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  “You really intend to decide tonight?” Proser could spend ten minutes deciding what color tunic to wear. “Finally? Irrevocably?”

  “Absolutely! You know me. I will decide on pure, unadulterated logic, and if it feels wrong, I’ll switch right away.”

  He chuckled admiringly. “I will be gloriously happy either way. Be quick. I’ll be waiting with some soft music and hard flesh.”

  “I promise.” She kissed him. He sprang up and strode into to the house.

  Athena went back to analyzing her problem. To run or not to run? She was not old, politically. She did not feel old, look old, or behave old. Her picture now was indistinguishable from any taken when she was eighteen, and Proser never had cause to complain of his love life. Next year was her last chance, though. If she did not challenge and topple Carabin next year, she never would.

  Her alternative was to retire with honor now. And that raised the question of her duty to Proser and the Fimble ghosts, including Chyle. It was not impossible to combine motherhood and career, although she had never seen how it would be possible to do justice to either without short changing the other. A child raised by a nanbot was usually half a machine itself, sadly lacking in humanity. Athena Fimble could never compromise her standards; that was her trouble.

  —Priority call.

  She started. She had diverted all calls. Who, other than the president himself, could overrule her priority? Annoyed yet intrigued, she accepted.

  Audio only: —Do you recognize my thought pattern, Athena?

  Good God! Linn? What do you want at this time of night?

  The unseen caller chuckled. —Ask rather what you want. The problem is finance, isn’t it? I’m sure they all cheered and whooped until you got down to talking about money. How much are you going to need?

  Linn Lazuline might have bugged her conference, but more likely he had simply had it analyzed beforehand. If he was not the world’s richest person, the difference did not matter, and his machines would have been able to predict the course of the meeting almost down to individual speeches.

  She thought, Twenty million libras for the nomination. Eight more for the campaign.

  —Let’s talk about that twenty.

  Now?

  —Now, while you’re alone. Such arrogance was typical of Linn, but even the minority leader did not tell the world’s richest man to go screw himself and call her office in the morning.

  Where are you?

  —On the water.

  She looked up and saw that the nearest boat was anchored, even if its purely ornamental sail was still raised. Only the swell moving past it gave it the appearance of moving. She laughed. Welcome to Portolan, then.

  She saw a faint splash as he dived, then his arms flailed silver as he swam to shore along the ribbon of moonlight. Linn had always swum like a torpedo snake. She cognized Proser. His image wore a formal knee-length business tunic, whereas the real man would almost certainly not be wearing anything by now, but his surprised expression was genuine.

  Listen, love, I’m about to have a visitor.

  —At this hour? Who?

  Linn Lazuline.

  —Good God!

  That’s what I said. I’ll leave you in play, she added, and spliced him in.

  Linn ran up the beach. She had known him since they were children, for his family owned the next island—a family even older than the Fimbles, although it ran to leaders of industry, not public servants. The years had changed him no more than her. He looked as good now in trunks as he had when they were at college. Sparkling silver in the moonlight, he sat down on the step beside her and grinned, puffing from the swim.

  “Fine evening, Friend Fimble.”

  “Yes it is, Friend Lazuline. Can I offer you refreshment?”

  He shook his head then ran his hands over it to squeeze water out of his honey-colored curls, which he had always worn long, in a mop. “This will only take a couple of minutes, yea or nay. I know to the ninety-ninth percentile why you called that meeting and why you called it here and who was invited and what they said. It’s your last ambition.”

  She was beginning to see where he was heading and why he had chosen this time and place. After all these years? “Carry on.”

  “And you’re mine, Athena.”

  “Your what?”

  “My last ambition.”

  The moonlight was bright enough that he would notice if she blushed, but years ago she had undergone thoracoscopic sympathectomy; now she never blushed. Never in her life had she lost her temper.

  “I am happily and legally partnered with a man I love a lot.”

  He shrugged. “I was thinking informal and brief.”

  “I ought to order you to leave and never darken my doorstep again.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She laughed. “Linn, you haven’t changed a bit! You always were a cold-blooded bastard.”

  Teeth flashed. “Thank you. But I’ve been tidying up some of life’s loose ends. You’re one of them. You were the only girl I couldn’t make. You want to hear my offer?”

  “Out with it.”

  “Twenty million libras.”

  She caught her breath. “For what?”

  “Two nights in your bed, plus reasonable cooperation.”

  “That’s an insulting and degrading suggestion.”

  He chuckled. “I’d say it was pretty flattering. I’ve hungered for you since I was fourteen, Athena, and you know it. I’ve managed to buy or steal anything else I ever coveted. Now, at last, you need something I can provide and no one else can. You do not find me displeasing, do you?”

  He was very far from displeasing. His genes were stupendous, blazing signals like a quasar; his muscles were as fascinating as his pheromones. He had money like most men had follicles. He was all a woman could ask for on a tropic beach by moonlight.

  “You’re the fanciest stud genetics can engineer, Linn. I don’t deny it.”

