At the mere suggestion that there might be evidence implicating Vittori Santorini and other high-ranking POPPA leaders, the riots flared up again, so violently that John Andrews was forced to call another press conference. “We are continuing the investigation and are conducting a thorough probe into the actions of law enforcement personnel as well as civilians and armed-forces officials. We are trying to determine whether this paralytic agent was obtained from military stockpiles held in reserve for invasion contingencies or if it was acquired recently, either through manufacture on Jefferson or purchase from off-world sources. We have no direct evidence linking this dastardly act to any individual or group. Without hard evidence, this administration cannot condone the unsupported accusations made against Vittori Santorini and his colleagues in POPPA. In the interest of ensuring public safety and protecting the civil rights of those regrettably and publicly named as potential suspects, I therefore extend presidential amnesty to any individuals or groups who might have been associated with this attack. We are asking that people return to their homes again, in the hopes that martial law and curfews will not have to be invoked again.”
Simon just groaned, rubbing grit-filled and bloodshot eyes in a weary, frustrated gesture. Offering amnesty to people like Vittori Santorini might — just might — get people back into their homes again, but the long-term effects were staggering and dreadful in every way Simon could twist and turn the implications. Simon knew enough Terran military history to understand very thoroughly the concept of Danegeld. It was possible to buy peace, but only for a short time. Once convinced that a government was willing to capitulate to demands and threats, the Danes came back again and again, each time demanding more concessions and a higher price for continued peace.
John Andrews had already blown his election chances out of the water. He had now blown all hope that Vittori Santorini’s uncivilized behavior would cease. Indeed, the double-damned fool had just ensured that Vittori’s methods would proliferate, unchecked and unstoppable. Jefferson’s future looked, quite abruptly, bleak as a snow-choked winter sky. The sole bright moment in Simon’s morning was Kafari’s arrival home, safe and unharmed. Exhaustion pulled her shoulders down, left her eyes bleary and her footsteps uncertain. He held onto her for long moments, then took her face in both hands. “You need some sleep,” he murmured.
“So do you.”
“I’ll sleep soon enough. I’ve got stimulant tablets in my system, just now. I need to stay awake until this crisis is past. But you,” he added, lifting her and carrying her into the bedroom, “are taking yourself and our daughter to bed.”
“I’m hungry,” she protested.
“I’ll bring you something.”
After setting her down against the pillows, Simon put together a sandwich and some soup, carrying them into the bedroom on a tray. He halted, three strides into the room, then set the tray carefully on one corner of the dresser. Kafari was asleep. She looked more like an exhausted little girl than a woman in the advanced stages of pregnancy, who’d spent the night in a locked car with a gun in her lap. He brushed a wisp of hair back from her brow. She didn’t even stir. Very gently, Simon pulled the covers around her shoulders. He tiptoed out, retrieving her dinner on the way. He swung the door closed with a soft click of the latch. She was safely home. For the moment, that was all that mattered.
There’d be time enough later for worrying about what happened next.
III
The late afternoon sun felt good on her skin as Kafari left the spaceport’s new engineering hub and headed through the employee parking area. The fresh wind, whipping inland from the sea that rolled ashore just a stone’s throw from the terminal, blew away some of the lingering distaste of a day spent in the company of people who had flocked to the POPPA cause like teglee fish to the net. She was tired of hearing the POPPA manifesto discussed with such fervent enthusiasm. Tired of biting her tongue to keep from answering with brutal honesty when co-workers asked her what it had been like, to see the great, the wondrous Santorini in person, to be right in the middle of ground zero when the police tried to murder decent, honest citizens merely expressing their opinions.
Kafari wanted to keep her job. So she answered in monosyllables and vowed never again to tell her secretary anything about her life outside the office. Truth to tell, most of the people who’d asked breathlessly for the juicy details were disappointed to learn that she hadn’t actually been paralyzed by the gas. After a whole day spent fending off ghouls, reporters, and overzealous proselytizers convinced she could aid their cause in seeking new converts — the woman who’d saved President Lendan’s life, only to be gassed by John Andrews’ uniformed stormtroopers was, they reasoned, a photo-op too good to pass up — Kafari was on nonstop burn mode.
When she got to her aircar, that burn exploded into molten rage. Some slimy little activist had slapped a big, ugly sticker right across the side, with rampant red letters that shouted “POPPA Knows Best!”
“The thrice-blasted hell it does!”
She scraped at the offensive mess in a fury worthy of a valkyrie. She succeeded in shredding her fingernails, the paint job on her beautiful new car, and what was left of her ragged temper. She finally gave up, vowing to use acid, if necessary, and simply repaint the car. She popped the driver’s hatch, levered her ungainly bulk into the seat, webbed herself in, and snarled at the psychotronic unit to take her to Klameth Canyon’s landing field, which had been designated as a polling place.
For the first time in her life, Kafari resented the constitution’s attempt to reduce election fraud by insisting that each voter cast a physical ballot at a controlled polling site. The e-voting encryption methods used on Mali and Vishnu, which allowed people to vote via the datanet, had been deemed insufficiently secure by Jefferson’s founders, even though Kafari could have written the psychotronic safeguards into such a system in her sleep. The only voters allowed to cast an electronic ballot were off-world citizens, including nearly twenty-thousand soldiers now serving in the Concordiat’s armed forces.
She briefly envied the soldiers. The last thing she wanted, tonight, was to stand in line for God alone knew how long, then fly all the way back to Nineveh Base before she could collapse with Simon and watch the election returns. Kafari leaned back against the cushions and consciously reminded herself that she was proud of her work, proud that she was helping to build a fitting legacy to a fine man’s courage and wisdom. That legacy meant more prosperity for her entire world, a labor of love in memory of a man whose death had hurt her profoundly.
By the time her aircar touched down at Klameth Canyon field, it was nearly dark. There were so many other aircars, scooters, and even groundcars overflowing the section allotted to parking ground-based vehicles, the auto-tower routed her to a space virtually at the edge of the immense field. That was just as well, since she didn’t want anybody out here to see that wretched POPPA slogan stuck to the side of her Airdart. Kafari popped her aircar’s hatch and climbed out into the coolness of early evening, glancing up by habit to see the last of the sunlight fading from blood-red to darkness on the highest peaks of the broken, buckled, spectacularly weathered Damisi ranges.