Chapter Eight

The period allotted to the Presidential run was only a week. Back home, Arthur ran for President of Edo over the course of two gruelling years. When you reached the age Arthur was, it was a lot of time to dedicate to one project without winning. A week was rather more palatable, but any suggestion that this would be an easy first election went out the window when over half the delegates put themselves forward.

Not that the two roles were comparable. The President of Edo was a figurehead more than anything, with very limited but deliberately vague powers to enact law. The President of Audacity was in some ways the opposite – their powers were extensive and valuable, but very strictly defined by the constitution. It was for that reason that Arthur didn’t nominate himself despite the urging of some other delegates. As he explained to them on the second evening of the “campaign”, he could not rely on his political experience to win this role, as nobody had the experience the role called for. The winner, whoever they would be, needed some kind of silver bullet.

There were other reasons, too. The friends who wanted him to run had voted for him in his last election (or so they claimed), but there were by definition more people who had not. If he ran, they would have no trouble pointing to his history as a failed candidate. Not to mention that the President of Audacity technically overrules the President of Edo, his ex-opponent. It would be hard to counter any accusation of sour grapes – they could paint it as trying to become CEO after failing to be promoted out of the mail room.

It turned out he made the right choice. That first week was a circus. Every day new candidates were entering the fray, and old candidates were dropping out after days (or even hours) of attempted campaigning. Delegates were parading down the corridors trying to meet everyone they could, to get their names out there. Arthur would walk from his dormitory to the nearest canteen, a walk that should take no more than two minutes, and would be held up for fifteen while shaking hands and trying to remember names.

The chamber sessions were no better, despite the Speaker’s attempts to keep the chaos under control. Each candidate was given the chance to make a stump speech, but there were so many and so little time in which to hear them that few attended these endless sessions – except for those who were due to speak. As a consequence, most of these speeches ended with the candidate urging everyone else to drop out, as though giving impartial advice to a close friend.

For his own part, Arthur tried to watch as many speeches as he could. Because the Edo bench was mostly empty during this time, he was able to secure a front-row seat that he hoped to hold on to during the rest of the term by way of precedent. The time spent staking his claim wasn’t totally wasted, however – one advantage of watching all the speeches was to see who else turned out to see them. If a candidate already had a reasonable base of supporters then they would turn out to see their speech – it was an inexact method of measuring momentum.

He watched Dr. Yakuv Sli (Earth: Carmen) talk about the biological impact of four divergent human races on evolution, without actually putting forward any related policy. He watched Yuliana Borisova (Earth: Edo, Throneware Incorporated) sell the delegates on the upgrades her corporation could make to the station – the free real estate of the void! He watched Jane Ennis, Esquire (Earth: Edo, Sushi Sid’s Sushi Shack) give a full stump speech in alliterative verse, presumably per her contract with her parent company. He watched Lady Marcia Kouris (Earth: Herald) try to drum up votes for herself by praising her King, which Arthur didn’t see as particularly effective.

The King was the frontrunner, everyone knew. He had the might of his faction behind him, which none of the other candidates could claim. But even if he received the most votes, it wouldn’t be enough – he needed more than half to actually win. It took some time for Arthur to get his head around the preferential voting system – it wasn’t like the system they used back home – but he eventually figured out that if the King wanted to win this, he would need to start reaching out. So far, Arthur had seen none of that, and neither had anybody else.

He started to make friends – other ‘chamber rats’, as Dr. Cristian Muñoz from the Carmen bench called them. He had first approached Arthur on the third day of the election, having noticed that they were both regulars, and asking to compare notes on the speeches. Dr. Muñoz was standing as a candidate but admitted that he didn’t expect to win. Instead, he said, he hoped to raise the level of debate during the campaign.

“How’s that going so far?” Arthur asked.

“Could be better. But I haven’t done my speech yet. I’m thinking of bursting into song,” he replied.

Throughout that day they traded opinions after each candidate had their say, Dr. Muñoz with his old-fashioned yellow legal pad and Arthur with his scarily good memory. A few others joined in, including the woman from Carmen who had spoken on the first day and a couple of his own colleagues from Edo.

