You’re getting a new wing and a director who’ll be under you. Keep it that way: she’ll have notions of her own, but you’re in charge. She’ll have a hell of a budget: a detached module, cleanroom and security lock, all on Reseune’s ticket, all strictest security. We’re reviving the Eversnow project, total security: she’ll run it. She’s all yours.

He had his little pro forma meeting with Jacques, who was looking tired and overwhelmed these days, talking about his impending retirement and an apartment on Swigert Bay, and then Yanni ran the media gauntlet to the car, which delivered him and Frank back to the hotel in ample time for a little relaxation, a drink at the bar.

And that lull offered a little opportunity for a side excursion. The hotel had a shop and the shop window, on his way to the tower lilt, had a certain trinket he wanted. He sent one of his staffers back down to buy it, gift‑wrapped, and meanwhile Frank ordered supper catered to his suite…supper for two, with a choice of entrees, with a later supper for himself: this was pure business. Critical business.

He had time for a shower, a change of clothes, nothing too informal, however. He was combing his hair–no haircut really improved it–when hotel personnel arrived, dogged by ReseuneSec, who’d have superintended the meal from the start, and Frank let them in.

They wheeled a cart in, set up the small table with a politely low arrangement of flowers, and set a pair of wine bottles onto cooling cradles, with two more in reserve…not that they might crack a second one, but it was available, a choice of dry or not; and by the time they’d finished, Frank would deserve at least one survivor.

Mikhail Corain of Citizens arrived on time at his door, with no aides, no entourage, and, hopefully, no reporters in train, unless someone had followed him up to the twentieth floor. It was a meeting that would have drawn attention–if reporters had been able to get past VIP security, or accurately figure which of fourteen high‑profile guests Corain might be visiting. Corain was, besides Councillor for Citizens, the head of the Centrist Party, and he’d been in career‑long opposition to Reseune. Certainly if he could have consigned the first Emory to hell, Mikhail Corain would have been happy to see her off. Relations with Giraud Nye had been better, but they hadn’t been warm. Relations with the second Emory? Guarded. Very guarded. It wasn’t good politics to attack a kid.

Corain didn’t look at all comfortable in coming here. But Yanni put on his own best manners, pleasantly offered his hand, offered Corain a seat at the small dining table, while Frank politely and firmly stationed ReseuneSec personnel outside the door, not inside.

Salad was local; the pork loin and the chicken were both Reseune’s, and the wines were from Pell. The after‑dinner coffee would be an Earth import. The meal encompassed a significant half of human space.

“So glad you were willing to come.” Yanni said. “Pell Sauvignon? Or Riesling?”

“The Sauvignon,” Corain said, and Frank quietly prepared that bottle. “Frank,” Corain said, by way of greeting, and question. “Good evening, Frank.”

“Good evening, ser.” Frank smiled at him, perfectly at ease in his unaccustomed role. “I’m doing the honors this evening. My discretion is impeccable. My service may not be, but I hope you’ll forgive my slips.”

Corain nodded. Given his constituency, which compassed some of the Abolitionist types, he might be uneasy about the unegalitarian situation that surrounded the dinner, but thoughts passed through his eyes, one of which was surely that he’d rather Frank do what he was doing, and not have a leak of what they said here.

Yanni reckoned so, at least, and lifted his glass. “Who’d have thought we’d sit at one well‑stocked table? Here’s to…what shall we call it, ser?”

“Common sense,” Corain shot back, quick on his mental feet, and glasses touched. They drank. “Did Patil agree?”

“Agreed and signed this afternoon,” Yanni said, while Frank served the salad. “She’s on board. I’ve sent a message to Ollie Strassen, at Far‑gone; I just finished a meeting with Spurlin, and he’s on board.”

“Busy day you’ve had, ser.”

“Very.”

“So,” Corain said. “How is Reseune faring these days, without the Nyes? A lot more decision‑making on your desk? Or do we perhaps represent someone else? I haven’t had that ever made clear, and I’d like to have, before the vote tomorrow.”

Not a stupid man, Corain: sensing, correctly, that his own position, though he’d been in on the planning–not something Defense knew–now came down to the one vote that could and would stop the Eversnow project. His having the critical vote held advantages very much worth exploiting…judiciously, getting full value for the transaction.

What Corain surmised was unfortunately quite true: Reseune under the Nyes, while powerful, hadn’t wielded the power it had under the first Ari; Reseune after the Nyes was perceived as yet another degree weakened. People believed, to a certain extent correctly, that the Schwartz administration was even more of a caretaker administration, but certain people saw that he was not averse to putting his own agenda forward, and hoped that it might represent a third force inside Reseune. It was a period in which concessions might be gotten, in which Reseune’s power might be trimmed a bit, in which difficult agreements might be forced–conditions the first Ari, or the Nyes, would never have agreed to, and Yanni Schwartz might, to get what he wanted. That was the notion Corain seemed to have about him.

But he had held these sessions with Patil, Spurlin, and now Corain, in a chosen order and for a very good reason. He was a psychmaster, as the popular term was, out of Reseune, and sensible people in Corain’s position, whatever their personal feelings, were open to a presentation of simple, career‑affecting facts. He’d laid the foundation for this move. He’d gotten Corain interested before he went to Patil, he’d gotten Defense aboard, which Corain couldn’t do–and flatly told Jacques to resign and throw his support to Spurlin or see consequences to his reputation and his retirement income. Science was a key player, and Yanni played this one for all he was worth.

“This is your chance,” Yanni said pleasantly, “to get something. By the time my successor gets hold of the project, which will be some few years yet, things will be underway, you’llsee the terraforming underway, and there’ll be nothing much worth remediating at Eversnow. We’ve extracted microbes from the deep probes–not highly varied, at four widely separated sites. That’s the total local life. We have the samples. So it’s my estimation that young Emory won’t try. She’ll go with what’s easiest, and she won’t do a thing to stop it.”

“Seems she already does things. Huge expenditures. New building at Reseune. The new labs upriver. My informants say they’re both her projects.”

“Keeps her busy,” Yanni said.

“Pricey toys, ser.”

“Useful in the long run. Reseune had a proven security problem. It won’t, hereafter.”

“Security problem.” The breath of a laugh. Then total sobriety. “So you’ve just brought the first Ariane’s murderer back to Reseune. That just baffles hell out of me.”

Oh, the man wanted to know about that.

“Shouldn’t baffle you at all,” Yanni said. “He wasn’t guilty.”

“You admit it?”

“Jordan didn’t like Ari. But he wasn’t guilty of murder.”

There was a small pause in Corain’s demolition of the salad. The fork went down.

“And he agreed to detention,” Yanni said. “In his best interest.”

“And you admit that,” Corain said. Frank took the nearly empty salad plate. And Yanni’s. Corain never looked down. Just sat, with a troubled look on his face. “Why did he agree?” Corain asked finally.

“He had no choice. It was an assignment. For us? Expediency. The need to get Reseune going again. It was paralyzed. The Nyes were trying to get contracts honored, agreements handled… He’d broken no laws. But he’d violated Reseune policy.”