Geosynchron (32 page)

"Who cares? You know this isn't going to be that easy. Once the
public sees what they're going to have to give up for Grand Reunification, those numbers are going to start sinking fast. Everyone's going to
get bogged down in details. This movement could take twenty years
to get anywhere."

"It might," admitted Jara. "But nobody said movements had to be
fast."

As if to demonstrate the veracity of her comment, Magan's forces
were running over two hours late, leaving a lot of drudges and eager
supporters sweating in the midday sun. Jara had a sudden fear that Len
Borda had decided to invade the Islands after all, or maybe he had
attacked Magan's hoverbirds to prevent them from slipping behind the
unconnectible curtain. But no, General Cheronna confirmed that Borda
had chosen not to engage the enemy; his hoverbirds still sat unmoving
in the middle of the ocean, as if unmanned. Magan's delay was simply
a matter of too few officers chasing too many details, or what High
Executive Tul Jabbor had called the natural friction of the world.

The delay was not a bad thing for Jara, as she had a chance to catch
up on news from the outside world. Josiah's manifesto had achieved an
astounding eighty percent penetration in a matter of hours. Some were
predicting that this could turn out to be the world's most-read document of the past five years, though exactly how one could measure that
was unclear. The unconnectible drudges were largely focusing on
Josiah's proposal for Reunification (a word that had already made it into the vernacular and inspired several dozen Jamm compositions and
a short drama starring Bill Rixx). But all the connectible drudges cared
about was the revelation that Margaret Surina had had a son. Sen Sivv
Sor and John Ridglee quickly began speculating why Josiah had kept
his identity a secret for so long. Mah Lo Vertiginous proclaimed
himself dubious about the whole thing, all evidence to the contrary.
Kristella Krodor, meanwhile, was busy running Josiah Surina's official
photograph through dozens of black market phrenology programs and
making all sorts of outrageous claims about the young Islander's
character.

But the laugh of the day belonged to Suheil and Jayze Surina. The
two had officially petitioned the courts in Andra Pradesh to nullify the
agreement they had signed with Jara-an agreement that forty-eight
hours earlier they had held up as a model of modern contractual law.
The judges, of course, said no. Certainly there was a posse of lawyers in
the Surina compound right now searching for any conceivable loophole
to deny Josiah his heritage.

Jara was busy perusing Suheil and Jayze's apoplectic statement to
the drudges, full of paranoid accusations and colorful euphemisms for
the Islanders, when Magan's hoverbirds came zipping out of the mist
a kilometer or so offshore. Josiah, Chandler, and General Cheronna
stood stiffly at attention as the first vehicle arced down to the dock and
came to a smooth stop.

The door opened, and out stepped Quell.

It was only now, with father and son standing face to face, that Jara
could see the resemblance between the two. Josiah's face and mannerisms might have come straight from the maternal line; but the muscular torso, the proud posture, and the firm browline-those were all
traits he had inherited from Quell. Jara wished she had a better angle
to see the expressions on their faces. According to Chandler, it had
been many months since the two had seen each other. To say they had
a lot to talk about was a considerable understatement. But here, in front of the world, the pair knew that their duty was to shake hands
politely and keep their composure. They performed admirably.

Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee walked off the hoverbird
next. His face was perfectly impassive as he offered a respectful bow to
Josiah, then clasped the Islander's hand for a shake. There were some
pro forma words being exchanged up there, but Jara couldn't hear
them. She turned towards Benyamin with a question on her lips, but
was surprised to see someone else standing in his place.

The Council's chief solicitor, Rey Gonerev.

"Towards Perfection, Jara," said the Blade. On her face was the
same smile Jara had seen the last time they were together: not an
expression of mockery or disdain, but the smile of an equal. She wondered if they might have formed a friendship had they met under different circumstances.

"And to you too," replied the fiefcorp master. "Looks like you and
Magan have pulled off quite a coup here."

"It's a beginning," nodded Gonerev with the slightest of shrugs.

"A beginning? You've got the Islanders on your side and a base
that's free from multi projections. Not to mention public opinion and
the legal title to MultiReal. Seems to me you've got Len Borda in quite
a bind."

The Blade reached up to toy idly with the braids of her hair. "You
forget that we're still badly outnumbered," she said. "Don't underestimate Len Borda when he's cornered. There's a reason he's held onto
power for so long. He knows there's one trump card that has yet to be
played-and that's MultiReal. If Natch ends up in Borda's hands, none
of this will make the least bit of difference." Gonerev inclined her head
in the direction of the dock, where Josiah and Magan were still
exchanging stilted, prescripted words for the benefit of the drudges.

All of this cozy familiarity was beginning to irk Jara. She wasn't
necessarily upset at the outcome here, having privately concluded that
the lieutenant executive was the lesser of two evils. But it wasn't as if Magan Kai Lee had nothing to answer for. It wasn't as if he represented
some radiant new governing philosophy, instead of representing ... no
philosophy at all. "So does Magan really intend to keep his promises?"
Jara snapped. "Is he really going to pursue Grand Reunification as high
executive? Or is this just for show?"

