“No—I mean, it’s not quite that contrived, Ag.” He floundered, caught off guard by Agwé’s penetrating observation. “Not usually, anyway. She has great timing, but it’s more like an instinct than a plan.” Realizing that he was in danger of batting away the question, he stopped himself. Agwé’s own instincts had recognized a deeper truth about Aryel, and he needed to try and explain his aunt’s actions in a way that would neither puncture nor propagate her mystique. “She’s trying to not be the center of attention so much anymore, especially now that there are others like Pilan and Mikal who can represent us. She never wanted to be such a big deal in the first place. She didn’t have a choice back then. But she can’t just disappear, either. She’s too famous.”
“So what you’re saying is, she’s pulling away slowly—”
“I guess so—”
“—letting herself become a footnote to the main story while the spotlight settles on other people. Passing the torch, so to speak.”
“That’s about right, I think. I mean, I’ve never heard her say that in so many words, but yes.”
Agwé indulged in one of her voluminous eye-rolls, and Gabriel conceded an embarrassed wince. They both knew that what he heard people actually say wasn’t likely to be the full sum of his knowledge.
“So, to repeat my earlier point,” she said firmly, “Aryel knows exactly what she’s doing. And damn, is she good!”
He grinned up at her. “I’m not going to argue with any of that.”
“You better not. I hope Pilan, Mikal, and everybody else she’s stepping back for are taking notes.” She clambered down the ladder. “Nothing else to see from up there. I should go and be a proper journo, join the crowd.”
“Uncle Mik is pretty good at that stuff,” Gabriel observed, holding the ladder steady as she swung her equipment clear. “He’s got his own style, of course. Pilan . . .”
The eye-roll this time was mutual.
Agwé chuckled. “Style is one word for it. Coming?”
“Nope. Aunt Aryel and me in frame together is always an excuse for someone to bring up the story about how I was kidnapped and I’m not having that distract from Thames Tidal. Not today.”
“Fair enough.” Her expressive face was suddenly deeply thoughtful. “You work these things out kind of the same way she does, you know that?”
“Who do you think I learned from?”
She thumped him companionably on the shoulder before making for the forest of bodies, in the thick of which could be glimpsed huge bronze-and-gold wings. Aryel would be shifting and moving there, the gestures apparently unconscious but in reality calibrated to maintain enough clear space around herself so as not to feel too unbearably hemmed in. The vidcams would love it.
Agwé would probably work out the nature of that compromise too.
Gabriel turned away, thinking that his famous aunt was better at this game than even Agwé could guess. He would talk to her later, when the furor had died down a bit; for now, he’d go and find his parents. Aryel’s arrival on the main quay would have been their cue to slip unobtrusively into Sinkat.
They were by the food kiosks in the tented dining area; Bal had already deposited fresh provisions with Delial—who usually waited tables, but was on loan from the café today—and was grinning broadly as he reviewed the morning’s takings. Horace, who normally worked in the grocery, was serving teas and hot chocolate to a norm family with two little girls who looked just a bit older than Eve. They were staring with fascination from Gaela, with her cascade of glowing red hair, to Bal’s short indigo glimmer, to Eve’s nonluminescent blond curls. Gabriel decided the parents had noticed, but had chosen to ignore their children’s naked curiosity; they had that slightly furtive, tense, nothing-to-see-here look about them, as though they were desperate to get their drinks and leave before one of their offspring asked an embarrassing question.
Luckily for them, Eve was paying the girls no mind whatsoever—if she’d appeared at all interested, Gabriel thought, the younger one, now squinting at some strands of her own straight black bob, would have taken the plunge. But Eve’s studied indifference was like a damper field, a curb not just on sound but on the very impulse to communicate.
Eve looked up at her brother, expressionless, as he stepped close enough to ruffle her hair and give their mother a hug.
“Hi Mama, Papa, Evie,” he said, “hey Horace, Del.” His voice was casual, but loud enough to carry. Hellos were returned. Bal reached a large hand over to touch his son’s face in greeting, as he’d done ever since Gabriel was a small child.
