Daxo makes a sound of mild disgust. “Is the fate of the Free Legions worth such moral rectitude?”
“Possibly, yes. He gouges us with prices, threatens the fabric of society with his attacks on unions and the common man. Just last week, his automatons put a million laborers out of work in Endymion. It wasn’t enough he stole the Reds’ mines through legal skullduggery, he’s taking Luna too!”
“It is unreasonable to expect her to give the Silvers nothing, Publius.”
“It is immoral to allow private citizens to hold this government hostage,” Publius replies. “I am sorry, Daxo, but it is a nonstarter. The military side of your strategy is convincing, not that I could tell a decurion from a centurion. But I cannot vote for the bill if you cede to his demands. It is an issue of principle.”
I clear my throat and step out from behind the water wall. Publius jumps to his feet, startled, and sweeps into a bow perfectly attuned to the sizable respect he has for my office.
“Senator Caraval,” I say, kissing him on the cheek. “I admit I’m surprised to see you here, of all places.”
“Yes, well, desperate times call for sacrifices from us all,” he replies. He casts a look around, certainly irked by the gigavok and the ostentatiousness of the office. His own offices are kept in the same nondescript lower Hyperion building where he served as a public defender for lowColors before the Rising. His assigned offices in the Citadel are too grandiose for his tastes. Before the Rising, I couldn’t imagine a world where he and Daxo would ever be in the same room, much less speaking as relative equals. Makes me smile a little inside, especially noting Daxo’s annoyance.
“I was under the impression you viewed the legions as lost,” I say, taking a seat on a Turkish cushion.
The Incorruptible nods and retakes his seat. “A deplorable presumption on my part, I fear. The numbers, you see. While my assessment was based on the data I had at the time, I admit to a certain…dimming of faith.” He hangs his head. “I am ashamed for that, but not the assessment. I said the same to Daxo here: I judge a case based on its evidence. You know I am loath to flimflam, flip-flop, or whatever they call it these days, but the situation has changed.
What your husband did…staggering, my Sovereign. Staggering.”
“And the moral ramifications?” I ask.
He waves his hand before his face. “Fascism is a scourge. Sometimes we must sacrifice to destroy it.”
“So you no longer presume the legions lost.”
“No,” he says. “Your speech, Daxo’s dogged pursuit, the Battle of the Ladon, they have woken the slumbering patriot. If we can bring them back, we make a statement that will ring through time.” He steeples his fingers and leans forward. “Yet I am in a bind. I am from this moon. I am expected to vote with the Vox.”
“Even as they descend into fits of nonsensical maudlin hysteria stemming from Cassandra Syndrome?” Daxo asks.
Publius levels a look at him. “I disagree with them, but I will not abide intellect-slander.” He turns back to me. “My prior vocation taught me to be detailed in assessment and concise in judgment. The Vox fear momentary pain for long-term gain. We must save the legions. But the Silvers know how desperate this vote is. They will bleed you dry. I cannot allow this Republic to become another plutocracy. I will not.”
“So you blame them for ransoming their votes, yet you’ve come to do the same to me. You’ve learned well.”
“I am not proud of it. Politics is an ignoble profession. But as I said, sacrifices. My electorate does not have trillionaires, much less a quadrillionaire benefactor. We are public servants. Ten times the population of Silvers, we have but the same ten senators they have. We must use what leverage we can.”
I expected as much. He’s a patient man, honest to the point of obnoxious, but worst of all, he knows when he has a strong hand. He knows I have more tricks. He wants me to use them on Silver. Somehow he’s found the only way to keep clean hands in this world is to outsource the dirty work.
Lucky for me, I have access to gloves, and a long eye.
“Hypothetically,” I begin as if the plan weren’t already in motion for weeks now, “what if I told you I could get the Silver vote, maybe not all, but enough, without one concession? And when the Senate temporarily expands my powers, I will annul many past concessions?”
He leans forward. “Then hypothetically, I am intrigued. But I should hear no more, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll take my leave, then.” He stands and shakes Daxo’s hand, then mine. A servant appears to guide him to a secondary door in the floor. Before he descends, he glances about. “Senator Telemanus. I must admit, the architecture certainly makes a statement. It is a remarkable man who can bare his balls to the world.”
Daxo is stunned silent. Publius bows. The door closes. And I burst into a fit of laughter.
Daxo waits for me to recover, entirely ignoring Publius’s remark. He taps his chin in thought with a forefinger the size of a steak knife as I sit down. “You want to know how I lured him here?”
“Sure, let’s talk about that.”
“I told him Darrow sent a communiqué from Mercury telling us to beseech Publius cu Caraval. ‘He is the conscience of the Republic, and our last hope.’?”
“You are a cretin.”
“Yes, aren’t I? There is only one thing in which Publius is not forthcoming—his irascible vanity.”