Twenty miles an hour, thirty. The bus rumbled down the Grand Boulevard toward the Dead Forest Heliport.I can be on his doorstep in tenminutes. And suddenly Rachner was aware of the fizz barf that crusted his maw and eating hands, of the stains on his uniform. He brushed at his head, but there was nothing he could do about the uniform. A madman come to see a senile old coot. Maybe it was fitting. It also might be the last chance any of them had.

A decade earlier, in friendlier times, Hrunkner Unnerby had advised the Southlanders in the design of New Southmost Under. So in a strange way, things became more familiar after they left the Accord Embassy and entered Southland territory. There were lots of elevators. The Southland had wanted a Parliament Hall that would survive a nuclear strike. He had warned them that future ordnance developments would likely make their goal impossible, but the Southlanders hadn't listened, and had wasted substantial resources that could have gone to Dark Time agriculture.

The main elevator was so large that even the reporters could get aboard, and they did so. The Southland press was a privileged class, explicitly protected by Parliament law—even on government property! The General did all right with the mob. Maybe she had learned from watching Sherkaner deal with journalists. Her combateers hulked innocuously in the background. She made a few general remarks, and then politely ignored their questions, letting the Southland police keep the reporters out of her physical way.

A thousand feet underground, their elevator started sideways on an electric polyrail. The elevator's tall windows looked out on brightly lit industrial caves. The Southlanders had done a lot here and on the Coastal Arc, but they didn't have enough underground farms to support it all.

The two Elected Representatives who had greeted her at the airfield had once been powerful in the South. But times had changed: there had been assassinations, subornations, all Pedure's usual tricks—and lately a near-magical good luck on the Kindred side. Now these two were, at least publicly, alone in their friendliness for the Accord. Now they were regarded as toadies of a foreign king. The two stood close to the General, one close enough that he could talk with her behind a screen. Hopefully, only the General and Hrunkner Unnerby could hear.Don't count on it, Unnerby thought to himself.

"No disrespect, ma'am, but we had hoped that your king would come in his own person." The politico wore a finely tailored jacket and leggings—and an air of spiritual bedragglement.

The General nodded reassuringly. "I understand, sir. I'm here to make sure the right things can be done, and done safely. Will I be allowed to address Parliament?" In the present situation, Hrunk guessed that there was no "inner circle" to speak to—unless you counted the group that was firmly controlled by Pedure. But a parliamentary vote could make a difference, since the strategic rocket forces were still loyal to it.

"Y-yes. We have set that up. But things have gone too far." He waved his watch hand. "I wouldn't put it past the Other Side to cause an elevator wreck and—"

"They let us get this far. If I can talk to Parliament, I think there will be an accommodation." General Smith smiled at the Southlander, an almost conspiratorial look.

Fifteen minutes later, the elevator had deposited them at the main esplanade. Three sides and the roof simply lifted off.That was an embellishment he hadn't seen before. Unnerby the engineer couldn't resist: He froze and stared up into the glaring lights and darkness, trying to see the mechanism that had such a large and silent effect.

Then the crush of police and politicians and reporters swept him off the platform...

...and they were climbing up the stairs of Parliament Hall.

At the top, Southland security finally separated them from the reporters and Smith's own combateers. They passed by five-ton timbered doors...into the hall itself. The hall had always been an underground affair, in earlier generations squatting just above the local deepness. Those early rulers had been more like bandits (or freedom fighters, depending on your source of propaganda) whose forces roamed the mountainous land.

Hrunkner had helped design this incarnation of Parliament Hall. It was one of the few projects he'd worked on where a major design goal was awesome appearance. It might not really be bombproof, but it looked damned spectacular:

The hall was a shallow bowl, with levels connected by gently curving stairs, each level a wide setback with rows of desks and perches. The rock walls curved in an enormous arch that carried fluorescent tubes—and a half-dozen other lighting technologies. Together those lights had almost the brightness and purity of a mid-Bright day, a light rich enough to show all the colors in the walls. Carpeting as deep and soft as father's-pelt covered the stairs and aisles and proscenium. Paintings were hung on the polished wood that faced each level, paintings done with a thousand dyes by artists who knew how to exploit every illusion. For a poor country, they had spent much on this place. But then, their parliament was their greatest pride, an invention that had ended banditry and dependence, and brought peace. Until now.

The doors swung closed behind them. The sound returned deep echoes from the dome and the far walls. In here, there would be just the Elected, their visitors, and—high above, Hrunker could see clusters of lenses—the news cameras. Across the curves of desks, almost every perch was filled. Unnerby could feel the attention of half a thousand Elected.

Smith and Unnerby and Tim Downing started down the steps that led to the proscenium. The Elected were mostly quiet, watching. There was respect here, and hostility, and hope. Maybe Smith would have her chance to keep the peace.

For this day of triumph, Tomas Nau had set North Paw's weather to be its sunniest, the kind of warm afternoon that could extend all the summer day round. Ali Lin had grumbled, but made the necessary changes. Now Ali was weeding in the garden beneath Nau's study, his irritation forgotten. So what if the park's patterns were upset; fixing the problem would be Ali's next task.

And my task is to manage everything together,Tomas thought. Across the table from him sat Vinh and Trinli, working with the site monitoring he had assigned them. Trinli was essential to the cover story, the only Peddler that Tomas was confident would support the lies. Vinh...well, a credible excuse would take him offline for critical moments, but what he did see would corroborate Trinli. That would be tricky, but if there were any surprises...well, that was what Kal and his men were here to handle.

Ritser's presence was just a flat image, showing him sitting in the Captain's chair aboard theHand. None of his words would be heard by innocent ears. "Yes, Podmaster! We'll have the picture in a moment. We got a functioning spybot into Parliament Hall. Hey, Reynolt, your Melin got something right."

Anne was up in the Hammerfest Attic. She was present only as a private image in Tomas's huds, and a voice in his ear. At the moment, her attention was split in at least three directions. She was running some kind of ziphead analysis, watching a Trixia Bonsol translation on the wall above her, and tracking the data stream from theHand. The ziphead situation was as complicated as it had ever been. She didn't respond to Ritser's words.

"Anne? When Ritser's spy pics come, pipe them directly to Benny's. Trixia can do overlay translation, but give us some true audio, too." Tomas had already seen some of the spybot transmissions. Let the people at Benny's see living Spiders up close and in motion. That would be a subtle help in the postconquest lies.