Gabriel glanced at the customers. The older girl’s mouth had dropped open and they were both staring at his hair now too, visibly trying to work out how sandy brown fit in with blond, and fiery red and indigo. The father hastily pressed a credit tab to the reader. Horace thanked him when it pinged acceptance. With a palpable air of relief the parents herded their children back onto the quayside, but Gabriel could see the questions starting to batter at them as they headed around the perimeter of the basin.
“Hey,” he said to Eve’s upturned face.
“Hey,” she replied, still deadpan, but with a note of approval. They knocked fists together. The routine was too well worn to require further acknowledgment.
Gaela, watching, chuckled, then asked, “How’s everything going?”
“Really well. We’ve had even more coverage than we expected. I’m monitoring,” he tapped at the cranial band, “so I might have to slide off if something needs taking care of, but so far it’s fine. Aunty A just arrived; she’s doing her thing.”
Gaela smiled, their eyes meeting in shared understanding.
“Did you see Misha and Suri and Aunty Sharon and Uncle Mik?” Eve demanded, pulling at his arm.
“Yep. Uncle Mik made a speech, and then I think he was going to do an interview with one of the newstreams. Aunty Sharon and the boys are probably still around there somewhere.”
He wondered why his mother looked slightly pained. Eve drew breath to say something, but Gaela stopped her with a look. “We’ll go and find them in a moment, Evie.”
Surprisingly, she stayed quiet.
“That’s excellent,” Bal was saying to Horace. “Looks like I’ll need to send more supplies down for lunch. Any problems I should know about?”
“No, none at all.”
Delial, briskly replacing empty tubs with the full ones Bal had brought, snorted. “Not unless you count Horace having to explain a gazillion times that actually, yes, you can have green hair and not be a gillung. Even if they’d overheard him telling someone else, the next person in the line still found it necessary to say something.”
“I don’t mind,” Horace said. He had a mournful face, and always managed to sound a little anxious, as if the subject at hand, no matter how mundane, might at any moment become fraught. “They don’t know. It’s not their fault.”
They should, and it is. Gabriel knew as surely as if he’d sensed it that his parents shared the same thought; he saw the way his father’s jaw twitched and his mother’s eyes slipped off Horace as though needing something else to look at just then. Delial, who came from the same school of expressive eye-rolling as Agwé, shoved the last of the supplies into place with a particularly eloquent thump.
Eve was oblivious. She yelled, “I see them!” and pulling away from Gaela, she ran out into the blustery sunshine and pointed. Sharon, Misha, and Sural were heading their way, but there was no sign of Mikal.
Maybe he’s still in that interview, Gabriel thought, or another one, or he’s been cornered by Pilan.
Gaela sighed. “Finally,” she said. “If those kids didn’t know what to make of her before, they’d be beyond confused if they saw her now.”
Mikal Varsi was being neither interviewed nor harangued just at that moment, though he suspected he had earlier been roundly, if silently, cursed. He’d been standing beside the stage, talking to a technology journalist from UrbanNews, when he’d seen Pilan pushing towar
d him through the throng, speaking too quickly—and probably too curtly—to the succession of reporters he was working his way past. On his other side he could see the energy minister, Jackson Radbo, concluding his own interview, while Rob Trench stood nearby, hands in pockets, beaming munificently.
Mikal had acknowledged Rob, shifting his stance to make it look as though he were just waiting to finish so that he could join the two men, but glanced across at Pilan to catch his eye as well. One benefit of being head and shoulders taller than everybody else was being able to see them all in a crowd, even when they could not see each other; it was one of the few advantages of his gem anatomy, and Mikal had no qualms about using it. So when Pilan arrived he came face to face with Rob and Radbo, approaching from the opposite direction.
Mikal clapped his double-thumbed hands together with, on reflection, perhaps just a bit too much relish. “Isn’t this excellent? I haven’t made it inside yet, Pilan, and I’m sure Mr. Radbo is looking forward to a tour.”
