“…haven’t gotten enough sleep the past few days, I’m yawning on my feet, and it’s all Paladin Steiner-Davion’s fault.”

He looked at Elena over the beeswax candles and the floral arrangement and the basket of napkin-wrapped breads. “I can understand how you could make a man stay awake just so he could keep on watching you, but surely Victor is too old to actually do anything along that line.”

“I wouldn’t know.” She giggled. “But it wasn’t anything like that. He’s been working late every night, and falling asleep at his desk.”

“That must be hard on you,” Henrik said sympathetically.

She sighed. “Yes, it is—I can’t go to bed for the night myself until I’m sure he’s sleeping. I have to monitor his vital signs on the room security monitors, and make at least one in-person check after he’s out.”

“Inconsiderate of him to keep you awake that way.”

“None of the long-term senior residents know how close a watch we keep on their good health,” she said.

“Somebody has to do it,” Henrik said. “A man of Victor Steiner-Davion’s age shouldn’t be burning his candle at both ends, staying up until all hours working on… what? Do you know?”

She made a moue of discontent. “He’s hardly going to talk about it to me. I’m just the person who annoys him by coming in and tidying things up when he doesn’t believe they need it. You’d think at his age he’d realize clutter is hazardous and unhygienic.”

Henrik thought that a veteran MechWarrior and politician who’d survived as many years of battle and intrigue as Victor Steiner-Davion was not likely to care too much about the dangers of an untidy room. Aloud, however, he only echoed, “You’d think.”

She said, “But he’s taken it into his head that he has to present whatever he’s working on to the Paladins when they meet for the election, and he isn’t going to stop before he makes his speech.”

Henrik felt the tingle in the back of his neck that meant he was in the presence of potentially useful information. He chose his next words carefully. If Elena thought that she was being pumped for information, the flow of chatter would dry up, and he would learn nothing more.

“Did he say it has to be the Paladins?” he asked. “Telling the Senate won’t work? They’re in Geneva all the time; he wouldn’t have to push himself so hard to get everything done before the end of the year.”

“I told him so, the one time he mentioned it. He just mumbled something about needing to put the problem in front of the right people, and ignored me after that.”

“His loss.” Henrik’s mind was engaging with the problem, seeing the potential in it, and the interest to his patron. Carefully casual, he went on, “It might be something my department could help him with. If you could get a look at some of his work sometime, just enough to give me an idea…”

She gave him a shrewd look. “And then you could be all helpful, and he’d be grateful, and you’d add Victor Steiner-Davion to your legion of supporters.”

Well, he thought, not exactly. “Clever girl. What do you say? Can you do it?”

“He sometimes leaves his data terminal running when he falls asleep at his desk,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything with his files—that would be wrong, and besides, he’d know it if I touched anything—but there’s nothing to stop me from remembering something that I accidentally happen to see, is there?”

“No,” he said. “There isn’t. You could even take notes.”

Pension Flambard, Geneva

Terra, Prefecture X

26 November 3134

The small residential hotel known as the Pension Flambard had been Jonah Levin’s customary place to stay in Geneva ever since his initial visit as a newly elevated Knight of the Sphere. That first time, he had picked the Pension randomly from the hotel listings provided at the DropPort because he couldn’t afford to stay at an expensive place like the Hotel Duquesne, and it wasn’t his type of place anyway. At the Pension Flambard, he had found lodgings that were not only within his budget, but soothing to his nerves.

At the time he had just finished a long and difficult convalescence, a fact which caused him to feel simultaneously old before his time and—when confronted with the glittering activity of diplomatic Geneva—painfully young and provincial. The Pension’s small size and unfashionable appearance reassured him that his new life still had room in it for things that were neither pretentious nor intimidating.

For that reason, even after Jonah had more money, and after he had learned that the Hotel Duquesne traditionally provided complimentary accommodations for Knights and Paladins of The Republic, he continued to stay at the Pension on his visits to Terra. The old building and the cozy decor suited his tastes, and Madame Flambard—in addition to being the soul of discretion and offering a profound respect for his privacy—knew his requirements without being told. He had no reason to change his quarters.

Today Madame herself was waiting for him at the front desk. In keeping with the rest of the pension’s decor, the desk’s outward appearance was carefully antique, with a brass bell resting on the polished wood of the counter next to a handwritten registry book and an arrangement of dried flowers in a porcelain vase. Appearances could, and in this case did, deceive; as Jonah had good reason to know, the Pension Flambard maintained sophisticated voice communications and a powerful data connection. But Madame preferred to keep such things tucked away, and Jonah—who enjoyed having at least the illusion of being hard to find by the curious and by the general public—considered her taste in these matters to be part of the Pension’s charm.

“It’s good to see you again, Monsieur Levin,” Madame said. “Will you want your usual room?”

“If it isn’t occupied,” Jonah said. The situation with the still-patchy HPG network made getting an advance reservation difficult. One could never be certain that a message had reached its recipient intact and in a timely fashion.

Madame smiled. “When I heard on the news that Exarch Redburn had called for the election, I said to myself, ‘Monsieur Levin will be returning to us for this,’ and I put down your name for your customary accommodations.”

“Thank you,” said Jonah. “Believe me, I appreciate your consideration.”

She gave an expressive shrug that said more with silence than most people say in a handful of sentences. “You are a quiet man, Monsieur, and you do not leave your rooms in wreckage. I would be a fool to lose you to the likes of the Hotel Duquesne.” She produced a plastic card from one of the many pigeonholes behind the desk and handed it to Jonah. “Your key. Will you be staying with us for very long this time?”

“Longer than last time, I’m afraid,” said Jonah regretfully. “These things take a great deal of preparation. Not even Damien Redburn can hold an election on almost no notice.”

“Very true, Monsieur.”

Jonah looked at Madame’s courteous but noncommittal face and wondered which of the candidates for Exarch she might favor. Not that Devlin Stone had trusted such a decision to the masses; he had chosen instead to put it into the hands of the Paladins.

Still, Jonah thought, a wise man should consider the wishes of those who would be living with his choice. He thought about asking Madame about her preference directly, then abandoned the idea. Madame Flambard never discussed politics or personal matters with her guests. It would not be right to ask her to abandon her business principles purely to gratify his curiosity.

He accepted his key and went up the stairs to his usual room. He had carried a single bag from the DropPort; the rest of his luggage would arrive by taxi later today.