It was the Garden speeches that intrigued him most. The order of speaking had been randomly drawn at the beginning of the week, but by chance most of the Garden candidates would be speaking together, on the fifth day. The first speaker was General Catlen Mun, who spoke on the right for every Earth to protect itself. The second was Sergeant Legis Ryi, who spoke on the need to ensure Audacity could remain secure from interference – she didn’t specify what “interference” meant. The third candidate to stand up was an older woman called Mairin Hanmer, and Arthur noted that she didn’t have a rank. She wore the uniform same as the rest of them, but as she made her way down the stairs Arthur noticed that the shirt was a little too cleanly pressed – it looked brand new, where most of the others seemed to have worn the uniform all their life. From this, and her speech in which she mainly focused on platitudes about procedure, Arthur deduced that she was not as experienced despite her age. He wondered what she was doing up here.

Disappointingly, none of the Garden candidates spoke too much about their own planet, the one topic everyone wanted to know about. The most information they got about the fourth Earth was that Novus Ordo Seculorum, the faction representing their Earth on Audacity, was one of at least twelve factions who had been fighting longer than any of them had been alive. They were clearly not blind to the frustration they were causing, though – one candidate apologised for the secrecy, but described it as an “absolute requirement” for their continued presence aboard the station. And that, apparently, was the end of it.

Arthur wanted to talk to Mairin Hanmer once her speech was over, but as he moved to descend the steps about sixty delegates stormed through the doors. The sudden noise and excitement caused a few of the Garden delegates to stand, and Arthur was sure one of them was adopting some kind of combative pose, presumably fearing an attack. As it turned out, they were mostly Herald delegates as well as a few curious onlookers who had heard that the King was giving his stump speech today. Speaker Evanson, calm as ever, ordered the newly-arrived crowd to take their seats, and once they had the King began to make his speech. By the time he was done (a mostly meaningless if well-written and well-performed piece), Mairin and the rest of the Garden delegates were gone. Still, Arthur reasoned, he would get his chance. It wasn’t like any of them were going anywhere.

As Arthur left the chamber that evening, he spotted Lady Kouris, one of the few Herald delegates standing against the King. She was scurrying down the corridor intersecting his own, and shortly after her came Sofia, the young woman from Earth: Carmen. They seemed to be hiding from someone, so naturally he followed them at a right angle. Apparently not noticing him, Lady Kouris dove into a conference room and pulled Sofia in alongside her. Arthur left them to it – whatever their reasoning, they clearly wanted to be left alone. But he made a mental note to ask one of them about it the following day, and when he set up shop in the chamber before the first speech (Sai, a machine from Carmen) he spotted Sofia among the Carmen delegates. Before Sai got to talking, Arthur darted between the seats and ended up behind her. He tapped her shoulder and she jumped.

“Sorry,” he said. “You’re Dr. Castillo, right? I remember your speech.”

“Yes, Mr. Meridian,” she nodded. “Although it’s señorita, not Dr. Can I help?”

He gestured to the door, and she followed him out.

“What is it?” she asked. “My friend’s speaking.” From inside the chamber they heard Sai begin their speech.

“Yes, of course, this’ll just take a second. I spotted you and Lady Kouris, last night. You seemed to be running away from something, or towards something. It looked like… I don’t know what it looked like.”

Sofia shook her head minutely. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

Arthur grinned. “Do they play poker on Carmen?”

“I don’t know that game. You’ll have to teach me some day. But Lady Kouris and I did talk yesterday. Just standard business.”

“Except there’s only one item of business to talk about, and Lady Kouris is one of the only serious contenders as far as I can see. Are you arranging something? I can help, if so. I know you’re no fan of the King. Most people know that, after your spat at the mixer.”

Sofia bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Mr. Meridian -“

“Arthur, please.”

”- Arthur, then. But I can’t say anything more. Edo can feel free to vote how they will.”

“Oh, we intend to. But I want to know if my vote is going to matter in the face of… whatever it is.”

Sofia just shrugged and said “My friend’s speaking. Perhaps you might learn more from Sai than from me.” With that, she stepped back into the chamber. Arthur thought about following her, but decided there were better places to be for now.

