Regenesis

by C. J. Cherryh

  No wasted time. Frank opened the door, got out as armed guards formed up, and Yanni got out. A handful of hospital security stood at the door, and locked it in apprehension, but unlocked it after a moment when Yanni took out his wallet and showed his Council insignia through the glass.

  “Catherine Lao’s room,” he said when they stood in the emergency room lobby “Take us there. Now. Council business.”

  The guards clearly weren’t used to making executive decisions, but one of them led the way down the hall and talked on his com while he was doing it. He said, protesting, “Ser, she’s in Intensive Care. She’s not doing well.”

  “I know that.” Yanni said. “If she’s got a pulse, I need to see her. Fast. The longer I’m here, the more likely there’s going to be a disturbance to the other patients. Let’s move, shall we?”

  “Ser,” the guard said, and got them all to a large lift, and up to the third floor. Then a double door and a desk where a nurse posed a more formidable barrier.

  “Yanni Schwartz,” Yanni said, showing the wallet badge. “Council business for Councillor Lao.”

  “She’s on life support, ser.”

  “Can she be made conscious?”

  “A doctor has to order that.”

  “Find one and do it. Now. Council order.”

  The nurse didn’t look happy in the least. She cast sideward glances as she talked on the com, and stopped the conversation with a commanding gesture downward, meaning the guns. Yanni made a small gesture of his own, and they lowered. The nurse answered something to whoever was on the com, and then shut down the connection.

  “This way, ser. Just you.”

  “And my aide,” Yanni said, meaning Frank. The nurse scowled, but they went through the double doors together, and the visible guns stayed in the foyer.

  The room held more machines than human presence. Lao seemed lost among them, a human face, an arm, a white sheet. She’d grown incredibly old, since he’d last seen her, so shrunken and pale it was shocking. The nurse made adjustments on the panel, and after a moment, Lao’s dark eyes opened a slit, black as space, all the eye that was visible. Tension touched the forehead, lines of pain.

  “That’s Yanni,” Lao murmured.

  “Kate.” He came closer and set his hand on hers, which was cold as ice. “Kate, we’re in a hell of a mess. Khalid’s got the Proxy, Jacques has disappeared, not seen in weeks, Edgerton’s missing…”

  “Addy’s missing?”

  “Could he dead, for what we know. We need to call a special quorum. The planet’s in a mess. We need a new Proxy for Information. I’ve got the document. You just have to give us a name and sign it.”

  The white brow knit. Hard. “Damn, Yanni. I’m not focusing well.”

  “Just a name, Kate. And a signature.” Frank had the document, folded, in his coat pocket. Yanni took it, and a pen, and moved the recorder off the desk to get a flat surface.

  “Carris?” she asked.

  “Not been seen.”

  The frown staved. Lao had the pen in her fingers, and lost it. He steadied it.

  “Can’t see the damn line.”

  “Here.” He showed her where. “Just sign it, Kate. Just sign it.”

  She signed, carefully, most of her ordinary signature before it trailed off.

  “I can fill in the blank,” he said. “Who do you want for proxy? Recorder’s running. Say it, and I’ll fill it in.”

  “Ariane Emory,” she said.

  “Kate, it’s 2424. Kate?”

  She wasn’t listening. She wasn’t hearing anything. The lines on the machines had all stopped.

  “White Rabbit,” Yanni said, on com, the car speeding back through the streets, and when he heard Mikhail’s voice. “White Rabbit, how’s it going?”

  “Affirmative. Affirmative. We’ve got him. Come ahead.”

  The call cut out. Fast. His heart did a little flutter.

  He looked at Frank. “They got him,” he said. Meaning Edgerton. Chavez of Finance had told Harogo of Internal Affairs that he knew where Edgerton was, and they’d just made contact…which meant they might not need to file that questionable paper. Edgerton was going to show in the Council chambers for about five minutes, which was what they needed. Lao had appointed a dead woman to take Edgerton’s place, but they’d, thank God, located Edgerton’s hidey-hole somewhere in the city, Chavez had just worked a miracle, and Yanni told the driver, “Council Hall.”

