Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (94 page)

“It would look worse if I fall over.”

Nodding, Venkins helped him to his feet and escorted him through a side doorway, while the whispering and murmuring increased. Maybe this would garner him some sympathy votes, the Doge thought. Pimyt hurried to lend assistance.

In the anteroom, Lorenzo refused to sit, eat, or drink. “Leave me,” he said to the aide.

After the black man left, Lorenzo told Pimyt why he’d had to leave, then said, “How can they even call for this vote, after all I’ve done for the MPA? I’ve put money in the pockets of everyone in that chamber, and this is how I’m rewarded?”

“All ballots are not in yet,” Pimyt said. “I have people making last-minute deals, pressing for the support of anyone who’s on the fence. It is difficult to do, however, since so many princes are keeping their cards close to the vest. As you know, Francella has her people doing their best on our behalf, too. I just spoke with her this morning.”

He nodded. “You’re doing the best you possibly can, and I appreciate it.”

Lorenzo heard a rap at the anteroom door, and Pimyt let Francella in. She wore a long white dress, with a pale blue sash and a gold broach bearing her initials on her lapel. He saw the unmistakable aging on her face (despite the attempts to cover it with makeup), and a slight stoop to her posture. He felt a deep concern for her welfare. It was good of her to come when she was not feeling well.

“May I come in?” she asked, looking over the top of the much shorter Hibbil and smiling at Lorenzo.

Feeling the need for emotional support, Lorenzo nodded. He rested his hand on a copy of the
Scienscroll
that lay open on a stand, and this gave him some comfort, as if a higher power was watching over him.

Hurrying to his side, Francella placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’re doing everything we can,” she said, “but it doesn’t look good.”

In disbelief, he looked at her. “I’m going to lose?”

“The revelation about Princess Meghina is too large to overcome, it seems.”

“I didn’t know she was a Mutati!”

“I believe you, but it has the appearance of concealment on your part, and some people are willing to believe the worst about you. There is this, too. Word has it that my brother spread the story about Meghina and your involvement.”

“Noah did that?”

“It’s in his nature, and he’s out now, back with the Guardians.”

“But how did he find out about Meghina?”

With a shrug, Francella said, “Who knows? But Noah hates you for helping me.”

“I could kill him for this!”

“I already tried that.”

“Just the same, there are still things we can do. If we get our hands on him again, we can seal him in plax and bury him, or drop him in the deepest part of the ocean.”

“My brother’s cells do have some value, so it would be better to seal him up somewhere and stab needles into him to extract blood whenever we need it.”

“A cure for you,” Lorenzo said.

“Precisely.”

A wave of sadness overwhelmed the Doge, and words caught in his throat.

“It’s Noah’s fault that this vote of confidence is going to go against you,” Francella said. “I hoped for a different result, but the polls are clear.” She looked downcast.

“Maybe you’re mistaken,” Lorenzo said, staring at the
Scienscroll
that still rested under one hand. “I could still pull off a miracle.”

She did not reply.

With a sudden movement, Lorenzo dropped to his knees in front of the
Scienscroll
stand. He could not hold his emotions back, and tears streamed down his face.

On either side of him, Francella and Pimyt knelt, too, and the three of them prayed silently together for several long minutes.

“I don’t understand how this happened,” Lorenzo finally said, opening his eyes and looking at his most trusted associates. “I just don’t see how this could have possibly happened. Don’t the princes know what I’ve done for them?”

“Maybe there will be a miracle after all,” Pimyt suggested.

But Lorenzo heard otherwise in his tone, and saw hopelessness in his face. He was only going through the motions.

Looking at his long-time lover on the other side, Lorenzo thought she looked dismal, and seemed to age moment by moment. The Doge sensed powerful forces aligned against him, attacking even those closest to him.

“If it does not go well,” Francella said, “we must salvage what we can. Our best hope may lie with our son, Anton.”

“As the next Doge, you mean?”

She nodded. “I have made inquiries through intermediaries. Anton could garner considerable support.”

“Because he’s a del Velli, but does not have my baggage.”

With a tight smile, she said, “And you could still exert a powerful influence over him behind the

scenes.

“I don’t know him well enough to say that.” “But I do, and he’ll do as we say.”

