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Authors: Jr. L. E. Modesitt

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B
arely after I'd gotten airborne on my way to Parwon, as I climbed past Kohl Creek and away from the house, Keiko net-linked. “That Major Henslom was here. He wanted to take all his troops on a recreational hike into
the hills. He called it a hike. I suggested that I'd need to inform you.”
“He can do it, but find an area that doesn't have any prairie dog towns, and no concentrations of vorpals or kalirams.”
“Such as?” Keiko asked dryly.
She was right. There weren't many.
“How about due north of Parwon along the track of the old highway? Then run a flitter with a screamer over it before they set out.”
“I can handle that.” She projected competence, and a smile. “Now, about Locatio. He says he can't clear the Ellay residential bloc until tomorrow, and that other majer, Ysslop, said that you promised today.”
“Remind Locatio the Consensus Committee will reduce comptimes, increase allotments, whatever is
reasonably
necessary, but it's a Coordinator-deemed-necessary requirement.”
“I told him that.”
“Then tell him that if he wants the cybs to fry his locial first, he can screw around all he wants, and I'll put his rebuilding priorities below everything else.”
“He might understand that.”
“Furthermore, tell him I'm a crazy, grief-struck widower who's likely to do highly unreasonable things if he doesn't cooperate. And that the Consensus Committee picked me because they wanted a crazy, unreasonable Coordinator. Oh, and tell him that K'gaio even wanted me and agreed to the schedule I set.”
“He will understand that.” A hint of a laugh followed, and I imagined white teeth against her olive complexion.
“Is that all?”
“No. That cyb subcommander sent a messenger to confirm that you're going to see a prairie dog town. They want to bring a full squad of marcybs, and two officers.”
“Fine. A full squad won't hurt. I'll need the big magshuttle, though.”
“I think I can arrange that.” Keiko paused, as if going down a list. “And Miris—he's the draff rep to the Committee—wants to meet with you. Something about permitting the cybs on-planet violating the Construct.”
I sighed.
“I heard that. He'll be here at 1400. Oh, the bison shipments arrived, but there's a problem of reallocation of the rest of the food shipments because of the cybs' protein requirements.”
“Have we got enough for the next two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“That can wait.”
“And a number of other items.”
“Closed net?” I asked.
“Naturally. We're still secure, but they'll wait. Just so you know they're waiting, Coordinator.”
I knew. Even before I'd reached Parwon and landed my poor flitter, trouble was knocking on the net.
It got worse. I got from the landing strip into Parwon and into the admin building before it did. I'd just reached the top of the stairs and was walking toward the Coordinator's office when Keiko net-alerted me.
“Coordinator,” linked Keiko. “There's a pair of draffs here, and one was assaulted by one of the marcybs.”
“When?”
“This morning, on her way to work at the components assembly bloc.”
I pasted an expression of grave concern, as opposed to the anger I felt, as I walked toward the two draffs on the couch. The woman's left cheek was bruised and the man glared at me as he bounded to his feet. She rose more slowly.
“What are you going to do?” he demanded.
“Find out what happened, first,” I answered with a calm
I didn't feel as I turned to the woman. “Can you tell me exactly what happened? I know you told Keiko, but I need to know.”
“Her name is Nislaki,” Keiko pulsed me. “His is Kaluna.”
Nislaki took a breath. “We were in the park. The greencoats were marching down Yeats, and then they stopped and ran into the park for some sort of group exercise, and one of them knocked down Divis—”
“Divis is our son,” the man explained.
“—and I picked up Divis and asked the man who did it to be more careful, and he just hit me.”
“He told her that she was useless draff baggage and to get out of the way,” added Kaluna.
“Did their leader say or do anything?”
“Nothing.”
“And then you came here?” I asked.
“We took Divis to my mother. She lives in a cinqplex on Edson.”
Nislaki's deep brown eyes met mine, and I could sense her shock that such an incident could occur. If the cybs were successful, she'd be more than shocked; she'd be dead, or worse.
“What are you going to do?” asked Kaluna.
I looked at him. “What needs to be done.”
They both looked away.
Keiko smiled, and gestured to them. “If you have any questions about what the Coordinator does, get in touch with me in a few days.”
That was safe enough. In a few days, it was likely to be all over, one way or another.
“I know,” Keiko agreed through the link. “But what are you going to do?” Today, she wore a gray vest of some sort, but still black trousers and a paler gray high-necked shirt.
“Have you get someone to contact Henslom and ask him to stop by,” I answered as I watched Nislaki and Kaluna walk toward the wide stairs.
“He won't do that.”
“I know, but first we ask.”
She shook her head, and I wanted to shake mine, too. The cybs were trying to provoke us, and it would get worse. The problem wasn't one insolent marcyb, unfortunately. The line marcybs weren't insolent. That took a direct net order from Henslom or an officer.
I walked into the Coordinator's office. Although the sunlight poured in the south windows, I still felt cold inside. My metabolism was fine, and the temperature in the office was probably too warm, if anything.
At my request, Keiko had installed a standard compensatory-time visual screen and keyboard in my office, although I could netlink to it if I chose.
After dropping into the swivel chair behind the desk I really didn't need, I used the boost to link with Rhetoral. He was on Ell Prime, while Elanstan was on Ell Delta. “How is it coming?” I asked.
