Empire Games Series, Book 1(84)
“‘Setbacks.’” Miriam tried not to scowl, not entirely successfully. “Well, Doctor. While I appreciate your doing everything within your capabilities to help keep the First Man going, I was … shall we say, taken aback? As you might understand, the state of his health ultimately affects my commission. And my husband’s”—it still felt strange calling him that, even after fourteen years—“duties, too, as Commissioner of Propaganda. We both have necessary and sufficient reason to be added to the distribution list for his daily updates.”
“Um, ah.” Dr. Porter looked unhappy. “If the First Man consents, of course. Otherwise power of attorney in respect of his physiodynamic needs rests with the Secretary to the Inner Party.”
Oh hell. Miriam failed to suppress a twitch this time. Nor did she miss the tension that suddenly appeared in the set of Erasmus’s shoulders. “Then I will take this up with the secretariat,” she assured Dr. Porter. Standing, she turned to her husband: “I think we’ve heard enough, dear.” Erasmus rose, and offered her his arm. “Thank you, Doctor.”
Dr. Porter, too, rose, and bowed and ushered them out of his office with old-school formality.
“Well, fuck,” Miriam whispered as they passed through the waiting room, which was crowded with no small number of Deputy Commissioners, Secretaries, and a handful of nursing orderlies and junior doctors. The Manhattan Palace was sprouting medical facilities, as if engaged in a bizarre bid to rival the teaching hospitals of New London. “We’ll have to soft-soap Adrian,” she confided in Erasmus.
Her husband’s face was a closed book. “I trust our friend the Secretary as far as I can throw him,” he hissed.
“Can’t be helped. Have to confront him sooner or later. Better now than in cabinet when Sir Adam’s too sick to keep up the pretense anymore.”
Outside the palace medical center they picked up their respective retinues of clerks and administrative assistants, and proceeded by common consent toward what had once, before the Revolution, been the Empress’s Chambers. They walked together: two distinguished-looking politicians, formally clad in the subdued version of the finery that courtiers had once deployed—austere gray and black tailoring over white silk—rather than the prerevolutionary efflorescences of crimson and purple over explosions of lace. Like magpies surrounded by the crowlike figures of their attendants, they made their way toward the center of the web ruled by the Party Secretary, Adrian Holmes.
Holmes was indeed home this morning. They passed through an outer office, in which clerks rattled the keys of no fewer than six computer terminals (wired, no doubt, to one of the municipal government mainframes that formed the beating heart of the Commonwealth Cybernetic Agoric Allocator, the real-time central planning system that ran the state). Then they were ushered into the windowless inner office, and the presence of the New Man himself.
“Ah, the Commissioners Burgeson!” Adrian Holmes hauled himself to his feet, beaming with a bonhomie Miriam suspected he cultivated only for high-ranking visitors: he could certainly switch it on and off like a lightbulb. A tall man, dour of disposition, he was also a supremely effective administrator. Which was why Adam had elevated him to the Party Secretariat at such a young age—he was barely forty.
(“A bloody Robespierre,” Olga had spat when she heard the news. Miriam had pretended not to notice, but over time she’d come to suspect that her younger protégé might have been right when she’d said, “You mark my words, my lady: give him his head and he’ll reap all of ours, even if he has to build his own guillotine.” Erasmus had not quite agreed. “Not a Robespierre,” he’d said gloomily, “but he might grow into Stalin’s shoes.”)
“And what can I do for you today?”
“It’s the boss,” Erasmus said, affecting a slight nasality in his voice that elevated his tone but left it just short of a whine. It made him sound slightly stupid. He’d developed the trick, Miriam had learned, while on the run before the Revolution—as a way of convincing the political police he was harmless. “Nobody told us…”
“We want to be added to the daily distribution list for Sir Adam’s medical status,” Miriam added. “Our commissions have definite need to know.”
“I’m sure they do,” Adrian agreed affably. “Propaganda and industrial espionage—defending the indefensible, eh?” He beamed, then continued: “I’ll see you’re added to the list right away. Can’t think why you weren’t on it to begin with, honestly.” He sat down. “Will you stay for a while? I’m not busy, and it’s been too long since we’ve had a chance to chew the cud.”
More likely he meant, It’s been too long since I had a chance to pick your brains. Adrian was often in the office for eighteen hours a day, burning the midnight electricity. He had a mind like a mantrap, a superb memory, a grasp of the tiniest minutiae, and a pleasant demeanor. Miriam would have been entranced by him, and even considered him a possible suitable successor for the First Man, if she hadn’t also suspected him of being as ideologically flexible as a rubber band. A courtier’s courtier, rather than a man of integrity. “We really ought to get together some time.” Miriam smiled at him. “Unfortunately I’ve got to chair a meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee this afternoon, and Erasmus has—what do you have, dear?”