Elizabeth Bear - Worldwired

He didn't answer. He didn't need to.

She looked up, met his gaze, and nodded, satisfied. “There are days when I wish the opposition would put enough of a coalition together to boost my ass out of this chair.”

“And have one of their own responsible for this train wreck? No, they'll wait until you go down in flames, and nod knowingly while they pick up the pieces.” He took her elbow, feeling her brittleness as if it were a physical as well as spiritual thing.

She glanced sideways, caught the outline of his smile, and laughed as if through blood. “You think it's too late to requisition a train wreck instead? Christ, I have to deal with the cabinet today—”

Her desk chimed, a three-note ascending scale that made both their heads turn in recognition. “Richard,” Riel said.

“Prime Minister,” the AI answered, resolving into one-third-sized visibility, a wee man standing atop the desk.

“Is this about the UN?”

“If only it were so simple. We have bigger problems, Prime Minister, General Valens. I'm going to conference in Dr. Forster. He's just made an unsettling discovery. It's a secure line; I'm handling the transmission myself. Dr. Forster?”

Another familiar voice. “Fred? Prime Minister?”

Valens found himself exchanging a glance of anticipation with Riel, and not a happy one. He swallowed the lead weight that seemed lodged in his throat and folded his hands behind him. “We hear you very well, Charlie. What seems to be the problem?”

There was no light-speed lag when Richard handled the transmission; Charlie's rueful flinch was immediate. Valens felt his gut clench, abdominal muscles tightening in anticipation of a blow, setting himself to take it and come back swinging. Consciously, carefully, he smoothed his breath and forced himself to look steadily at the hologram, waiting with every appearance of patience and strength.

He wondered sometimes, in bleaker moments, if the cracks showed, and if his staff was humoring him by pretending not to notice. But he also knew, between wondering, that that wasn't the case. He'd just mastered the art of maintaining a facade, and there wasn't anybody that the facade needed to come down for now.

Pity he wasn't having any luck turning the mask into reality. Charlie still hadn't spoken, though, and Valens cleared his throat. “Charlie. We're on tenterhooks, old friend.”

It was eerie, the way Richard juggled the algorithm so when Charlie cocked his head and passed a palm across his scalp, it looked as if he frowned at Valens's shoes and then stared dead into his eyes. “We've come a long way from Mars, Fred.”

“Light-minutes,” Valens answered, just to get the grin.

Charlie essayed one bravely, but it crumbled. “Let me cut to the chase. Some of my nanosurgeons are… dying. And neither Richard nor I have a damned idea why.”

“Dr. Forster,” Riel interjected. Both Valens and Charlie swung to look at her, her suddenly upright posture commanding the room. She smoothed her palms down over her forest-green suit, the discreet diamond on her ring finger flashing refracted light. “I'm going to need a written report. How long have you known?”

He glanced down, checking his contacts. “Half an hour.”

“I will ask you to keep it confidential—”

“Prime Minister—”

Charlie's tone tied another rock to the sinking sensation in Valens's gut. “Who knows about this?”

“Doctors Tjakamarra and Kirkpatrick were with me.”

Riel's shoulders dropped from around her ears, and Valens recognized it for relief. “Swear them to secrecy, too. And I mean secret; I'll do something drastic if I have to. And I need that written report — please — via Richard. As soon as possible.”

“Ma'am. Anything else?”

“Yes,” she said. “Find out what the hell is causing it, and if it's going to completely derail our attempts to buffer Earth's ecosystem, would you?”

“We're on it.” And that was Richard's voice, Richard's image stepping in as Charlie pixilated and vanished. “Prime Minister—”

The AI was interrupted by a different chime. Riel's secretary's tone; Richard put himself on hold, his image hanging motionless as Riel answered the other call. “Yes, Anne?”

“Ma'am, I have a Mr. Tobias Hardy from Unitek here to see you. And General Frye.”

Riel rolled her eyes at Valens. Janet Frye . “Do they have an appointment, Anne?”

“No, ma'am. I checked twice.”

Sometimes, when the prime minister smiled like that, Fred Valens could almost like her. Even knowing that she was a sly old snake, a consummate manipulator, and a gameswoman to match even him. “I'm in a conference right now, Anne. See if you can squeeze them in tomorrow, please? Or perhaps on Monday?”

“I'll do my best, ma'am,” Anne answered, and the link clicked off.

Richard unfroze himself, steepling his long hands in front of his breast. “Toby Hardy I know—”

“Janet Frye,” Valens said, rubbing his eyes with his forefinger and thumb, “is a retired general and part of the opposition leadership, heading up the Home party.”

“Isolationists,” Riel supplied. “The more radical even want us out of the commonwealth. What do you want to bet they want us to play appeasement with the Chinese? The damned Americans are on my back again, too…” She rolled her neck from side to side. “You could have looked that up, Richard; you don't fool me.”

“Sometimes it's more revealing to ask questions.”

Valens crossed to the window himself. “Why do you think they're contacting you now?”

“Oh, that's easy,” Riel said. She went to her desk, thumb locked open a drawer, and drew something small and flat out and laid it on the desk beside the interface panel. “I got some interesting intelligence last night.”

Valens came to get a better look. “An HCD?”

“ The HCD,” Riel said, and looked at him. “The red telephone, so to speak.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

The prime minister left the communications device lying on her desk, and went to draw the curtains open again. This time, Valens didn't protest. “I was briefed last night,” Riel called back to him, reaching over her head to fiddle with the cords. “It seems General Frye got a sealed, couriered letter from the PanChinese consulate in the United States yesterday. I'm not privy to the details of what's in that letter.”

“Of course not,” Valens murmured dryly. “That would be espionage, after all.”

“Hah. In any case, I think Richard's guess might be correct, and our primary problem in the PanChinese government is not the premier, but the minister of war, Shijie Shu, who seems about ready to go after his boss's job himself. And I happen to know that he's been in contact with certain members of the U.S. Congress. Through this same embassy official whose return mail code is on the couriered letter.”

“You do have friends in low places.”

“We do our best.” She stepped away from the open curtains, smart enough, at least, not to silhouette herself for long.

“You know,” he said, “I have a few friends of my own. And I happen to know that the secretary general's decision to hold hearings rather than a full war-crimes tribunal — even with all the retractions and reschedulings that entailed — was influenced by a personal call from the office of the PanChinese premier.”

“Did it now?” Riel's eyebrows rose when she was thinking, and right now they furrowed parallel ridges all the way up to her short, dark hair. “That's fascinating, Fred.”

In the silence that followed, Richard cleared his throat. “Am I excused, Prime Minister?”

She nodded. “Yes — no. Wait. Tomorrow. Tonight. Before the delightful Mr. Hardy and his lapdog can reschedule. I'm sending you Xie Min-xue.”