AE2: Base One, at what time did Jordan Warrick enter Wing One basement security door on 10/22, 2404?
B/1: Working.
Wing One basement security door coded 14. Jordan Warrick's key accessed D14 at 1743 hours, that date.
AE2: Departure, same visit?
B/1: 1808 hours, that date: duration of visit: 25 minutes. . . .
AE2: Record current session to Personal Archive. Give me the full transcript, Autopsy, Ariane Emory; all records, Jordan Warrick, keyword: Emory, keyword: trial; keyword: murder; keyword, hearings; keyword: Council; keyword: investigation.
CHAPTER 14
i
"The first bill on the agenda is number 6789, for the Bureau of Trade," Nasir Harad said, "Ludmilla deFranco, Simon Jacques co-sponsors, proposing restructuring of the Pan-Paris credit system. Call for debate."
"Citizens," Mikhail Corain said, lifting his hand. "For the bill."
"Finance," Chavez said. "For the bill."
"Move to forgo debate," Harogo said, "in the absence of opposition."
Corain cast a look down the table, toward Nye, who had reached for his water glass.
It was a bargain, the time-saving sort. The acquiescence of the Expansionists in the move designed to take pressure off the ailing Pan-Paris central bank, the promise of military contracts, the private assurance that Reseune would grant more time on the considerable sum Pan-Paris owed—of course it would: Pan-Paris was Lao's central constituency and the bill was the first step in a long-proposed settlement on the Wyatt's Paradise-Pan-Paris loop that called for a fusion-powered station at Maronne Point, where there was only dark mass, but enough to pull a ship in.
There were four bills lined up, Expansionists falling all over themselves after decades of opposition, finally diverting funds from the slow construction of Hope to the more immediate difficulties of home space and a trade loop that had gotten, since the War, damnably short of exportable commodities.
Major construction, finally, beyond the rebuilding of stations damaged in Azov's desperate push in the last stages of the War; beyond the endless restructurings of debt and adjustments necessary when the merchanters associated into Alliance and left Union banks holding enormous debt.
Seventy years later, a policy shift to save that trade loop became possible only because the special interests that had blocked it suddenly discovered there was nothing left to do.
"Move to suspend debate," Harad said in his usual mutter. "Second?"
"Second," Corain said.
"Call for the vote."
A clatter from down the table. Nye had knocked the water glass over his papers, and sat there—sat there, with the water running across his notes, in a frozen pose that at first seemed incongruous, as if he were listening for something.
Then Corain's heart ticked over a beat, a moment of alarm as he saw the imminent collapse, as Lao, next to Nye, rose in an attempt to hold him, as of a sudden everyone was moving, including the aides.
But Giraud Nye was slumping down onto the papers, sliding from his chair, completely limp as the azi Abban shoved Lao aside and caught Nye in his fall between the seats.
The Council, the aides, everyone broke into tumult, and Corain's heart was hammering. "Get Medical," he ordered Dellarosa, ordered whoever would go, while Abban had Nye on the floor, his collar open, applying CPR with methodical precision.
It was quiet then, except the aides slipping from the chamber—strange that no one moved, everyone seemed in a state of shock, except a junior aide offering to spell the azi.
Medical arrived, running steps, a clattering and banging of hand-carried equipment, Councillors and aides clearing back in haste to let the professionals through, then waiting while more medics got a portable gurney through and the working team and Abban, clustered about Nye, lifted him and lifted the gurney up.
Alive, Corain thought, shaken: he could not understand his own reaction, or why he was trembling when Nasir Harad, still standing, brought the gavel down on Chairman's discretion for an emergency recess.
No one moved to leave for a moment. Centrists and Expansionists looked at each other in a land of vague, human shock, for about a half a hundred heartbeats.
Then Simon Jacques gathered up his papers, and others did, and Corain signaled to his own remaining aides.
After that it was a withdrawal, increasingly precipitate, to reassess, to find out in decent discretion how serious it was, whether Nye was expected to recover from this one. Or not. In which case—in which case nothing was the same.
ii
". . . collapsed in the Council chamber,"the public address said, throughout Reseune, and people stopped where they were, at their desks, in the halls, waiting; and Justin stood, with his arms full of printout from the latest run on Sociology, with that vague cold feeling about his heart that said that, whatever Giraud was to him personally—
—there was far worse.
"He stabilized in the emergency care unit in the Hall of State and is presently in transit via air ambulance to the intensive care unit in Mary Stamford Hospital in Novgorod. There was early consideration of transfer to Reseune's medical facilities, but the available aircraft did not have necessary equipment.
"His companion Abban was with him at the time of the collapse, and remains with him in transit.
"Secretary Lynch has been informed and has taken the oath as interim proxy, for emergency business.
"Administrator Nye requests that expressions of concern and inquiries regarding his brother's condition be directed to the desk at Reseune hospital, which is in current contact with Stamford in Novgorod, and that no inquiries be made directly to Novgorod.
"Reseune staff is urged to continue with ordinary schedules. Bulletins will be issued as information becomes available."
"Damn," someone said, on the other side of the room, "here it goes, doesn't it?"
Justin took his printout and left, out into the hall beyond the glass partitions, where people lingered to talk in small groups.
He felt stares at his back, felt himself the object of attention he did not want.
Felt—as if the ground had shifted underfoot, even if they had known this was coming.
"It's the slow preparation," a tech said in his hearing. "He may already be dead. They won't admit it—till the Bureau has the proxy settled. They can't admit anything till then."
It was a dreadful thing—to go to Denys now. But a call on the Minder was too cold and too remote; and Ari faced the apartment door and identified herself to the Minder, with Florian and Catlin at her back, and nothing—nothing to protect her from the insecurity in front of her—an old man's impending bereavement, an old man facing a solitude he had never—Giraud himself had said it—never been able to come to grips with.
If Denys cried, she thought, if Denys broke down in front of her he would be terribly ashamed; and angry with her; but she was all the close family he had left, who did not want to be here, who did not want, today, to be adult and responsible, in the face of the mistake this visit could turn out to be.
But she had, she thought, to try.
"Uncle Denys," she said, "it's Ari. Do you want company?"
A small delay. The door opened suddenly, and she was facing Seely.
"Sera," Seely murmured, "come in."
The apartment was so small, so simple next her own. Denys could always have had a larger one, could have had, in his long tenure, any luxury he wanted. But it felt like home, in a nostalgic wrench that saw her suddenly a too-old stranger, and Florian and Catlin entering with her . . . grown-up and strange to the scale of this place: the little living room, the dining area, the suite off to the right that had been hers and theirs and Nelly's; the hall to the left that held Denys' office and bedroom, and Seely's spartan quarters.