lay odds on it.”

Corain nodded. “I think we’ve found a mutual issue. I’ll get to Affairs and State; Finance; I’ll talk to Finance, too. Or get Affairs to do it.”

“De Franco, Harad, Lao,” Ya

Corain sat there a moment. “You’re the one who has the clandestine organization to move on him. If it came to that.”

“We can’t penetrate Defense,” Ya

Corain nodded. Bit his lip. “All right. This is how. I’ll call on Harogo, get Harogo to get to Chavez, down the chain. I can’t say how fast. I can’t say I can findHarogo without some trial and error, and that’s not going to be quiet.”

“We may not be back in touch until the vote. Just do it with interviews. That’s enough. Watch the vid. I promise you’ll see me. More coffee?”

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter xiii

AUG 5, 2424

0122H

Deepstudy and more deepstudy, until the here and now buzzed about her ears–Ari had an orange drink and an iced muffin to fill the space in her stomach and to shoot some sugar into her veins. The headache had faded in favor of a knot on her skull that she mostly felt when she brushed her hair, and she wore it loose, because the usual knot and pin hurt that spot.

Catlin and Florian didn’t say a thing, just kept staff at bay, communicated with Rafael, who physically occupied the desk down in ReseuneSec–Rafael actually had had tape about how it all worked, and it was invaluable. Ricks’ receptionist knew who was supposed to be where; Hicks’ secretary knew what was supposed to be filed, and Rafael just kept people moving, and saw to it that surveillance watched where it was supposed to and that information was directed where it needed to go. Chloe in Ya

That said, more than most things, how things were in Novgorod. Amy wrote a log and put it into her Reseune account, and it was full of information, like a news report on the city, but Amy didn’t mention Ya

She’d had a decade of practice reading Amy’s deliberate blithe nonsense. She read it well enough that Amy could freehand phrases and she’d catch most of it. It wasn’t worse than she thought; it wasn’t better, and Ya

Meanwhile she knew AK‑36 in intimate detail. She knew everything on record in his manual, at least, and the first Ari said, “A block isn’t constructed out of thin air, or off some recipe. It’s made out of the deepest fears and the strongest determination of the subject. The subject helps you construct a block. He may help you unravel one if you can gain his cooperation on some point stronger than the block itself. Finding such an item is unlikely, but not impossible.”

And then Ari said. “Knowing the history of the individual is key, being able to correctly identify the sensitive points and particularly the most primal areas of the mindset.

“At the point of fracture the psychological stress may well trigger the fight‑flight response to an extreme degree.”

She knew that.

She asked Base One, in a variation on a question a dozen times posed: “Who in Reseune, living, has ever dealt professionally with AK‑36?”

“ Adam Hicks,” the inevitable answer came back, the same as always. It omitted Giraud. He was dead. And a long, long string of azi, some CITs who wouldn’t have dealt with him in the offices.

Useless.

She changed the question. She said, “Who in Reseune, living, holding an alpha certificate, has ever dealt professionally with AK‑36?”

It said, solemnly, after “ Adam Hicks.” “ Ariane Emory.” Stupid program. Base One occasionally, in some applications, had trouble sorting her out from her predecessor, or figuring out that the first Ari was dead, but then, it was true, too: she did fit the qualifications.

It went on with Petros Ivanov, medical…anybody who’d been in the hospital might have run into Petros. Chi Prang, alpha psych down in the labs, again, logical, from when Giraud had been ru