“Jack, please,” said Radbo, as Pilan pasted on a smile and led the way. “It’s good to finally meet you, Councillor—”
“Oh, just Mikal. The pleasure’s mine. I imagine”—raising his voice slightly—“that you and Pilan are already acquainted?”
“We’ve met,” said Pilan, managing to sound gracious instead of grumpy. The head of Thames Tidal Power might not be much of a diplomat, but he was also not a fool.
“My office isn’t allowed much contact during application and development—that’s to ensure the process remains independent,” the minister explained with a politician’s practiced smoothness. “Now that part’s over, I’m looking forward to becoming much more engaged.”
Pilan glanced back at that. Radbo fell in next to him as he led the way toward the control room, Mikal following along with Rob, noting with satisfaction that a number of the journalists were now filling the corridor behind them.
The entire group ended up in the control room on the second level, with a polite and increasingly enthusiastic Pilan describing the system to a senior minister with newstream crews on hand to witness their easy rapport. Pilan’s political instincts, Mikal thought, were not sharp enough for him to realize that he was publicly undermining his own argument about the need for a separate political party. He injected a comment or question from time to time to keep the conversation moving, and felt vindicated by the sight of them getting on famously.
“You’re too clever by half, you are,” Rob grunted out the side of his mouth in the middle of an animated discussion about grid upgrade strategies. “Get them in here and they’re just a couple of energy geeks.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Mikal muttered back. “Work with me, Rob. This is your problem I’m trying to solve.”
“I get that. D’you think it’ll be enough?”
Mikal leaned forward in an undignified slouch to bring his mouth closer to Rob’s ear. “If your guy can persuade him the UPP are really on board, that they’ll support aquatic settlements and take the issues that matter to him seriously, then maybe. He’s stubborn, but he’s also practical.”
Rob nodded his understanding. “Pilan’s rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. But maybe now that they can actually talk to each other . . .”
“Exactly.” Mikal straightened up, his voice coming back to regular volume as Radbo turned toward them. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Very. I’d like to see—” He broke off, staring out through the clear biopolymer to the quayside below, where everyone’s gaze had suddenly lifted skyward. Half a heartbeat later, Aryel Morningstar dropped lightly onto the bare space next to the stage where they had all been clustered just a few minutes before. There was a moment’s stillness, and then the jostle of people and vidcams moving in toward her as though her presence was some sort of vortex. The journos who’d followed them inside all came to an instant and unspoken decision and headed for the exit, while other visitors piled up in front of the window. In a matter of seconds the politicians had gone from being the center of attention to virtually ignored.
Mikal sighed inwardly. It was not—had never been—Aryel’s fault.
“I wonder,” said Radbo softly, “if we might speak in private?”
He was talking to Pilan, but his eyes flicked to take in Mikal and Rob as well. Mikal shot Pilan a look filled with as much meaning as he could fit into it. Pilan moved toward the doorway as though they too might be heading back outside, but instead he turned left, leading them through another door and into a small meeting room on the opposite side of the building, away from Aryel, Sinkat Basin, and the TideFair.
“Thank you,” Radbo said. He was not speaking to Pilan this time, but to Mikal. “Thanks for enabling us to meet this way.”
Pilan’s eyes widened with comprehension and some degree of annoyance as Radbo turned to him. “I meant everything I said down there, about how inspiring and exciting this project is, but I need you to know that we’re also dealing with growing concerns from both industry and the public—I’m not sure you realize how big an issue the turbine sabotage last week is turning out to be. The physical damage might have been minor, but when we confirm that the power plant has met all safety and security requirements, it’s pointed out that it was something the authorities didn’t anticipate. I want to be able to deal with those objections in a way that is in all of our interests.”
“You expect me to act as if what happened was our fault?” Pilan asked, with an air of incredulity.
