Stars Rise

LXVI. I Explain the Contingency Plan

Previously, on Stars Rise.

"I like 'better plans.' I'm on board."

I slam the file down on the table. "You don't know what it is yet. Why do you think it became the contingency plan? It has a flaw. One you might not be able to live with."

"Pop, I woke up this morning and killed a man I never met. I've been lying my ass off all day and just last week I manipulated an old woman into telling me how to kidnap her children so they can be executed in front of her. I've all but agreed to murder Nova Dasilva if somebody else doesn't. Lay it on me."

"You're going to have to eliminate President Gaia Solin."

"You're drunk," says Cristo, and though it's the last thing I ever expected, that makes me smile.

"I'm ninety-nine years sober," I say.

In Stephen's office, the conversation continues, as Stephen reveals a backup plan to save the immortals of Soliara from returning to mortality: eliminate Gaia Solin.

"I went back in time to make sure Gaia Solin stays president."

"No, you went back in time to prevent Justin Marius from becoming president."

"Same thing, right?"

"Wrong," I say, flipping through pages and scanning. "Anti-Marius electors were split between multiple candidates: Gaia Solin, Sunyin Aura, and a long shot named Alma Valerian. Twenty-eight votes for Justin Marius to ten for Gaia Solin. Five votes went to Alma Valerian. Seven to Sunyin Aura, including me. In voting for Sunyin Aura, I cost my father his life."

"Executing your freedom of choice," says Cristo. "You or Ilan can still vote Solin this time. Pop, if I 'eliminate' President Solin,  Sunyin Aura gets maybe seventeen votes. She still loses."

"But seventeen to twenty-eight is better than eleven — ten plus my father — to twenty-eight."

"By six. You want me to execute the president for six votes? Damn, her life isn't worth much. Why not . . . remove Sunyin Aura? Give Gaia Solin her seven votes? Why isn't that the obvious option?"

"I'm not sure you can get to her. Between hora sexta and crepusculum she was at a campaign event of her own — before my father died I had been planning to attend."

"She'll go to the bathroom at some point. Is this about your stupid misguided idealistic adolescent political views and continuing to insist that your father was wrong to support Solin, now you're going to kill Gaia Solin just to prove you don't live under the boss's thumb, ninety-nine years after he's died?"

I ignore that; I know Cristo likes to stick thorns in places no one else would dare. My tone cools a little, though. "Sunyin Aura is heavily guarded, we don't have her movements timed out, and you can't spend the whole evening waiting to get to her. Gaia Solin, on the other hand, is an easy target."

"She was the most important person in the empire, what made her an easy target?"

"Candra," Stephen said. "She was trying to get her claws into Gaia, I assume to keep her from noticing anything going on around him. After ten decades of marriage, trying to talk to her is like a really complicated game of chess and you know I'm good at chess except when the pieces are people . . ."

"For the love of the stars, stop doubting yourself. You've come up with some of the most creative ways to manipulate people in Solari history."

"Thank you," said Stephen, "it helped having a maniacal psychopath for a son-in-law. Anyway, I never got Candra to confess exactly — I think she feels too guilty to confess — but I know in my gut she was with the president the afternoon of the election. Privately. Trying to distract her and keep her preoccupied. She's very good at distracting. With words alone. Between meridies and hora octava or so they were probably drinking wine and . . . talking . . ."

"From seventeen to twenty-eight, with five votes going to Alma Valerian, Sunyin Aura needs six more votes from Marius. If she takes six from Marius, she will have the twenty-three board votes to win, to his twenty-two. Six voters. Six out of Cytheria, Diana Aemilia, Tony Solari, Ignatius Varian, and Fortunato's son and Claudia Solace. Those are our best bets, and I've been working on . . . a few of them. Nova can help me. It would be best if we knew Solin's original steadfast supporters were going to vote for Sunyin Aura for sure. Including Solin's daughter, who will inherit her mother's position on the board. And there's one last problem I could use your help with."

"What's that?"

"I think Ilan wants to kill me."

I rub my hands together while I think. "What did you do?"

"When I released Lien Cassus from her cell to get me into Constellation, I may have pointed a gun at . . . you. And it didn't pay out. I thought I might find Milana Nox in Marius's office. Or a trace of her. Instead I got some intel on Tony Solari, not a sure thing, but progress. Anyway, when I tried to go back to . . . the tower, here, I was immediately held at gunpoint by every gun he has on the payroll. I thought if Nova saw the truth she could help me convince the boss to help me and not . . . arrest me. Well, I say 'I thought,' but to be honest the only thing I could do was open a temporal link . . . It's a long story. How much weight did he give to Nova's opinions? Will she be able to convince Ilan to help me?"

I swallow. "Maybe," I say. "If I prep her."

"You want to talk to her?"

"Not really, not even a little bit, but you're right, this is a big problem. You really screwed up. You'll never be able to work this many people without help, without getting them into a room together, there's the six you need to convert but the ten supporters of Gaia's you should check in on, make sure they'd accept Sunyin Aura as a substitution. You were supposed to earn my dad's trust. I don't care how quickly you can bounce around the empire, you can't do it without the boss and Nova. Bring her in."

I never thought I would see this woman alive again. Not if I burned out every star in the sky. I was willing to accept the rest of forever without her. If there were any other choice, I would refuse, because I think of the baby I took in to the tower as our daughter — both of ours, mine and Nova Dasilva's — and if the mother never passes from this world, our baby will never be born.

That's not something I would give up, for anything in the world. So I let her go. I have to let her go.

Thank you for reading Stars Rise. Apologies for throwing a lot of numbers at you all in this chapter; some day there will be a revision of this book that hopefully removes the need for all this accounting. Right now to explain the strategy I feel I need the numbers of voters, if only to keep my own head on straight. Hope it's still a fun read! Questions, comments, suggestions? Thanks for your ongoing support reading this far!