“The Curosa guaranteed their drive for a million years.” Fischer rustled his notes impatiently.
“Do years mean the same for them as they do for us?”
The Chief Adviser paused. “I don’t know.” He looked thoughtful, then said, “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.”
Adrian thought it over. “I suppose not.” He sighed. “So what about Lord Muir?”
Numberless council meetings later, Adrian barely spared a glance at the alien energies that cast their glow on the walls. “Pretty colors today,” he murmured, pushing some hastily penciled notes toward Fischer.
“Umm. Yes, aren’t they.” Fischer glanced at them, and said, “Have you seen these trash collection figures?”
“Uh-huh. You think Muir is making them up, or—”
He broke off as the eight other council members began filing into the room. Fischer rose to his feet. When the table was full, Adrian said, “Please be seated, gentlemen.”
Half an hour later they’d passed without incident through a request from the chef’s guild for a new uniform insignia (granted), a suggestion for a curfew to lower crime on decks below G (turned down—“Good lord, Stephen, people have to go to work. It’s not like the curfew on court level during the Troubles. It’s just unenforceable, and why show them how powerless we are?”), a bill to raise the tax on candy by three cents for every five pounds (passed, without comment from Lord Muir, who was sensitive about his weight).
All this was well enough. But just when Adrian was looking forward to a shower and a free forty-five minutes until his scheduled dinner, Lord Baltis stood up.
This was alarming in itself. Members of the council were generally comfortable with speaking from their seats. It suggested that Lord Baltis had something of major importance to say, and Adrian, who had dedicated his few years of public service to seeing that nothing of importance was ever brought up at a council meeting unless it had already been settled, moved with the speed of a forest hare who had wandered into the sights of a cougar.
Pretending to have suddenly gone blind, Adrian focused his gaze toward the comer of the room farthest from Lord Baltis, and said, “With no new business, I think we should return to the question brought up by Lord Muir—”
Lord Baltis cleared his throat.
“A-most-timely-rethinking-of-our-maintenance-procedures—” said Adrian, the words tumbling out with remarkable speed, leaving no room for courteous interruption.
“Sir!” said Lord Baltis, who had left courtesy behind long before his fiftieth birthday, and who now, at the age of sixty-two, considered himself more than entitled to break in on anyone under twenty-five, even the Diamond Protector. Well, at least at a closed council meeting, where things were informal. “Sir, I’d like to question the protector regarding our strategy for a trade agreement with Baret Two.”
There were groans from several members. “We’ve been through all that, Ned,” said the young Lord Messina. He made a sour face toward Datchett, the recording secretary, with whose son he had a tennis engagement in half an hour.
“Not to my satisfaction, we haven’t,” said Baltis grimly. “With our basic stores down fifteen percent, I want to know why we picked a nonagricultural trading partner like Baret Two. With all respect to our lad here, if he wanted wedding lace for his bride, he could have gotten it more cheaply.”
“We’re here now, Ned,” said Messina. “Can we pass on to other things? You didn’t vote against the destination when it was proposed.”
“I was home with the flu!”
“You voted by proxy,” said Datchett, consulting his notes.
“They told me it was to be a short-term trade stop! Not a long-term one!”
“Oh, wake up, Ned! We’re already in-system! You want us to move?” Messina draped one arm over the back of his chair and turned it slightly toward the door, a move verging on rudeness.
“Gentlemen,” said Adrian, in a voice that suggested he had no opinion on the matter one way or the other, “is this a proper use of our time? I’m surprised at you, Roger.” Roger Messina looked down at the table. “Lord Baltis has brought up a valid point. A bit tardily, I’ll admit, but certainly he has a right to express his views.” Adrian smiled tolerantly. “But first, I think we’re doing our colleague Lord Muir an injustice. He had several points to make, as I recall, about our waste recycling procedures, which were very well taken. I don’t want to cut him short. Lord Muir—”
Lord Muir, a florid-faced man with a white mustache, the very picture of aristocracy, rose to his feet, not to be outdone by Ned Baltis. “First,” he said “may I draw the attention of my honorable brothers to the schedules presently published by the Department of Waste Management?”
Lord Baltis looked around and then sat down uncomfortably. Lord Muir continued in his driving, enthusiastic tones for a good quarter of an hour, while Adrian, the only person with the authority to shut him up, sat with a faint smile. Lord Muir was known for his desire to enlarge the status of his family through the design of pointless public projects. As the table chimes announced the new hour, Roger Messina looked very close to bolting from the room, but contented himself with staring grimly at Adrian, whose gentle smile never wavered.
Finally Adrian spoke kindly, “Lord Muir?”
“—the teams of the alternate day—”
“Lord Muir?”
Muir halted, looking confused. “I haven’t fully explained—”
“I know, but I’m afraid our time grows short.”
“But this is an important project, Adrian.”
“It is, it certainly is. That’s why I’d like to ask—if you wouldn’t mind—if you’d consider submitting an official paper on it.”
Lord Muir’s face beamed with pleasure, becoming even redder than before. “Really?”
“I definitely feel it’s called for.”
“I don’t know … I’ve never written a paper before.”
“Why don’t