  “So why have you always refused me? Mm? I wish you’d tell me. My life logger tells me this is the seventeenth time I’ve propositioned you. I was always willing to share you with the pack. You used to play a pretty wild field in those days.”

  “Those were the days,” she agreed. “But it was narrower than you think. Boys brag.”

  “But why not me? Just to keep me humble?” His grin had lost none of its charm.

  “You don’t know what humble means. Because I was the only one you couldn’t buy, I think. It amused me to see you frustrated.”

  “Not buy with even twenty million?”

  Could any woman refuse that kind of bribe? This was rapidly becoming one of those stop-me-before-I-do-something-stupid experiences. Because she had never liked his politics. Because he had always wanted to control everything and own everything. “I would feel like a trophy in a glass case.”

  “You will be! Top shelf, front row. Private collection, though. I never brag, Athena, you know that. I never tell. I can make you president and ever after have the satisfaction of knowing I have made the president, but only you and I will ever know how.”

  He was smart enough to stop there and let her think about it. She did think about it, even to wishing she had not let Proser eavesdrop. Ripples splashed on the sand, trees danced in the trade winds under the moons. The offer was extraordinarily tempting. She had no doubt Linn would be good in bed, because anything less than perfection there would diminish his self-image. Finance on the scale he was promising would make her campaign a cakewalk. She would be free of financial worries. God, it was tempting!

  So why hesitate?

  “Linn, your politics and mine are about as far apart as you’ll find outside a nut factory.”

  “The money’s a free gift,” he said seriously. “Spend it as you like. It’s your body I’m buying, not your soul. You need me. The regulars won’t back you, because they don’t trust you. You’re too honest to stay bought and give value for money.”

  That was unpleasantly true. “But if it ever got
around that you—”

  “It won’t. No one will ever know.”

  Easy for him to say. She sighed. “Linn, there are a dozen people who plan my life to the minute and shepherd me around. Even here at Portolan, I’m never alone. There are eight—”

  “Trust me. I can arrange our liaison so no one will know, and I can arrange that the funds come to you openly and legitimately through other people.” The great Linn Lazuline sounded very close to begging. “Big money can do anything, Athena. I bypassed your cognition protocols, didn’t I? Even Homeworld Security can’t do that. I did. It cost me, but just for tonight I thought it was worth it.”

  To impress her? Like a hunter savage with a string of carnivore teeth around his neck.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” she muttered.

  “What’s to think about? Ask the kid what he thinks.”

  “What kid?”

  “Your bed boy. He cognizing this, isn’t he?”

  “Damn you!” Proser?

  —Can you trust him to pay up? Proser was grinning. As usual, he had gone straight to the heart of the matter.

  She looked at the glint of moonlight in Lin’s eyes and the flash of his teeth and knew that he had heard the query. Eavesdropping on a private cognition was totally impossible, but he was doing it. Big money could do anything, he had said. Even the Brain was ultimately run by humans, and humans could be bribed or intimidated.

  Yes, I can.

  —And trust him not to blackmail you later?

  She hesitated.

  “I swear,” Linn said softly.

  Yes.

  —Then go for it. Ball him blue and tell me all about it afterward.

  Athena gasped and Linn bellowed with laughter in the night.

  “You are a despicable brute, Linn Lazuline!”

  “And proud of it. You agree?”

  “Suppose I said forty million?”

  “So now we’re haggling? No, twenty million and two nights, all I can eat.”

  Omigod! Had even her grandfather ever had that much money? She patted Lin’s thick shoulder, snatching her hand back before he could grab it. “I’m sorry, Linn. Maybe one day, just for old times’ sake, but I do have to live with myself, and I couldn’t, not after that. I’ve decided not to run.”

  “Take a day or two to think about it.”

  “No. I decided.” She should be grateful, for he had shown her what she really did want, and it was a child, not a presidential seal. “Goodnight, Linn.”

  She rose and went into the house without a backward glance, back to Proser, who couldn’t keep two libras to jingle but was a dream of a lover and could legally father a child.

  * * *

  Proser’s second most important function was to vet her incoming calls, those that junior staff had already passed. A few days later he called her in the middle of a vital finance committee meeting.

  —I think you have to take this one, darling.

  In five years, he had never interrupted anything really important. She muttered an apology to the others around the table, let her eyes lose focus.

  Accept.

  The face she saw was not one she recognized. He wore a black tunic with stars on the lapels.

  —Sulcus Immit, Director of Security, STARS, Inc. My apologies if I am intruding, Senator. I am calling on a matter of extreme urgency.

  She had never spoken to anyone in STARS higher than a link technician. When senate committees subpoenaed STARS officers, they would refuse, claiming STARS was not subject to planetary jurisdiction.

  Please be brief.

  —We need your help. The matter is highly sensitive. If this news leaks out before we are ready, there might be widespread panic. Will you promise to treat what I tell you as confidential?

  Subject to the oath I swore when I took office.

  His expression was grave, unvarying. —There will be no conflict with that. Is this call being monitored?

  Only by a human who keeps his mouth shut.

