“She was so graceful, so beautiful, so confident—and I felt like I was up there with her. Every eye was on her, and I wanted to be just like her: the star of the show.”
“You are a star,” he’d said, but she had ignored the compliment, as though eager to get on with the story.
“Things were fine, until she got to the middle of the wire. Then something went wrong. I never knew what. Perhaps she just looked down. But she stumbled, staggered—and I remember that she dropped the pole. It fell for a long time, and as it clattered to the arena floor, I realized that there was no net.
“I looked back to the girl. She had fallen—one knee on the wire, arms out, desperately trying to keep her balance. I could see her family on a platform at the end of the wire, wanting to go to her, but afraid they’d just make her fall. And it was so far back. So far to the other side. She looked very small.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. My parents grabbed me, kept me from seeing, and whisked us out the nearest exit. They never spoke of it again. Later, when I was older, I wondered. I knew I could go look it up in the old news databases, see if a girl fell that day. See if she was hurt. See if she was killed.”
“Did you?”
“I never had the courage. As long as I don’t look it up, she’s the way I last saw her: all alone on the wire. But she’s okay. Maybe she’ll stand up. Maybe she’ll find her balance, and walk back to safety. Maybe.”
And then the moment was over. They’d dressed and gone back upstairs and to their meetings. She’d returned with him to the hotel, but after that she was guarded.
As he showered and dressed, he phoned his assistant and checked his messages. As he’d instructed, Kinston had been forwarded the latest batch of invitations, which seemed to come in at the rate of two or three a day. Most seemed considerably beneath the power level at which Erik needed to operate, but only Kinston could tell him for sure.
He had breakfast with his aide in the hotel’s restaurant. On impulse, he had flowers delivered to Elsa’s apartment. Then he called his car around and left for his meeting with Kinston.
Kinston was working the Capitol Building that morning, so they’d arranged to meet in the rotunda there. As they drove up to the diplomatic entrance, Erik was struck by how attractive the building was. There were three golden domes over the central rotunda, and three long wings projecting outward, each pointing toward a different House of Parliament.
The whole compound was set on a triangular tree-dotted lot surrounded by a low granite wall; each side of the building seemed to present a flawless public face to the world. Erik wondered where the mechanicals were located—the inevitable service entrances and loading docks. There were also no obvious connections to the Houses of Parliament. He remembered what Elsa had said about catacombs. He suspected that much of the complex was underground, with tunnels—perhaps even subways—connecting the three Houses, and service-tunnel entrances that might be located blocks away from the actual complex.
He flashed his diplomatic credentials at the entrance, and had the guard direct him to the rotunda. He walked half the length of one wing, passing through only a single security checkpoint before entering the more public rotunda area. The security was amazingly lax to Erik’s eyes, but these people had known peace and safety for a long time. That, of course, was part of Erik’s problem.
The rotunda was a vast, three-lobed space, symmetrical except for the public entry located at the juncture of the two eastern wings. The three domes overhead were painted with murals of trees and mountains. At the juncture of each wing, a five-story glass wall admitted natural light, and the grand entrance to each wing was marked with a three-story marble arch, carved in beautiful relief, depicting the heroes of some unfamiliar ’Mech battle. The floor was a mosaic inlay of many kinds of stone, representing a somewhat dated star map of the Inner Sphere.
He spotted Kinston sitting on a bench near the entrance, reading a newspaper. Kinston stood as Erik approached, and greeted him with a handshake. “I’ve got maybe half an hour, then I need to get over to the Hereditary House.” He looked up nervously. “Sound plays tricks under these domes,” he said. “Someone across the room could be listening in on us. Come on, I know somewhere safer.”
He followed Kinston through one of the archways, past another low-security checkpoint, and into a side corridor. They entered a glass-walled room full of neatly packed bookshelves and small tables. Gold letters on the door said, LAWLIBRARY1-B. Kinston glanced back into the stacks to make sure they were alone.
He returned and beckoned Erik to sit across from him at a small reading table. “You did well last night. I’ve scheduled a follow-up meeting tomorrow with Senator Prescott based on the groundwork our little midnight meeting established. If we can revise your accord to his satisfaction, we’ll be a long way toward getting a favorable result next time it’s before the Hereditary House. Who knows? We might even come up with something the Legate likes and shortcut the whole process.” He smiled apologetically. “But probably not.”
Erik sighed. His initial feeling that he might be able to ram things through and sign Shensi to the coalition was fading. He seemed as mired in the local politics as ever.
“Chin up, Commander. This is going nearly as well as it could, under the circumstances.” Kinston put his briefcase on the table and opened it. He pulled out an envelope. “I’ve got a new draft of the accord for you to examine here. It removes all the Capellan trade restrictions that were in the original draft.”
Erik blinked in surprise. “What? No trade restrictions? You expect to go on selling ore to our enemies?”
“Understand, Commander—that’s at the heart of the accord’s initial failure. This planet has strong historic ties to the Capellans, and they’re important trading partners. The actions of House Liao surely don’t represent the entirety of the Capellan Confederation, and even they are only trying to recover those worlds, historically theirs, that were ceded to The Republic.
“The conservatives are leery about the current incursion, yes, and might be willing to lend some material support to a stabilizing resistance. But not to the extent of losing a substantial portion of the trade that gives them their power.”
“That’s unacceptable.”
“But it may be inevitable, if you want to get this accord accepted.”
He looked faintly embarrassed. “There’s also one other matter—a technicality, really. The original document never explicitly mentions The Republic. The agreement is worded so that it’s a pact directly with the Duke and ‘his allies, present, and future.’ One might assume that such language refers to him as a representative of The Republic, but it’s not explicit.”
Despite the many things already troubling him, Erik was able to maintain a proper poker face. The omission of Aaron’s role as a Lord Governor of The Republic had been intentional and carefully calculated. In a way, Erik was surprised it hadn’t been noticed before, but negotiation of treaties usually comes down to small details. Politicians were often so quick to focus on those details that it was possible to miss the big, obvious things. The SwordSworn had gambled that it might work.
An agreement with the Duke that included The Republic would muddy the waters considerably when they openly pledged themselves to House Davion. It might hold if they were too far down the road to turn back, but it would make it easier for the alliance to be broken. “The Republic,” Erik said, “is implied here. It’s a given. I don’t see why we need to make changes just for the sake of making changes.”