Chapter Six

Geraint didn’t often suffer from hesitation, but as he prepared to speak he shifted in the seat below him. Even now, he couldn’t bring himself to think of it as his seat. The one in which he had sat during rehearsals, the one he would occupy for the rest of his time on Audacity, was about three feet below him and to the left. He had many high hopes for the coming term, but top of his list was that he would never need to sit in the central chair again.

“Delegates,” he began, and his voice boomed out across the room. He had no need for amplification, as his naturally sonorant voice carried well in the sonically treated room. One of his staff had told him that they’d moulded the acoustic foam to his particular vocal resonances, but he was fairly sure she was joking. He also found himself having no trouble with the language – in fact, considering how exclusive its speaker base was and how long he had had to practice, he might well be the greatest speaker of Gaean in the multiverse.

“We stand at the edge of history, on a day that all of humanity will remember forever. Much like the first moon landing” – carefully phrased to avoid specifying the who or how, emphasising the similarities between planets over the differences – “you and I are here to forge a new future. Fortune has blessed us with the sight to finally meet with one another after millennia of working alone. It now falls to us to decide how best we use this gift.”

When he had first written that section, he’d called in his secretary Matthelm to read it over. When he was done, the young man looked up through his mop of hair and nodded with encouragement. “It’s good.”

“You think so? You’re not just saying that?”

“I am saying it, sir. But I’m not just saying it – it is good. It’ll go down well.”

“And you’re sure? The last thing I want is to be surrounded by yes-men in this office, okay? I’ve worked with staff like that before – it wears one down.”

“Where was that, sir?” Matthelm grinned mischievously.

“Never you mind,” Geraint chided. When he was chosen for the role of Speaker, he had elected to keep his Earth of origin off the record where possible, to better emphasise his neutrality. It would always be impossible to totally silence any complaints of bias, and the information was available for those who dug deep enough. But the secret had held through the preliminary phases, and it might make it harder for anyone to call foul play in the first term.

He pulled the draft from Matthelm’s hands and paced the windowless office. He looked out at his team of half-a-dozen secretaries, each rapidly working through their own to-do lists. “It is good, yes. But do you think it’s necessary? After all, I’m not telling the delegates anything they don’t already know.”

Matthelm thought about this for a moment. Then he said, “Yes, but it’s not for the delegates, is it? That part, anyway. That’s for the newscasters and the biographers – all those who’ll want to document what happened here. You’re really speaking to the billions not in this station.”

Nodding, Geraint set the paper down on his desk. “Not that anything is guaranteed to happen, here.”

“No. But whatever happens… it’s like you say. Nobody’s ever going to forget it.”

Geraint reflected on Matthelm’s words as he continued his speech. It was good, even if not long after finishing the first draft he was given a team of speechwriters to help him “smooth it out” a little. That turned out to mean “remove anything beyond the most basic platitudes”, as anything else was considered either too provocative or too functional. He fought some of these changes, and agreed with others, but mostly let them have their way with it. He considered his oratory skills better suited to extemporaneous occasions, and it did flow more easily after they’d done their work.

The speech covered topics such as the delegates’ enormous responsibility and the importance of communication with their governments at home before he reached his favourite part, which he’d fought tooth and nail to keep intact. “Besides which, all of you have another responsibility – to yourselves and to each other. For most Earths present this will be the first long-term extraplanetary living operation. Therefore, it falls to you all to make sure you remain both physically and mentally healthy, in order to better carry out the extraordinary tasks that fall to you. It would be my greatest privilege to oversee a Parliament that not only functions as a place of business but as a community. I hope that we do not simply survive together – I hope, instead, that we flourish together.”

When Geraint had put in his application for the Speakership (one of four from his Earth, for a total of sixteen candidates) this was one of the aspects he had emphasised most. He truly believed that life aboard the Audacity could be remarkable, and that the project’s success could, in time, open the door for everyone to travel between worlds. The things each Earth could learn from one another were staggering to consider. Given the chance, he would not allow that education to be confined only to this station.

“Now,” he continued, finishing up the bulk of his speech, “I would like to briefly hand over to Asa Ko, Chief Operator of Audacity’s Service division. Ms. Ko,” he gestured to the shadow shifting in the sidelines, amongst the small crowd of Service members who had been able to fit into the chamber to hear the speech. Asa had a habit of blending in, and as she inched into the centre and turned to look at the Speaker, giving him a tiny nod, he was reminded that it had taken some persuading for her to agree to speak at all. It wasn’t that she was nervous or a poor speaker. Rather, she had confessed, she found it difficult to filter her thoughts. He had encouraged her that she wouldn’t need to, as the delegates were about to learn. They were all smiling down at her, having been put into a good feeling by his optimistic closer. That was the first half of the plan – set ‘em up…

“Delegates,” Asa began, her light E-Japanese accent barely coming through in her Gaean (hers was almost as good as his), “Your work aboard this station will involve answering many difficult questions and putting whatever answers you conjure up into law. My job is to ensure those laws are enforced back home. You may all rest assured that while your work will be receiving the most attention, mine is the far harder position. It is for that reason that I have a simple request – please, don’t embarrass yourselves.”

