“Good lord, Emil, it’s past midnight. Doesn’t this hotel ever let you sleep?”
The concierge’s answering smile was one of friendly recognition and genuine personal regard. “Not when all the Sphere is coming to Geneva for the election, Paladin GioAvanti.”
Heather GioAvanti noticed Gareth for the first time and turned to include him in the conversation. “Lord Gareth. I should have realized you’d be staying here as well; we could have shared a taxi from the DropPort. Has Emil—”
“Provided me with a room?” He knew that he sounded a bit stiff and awkward, but he couldn’t help it. “Yes.”
She gave him a smile warmer than the concierge’s. Gareth had trouble believing she was the same woman he’d last seen putting the government of Woodstock and the Eridani Light Horse in their place. Her loosened hair and friendly smile made her seem much younger, and he wondered which face belonged to the real Heather GioAvanti.
“I would have been completely lost my first time in Geneva if it hadn’t been for Emil,” Heather was saying. “Before that, I’d never even been to Terra.”
Gareth recalled what he knew of Heather GioAvanti’s personal history, specifically, the rumor that she had broken with her family after her elevation to Paladin, so that no one could reproach her for conflict of interest. He wondered if the change had come as shock to her, moving in one leap from a life spent among mercenaries to a position as one of the seventeen most powerful men and women in The Republic of the Sphere.
“It must have been quite an experience,” he said aloud. “I remember how impressed I was by everything, the first time I came here.” He didn’t add that he had been scarcely an adolescent at the time.
“Oh, it was,” she said. “But Emil took good care of me, and I’ve stayed at the Duquesne on my visits ever since.”
She bade a polite farewell to the concierge, then headed for the front desk. Gareth followed. They both registered and were given room numbers: she on the fifteenth floor, he on the twenty-second.
In the elevator, Gareth asked, “Do most of the Paladins stay here at the Duquesne?”
“Some,” she said. “Most? I don’t think so. Tyrina Drummond stays here, I know, and so does Otto Mandela. I don’t know about the others. One or two have places they keep year-round—flats in the city, chalets up near the mountains, that sort of thing. Anders Kessel has rooms practically on top of the Paladins’ meeting chamber; I believe he’d sleep in the chamber itself if that was a possibility.”
“Have you ever thought of buying a place of your own?” He might, he thought, if he were ever made a Paladin. The family’s money would certainly extend to it.
“Not really. For a long time I couldn’t have afforded it, and now that I can, it still seems like a waste. A room is a room. Besides—” she smiled again “—the Duquesne is optimally suited for people watching and rumormongering. If I stay here, I can see everyone else in Geneva come and go.”
12
Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Duquesne, Geneva
Terra, Prefecture X
26 November 3134
The Exarch’s reception took place in the grand ballroom of the Hotel Duquesne, on the eve of the opening of the Electoral Conclave. Tri-vid reporters and videographers prowled the streets outside, capturing images of the Sphere’s most important men and women for the benefit of the masses. Emil the concierge was in his element, greeting each new arrival by name as he or she passed through the Duquesne’s lobby on the way to the reception.
Everyone, from reporters to hotel workers to government staffers, complained about the timing of the elections. Wasn’t the last week of November supposed to be a long holiday? But this was the timing the Exarch had chosen, for reasons he wasn’t explaining. And since the Exarch said people must work, they would work.
The Republic’s Hall of Government most assuredly had spaces in it big enough to hold the reception, but Jonah wondered if its catering resources matched the Duquesne’s five-star kitchen. The tables in the hotel’s grand ballroom were spread with exotic foodstuffs from a score of different worlds, accompanied by drinks of all kinds, from throat-clawing Northwind whiskies to pure water from springs deep in Terra’s own granite mountain ranges. Presumably, the Exarch believed that an abundance of food and drink would work toward easing the inevitable tension.
Jonah hoped that Damien Redburn was right. It was difficult to get the seventeen Paladins—along with their aides, support staff, and the inevitable hangers-on—to agree on anything, including what appetizers to serve, and the high stakes of the upcoming election only heightened the tension. If drink were going to ease this tension, it would have to be plenty strong.
Jonah, as usual, had brought no staff members with him. He maintained an office and employed several staffers back on Kervil, but he had left them all behind to keep an eye on local affairs in his absence. He didn’t want the Knight who’d taken over for him pro tempore to make too big a hash of things before he could return. Any support personnel that Jonah required on Terra he would engage on a temporary basis, per his long-standing habit.
“Paladin Levin?”
The speaker was a youngish man in the dress uniform of a Knight of the Sphere. There were a fair number of those uniforms scattered throughout the ballroom; Jonah supposed that all of the Knights currently on Terra had received courtesy invitations to the reception. This particular Knight was tall for a MechWarrior, with light brown hair and a pleasant if rather long and angular face. Jonah found the man’s appearance vaguely familiar—another moment, and his memory supplied him with a matching name and context.
“Gareth Sinclair, isn’t it? We worked together on Ryde a few years ago, after the meteor strike.”
“That’s right.” Sinclair smiled, as if happy to be recognized. “I’m surprised that you remember me. I was mostly running errands and directing traffic.”
That was, Jonah reflected, a massive understatement. When the meteor had hit the continent of Kale, one of the few habitable places on Ryde, the resulting social and ecological breakdown, combined with spilled chemicals from Ryde’s many plants, had required the full-time attention of a Paladin and half a dozen Knights of the Sphere. The seven of them, along with a support team the size of a small army, had labored for more than six months just to get things back to where long-term aid and reconstruction might actually have a chance to work.
Jonah said, “You also had to deal with that enterprising gentleman who believed that losing comms with the planetary capital meant that he could set up his own little kingdom out in the backwoods. I believe there was some fighting involved—you were piloting a Black Hawk ’Mech at the time, if I recall correctly.”
Sinclair nodded. “I still do, whenever I get the chance. I like Black Hawks. I did my initial training in one, and they’re what I know best.”
“They’re good ’Mechs,” Jonah agreed, although he himself preferred a heavier ’Mech such as his own Atlas, now safe in a hangar at the DropPort. He didn’t like resolving disputes by force, but when only force remained, he felt happiest with a ’Mech that could deliver a blow strong enough to settle the issue. He’d seen the principle stated most clearly in an inscription cast into the iron barrel of a cannon on display outside one of Terra’s many museums: ultima ratio regum, the final argument of kings.