“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.”

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.

Sinclair, meanwhile, was looking around the crowded ballroom. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many Knights and Paladins in one place before.”

Jonah nodded agreement. “It’s only a few of the Knights, relatively speaking, but you’re right about the Paladins. All but three of us are here this evening.”

“Three?” Sinclair’s gaze flickered around the room again. “I know that Victor Steiner-Davion isn’t here—he doesn’t travel these days, so he’s going to be addressing the convocation tomorrow by tri-vid hookup—and David McKinnon is still on Skye, but who else is missing?”

“You’re forgetting the Ghost Paladin.”

Sinclair reddened a little—the curse, Jonah supposed, of a fair complexion. “Oh. Yes. I’d forgotten about him.”

“Or her,” Jonah said.

“Yes. He or she isn’t here tonight either. So far as we know.”

“So far as we know,” agreed Jonah.

Silence fell for a minute. Then Sinclair’s expression brightened. “I see Paladin GioAvanti over there, by the potted palms. We traveled from Woodstock on the same DropShip; I should go and wish her a good evening.”

He faded away into the crowd, wearing the expression—had he but known it—of a young man determined to speak with a pretty girl.

Jonah suppressed a smile. Paladin GioAvanti was strong, forceful and opinionated, characteristics that occasionally alienated her more old-fashioned potential suitors. But she was a handsome woman, and she possessed an undeniable charisma. Most Paladins did. Jonah wondered, not for the first time, what an essentially unremarkable man like him was doing in such dazzling company.

He abandoned that line of thought—his Anna, if she knew of it, would have already scolded him for giving in to imposter syndrome. He moved around the ballroom instead, taking in the groupings and constellations of the guests.