"Move to suspend debate," Harad said in his usual mutter. "Second?"
"Second," Corain said.
"Call for the vote."
A clatter from down the table. Nye had knocked the water glass over his papers, and sat theresat there, with the water running across his notes, in a frozen pose that at first seemed incongruous, as if he were listening for something.
Then Corain's heart ticked over a beat, a moment of alarm as he saw the imminent collapse, as Lao, next to Nye, rose in an attempt to hold him, as of a sudden everyone was moving, including the aides.
But Giraud Nye was slumping down onto the papers, sliding from his chair, completely limp as the azi Abban shoved Lao aside and caught Nye in his fall between the seats.
The Council, the aides, everyone broke into tumult, and Corain's heart was hammering. "Get Medical," he ordered Dellarosa, ordered whoever would go, while Abban had Nye on the floor, his collar open, applying CPR with methodical precision.
It was quiet then, except the aides slipping from the chamberstrange that no one moved, everyone seemed in a state of shock, except a junior aide offering to spell the azi.
Medical arrived, running steps, a clattering and banging of hand-carried equipment, Councillors and aides clearing back in haste to let the professionals through, then waiting while more medics got a portable gurney through and the working team and Abban, clustered about Nye, lifted him and lifted the gurney up.
Alive, Corain thought, shaken: he could not understand his own reaction, or why he was trembling when Nasir Harad, still standing, brought the gavel down on Chairman's discretion for an emergency recess.
No one moved to leave for a moment. Centrists and Expansionists looked at each other in a land of vague, human shock, for about a half a hundred heartbeats.
Then Simon Jacques gathered up his papers, and others did, and Corain signaled to his own remaining aides.
After that it was a withdrawal, increasingly precipitate, to reassess, to find out in decent discretion how serious it was, whether Nye was expected to recover from this one. Or not. In which casein which case nothing was the same.
ii
". . . collapsed in the Council chamber," the public address said, throughout Reseune, and people stopped where they were, at their desks, in the halls, waiting; and Justin stood, with his arms full of printout from the latest run on Sociology, with that vague cold feeling about his heart that said that, whatever Giraud was to him personally
there was far worse.
"He stabilized in the emergency care unit in the Hall of State and is presently in transit via air ambulance to the intensive care unit in Mary Stamford Hospital in Novgorod. There was early consideration of transfer to Reseune's medical facilities, but the available aircraft did not have necessary equipment.
"His companion Abban was with him at the time of the collapse, and remains with him in transit.
"Secretary Lynch has been informed and has taken the oath as interim proxy, for emergency business.
"Administrator Nye requests that expressions of concern and inquiries regarding his brother's condition be directed to the desk at Reseune hospital, which is in current contact with Stamford in Novgorod, and that no inquiries be made directly to Novgorod.
"Reseune staff is urged to continue with ordinary schedules. Bulletins will be issued as information becomes available."
"Damn," someone said, on the other side of the room, "here it goes, doesn't it?"
Justin took his printout and left, out into the hall beyond the glass partitions, where people lingered to talk in small groups.
He felt stares at his back, felt himself the object of attention he did not want.
Feltas if the ground had shifted underfoot, even if they had known this was coming.
"It's the slow preparation," a tech said in his hearing. "He may already be dead. They won't admit ittill the Bureau has the proxy settled. They can't admit anything till then."
It was a dreadful thingto go to Denys now. But a call on the Minder was too cold and too remote; and Ari faced the apartment door and identified herself to the Minder, with Florian and Catlin at her back, and nothingnothing to protect her from the insecurity in front of heran old man's impending bereavement, an old man facing a solitude he had neverGiraud himself had said itnever been able to come to grips with.
If Denys cried, she thought, if Denys broke down in front of her he would be terribly ashamed; and angry with her; but she was all the close family he had left, who did not want to be here, who did not want, today, to be adult and responsible, in the face of the mistake this visit could turn out to be.
But she had, she thought, to try.
"Uncle Denys," she said, "it's Ari. Do you want company?"
A small delay. The door opened suddenly, and she was facing Seely.
"Sera," Seely murmured, "come in."
The apartment was so small, so simple next her own. Denys could always have had a larger one, could have had, in his long tenure, any luxury he wanted. But it felt like home, in a nostalgic wrench that saw her suddenly a too-old stranger, and Florian and Catlin entering with her . . . grown-up and strange to the scale of this place: the little living room, the dining area, the suite off to the right that had been hers and theirs and Nelly's; the hall to the left that held Denys' office and bedroom, and Seely's spartan quarters.
She looked that direction as Denys came out of his office, pale and drawn, looking bewildered as he saw her. "Uncle Denys," she said gently.
"You got the news," Denys said.
She nodded. And felt her way through itherself, whom Union credited for genius in dealing with emotional contexts, in setting up and tearing down and reshaping human reactionsbut it was so damned different, when the emotional context went all the way to one's own roots. Redirect, that was the only thing she could logic her way to. Redirect and refocus: grief is a self-focused function and the flux holds so damn much guilt about taking care of ourselves. . . . "Are you all right, uncle Denys?"
Denys drew a breath, and several others, and looked desperate for a moment. Then he firmed up his chin and said: "He's dying, Ari."
She came and put her arms around Denys, self-consciousGod, guilty: of calculation, of too much expertise; of being cold inside when she patted him on the shoulder and freed herself from him and said: "Seely, has uncle Denys still got that brandy?"
"Yes," Seely said.
"I have work to do," Denys said.
"The brandy won't hurt," she said. "Seely."
Seely went; and she hooked her arm in Denys' and took him as far as the dining table where he usually did his work.
"There's nothing you can do by worrying," she said. "There's nothing anyone can do by worrying. Giraud knew this was coming. Listen, you know what he's done, you know the way he's arranged things. What he'll want you to do"
"I damned well can't do!" Denys snapped, and slammed his hand down on the table. "I don't intend to discuss it. Lynch will sit proxy. Giraud may recover from this. Let's not hold the funeral yet, do you mind?"
"Certainly I hope not." He's not facing this. He's not accepting it.
Seely, thank God, arrived with the brandy, while Florian and Catlin hovered near the door, gone invisible as they could.
She took her own glass, drank a little, and Denys drank, more than a little; and gave a long shudder.
"I can't go to Novgorod," Denys said. There was a marked fragility about the set of his mouth, a sweating pallor about his skin despite the cool air in the room. "You know that."