“We must consider the ramifications of this,” Pimyt said, obviously agitated. “It would be a big step, with obvious risks.”

“If it goes badly for you out in the hall,” she said to Lorenzo, “we must move quickly and present Anton to them before anyone can mount an opposition candidate.”

Pimyt did not say anything, and to Lorenzo his attaché seemed unable to keep up with the fast pace of events. At least Francella had considered the possibilities.

Reluctantly, the Doge nodded. “Let’s go back in,” he said. Trying to summon his courage, he rose shakily to his feet.

When he walked back into the large chamber with Pimyt, it was eerily silent. All eyes were turned on Lorenzo.

He saw the tally on a screen that hung from the high ceiling:

For Doge Lorenzo del Velli: 578 Against Doge Lorenzo del Velli: 955

Angrily, he tried to control his shaking. He had lost the vote of confidence. It wasn’t even close.

Just then, Francella Watanabe strode into the chamber and marched down the central aisle toward him, accompanied by their son, Anton Glavine.

The real and the projected princes rose to their feet and the chamber erupted in applause. To Lorenzo’s surprise, he heard a clamor arise in favor of his bastard son.

“Doge Anton!” they chanted. “Doge Anton!”

Francella and Anton mounted the stage and stood in front of him. “This is our miracle,” she said to Lorenzo. “I’ve made all the necessary arrangements, made the payments and promises. The princes will haggle back and forth a bit, but only for the sake of appearances. The vote for Anton will only be a formality.”

The Doge sat down. His Human enemies were more subtle and devious than the Mutatis, and had succeeded in pulling out the Doge’s underpinnings of support so suddenly that he was shocked. The situation with Anton was intriguing, but Lorenzo couldn’t accept him too easily, or that would garner opposition to the new Doge.

So, feigning more rage and discontent than he really felt, Lorenzo jumped to his feet. “You haven’t heard the last of me!” he shouted, as he stormed out of the hall.

Even though the princes wanted Lorenzo’s resignation, they could not force it, not even after the vote of no confidence. A number of legal procedures still had to be followed to remove him from office, and that could take years, as it had in the past with other merchant prince leaders. Lorenzo knew something of merchant prince law, and had the best lawyers to represent his interests.

In private, he told her what he had decided to do, and finally she said, “Yes. I see the wisdom in your words.”

The princes and their representatives held meetings far into the night, while Lorenzo conferred with Pimyt and a staff of attorneys. During a meal break on the stage, with tables set up for those who were on Canopa, Francella went over to Lorenzo and said, “I told them you are too stubborn to resign, my dear, but you must be cautious. The noble-born princes are not in a patient mood, and we are at war against the Mutatis and against the Guardians. They are talking about using wartime provisions against you, and.…”

“Don’t try to snow me,” Lorenzo said, raising his voice so that others could see him seeming to argue with her. “My people know the laws better than you do. I can take steps to remain in power for a long time.”

“Some of your opponents are saying that you could be overthrown violently,” Francella said. She glanced back at Anton, who sat at her table but thus far had remained silent.

“Supreme General Jacopo Nehr is totally loyal to me,” Lorenzo countered. “He can bring most of the armed forces to my support on a moment’s notice.” Pausing, the Doge smiled and added, “Nonetheless, for the good of the Alliance, I have decided to take a different course of action. Tell them I will abdicate, but only under certain conditions.”

“And those conditions are?” Francella asked. She sounded irritated, but Lorenzo assumed it was only for show.

“Watch me,” he said.

Calling in old favors, Lorenzo and his staff made a flurry of last-minute political arrangements. Despite his bluster, he knew his political opponents could attack him militarily, and the armor on the orbiter wouldn’t stand against a full-scale assault. Still, that would be an unprecedented, egregious act, and might very well lead to civil war all across the Alliance.

Making the best of a bad situation, Lorenzo slipped cleverly out of the noose his opponents had prepared for him. He agreed to abdicate immediately, and accepted exile to his space station, where he would operate The Pleasure Palace Casino, guarded by a contingent of Red Berets. Under the arrangement, he would be permitted to keep his corporate directorships, and would receive the title of Doge Emeritus, along with a generous annual pension.