She paused for a moment to let this land, and Geraint was satisfied to see a few eyebrows raise and a few careful murmurs. Asa and Geraint made a good team, even if they didn’t agree on everything.

“As the Speaker has already said, your presence here is a privilege, one that is only possible with the hard work of the Service members you see around this chamber, and the dozens more working above you. As their name suggests, they are here to serve you, and the work they have already put into creating this environment is already beyond extraordinary. What you will do here is not possible without us, and you would do well to not forget that.

“By the same token, you are here to serve your own people, and the greater universal community. Audacity is an experiment, and there are no shortage of detractors out there. I’m sure you all know about the protests and the doomsayers on all four planets, those who are devoutly certain that we were never supposed to meet. You can rest assured that they – as well as every other citizen back home – are all watching the proceedings today, and every day thereafter, watching for a single mistake that they can hold up as proof that the experiment has failed. You must not give them the opportunity. Your work must be unimpeachable without exception.”

Geraint couldn’t help but smile at the delegates’ now-stricken faces. He was in charge here, but he was happy to let Asa put the fear of God into them for now. She continued on without letting up her glare, somehow directed at all four benches at once. “If you follow the precepts of the Constitution that has been established, and you take the advice I have given you here today, this should be the last any of you see of me. My work will keep me at a distance from the business of this chamber, which I view not just as a benefit but a necessity of our system. You can always contact my office for assistance, but if I am ever needed to give another speech in this spot” – she jabbed her fingers down to her feet, and Geraint swore he saw a young delegate from Herald flinch – “the situation would have to be very dire indeed. Thank you for taking the time to listen. Now let’s go to work.” Without another word she strode between the delegates’ benches, through the door directly opposite the Speaker’s chair. Just before the door closed on her, once she was out of sight of all but Geraint, she turned and winked at him. The chamber was silent again.

He took this as his cue. “To work, then. As I’m sure you will all be aware, the first order of business is to elect a President.” Geraint shifted in his seat again, as most of the Service began to file out. Chamber business was hardly private (the cameras saw to that), but they had taken Asa’s departure as a cue of their own. “Those of you who have closely studied the Constitution in advance will be well aware that it forbids any bill from being introduced without a sitting President. For the rest of you, I believe there is a copy in your welcome packets. In any case, as a quirk of the system, since we cannot elect a President without a President, I am temporarily acting in that role. Rest assured that I won’t be in this chair long, and I will only be using the powers of the office to bring this single bill to pass. From then on, all Presidents will be elected from the pool of delegates.

“Nominations are now open – be aware that you need three other delegates to support your nomination. You all have personal devices waiting for you in your offices, which will take you through the process. Nominations will close in 25 hours from now.” From the corner of his eye Geraint watched Matthelm tap a glyph on his device, starting the countdown. There was no dramatic light-up clock in the chamber, but all the delegates’ own devices would display the time that remained.

“Now, with that out of the way, I would like to open the floor to addresses from delegates.” As the room clattered with delegates rushing to stand, he raised his voice easily over the din. “Since we don’t have all day, I will be selecting two delegates from each Earth to speak for no more than two minutes apiece. Rest assured that over the coming weeks you will all have the opportunity to give your maiden speech, even if it isn’t today! I call to the floor Arthur Meridian, Esquire!”

Arthur, a man of fifty with pale skin and soft features left his row to descend the stairs. The kerfuffle quieted as delegates took their seats, though Geraint noticed that only two delegates from Earth: Herald had stood in the first place. “Speaker,” Arthur began, “I thank you for your welcome address today. You and Ms. Ko are correct that the residents of Earth: Edo are watching the skies today, looking to us for leadership in this new age. The opportunities that lie before us are limitless, and I know that all my fellow delegates in the Edo faction will agree that the ethos of friendship and congeniality we have demonstrated in the project thus far will continue over the months and years to come. We look forward to sharing our gifts with you all very soon.”

With that, Arthur took his seat again. A faint round of applause, mostly from the Edo benches, and Geraint called the next person to speak from Carmen. While she spoke, Geraint reflected on Arthur’s speech. He had done his research on all of the delegates, partly so he could call them all by name when needed, but also just for his own edification. Meridian had been a candidate for President of Edo (the city, not the world – although the two were rapidly becoming synonymous) just recently but had lost out to a younger man who painted him as a dinosaur. In his view Arthur had run a strong campaign but wasn’t quite conniving enough to fight back against the worst punches of the opposition. That didn’t mean he didn’t have a sly streak; Geraint was all too aware what he had meant by “opportunities”, and like most Edo delegates he would be happiest to come out the other end of this having made a profit.

