"You don't have to be worried," she said. They made hernervous. Like something was going to happen. "Calm down. It's just the waiters."

They looked at her, very sober. But they didn't stop watching things.

Just as serious and just as sober as they were in the game.

The waiter brought their drinks and they looked at him, all over, real fast, so fast it was hard to see them do it, but she knew they were doing it because she was watching.

Nothing like Nelly.

Uncle Denys talked about being safe in the halls. And got her two azi who thought the waiter was going to jump them. "Listen," she said, and two serious faces turned toward her and listened,azi-like. "Sometimes we can just have fun, all right? Nobody's going to get us here. I know all these people."

They calmed right down. Like it was magic. Like she had psyched them exactly right. She let go a little breath and felt proud of herself.They sipped their soft drinks and when the sandwiches came with all the extra stuff that came with them they were real impressed.

They liked it. She could tell. But: "I can't eat this much," Florian said, worried-like. "I'm sorry."

"That's all right. Quit worrying about things. Hear?"

"Yes, sera."

She looked at Florian, and looked at Catlin, and all that seriousness; and thought of ways to un-serious them; and then remembered that they were azi, and it was their psychset to be like that, which meant you couldn't doa lot of things with them.

But they weren't stupid. Not at all. Alphas were like Ollie. And that meant they could take a lot that Nelly never could. Like in the game: she pushed them with everything she had, and they didn't get mad and they didn't get upset.

They were a big job. But not toobig for her.

Then she thought, not for the first time that morning, that they were a Responsibility. And you didn't take on azi and then just dump them, ever. Uncle Denys was right. You didn't get people for presents. You got somebody who wanted to love you, and you couldn't ever just move away and leave them.

(Maman did, she thought, and it hurt, the way it always hurt when that thought popped up. Maman did. But maman didn't want to. Maman had been worried and upset for a long time before she went away.)

She would have to write and tell maman about them, fast, so maman would know she had to tell uncle Denys to send them with her. Because she couldn't just leave them. She knew what that felt like.

She wished she had gotten to pick them out, because her household was getting complicated; she would much rather have an Ollie for hers, and one and not two. She could have said no. Maybe she should have said no, and not let uncle Denys give them to her. She had thought she could sort of go along with it. Like everything else.

Till they looked at her that way over at the hospital, and they just sort of psyched her, not meaning to, except they wanted to go with her so much; and she had wanted somebody to be with her, just as bad.

So now they were stuck with each other. And she couldn't leave them by themselves. Not ever.

Verbal Text from:

A QUESTION OF UNION

Union Civics Series: #3

Reseune Educational Publications: 9799-8734-3 approved for 80+

Union, as conceived in the Constitution of 2301 and developed through the addition and amalgamation of station and world governments thereafter, was structured from the beginning as a federal system affording maximum independence to the local level. To understand Union, therefore, one must start with the establishment of a typical local government, which may be any system approved by a majority of qualified naturally born inhabitants. Note: inhabitants, not citizens. The only segments of the population disenfranchised for such elections are minors and azi, who are not counted as residents for purposes of an Initial Ballot of Choice, although azi may later be enfranchised by the local government.

An Initial Ballot of Choice is the normal civil procedure by which any polity becomes a candidate for representation in Union. The Ballot establishes the representative local Constitutional Congress, which will either validate an existing governmental structure as representing the will of the electorate, or create an entirely new structure which may then be ratified by the general Initial Electorate. Second of the duties of the Constitutional Congress after the election is to assign citizen numbers and register legal voters, i.e., all voters qualified by age and citizen numbers to cast their ballots for the Council of Nine and for the General Council of Union. Third and final duty of the Congress is the reporting of the census and the voter rolls to the Union Bureau of Citizens.

Subsequent Ballots of Choice and subsequent Congresses can be held on a majority vote of the local electorate, or by order of the Supreme Court of Union after due process of law. In such a re-polling of the local electorate, all native-born residents and emigrated or immigrated residents are eligible in that vote, including azi who hold modified citizen status.

Within Union, the Council of Nine represents the nine occupational electorates of Union, across all Union citizen rolls. Within those occupational electorates, votes are weighted according to registered level of expertise: i.e., most voters in, say, the Science electorate are factored at one, but a lab tech with a certain number of years' experience may merit a two; while a scientist of high professional rating may merit as high as ten, depending on professional credentials achieved far this purpose—a considerable difference, since the factors are applied in a formula and each increment is considerable. An individual can always appeal his ranking to peer review, but most advances are virtually set with the job and experience.

When a seat on the Council of Nine falls vacant, the Secretary of the Bureau regulated by that seat will assume the position of proxy until that electorate selects a replacement; or the outgoing Councillor may appoint a different proxy.

Members of the Nine can be challenged for election at any time by the filing of an opposition candidate with sufficient signatures of the Bureau on a supporting petition.

Recently the rise of rival political parties has tended to make the vacancy of a seat the occasion of a partisan contention, and a challenge to a seat almost inevitably partisan. This has rendered the position of Secretary potentially more vulnerable, and increases the importance of the internal Bureau support structure and the administrative professionals which are necessary for smooth operation through changes in upper-tier administration.

The Councillor sets policy in a Bureau. The Secretary, who is appointed, frames guidelines and issues administrative orders. The various department heads implement the orders and report up the chain through the Secretary to the Councillor and through the Councillor to the Council of Nine.

The Council of Nine can initiate and vote on bills, particularly as touches the budget of the Bureaus, and national policy toward outsiders, but a unanimous vote by the delegation of any local unit can veto a law which applies only to that unit to the exclusion of others, which then will require a two-thirds majority in the General Council and a majority of the Council of Nine to override. The principle of local rule thus takes precedence over all but the most unanimous vote in Union.

A simple majority of the Nine is sufficient to pass a bill into law, unless overridden by a simple vote of the General Council of Union, which consists of one ambassador and a certain number of representatives from each world or station in the Union, according to population.