Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (3 page)

"Tough one, Mikhail," Bogdanovitch said, shaking his hand and patting it.

"Well, will of the electorate," Corain said. "Can't quarrel with that." He smiled with absolute control. "We did get the highest percentage yet."

Someday, you old pirate, someday I'll have the majority.

And you'll live to see it.

"Will of the electors," Bogdanovitch said, still smiling, and Corain smiled till his teeth ached, then turned from Bogdanovitch to Jenner Harogo, another of that breed, holding the powerful Internal Affairs seat, and Catherine Lao, who held the Bureau of Information, which vetted all the tapes. Of course.

Emory came sailing in and they left him in mid-sentence to go and join her claque. Corain exchanged a pained look with Industry, Nguyen Tien of Viking; and Finance, Mahmud Chavez of Voyager Station, Centrists both. Their fourth seat, Adm. Leonid Gorodin, was over in a grim confluence of his own uniformed aides. Defense was, ironically, the least reliable—the most prone to reassess his position and shift into the Expansionist camp if he conceived near-term reasons. That was Gorodin, Centrist only because he wanted the new Excelsior-class military transports kept in near space where he could use them, not, as he put it, 'out on our backside while Alliance pulls another damn embargo. You want your electorates hammering at your doors for supplies, you want another hot war, citizens, let's just send those carriers out to the far Beyond and leave us depending on Alliance merchanters. . . .'

Not saying, of course, that the Treaty of Pell, which had agreed that the merchanters' Alliance would haul cargo and build no warships; and that Union, which had built a good many of those haulers, would maintain its fleet, but build no ships to compete with the merchanters . . . was a diplomatic buy-off, a ransom to get supply flowing again. Bogdanovitch had brought that home and even Emory had voted against it.

The stations had passed it. The full General Council had to vote on it, and it got through by a hair's breadth. Union was tired of war, that was all, tired of disrupted trade, scarce supplies.

Now Emory wanted to launch another wave of exploration and colonization out into the deep Beyond.

Everyone
knew
there was trouble out there to find. What Sol had run into on the other side of space proved that well enough. It had brought Sol running back to the Alliance, begging for trade, begging for markets. Sol had neighbors, and its reckless poking about was likely to bring trouble in the Alliance's back door and right to Union space. Gorodin hammered on that point constantly.
And
demanded a larger share of the budget for Defense.

Gorodin's position was weakest. He was vulnerable to a vote of confidence. They could lose him, if he failed to get the ships the Fleet wanted, in the zones that mattered.

And the news from the Trade electorate was a blow, a severe one. The Centrists had thought they had won this one. They had truly thought they had a chance of stopping Emory, and all they could do now was force a point of order, persuade the Council that no vote ought to be taken on the Hope project, since it involved ship appropriations and a major budget priority decision, until deFranco could get in from Esperance and assume her seat.

Or ... they could break the quorum and send it to a vote in the Council of Worlds. Emory's cabal would flinch at that. The representatives were far more independent, especially Cyteen's large bloc, who were mostly Centrist. Let them get their teeth into a bill of this complexity not already hammered out by the Nine, and they would be at it for months, sending up changes the Nine would veto, and round and round again.

Let Gorodin have another try at persuading the Expansionists to delay the vote. Gorodin was the one on the fence, the one with the medals, the war hero. Throw him at them, see if he could swing them. If not, the Centrists would walk, all four of them. It had political cost, profound cost, to break the quorum and close the meeting.

But time was what they needed, time to get to key lobbyists, time to see if they could pull a few strings and see if deFranco, when she arrived, could be persuaded to be the moderate she proclaimed herself—or at least tilt to the Centrist side on a bill that critical to her constituency. She might,
might,
vote to table.

Councillors drifted toward their seats. Emory's group came up last. Predictably.

Bogdanovitch rapped with the antique gavel.

"Council is in session," Bogdanovitch said, and proceeded to the election results and the official confirmation of Ludmilla deFranco as Councillor for the Bureau of Trade.

Moved and seconded, Catherine Lao and Jenner Harogo. Emory sat expressionless. She never made routine motions. The bored look on her face, the slow revolutions of the stylus in her long-nailed fingers, proclaimed a studied patience with the forms.

