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“The best governs and e can randchildren can squander it”
Duarte grunted as Paolo pulled the hypodere over the wound The hole closed up before a drop of blood could escape It didn’t even scab
“If you want to create a lasting, stable social order,” Duarte said, “only one person can ever be immortal”
Chapter One: Drummer
The habitation ring of the transfer station at Lagrange-5 was three times the diameter of the one Druo TSL-5 had a small city’s worth of offices with the sa as the one they’d given her, the same crash-couch beds and water showers as her quarters there The air had a constant sest chrysanthemum in the universe The dome in the center of the station had berths for hundreds of ships and warehouses that see them would leave Earth as empty as a squeezed-out bulb All those berths and warehouses were at rest now, but starting toe TSL-5 was about to be open for business, and even as tired as she was, as annoyed as she felt at having to haul herself halfway across the syste ceremony, there was also an excitele, Mother Earth was open for business
The planet glowed on her wall screen, whorls of high white clouds and glireenish sea beneath it The ter a blanket of darkness and city lights behind it The ships of the Earth-Mars Coalition Navy floated around it, dots of darkness swione down that well, and now by the terned on the union’s behalf, she never would Fine with her Her knees bothered her sometimes as it was But as an objet d’art, Terra was hard to beat Humanity had
done its level best to kick the shit out of the slowly spinning egg Overpopulation, exploitation, atmospheric and oceanic imbalance, and then three military-level meteor strikes, any one of which would have fucked up the dinosaurs And here it still was, like a soldier Scarred, broken, reiined, rebuilt, and remade
Time was supposed to heal all wounds To Dru that if she waited long enough, none of the things that seemed important to her would turn out to ht they did
Ti project staggering under the loss of its mandate, the ruthless ade ical substrates to grow food that people could actually eat had hauled Earth, slow and staggering, up to functional again
Her syste bamboo Her private secretary’s voice followed like a drink of whiskey
“Madam President?”
“Give hn,” she said
“Yes, ma’am But Secretary-General Li would like to speak with you before the ceremony”
“The Earth-Mars Coalition can wait until after cocktails I’ every time the EMC clears their throat Bad precedent”
“Copy that I’ll handle it”