Luna was set to be the first interdimensional bar – once it was up and running. Arthur had no idea how Manny had convinced the Service to give over some space for it, but he had done so early enough in the process that they had been able to plan around it, while warning that all the work of actually setting up, supplying, and staffing the bar would have to be done by him. Manny was a fellow Edo delegate (representing Iridesoft, a mining company), but he had chosen to dedicate much of his time aboard the station to managing an entertainment venue. Perhaps it was the clout – his parent company would be advertising Luna all through the city, practical considerations of getting to it notwithstanding. Or perhaps he just wanted somewhere with low lights and free liquor (there was no currency aboard Audacity yet) to lubricate the flow of information.

When Arthur came in, neither the lights nor the alcohol were in place, and the room looked more like an office than a bar. A few delegates, mostly other Edoers, had staked out seats to do their paperwork – they might have been trying the same move he was trying with the front row. Among them was Kei Morishita, and when she saw him enter she flashed a smile and poured him a cup of coffee from the cafetiere beside her. That had been their unspoken routine aboard the shuttle these last three months; she poured him coffee in the mornings, he didn’t kill her for getting him roped into this.

“Ms. Morishita!”

“Mr. Meridian! Finally left your outpost in the chamber, is it?”

“It is,” he said. “At least for now.”

“Who’s talking now? More Garden soldiers?”

“No, it’s a machine – Sai, from Carmen of course. I’m sure it – I mean, I’m sure they have some fine ideas, but for the first President…” he wiggled his hand noncommittally.

“I know what you mean,” she said.

“Not that all the Garden folks were soldiers, mind… there was this one woman… never mind. That’s not what I want to ask you about. Are you busy?”

“I’m just reading through this Constitution finally – is it just me, or is this President thing a big deal?”

“She’s also,” huffed Manny from behind the counter, lugging boxes back and forth, “supposed to be helping me get set up before the damn term ends.”

“I’m supervising!” Kei protested. “Ignore him, Arthur – he’s stressing out.”

“Right,” said Arthur. “Well, I wanted to ask you: You know Sofia Castillo?”

Kei shook her head. “Assume that’s a Carmen name? I haven’t talked with most of them, honestly. Not well enough to remember names. She running?”

“She’s not, but she got in a kind of a fight with the King on the first night.”

“Oh, that I remember. That already feels like a year ago. The King must have been pissed.”

“If he was, he didn’t show it, but here’s the thing: I think she’s trying to sabotage the King’s Presidential run.”

Kei leaned in. “Wow. She must really not like him.”

“Maybe. I honestly don’t know her motive. I’m just trying to figure out her plan, because I think it might involve her turning Herald delegates against him.”

“No chance,” she said, after sipping her coffee. “Absolutely no chance. Have you seen these people around their King? The votes aren’t secret – if a ‘subject’ ranks him any lower than pole position, he’s going to know. And you’ve heard the stories about dissenters.”

“I agree,” he said. “Even if I don’t believe all those stories – but then, I haven’t talked to the man yet. But here’s why I think that’s what’s going on – there’s a woman helping her, Lady Kouris.”

He whispered the name, not wanting to out her to potential eavesdroppers. It didn’t do any good, because when Kei heard it she said “Marcia Kouris?!” in a slightly louder than normal voice. He winced.

“Yes, but, you know, secrecy and such.”

“Sorry, yes.”

“You know her?”

“A little bit. A very little bit. We talked on the first day, she was at our meeting point, with Isi and me.”

“Aha. Did she say anything…”

“Treasonous? Not to my memory. Although… I think Isi made a crack about how they would all just do whatever the King said, and that annoyed her. I think.” Seeing the way Arthur’s eyes lit up, she said. “Not exactly grounds for reporting her to the King, is it?”

“What makes you think that’s my plan?”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Not as such. But I figure, if there’s something going on, I want to know about it first. Information like that could be useful.”

“Alright, but you’d better move fast – in two days it’ll be over, and your information won’t matter.”

“Yeah, yeah. Who else was at that meeting point?”

“It was Sai, the machine – they had one of the professors from Carmen too – and Isi. No Garden people since they were stuck on their ship. That was it, I think.”

