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"Understood. Absolutely. We'd better cut this off. I'll up your priorities, effective immediately. Thank God you're safe."

"I plan to stay that way," she said. "Take care of yourself. All right?"

"You take care," Denys said. "Please."

She broke the contact, passed the handset back to Florian.

"We have confirmation," he said. "The plane has left the ground at Planys. They expect touchdown about 1450 tomorrow."

"Good," she said. "Good." From the fragile amount of control she had.

"Councillor Harad is waiting on-line; so is Councillor Corain. They've asked about your safety."

Strange bedfellows, she thought. But of course they wouldHarad because he was an ally; Corain because, whatever he feared from her, he had more to fear from the Paxers, the radicals in his own spectrum; and the radicals in Defense.

"I'll talk to them. Have we got reporters down there?"

"Plenty."

"I'll talk to them."

"Sera, you're in shock."

"That's several of us, isn't it? Damn, get me a mirror and some makeup. We're in a war, hear me?"

The mirror in the ped-tunnel restroom showed a soot-streaked face that for a heartbeat Justin hardly knew for his own. His hands and arms were enough to raise question, the smell of smoke about his clothing, he had thought; and now he turned on the water full, took a handful of soap and started washing, wincing at bruises and burns.

The dark blue sweater and pants showed soot, but water and rubbing at least got the worst off and ground the rest in. He went through an entire stock of soap packets and dried his hair and his shoulders under the blowers, looked up again and saw a face shockingly pale. He was starting to need a shave. His sweater was burned and snagged, he had a tear above the knee and a gash I where the tear was. Anyone who saw him, he thought, would report him to the police.

And that would catch him up in Cyteen law.

He leaned against the sink and wiped cold water across his face, clamping his jaws against a sick feeling that had been with him since he had come to. Thoughts started trying to insinuate themselves up to a conscious, emotional leveclass="underline" It was Art's wall; whoever did this was staffwhoever did this

Abban. Giraud's orders. But I'm only the incidental target. If she's dead The thought was incredible to him. Shattering. Ariane Emory had years to live. Ariane Emory had a century yet, was part of the world, part of his thinking, waslike air and gravitythere.

someone else is in charge, someone elsewantingsomeone to blame. Paxers. Jordan.

Amy Carnath waiting in the apartment, with Grant, with Securityif Ari's deadwhat can anyone do

They've got Jordan, got GrantI'm the only one still freethe only one who can make them trouble

Something was wrong. Grant heard the Minder-call in the other bedroomthey had given him Justin's, which was his own as well, out of courtesy, he thought, as the larger room, or perhaps because they had known. Florian had re-set the Minder to respond to Amy Carnath, so nothing of what it was saying got to him, but he reckoned that it was not minor if it wakened young sera in the small hours of the night. After that he heard both Amy and Quentin stirring about and talking together in voices he could not quite hear with his ear to the door.

He slammed the door with his open palm. "Young sera, is something wrong?"

No answer. "Young sera? Please?"

Damn.

He went back to the large and unaccustomedly empty bed, lay staring at the ceiling with the lights on and tried to tell himself it was nothing.

But finally sera Amy came on the Minder to say: "Grant, are you awake?"

"Yes, sera."

"There's been an incident in Novgorod. Someone bombed the hotel. Ari's all right. She's coming on vid. Do you want to come to the living room?"

"Yes, sera." He did not panic. He got up, got his robe, and went to the door, which Quentin opened for him. "Thank you," he said, and walked ahead of Quentin as far as his own living room, where Amy was sitting on the couch.

He took the other side of the U, Quentin took the middle, between him and Amy; and he sat with his arms folded against too much chill, watching the images of emergency vehicles, smoke billowing from breached seals on the hotel's top two floors.

"Were people killed?" he asked quietly, refusing to panic. Sera Amy was not cruel. She would not bring him out here to psych him: he believed that, but it was a thin thread.

"Five of Security," Amy said. "They say the Paxers got a bomb in. They aren't saying how. I don't know any more than that. We're not supposed to do things on the phones that give away where people are or what's going on or when they're going to be places. That's the Rule."

Grant looked at her past Quentin. Not panicking, not yet; but the adrenaline flood was there, threatening shivers, pure fight-flight conflict.

"I had a call from Dr. Nye warning me not to let you loose," Amy said. "He says he'd really like me to send you downstairs to Security, but I told him no. I lied to him. I said you were locked up."

"Thank you," Grant said, because something seemed called for.

And watched the vid.

Makeup covered the minor burns, but she left the visible bruise and the burn on her cheek; she put two pins in her hair, but she let it fly loose about her face. She had a clean sweater in her luggage that Security had rescued from the suite, but she chose to meet the cameras in what she was wearing, the tailored, gray satin blouse, with the blood and the burns and the soot, and the watermark the firefighting foam had made.

She was also sure, having stalled off twice, that the clips would hit the morning news with full exposure in Novgorod.

"They tried," she said grimly, in answer to the first question, which asked her reaction to what had happened; and she confronted the cameras with a rapid-fire series of answers that got around the fine question of who had done it and gave her the launching point that she wanted

"We are very well, thank you. And I have a personal statement, which I'll give you first. Then questions.

"I don't know yet why this happened. I know part of it; and it was an attempt not quite to silence me, because I have no voice in politicsbut to kill me before I do come of age enough to acquire one.

"It was a power move of some kind, because whoever did it wanted power without process. It cost the lives of brave people who tried despite fire and the dangers of more explosions, to rescue me and others; more, it was a clear attempt to destroy the political process, no matter who instigated it, no matter who perpetrated it. I don't think that the Paxers had anything to do with this. That they're anxious to claim they had is typical of the breed: and they hope to benefit from it benefit from it, because that's exactly what's going on: that a handful of individuals too few to make a party and incapable of winning votes in debate thinks it can wear down the majority by terrorcreates an atmosphere in which every fool with a half-conceived program can try the same thing and add to the confusion they hope to use. Let me tell you: whether this was the Paxers or one individual with a personal opinion he thinks outweighs the law, it's the peace under assault, it's our freedoms under assault, and every one of these attacks, no matter how motivated, makes the lawful rest of us that much more certain we don't want killers in charge of our lives and we damned well don't want their advice on how to conduct our affairs.

"Let me tell you also that within an hour of the disaster, Chairman Harad and members of the Council, Simon Jacques and Mikhail Corain, called me to express their profound outrage. Everyone, no matter what political party, understands what's threatened by actions like this. I don't need to say that to the people of Novgorod, who've held out against the tactics of the extremists and who've equally well held out against offers of help from the central government. I take my example from Novgorod. People can persuade me with ideas but there's no way in hell they're going to move me with violence or the possibility of violence.