The Carmen speaker was a young woman called Sofia Castillo. Geraint had chosen her to speak because her status within the faction was relatively low – there were no formal power structures on Earth: Carmen, but her age and relative lack of qualification made her something of an outlier. As far as he could tell, she was the only delegate from Carmen without a doctorate. Since he was about to call on the big one, he thought he would lend a hand to those who might not get much chance to speak later. Her talking points were much the same as Arthur’s but sounded more sincere coming from her. Sofia finished speaking and received a milder round of applause, and the Speaker, taking a breath as though bracing himself, called on King Aenos 5.

The King was dead centre of the front bench, but as soon as his name was spoken every delegate on the same row stood and backed away to let him pass. He sauntered down the stairs, taking his time, commanding the room in a way that almost rivalled Geraint’s own talents. As soon as he’d seen that the King would be attending as a delegate personally, he’d suspected that his presence would be a source of tension for delegates across the board. Now, he saw that he himself wouldn’t be immune to the King’s gravity.

“My fellow delegates,” the King began – his voice booming too loud, if anything – “As the principal ruler of Earth: Herald, I welcome you all to the Audacity parliament with warm regards. I am confident that together we can work to benefit all Earths through unity and…”

The Speaker began to tune the actual content of the speech out. It became clear that these welcome speeches would, for the most part, all say the same thing. He was troubled by the King’s opening, all the same – welcoming the other delegates to the Audacity not-so-subtly positioned him as someone in the position to do so. Then again, he wondered, would he have thought of that if it was anyone other than the King? Was he making assumptions based on his position? Pondering this, he slowly became aware that King Aenos was wrapping up.

“…and so, for this reason, it pleases me to announce here that I intend to stand for the position of President for this first term.”

Speaker Geraint Evanson needn’t have worried about his future as Speaker. He was a natural for the role – commanding and concise but with a measure of humour and good-naturedness that kept eager delegates from seeing him as a threat. However, it took a long time and a lot of difficult lessons to reach that point, and looking back at his career from the perspective of many long years he would have identified this moment as the first of those lessons. “What?” he blurted, too baffled by the King’s sudden announcement to stop himself.

Not everyone had heard him, thankfully, but only because there had been similar murmurs and shouts across the chamber. The King took his seat to wild applause from most Herald delegates, who clearly knew an opportunity to please their ruler when they saw one. King Aenos’s eyes met the Speaker’s and he smiled, his stunt clearly having the desired effect. Everyone else who would be announcing their nominations officially via their devices was now on the back foot. It was the first thrown punch of the Parliament, and it had come at the hands of the most famous delegate in the room – the only person who could be sure that everyone already knew his name.

Geraint, still on the back foot himself, tried to calm everyone down before calling on the delegate from Garden, an older man whose voice was too thin to carry into the room. Geraint had to silence the chatter twice before he could continue. The man speaking was a higher-ranked official in Novus Ordo Seculorum, but as predicted he focused almost all of his speech away from discussing details of his organisation or their war. On the one hand, it was the smart move to keep such controversial topics out of mind for now. On the other, Geraint knew the delegates wouldn’t let such ambiguities last for long. As his two minutes concluded, he quickly added – “Also, I intend to stand for President, and would be very happy to discuss the matter further with anyone who wishes to back an experienced candidate.”

Shots across the bow, Geraint thought miserably. The King had set a standard, and true to form each of the second speechmakers from each world (except Herald, for who would oppose the King in this matter or any other?) announced their own candidacies too. And just like that, the King was at the head of the pack.

The speeches finished shortly thereafter, and the Speaker called an end to the session before things could spiral any further. He left the chamber quickly, dodging one or two delegates eager to accost him for follow-up questions. He suddenly wasn’t much in the mood for small talk. As he strode through the corridors and into an elevator towards his office, Matthelm caught up with him, device in hand. The two shared a silence that was too awkward to be companionable, but too familiar to be outright hostile. Eventually, Geraint realised Matthelm wasn’t going to be the one to speak first, so he did.

“So,” he said, “That was…not quite as planned.”

“Speech seemed to go well.”

“Yes. Rest of it, less so.”

“It’s just a tactic. If the delegates are as smart or capable as they’re supposed to be…I mean, even I saw through it. He’s just trying to raise his profile.”

“Yes, of course. Still, if we couldn’t get through the first meeting without some manoeuvring, it doesn’t bode well.”

“I suppose not. There’s plenty of time to make up ground still, and…”

Geraint would never find out what else Matthelm would have said, because as the elevator doors slid open Asa Ko stood there, one hand on her hip and one consulting a device. She was clearly waiting for him, and from the look on her face she too had seen the events of the speeches, so Geraint walked on to his office – sure enough, she followed.