“No other Herald folks?”

“Oh, wait,” Kei suddenly remembered. “Yeah, this one guy was lost but he ended up in our meeting point. I remember now – he was her ex-husband.”

“Whose ex-husband? Lady Kouris’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if anyone’s going to know her secret plot, that might be a good place to start.”

She squinted at him. “Arthur, I know you’ve not been married, but you have to understand that the average man’s grasp on his ex-wife’s psyche is… well, causally speaking, probably not great.”

“It’s a lead. What was his name?”

“Lars Ariti,” said a man on an adjoining table before Kei could say anything. He was an older man, with a twinkle in his eye and slightly wild hair. “Scion Lars Ariti, I should say. Though he’s barely that. I apologise for intruding.”

“Not at all,” Arthur smiled pleasantly. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure, sir.”

“Panagos,” he said. “Lord Curtis Panagos, although I’m not much of a Lord either. And if Lady Kouris is introducing any unforeseen elements to our King’s campaign, I haven’t heard of it, and I’d like to.”

Kei and Arthur exchanged a look. “Right. Well, if I find anything out, Lord Panagos, I’ll let you know. This is Kei, and I’m Arthur Meridian.”

“Oh, I know who you are – Almost-President Meridian!” Panagos chuckled.

“Great,” he murmured. Then he asked Panagos for directions to find Lars, and set out.

***

Lars proved slipperier than expected. It took most of the day before he returned to his residence, where he found Arthur waiting stooped awkardly outside his door.

“Scion Ariti,” he said, standing to greet him.

“Yes! Hello?” He phrased the first word as an exclamation, and the second as a question. He looked bewildered, but despite his youth the bewilderment seemed to have settled into his face permanently.

“Arthur Meridian, Edo. I’ve been hoping to talk to you.”

“Ah, I see. Edo, was it? Then…” Lars experimentally extended his arm out in front of him, and splayed his palm at an angle. It took Arthur a second to realise he was trying to shake hands. He took his hand and rearranged it, smoothly shaking it in the process. Lars seemed tickled by the whole process. “Funny little habit, that one. Please, come in!”

Lars, like the rest of the delegates, had only been in the station for six days, but his dormitory looked more lived-in than any Arthur had seen so far. Papers were strewn around the desk, and he seemed to have tried to take apart a piece of wall with a screen on, the screen now hanging loosely from a hinge. Noticing Arthur looking, he said by way of explanation, “There was a little light on it that wouldn’t switch off. I need total darkness to sleep, really. I thought I’d have a go.”

“I see. You were an engineer?”

“Sort of. Maintenance worker in the palace. I fixed things.”

“Were you… I mean to say, were you especially good at it? You must have had some notoriety to end up here.”

“Well, not as such, no. I’d actually only been in the job for a few months.”

“And before that?”

“Ars Infinita, one of the great universities of our planet.”

“Ah, terrific. What did you study?”

Lars blushed. “A bit of everything, really.”

“I see.” Arthur stopped short of asking just what it was that got Lars onto Audacity. Whatever the answer, it would probably be rude to ask. Instead, he gestured back to the broken screen and said, “Long as you don’t start tampering with the oxygen supply.”

Lars took a second to realise this was a joke – perhaps his Gaean was still coming along. He smiled indulgently, and Arthur shuffled. “Anyway, I was hoping to ask you about something.”

“Yes, sir. Although I have to say, if you’re hoping to get an endorsement or some such, I am committed to vote for the King. For my first choice, anyway.”

“Naturally – it’s not that. Well, it is, but… well. I don’t quite know how to ask this, but it concerns Lady Kouris. Your ex-wife,” he added pointlessly.

“Oh. What about her?” Unlike Sofia, Lars would be terrible at poker, as Arthur concluded from the way his face twisted that not only was there something going on, but that Lars knew about it. Now it was just a matter of teasing it out. He relaxed, letting Lars see that there was no threat.

“She seems to be running some kind of operation involving Dr. Sofia Castillo, from Carmen.”

“I don’t think she’s a doctor,” corrected Lars. “Just Ms. Castillo. Or is it señorita? I’m still learning the titles.”

