SENALL

5 Dorie lay on her bed in her apartment the next morning in New Venasaille and stared at the Tarot card so intently, she had a feeling it might come to life. It was Death, after all. Death on a white horse. Kings and paupers and kids lay dead at his feet. No one was immune to death. Even just bones, Death was protected by his shiny armor. She felt the power of this card, and it frightened her a little. She wasn’t sure it was a good thing. When was Death a good thing? Terl’s death? Her own death?

She’d come back from the Bubble and sent an encrypted note to Dave Crowell. He would figure out who it was from, and he would come. Maybe she should be going to him. It had crossed her mind, but then, there was the press conference in a few hours.

The card loomed large in her vision. She imagined the figure of Death shimmering on his white horse, moving slightly if she looked at it just right. Death, coming to life.

Could it be possible? Terl, alive? She couldn’t fathom it; she couldn’t wrap her mind around it. How could he have survived Coral? Survived the explosion that destroyed it and destroyed most of Ribon. They’d been on vacation. It was a chance to put some distance between his failed election and the RuBy she’d discovered. Not yet addicted but teetering on the edge.

In retrospect, Coral didn’t seem the best choice for a vacation. The tour of the mined-out Rock Dome facility seemed an afterthought. She’d been mildly annoyed, but Terl had the idea he might gain insight into his art and sculpture and hoped that the tour could inform him about the minerals that had once been plentiful there.

And then there was the moment.

The moment he’d bent low to kiss her, told her Union bright, and left her. He’d be just a moment, answering the call of nature. He never returned. Ident card used to leave the Rock Dome. And that was it. Vanished. He didn’t leave Coral—according to his Ident—and after she returned to Ribon and fell victim to RuBy, Coral turned to fire, Dorie fled, and Terl Plenko the Movement terrorist, a copy of her own Terl—a Thin Man—came to life.

Dorie replayed the moment in the Rock Dome over and over in her mind, looking for clues. Had anyone spoken to him while they were there? Before or after he left her? She rewound and fast forwarded Terl’s path, as she remembered it, from by her side, just after his kiss, to the visitor center. She had always assumed someone had got to him—an agent of the Ultras, most likely—and did what needed to be done to steal his pattern for the copy process. It had even occurred to her that he’d been secretly ferried off Coral for this. Nothing, however, had made her believe they kept him alive after the process.

She remembered the instant he died.

Or, more accurately, during the peak of her most RuBy-induced altered state, she believed she’d felt his passing. She’d wept and said goodbye to him then.

She fingered the Tarot card. Flipped it upside down, sideways, backward, and forward again. It has everything to do with those you love, Lorway had said. With those you loved. She said it was a gift for Dave Crowell, the ultimate collector of nostalgia. Dorie had to believe he knew something important about Terl. At the same time, she knew she had something just as important.

Perhaps her goodbye was premature.

Perhaps, because it was now absolutely necessary, her goodbye had just begun.

At ten o’clock, Dorie stood near the podium of the press room and gazed out over the modest crowd of reporters. Ribon officials were in attendance as well. Tom Sakson had not done anything to block the press conference, but he was in attendance in the first row, and that might be even worse. Aditya Thakur stood next to her, ramrod straight. She smiled at him, and he nodded.

Poor Adi, she thought. He has no idea what’s coming.

Ross, who doubled as a press secretary, gained the podium and said good afternoon. Miniature drones hovered and hummed a good distance from him and projected his image to a window screen and to viewers across Ribon.

“Governor Senall has called this press conference to discuss tomorrow’s joint assembly emergency vote on New Coral’s separatist agenda,” Ross said. “She will make a brief statement about this, but she’s informed me that she will not be taking questions.”

A murmur arose from the press room, then Dorie cringed as reporters yelled out in distinct voices to complain. “What? “We have a right to understand—” “Why not?” “Will the governor speak and answer questions today?”

Ross raised his hand and leaned into the microphone. “Please. Please quiet down. Thank you. The Governor of New Venasaille.”

Dorie stepped up to the podium as Ross adjusted the microphone slightly. Then he left, and Dorie was alone at the podium. The teleprompter was invisible to most, just a blur of words on a wisp of transparent flashpaper directed within her peripheral vision. A simple movement of her head and a few blinks, and she could read the statement she had written for this moment. She’d written them yesterday, before her visit to the Bubble.

The press room settled, in the quiet all was ready to record what she had to say. She looked over at Adi again. Once again, he nodded his encouragement. With a flick of her finger, she minimized the teleprompter.

She would not be using it.

Although those sitting in the press room could not see the teleprompter, they understood what had just happened. They remained quiet but seemed ready to explode.

“I’ve lived on Ribon for a long time,” she began. “Twice. There was—” She managed a half smile “—a period of mourning, reflection, and rebuilding that took place in between.”

The press corps nodded knowingly. Tom Sakson, front row, smirked.

