Ibrahim's lips moved slightly, as if replaying the name in his mind. A slight concentration, as if in some mild bemus.e.m.e.nt, eyes momentarily distant.

"Does the name mean something to you, sir?" she ventured.

"No. No, I merely wonder at the apparently random selection of GI names a he is a man of African appearance, then?" More of Ari's briefing.

She nodded. "West African, yes." Handsome b.a.s.t.a.r.d, too a but most GIs were. "The implied cultural affiliations don't appear to hold much significance for him, however. As with most GIs. I'd been hoping for more enlightenment from an Intel GI, though, outside the intellectual vacuum of Dark Star."

"As you yourself are enlightened?"

"I don't consider myself European, sir." A faint smile. "And as for my name, my verbal Russian begins and ends with 'Nyet."'

"In Russia itself, of course, you would be Kresnova. Being female." The musing surprised her. Ibrahim did not muse often. Though, he was bleary-eyed with sleep, propped seated against the wall on the cushions that made up his temporary mattress a it appeared to have taken an edge off his usual, authoritative formality. He smiled at her. "Do you know that there are some in Parliament who bear President Neiland ill-feeling for appointing me as CSA director, mostly because of my Pashtun heritage?"

"Really?"

"Of course, there is little racism on Callay a but ethnic grudges apparently do not qualify for cla.s.sification. My people have long been warriors-when motivated to put down their ploughs and spinning wheels. Frequently b.l.o.o.d.y, self-destructive, misguided warriors at that. This heritage continues to be celebrated in the old country today, I hear. It makes the local pacifists nervous. Perhaps they fear I will declare a Jihad on them all, declare sharia law and begin issuing fatwas against my most vocal critics."

"Will you?" With amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I had considered it, in my darker moments." A faint smile. "I value my heritage, Ca.s.sandra. It is a part of me, and I by no means claim the stereotypes entirely misguided. As a GI yourself, I think perhaps you understand how I feel. It is no sin to be a warrior, Ca.s.sandra. It merely depends on the cause."

"Some warriors will invent causes," Sandy said quietly, "in the absence of obvious ones. Perhaps humans are a race of warriors at heart, always searching for something to fight for."

"Perhaps." Ibrahim's smile faded slightly. "Most people's greatest strengths are also their greatest failings, after all."

"I once read a writer's opinion that humans impose narrative upon everything, and conflict is the base substance of all narrative. Thus we cannot help but find conflict wherever we go."

"I disagree." The smile fully returned. "Narrative is everywhere. And we are its subject." And switched the subject before she could puzzle over that one a "How smart do you reckon this man Ramoja to be?"

"Man," Sandy noted. Not "GI." Politeness, she reckoned. And more, a clear statement of respectful non-discrimination. She welcomed it.

"He's a clever GI, no question. Illegally clever, by League laws. Like me."

"As clever as you?" With eyebrows raised. Sandy restrained a smile, and glanced briefly at the floor.

"As clever as me," she repeated, with mild irony. Halfway embarra.s.sed at the praise. She didn't get embarra.s.sed often. "I don't know, sir. How clever am I?" Meeting his gaze questioningly.

"Far more clever than any of those who would hate you, I have no doubt. That covers a good portion of the supposedly brightest minds on Callay." And Sandy found time to be glad that it was a physical impossibility for a GI to blush. "Ca.s.sandra. Did Ramoja attempt to recruit you back to the League?"

Sandy sighed. No sir, Ibrahim never missed much at all.

"Yessir." Shifted her posture, hooking an arm about her opposite leg as the tension strain began to ache once more. "Generally speaking. He attempted to convince me that the new government has changed things. That I could serve in the ISO instead of Dark Star, where things are supposedly better." Pause. "That people would always hate me in the Federation, and I should give up on ever trying to be accepted here."

"And what did you tell him?"

Sandy spared him a moment's consideration, eyes narrowed in thought. Worried, Mr. Ibrahim? Or just obliged by higher powers to keep checking my loyalty for your reports?

"Sir, Vanessa loves me." Quietly, in the subdued hush of the darkened office. Light drifted slowly beyond the windows, a flyer arriving at a nearby pad, running lights blinking. "SWAT Four mostly likes me. A lot of others in SWAT do too, I think. There are people in CSA Intel whom I genuinely believe I can call friends, or could, given some more time to get to know each other. The President likes me, whatever her more ruthless political tendencies. Some of her staff do. You yourself, and the a.s.sistant Director, have shown me nothing but support and respect. And just today I met some ordinary Ta.n.u.shans a if that isn't a total oxymoron a who were utterly delighted to make my acquaintance and pledged to help me out in any way they knew how, if necessary.

"Sir, that's a h.e.l.l of a lot more friends than I ever had back in the League. In some respects the a the emotional intensity was greater with my old Dark Star team. But less, too, because there was so little of my other life that they could even understand if I tried to talk to them about it. And the straights more or less kept to themselves.

