Underwood smiled, then, setting his glass down, got to his feet. Either side of him Hart and Munroe did the same. “I wouldn’t worry about my seat, Mr. Kennedy. I know III get reelected. But you? I’d be a little worried if I were you. You’re their golden boy right now, but what happens when you don’t deliver on those promises? What are you going to do when the media start looking at your record a bit more closely than they are just now?” He paused, his smile becoming a sneer. “And what happens when Wu Shih decides he’s had enough of you?”
Kennedy felt a coldness grip his stomach. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, just rumors, Representative, that’s all. Just rumors.”
Kennedy looked down. “You plan to vote against, I suppose?”
“Did I say that?” There was no sign now of a smile on Underwood’s face. “As a matter of fact we plan to vote for the proposal. But we’ll be doing that because we want to, not because you bought us, or bullied us, or offered us something in return. I wanted to make that clear, just in case you got the wrong idea.”
“The wrong idea?” Kennedy laughed. “I sure as hell did that, didn’t I?” He stood, his face suddenly hard. “Now, listen, and listen good. You talk of me, Mister Underwood, but who’s funding you? That’s what I’d like to know. Who’s making it easy for you to play Mr. Simon Pure? Because I know you. I know all of you. And if you ever fucking come and insult me to my face again, I’ll kick you from here to fucking Africa, you got me?” Underwood took a long breath, then nodded. Kennedy leaned back a little, relaxing his stance. “Good. I’m glad we understand each other, ch’un tzu- And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve much to do.”
He watched them go, then let out a long, sighing breath. So there were rumors, eh? That was bad. He thought he’d been discreet. Or maybe they were just guesses. Attempts to explain the changes in policy he’d made these past twelve months. Well, let them. They’d be making new guesses after this afternoon’s vote.
And Wu Shih? How will he react?
Kennedy shivered, then, with a tiny shrug, went through to his rooms. As the Steward laid out his clothes on the couch, he stood at the vid-phone, waiting to be connected to his wife, Jean. “Sweetheart?” he said, as her face appeared on the screen. “How’ve you been? How are the boys?”
Her smile warmed him. “We’re fine. . . . How’s it all been going?” He made a face. “Who knows? It’s going to be tight, but hopefully we’ve done enough. We’ll know in two hours, anyway.” “That’s good. . . .”
He stared at her, drinking in the sight. She was still as beautiful as she’d been when he’d married her fifteen years before. There was still something waiflike and fragile about her, even after all that had happened. Her hair had grown back since the operation two years ago, and outwardly she seemed no different from before, but he knew that wasn’t true. Just as he’d been changed by the presence of that tiny soft-wire in her head—and in the heads of his two young sons—so had she. Subtly, insidiously, it affected everything they did, every decision they made. It was as if she had a cancer in her head, waiting to flower at the touch of a switch, and the knowledge of it, just as it made each compromise he wrought seem foul, made each moment between them incalculably sweeter. “I need you,” he said softly, conscious of the Steward moving about in the room behind him.
Her smile for the briefest moment had a bitter, fragile edge to it, then it strengthened. “And I love you, Joseph Kennedy. So go and do what you have to. You’re a good man, Joe. Hold on to that, okay?” He smiled. “I shall. Give the boys my love, huh? And I’ll see you later, at the party.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Bye, my love.”
“Bye, sweetheart.”
He turned from the blanked screen, the heaviness he’d been feeling earlier returning to him. He hadn’t told her—he couldn’t have, not on an open line—and yet she knew that he was going to do something at the vote this afternoon. She had always read him well.
He looked up. The Steward was waiting by the door, his head lowered.
“Is there anything else, Master?”
He shook his head. “No . . . thank you, Tao-kuang. But if you could have my things ready for when I return. Something light to travel in. I’ll change again when I’m back in America.”
“As you wish, Master.”
Alone again, he turned, staring at the vid-phone, feeling strangely restless, wondering if he should call Michael and talk things through. Then, steeling himself, making a deliberate effort to set all doubts aside, he undid the top button on his tunic, starting to change. The vote was in an hour.
mary sat back among the silk cushions, glad for once of the isolation of the State Class compartment. She was alone, the tape book she had been listening to beside her on the long, comfortably cushioned seat. The gentle movement of the bolt was pleasant, reassuring almost, as it sped south through the stacks to Richmond.
It had been a remarkable day and for once she blessed the wealth that had allowed her that glimpse into those times before the City. Yet it was that same wealth that troubled her constantly. To be comfortable, that was the right of everyone. But to be rich in the way that she and Michael were rich—that was obscene. The more she thought of it, the more she was convinced. Yet to unburden herself of it seemed no solution, either, for it was the way of their world to have such great divisions between rich and poor. They might give it all away, but it would make no real difference—someone else would only step into the vacuum that they left. Someone—she was sure— without the fine social instincts they possessed.
She sighed. This much she had learned today: that the inequities of their society had existed long before the City, and that the City was merely a perfecting of that hideous process.
The City. It was a cage, a prison for them all. And yet the City had been built to solve all problems. It had been meant to be—what was the word she’d heard?—a Utopia, that was it. “Food enough and space to grow,” that was one of the early slogans she had read about. It had been a bold experiment. To build a world without want. A true meritocracy. A world where people could find their level. A world without prisons. But the experiment had failed. Old patterns of behavior had reasserted themselves—nepotism and corruption, deals and betrayals—and the dream had turned to nightmare.
This world—she shuddered, frightened by the point to which her thoughts had come—it had been designed to reflect the best in Man, yet it had come to mirror the darkness deep within him.
It was a Yang world, a male world. A world without light or a mother’s loving tenderness. A bastard world, cursed from conception. There was a click, and then the faint chime of a warning signal. She looked up, composing herself. At the count of ten the door at the far end of the compartment hissed open and the Number One Steward stepped through, one of his junior assistants—Number Seven from his patch—just behind him. As the door hissed shut again, the two bowed deeply, then looked across at her, paper-thin smiles of politeness plastered to their faces. “Is there anything we can do for you, Madam Lever?” Number One asked, his eyes averted, one hand pressed to the chest of his emerald-green uniform in a gesture of abject servility. “Is there anything you need?” She smiled politely. “Yes, actually. Have you a news screen anywhere on board?”
The Senior Steward smiled again—that same thin, insincere smile—then came across. Reaching up, he pulled a flatscreen down from a niche in the ceiling of the carriage and, adjusting the angle of the flexible arm, positioned it so that she could see from where she sat. He stood back, his face shining with an oily satisfaction. “Is that all right, Madam Lever?”