‘Do I get a choice?’

‘No. I’m sorry, my love. None of us does, not any more. This has grown too big to take the feelings of one person into account.’

‘Are we really going to do this?’ Slvasta wasn’t even sure if he was asking this out loud. ‘I mean, overthrowing the Captain? It’s just so . . . so outrageous. Sometimes I have to check I’m still real, that I’m not living some dream in the Heart. How did we ever do this? Put all this together?’

‘We did it because it was right. And it must be right, because it’s worked. Everything is ready.’

‘Yeah.’ That part was as much a mystery to him as the rest. The four of them had spent so long talking and arguing about what had to be done physically to achieve success. How do you march a force of armed men through a city to take out the top of the existing government, and have that accepted by everyone else? So many ideas dismissed, so many details expanded, strategies planned.

‘We just have to wait. Once you’re elected to the National Council, you—’

‘—become the authentic voice of the disaffected. Up pops my credibility and with it my legitimacy. Yes. Yes.’

‘And if we give the underclass enough to protest about, and the Council doesn’t listen – because it won’t; it’s full of people like Tuksbury – then we have the justification to launch the revolution.’

‘I know.’ Always there was the doubt. The way the rich with their fancy accountants avoided their fair share of taxes made him furious, and proper taxes for all was a priority for afterwards. But they were the ones planning on sabotaging the city’s water, creating disruption and suffering; it would be their activists who blew up the rail bridges, which would increase Varlan’s economic woes. Without them, things would carry on as they always did, which wasn’t that bad . . .

Bethaneve licked her lips. ‘Let me see. What I can do to perk you up?’

Even though she’d already satiated him in the bath, he knew he would be erect again when she wanted him to be. Her sexual skill was something he never questioned. No one with half a brain asked about previous loves, but still, some small bad part of his mind kept wondering about her and Coulan – if he’d been the one who’d taught her so much about what men truly enjoyed in bed. If it had been his touch which had encouraged her to cast off her inhibitions.

Fingers caressed him with nonchalant skill, then teekay so soft and slow it was torment plucked individual nerve strands in his cock. His flesh betrayed him immediately, igniting the pleasure pathways directly into his brain. He watched in awe as the lace robe flowed down over her skin like liquid gossamer, inflaming him still further.

‘A month,’ she whispered as she straddled him. ‘A month after the election. That will be the right time. The perfect time. That will be when you lead us forward and take control of the whole world. Does that satisfy you? Is that what you want?’ Her teekay crept around his balls like fronds of arctic frost, gripping mercilessly to balance him perfectly on the edge between pain and ecstasy.

‘Yes,’ he cried, ‘Oh Giu, yes!’ Not knowing or caring what he was agreeing with any more.

2

Some people simply couldn’t be arsed – especially those who looked down on politicians and politics with the same contempt as they would regard a smear of animal dung on their boot sole. But still, many more did care, turning out to vote, making the effort. Outside some polling stations where Democratic Unity had put forward a full field of candidates for borough council seats, the sheriffs were unaccountably missing. In their stead, Citizens’ Dawn toughs watched over the free private vote, making sure the cross went in the right place. Wherever that happened, the knowledge slipped through Bethaneve’s communication network and local Democratic Unity activists arrived, demanding privacy and freedom from intimidation. Fights broke out, but they were sporadic, with the sheriffs finally turning up only to cart both sides off to the local station where they sat out the rest of the day cooling off in the drunk tank.

Then there were cases of people being told they weren’t on the borough voting registry. There was nothing Bethaneve could do about that. But Tovakar, Andricea and Yannrith each had their own missions, running cells to intercept postal ballots that had been in storage for the last month. Citizens’ Dawn had been adding to the envelopes with their own false voters – dead or nonexistent. Those sacks were discreetly swapped with alternatives full of the same fantasy people, but now voting for Democratic Unity.

Some borough voting forms were in short supply.

Officials never turned up to open voting stations.

Four Democratic Unity candidates were arrested on charges ranging from tax evasion to assault, making their candidacies invalid.

It was another unremarkable election day on Bienvenido.

Despite everything the establishment threw at them, Democratic Unity’s vote held solid in their strongholds of the more deprived boroughs. Slvasta, who arrived at Langley’s council hall at five o’clock in the afternoon for the count, was ’pathed reports from party officials right across the city. Turn-out had been good. Interference was about what they expected. By eight o’clock, results were starting to come in. With a third of the thirty-three borough councils in the city up for election, five of them were shaping up to be Democratic Unity boroughs, with another three predicted to have no one party with an overall majority, and Citizens’ Dawn claiming the remaining three (the richest boroughs). For them it was a disaster.

Five National Council seats in or around the capital were also being contested, along with a hundred more across the continent. In Langley, it was obvious from the moment the first sealed voting sacks were opened who was going to win. Tuksbury hadn’t even been seen in public since the day Hilltop Eye published his tax records. Thanks to quiet surveillance by cell members, Slvasta knew he was holed up at his family estate just outside Varlan.

By eleven o’clock Slvasta had been confirmed as the new National Council representative for Langley. He gave a short thank-you speech (written by Coulan and Bethaneve) to his delighted supporters. By midnight the results for the Varlan boroughs were verified. Democratic Unity had won five outright, one more was theirs thanks to a coalition agreement with three independent councillors, Citizens’ Dawn had four, and one was left without a majority party.

‘Seven councils, counting Nalani,’ Slvasta said as he walked home with Bethaneve, Javier and Coulan. ‘That’s amazing. Really, it is.’ The dark streets had a lot of pedestrians and cabs for the time of night, all of them going home after the count. High overhead, Andricea’s mod-bird kept level with them, its superb eyesight vigilant for trouble. Yannrith himself was barely a hundred metres away, and carrying two pistols. There were other party members close by, ready to rush in at a single ’pathed alert.

Javier had insisted on the precautions.

‘You’ll have to resign from Nalani tomorrow morning,’ Coulan said. ‘You can’t sit on two councils.’

‘You’re the only Democratic Unity candidate to get a National Council seat,’ Javier said; he sounded regretful.

‘Bapek gave them a good run for their money in Denbridge,’ Bethaneve said. ‘Thirty-two per cent.’

‘Denbridge is over the river,’ Javier said. ‘Large middle- and working-class population. Shame we couldn’t win it.’

‘We didn’t win Langley,’ Slvasta said. ‘We were given it, remember?’

‘Yeah, and are they ever going to regret that,’ Bethaneve said happily. ‘They think that’s a bribe to keep us in line. Well, even if they survi—’

A wide corona of bright orange light flared across the southern skyline, silhouetting the rooftops and chimney stacks. They saw the flickering haze of a fireball ascending at the centre of it, wreathed in churning black smoke. Seconds later, the sound of the explosion rolled across them.