“Ah,” Arthur smiled, “So you know her.”

When someone with something to hide realises that they’ve given something away, the rest crumbles eventually. Lars looked stricken. “I… well, yes, I’ve heard of her. She gave a speech on the first day.”

“What does Marcia have planned?” Arthur figured it was okay to move to first-name territory. Then he followed it up with a hunch – a question just vague enough to mean two things: “What’s the King doing?”

“Mr. Meridian, you have to understand something about the King. His plans are not handed down to every delegate in his faction, and unfortunately for you I’m pretty much the lowest of the low. I talk to Marcia – to Lady Kouris – occasionally, but I don’t have the details you want.”

He pressed on. “But they’re working together?”

“Naturally. He’s her King. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

Arthur nodded, trying to keep his own face in shape. “I’ll leave you be, Scion. Thank you.”

“Mr. Meridian… I will have to tell the King you were here.”

“I see.”

“It’s just that, if he finds out and I don’t tell him…”

“Yes, I understand. You do what you will.” With that, he left.

It was late by then, so Arthur went home again. On the way he saw his fellow chamber rat, Dr. Muñoz, in the corridor.

“Sorry to have missed you today, Dr. Muñoz,” Arthur greeted. “Did the speech go down well?”

“Well enough,” he replied, “But it was a bit overshadowed. Sai gave a good showing, and seems to be the one everyone’s talking about right now.”

“Really? The machine?” Arthur said.

“I have to tell you, Arthur, you’re all being given a pass under the circumstances, but if you have to qualify their name with “the machine” every time you talk about them you’re probably going to get in trouble. But, yes.”

Arthur decided, for once, to not express his surprise. “I’ll have to catch up with the speech. What did they talk about?”

“They have some good ideas about what kind of people they might make ascendants, and how they might delegate work to those people. It seems like they’re actually invested in building a functioning government, which would be nice.”

“Would you say they’re a front runner?”

“I don’t know about that, but a decent number of people from outside my own planet came in to take a look. A lot of Garden people, oddly. I think they have a chance.”

Arthur remembered what Sofia had said – she and Sai were friends. He bade farewell to Dr. Muñoz and headed to bed, a mind full of factors.

He didn’t believe that dreams held any special meaning – anyone who tried to tell you that on Edo was probably trying to sell you something – but he couldn’t deny that something special had happened when he fell asleep in confusion and woke up in perfect clarity. He reached over for his device, and fumbling with the interface he sent an alert to Kei:

Meet me in Luna asap?

Fifteen minutes later she pushed through the door. At this hour nobody else was in the bar except for Manny, who didn’t seem to have slept. Kei, bleary-eyed, sat down opposite the perfectly awake Arthur. “What’s going on?”

He poured her the coffee, for once. “I think I figured it out. What Sofia and Marcia are doing – or what they think they’re doing.”

“Good for you. This couldn’t wait?”

“The vote’s tomorrow. The last speeches are today. You said it yourself – I don’t have much time if I’m going to do something about it.”

“Let’s leave why you have to do something about it for later. What’s the plan?”

Arthur took a breath. “Okay, so we thought that the plan was to undermine the King, right? Sofia doesn’t like him, and she’s working with Lady Kouris to do something to stop him getting Herald votes. But if that’s true, where are the votes going to go? Lady Kouris herself? She’s running, but she’s done absolutely no campaigning outside of her speech. Even that was more fawning. She’s not a serious candidate, and she’s not trying to be. So, I thought, who would Sofia want? Well, she’s friends with Sai, who in his speech yesterday apparently spent some time talking about making smart choices for the ascendant roles. Maybe he’s involved, maybe not, but I think Sofia wants one of those roles.”

“So, she’s turning Herald voters towards Sai?”

“Except that would never work, I know. One dissenter is one thing, but a voting bloc of them? No way, not for the first vote out the gate. Herald is voting for the King. But a ton of Garden delegates came to see Sai talk, and now there’s buzz. Nobody knows what’s going on in their heads, and most people are too afraid to approach them. What if that’s the market that Sofia and Marcia are cornering? What if they’re trying to turn Garden towards Sai?”

