And Patty is shaking. And the skin is tight and pale across her cheeks, betraying the clenching of her jaw. I give her hand an extra squeeze and she gives me half a smile, and we step apart as we move onto the concourse. Forward Orbital Platform's larger and brighter than Clarke — newer, and the interior is designed in bright cheerful colors, mostly cobalts and sunshine yellows that remind me of a children's hospital. The air isn't as good as the Montreal's, but it's warm and doesn't smell canned, which is more than I can say for the shuttle.
I especially like the way the overhead clearances are vaulted and painted different shades of blue to give the illusion of texture and depth. It's almost like not being in a tin can eighteen hours by beanstalk above the surface of the Earth.
Richard clears his throat. “Riel wants a word—”
Put her through.
“Master Warrant Officer.”
Prime Minister. To what do I owe the pleasure? I can tell by the timbre of her voice and the way her image settles into my mind's eye that she's using an external VR setup. Those of us who are wired into Richard's network come through differently, with stained-glass sharp edges. It's like the difference between a shadow and one of those Victorian paper cuts.
“I'm mailing you some encoded documents. Richard has the key; you'll be able to access them on your hip unit once you're back in atmosphere.” She smiles, her oh-so-plausible, oh-so-professional smile.
I smile right back. Richard will be showing her a simulation of my face. What's the subject matter?
“It relates to the various security council members you'll be testifying before. I trust in your ability to make connections. Although I'm concerned about your history of service in South Africa, as it's one of the temporary members this year. It won't make you popular with them.”
At least Canada inherited the UK's old security council seat along with the royal family and the British armed forces. That puts us on an equal footing with China. The corridors of Forward's concourse move past at a casual rate. Patty reaches out and grabs my sleeve, guiding me. Min-xue is still five steps ahead. He doesn't look back, but he also doesn't ever let the distance between us vary. He's wearing a Montreal uniform jumpsuit without insignia and carrying a Chinese armed forces duffel he must have brought from the Huang Di. His shoulders are stiff, his neck rigid, and the expression on his face must be something, because passersby turn to look and then look away.
“Yes. We have a veto and so do they. Which means nothing at all will get accomplished, I'm afraid, and we can look forward to renewed hostilities by the end of the year. If worst comes to worst, we'll consider giving them the Huang Di back as a bribe.”
Appeasement, ma'am?
“Negotiation.”
Dick. Who are the rest of the temporary security council members this year? I should have looked that up before I left the Montreal. Except I've gotten lazy about things like that, because there's no Net access from the starship except for through microwave communications, and that takes forever.
“Belgium, Monaco, New Zealand, Belize, Chile, Somalia, Singapore, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, and Republic of Hawaii.”
Not a lot of good friends there. It's easy to get very reliant on Richard. I imagine Patty and Genie's generation won't think twice about it. Hell, I wonder what we'll need schools for; we'll think a question and the information will be there in our heads, as if we always knew. We'll have to learn a whole new way of thinking. A whole new way of learning.
Richard clears his throat. “You know, it was Einstein who said that imagination is more important than knowledge, because knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
And now knowledge encircles the world.
“Or rather, I do.”
Megalomaniac.
“I come by it honestly.”
The side conversation happens so fast that Riel's just starting to notice my distraction. She leans back behind her desk, unsteepling her fingers to play with her coffee cup. It scrapes on the glass of her interface plate. She winces. “Casey?”
Sorry, ma'am. Negotiation, check. Do you think there will be a war?
“I think there are forces inside PanChina that would dearly love a war. They're still an expansionist society—”
And we're not?
“Us or them, Master Warrant. In any case, I'll see you in New York City.”
When do you arrive?
“Not for five days. The hearings start Monday, but I am not scheduled to testify until next week. General Valens will be joining you, however.”
I'll look forward to it.
Her raised eyebrows and the tight smile that flashes across her mouth tells me she's picked the irony out of my internal voice. “Safe trip, Casey,” she says. Her eyes flicker away from mine, up and to the side. “Thank you, Richard. That will be all.”
And silence follows.
I only realize I've stopped walking when Patty tugs my sleeve again. I blink and glance left to right, meeting the concerned gaze of Min-xue, who stands in the center of the concourse, the security personnel spaced professionally around him. He swallows, and says in his beautiful idiomatic English, “Casey, are you all right?”
“Fine, Pilot Xie. Just distracted by a… conference call.”
His smooth expression crinkles to a rueful smile, and he looks as young as he is. “I see. This is our platform, then.”
0430 hours
Sunday October 7, 2063
Vancouver Provisional Capital
Canada
Janet Frye cracked another sunflower seed between her teeth and rolled the salty, waxy meat out of the shell with her tongue, letting her eyes unfocus. There was an untouched glass of room-temperature slivovitz and an opened, old-fashioned paper letter on the counter in front of her, and she hadn't been to bed.
She flattened the letter with the palm of her hand and read it again, cracking another sunflower seed as she did. The shell rang in the empty garbage can by her knee when she turned her head and spat. The words on the page still hadn't changed.
She stood off the padded stool and crossed her basement, slippered feet scuffing on parquet floor and weatherproof carpeting. A 3-D in the corner opposite the bar, the sound muted, showed flickering images from 3NN. The famines in Georgia (the European one, not the North American one) — linking it none too subtly to the aftermath of the Chinese invasion of Siberia the previous year — dominated the news, for reasons that made perfect sense if you understood that Unitek had a controlling interest in the Russian journalistic agency that handled English-language news feeds, and understood as well that Toby Hardy liked keeping his allies even more off-balance than his enemies.
Janet blinked her optic on, ordered the news feed to standby, and folded her arms as she leaned against the wall. If anything important happened, her hip unit would buzz.
She spat a shell into her hand and flicked it toward the trash can. She missed. The front door warbled in her ear and she sighed and kicked her slippers off, thumbing her hip to check the security cameras. The image was dim, gray-green low-light. The sun wouldn't be up for hours. She knew who it would be before he even raised his face to the camera to allow himself to be identified, knew it by the long black car pulled up in the circular driveway and by the expensive cut of his suit.