As the voting commenced, Kafari’s grandfather broke the ghastly silence in the Soteris family room. “Estevao, get the aircar. Kafari, get your backside into Madison now. That man is going to come apart, the minute he’s alone. And Kafari, child…”
She paused, midstride, having already started for the door. “Yes, Grandpa?”
“Your husband just made a roomful of mighty powerful enemies. Don’t ever forget it.”
“No, sir,” she said faintly. “I won’t.”
Then she and Estevao were running for the aircar.
II
So much for starting over, Simon reflected bitterly.
In a room jammed with more than three hundred people, all of whom tried their utter damnedest to look anywhere but directly at him, he felt an eerie kinship with the ghosts of Etaine’s dead and largely unburied millions. If enough people pretended desperately that you didn’t exist, you started to feel a little unreal, even to yourself. Or maybe the trouble was within himself. Whatever the cause, Simon sat surrounded by a cloud of silence against which the strident voices of those voting on the Joint Chamber floor shattered like Etaine’s fragile glass towers.
He made a mental note to have Sonny triple the range that would trigger his Bolo to snap from Standby Alert to Proximity Alarm. The hatred directed his way by a good many of those refusing to look directly at him was no more than he’d expected. It was doubtless an omen of things to come and Simon was too good an officer to think himself immune to retaliation. Bolos were hard to kill. Their commanders were not. He wouldn’t let himself think about Kafari.
The voting did not take nearly as long as he’d feared. Given the wording of the ultimatum he’d just delivered, any further delays would have been suicide and the Assembly members knew it. The ratification of treaty obligations passed virtually unopposed. Simon took careful note of those who cast dissenting votes, mentally comparing that short list against a roster of political affiliations and campaign funding he’d been compiling over the past few weeks.
A few of the yes votes surprised him, given what he knew. A cynical corner of his mind whispered, They’ve got something sneaky in mind. You’d better figure out what. Some bright analyst must’ve come up with an advantageous angle to casting a yes vote, or those particular senators and representatives would never have acted against their own political interests, let alone in opposition to their major campaign donors. They were in a numerical minority deep enough to’ve voted against honoring the treaty, had they wanted to make a show of standing on their principles, without actually jeopardizing the legislation’s passage through the Senate and House of Law.
Whatever they were up to, he hoped it fell flat on its doubtless ugly face.
The final tally was two-hundred fifty-eight in favor of honoring the treaty obligations and seventeen opposed. Abe Lendan rose to take the podium.
“Since the legislation authorizing expenditures to meet our treaty obligations has passed, I see little point in delaying finalization. Does somebody have a printout of the final language approved by this Assembly?”
A clerk came running, the stack of paper in his hands appallingly thick.
“I am going to assume,” the president said grimly, “that the wording has been correctly transcribed, since mistakes at this juncture would be mighty expensive?”
The clerk was gulping and nodding.
“Very well, there’s no point in putting this off. Colonel Khrustinov, will my signature passing this,” he tapped the stack of paper, “into law constitute compliance under Sector’s demands?”
“Provided the legislation is not overturned by Jefferson’s High Court,” he glanced at the High Justices seated to one side, “and provided the materiel requirements are immediately initiated and are completed within the schedule mandated by Sector Command, yes, it will.”
Abe Lendan started signing. He scrawled initials across page after page, handing them off to the clerk, who carefully stacked them in proper order. The hush in the Joint Chamber was such that the scratching of the pen against paper could be clearly heard, even from where Simon sat ramrod straight in his chair. By the time he reached the final page, the president’s hands were visibly unsteady. He scrawled out the final signature and stepped aside for Vice President Andrews, who signed on the line beneath.
The president’s eyes bore a hollow, exhausted look that had nothing of triumph in it. “Very well,” he said quietly into the microphones, “that, at least, is done. And now,” he added, “the truly hard part begins, turning that stack of paper into a physical reality. I am deeply aware of just how much each and every Jeffersonian has been asked to give, in meeting these obligations. But as we love life, we can do no less.”
With no further fanfare, Abraham Lendan simply turned and stepped down from the podium, moving slowly toward the doorway through which he had entered. The ranking committee chairpersons in the upper tier of seats surged to their feet, in a show of respect that was, to Simon’s faint surprise, utterly silent. He was more accustomed to seeing applause and cheering for exiting planetary heads of state. Out of deference, perhaps, for the utter solemnity of the moment, no one was making a sound, other than the shuffling of feet as the Joint Assembly rose to its collective feet.
Jefferson’s president had gone slightly more than half the distance to the doorway when he lurched against Vice President Andrews. The younger man shot out a steadying hand, then cried out when Abe Lendan literally crumpled to the floor, landing in a boneless huddle. An icy dagger speared its way through Simon as pandemonium erupted in the Joint Chamber. Vice President Andrews bellowed orders to summon an emergency medical team. Security guards rushed forward, some forming a protective screen around the fallen statesman while others blocked the exits.
Simon slapped his commlink. “Sonny, go to Emergency Alert Status. Set your Proximity Alarm sensors to Battle Reflex distances.” A reflex of his own caused him to scan the room for a potential sniper, although common sense told him the collapse had been triggered by stress and exhaustion.
“Understood, Simon,” Sonny responded instantly. “I am monitoring the Joint Chamber through a variety of data sources. Stand by for arrival of a medical airlift from University Hospital, ETA one hundred eighty seconds.”
The familiar voice in his earpiece, calm and rational, steadied him. Memory of Etaine had shaken Simon more than he wanted to admit. “Thank you, Sonny,” he said quietly as he scanned the chamber, both visually and electronically. He couldn’t help feeling a painful twinge of guilt. Simon knew how deeply his own testimony had increased the president’s stress. Abe Lendan was too good a leader to hear that kind of thing and not project it onto the people whose safety lay in his hands.
But what, in God’s name, could he have done differently? Simon had read the roster of Assembly members opposed to the treaty, while still in the president’s office. Abraham Lendan had shoved it into his hands, making certain Simon knew precisely what the odds were, if he didn’t speak as plainly and brutally as possible. There’d been enough names on that list to vote down the treaty and doom this whole world. And potentially a great deal more, beyond. Simon knew only too well the choice he’d had, forcing the Assembly to face reality.
So he stayed out of everyone’s way and watched in silence as the president’s personal physician arrived, emergency kit in hand. The medical team should be here in less than another minute, as well, given Sonny’s occasional comments as the airborne crew rushed toward them. Simon forced his gaze away from the brave man on the floor, feeling disloyal in an intense and privately painful way as he shifted his attention to his immediate duty. Simon was only too aware that the dynamics unfolding in front of him were far more critical to Jefferson’s future than the fallen president, which meant he needed to focus his attention on the men and women whose careers would outlast a far better man’s.