Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

You'll be able to mount a proper expedition with full Enclave support, take any equipment you want? not

just stolen junk? and you'll be able to pick any personnel you want to go along."

"I don't want any personnel to go along," Karr objected.

"Not even Dr. Bigelow?" Jenette challenged. "The man you want to build your big bomb? He couldn't possibly be of any use recovering your warheads, could he? Hmmm? Or hadn't you thought of that?"

"Yes, but I assumed he is too valuable to your colony to be permitted to go on a dangerous mission."

"Normally," Jenette allowed, "but not after tomorrow night. After tomorrow night, I'll be able to put together a party of people with the skills and expertise that can really save Long Reach ? because that's what it's going to take, not a wild gamble like this. Right?"

Karr didn't say anything and Jenette couldn't read his shadowed expression.

"Right?"

"I guess," Karr finally said.

Jenette smiled in the dark. "Thank you, I'll... make it up? "

Karr held up his hands, all business. "Twenty-four hours. Not a second longer."

Jenette's heart sank at his cold tone, but there was little else she could do. She looked around the lifter and then at a thicket of dumbbell-shaped bushes. "Better hide this stuff over there." Karr nodded. Jenette continued. "Byussart and his friends will help. I can't be here. I'm under strict orders to avoid any contact with you." If her father found out, Jenette would be slapped under immediate house arrest, and therefore cut off from her underground communication network. And she couldn't let that happen, or the vote in the Chamber the next night would be a horrible disaster.

XXIII

4610 A.D.

New Ascension colony on Elysium island.

Eighteen months after seeding.

8:31 P.M.

Olin Tesla stands in the shower with his clothes on. He holds his wife Helena in his arms, helping her to stand, letting the water pour down on the two of them, hoping that the enveloping warmth will somehow reinvigorate her, and willing her with every fiber of his being to hang on just a little longer. She was always a slim woman, but where before she felt firm and alive in his arms, now she is gaunt. How she has lasted this long, Olin does not know.

She has refused the Sacrament.

He can feel her slipping away, heartbeat by heartbeat. He clutches her tighter.

"I should never have let you talk to those Ferals," he chokes, trying to be strong for her and not break down. "I should have made you take Sacrament."

Ever so faintly, Helena smiles. He has never been able to make her do anything she did not want to do.

"I love you, Olin."

"I love you, too, Helena."

She leans her head against his chest. He kisses her forehead. "No one is going to refuse Sacrament, ever again," he weeps. "Never again."

"You must always do what you think is right," she says, without anger or sarcasm, only the honesty and conviction Olin has always respected her for.

And then she is slack weight.

Olin's legs go weak. He slumps down the tiled wall into a corner, still holding her, the water pouring down as he weeps.

In another room, baby Jenette cries.

Arrou huddled on the roof of the great hall, peeking through a skylight down info the forbidden Chamber of the Body and carefully keeping his glowbuds as dark as he could in the starless night. Wind blew, roaring through Enclave trees as the vote proceeded around the ring of desks below. Arrou could not hear through the transparent ceramite, even with his acute Khafra senses. He wished Patton had

come onto the roof with him; Patton had very good hearing and could probably listen to the humans even through the skylight. But Patton would not break the rules and go onto the roof without direct orders from Halifax. So Arrou puzzled it out on his own. Gradually, he figured out how the humans were voting from other signs they gave. Ayes were strong faced, upright, united like forfaraws. Nays were defiant, like cornered pleens, shifting in their seats. Arrou counted, ignoring the Subconsul vote, which did not matter except in case of a tie.

So much work he and Jenette had done! Eating little and sleeping less, Arrou had passed the secret messages until his glowbuds ached. But would the humans listen to the message their domestics relayed?

Hearing was the humans' most important means of communication, but they were not good listeners. So far, the vote was eighteen ayes and four nays. Not good.

They needed fourteen nays.

Arrou scratched. A good-boy collar was locked around his neck. Good-boy in the sense that if he wasn't one, Arrou would feel the prod built into the fiberplast ring. Tesla had put it on him because there was a transponder inside. It was an effective leash. For Jenette, not Arrou. If Arrou's transponder left the Enclave, Tesla knew Jenette had escaped again (and Arrou would get a sudden, enduring jolt of blindness).

The vote went from the most senior Consul, Tesla, down through the ranks. Nineteen ayes, seven nays. Better. It did not sound better, but for important votes the humans had a funny way of counting.

Tesla needed two out of every three Consuls to win. That meant that if fourteen out of the forty voted nay, he lost, and Jenette's friends won. And the newer Consuls coming up were on Jenette's side.

Nay, nay, nay, nay.

Very good!

But then: aye, aye, aye ? nay ? aye, aye, aye, aye!

"Urrkurrkurrk!" Arrou exclaimed, slapping paws over his head to blot out instinctual flashes of consternation and almost sliding down the slope off the roof. His claws scraped on metal. After regaining his grip, he held still, hoping no one had seen or heard.

The proceeding was heating up. Few heard, much less cared about a faint scraping on the roof when the vote was so close. Twelve nays. Twenty-six ayes. One vote was left, then Jenette's. The fate of the Enclave hung on those two votes. Bigelow feigned indifference, but compulsively spun the rings on his fingers. Burke Hedren was firm, nodding with all his might, as if he could force the outcome by sheer force of wanting. Yll sat perfectly still; having already voted against the Prime Consul he felt distinctly panicky.

Webs, the Subconsul of the Tally, called the next vote. "Consul Alphonse Jeej."

Jenette turned to the man next to her. Jeej was slightly older, but still on hormone inhibitors. Long limbs and limp hair attached to a pear-shaped body.

"Abstain," Jeej said immediately.

The Chamber grumbled with disapproval. It was not a strictly acceptable vote. Webs looked around nervously, but since there was no protest, she called the next name.

"Consul Jenette Tesla."

All eyes turned to Jenette.

Tesla did not expect her to vote with him, but he hoped. Father and daughter did not see eye to eye, he knew, but Jenette was intelligent. Being a Tesla, she was headstrong (Tesla felt a surge of pride at that). Surely she had learned from the folly of her recent flight. Surely she saw that rash action had lead to nothing? except failure and the need to be rescued. Perhaps she would finally stop fighting him and they would work together. Tesla's stomach burbled nervously. Jenette looked so much like her mother, another woman he had never been able to control. After returning to the Enclave, Tesla had been careful not to lord Jenette's failure over her. He had not confined her to quarters; in fact, he had not punished her at all except to put the tracking collar on Arrou and warn her away from the Pilot. In his mind, Tesla had made every effort to treat her with respect, like an adult, as she demanded. Maybe she would see that and meet him halfway.