[CLOSED] This is Going to Be an Unbearable Day

[Basil Ambrose Shrikeweed]

Vienda - In Stainthorp Hall
The 6th of Intas - Forenoon

T

he pen darts over the page, securing names and facts in prisons of ink. Maurier , Ilvane, and Bellwether. Sounds like a law firm. Probably specializing in business law. Something lucrative. Something dull. Incumbent Marurier fits the mold perfectly. Two years ago, Maurier was in some sort of legal trouble. Bribery? Graft? Using the wrong fork at dinner? It does not matter. Dull, conventional, and without any real agenda. Shrikeweed supposes that maintaining a lofty sense of privilege is an agenda. Not a well formed agenda. Marurier has no vision. Worse, Ilvane has no sense.

Ilvane. Another non-entity. There is little to know less to care about Ilvane. A short, nearly spherical man of perhaps fifty. Flyaway yellow hair that points in whatever direction the political winds blow. And if they’re blowing from all sides? Well, Ilvane would probably be torn to rhetorical pieces, each muttering some useless platitude in direct opposition to the others. Typical.

Bellwether. Running circles around Ilvane? Well, that should be simple. Just wait for some opinion to turn him around another direction and slip behind him. Still, the Bellwether may be one to watch. The files of his mind carry almost no information about her. Must be new. Or rising from obscurity. He makes a mark by her name. Later, he will learn what he can. Now, here, he simply nods.

The Incumbent is not Sound

No, he is not. Not if he cannot now remember his own opinions. He will have to be supplied with new opinions. Sound opinions.

“Incumbent, if you are having trouble remembering your old position, and I presume this dates from before your illness?”? Of course it will. The old Incumbent seem to be a mystery to this new one. The attack must have been worse that was let on. Small wonder the man’s movements are stiff and his voice strained. Shrikeweed takes down another name. The Incumbent, as he was, will need to be unearthed. The Incumbent as he is will be of little assistance. Curious.

“I will have to locate the minutes of that last meeting. I assume minutes were taken?” The Incumbent as he was, did not keep a useful staff. Shrikeweed doubts there are minutes. All to the better. Without the minutes, then there is no official reality to the discussion. It did not happen. Any memories to the contrary must be, perforce, mistaken. “Tell Ilvane and Maurier that you are reconsidering your views. You need not state what those views are. That is of little importance. It is your prerogative to reconsider.” The smile upon the Shrikeweedian face expands slightly. “Have them present their arguments to you, their position papers. If they have none, then condemn their inefficiency and slapdashedness. If they do have them, snatch them up and end the meeting. I will review the papers and provide you with analysis.” Just as soon as he determines what the sound position is.

The writs. Useless things. A meaningless affectation. A sign that the government considered its position weak. A gap in the armor of civic order. Better to do away with the idea. With the enforcement. A gap , once seen, can be exploited, widened. Better to close it off now. There are too many gaps. Too many places for discontent to fester. Current policy invites discontent, invites chaos, Revolution. He shudders. Better to have them reading in the open. Easier to monitor, harder for secret societies to from. That would be sound policy. Sound policy is rarely popular.

At least on the policy of coffee the Incumbent appears more than sound. A hope. A very small hope. Should he recommend The Elephant? No. Not yet. The place is too much his own. He will watch, and wait. And if the Incumbent proves to be less useless than his ilk? If he can me made sound ? The perhaps. For now, The Elephant is his. That does not mean that nothing can be done. Will Sebele lend him one of her staff? Possible, for the right fee. The Incumbent needs staff. Shrikeweed needs staff. An interesting approach.
“As to the matter of the coffee, sir. I belive I may be able to so something about it. I make no guarantees, and I will need to requisition funds. Rather more funds that you might at first consider wise. Yet if all goes well, within a day or so, we could both be seated here reading through position papers over Mugrobi coffee. What could be more civilized?”

