"Let me just grab you a towel and some soap". She ducked into her cube.
It was hard to say which was rougher, the towel or the grainy soap, but Valentine made use of them in the common shower room, a tiled-wall area in a dimple off the main passage. At least the water was deliciously hot. She gave him a tour of the rest of "her" level. They passed other dimples along the way - one had a television and four
battered lounge chairs. Valentine was shocked to recognize Kurian Zone programming.
"Actually, their stuffs popular, not that any of us have much to compare it to. We do our own news, of course. Majoritarian news at five and nine, Minoritarian at five thirty and nine thirty. Every now and then they show a movie or a TV series from the Old World, but I don't like to watch those. Shallow, stupid stuff. The real old movies are better. Have you ever seen Gone with the Wind?"
"I like it. Don't knock shallow. Any culture that can put that much effort into entertainment about who is dating whom has all the big Maslow-sized problems pretty much solved".
She pointed to an old magazine cover on a staffer's cubicle. "Everyone was so pretty back then. About the only way we look like them is thin. Thin we can do".
They traveled back up in another elevator with a yawning attendant and she took him to the end of the Mall. After another ID check and search they went up another escalator to a sports and meeting arena, a vast open area under reinforcing girders.
The Senate held court from a ring of upholstered club chairs circling a wooden floor with old basketball markings. Little groups of three and four people down on the first level sat together, talking or listening to the senator addressing chambers from a round platform in the center with a podium that slowly rotated. The nonsenatorial watched from the old plastic chairs; every now and then one was missing in the rows, giving the audience area a gap-toothed look compared with the last arena Valentine had been in, the horror show under the Pyramid in Memphis.
The senators had real clothing, it looked like, complete with ties and shined leather shoes.
"One faction in the House wants to set up basketball league play again", Ducks said quietly. "The Senate keeps killing it, says having the Senate break for a game would destroy the dignity of the chamber".
"They're just scared because basketball would draw a bigger crowd", a man a couple of rows behind said.
"Mount Omega can't raise chickens for anything, but we can sure breed cynics", she muttered.
Valentine tried to catch the thread of the speech. The young man kept pausing and saying "hummmm", from beneath a generous overbite.
"McCaffee isn't much of a speaker", Ducks said. "But he is a third-generation senator, and half the Majoritarians owe his family favors".
"So those are senators in the big chairs?" Valentine asked. "They're not thin".
"Privileges of constitutional office".
"I see", Valentine said. "Sounds like he's done".
"New Hampshire is next. Now she can talk".
"Has she ever been to New Hampshire?" Valentine asked.
"Of course not. Senators argue their elections in front of the Supreme Court, so you can be sure she represents their values. She's flinty, tough, practical".
"And married to the head of the Unified Journalism Network", the man from behind said.
"That's Senator Bey there, in the leather chair with the bull horns at the top".
Whatever remained of the miner in the graying body was in the set of the shoulders and head. Senator Bey leaned forward in his chair, chin up and out and fist set on his knee, as if ready to rush the podium and tackle the speaker.
Valentine tried to follow the debate. The "distinguished senator from New Hampshire" was defending the credentials of a new director for the Law College.
"There's a college here?"
"Of a sort. They feed the specialty schools: Military, Law, and Social Support or Revealed Religion, plus a special technical school for the people who keep the juice and water running. Most of the learning is computerized up until tenth grade. Then you get teachers, most of whom are studying at the college at the same time - it's how they pay their tuition. College is tough. I only barely made it. Try going four years on nothing but study naps".
Valentine waited through a vote - the new director was confirmed, and then the Senate ended session for the day with one of the most vaguely worded prayers Valentine had ever heard.
"Sorry it wasn't more interesting", Ducks whispered during the prayer. "Last week we had an impeachment trial. Those are always fun".
"Amen", the man behind said, though whether this was to cap the prayer or not Valentine never learned, for he left a moment later.
Ducks led Valentine through yet another Capitol Police checkpoint, this one with a bank of security camera monitors, but she seemed on friendly terms with all the men there and they made only a cursory check of his ID, and logged him in via computer.