"I a I don't know if I can honestly say I'm emotionally committed to the Parliament, or the laws, or whatever. But to the people a or at least to those people, and the aspects of the society that made them who they are a that's something I'd love to belong to, sir. I'm committed to that. Entirely so."

"There are people here who would kill you, Ca.s.sandra, if they could." Sombrely, his lidded, dark eyes effortlessly penetrating with something that felt like a wisdom, she supposed. The calm, effortless application of knowledge and reason. It held her utterly unmoving. "There are religious radicals, some of them from my own faith, who regard your very creation as a blasphemous act before Allah. There are technophobes who simply cannot comprehend that a person of inorganic construction could ever be worthy of the basic concepts of humanity we hold so dear. There are politicians with votes to be won by fanning the flames of ignorant hysteria. There are academics with reputations to be made by criticising the precedent your presence sets for Callay and the Federation more broadly. And there are a great many ordinary Callayans who know only what they're told, or what they see on the broadband news and entertainments, and simply find the concept of what you are frightening, for any number of reasons, some of them reasonable, many of them not. You know all of this. Do you tell me now that you were never, and will never be, tempted by his offer?"

At another time, and another moment, she might have taken a long, agonised pause for consideration before replying. Now, she found herself smiling. A subtle, dangerous little smile, amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes.

"I like the chaos," she said softly. "Chaos suits me. It helps me think. Makes me feel alive. People have crazy ideas. And wonderful ones too. I think it's connected, you can't have one without the other." The smile grew a little broader. "So I can't really complain that people hate me. They also love me, or find me fascinating, or confusing, or terrifying a" She gave a light shrug. "I'll cope. I'll be fine. In a fluid society, people can always change their minds."

"Precisely what the League hopes," Ibrahim returned. She shrugged again.

"Sure, maybe I'm doing the League a favour a if I could get Callayans to like me at least a little. Change their att.i.tude toward biotech. But I don't care either way. People will be people. And I'd much rather be here than locked into some League inst.i.tution, watching from afar. At least people here know how to have fun."

Ibrahim was very amused. His eyes gleamed in the dark, lips smiling broadly. She couldn't remember having seen him so amused before. Lately, there hadn't been much to be amused about.

"Is Callay going to break away from the Federation, sir?" she asked directly. It seemed the right time to venture the question. Ibrahim smiled faintly.

"Ca.s.sandra, I could not tell you if I knew. But it is impossible to know regardless, there are so many talks proceeding between so many different power factions with unpredictable interests and hidden agendas." He thought for a moment. "Many are hung up on the question of Governor Dali. I feel he is the key. If he would testify as to the extent of the FIA's crimes, and the Grand Council's complicity, it would certainly swing the present negotiating position of President Neiland and all the Federation member worlds in their arguments with the Federalists."

Sandy frowned. "If Dali told what he knew, and what he was involved in a surely that would strengthen the breakaway vote? If Dali's testimony proved that the entire Federation system is implicated in the FIA's crimes, wouldn't that create the twothirds majority here that Neiland needs for Callay to break from the Federation?"

"Or," said Ibrahim, nodding slowly, "create enough of a scandal back on Earth itself to force the Grand Council to a major review of itself. Possibly a review of the entire Federation system. It wasn't meant to be like this, Ca.s.sandra, Earth was not meant to have as much power as it presently has within the Grand Council and the Federation bureaucracy in general. The war put all the extremists in charge, just like in the League, and centralised all power around the Earth bureaucracy. The war has ended, but, on both sides, the damage continues."

Sandy thought of Captain Teig. And all the people killed at last month's Parliament Ma.s.sacre, and other accompanying bloodbaths. And of the contracting calamity that was the League economy right now, as the restructuring swept through the old wartime centralisation like a wrecking ball-the travel-delayed news reports of ma.s.s layoffs, bureaucratic collapse, criminal gangs and even food riots, on some of the unluckier worlds. And she remembered certain Old Earth sayings about chickens coming home to roost a "So reform of the Federation is possible, too?" she asked, still frowning. "As opposed to breaking away?"

Ibrahim gave a gentle shrug against the wall at his back.

"Breaking away is difficult. Politicians look for compromise. It certainly seems possible." No idle comment that, Sandy was sure. She stared at him closely for several long seconds. "But Dali is the key. And he has not been at all cooperative, he merely waits for the injunction to end so that the Earth delegation here can take him back to Earth, and Federal Jurisdiction. He needs to say nothing to us, and he knows it.

"Can the injunction become permanent? Can we actually win and keep him here?"

