There were faces for the cameras that had never been available before: the director of Reseune, Giraud Nye, for one. The reporters took endless pains to explain to the viewing public that, contrary to the general assumption, Ariane Emory had not been the Administrator of Reseune, had in fact held no administrative post in Reseune at all for the last fifty-odd years. There were new names to learn. Giraud Nye. Petros Ivanov. Yanni Schwartz.
Nye, damn him, had a certain flair in interviews.
And when a Council seat fell vacant and the Councillor in question had appointed no proxy, then the Bureau Secretary of that particular electorate appointed a proxy. Which in this case was Giraud Nye.
Who might well resign his post in Reseune to run for Emory's seat.
That meant, Corain thought bleakly, Nye would win. Unless Jordan Warrick's trial brought up something explosive. Unless Warrick used the trial for a podium, and leveled charges. But Corain's own informants in the Bureau of Internal Affairs said that Warrick was still under house arrest; Merild, in Novgorod, himself under investigation by the Bureau as a possible conspirator, was not the lawyer to undertake Warrick's defense, and, God, an Abolitionist lawyer had tried to contact Warrick. Warrick had sensibly refused, but he had told Internal Affairs to appoint one to advise himwhich made a major stir in the news: a man with Warrick's resources, a Special going before a Council hearing with a Bureau-appointed lawyer, like a virtual indigent, because his credit accounts in Reseune were frozen and Reseune could not with any propriety handle both prosecution and defense out of its own legal department.
Solemn music played. The family members gathered for a final moment at the coffin. Then the military honor guard closed it and sealed it. The military escort and Reseune Security waited outside.
Ariane Emory was going to space. No monuments, she had said. Cremation and transport into space, where the carrier Gallant, happening to be in Cyteen System, would use one of its missiles to send Emory's ashes sunward. Which was the final extravagance she had asked of the Union government.
The bitch was determined to make sure nobody made off with a sample, that was what. And chose the whole damn sun for a cenotaph.
vii
Assassination meant a funeral on too short notice to muster the whole Councilbut the Bureau Secretaries were in Novgorod or on the Station; the Cyteen senate had been in session; the Council of Worlds had been in session. And the ambassadors from Earth and Alliance had come down from Cyteen Station. Three Councillors had been accessible: Corain of the Bureau of Citizens, resident on Cyteen; Ilya Bogdanovitch of the Bureau of State; and Leonid Gorodin, of Defense.
An actual two-thirds majority of Centrists, Corain reflected. Damned little good it did at a funeral.
One was expected, of course, to offer Nye welcoming courtesies on his appointment as proxy. No reception: the solemnity of the occasion forbade, even if he had not been Emory's cousin. But one did drop by the offices that had been Emory's. One did present one's respects. One did meet with Nye, however briefly, and offer condolences. And study this man and judge this man and try, in the few moments one was likely to get, to estimate what sort of man this was, who came out of complete shadow inside the enclave of Reseune, to assume the mantle of Ariane Emory. . . .
To judge in five minutes, if it were possible, whether this man, who was a Special, could possibly take up all the linkages of power that Emory had, give the bitch credit, wielded all too well.
"Ser," Nye said, on that meeting, took his hand. "I feel I know you, after all the dinner discussions Ari and I had. She respected you."
That put a body at immediate disadvantage, first because if Nye knew him, it was not mutual; and second, because he remembered what Nye was, and thought how Ariane Emory would react to that description of the situation.
For a half second he felt halfway nostalgic for the bitch. Ariane had been a bitch, but he had spent twenty years learning to read her. This man was a total blank. And that gave him a lost and frustrated feeling.
"We opposed each other on issues," Corain murmured, as he had murmured similar things to other successors in his long tenure, "but not in our desire to see the best for the state. I find myself at a loss, ser. I don't think I ever expressed that to her. But I don't think any of us realize even yet what Union will be without her."
"I have serious things to discuss with you," Nye said, not having released his hand. "Concerns that would have been foremost in her mind."
"I'd be pleased to meet with you, at your convenience, ser."
"If you have time in your schedule now"
It was not the sort of thing Corain liked, abrupt meetings, without briefings. But it was a new relationship, an important relationship. He hated to start it off with an excuse and a refusal to talk.
"If you prefer," he said; and ended up in the office that had been Emory's, with Nye behind the desk, no Florian and Catlin, but an azi staffer named Abban, whose rejuv-silvered hair had no dye, no pretenses, less than Nye, whose hair was silvered brown, who was easily a hundred, and probably the azi was no less than that. Abban served them both coffee, and Corain sat there thinking of the journalistic and political eyes watching every move outside these offices, marking who called, who stayed, and how long.
There was no graceful way to hasten matters.
"I think you know," Nye said quietly, over the coffee, "that a great deal has changed. I'm sure you know that I will stand for election,"
"I wouldn't be surprised, no."
"I'm a good administrator. I'm not Ari. I don't know how to be. I would like to see the Hope project through: it was very dear to her heart. And I believe in it, personally."
"You know my opinion, I think."
"We will have our differences. Philosophical ones. If I'm the choice of the Science electorate." A sip of coffee. "But the most urgent thingI think you understandis the Warrick case."
Corain's heart increased its beats. Trap? Proposition? "It's a terrible tragedy."
"It's a devastating blow to us. As headex-head of Reseune Security, I've talked with Dr. Warrick, extensively. I can tell you that it was personal, that it was a situation that had arisen"
"You're saying he's confessed?"
Nye coughed uncomfortably and sipped at his coffee, then looked up into Corain's eyes. "Ari had trouble keeping her hands off her lab assistants. That was what happened. Justin Warrick, Jordan's son, is a parental replicate. There was old business between Dr. Emory and Jordan Warrick."
More and more tangled. Corain felt an irrational unease at this honesty from a stranger. And did not say a word in the gap Nye left for him.
"Ari transferred an Experimental who was virtually Warrick family," Nye said, "to put pressure on the boyto put pressure on Jordan. This much we understand now. The boy acted on his own to protect his companion, sent the azi out to people he understood as friends of his father. Unfortunatelythe issue isn't presently clearthere were further links that led to the Rocher party. And extremists."
Damn. An evidence-trail like that was trouble. Of course he was supposed to feel the threat.
"We got the azi out, of course," Nye said. "That's what was behind it. There's no way the azi got to Ari: he was under observation at the hospital. But Jordan Warrick found out what Ari had doneto his son. He confronted her in the lab, alone. They quarreled. Ari hit him; he hit her; her head hit the counter-edge. That wasn't murder. It became murder when he took a lab-stool and used it to damage the conduits, shut the cold-lab door and upped the pressure in that line. Unfortunately that kind of damage didn't look like an accident to the engineers."