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“I’m sorry too,” she said “I miss him very much But we have always had different careers”

“I hope to meet him one day,” Trejo said, and she relaxed a notch He wasn’t dead Trejo saw her response and smiled a soft, rueful smile “It would be useful, I think, if you could help to resolve things with him Chaos is bad for everyone”

“I don’t have any way to reach hio on with And I don’t knohat I’d tell him if I did

“Fair enough,” Trejo said “We’ll have that conversation another ti else I wanted to speak with you about High Consul Duarte wants to convene the important people in humanity’s new endeavors on Laconia A kind of permanent convocation of the best minds and most influential people He’s asked me to extend an invitation to you”

The politeness of it was foul The pretense that she was still autonomous, the master of her own fate Oh, she could probably refuse Duarte seeh not to welco to openly oppose him But there would be consequences That they weren’t even spelled out made them more ominous

“This is like the colonies, isn’t it?” she said

Trejo lifted his eyebrows, answering her question with a wordless one of his own

“You’re shifting everything to Laconia,” she said “Not just ships or money The culture”

Trejo smiled “Earth will always be the hoh consul thinks that … fetishizing Earth is bad for the long-term future of the species We will also put in place an accelerated repopulation scheme Try to adjust the balance so that Sol syste majority of the population either”

“You can’t put billions of people through the ring gates,” Drummer said “It won’t work”

“Not in our lifetienerations But … well, I was Martian before I was Laconian Thinking for the long term doesn’t intimidate me”

A woold at her throat and wrists sloped by, nodding to Trejo as she passed He slanced at her ass, and then back so quickly it ht have passed for politeness

“Your terrafor plan didn’t work out too well,” Drummer said more acidly than she should have It just came out that way

“It would have,” Trejo said, “if so Anyway, please do consider the invitation The high consul is looking forward toyou”

Trejo put a hand on her arm like they were old friends and made his way back out to some other conversation on his list All around her, the eyes and attention of the crowd followed hiulp and started looking for soet another one