Trippe was shaking now. Involuntarily. His heart was racing. Adrenaline was fighting with shock. Shock seemed to be winning. Forcing deep breaths, he scanned the room, searching for the nearest piece of wood; fabric; anything combustible. A carpet runner circled the baseboards. It was beautiful. Design played along it like brook water; like flower fields; like thunderstorms in mountains. The patterns changed as you turned your head. The very threads were holographic. Things were moving very slowly. This way autumn; that way spring; they changed with the play of light.

“No!” screamed Van Zandt, then forced controlled composure. “Oh, how could you. That carpet’s irreplaceable, you boerenkinkel.”

Trippe looked at his hands. The laser pistol played back and forth, back and forth, along the line of the runner. Curls of acrid smoke swirled above the floor now. It smelled like burning dogs. In what was probably the sole moment of poetic clarity of his entire, boarding-school life, he intoned: “Like Alexander’s gift to Zoroaster, I dress your table with fire, milady.”

Actually, it was not original. He’d read it somewhere. But his brain had registered: table; fire, and unbidden the quote had come. Trippe scanned the room, and saw what he was looking for. The smoke revealed only the one laser-thin line of light: only the one nasty little tripwire. He held the gun steady now, drilling a hole through the baseboard. The laser winked out.

Now Van Zandt was standing. Lurching, grasping the table for support, Trippe stood too. He leveled the gun, began to say, “You will come with me now,” but blinked, groggy, because something new was wrong. Lillith held a grenade in an outstretched hand, her thumb in a thumb-sized depression. They play of light in a halo showed the grenade to be charged and armed.

“On the gripping hand, you seem to have a little problem now, no? Shoot me, I drop this, we both go.” She smiled. “I prefer a different scenario. I leave, and maybe I toss you a little party favor on my way out—or if you continue good service maybe I don’t. Do you play cards?” She stepped forward.

Trippe swung on his good foot in a desperate move. With one hand he grappled for the picket tether and slung it around the massive table leg, the hobble at its end whipping the rope around in a spiral, then lunged to snatch Lillith’s free arm with the other. Lillith was strong, but he was heavier. His dead weight pulled them both to the floor. He was fading now. He tensed to force blood into his brain and tossed the gun, freeing both hands, rolling to pin Lillith’s free arm under his body. He struggled to buckle the hobble to Lillith’s wrist as tight as it would go, threaded the tether end through the ring, snapped the lock, and rolled, heaving on the rope with all his strength. Lillith’s free hand jerked up, cinched to the table leg. Trippe crawled to the far side, and tied the rope off to another leg, far from Lillith’s reach.

He was panting now, adrenaline gone, limbs gone limp, body shutting down from shock. “Turn it off,” he croaked. “They’ll be here soon anyway. Your security detail’s gone. It’s over.”

Lillith Van Zandt pursed her lips, then sighed. “You people really are so tiresome.” Then she dropped the grenade, and matter-of-factly straightened and patted her clothing. “I’ve no intention of submitting to Imperial interrogation,” she said. She closed her eyes. Lights pulsed a countdown. It seemed to be very slow.

Trippe croaked, then screamed, then sobbed, as he tried, and failed, to lunge for the grenade. “No! Help! Stop! No!” But there was no-one to hear. No one but Clegg, face down in the corridor.

Yet, in Clegg strode, face impassive behind his shades, his eyes confined to a little secret universe unconnected to the mayhem unfolding around him. The pale sun had brightened the sky to a clear, winter blue that suffused the window wall. It cast his shirtfront with a bluish glow. He paused a moment. His brow furrowed slightly. He inhaled sharply. He stepped forward, staring blankly at the now-blank screen of the window wall, out into the blue space beyond, down into the solid grey mist that carpeted the valley floor.

There was a kind, hard edge to certainty. You could decide, right or wrong, but just decide, and then you stopped being virtual, and started being hard and certain and real. He did not hesitate. He fell forward. One fall, covering the grenade with two inches of solid Plate. Then everything went very, very quiet. Then he sailed right through the screen and into another life.

The blast wave snapped back Lillith’s head; jerked her body backwards, hard against her tethered arm. She looked up at the underside of the conference table. Was appalled to see chewing gum stuck beneath the edge. Then a chunk of Plate tore past her eyes, striking Trippe squarely in the forehead.

16

Chairman of the Board

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

—Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address

Sinbad, above Maxroy’s Purchase

Quinn’s report was long. Quinn’s report was thorough. At beginning and end, Quinn’s report cut to the chase. Barthes had read it, and privately concurred with its findings. Renner finished reading it, and sharply sucked in air. Oh, how very ironic. If Bury had known, those few years ago, that unknown to all and sundry “Motie” castes were there, New Utah would now be a ball of glass, and no one would have a stake here.

Instead, a decision hung in the balance that would change human space forever. If the Van Zandt claim held up in Imperial court, there would be no doubt as to New Utah’s status at accession: Colony world, entailed to Maxroy’s Purchase, with Van Zandt Mining holding a ninety-nine-year concession for production of weapons-grade doped YAG. Human population reduced to serfdom, and—what to call them? They weren’t Moties. They had not come from the Mote system; had never seen Mote Prime. They had gone to the Mote, in some age past, and it would be a very long while before anyone knew just when. Swenson’s Apes, maybe, for the moment, though they surely were not that either. Maybe what they called themselves: Mesolimerans, the people between the mountains. Whatever to call them, Van Zandt’s actions would march in time with past precedent: the Miners, possibly, would be enslaved, and all others tagged for extermination.

And what would that do to human-Mote relations? Set the tone for things to come: slavery, or annihilation? Renner shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had twice survived passage through the Mote system. This was hubris. That tone would doom them forever. If the Motie-patrolled second blockade were to fail, human space would not survive. It could not defeat an alliance of Motie enemies. Even xenophobic Bury had seen that light in the end: human survival depended on an alliance of Motie friends. Quashing the Van Zandt claim was the only option.

And what would that mean? For starters, that would define Lillith Van Zandt as a traitor, and Van Zandt’s illicit operations on New Utah as treason. Treason which had not prospered: treason, loud and clear. The Emperor was as ruthless as needs must. Lillith herself would be for the chop, with Michael appointed the new Margrave by way of consolation. Lillith too had been young once: charming, graceful, powered by ambition. Would Michael prove to be any better over time?