[Tom Cooke]

Stainthorpe Hall • Uptown

Late Morning on the 6th of Intas, 2719

In response to the question, Tom just nods. They both know the answer; there’s nothing else for him to do. They both know, now, how outlandish this is. Incumbent Vauquelin, a blank slate, as if replaced in the night by another man entirely. Can a stroke do that? Can perceptive backlash? Tom doesn’t know. He’s sat quiet-like, his fingers perched on the rim of his snifter, watching Shrikeweed’s face and wondering what thoughts are flitting around behind it. He’s a hard kov to read, this B.A. Shrikeweed. And he’s wondering how much Shrikeweed is reading him, and he doesn’t like the wondering.

It would’ve been easier, he decides, if he’d seen the challenge and picked up his notebook and his pen and scurried back to Legislative Affairs. Tom is glad that he’s making himself useful, instead; Tom hates that he’s making himself useful, too. Idly, his fingertips leave the rim of his snifter; they find his jaw, and they scratch it, and he stares at the table.

Taking a minute, Tom thinks, doesn’t usually mean whatever Shrikeweed means by it here. Aye, minutes were taken, he wants to say; hell, it took an hour and a half. But he’s not mung, and he knows that’s not what he means. You take notes, he thinks. Notes are something you take. This shit’s well-lit, he thinks; has to’ve got written down. He wants to ask, don’t you gollies keep a record of everything?

He knows better. He thinks back to the last meeting, tries to picture the scratch of some kov’s pen on the paper, scratch-scratch-scratching away in the background, underneath everybody’s voices; he fails to picture it, because it wasn’t there. If it wasn’t there at the last meeting, he can’t imagine it was there at any before that.

“No.” His brow furrows. “I don’t suppose any were taken.” He glances up to meet Shrikeweed’s eye again – catches a smile, and lifts an eyebrow.

No record, he thinks. It’s taken him a few seconds, but even a tallyboy knows what that means. Especially a tallyboy, maybe.

There’s a creak as he sits back in his chair again. He’s still grim-faced, but he’s nodding, more and more steadily, and there’s a spark in his eye. He pictures Ilvane’s face, puce, when he asks for position papers; he doesn’t know he’ll get them, but it’s a good tactic. If he doesn’t, nothing’ll get Ilvane stammering like an accusation of inefficiency, and getting Ilvane stammering is a good way to make sure nothing more gets done. Incumbent Maurier, on the other hand –

You win some, you lose some, he reckons. He doesn’t know that Maurier’s going to leave the Incumbent to his mysterious, sudden need to reconsider. He doesn’t know that his stalling, whatever form it takes, won’t be treacherous; he doesn’t know, still, if – or when – or how Maurier’s expectations are going to swim back up and bite him in the erse. “I can do all that,” he says, nodding. “Bellwether’ll have her shit together, at least, bless or damn her for it, and probably Maurier, too. I’ll get you those papers.”

’Cause that’s all you can do; it’s not as if there’s a manual for being dropped into another man’s life in medias res. And, more importantly, it’s a damn sight better than whatever his plan had been before Shrikeweed walked in.

Then, he brings up the coffee.

Tom blinks. He starts smiling, despite himself. It’s a wry kind of smile, part relief, part disbelief. Part surprise, like he’s looking over the ink-stained Viendan galdor and his brown-red whiskers, bureaucrat of bureaucrats, the furthest thing Tom can imagine from the port city of his home and its humming Vein, its spices and its –

“Mugrobi coffee,” he replies, “in this city, in the middle of flooding Stainthorpe Hall. I’ll believe it when I see it, but godsdamn, do I look forward to seeing it. Sounds like a wise enough use of funds to me.”

It's not a thank you; Tom doesn’t know he wants to thank this man for the threat he poses. But he’s wondering if, given the right amount of good, dark kofi, this might not be halfway-bearable, in the long run. That, or it’ll be the second death of him. It might just be both.