No discussion. A polite, pro forma round of ayes, officially recorded.

"Next item of business," Bogdanovitch said, "acceptance of Denzill Lal voting proxy for sera deFranco until her arrival."

Same routine. Another bored round of ayes, a little banter between Harogo and Lao, small laughter. From Gorodin, Chavez, Tien, no reaction. Emory noticed that: Corain saw her laugh shortly and take in that silence with a sidelong glance. The stylus stopped its revolutions. Emory's glance was wary now, sharp as she glanced Corain's way and gave a slow, slight smile, the kind that might mitigate an accidental meeting of eyes.

But the eyes were not smiling at all.
What
will you do? they wondered. What are you up to, Corain?

There were not that many guesses, and a mind of Emory's caliber would take a very little time to come up with them. The stare lingered, comprehended, threatened like a blade in fence. He hated her. He hated everything she stood for. But, God, dealing with her was like an experience in telepathy: he stared flatly, returning the threat, quirked a brow that said: You can push me to the brink. I'll carry you over it. Yes, I will do it. Fracture the Council. Paralyze the government.

The half-lidding of her eyes, the fondness of her smile said: Good strike, Corain. Are you sure you want this war? You may not be ready for this.

The fondness of his said: Yes. This is the line, Emory. You want crisis, right when two of your precious projects are coming up, and you can have it.

She blinked, slid a glance to the table and back again, the smile tight, the eyes hooded. War, then. A widening of the smile. Or negotiation. Watch my moves, Corain: you'd make a serious mistake to make this an open breach.

I'll win, Corain. You can stall me off. You can force elections first, damn you. And that will waste more time than waiting on deFranco.

"The matter of the Hope Station appropriations," Bogdanovitch said. "First scheduled speaker, sera Lao. ..."

A signal passed between Emory and Lao. Corain could not see Lao's face, only the back of her blonde head, the trademark crown of braids. Doubtless Lao's expression was perplexed. Emory signaled an aide, spoke into his ear, and that aide's face tightened, mouth gone to a thin line, eyes mirroring dismay.

The aide went to one of Lao's aides, and Lao's aide went and whispered in her ear. The move of Lao's shoulders, the deep intake of breath, was readable as her now profiled, frowning face.

"Ser President," Catherine Lao said, "I move we postpone debate on the Hope Station bill until sera deFranco can take her seat in person. Trade is too profoundly affected by this measure. With all respect to the distinguished gentleman from Fargone, this is a matter that ought to wait."

"Seconded," Corain said sharply.

A murmur of dismay ran among the aides, heads leaning together, even Councillors'. Bogdanovitch's mouth was open. It took him a moment to react and tap the gavel for decorum.

"It has been moved and seconded that debate on the Hope Station bill be postponed until sera deFranco takes her seat in person. Is there discussion?"

It was perfunctory, Emory complimenting the proxy, the gentleman from Fargone, agreeing with Lao.

Corain made the request for the floor solemnly to concur with Lao. He might have made some light banter. Sometimes they did, Expansionists with Centrists, with irony under it, when matters were settled.

This one was not. Emory, damn it, had stolen his fire and his issue, given him what he demanded, and looked straight at him when he had uttered the tedious little courtesy to Denzill Lal, and taken his seat.

Watch me closely, that look said. That will cost.

The vote went round, unanimous, Denzill Lal voting proxy in the vote that took the Hope appropriations bill out of his hands.

"That concludes the agenda," Bogdanovitch said. "We had allotted three days for debate. The next bill on the calendar is yours, sera Emory, number 2405, also budget appropriations, for the Bureau of Science. Do you wish to re-schedule?"

"Ser President, I'm ready to proceed, but I certainly wouldn't want to rush a measure through without giving my colleagues adequate time to prepare debate. I
would
like to move it up to tomorrow, if my distinguished colleagues have no objection."

A polite murmuring. No objections. Corain murmured the same.

"Sera Emory, would you like to put that in the form of a motion?"

Seconded and passed.

Motion to adjourn.

Seconded and passed.

The room erupted into more than usual disorder. Corain sat still, felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder and looked up at Mahmud Chavez's face. Chavez looked relieved and worried at the same time.

