"Does she know-?"

"Children, you may be excused," Sanni interrupted. The younger cousins, eyes already wide, scrambled away from the table with only the briefest duck of the head to the elders. Luci's younger brother gave her a look that meant she would be ambushed later and expected to Tell All.

When the door closed behind them all, Luci spoke into the silence.

"I know. Esmaya told me. She said it didn't matter, that she held no grudge against the family, and if Philip was kind-"

"Kind! Marriage is not about kindness!" Papa Stefan had turned an ugly red.

"It is," Sanni said. "Not that you would know-"

"Quiet!" Casimir rarely interrupted at these family fights, but this time he did, with all the power of command built over years of active service. "Too much is at stake here to rehash old battles or waste energy and patience yelling at each other. As the Landbride's Trustee, I know that she did in fact approve Luci's desire to marry Philip Vicarios. She did in fact approve Luci's expenditure of equipment to allow us to export genestock, and her reasons were sound enough to convince me, and the other Trustees, that this was a good idea. This is not, after all, the real issue. The real issue is, the Landbride wants to marry an outlander, and continue to live offplanet, and the other landholders would like to use this as an excuse to reduce our influence in the Guild. I see no chance of changing Esmay's mind-for all the reasons we know about-so I suggest we turn our attention to minimizing the damage to the Suiza Family, and quit inflicting more on ourselves."

Luci had not expected her uncle Casimir to be so sensible. To her surprise, Papa Stefan went back to his meal, stabbing the sliced cattlelope as if it were an enemy, but silent. Sanni sipped the rest of her soup in thoughtful silence; Berthold helped himself to a pile of potatoes in red sauce, and began eating steadily. Casimir looked at Luci.

"Have you any more bombshells to drop, Luci?"

"No, Uncle."

"Did Esmaya mention anything to you about passing on the Landbride duties?"

Luci felt herself going hot. "She did . . . in a way . . . but-"

"She spoke of you." It was not a question. Casimir tented his hands and looked over them at her.

"Did you agree?"

"I told her it was too soon," Luci said. "I'm only-"

"The age that two Landbrides were invested, in the old days. A year older, in fact, than Silvia."

Luci had never heard of Silvia, though she had, like all the children, memorized a hundred years of Landbrides Suiza. "It may be that having her designate you Landbride-to-be would help-that plus your marriage to a Vicarios would prove that the Suizas were not involved in interstellar politics."

CHAPTER FIVE.

Hobart glared at Oskar Morrelline, former head of the Morrelline branch of his sept. "You were outmaneuvered by Venezia," he said. "That fuzzbrained sister of yours cost us market share and dropped profits twenty-eight percent-"

"It's not my fault," Oskar said. "If-"

"Oh yes, it is." Hobart interrupted smoothly. "Your daughter Ottala-what is it with the women in your family, anyway?-goes haring off to Patchcock and gets herself killed. That's what started it-a daughter you didn't control any better than Bunny controlled Brun-"

Oskar had flushed an ugly color; Hobart enjoyed that as he always enjoyed exercising power. "No, Oskar. I can't trust you to do it right, whatever it is. I cannot give you a Ministry. In a few years, I expect the public climate will change, and then, perhaps, we can find something for you."

"You expect my vote but you aren't giving me anything?"

"I expect your vote because you know where your advantage lies. Even if they had it to give, you would get nothing out of that clique Bunny ran. And they do not have it to give, not anymore."

Oskar glared, but subsided, as Hobart had known he would. Oskar was a blusterer, but if that didn't work he had no second weapon. Hobart always had a second weapon-and a third and a fourth, he thought to himself. He changed his tone, and went on; if Oskar could get it through his head what the problem really was, he might be useful.

"Whoever controls the rejuvenation process controls everything-as long as the public doesn't rebel against rejuvs. We must take steps against the Ageist conspiracies; the shortlifes, if they realize the danger they're in, outnumber us at this point and could be dangerous.

"But Venezia says-"

"Venezia is a fool. Yes, something had gone wrong there, something serious. A Benignity spy, if I understand the little that's been declassified. But it's not as bad as all that. Women are so excitable, not to mention sentimental, and Venezia in particular-"

Oskar nodded eagerly; Hobart smiled to himself. How the Morrelline brothers hated having Venezia in charge! "All she ever did was play with pottery-" Oskar said.

