written those words and was pleased with the way they sounded as she added her voice to the chorus of agreement from those seated around her.
“The fi?rst step,” Jakov continued, “is to issue a carefully worded press release. A confi?rmation vote will be held soon thereafter. With that out of the way, we’ll be free to tackle some new initiatives, which could trim years off the confl?ict and save millions of lives. More on that soon.”
Doma-Sa’s hard fl?inty eyes made contact with ChienChu’s artifi?cial orbs at that point, and even though they were from very different cultures, each knew what the other was thinking. There was only one way that Jakov and his sycophants could shorten the war—and that was to give the bugs a large portion of what they wanted. A period of relative peace might follow such an agreement. But at what price? Because ultimately the bugs would settle for nothing less than everything. A servo whined as the businessman’s hand went up. “May I say something?”
It had been Jakov’s hope, and Wilmot’s as well, that neither Chien-Chu nor Doma-Sa would hear about the meeting quickly enough to attend. But both were present, and given the past president’s undiminished popularity, there was little the vice president could do but acquiesce.
“Of course!” Jakov said heartily. “What’s on your mind?”
“Simply this,” the cyborg said bleakly. “We know the president was planning to assume a false identity in order to blend in with the other POWs. So, if you announce that Nankool is missing, the bugs may very well take another look at the prisoners and quite possibly identify him. At that point the Ramanthians will almost certainly make some very public demands. What will happen then? Especially if it looks like you were in a hurry to succeed him?”
Nankool was popular, very popular, so Jakov knew what would happen. A lot of voters would be unhappy with him. So much so that they might seek to block or even reverse his confi?rmation. Especially if ex-president Chien- Chu stood ready to oppose him. But the facts were the facts, and like it or not, the cyborg would have to bow to reality. “You make an excellent point,” Jakov replied smoothly. “But surely you don’t believe we can wait indefinitely. . . . How would we explain the president’s continued absence?”
Jakov had a point, and Chien-Chu knew it, so the entrepreneur went for the best deal he thought he could get. The key was to buy time and hope that word of Nankool’s fate would somehow fi?lter in. Then, if the president was dead, the cyborg would throw his support behind Jakov and try to exert infl?uence on whatever decisions the politician made. “Thirty days,” Chien-Chu said soberly. “Let’s give the intelligence-gathering process thirty days. Then, if there’s no word of the president’s fate, I will support your plan.”
The vice president would have preferred fi?fteen days, or no days, but didn’t want to dicker in front of his staff. That would not only appear unseemly but smack of desperation. Besides, assuming that Chien-Chu kept his word, the expresident’s support would virtually guarantee a speedy confi?rmation process. “Thirty days it is then,” Jakov allowed. “In the meantime, it’s absolutely imperative to keep the lid on. Is everyone agreed?”
There was a chorus of assent, but Wilmot knew her sponsor was likely to blame her for the way the meeting had gone, since she was the one who had put the idea forward. But Nankool was dead, Wilmot felt sure of that, and the day of succession would come. And when it did, ChienChu, his stuck-up niece, and the rest of Nankool’s toadies were going to pay. The thought pleased the assistant undersecretary so much that she was smiling as the meeting came to an end.
PLANET EARTH, THE CONFEDERACY OF SENTIENT BEINGS
Having surrendered the rental car to the traffi?c control system, Santana took his hands off the steering wheel and pushed the seat away from the dashboard. It was early afternoon, the Vanderveen estate was behind him, and he was happy to be free of it. Not that Charles and Margaret Vanderveen hadn’t been kind to him. They had. But what all of them had in common was Christine, and without her there to bind the three of them together, dinner had been stiff and awkward.
Diplomat Charles Vanderveen had taken the opportunity to tell his wife about the importance of the hypercom, Santana’s role in capturing the all-important prototype, and his recent promotion, all intended to build the offi?cer up. A kindness Santana wouldn’t forget.
But when dessert was served, and Santana announced his intention to leave the following morning, neither one of the Vanderveens objected. And now, as the car carried the legionnaire south into the San Diego-Tijuana metroplex, Santana was looking for a way to kill some time. Fortunately, there was a ship lifting for Adobe in two days. That would allow him to save some leave and rejoin the 1st Cavalry Regiment (1st REC) earlier than planned. Now that he was a captain, Colonel Kobbi would almost certainly give him a company to command. And, after the casualties suffered on Savas, it would be necessary to create it from scratch. It was a task the offi?cer looked forward to and dreaded at the same time.
The vehicle’s interior lights came on as the sprawling city blocked the sun, and the car entered the maze of subsurface highways and roads that fed the teeming beast above. A hab so large that the westernmost portion of it fl?oated on the surface of the Pacifi?c Ocean. But Santana couldn’t afford the pleasures available to people like the Vanderveens, not on a captain’s salary, and felt his ears pop as the car spiraled down toward the Military Entertainment Zone (MEZ), where his credits would stretch further.
An hour later Santana had checked into a clean but nofrills hotel, stashed his luggage in his room, and was out on the street. Not a normal street, since the “sky” consisted of a video mosaic, but a long passageway lined by garish casinos, sex emporiums, tattoo parlors, cheap eateries, discount stores, and recruiting offi?ces.
Nor was Santana alone. Because hundreds of sailors, marines, and legionnaires fl?owed around him as they searched the subterranean environment for something new to see, taste, or feel. Most were bio bods, but there were cyborgs, too, all of whom wore utilitarian spiderlike bodies rather than war forms. Ex-criminals for the most part, who had chosen a sort of half-life over no life, and served a very real need. Especially during a period when the Confederacy was literally fi?ghting for its life. Even if people on planets like Earth seemed unaware of that fact as they continued to lead their comfortable lives.
The legionnaire was dressed in nondescript civvies, but the denizens of the MEZ knew Santana for what he was, and it wasn’t long before hustlers, whores, and con men began to call out from doorways, sidle up to tug at his sleeve, and pitch him via holos that exploded into a million motes of light as he passed through them. Most were little more than human sediment who, lacking the initiative to do something better with their lives, lived at the bottom of the MEZ cesspool. But there were some, like the one-armed wretch who sat with her back to a wall and had a brain box clutched between her bony knees, who fell into a different category. Men, women, and borgs who had been used by society only to be tossed away when their bodies refused to accept a transplant, or they became addicted to painkillers, or their minds crumbled under the strain of what they had seen and done. Santana paused in front of the emaciated woman, saw the 2nd REP’s triangular insignia that had been tattooed onto her stump, and nodded politely. “When were you discharged?”
The ex-legionnaire knew an offi?cer when she saw one, even if he was in civvies, and sat up straighter. “They put me dirtside three years ago, sir. . . . As for Quimby here,”
the vet said, as she tapped the brain box with a broken fi?ngernail. “Well, he’s been out for the better part of