Kei looked blank, but he pressed on. “Look – Sai spoke at 10:16 in the morning yesterday. Over the next four hours, sixteen of the twenty-eight candidates from Garden dropped out of the race.” He showed her the statistics he had collated on his device. “I don’t know for sure that they were all there, but that drop… it means something.”

“Okay. I buy it. They’re building a resistance against the King by providing an alternative. It’s not exactly the subterfuge you were anticipating, though. In fact, it seems totally legitimate. I ask again: what is there to do?”

“Well, this is the thing. Go with me here: what if everything I’ve just told you is total bullshit?”

Manny dropped a bottle – it smashed against the hard floor and he swore. Kei looked over, but Arthur kept his gaze fixed on her. “It’s a lie, all of it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“I talked with Lars yesterday, the ex-husband. He’s not that smart, and I’d love to play poker with him one day, but when we were talking I asked him what “they” were planning. I meant Sofia and Marcia, but he thought I meant Marcia and the King. And he confirmed it. Marcia is working with the King, and what they’re doing, it’s secret. You see what’s happening?”

Kei got it. “They’re playing Sofia.”

Arthur slammed his hand on the table. “They’re playing Sofia! They’re spinning her a story, through Marcia, that she’s some dissenter. Stirring up false support for the other frontrunner. Making her think that Garden are going to vote for Sai, when in reality…”

“In reality, what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the King has made a backroom deal with Garden somewhere – maybe he’s offered them an ascendant position or three. Or promised to push through whatever bills they want. In any case, it’s not like they’re unpractised at deception. I bet he recognises that in them.”

“I’m offended – we’re pretty good at deception too.”

“Not like those guys. We’ve made it an art – they’ve made it life and death.”

Kei was still putting it together. “So Marcia is loyal to the King, convinces Sofia that Sai is the way to go… but this is a lot of effort to go to. If the King was going to make Garden an offer, he didn’t need all this other stuff – he could’ve just won it. Why bother – ah. To humiliate her.”

“I think so. After that blow-up at the party? Maybe he actually feels threatened. I dread to think how many people Sofia is telling about this, about what she thinks is happening, getting them to jump onto the Sai camaign. But if Sai doesn’t actually have a hope, then they’re all going to be pretty mad.”

There was a silence. “That’s good,” Kei finally said. “We should hire him.”

“I think he’s about to have a job,” Arthur said.

Arthur was sure he had it right. The question became – what to do about it? When he asked Kei, she didn’t seem to understand.

“Should we warn her?” he asked.

“Warn who? Sofia? Eh, she made her bed.”

“That’s a little harsh.”

“If she’s going to fall for something like this, it’s pretty much what she deserves. Something like this was always going to happen – why get involved?”

“We could win allies this way.”

“Allies who are about to be revealed to be idiots, sure. If anything, we should be showing the King what we know. I bet he’d respect you for figuring it out – you could leverage that into an ascendant position. But warning Sofia? It’s too late for that.”

All that day Arthur agonised over the question, because it wasn’t too late. This was the last day of speeches, and the unlucky candidates who had been given this last-minute slot probably wouldn’t get much notice from the electorate as a whole. In fact, scanning the list of candidates he saw that about half of the nineteen candidates due to speak today had dropped out, clearly not believing it was worth the trouble. That left a day with a lot of empty space, so Arthur’s role as chamber rat was mostly spent talking with Cristian and the others. In the two-hour gap between an Edo delegate who was looking to buy the film rights of the space station and the next candidate, they talked through the frontrunners. In the evening since Arthur had talked to Cristian last, he had changed his mind; Sai was apparently now a clear frontrunner, with the King nipping at his heels. Arthur had a nasty feeling that he knew where that instinct was coming from, but still held off from raising the red flag.

By the end of the day he had still kept his secret to himself. He had convinced himself that Kei was right – it wasn’t their problem, and they would do well to fall in line on it. Then, just before the last speech of the day, Sofia and Marcia entered the chamber together. They both had triumphant looks on their faces, like they had already won. Arthur didn’t want to talk to either of them. Omitting a theory was one thing, but lying to the victim was another. As he tried to duck away back to his own bench, though, they came straight toward him.

