Regenesis

Ya

“Possibly someone she knew by sight.”

“We’re ru

“A hollow man?”

Ya

“I’m worried about people ru

“We’re working on it. Just say we’re working on it. Jordan favors very crowded, dark little restaurants where the chairs are jammed up together and people are moving all over the place. We don’t have good imaging. Right now we’re investigating a lot of people.”

“Jordan’s a magnet for blame. You never thought Jordan killed the first Ari, did you?”

Ya

“Sorry.” She silently cued Haze, and said, “Ya

“I’d support you, yes.”

“What if I’d asked you to drop the Eversnow project? Would you do that?”

“I wouldn’t be at all happy about it.”

“But would you do it if I asked it?”

“Actually,” Ya

“Good. I like it when somebody tells me the truth. Why do you think I’m wrong?”

“Because Eversnow solves the employment problem on Fargone.”

“Doesn’t help Pan‑Paris at all.”

“It still solves one critical unemployment problem and makes Pan‑Paris less critical. No, it doesn’t help Pan‑Paris and they’ll be mad about it and we’ll have to find something to give them pretty fast.”

“Not on this year’s budget.”

“We’ll let Pan‑Paris stew and protest and get jealous of Fargone, and then we’ll agree to do something. That makes it evident we’re listening.”

“You’re a total cynic.”

He shrugged. “Works. We’ve got worse potential problems on the horizon. We have an important alliance on this bill: us, Citizens, Defense. We can get Information and Trade in on it, and that’s our majority. But Defense is in mid‑election and Corain’s getting old. He could see himself challenged for the seat in Citizens, and believe me, a lot worse could come out of that huge electorate than Corain. It’s diverse. It may be true that if there hadn’t been a Corain to hold Citizens together, we’d have to invent one, but in any given year, we could see something nasty develop there. Another reason– anotherreason to pursue a major population burst at Fargone. Population in an area farthest removed from Alliance Space…most of them will end up voting in Citizens, supporting, we hope, moderates like Corain.”

“All right, let’s discuss it. You think that Eversnow is still an asset. I frankly see it having serious problems.”

“I think it’s a safety factor. If there’s another war, Alliance will think twice. If we toss their merchanters out of that route, we can enforce a ban, and we can protect it. It’s a very narrow corridor.”

“No great abundance of jump points in the region?”

“Scarce. Just about what we’re developing as destinations, places we’ll be able to defend. That’s the word from Defense.”

That was certainly a point in favor. “How soon is your population burst at Fargone?”

“All right. This is getting to be in your need‑to‑know, one more reason why it’s not good for you and me to have a contest for power this year. There’s a station onworld, already. That’s all military and classified to the hilt: it’s been black‑budgeted for decades, since your predecessor’s time. We’ve kept its secrecy because we use its facilities pretty freely, but there’ve been some issues over the years, too.”

“That’s how you got the samples! It wasn’t a robot. You lied on that, too.”

“Well, it was a robot, but we have people down there, as we speak. Very cold, very lonely people, in company with a lot of cold, lonely Defense people, and not an azi in the lot. Defense has been damned worried we’d tamper–so they haven’t allowed azi down there. Just a nice little born‑man society.”

“What are we, for God’s sake? At war?”

“During the War, it was a lot friendlier. Lately it’s gotten political and full of rules and restrictions. The restrictions on our information‑gathering and on our flow of perso

“Hence Patil’s project. Hence this whole thing. Patil’s an excuse. Terraforming never was it. It’s the population burst. It’s a colony, never mind what the rest of the planet is like! they can sit on an iceball. Terraforming’s just what you’re paying to enlist Corain’s people.”

“Well, not altogether,” Ya

“You’re doubling the size of Union. You’re handing us problems we don’t even imagine yet!”

“It’s not me that’s ru

“Look, I’m sorry for what I cost–”