Rey Gonerev calibrated her words carefully. "I think you'll find
that Magan Kai Lee is a man of his word," she said. "He doesn't hold
pointless grudges, and he really does want what's best for the Islanders.
As for Reunification ..." The solicitor sighed. "We'll need to study it,
of course."

"So you admit this wasn't part of your plan?"

"Magan's not clairvoyant," replied the Blade with a relaxed laugh.
"You give him much too much credit. Do you really think he knew
what advice you were going to give to the Islanders? He can't predict
and manipulate events-he just knows how to ride them once they
happen. That's the art of politics-being able to take credit for whatever happens, whether it's what you want or not."

Jara pressed on. "And is Reunification something Magan wants?
Did the Islanders make the right decision letting him behind the curtain instead of Borda?"

"Yes. They'll get a better deal with Magan than they would with
Len Borda. I won't lie to you. Things might not turn out exactly like
the Islanders are hoping, but I'm sure they'll be better for it in the long
run. History will vindicate their decision."

The fiefcorp master snorted. "I wouldn't be so sure. There's
nothing sacrosanct about history. History is written by the ones with
the best marketing consultants."

22

The orbital colony of 49th Heaven consisted of seven concentric rings
joined by a single avenue that pierced the whole like the arrow in a
bull's eye.

Back in the days of the colony's founding, three hundred years
prior, that broad connecting corridor was patrolled by monks in the
service of Jesus Elijah Muhammad, last of the so-called Three Jesuses.
Muhammad had learned from the missteps of his predecessors, Jesus
Joshua Smith, and Jesus Cortez, who had whipped adherents of the
world's major religions to ruinous violence. But Jesus Elijah
Muhammad was a man of forethought and logic; he had a system. As
his religion was a hyperrational amalgam of existing faiths, the orbital
colony he built was an ultramethodical place of worship. Newcomers
arrived in the outermost ring of 49th Heaven. As they grew in
wisdom, they gradually received permission from the Muhammadan
monks to progress to the next ring inward. The central ring was
reserved for only the most pious, the most holy, the most dedicated.
When the central ring of 49th Heaven reaches capacity, Jesus Elijah
Muhammad once proclaimed, God's Kingdom on Earth will begin.

Muhammad brought everything he needed to make 49th Heaven
successful, except for good accountants. Within a generation, the
colony was insolvent.

In an irony that was not lost on the rest of the world, 49th Heaven
was revived decades later by a consortium of gambling cartels. The cartels restored the colony to its original luster and turned it into a
sybaritic resort. The Lunar tycoons who flocked there were amused to
find that the new owners of 49th Heaven had flipped Jesus
Muhammad's hierarchy on its head. Now the outer rings were filled
with everyday titillations, while the innermost rings were reserved for only the most exclusive of customers and the most decadent of vices.
Hallucinogenic black code, sexual slavery, extreme games of chance.
When the central ring of 49th Heaven reaches capacity, High Executive Par
Padron once declared in a fit of righteous rage, I'm going to blast it out
of the fucking sky.

Padron was not the only one in the Terran centralized government
who chafed at the excesses of 49th Heaven. Black code flowed freely
out of the inner rings, while people and resources got sucked in and
were never heard from again. But what could the government do about
it? The colony's charter was covered with the prickly language of
lawyers, and the Defense and Wellness Council's jurisdiction there was
murky. High executives dating back to Par Padron regularly threatened to blow up 49th Heaven, or at the very least, shut it down. But
even Zetarysis the Mad blanched at the thought of dealing with
twenty thousand refugees, many of whom would likely be strung out
on black code. And so the gambling cartels tried to keep the entertainments in the outer rings palatable, and the Council pretended it didn't
know what was happening in the inner rings.

Nobody's forced to live in those inner rings, government officials said to
justify their inaction. The people who indulge in those vices do so by their own
choice.

Technically speaking, they were correct.

Rodrigo stumbled out of the bodega hard on the trail of Chomp. He
tried and failed to remember the last time he had tasted something
that hadn't emerged from a laboratory tank, something that had a
place in the hierarchy of nature. Too long.

Conventional wisdom said that the best marks could be found in
the bodegas, but Rodrigo didn't believe it. The ones you picked up in
the bodegas were usually the mean ones: businesspeople working off the shame of deals gone sour, black code pushers working up the
ferocity to ensure that their deals didn't. Rodrigo had spent too many
mornings huddled in the dark corners of inner-ring bodegas, trying to
hold it together while his OCHREs patched up wounds from a night
of one-sided passion. Too many encounters had begun with an overture
of I guess you made it through after all, and too many had concluded with
a coda of You'll live.