“Mr. Meridian!” Sofia said, still smiling. “I was hoping to see you.”

“Is that so?” Arthur glanced from one woman to the other.

“Well, you were correct yesterday morning, of course, I don’t mind telling you now. There’s a plan going around. We’re going to be able to elect Sai as President.”

“Oh!” Arthur faked a smile. “Both of you?”

“Well, Marcia’s involvement is a little hush, for obvious reasons, but we think we have the numbers. There’s a good contingent of people who agree with their policies. Did you see the speech yesterday?”

“I didn’t, I was occupied – but I heard it was terrific, and your colleague Dr. Muñoz has been evangelising them all day. Sounds like you could be on to a winner.”

“Well, I don’t want to count our chickens, but-“

“And you, Lady Kouris,” Arthur turned to the other woman, who had so far been silent, “Are you not worried about any reprisals for this?”

“Well, Mr… Meridian, was it?” she said. “I think it’s more important to do what is right than what is convenient, don’t you? Besides, the King will forgive me – this is only the start of his plans.”

Arthur wanted to shout, to blurt out his theory immediately and tell Sofia to recall everyone who she thought was voting for Sai, to tell every Edo and Carmen delegate who was thinking of voting for the King that he wasn’t interested in fair play. But he fought the instinct, because he knew Kei was right. It wouldn’t make any difference. Instead he smiled, made his excuses, and left to find a drink.

***

The day of votes came and went, and Arthur watched it like a car crash. The chamber was full once again (his own seat on the bench secure and unchallenged), and there was much excitement among the candidates. On the final ballot there were almost fifty, with the bulk having resigned over the course of the week. But from listening to the chatter, it seemed as though the excitement about Sai had mostly taken hold. Arthur heard multiple times that it was going to be a “surprise victory” and that the preferential voting system would likely not produce a winner until the third or fourth round of voting. There was a sort of implicit acceptance that Garden and most of Carmen would be voting for Sai, that all of Herald would be voting for the King, and that everyone else was fair game. At noon Speaker Evanson, still high in the President’s chair for now, called for everyone to submit their five preferences in ranked order. Arthur submitted his vote, feeling bile rise in his throat as he ranked the King first.

After just a few minutes, the votes were tabulated. King Aenos 5 won 109 of the first-choice votes – more than half of the delegates. There was no second round.

As soon as the Speaker announced the results there was an enormous cheer from one half of the room – the Herald and Garden benches had erupted with joy, and the King was already rising to descend the stairs. Confusion rippled through the other two benches, and Arthur saw Sai and Sofia sitting together, both displaying their own forms of bafflement. Many hands reached for devices, where the full breakdown of votes was already available. Every single Herald delegate had voted for the King, and thirty-eight of the fifty Garden delegates had done so too. Adding in a scattering of votes from fence-sitters on the other benches (including Arthur and, as he saw, Kei), and there had been no contest. If the Speaker himself was baffled by the result, he gave no indication.

Questions flew around the room in hushed whispers, but the only one that Arthur still had was answered swiftly. He had been wondering just what the King/President had offered Garden, when he saw that a woman from the Garden benches was making her way down to join him in the centre. Arthur recognised her as the only female Colonel from their army aboard the station. He announced at the top of his speech (prepared, naturally) that Vice President Powell and he were thrilled to accept the results of the election. This came as a surprise to even Arthur, because there was no role for a Vice President in the Constitution. Evidently the King had decided to invent one, and would pass some law to give her some special powers.

Everyone began to filter out of the chamber to try and figure out what had happened. Arthur watched Sofia, unmoved from her seat, apparently stunned by the action. Marcia strode over to her and whispered something in her ear before following her King out the door. The expression on Sofia’s face was too much to bear. Arthur tried to leave, but felt an arm of a still-seated man catch him as he exited between the benches. He turned to see Cristian’s face through the bars of the seats, his expression difficult to read. “Did you know?” he said.

Arthur wasn’t sure what to say to his friend. “Let’s talk about it later. Over a drink.”

He left the chamber, his conscience screaming.