  A nod. —Very briefly, then, a Diallelon Abomination has been identified on Pock’s World. Quarantine is in place but will not be announced until tomorrow. Meanwhile we are organizing a small but high-profile commission to go to Pock’s World, inspect the evidence, and return to report to the public. If sterilization proves necessary, the rest of the sector should know that STARS, Inc had good reason for its actions. We have already arranged for representatives from the Church, the Sector Council, and industry. We hope to include a judge or ex-judge, a media person, and an elected official. You are an obvious choice for that. Will you please help us?

  Her mind had locked wheels at the word “Diallelon” and needed a moment to track to the end of the speech. You mean you want me to decide the fate of an entire planet?

  Or was this an elaborate politic trap, to smear her with geocide? No matter what happened to Pock’s, whether she was seen as guilty of destroying a world or of protecting monsters, any involvement would end her political career. But she had already given that up, hadn’t she? She had told Proser to start arranging meetings with fertility experts, as a first step, because she would rather bear his child the traditional way—and she had also told him to do his damnedest in the meantime, for which he needed no encouragement. So political ambition could not interfere with her decision.

  Sulcus was shaking his head. —The decision will be STARS’s. You will just inspect the evidence, interview some witnesses, form an opinion. STARS will do its duty as it sees it, but we are not monsters, Senator. We detest the thought as much as you do—more, in fact, because the blood will be on our hands. There are six hundred million human lives at stake; we need only four or five days of your time.

  Ask President Carabin to name a special envoy.

  —No. If we let one planetary government do that, then all the rest will want to meddle also. The point is that you are highly respected and universally known, but you do not speak for a government.

  Her mind shied away from the implications. This could not possibly be genuine. Far more likely, it was political hoax intended to expose her to ridicule. Such an elaborate attack might be flattering, but was also annoying. Had she still had presidential ambitions, her answer must be an unequivocal No! because this venture would compromise her fatally, no matter which way the story ended. Her political future was no longer an issue, although only Proser knew that so far. And if there was the slightest shadow of a possibility that it was genuine, then she could never stand aside and let six hundred million… She felt insects crawl on her skin.

  Before I agree, I must confirm your identity.

  For the first time he smiled. —Will you take the pope’s word for it?

  Certainly. Ask His Holiness to expect a call from my chief of staff, Proser Ryepeck. He’s a good Catholic lad. She ended cognition and returned to discussing the planetary budget for fiscal 29,875.

  She was waiting on the roof when the air car came for her next morning.

  Chapter 4

  Athena Fimble scanned the lounge with eyes as dark and brilliant as jet. Her thick black hair was coiled and pinned high with silver combs; the hem of her pleated white tunic floated well above her knees, the neckline dipped low over her breasts.

  Suppressing a reflex to drool, Ratty glanced at his companions to see their reaction. Millie Backet had flushed red with annoyance. Brother Andre had withdrawn inside his brown hood, ignoring a woman who displayed so much of herself. Athena’s costume would not have been decent around the mission in Annatto, but it was standard wear for the Beautiful People, of which she was most certainly one. Her parents might have spent a fortune tinkering with her genes both before and after she was born, although more likely she had been perfect since the moment her father’s perfect sperm was introduced to her mother’s perfect ovum and their union was placed in the perfect nest prepared for it—regardless of whether that nest had been perfected by generations of germ-plasm improvement and medical care or built by skilled bottling plant engineers. She
was as well adapted to the planet as if her ancestors had lived on Ayne for a million years. Even interdict held few terrors for the elite; barring accidents, they could stay healthy well into their second century, and they could afford trips to other worlds that were more liberal with medical care.

  Athena floated across the room on long, brown legs that would neither burn in summer nor fade in winter. Her smile was glorious.

  “Brother Andre! This is a joyful honor. I spoke to your superiors as you suggested, and they will be happy to let you testify before our medical provision committee.”

  The friar looked up in shock. “You are Senator, er…?”

  “Fimble, Athena Fimble, yes. And Director Backet!” Her hesitation had been barely perceptible, so either her memory for faces was extraordinary or her implants had not been deactivated like Ratty’s. “My, it has been a long time since those infertility hearings, Millie, hasn’t it? I see this group is going to wield a lot of heft; you and Brother Andre and…” She laughed. “And Terrible Turnsole! Ratty, yours will be the only voice the worlds will heed.”

  Flattery for all! Ratty liked Athena. She fed him snippets once in a while, and sometimes he would reciprocate by slanting a story her way. The worst he had ever managed to dig up on her was that she had once been slow to abandon one lover after acquiring another, and that story had no legs. Although a clever woman, she was depressingly honest and much too independent; her party would never trust her with a presidential nomination.

  “Will all the planets be sending representatives?” Backet demanded, nose firmly out of joint.

  “I was told not,” Athena said smoothly. “You are the only government representative, I think, Millie. I’m here on my own, just a generic political hack. There may be other people rendezvousing with us at Pock’s, of course. I don’t know if that’s the case, but it sounded like a small team. Church, government, industry, the law, and media, Sulcus said. Still waiting for law and industry?”