Quiet Invasion(30)

Edmund did not like that idea. She could tell that much by the stony set of his jaw, but he was at least thinking about it. “If we’re taking her and the other one”—he glanced at his desk—“Peachman, I want security on the team.”

“My thinking exactly,” lied Su. “Sadiq can pick the best available, and we can submit their names to the Sec-Gen along with the others.”

“All right,” said Edmund. “You’ve got your team, Su. But it had better not overstep its bounds.”

“It won’t, Edmund. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

Edmund nodded and broke the connection. Su collapsed back into her chair. That was a near thing. If Edmund had been just a little more angry, it would not have worked. But it did, and that was all she needed to care about at this moment.

Still, there was one more call she should make.

“Desk. Contact Yan Quai.”

This time, the sky was replaced by a static scene of a white railed veranda overlooking a misty cityscape.

“I’m sorry,” said a gender-neutral voice. “Yan Quai is unavailable—”

“Quai, it’s your mother.”

The voice hesitated. Then, the veranda cleared away and revealed Quai’s apartment, which hadn’t been cleaned up in a while. Clothes and towels were draped over the arms of chairs. Screen rolls lay heaped on every flat surface, held in place by empty cups and glasses full of something that might have once been either beer or apple juice.

In the middle of it all sat Quai at his battered desk. Su automatically looked him over. He hadn’t shaved. His hair was now black and blond, and the holo-tat on the right side of his throat was a winking blue eye this week.

In short, her son looked just fine.

“Hello, Mother,” he said cheerfully. “Slow day in the corridors of power?”

“Not particularly.” Her lips twitched, trying not to smile. “As you’ve said, saving the worlds is a full-time job.”

Quai’s own smile was tight and knowing and made him look frighteningly like his father. “Especially when you have to kiss up to the C.A.C. to do it.”

Su let that pass. “We’ve just had a little demo on the decks here, Quai.”

“Really?” His face and voice brightened considerably. “Who managed it?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might.”

Quai shook his head, and Su believed him. If he had known, he would have just evaded the question. They did not agree, she and her son. He felt she did not go far enough in her politics, and she felt that by attempting to undermine the system, he was worsening the condition of those he was supposed to be fighting for. Despite that, they had a tacit agreement that each would avoid lying to the other, if at all possible.

“Well, just in case anyone in your acquaintance gets ideas—”

“Us?” Quai laid a hand on his breast. “We operate strictly within the law wherever we are, Mom; you know that.”

“I don’t for sure know any different,” responded Su blandly. “But just in case, you might pass along the word that the C.A.C. is very edgy right now and that that edginess is getting communicated up the legislature. The more unrest there is right at this moment, the bigger the potential backlash.”

They looked at each other, each of them replaying conversations from both the distant and the not-so-distant past in their heads.

“All right, Mom.” Quai nodded. “Not that anybody I deal with would arrange illegal public demos in U.N. City or anywhere else, but I’ll see if I can leak the generalities of this conversation where they’ll do some good.”

“That’s all I ask.” Su bowed her head briefly in a gesture of thanks.

A flicker of worry crossed Quai’s face. “Take care of yourself out there, Mom. Okay? I’d hate to see you lose your footing.”

Su smiled. “I will take care. I love you, my son.”

“Love you, Mom. Good-bye.”

Su said good-bye and shut down the screen. She shook her head and sighed. Quai was good people. How had that happened? Abandoned by a nervous father, left with an obsessive mother, he still managed to make his own way. He went overboard, it was true, but not as badly as some, and at least he really believed in what he did.

So do you, she reminded herself. At least, you’d better, or all your work’s going to fall apart and Helen’s going to be left out there on her own.

That thought stiffened Su’s shoulders. No, she would not permit that. She bent over her desk screen and laid her hands on the command board. Time to get back to work.





Chapter Four


T’SHA’S KITE FURLED ITS bright-blue wings as it approached the High Law Meet. Unlike other cities, the High Law Meet’s ligaments ran all the way down to the crust, tethering the complex in place. The symbolism was plain. All the winds, all the world, met here.