He also had the new, secret understanding with Francella, which might prove to be more lucrative than the gambling casino. Immediately after the agreement with Lorenzo was signed, the princes conducted a private vote, and Anton del Velli was elected Doge.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Everyone wants to be seen and noticed. It is an aspect of the Human condition. It is also an aspect that we constantly attempt to select and frame the pictures in which we appear.

—Master Noah Watanabe

Anton Glavine, a former maintenance man and later a prisoner, never imagined that he would one day become the highest-ranking official in the Merchant Prince Alliance, the Doge of all humankind. The suddenness of his ascension stunned him. After a midnight vote he felt as if he had been plucked from darkness and lifted into the light, with limitless possibilities for his life. Great riches had been opened for him as the heir to the House of del Velli and the Doge’s share of taxes he would receive, even if they only came from Canopa and the rest was on paper, due to the cessation of podship travel.

In the beginning Anton had to follow a tight course, at least until he gained enough power and influence in his own right to speak out and say what he felt. His concerns ran deep. Principal among them was his enigmatic mother, about whom he had mixed feelings. Anton tried to view her sympathetically for the woman’s mental illness, which seemed obvious. He appreciated the belated attention she had given him, her overtures to make up for the time they had lost between them, more than twenty years. Anton tried to feel love for her, but that was not easy, and he didn’t know if he ever could.

She might have done terrible things to the person he admired most in the entire galaxy, his Uncle Noah Watanabe. Anton had heard stories about Francella performing violent laboratory experiments on her own brother and how he had survived through some miracle and then escaped. If she really did that to him, Anton could never forgive her. He would even see that she was prosecuted, but thus far they were only stories, without evidence.

Francella was claiming that the descriptions were exaggerated, and that she had really conducted controlled experiments, with full medical technology and personnel available for life saving purposes. According to her claim, supported by Dr. Bichette, Noah gave permission to have his body cut into pieces, knowing that they would grow back, and he issued a challenge, asserting he could not be killed. Anton had seen him do that on the pod station, when Noah told his estranged sister to go ahead and shoot, since that could not harm him. He claimed immortality, and evidence suggested that this actually was the case.

Though Anton did not fully understand why, he knew that his mother had always hated Noah and had unfairly blamed him for the attack on CorpOne headquarters that killed old Prince Saito Watanabe. She might even have been responsible for that aggression herself, but Anton did not have any evidence pointing in that direction. Only the suspicions of her brother and other people. Anton wanted to believe the best about his mother. What a shame it would be to find her after all this time and then discover that she had no redeeming qualities at all.

He also found it troublesome that Francella seemed to be a master at pointing fingers, including the recent incident with Noah, the earlier attack on CorpOne, and the way she had recently cast suspicions about Doge Lorenzo, asserting that he knew all along that Princess Meghina was not Human, and had concealed the facts. That tactic was one of the key reasons for his fall from power. As far as Anton was concerned, it had not been entirely above board, but perhaps that was the way of merchant prince politics, just another day in the arena of political combat. Soon, he would learn more about how the game was played. For now, he was a child thrown into the ocean and told to swim.

Trumpets blared, and on all sides noblemen and ladies bowed their heads to Anton as he walked down the central aisle of the Hall of Princes, with his mother just behind him. Anton wore a glittering gold-brocade cloak and uniform, draped in jewels and medallions, while his regal-looking mother was adorned in a long white gown and golden headdress. Outside, the central square fronting the government buildings thronged with people, celebrating the inauguration of the new Doge, the leading prince of the realm.

On one level of awareness, Anton felt tremendous pride, and a certainty that this lofty position was his birthright as the son of Lorenzo. But he also felt a great deal of responsibility, and a fear that he might not be up to the task. He vowed privately to do his best, and to assert himself as soon as he could, getting out from under the skirts of the woman behind him and prosecuting her if he found evidence that she had committed any crimes. Anton knew he had to be his own man. He would grow into the job, beginning with humility and diplomacy and gradually changing, revealing his own personality and goals. It was a difficult time to ascend to this position, with the ongoing hostilities and the strange cessation of podship travel. He doubted if any ruler before him had ever faced such monumental obstacles.