  The ear veered. The airport bus, caught by surprise, caught up with them three intersections on, and trailed both escort cars.

  They crossed the river on Council Bridge, and the administrative tower, closest to the river of all the various bureau office towers, loomed up closer and closer.

  The portico showed ominously vacant, compared to the usual press of media vans and reporters. Nobody was there but one lonely media stakeout with her cameraman, them and a small number of Council aides, with another car giving up its occupants as a third car and the airport bus came squealing up the drive, and more security bailed out.

  Guns came out. “Easy,” Yanni said. The other car was Mamud Chavez, and Yanni went to meet him, and go with him through the doors. “Mamud.” He offered his hand as they passed the doors and came under the scrutiny of Council security. Chavez, ordinarily not his ally, took the handshake with uncommon sincerity.

  “Good to see you,” Chavez said, the statement itself an earthquake in Council relations. “Corain went to the back entry.”

  ‘”Good,” he said. He stayed worried as they reached the lift, and gathered their bodyguard in, both of them. It shot them up to the Council level, and let them out into a vacant hallway.

  Frank opened the door for them. Yanni and Chavez walked into the Hall of the Nine itself, and immediately he saw Corain and Tien, of Industry. That was four of the five they needed for a simple quorum, four of the eight they needed for the vote they intended.

  “Harogo’s on his way up,” Corain said. “Harad’s coming.”

  Five. And six. Harad. State, had been a cliffhanger: he’d been an ally of Gorodin’s, in Defense; and it hadn’t been certain where he came down—he hadn’t liked Jacques or Spurlin.

  They tended toward their seats. Took them, in the arc that constituted an official seating. There was no Council clerk. They passed a sheet of paper down, signed their names, and fed it into the automated slot that immortalized it, irretrievable, a statement of their presence here, on this day, to do Council business.

  Five more minutes. Harogo came in, Internal Affairs, frail, and surrounded by his own security, from Fargone Station. Two more minutes, and they had word from Corain’s watch at the back entry that Harad was in the building, and then Ludmilla deFranco arrived downstairs.

  One more needed. Yanni looked at the clock. Seventeen minutes. The longer they sat, the more vulnerable they became.

  Eight. Harad came in, walked to the fore of the desk.

  “He didn’t make his appointment,” Harad said, as agitated as Yanni ever remembered him. “I have no word.”

  He. Meaning Edgerton.

  “Damn,” Corain said. “Damn it.”

  “It’s not safe to stay here,” Chavez said. “We risk getting pinned here.”

  “Five more minutes,” Yanni said.

  Harad came up to his seat. DeFranco came in, conferred quietly with Harad, took her seat. And they waited.

  Frank talked on com with someone, probably downstairs. Frank walked over to him, leaned near his chair. “There’s a military presence at the hotel. And another squad at Councillor Lynch’s condominium.”

  “We can’t do this,” Harogo said. Harogo sat next to him. “We need to move. We’ve failed the quorum.”

  “We can get the eight we need,” Yanni said. “Lao’s dead. But she named another proxy.” He got up and slipped the paper into the slot. “Ariane Emory.”

  No restriction on the ability of a Councillor to appoint a Proxy. No restriction even of age. None of bureau registration
. In the wild early days of chancey transport, anybody with credentials could carry a vote into the Council on behalf of an absent Councillor.

  “Irregular!” Harogo said.

  “Legal,” Corain said.

  “We can’t vote here without our eighth,” Yanni said. “I call Council. Reseune Administrative Territories, on the twelfth of September.”

  “Second that,” Corain said.

  “Those opposed?” Harogo said, and then wrote on the screen under his hands, and filed it. “Each of us has declared a Proxy. In case.”

  “Go,” Yanni said, and got up from his seat. He alone couldn’t file a Proxy; only Lynch, Councillor for Science, could do that, and Lynch was holed up in his residence, too old and too timid for what was afoot. He couldn’t lay all the blame for their situation to Edgerton’s lack of nerve: for all he knew, there was trouble hot on Edgerton’s trail. Or Edgerton was dead.

  He gathered up Frank, then caught Mikhail Corain at the side of the door. “Thanks.”