"Quite so. How could she know anything about the real world? She could not be expected to realize how many lives would be disrupted-prematurely ended, with the shortage of rejuvenation drugs-because of her finicky insistence on exact procedures."

"But Hobart-how do we get it back? How do we get her out of there?"

Exactly the opening he'd hoped for. "By doing precisely what I tell you," Hobart said. "I need your support at all the Grand Council sessions; I will let you know what I need you to say, and how to vote. With more sympathetic, more cooperative Ministers, we should be able to ease dear Venezia back into her supportive role."

"She won't like it," Oskar said, puffing out his plump cheeks.

"I don't care whether she does or not," Hobart said. "I am not going to let one woman stand in the way of progress for the Conselline Sept." He looked forward to that moment, probably more than Oskar did. Venezia had been a constant nuisance at sept board meetings, poking her nose into all sorts of inconvenient corners. He'd had to roust her out of his own offices more than once, where she chatted up the clerical staff and wheedled who knows what out of them. She seemed to think she had a moral mission to clean up the whole sept.

"Our responsibility to the whole Familias . . ." she would say, while Hobart ground his teeth.

They had no responsibility to the whole Familias; they had a responsibility to Family shareholders. Period. He wasn't going to urge her to go on making faulty drugs. Bad for business, and people would be watching carefully. Beyond that, though, it wasn't their business to be saints, if that's what she had in mind.

"If Kemtre had not been a weak man, none of these disasters would have happened. He drugged his son into stupidity, and then created those damned clones."

"I don't see that cloning is such a bad thing."

"No, nor do I, except that we have a rapidly growing population anyway. We don't need clones; we need sensible strong men who know how to handle the hysterics. No offense." He eyed Oskar, but Oskar didn't mind if Hobart called his sister hysterical. "Now, Oskar, I want you to have a word with the Broderick Institute, and tell them to do their homework a little better-"

"The Broderick Institute? What have they done?"

Sometimes he wondered if Oskar had a brain. Venezia, for all her impracticality, had wit enough.

"Oskar, the Broderick Institute is where Dr. Margulis works." Oskar still looked blank. "The same Dr. Margulis whose report on the so-called bad drugs coming out of Patchcock started a near panic in the market-"

"Oh-that Dr. Margulis. But I thought-"

"He's come up with more-the man is a closet Ageist, I'm sure, just looking for any excuse to scare people away from rejuvenation. Broderick has given him free rein for the past fifteen years, and look what that so-called independent research has led to. It's cost you, and me, and the whole Familias. He needs to be controlled; at the very least, someone needs to do impartial research showing how beneficial rejuv is. And since the Conselline Sept provides over two-thirds of the money to support the Broderick Institute, they need to be reminded of the importance of truly even- handed science."

"Won't they complain about academic freedom?"

"They're not a university; they're a privately funded research facility. If you're tactful, they'll get the point without blowing up. That's your job."

Oskar left, finally, and Hobart puffed air out explosively. Idiots. He was surrounded by idiots and incompetents, and they all wanted something from him. He glanced at his desk and told his secretary to send in Pedar Orregiemos. Another idiot. Minor family, major nuisance, but also a born bootlicker, and those could be useful.

Pedar came in looking smug about something. Hobart had no time for Pedar's self-congratulation.

Besides, he would be even smugger, with more reason, very shortly.

"We have a problem coming up," he said. Pedar's expression shifted quickly from smugness to concern. "As you know, I was elected temporary Speaker at the emergency Council meeting immediately after Lord Thornbuckle's assassination." Pedar nodded. "The next meeting will be crucial. If we are not to lapse back into the ineffective vacillation of the previous administration, if we're to meet the challenges that threaten us, we need to take action quickly.

Will you help me?"

"Of course," Pedar said. "What can I do?"

"In the long run, you can be my Minister of Foreign Affairs." Hobart paused, and enjoyed the sight of Pedar completely silenced, for once. He had not expected that high an honor . . . good, then he would be the more willing to earn it. "But not immediately: first there are changes in the bylaws which need to be approved. I'll give you the texts; I want your analysis of the probable response."