"It's possible." He didn't sound very optimistic. "Callayan law versus Federal law. Federal law usually triumphs. But these are extraordinary times, setting extraordinary precedents. In law, precedents are everything."

d.a.m.n it was tiring, trying to hold all these factors, these possible outcomes in her head. Had civilian societies always worked like this? It amazed her that they didn't all collapse in disaster more frequently. It seemed like any person trying to keep things running would soon become like a juggler tossing too many b.a.l.l.s-eventually one would slip, the rhythm would break and the whole lot come crashing down.

"Did Ramoja know anything about Chu?" Ibrahim asked quietly. Catching her off guard yet once more. She took a deep breath.

"I nearly forgot, there was so much else. I had to leave abruptly when Park Street went off, I only got in a quick question. He said he didn't know." A silent pause. Somewhere beyond the drawn blinds at the window, blinking lights from an approaching flyer flashed in colour. "He said the group that picked up the survivors of my team had vanished when the collapse set in after the election. No way of knowing where they are."

"It's better than knowing she's dead, Ca.s.sandra. Now you have hope."

Sandy gazed at the faint impression of lights through the blinds, watching them descend.

"A little hope," she said softly, "can be a painful thing."

Sleep meant mattresses upon an empty office floor, desks and integrated works.p.a.ces pushed to one side to make room for rows of SWAT grunts who couldn't find anywhere else in the chaotic, never-ending buzz of activity where they could lie down in peace. About half of them were already asleep by the time Vanessa made it up from final debrief, bureaucracy, armour maintenance and scheduling reviews. Hiraki followed in tow, equally exhausted, having arguably more responsibilities as second-in-command than even his CO.

"Great," Sandy heard Vanessa say quietly from across the darkened room, surveying the floor strewn with bedrolls full of sleeping bodies among the rearranged desks, "all my babies are sleeping while we're slaving away. Makes me so happy."

"Quit b.i.t.c.hing, LT," came Singh's whisper from somewhere amid the dark ma.s.s of bedrolls. "You wanted the promotion, you get more pay, you take the ch.o.r.es."

Hiraki kicked one of the bedrolls as he stepped among them.

"Ow!" said Singh.

"Respect your superior," said Hiraki, continuing over to the clear s.p.a.ce that had been left for him, Vanessa and Sandy. As always with Hiraki, it was difficult to know how seriously to take it.

"That's a good strategy," Vanessa approved, stepping her own light way over toward Sandy's seat against the far wall. "I might try that."

"Aiming for the head is more effective," Hiraki added, sitting to stretch, legs in a wide V before him, "but ultimately counterproductive."

"No chance of damage with Arvid," someone added helpfully.

"Oh right, so it's pick on Arvid time," Singh muttered, rolling over and rubbing at his backside.

There wasn't much chance of the conversation waking anyone those asleep were dead to the world, and the talking took place at what would have been inaudible volumes were it not for security-level hearing enhancements. They tended to fade while unconscious, and keep from waking people up. Vanessa stopped behind Sandy's chair, where she sat with her feet up on the workdesk, reading off the broad, activated screen that lit the darkened gloom with a faint, artificial light.

"What's this?" Vanessa knelt behind her, putting a chin on her shoulder to read. Her cheek was warm against Sandy's ear, her short hair tickling. Sandy smiled. She'd never had such an intimate connection with any non-GI before. The relationships with her Dark Star team had been paternal, a brooding mother caring for her flock, protecting them from a world she understood far better than they. Here, with Vanessa, she was uncertain if that paternalism had not in fact been reversed. It was a very warm, very pleasant feeling, and totally new to her. She rested her own head against Vanessa's, and sighed.

"Just work. Network security, other stuff I've been working on."

Vanessa's dark, tired eyes scanned the ma.s.s of data-technicalities across the screen, visual three-dimensional representations, adjoining text/data adjuncts, multiple visual layers to be blinked up at need. Simple format.

"You can read this c.r.a.p?" Vanessa sounded amazed. Sandy shrugged gently beneath the weight of Vanessa's chin.

"Just data. Data's a"

"a Easy, yeah, I remember, you told me." Put an arm around her for balance, sagged tiredly against the back of the chair. "Studying for the Parliament appearance?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't mind making a good impression."

"This won't do it." With a nod at the screen.

Sandy frowned. "How d'you mean?"

"Sandy, no one doubts your abilities. They expect you to have amazing skills. And comprehensive knowledge from all your military experience. They need to be convinced that you'll use it to their advantage, and to Callay's advantage a and that politicians like them won't get the blame for you s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g them over."

Sandy let out a long breath. "Well I'm not sure if there's going to be a personality exam prepared. I'd like to just convince them I'm useful."

"Oh, they know you're useful. They just need to be convinced you're not dangerous."

"I am dangerous."

"Not to them."