“What was that?” she asked.

He knew what she meant but could only gesture vaguely. “The King,” he said. “He had a plan.”

“Not exactly in the spirit of the first day.”

“Trust me, Asa,” he said, pushing through the double doors into his office, “You’re preaching to the choir.” A bustle of activity as his secretaries and administrators noted his arrival before returning to work on their various projects. He noticed the room was twice as full as the number of desks and wondered which of them were actually his staff.

“Then why didn’t you stop him? You -“ she began, before realising that everyone in the office was looking at them. She waited until they had passed through to his private chamber at the back, and Matthelm had closed the door, before continuing. “You’re supposed to be the Speaker.”

“Once he’d said it, it was too late. He clearly has his eye on the prize. I think it’ll be fine – Matthelm thinks the delegates are smarter than that.”

“Who the hell is Matthelm?” Asa asked. Geraint pointed to the secretary, lurking at the back of the room. “Oh,” she said. She was clearly aware that she’d caused a faux pas but seemed incapable of apology.

“Anyway,” Geraint said, settling down behind his desk as Asa remained standing, “I think he’s right. This won’t tip the scales in any meaningful way. Anyone that wasn’t going to run before isn’t more likely to run now. It’s the Presidency, for goodness’ sake. They couldn’t have made it more influential a role if they’d tried.”

“Tell me about it,” she muttered. “I’m on my way to the Constitutional Court next, and I have one or two choice words for them too. But a couple of things first.”

“Sure,” he said, before gesturing to Matthelm. “Matthelm, can you get me data on the first nominees as they start coming in? Most delegates should be at their quarters by now. I expect things are about to move quite quickly.” The secretary nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

Once they were alone, Asa said “Right,” in exactly the way he had come to learn meant he had forgotten to do something. “First things first, the Garden delay. We told the delegates there was an issue with the communication protocols and they weren’t able to come aboard.”

Geraint raised his eyebrows. “When you say that’s what you told them…”

She finally took a seat, avoiding his eye as she did so. “It’s … roughly true. But specifically, the communication protocols were being denied on our side because we caught someone on board talking about weaponry.”

“Talking about weaponry? You thought they might have had something?”

“Well, I leave that to my security chief, but yes, that was what she thought. And really, we knew that was an option – they’ve been less than co-operative with most of our rules.”

“But did you find anything?”

Asa shook her head. “Nothing on their person. We’ll do a full search, but we knew we couldn’t keep them waiting much longer. At least they didn’t come in and shoot the place up.”

“That was an option?!” Geraint cried. A couple of heads turned from outside at the noise.

“No, of course not. But it didn’t happen anyway.”

“Well. I feel safer already.” He put his face in his hands as she continued to speak.

“Well, like I said, we’re going to do a full search of the ships and cargo. Speaking of which, you should have gotten a memo about a shipment of, ah, contraceptive equipment from Carmen.”

He looked at her blankly. “For me? Oh, you shouldn’t have.”

“It’s for distribution to the delegates.”

“The memo, or…”

“The contraception.”

“Am I expected to do that personally? I am trying to build a reputation here that I fear that might diminish.”

“No, of course not, but we thought that since it concerned delegate… relations, it was more your sphere.”

“Well, gosh. Thank you for that. I’ll go and put them all in a big box on the chamber floor, eh? I mean, really, Asa. Do we really need those? We’re here to do a job after all, and I would hope we can rely on everyone to behave professionally.”

“Well,” she said, “As far as behaving professionally goes, I refer you to the stunt we just saw in the chamber. And further to that… God, we’re all stuck up here for the next year and a half now with only each other for company. Not to mention that we come from four different planets and twenty-eight different regional blocs. We’ve tested for the scariest diseases we can, but some things… and after all, you can’t really expect them to… I mean, really Geraint, they’re only human!”

Geraint was shocked to see that, for the first time, Asa Ko was actually flustered. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose so. Okay, I’ll find a way to deliver those around. Anything else?”

“Not for now. I’ll check in after the meet-and-greet.” Just as Asa began to stand, Matthelm burst in. It was unusual of him not to knock, but rather than chide him Geraint could tell that something was wrong.

“Matthelm? What’s the problem?”

“The nominations, sir. Sorry, but they’re… you should see this. Both of you.” He passed a device over the desk, and as Geraint picked it up he and Asa peered at the live data indicating the newest nominees for President. It was scrolling automatically, faster than he could keep track. Confused, he looked up at Matthelm.

“How many is this?”

“So far, sir? Nearly one hundred.”

Geraint felt his jaw drop. Asa grabbed the terminal and said “So you’re telling me…”

“Yes,” Matthelm nodded. “Nearly half of the total delegates are running for President.”

“What,” Asa said, “the fuck.”

Geraint, for his part, could find little else to add.