He got little in return. She was still close-mouthed about her family and personal history. Yet there was a connection. They shared something in common, even if it was unspoken. He knew in his heart that they were somehow very much alike.

Later, the tempo of the music picked up, and they danced until they fell, exhausted and laughing, into each other’s arms. Her lips found his, and he was lost. When he regained his senses, he was suddenly aware of how many people were around, and he didn’t want to share her with anyone.

She seemed to sense his concern. She grabbed his hand. “Come with me. I know someplace where we can be alone.”

He had a flash of guilt, and his sense of duty tugged at him. “Kinston said he had people he wanted me to meet.”

She leaned close against his chest, and looked up into his eyes. “It’s early for one of these things. The real business won’t happen until nearly dawn, when half the guests have already left.” She stepped back and tugged at his hand.

She led him past the bar, through a servant’s passage and down a narrow staircase that led underground. They passed through a heavy iron door at the bottom and into a large room lined with utilitarian bunk beds, and doors leading to other passages.

He looked around. “What is this place?”

“Catacombs. Kind of a defensive shelter. All the older buildings here have them. Shensi hasn’t been attacked in a long time, but it’s a strong local tradition.”

“Cozy,” he said.

She reached up with one hand and quickly opened the top button of his uniform. Her fingers brushed his chest, and then hooked into the front of his jacket, pulling him down with her onto one of the beds. “Fully equipped,” she said softly, “with everything needed in an emergency.”

Fairview Tower Hotel

Whitehorse, Shensi

Prefecture V, The Republic

21 November 3134

Erik awoke in an unfamiliar place, and it took him a moment to recognize his hotel room. He was disappointed to discover that Elsa was gone. He rolled over to smell her perfume on the pillow, and spotted a note on the night table. He read it. She had an early class, and promised to meet him for lunch.

Erik had his own appointment with Ozark Kinston, to review the previous evening’s events. He smiled.

The official ones, anyway.

He and Elsa had emerged from their hideaway in time for the appointed meetings. Erik had pleaded his case to several men and women, all of whom Kinston swore were important, and all of whom showed, or at least feigned, some degree of interest in what he had to say.

Erik had expected that Elsa would excuse herself when the meetings started, but she was there till the end—listening, yes, but also working the room quietly to help win people to his cause. In the end, Kinston assured him that they had swayed critical votes, but Erik had only his word to prove it. As was usual with the local politics, he was never sure what he was accomplishing.

Instead, his thoughts flashed back to before the meetings, when he and Elsa had been curled together in the bomb-shelter cot. There had been an exchange. At the time it had seemed like a trifle, casual pillow talk, the sort of random thoughts that sometimes surfaced at such moments.

In retrospect, it was the most candid moment Elsa had allowed him. It had started when she’d asked a simple but unexpected question, “Have you ever been to the circus?”

“There are still circuses? I thought they were only in old books and fairy tales.”

“There’s at least one, Captain Rose’s Traveling Extravaganza. No reason you should have ever seen it, or even heard of it. For all I know, that’s the only one left, and it’s a big galaxy. For that matter, maybe even it’s gone now. It was a long time ago.

“But they used to travel from planet to planet in a couple of ancient Leopard DropShips, stripped of their weapons—so old they looked like they’d crumble if you touched them. They were painted in gaudy colors, and had murals and billboards of the acts on the sides.

“My parents took me to the show. I might have been eight or nine years old. The star act was a family of high-wire acrobats, and the ringmaster announced that this was to be the debut of their youngest member as a soloist. I was so excited. She was a girl, and I identified with her at once. She seemed like she wasn’t much older than me, though I now suspect she was probably a smallish teenager. She got up on the wire, high over our heads, all alone, with only a pole to help her keep her balance.

“She was so graceful, so beautiful, so confident—and I felt like I was up there with her. Every eye was on her, and I wanted to be just like her: the star of the show.”

“You are a star,” he’d said, but she had ignored the compliment, as though eager to get on with the story.

“Things were fine, until she got to the middle of the wire. Then something went wrong. I never knew what. Perhaps she just looked down. But she stumbled, staggered—and I remember that she dropped the pole. It fell for a long time, and as it clattered to the arena floor, I realized that there was no net.

“I looked back to the girl. She had fallen—one knee on the wire, arms out, desperately trying to keep her balance. I could see her family on a platform at the end of the wire, wanting to go to her, but afraid they’d just make her fall. And it was so far back. So far to the other side. She looked very small.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. My parents grabbed me, kept me from seeing, and whisked us out the nearest exit. They never spoke of it again. Later, when I was older, I wondered. I knew I could go look it up in the old news databases, see if a girl fell that day. See if she was hurt. See if she was killed.”

“Did you?”

“I never had the courage. As long as I don’t look it up, she’s the way I last saw her: all alone on the wire. But she’s okay. Maybe she’ll stand up. Maybe she’ll find her balance, and walk back to safety. Maybe.”

And then the moment was over. They’d dressed and gone back upstairs and to their meetings. She’d returned with him to the hotel, but after that she was guarded.

As he showered and dressed, he phoned his assistant and checked his messages. As he’d instructed, Kinston had been forwarded the latest batch of invitations, which seemed to come in at the rate of two or three a day. Most seemed considerably beneath the power level at which Erik needed to operate, but only Kinston could tell him for sure.

He had breakfast with his aide in the hotel’s restaurant. On impulse, he had flowers delivered to Elsa’s apartment. Then he called his car around and left for his meeting with Kinston.

Kinston was working the Capitol Building that morning, so they’d arranged to meet in the rotunda there. As they drove up to the diplomatic entrance, Erik was struck by how attractive the building was. There were three golden domes over the central rotunda, and three long wings projecting outward, each pointing toward a different House of Parliament.

The whole compound was set on a triangular tree-dotted lot surrounded by a low granite wall; each side of the building seemed to present a flawless public face to the world. Erik wondered where the mechanicals were located—the inevitable service entrances and loading docks. There were also no obvious connections to the Houses of Parliament. He remembered what Elsa had said about catacombs. He suspected that much of the complex was underground, with tunnels—perhaps even subways—connecting the three Houses, and service-tunnel entrances that might be located blocks away from the actual complex.