Regenesis

The ear veered. The airport bus, caught by surprise, caught up with them three intersections on, and trailed both escort cars.

They crossed the river on Council Bridge, and the administrative tower, closest to the river of all the various bureau office towers, loomed up closer and closer.

The portico showed ominously vacant, compared to the usual press of media vans and reporters. Nobody was there but one lonely media stakeout with her cameraman, them and a small number of Council aides, with another car giving up its occupants as a third car and the airport bus came squealing up the drive, and more security bailed out.

Guns came out. “Easy,” Ya

“Good to see you,” Chavez said, the statement itself an earthquake in Council relations. “Corain went to the back entry.”

‘”Good,” he said. He stayed worried as they reached the lift, and gathered their bodyguard in, both of them. It shot them up to the Council level, and let them out into a vacant hallway.

Frank opened the door for them. Ya

“Harogo’s on his way up,” Corain said. “Harad’s coming.”

Five. And six. Harad. State, had been a cliffhanger: he’d been an ally of Gorodin’s, in Defense; and it hadn’t been certain where he came down–he hadn’t liked Jacques or Spurlin.

They tended toward their seats. Took them, in the arc that constituted an official seating. There was no Council clerk. They passed a sheet of paper down, signed their names, and fed it into the automated slot that immortalized it, irretrievable, a statement of their presence here, on this day, to do Council business.

Five more minutes. Harogo came in, Internal Affairs, frail, and surrounded by his own security, from Fargone Station. Two more minutes, and they had word from Corain’s watch at the back entry that Harad was in the building, and then Ludmilla deFranco arrived downstairs.

One more needed. Ya

Eight. Harad came in, walked to the fore of the desk.

“He didn’t make his appointment,” Harad said, as agitated as Ya

He. Meaning Edgerton.

“Damn,” Corain said. “Damn it.”

“It’s not safe to stay here,” Chavez said. “We risk getting pi

“Five more minutes,” Ya

Harad came up to his seat. DeFranco came in, conferred quietly with Harad, took her seat. And they waited.

Frank talked on com with someone, probably downstairs. Frank walked over to him, leaned near his chair. “There’s a military presence at the hotel. And another squad at Councillor Lynch’s condominium.”

“We can’t do this,” Harogo said. Harogo sat next to him. “We need to move. We’ve failed the quorum.”

“We can get the eight we need,” Ya

No restriction on the ability of a Councillor to appoint a Proxy. No restriction even of age. None of bureau registration. In the wild early days of chancey transport, anybodywith credentials could carry a vote into the Council on behalf of an absent Councillor.

“Irregular!” Harogo said.

“Legal,” Corain said.

“We can’t vote here without our eighth,” Ya

“Second that,” Corain said.

“Those opposed?” Harogo said, and then wrote on the screen under his hands, and filed it. “Each of us has declared a Proxy. In case.”

“Go,” Ya

He gathered up Frank, then caught Mikhail Corain at the side of the door. “Thanks.”

“Done as much as I can,” Corain said, and in the lowest possible tones. “ Didshe sign it?”

“I’ve got the recording,” Ya

Out the door then, downstairs as fast as they could gather a lift‑load of Councillors, aides, and security. In the lower hall they separated, headed for the north doors and the south portico.

ReseuneSec held the doors.

BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter xviii

AUGUST 20, 2424

1438H

Nearly a week since the broadcast, and Ari had long since taken pity on the reporters camped out at the airport and physically cut off from their news organizations, their families, their means of being elsewhere–she comped meals, laundry service, delivered unlimited vid entertainment, and ordered the restaurant there to vary its menu daily and be open twenty‑four hours, the little airport bar to open at 2000h and stay til 2400h nightly.

She’d also sent down two ReseuneSec agents to help out at the bar, and to gather up any tidbits of information and rumor that came in by various links that didn’t belong to Reseune.

There were rumors down there, no question. Broadcast news continually said Lao was alive. Rumor at the bar said she was artificially sustained for legal reasons. The broadcast news said Council had met but Khalid had not shown up, nor had the Proxy for Information, and Council had adjourned quickly. Rumor said Edgerton was in hiding somewhere in the city and that he and Council were under direct threat of the military.

On August 20, Amy called–finally, and reported that Ya

Meanwhile, Amy said, Khalid was threatening to put the city under martial law; but without the Council he knew he couldn’t do that, so he was trying to locate Council members, and that military had been searching hotels, including her former one, and trying to bully Councillors into showing up when hecalled Council. It was certain Khalid knew where Ya

That was the sum of Amy’s report, except to ask how they were, and Ari said they were all fine.

But late on August 23, a barge came up from Moreyville, and fourteen people got off at Reseune docks, fourteen very tired, dirty, and hungry people, among them Ludmilla deFranco, far less than the immaculate person she ordinarily was. Her blonde hair was dyed dark, her customary couturier dress traded for a dockworker’s blues.

All the same, a spark of triumph glistened in deFranco’s eyes when Ari came down to the docks to meet her.

“A pleasure,” deFranco said, and startled her and Florian with an unexpected embrace. “God, you look like her, don’t you?”