“No,” Mikal said, “Jack’s trying to be straight with you, so you can work out how to help each other.” He looked at Radbo. “I assume that’s the reason for this conversation?”
Radbo nodded. “I have to respond to those concerns whether I believe they’re justified or not. I don’t, but right now reassurances that Thames Tidal Power has met all the regulations just makes people think they aren’t strong enough.”
“What am I supposed to do about that?” Pilan growled. “You think we don’t know that there are bigots who would rather see us fail than accept that we know what we’re doing? Who are convinced quantum storage is dangerous, no matter how many independent experts tell them it isn’t? To hell with them. If they can’t work out that being good at what we do is also the safest thing for us—”
“They can’t,” Mikal interrupted. “They can’t see it from your perspective, only their own.”
“Right now the backlash is manageable,” Radbo said calmly, “and I want it to stay that way. Most of what you’re doing is exactly right. Your public-relations initiatives, this TideFair event, the livestream updates—that’s all excellent outreach work; it’ll reinforce the support you’ve already got, and it’ll go a long way toward persuading many who haven’t yet formed an opinion. But those who are already convinced that this program is dangerous and wrong and shouldn’t happen?” He shook his head. “Some minds aren’t going to change very easily, Pilan.”
“You’re talking about the people who stand to lose if Thames Tidal succeeds,” Mikal said. He was aware of Rob listening carefully. Pilan appeared to have gotten a lid on his temper, and was doing the same; Mikal sensed that his admonition had hit home. He also felt that the conversation had, in some way, become a test of his own mettle.
“Yes.” Radbo looked troubled. “We—the government—know quantum storage is the future. It’ll reduce our dependence on high-intensity biofuels—and we can’t even begin to estimate how many other innovations the technology could lead to. That’s all great in the long run, but in the short term it will be extremely disruptive. The infrastructure for biomass supports a big chunk of the economy, and the fact is, Pilan, that what you’re doing represents a threat to a great many businesses, to say nothing of the people who work for them. We need to deal with that. We can’t afford to ignore the folks who are afraid of you, even if we don’t agree—”
“Who are afraid of us?” Pilan interrupted, disbelieving.
“Yes,” said Rob, finally breaking his silence. “J
ack, you need to speak as plainly as you can: our friends really need to hear this.”
For the first time, Radbo sounded nervous. “Rob’s right, you really do have to listen to what I’m saying,” he started, then swallowed. “It’s not just the fear of change,” he said. “There’s something else being whispered around—and it’ll be out in the open soon enough. People are afraid that if this project succeeds, a large proportion of our energy supply will be dominated by a group with different priorities to the rest of the population.” He drew a deep breath. “A group who might be motivated by the injustices of the past, as well as the opportunities of the present.”
“You mean,” Mikal said drily, “who might behave the way they suspect they would, were the situation reversed.”
Rob looked appalled. Radbo was taken aback for a moment, then he looked at Mikal with an air of even greater interest.
Pilan, surprisingly, started to laugh. “How the fuck,” he said, “do you expect me to respond to that?” He waved his webbed hands at the room, the building, the window with its view of the city beyond Sinkat. “So this isn’t just a solid business based on high-quality science and engineering, it’s a ridiculously elaborate revenge plot. Because that would make so much sense.” He looked at Mikal. “Am I supposed to take this on? Seriously?”
“I’m not suggesting there’s any truth in it,” said Radbo, “but it’s a rumor that suits our opponents and they’re going to use it. They’ve got a strategy and whether we like it or not, we need a response.”
“You could say that such behavior would be completely beneath you and your people,” Mikal observed to Pilan as though they were the only ones in the room, “which would of course imply that we think we’re better than the people who think they’re our betters.”
“Just now, I don’t have a problem with that.”
Mikal sighed. “I understand how you feel, but you know it would be a counterproductive line to take.” He leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers and regarded the others gravely. “So, Jack: since we’re dispensing with the usual doublespeak of our profession, let’s have it. What do you want?”
Regeneration Page 9
