The picture that greeted them, however, soured Kafari’s dinner. She recognized the young attorney speaking with Pol Jankovitch. The journalist apparently harbored a prediliction for attractive POPPA spokeswomen. Isanah Renke’s long blond hair and dazzling Teutonic smile had popped up all too frequently, over the last several months. So had her favorite spiel, which she was pouring forth yet again.
“—tired of John Andrews waving thick stacks of data in front of people while rattling off excuses for the economy’s slide toward disaster. We’ve had enough. Jefferson can’t afford complicated bureaucratic double-speak and worn-out wheezes about chaotic money markets and arcane budgeting processes. Even attorneys can’t unravel this administration’s so-called budget plan. The POPPA economic platform is simple and straightforward. We need to put money in the hands of the people who need it. That’s why Gifre Zeloc has endorsed POPPA’s economic-recovery inititatives.”
“What are the most important points of those initiatives, Isanah?”
“It’s very simple, Pol. The most important component of POPPA’s economic recovery plan is an immediate end to the current administration’s loan schemes.”
“John Andrews and his analysts insist that economic development loans are critical to rebuilding our manufacturing and retail industries.”
“We do need to rebuild, Pol, urgently. But loan schemes do nothing to address the deeper problems our economy faces. And loan schemes place an unjust burden on struggling businesses. Loans force companies, particularly small retailers, into merciless repayment schedules. You must understand, Pol, these loans have draconian forfeiture penalties built into them. If a business can’t meet repayment demands on time, the owner faces outrageously unfair punishments, including governmental seizure of property! We’re talking about people losing their homes, their livelihoods, just to satisfy legal requirements attached to money these businesses must have to recover. It’s outrageous. It’s government-sanctioned blackmail. It’s got to stop, Pol, it’s got to stop now.”
Kafari reflected sourly that POPPA’s campaign slogan should have been “it’s got to stop now,” since it was the favorite phrase of every spokesperson POPPA had recruited for fieldwork, followed closely by “we’ve had enough” of whatever they were preparing to demonize and vilify next.
Pol Jankovitch’s expression mirrored horror. “How can a business function if the government confiscates its property? A business can’t operate without an inventory of goods, equipment, or buildings! It certainly can’t operate if it loses the land it sits on!”
“Huh,” Kafari muttered, “a farmer can’t grow anything on land he loses, either. How come nobody’s pointing that out?”
Simon, voice tight with anger, said, “Because saying it doesn’t match their agenda.”
Again, Kafari wondered what Simon knew, what Abe Lendan had known.
On the datascreen, Isanah Renke was saying, “You’re right, Pol. Businesses can’t operate that way. Under these loan schemes, the owner loses everything he or she has spent a lifetime trying to build. And the people working in that business lose their jobs. Everyone suffers. John Andrews’ insane economic recovery plan is deliberately engineered to punish those least able to guarantee sustainable profits. Unfair loan practices must go. Otherwise this world faces certain economic disaster.”
“And POPPA has a better plan?”
“Absolutely. We need grants and economic aid packages designed to guarantee recovery for hard-hit businesses. We’re talking about industries that can’t recover under the convoluted, unwieldly, economically disastrous nonsense contained in John Andrews’ so-called recovery plan. It’s lunacy, Pol, sheer lunacy.”
Kafari scowled at the screen. “Doesn’t anybody in that broadcasting firm pay attention to regulations about what can be said in a datacast before the polls close?”
The harsh metallic bite in Simon’s voice surprised Kafari. “Isanah Renke is not a registered candidate. She’s not a member of a candidate’s staff. She isn’t a registered lobbyist and she doesn’t draw a salary from POPPA. Neither,” he added with a vicious growl, “does Nassiona Santorini.”
Kafari stared at him for a moment, trying to take in the implications. “You can’t tell me they work for free?”
Simon shook his head. “They don’t. But the shellgame they’re playing with holding companies is technically legal, so there’s not a damned thing anyone can do about it. Vittori and Nassiona Santorini are the children of a crackerjack industrialist. They know exactly how to tapdance their way through the corporate legal landscape. And they’ve hired attorneys with plenty of experience doing it. People like Isanah Renke tell them exactly how to accomplish questionable activities without running afoul of inconvenient legislation, court rulings, and administrative policies.”
Kafari knew he’d been watching the Santorinis since that first riot on campus, but he’d just revealed more in two minutes than Kafari had learned in the past six months. Nassiona Santorini’s allegation that Sonny was watching night and day had unsettled her, which was a strong indication of how powerful that argument was. It had caused Kafari to question the actions and motives of a man she trusted implicitly to safeguard her homeworld and act in its best interests.
Would Kafari’s reaction, would her indignant anger over POPPA’s allegations, be different if she’d learned that Sonny was watching Grangers as closely as the machine was watching POPPA? It wasn’t a comfortable thought. That kind of surveillance was a two-edged sword. She was abruptly glad that Simon Khrustinov was the one wielding it. Were all Brigade officers chosen for their unswerving integrity, as well as honor, loyalty, courage, and every other trait that made Simon a consummate Brigade officer and the finest human being she had ever known?
As the evening droned on, with voting tallies showing massive POPPA victories in the urban centers and strong support for John Andrews in the rural areas, Pol Jankovitch made a show, at least, of interviewing spokespersons from both parties, but there wasn’t much to hold her attention in the sound bites supporting the current administration. It might’ve been that she was simply in philosophical agreement with them, or maybe the trouble was that she already knew everything they were saying. When she found herself yawning against Simon’s shoulder, she wondered a little sleepily if the dry presentations that failed to hold her interest could possibly be an orchestrated effort on somebody’s part. She had just about decided she was being a little too paranoid when Pol Jankovitch dropped a bombshell that sent her bolt upright in her seat.
“We’ve just been informed,” Pol said, interrupting an economic analyst trying to explain why POPPA’s ideas weren’t economically tenable, “that the electronic returns sent by off-world troops via SWIFT have been scrambled during transmission. We’re trying to find out the magnitude of the problem. We’re patching through to Lurlina Serhild, our correspondent at the Elections Commission headquarters. Lurlina, are you there?”
A moment of dead air was followed by a woman’s voice a split second before Special Correspondent Lurlina Serhild appeared on screen. “Yes, Pol, we’ve been told to stand by for a special report from the Elections Commission. It’s our understanding that the commissioner will be issuing an advisory within the next few minutes. Everyone here is tense and distressed—” She stopped, then said, “It looks like the commssioner’s press secretary is ready to make a statement.”