“And us with no Legate or Knights to call upon,” Grace said, letting Angus’ brogue slip off her own tongue.

“Aye, lassie, and us with only our own hands.” A brimming pint clanked onto the table, so Angus naturally took a long swig to wash those thoughts away.

Grace noticed that Jobe was going slow on his first pint and settled for a sip of her own. “With Government House in ashes, and the Governor and Legate dead, what are we doing for a government?” she asked.

“The bureaucrats are back in business at a hotel down the street from the ruins. A bunch of big-town mayors are gathering tomorrow at the Guild Hall to see what they can make of matters,” Angus said as the lamb stew arrived. “Mind you, small towns like Falkirk don’t count with them, but no rule says who gets a say, either. Word is, they mean to elect a new Governor. Pro tem, or some such.”

Grace put her beer down and attacked her stew. Angus could drown his troubles if he wanted. It looked as though tomorrow she and her friends would have work to do.

Allabad, Alkalurops

15 April 3134

The plaque on the Guild Hall’s bell tower claimed that the thick adobe walls had stood for eight hundred years, keeping out tornadoes and torrential floods from upstream hurricanes. It did not say how often the roof tiles had been replaced. On this day roof and walls kept out the heat of the day. The latest attacks, unlike the old, had not shattered the stained-glass windows. The new louver system followed the sun, letting in enough light for business without overheating the hall. This morning’s heat came from men and women talking, talking, and talking some more.

Grace, Chato, and Jobe arrived early, but not early enough to get seats around the tables that had been pushed together to make one long one. They scrounged up a table of their own and added it at one end, forcing other early arrivals to move. As more people filed in, more tables had to be added. Those already seated frowned as they had to keep making room, but they didn’t muster a protest. In the end, the table was a big square, accommodating twice as many people as originally intended.

To Grace’s left, the three mayors from Little London, Lothran and Banya—the three largest towns outside Allabad—looked none too happy. In the old days, before Devlin Stone required a planet to have one central seat of government headed by a Governor, Alkalurops had gotten along with a Council of Elders drawn from towns and major guilds. Now that the Governor was dead, it seemed that folks wanted to go back to the old ways, and even the mayors of the three largest cities did not dare go against them.

Garry McGuire, a short man with a confident air who was the mayor of Little London, applied a solid-looking gavel to a wooden plaque. This relic from the days of Elders and meetings had been momentarily removed from the display case that had held it for the last fifty years. The hall fell silent.

Dev Coughlin, dapper in Terran fashions six years out of date even before the HPG went down, and mayor of Lothran, rose to his feet from his seat between Grace and Garry. “I rise from among you to nominate Garry McGuire as Governor Pro Tem of our planet, until such time as The Republic appoints a replacement for the fondly remembered late Kristen LeSat.”

The hall rumbled with talk. Garry McGuire gaveled them to order as the mayor of Banya half rose from the seat on his left to shout, “I second Garry McGuire’s name and call for a vote.”

“Guess we know what they were doing last night,” Grace whispered to Chato, but Jobe was standing.

His deep bass voice carried easily through the babble. “I rise from among you to place in nomination the name of Grace O’Malley, mayor of Falkirk, for Governor.”

Before Grace could react, Jobe was back in his seat, his face a wide grin of white teeth against ebony skin. Chato shot to his feet. “I second Grace O’Malley’s name.”

“He can’t do that,” Dev Coughlin shouted.

“Yes, he can,” Grace shouted back. She was none too sure she wanted to be nominated, but Chato and Jobe were recognized heads of their respective areas—as empowered as any mayor to sit and act in this council.

“And I stand to nominate Billy O’Leary,” came from down the table. That started a nomination frenzy that lasted the better part of half an hour and ended only when most everyone had either nominated someone, seconded someone, or been placed in nomination.

When there was no one left to nominate and the entire hall was chattering among themselves, Grace stood up. She’d never thought much of her flaming red hair, but it often drew people’s attention. It did today as the hall fell moderately quiet.

“We seem to have no lack of nominees. What we do lack are procedures for electing a Governor, or Prime Elder, or whatever it is we intend to do. I ask one question. Do we allow a simple plurality to decide the vote, or should we require a majority?”

It took a few seconds for the full impact of her words to sink in. With so many candidates, someone with only five or six votes might have more than the rest. Those pushing for a quick vote shut up, and the hall fell silent.

“Will the fine lady—from Falkirk, is it?—yield the floor she has so admirably brought to silence?” Dev Coughlin asked.

“For a question only.” Grace had once found a book on the rules of order for official meetings. It had been helpful—as something to pound on the table to quiet Falkirk town meetings even if she couldn’t follow its rules. Maybe today she could.

“I recognize that everyone is important to our planet’s economy,” Dev said, “but how can the vote of a mayor from a small town like Falkirk have the same weight as that of someone representing a city a hundred times larger? Shouldn’t we apportion votes on a one man, one-vote basis?” Dev smiled at his two friends, who nodded their agreement.

“No,” Grace snapped. “Not even if you modify your proposal to be one man or woman, one vote.” Dev had the good humor to flinch at his gaffe. Grace went on. “We have not had a full census in fifty years, since Stone decided we’d have the Governor he appointed. Without a certified census, we can’t tell who represents how many. Does that answer your question?”

Dev’s smile faded under her temper. “No, it does not. We have to represent the people who sent us. We all know that I stand for two or three hundred times as many people as you do. We can’t do a simple one mayor, one vote. It’s not fair.”

“That’s not a question, Dev,” someone shouted from halfway down the table. “Quit arguing with the woman or Gus and me’ll throw you out.” The murmur in the hall was going Grace’s way—there were a lot more small towns than large ones. That had been one of the main problems of the old Council of Elders, according to what Grace’s grandpa had told her. Stone resolved the problem before Alkalurops ever did.

“May I rise for a question, ma’am?”

This time the speaker was from down the table. A gray-haired man in a Terran business suit stood up. “Sir, I don’t know how to recognize you,” Grace said, intent on not yielding the floor quite so quickly this time.

“I am Theobald Chizhenzki, Local Manager for Kimberly-Somtog Minerals and Metallurgy. My associate here”—he indicated a thin, balding man beside him—“is Thomas Pennypage, General Manager for Howard-Kennicutt Extraction Operations. We were sent here by the Industrial Trade Group. The ITG employs over four percent of your planet’s workforce, either full-time, contract or floating temps. A good estimate of people who live off the stones we pay in salary is twenty-five percent of everyone here. Even you independent miners benefit from the spare parts we warehouse here because we want them when we need them. How large do you think the selection would be at your local ’Mech or truck dealership if we didn’t buy half of what they import each year?”