After the string of profanity, unusual for him, Rhetoral explained. “Someone falsified the entries. Delta was never time-proofed. They just flipped the breakers, sealed the hatches and left. We've got solid contacts welded in place, freeze-dried electronics, and the most obsolete mess you ever saw.”
“Obsolete? You think they never used the system during the Jykserian incident?”
“They couldn't have. I don't know when the station was last operational. We're basically boxing it and replacing it bit by bit, but we don't have enough parts.” Rhetoral had settled down, the longsword of his soul back in its scabbard.
“Lift them by magshuttle. Cannibalize a locial system.” I called up the locial system requirements and the crosslinks
and made a quick decision. “Either Thun or Machaga or even Chitta.”
“Chitta? K'gaio would have a fit.”
“Let her—unless she wants to be Coordinator. We're going to need every ell system we can muster.”
“You sound so encouraging, Ecktor.”
“I took their head navigator and chief spy through the Cherkrik ruins yesterday. Noting much—except she wants to see a prairie dog town.”
I caught the sense of a low whistle before Rhetoral responded. “Wayneclint was right, it seems like. They really are slow on the nonlinear.”
“Arielle still calculates, based on their reaction to the Hybernium, that they'll attack. Nothing less than a perceived unitary probability of their total destruction will change that decision. And we can't provide information on that level. That's a threat under the Construct.”
“So why are they waiting?”
“They're still rebuilding power stocks and mapping, and I'd intuit that they don't have all the technology we do, and they'd like it. Call it greed.” I paused. “I'll let the locial admin offices in Thun, Machaga, and Chitta know that you've got priority lift.”
“Thanks.”
Then I looked toward the half-open door. “Keiko?”
“Yes, ser?”
“Come on in with your list. And shut the door.”
She brushed a lock of dark hair off her eyebrow as she sat down across from me, her dark eyes deep with concern. “Rechar is taking your message to Majer Henslom. I told him to be careful.”
I nodded. “What's first?”
“The number two big magshuttle will be ready at 0800 tomorrow. Lieza will be the pilot, and I'm waiting for a return call from Subcommander Kemra.”
“Next?”
“Locatio got the bloc cleared, and the marcybs are settling in. He says you owe him.”
“He's right. I do, if I live long enough for him to collect.”
Keiko gave me one of those level stares.
“Bad joke,” I said out loud.
“You won't get out of comptime that easily, Coordinator.”
Having heard of Keiko's handling of K'gaio—she was as much K'gaio's representative as my assistant—I had this feeling Keiko would drag me back from the dead to make sure I completed my quota. She was competent enough that she might actually manage it.
Keiko raised her eyebrows.
“All right. What's next?” I braced for the rest of her list.
After Keiko left more than forty minutes later, I looked at the screen before me, since using the eye-resting screen was easier for admin trivia than concentrating on holding the images mentally. And centralizing the record-keeping certainly took less power and equipment than holding open two-way transmissions to every demi that owed the system. Besides, that kind of link would have required personal comptime and just added to what I owed the locial.
Even being chief negotiator, or spokesman, or whatever for Old Earth didn't relieve me, not in my mind, anyway, from my allotted compensatory-time. I reached for the keyboard, then straightened. Much as I dearly wanted to whittle it down, compensatory-time would have to wait … a long, long time, the way matters were proceeding, and by then I'd owe enough that I'd die with a comptime debt.
“Crucelle?”
It took a moment for him to uplink, or break whatever connection he had.
“Yes, Ecktor?”
“Start diverting locial critical production into the hardened stores.”
“We started yesterday.”
“You're more of an optimist than I am.”
“That was Arielle.”
“Our darkangel. Your darkangel,” I corrected.
The screen beeped, and a flashing icon on the upper left corner of the screen coincided with the mental “power interruption” alarm that rang in my thoughts.
“Another crisis. Reads cyb all over it. Link later.” I broke off and tried to scan the system.
Locial power systems were nearly foolproof and tamperproof, but outages did occur. The link had offered no hints, and I could sense the oversystem, outside the admin building, was still operational. I bolted upright. At the moment there weren't any other demis in the buildling, except Keiko. That didn't surprise me. There was no sense in being at possible ground zero when it wasn't necessary.
Standing at my door already, Keiko looked at me as I hurried out.
“I don't know, but it's here in the building,” was my answer to the unspoken question. I don't know if I took the stairs two or three at a time, but I was on the main level fast enough.
Outside the screen room on the main level, I passed Vyldia—draff, but draff by choice, and bright enough. Her once-long blond hair was cut short, almost like a marcyb.
“Hello, Vyldia.”
“Hello.” She looked down, but I was already well past and heading for the closed ramps down to the mainboards and powerlinks. I slipped into the ramp well, lit only by red lights, and eased inside the door at the top of the ramp leading down to the first level, senses extended and hearing torqued up.
Breathing as quietly as possible, I paused inside the
closed door, and let my vision adjust to the dimness of the emergency red-lighting.
Silence—except for breathing on the main access bay in the middle of the net repeater filters. Silence, except for the muted click of a slugthrowers's lever being switched to shred.

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