  “Done as much as I can,” Corain said, and in the lowest possible tones. “Did she sign it?”

  “I’ve got the recording,” Yanni said. “Or Frank has it. It’s legal. Stay low and stay safe.”

  Out the door then, downstairs as fast as they could gather a lift-load of Councillors, aides, and security. In the lower hall they separated, headed for the north doors and the south portico.

  ReseuneSec held the doors.

  BOOK THREE Section 5 Chapter xviii

  AUGUST 20, 2424

  1438H

  Nearly a week since the broadcast, and Ari had long since taken pity on the reporters camped out at the airport and physically cut off from their news organizations, their families, their means of being elsewhere—she comped meals, laundry service, delivered unlimited vid entertainment, and ordered the restaurant there to vary its menu daily and be open twenty-four hours, the little airport bar to open at 2000h and stay til 2400h nightly.

  She’d also sent down two ReseuneSec agents to help out at the bar, and to gather up any tidbits of information and rumor that came in by various links that didn’t belong to Reseune.

  There were rumors down there, no question. Broadcast news continually said Lao was alive. Rumor at the bar said she was artificially sustained for legal reasons. The broadcast news said Council had met but Khalid had not shown up, nor had the Proxy for Information, and Council had adjourned quickly. Rumor said Edgerton was in hiding somewhere in the city and that he and Council were under direct threat of the military.

  On August 20, Amy called—finally, and reported that Yanni had taken over the hotel he was in, that Corain was living there, too, and that she and Quentin had moved in for safety, because her hotel had been used for a barracks. She also said that yesterday there’d been a breakdown in the subway that added to problems in the city. People said it was Paxer activity, but mostly it was just rumors—anything that broke was automatically Paxers.

  Meanwhile, Amy said, Khalid was threatening to put the city under martial law; but without the Council he knew he couldn’t do that, so he was trying to locate Council members, and that military had been searching hotels, including her former one, and trying to bully Councillors into showing up when he called Council. It was certain Khalid knew where Yanni and Corain were, but hadn’t made a move on them or searched their hotel. He hadn’t found enough of the other Councillors to get eight of the Nine—and without them, he couldn’t declare martial law, couldn’t convene the Council of Worlds, and couldn’t do a lot of things, legally, so there was no point in his raiding the hotel where two Councillors definitely and publicly were.

  That was the sum of Amy’s report, except to ask how they were, and Ari said they were all fine.

  But late on August 23, a barge came up from Moreyville, and fourteen people got off at Reseune docks, fourteen very tired, dirty, and hungry people, among them Ludmilla deFranco, far less than the immaculate person she ordinarily was. Her blonde hair was dyed dark, her customary couturier dress traded for a dockworker’s blues.

  All the same, a spark of triumph glistened in deFranco’s eyes when Ari came down to the docks to meet her.

  “A pleasure,” deFranco said, and startled her and Florian with an unexpected embrace. “God, you look like her, don’t you?”

  “I should,” Ari said, but she didn’t actually mind the hug, she was just startled by it. “I’m glad you’re safe. Did you come up all the way by barge?”

  “To Moreyville by plane,” DeFranco said. “Then the barge.” DeFranco had to be past her hundreds, and it was still a long, hard pull, deFranco and this crowd of people, some of whom must be younger relatives. “Has Yanni been in touch? You’re Lao’s Proxy.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “Filed and legal,” deFranco said, and sank onto a convenient counter edge. “Yanni got it from Lao in person. Filed it in chambers, all of us to witness. You’re the new Proxy for Information. Council’s to meet here on the twelfth of September.”

  “Here. On the twelfth. Why are they waiting that long?”

  “There’s preparation to make. Contacts. People to be felt out…some of them inside Defense. Those still there are working that angle, making contacts as best they can, pulling every string they’ve got—of which I don’t have enough left to matter. I’m getting too old for this, nearly as old as Lao, and she’s dead. We’re in a war, sera. We’re in an outright war for control of the government. Khalid can’t call Council to get a declaration of martial law; he needs eight Councillors, and I, my dear, and now you, are sitting here preventing that from happening, no matter how he threatens us. He can haul in every Councillor left in Novgorod and without us, he won’t have sufficient votes either to get seated or to declare martial law.”

