Kenna refused to be soothed. As the president of the Council of Solons and the power behind Tyrenne Walsh, he had a great deal to lose if there were any miscalculations. Which was everything. Kenna had no intention of repeating Tyrenne Yelad's most crucial error: overconfidence.
He approached his first major speech of the campaign season with special care.
To begin with, he chose a friendly audience—the Cairenes division of the giant shipping union, the SDT. The union had been one of Kenna's power bases since his days as a rookie member of the Council of Solons. The brawny shipyard workers could always be counted on to deliver, whether it was votes, hefty campaign-chest contributions, on-demand wildcat strikes, or strong-arm good squads to raid rival wards.
Next, he dipped deep into his private war chest to provide the entertainment. There would be three hundred refreshment tables, creaking under the weight of tons of food. A hundred more would serve as open bars. A central stage was erected, and scores of musicians, comedians, and scantily clad dancers were pressed into service for dawn-to-dusk entertainment. Fifty tents were thrown up at the edges of the big main shipyard and staffed with teams of patriotic joygirls and joyboys, who were called on routinely during the quadrennials to give their all for Dusable.
Finally, he put gentle pressure on the Emperor to provide him with suitable ammunition for his speech. And the Eternal Emperor, Kenna was pleased to tell his aides as he mounted the platform to address the assembled SDT members, had come through with more than he could have hoped for.
The roars of greetings that met Kenna were loud enough to drown the sounds of an inbound liner. He stood for long minutes under the rolling thunder of applause and huzzahs. He affected an attempt at interruption—-a weakly raised hand for silence. Then the hand fell... Helpless before the enthusiasm of his admirers. As a newscaster's camera pushed in for a close-up, Kenna flashed that humble grin he had perfected over decades of working the hustings.
Three times, Kenna attempted to halt the applause. And three times, he had to bow to the will of the masses and accept their praise. On the fourth attempt, Kenna made a small hand signal, which was instantly picked up by the shill captains, who passed the word to their minions peppered heavily in the crowd to cool down. This time, the applause and glad shouts slowly diminished to a hush.
"I have one question before we get started," Kenna intoned, his voice blasting over the portaboomers. "Are you all better off today than you were four years ago?"
The crowd noise was even louder than before. A news tech watched the needle of his popularity meter bang against the max peg and hold for a full minute. He nudged his anchor, whose eyes saucered. It was a near record.
Then the claque brought the crowd to a hush again, and Kenna continued.
"It is with great pleasure and humility that I stand before you once again to ask for your support," he said. "Now, my worthy opponents think I'm a fool for rubbing elbows with good, honest, working beings such as yourselves..."
He allowed a space here for a growl of anger at his snobby "worthy opponents." The growl came on schedule.
"But I say to them, without the working class, where would Dusable be?"
A shill shouted a carefully crafted impromptu from midcrowd: "In the drakhouse, that's where!" The crowd hooted laughter.
Kenna made with the swamp-beast-eating grin again. "Thank you, sister!" More laughter from the crowd.
The smile was replaced with Kenna's patented frown, in which his two gloriously thick eyebrows met in a dramatic, inverted V. "There's change in the wind, my friends, and no one, but no one, knows it better than the working being. And of all the hard-laboring folks of Dusable, it is the SDT Union which has led the vanguard in promoting these changes."
It took no prompting by shills to get a deafening shout of approval here. Kenna waited until it died of its own accord.
"Now you all know I'm not one for false humility," Kenna said. There was laughter. "But, I'm going to have to be honest with you good people here.
"These winds of changes I'm speaking of have graced Dusable with the greatest prosperity in its history. Full employment. Record wages. Prices at near-record lows.
"All these things we've enjoyed partly because of the enlightened leadership of Tyrenne Walsh... and my humble self... but, there is really one being all of us have to thank for our good fortune. And that is... the Eternal Emperor himself."
The crowd went wild at this. Shouting. Pounding on one another. On and on it went, the shills working the lines with fervor. This time the news tech's needle pegged out for one and a half minutes.
Kenna stepped in again. "My opponents say all the benefits we have received since that historic day when the Emperor revealed himself among us, is charity, pure and simple."
There were loud boos at this. Kenna smiled in acknowledgment, but pushed on. "They say Dusable is at the beck and call of its master, the Eternal Emperor. That since we've become a dominion of the Emperor, we've abandoned our traditional independence."
The crowd hooted.
"You've heard all these lies, and more," Kenna continued. "But, the truth is, Dusable is being listened to for the first time in its history. And I mean really listened to. We can hold up our heads in all the great capitals of the Empire now. And who does the Emperor turn to for advice in these trying times? Why, our own Tyrenne Walsh, who labors as we speak in the great hall of Parliament on Prime World."
Kenna sipped at a special throat-soothing drink as the crowd applauded.
"Yes... Dusable owes a great deal to the Eternal Emperor. There's no doubt about it. But, the Emperor owes us as well. And in these trying times, he needs us more than ever. I spoke to him personally, just the other day, and he told me to thank the people of Dusable for their undying efforts for freedom.
"And he said he especially wanted to thank the workers of SDT. He said he wanted you all to know that without the great shipping unions of our Empire, all his struggles would be for naught."
The crowd took forty-five seconds to thank the Emperor back.
"But as you all know," Kenna said when the applause waned, "the Eternal Emperor is not just a being of words. And I'm here to tell you this day, that once again he's putting his thanks into action."
Kenna lofted a large, old-fashioned piece of parchment. The news cameras pushed in to show the Imperial seal at the bottom. Then panned up to Kenna.
"First off, our brand-spanking-new AM2 depot—orbiting now high above our blessed world—has just been raised to a Triple A rating!"
The crowd really took off on this. A triple A rating would bring even more business and work to the port.
"But, that's not all," Kenna said. "Along with our new rating, comes an even greater responsibility.
"My friends, I'm pleased to announce the Emperor has diverted an enormous AM2 shipment from a less deserving sys-tern. The amount is enough to supply all the needs of this entire sector for two E-years.
"As we speak, this AM2 shipment is approaching Dusable. And when this shipment is safely stowed away in our state-of-the-art depot—constructed, I might add, by our own talented people—Dusable will be able to rightly boast of the Emperor's respect and faith in us.
"For, from this glorious day forward, Dusable will be ihe only supplier for AM2 in this sector. And that, my friends, is anyone's definition of loyalty repaid."
The applause, cheers, and general pandemonium greeting this statement rolled across Dusable's capitol. Beings in distant wards looked up and wondered at thunder on such a cloudless day.
Aboard the Pai Kow—sixty-seven million miles away—the cheers became a sudden blast mat nearly cracked the com unit's speaker cells.