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Tania could hear the lie in his voice A subtle change in tone, so that took a lifeti at the picture in front of her The tiht have siotten

"If it makes you feel better," he said, "I can check our records"

"No, forget it," she said

"Stay focused, dear"

"I’d feel better if I knew the plan"

"You will," he said, "when it’s safe to tell you But the critical piece of the puzzle is that ship The what, when, and where"

"I promise you’ll know as soon as I do," she said

"Good And Tania?"

"Yes?"

"Watch yourself Warthen tried to spook the council with talk of ‘secret research’ Don’t forget he still runs the security staff there"

"We’re being careful," Tania replied It alht

Gateway Station

7FEB2283

Secluded within his personal climber, Neil lay in a plush chair and let his mind drift back to the Elevator’s arrival

Darwin had alhtcliff before the plague came There was extraordinary luck in the location of it--an easily defensible piece of land, bordered on two sides by ocean, in a small but prosperous city within a nation at peace with the world It couldn’t have been better, for Earth and for the Platz legacy

Neil pictured the Darwin Elevator, stretching up froth due to friction froh Gateway Station, and up, and up, and up, all the way to Anchor To the shell ship

And then he envisioned another Another shell ship, floating into position next to its sibling What purpose would it serve? Spin a inal, all forty thousand kilometers of it? System redundancy--itPower see out A replacement, perhaps? A real possibility as far as Neil was concerned

Whatever the case, he knehat htcliff

And the council

To achieve his goal, he needed hters,too slowly He cursed hi power in the first place

Time to put all the cards on the table, he decided Before it’s too late

He could not wait for Tania’s analysis to be finished So had to be done

Neil decided to work under the assumption that another ship would arrive over Darwin Whether it cainal, or replace it, or for some other purpose was impossible to know Would remain impossible until it was too late to act

He had to roll the dice A replacement Elevator he could wrap his mind around

He let himself out of the chair andbay, back into Gateway Station Neil clih the ee of the ring-shaped structure He could feel the artificial gravity slowly grab hold of him

The satellite office had been deserted since he pulled everyone back to Platz Station after the security incident Neil wandered the halls The council would not reconvene for hours, and he was in no hurry to return to their co that would keep his ene that would force thean to take shape in his e the decoupling codes

Since the co the spine of the Elevator, Neil had insisted onthem to their ulti infrastructure to each location

The added benefit was that the stations could be repositioned It was a complex and difficult procedure, not often used He knew the various station crews rarely reviewed the process If not for the recent project to realign the far platforms, Neil wondered if anyone would kno to do it without lengthy training

As it stood, his scientists at Anchor would knohat to do Tania would know

But first, the codes He couldn’t let anyone cancel the procedure, once started Neil went back to his clian the process

The rest he would have to plan as things progressed

Despite the dizzying array of hurdles before him, Neil couldn’t help himself He felt excited Alive For the first time in years, he looked forward to a future of unknowns

A future to be conquered

Sofia Windon leaned forward in her chair, fingers folded in a tent on the cold marble table in front of her

"The ayes have it," she said softly "Russell Blackfield will join the council"

Alex Warthen locked an expectant stare on Neil, watching for so, perhaps, that Neil would fly into soe

Neil s is over"

Sofia said, "We still have a litany of issues--"

"Not n from this council," Neil said

His voice resonated in the rooht hihed "Excuse me?"

"I will not submit to a search by you and your incootiate for the water produced at rity ofvolume as he went on, "and I will not share this table with Russell Blackfield"

Alex didn’topen The rest of the council sat perfectly still

"You want the food produced by my farms?!" Neil shouted "You want the water purified by my plants? I’ll consider any reasonable offer, from my headquarters Good day to you all"