What happened? that look said. But aloud: "That was a surprise."

My office," Corain said. "Thirty minutes."

Lunch was a matter of tea and sandwiches couriered in by aides. The meeting had grown beyond the office and filled the conference room. In a fit of paranoia, the military aides had gone over the room for bugs and searched other aides and the scientists for recorders, while Adm. Gorodin sat glumly silent through everything, arms folded. Gorodin had been willing to go along with the walkout. Now things had slid sideways, and the admiral was glowering, anxious, silent, as it developed they had cornered Emory on the Hope corridor budget and might have an ultimatum on their hands.

"It's information we're after," Corain said, and took a glass of mineral water from an aide. In front of him, in front of all of them and most of the aides, eight hundred pages of exposition and figures that constituted the Science budget, in hard-copy, with certain items underlined: there were Centrists
inside
the Science Bureau, and there were strong rumors of sleepers in the bill. There always were. And every year no few of them involved Reseune. "The damn place doesn't
ask
for budget itself, the only thing we've got on it is the gross tax returns, and why in hell does Reseune want to get Special Person status for a twenty-year-old chemist on Fargone? Who in hell is Benjamin P. Rubin?" Chavez sorted papers on his table, took one that an aide slid under his hand and gnawed at his lip, following the aide's finger down the paper. "A student," Chavez said. "No special data."

"Is there any way it's part of the Hope project? By any stretch of the imagination?"

"It's at Fargone. It's on the route."

"We could ask Emory," Chavez said sourly.

"We damn well may have to, on the floor, and take whatever documentation she comes up with."

There were dour looks all around. "We're beyond jokes, Gorodin said.

Lu, the Secretary of Defense, cleared his throat. "There is a contact we might trust, at least a chain of contacts. Our recent candidate for Science—"

"He's a xenologist," Tien objected.

"And a personal friend of Dr. Jordan Warrick, of Reseune. Dr. Warrick is here. He came in as part of Councillor Emory's advance staff. He's asked, through Byrd, for a meeting with, mmnn, certain members of Science."

When Lu spoke with that much specificity, he was often saying more than he could officially say in so many words. Corain looked straight at him, and Gorodin was paying full attention. The admiral had come in from military operations, would go back to military operations and leave the administrative details of the Bureau of Defense to the Secretary and his staff: it was axiomatic—Councillors might be the experts in their respective fields, but the Secretaries ran the apparatus and the department heads knew who was sleeping with whom.

"Byrd among them?"

"Very likely," Lu said primly, and shut his mouth.

Mark that one down, Corain thought.

"Is that an old friendship?" Tien asked in a low voice.

"About twenty years."

"How safe is that for Warrick?" Gorodin asked. "What are we jeopardizing?"

"Very little," Lu said. "Certainly not Warrick's friendship with Emory. Warrick himself has his own offices, rarely enters hers, and vice versa. In fact there's considerable hostility there. He's demanded autonomy inside Reseune. He has it. There
are
no Centrists in Reseune. But Warrick is—not an Emory partisan. He's here, in fact, to consult with the Bureau on a transfer.

"He's one of the Specials," Corain said, for those not from Cyteen, and not, perhaps, entirely aware who Warrick was. A certified genius. A national treasure, by law. "Forty-odd years old, no friend of Emory's. He's had a dozen chances to leave and found his own facilities, and she keeps blocking it in the Bureau, cut him off at every turn." He had made a personal study of Reseune
and
Emory. It was only reasonable. But some pieces of information were not as available as others, and Lu's tracing of connections was one of them. "Byrd can contact him?"

"Schedules have gone amok," Lu said softly, in his scholarly way. "Of course things have to be rearranged all along the agenda. I'm sure something can be done. Do you want me to mark that down?"

"Absolutely. Let's break this up. Get the staffs to working."

"That leaves us meeting in the morning," Tien said.

"My staff will be here," Corain said, "very late tonight. If anything comes up that we have to—" He shrugged. "If anything comes up, of the nature—you understand, something of a need to know nature—"
Walkout
was not a word they used openly, and not all the staff present knew that that was in the offing, particularly the clerks. "My staff will contact you directly."