  “And if he comes here?”

  “There’s a practical limit to what he can order the military at large to do. Individual units, individual arrests, yes, he’s got his people. But he can’t move divisions. Not what it would take to get in here. Some things he doesn’t dare order, because he isn’t seated.”

  Yet, Ari thought, chilled by the thought. What Khalid would and wouldn’t dare once he had enough power and legitimacy was another matter—but she didn’t say that. DeFranco, an old ally of her predecessor, deserved accommodation in Wing One, too, along with her relatives or staff or whoever they were. “I’m very sorry we’re so tight on space,” she said. “It’s not adequate. But we can settle you up the hill. Close to Mikhail Corain’s family.”

  “It will be absolutely adequate,” deFranco said, “if we can all get warm showers and beds that don’t bob up and down. Beds with sheets. That would be wonderful.”

  “Come with me,” she said, and gave? orders and personally took them all back up the hill on the bus, giving other orders via Florian and Catlin on com. “We’re going to have visitors,” she said, “the whole Council, eventually, maybe their families and relations. More worrisome, we may have the military making a move on us. Tell Wes to go down to the green barracks. He’s going to be liaison down there for the next few days. Tell ReseuneSec to put the bots on a hair trigger. Tell Tommy—hell, tell Tommy do something about the logistics in Wing One. We can’t put part of these people in luxury and part of them in rooms with scaffolding. They’re Councillors. They need beds, sheets, towels, ID, and a charge tab for the restaurants, everything you can think of.”

  Tommy acknowledged. That would happen and she didn’t have to worry about it. She did have to worry about Yanni—Yanni was still in Novgorod risking his neck. So was the rest of the Council. And Amy. And there wasn’t a thing she could do for them—except keep the media down at the airport as informed as she could; so she sent the reporters a message; there would be a news conference at 1800h sharp, and she’d be down there to fill them in on the arrivals from Novgorod and what they’d had to say.

  She chose to host the media at the airport. That meant keeping them happy—in all senses. They were an asset. They were also apt, as Catlin put
it, to become an issue with the opposition—possibly a target, if certain forces decided they didn’t like the news reports coming out of Reseune. And there were a great many innocent people at risk if that happened. Khalid couldn’t order large units…didn’t dare; that was what deFranco assured her. But the military at large could be lied to. Khalid, with unopposed control of the Bureau, firm control of Intelligence, and sole control of the military information network could tell them anything—if he controlled all the sources of information. And she had one of those sources. She had one and she had to protect it and use it to keep Khalid from shading the truth. The rest of the military had to learn what Khalid was doing.

  There were storm tunnels under the town. There were, for that matter, defenses on the cliffs, near the precip towers. Khalid had shown what he could do up at Strassenberg. He’d launched that maybe to signal something—but it signaled them, too, to take precautions.

  She reached her desk and said, “Base One. Defense of the precip towers. Specifics.”

  Base One delivered information. She mined it at deeper and deeper levels and stored the result. She called Catlin in and then called Rafael.

  “Review this,” she said. “You and Florian both. Rafael, you too. See what they’ve got, what we’ve got. Tell me how bad it could get.”

  She didn’t have people tapped into the military, to know what they had. From orbit—Defense had everything, including warships. They could turn Reseune into a smoking ruin if they wanted to, and nothing could stop it, no shelter withstand it. But deFranco said Khalid didn’t dare…politically speaking. DeFranco believed some people wouldn’t take his orders.

  Bet on it? She didn’t dare. Not with all they had at risk.

  And finally—pause for breath in a day in which she’d skipped lunch, and now remembered she hadn’t had breakfast—she ordered up a sandwich and a tea, and sat there thinking, and thinking—about Amy, up there in the middle of something Amy didn’t understand and was having to learn fast; and Yanni, trying to use the influence he did have, to keep Khalid from taking the whole board… Khalid was a man who’d use what he had, but, possibly, Khalid’s asset and theirs, he was too smart and too cautious to try to use even thing. He’d move what he could rely on. That was Intelligence, maybe isolate special operations, some elements of the Fleet…the latter especially if he could con them.