"Yes I am. If I turn out useful and trustworthy, that's a master stroke to the President. Makes her look like a genius, helps all her allies, makes her opponents and all the people who opposed me look like misguided bigots a "That'd make half the Callayan population misguided bigots with them a"

"Sure, but who's going to remember that afterward? The public's always right, Vanessa, even when they're being total morons-that's the main thing I've learned about democracies. People are fickle, they change their minds and leave politicians who've committed fully one way or the other stranded. If politicians perform backflips, or look twofaced, it's because the public forces them to be."

"Wow." With weary amazement against her shoulder. "You've been here less than two months and you're already turning into a total political cynic."

"No I'm not. I like that the public can change their mind. It means politicians have to be flexible, and take all public mood-swings into account. Nothing's more dangerous than a narrow-focused leadership with a closed mind. Look at the League."

"True," Vanessa conceded. "They'll love you for that bit of rationale, it clears them of any blame for being slippery worms."

"Maybe I'll try it on them. Anyway, I'm expecting to be attacked by people who desperately want me to be the bad guy, because it serves their purposes. There's your cynicism."

"Sure, the media do that all the time. They get great ratings mileage by demonising you. Then as soon as the public mood swings, they'll go after great ratings by lauding you as a hero instead." Wrapped both arms more firmly about Sandy and the chair with a sigh, weariness gathering. "So, you've had a busy day, huh? Two firefights, catching up with your old buddies at the Emba.s.sy, flirting with An a"

"No, I don't flirt with Ari, Ari flirts with me."

"Ah, that's right, you don't think it qualifies as flirting unless there's penetration a"

"You're not accusing me of being unsubtle, are you?"

Vanessa grinned. "Never. You ready to desert back to the League yet?"

Vanessa's flippancy still surprised her. But only a little this time.

"Has that worried you?" Sandy retorted.

"Just a little, yeah." Sandy frowned. Vanessa didn't sound anywhere near as flippant there. "I mean you've hardly been warmly received. Peabrained morons in admin, conservative politicians, religious leaders, alarmist media ..

"I don't spend my time with them," Sandy cut her off. "I spend my time with you and your guys and Intel, mostly."

"It doesn't hurt? Being tiraded against in public? Burned in effigy?"

"Maybe. But I'm used to it. I think I'm coming to understand the politics of it, how ordinary people think, how they receive and construct their information, their view on the universe. I see hope. Truthfully, I'm far more of a political hot potato back in the League. Recruitment there has never admitted to creating a GI like me. I don't know if the public's found out by now but there'll be h.e.l.l to pay when they do, I'd have to live in isolation from all the furore that would start. I'm far freer here than I would be there."

"That's true."

Sandy felt the weight increasing against the back of her chair, as if Vanessa was slowly falling asleep. She reached and put a hand to the back of Vanessa's head, a gentle, improvised embrace.

"I wouldn't leave you," she murmured. "I've never had a friend like you."

"I've never had a friend like me either." Dazedly tired.

Sandy ruffled her hair, and planted a long kiss on her cheek. "Go to bed."

"Bed. That's a good idea." Rested her forehead against Sandy's for a long moment first. A simple gesture. It made Sandy feel warm all over. This was what love felt like. She'd felt it before, with GIs of her old team. But somehow it'd never been quite like this. They'd loved her as a reflex, their squad leader being the central figure in their universe, holding them all in awe with her capabilities. It'd been impossible for them to feel otherwise. She'd loved them back, affection for affection.

Vanessa, though, had a choice. Vanessa was her own person, and was under no obligations over where to place her affections. And Vanessa was amazing. She'd studied business, but ended up hating the corporate world for its moral sterility. She was smart enough to be very rich if she'd wanted. Pretty enough to have spent a life acc.u.mulating adoring menfolk (and the occasional woman) in a salivating pile at her feet. Personable enough to have hobn.o.bbed and brown-nosed her way up the corporate and social ladders to the very top.

And instead, she'd gone against all the social norms for pretty, intelligent, sophisticated young women who preferred books to VR-sims and knew the French Revolution for an historical event beyond the famous Parisian nightclub on Ramprakash Road. She'd joined the CSA, become a SWAT grunt and gone on to become SWAT's most celebrated team leader, for which she received a moderate government salary, public anonymity and, lately, a reasonable chance at violent death or injury. She saw the universe in big-picture, and wanted what she did in life to matter. Lately, it had mattered-a great, great deal, in fact. It was the kind of imaginative, morally centred, dedicated pa.s.sion Sandy had always suspected of existing in the civilian world, and particularly in the Federation, free from dogma, military discipline and a narrow-focused view of the universe. Not everyone had it. But Vanessa did. Vanessa, to Sandy's eyes, was amazingly, incredibly special.

And of all the people Vanessa had chosen to love as a close friend, she'd chosen her. It blew her away.

Vanessa got up on weary legs and swaggered slowly over occupied bedrolls in the dark to her empty bedroll beside where Hiraki was still stretching, bent low and grasping one extended ankle, forehead to shin.