She continued. “As Ribon was reborn, I was reborn.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, most of you know of my past. The life before Coral. You know who I was with. I am not afraid to say his name. My Terl Plenko ran for political office on this very planet. He was a Helk, and he was a decent, loving person, and yet most of you still attach his name to terrorism, conspiracy, and invasion. You know he was not that person. You know the false Plenko who helped destroy our world. You also know of yet another Plenko who helped, in his own way, to rebuild it, when he sacrificed himself to the Ultras. Yes, I struggled with addiction. I know some of you are hearing that part of my past for the first time. My rivals would like to use that against me. Use the past against the present.

“But my fellow citizens, we are Ribon now. I came back to help this first reclamation dome become a reality. To become Ribon now. And even as we continue to expand and redefine ourselves, we face a political animal that wants to take a bite out of our common goals and our common vision. An animal that threatens the Ribon way of life.”

So far, Dorie saw that she had them. And as far as Tom Sakson or Adi Thakur knew—even though she had turned off the teleprompter and she was saying all this from her heart and from no other memorized speech—it was going the way they expected it to go.

But no, it would not go there.

“I am a new Dorie Senall, and this is a new Ribon, and all of you are its life blood. I’m the governor of New Venasaille, but I stand for all our domes. For all of Ribon. We should love together, and, if it ever happens again, bleed together.” She paused, looking down briefly at the empty lecturn on the podium. “My time here has been a blessing. Look at the progress we’ve made! New domes, new colonists arriving every day? My god, it’s truly a miracle. This is a miracle we all need to embrace. A miracle we all need to sustain. I feel confident we can do that. There are so many capable people here. So many of you have brilliant futures ahead.”

Once more, she paused. Looked out over the hushed room. They sensed it, she knew.

“‘I will not rest from travel,’ the great Earth poet Tennyson wrote about the hero Ulysses. ‘I will live life to the lees.’ In Ulysses’ old age, he has a need to go back out and explore. He is bored shitless.” The audience chuckled, nervously. “He thinks there are new things to discover out there. He tells his mariners that before the end there’s got to be something they can do. Men! he says. We fought against Gods. Against Gods, for heaven’s sake! Let’s seek out a newer world and damn be the consequences. If we die, we die. ‘That which we are, we are.’ Ribon has been my newer world, but I have much more to do before I sail beyond the sunset.”

Some whispers now, out in the audience. Reporters frantically checking their cards, their terminal connections. If they knew Tennyson—if they knew “Ulysses” at all—they knew where she was headed. In the poem, Ulysses lets his son Telemachus rule, then heads out with his aged mariners for more adventure.

“Because I love, because I cannot say goodbye to my will, I must say goodbye to all of you. As of this press conference I’m resigning the governorship of New Venasaille. In my stead, as per charter, Assistant Governor Aditya Thakur will serve.” Dorie looked at Adi and his face was a mix of shock and dismay. “I understand Governor Tom Sakson will hold his vote tomorrow about New Coral becoming its own government. I urge all of you to consider the unwanted ramifications of that decision. United we are Ribon. Divided, we are simply a scattering of domes in constant need of repair, with you, the colonists, struggling to remain free from isolation. Do the right thing.”

One more beat. A pause to let it sink in.

“There are more things to say about all this. I believe Acting Governor Thakur will do a good job now going over those points with you. He might answer questions, too. I don’t know.” Dorie looked over at him and the shock and dismay in his face had given way to sadness and resolve.

He nodded and mouthed of course.

Dorie turned the teleprompter back on for him, then leaned into the microphone. “Thank you, New Venasaille. Thank you, Ribon. I promise to do you proud out there in the dark, broad seas.” She smiled. “Union bright.”

The press room erupted as reporters tried to be heard, shouting, asking questions. Ross gained the podium, saying something back to them, but she didn’t listen. She stopped in front of Adi, and after a pause, gave him a small hug. She’d opened the door for Sakson, really. Given him a chance against the inexperienced, yet rising star, Aditya Thakur, and perhaps control of the joint congress. She believed in Adi, but he had a fight on his hands.

“We’ll talk later,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

He simply nodded.

Ross was announcing the acting governor. Dorie clasped Adi’s shoulder. “For now, go give Sakson hell.”

“With pleasure.”

She left the press room and didn’t look back, the strong, confident voice of Acting Governor Thakur reciting her original speech as if it were his own. Adrenalin still coursed through her, but she felt relieved to be in the wings, and not on stage. Relieved, because she’d done it. Left on her own terms, to search for Terl. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.

An aide she didn’t know, a young man from one of the offices inside the Operations Building, reached out toward her as she passed.

“Governor—” He stopped and blushed. “Sorry. Miss Senall.”

Dorie quickly glanced at his name badge and saw he was Shell personnel, part of Domelock security. “That’s okay, Bryce.”

“Miss Senall,” he said, staring down at his comm card. “Notice from the Shell. A transport just entered New Venasaille. You have a couple of visitors who wish to speak with you.”

She nodded. “Yes. I do, don’t I?”

Bryce looked confused.

“Extend to them every courtesy, and send them to me in Adi Thakur’s office, but start prepping right away for their departure. We’ll be leaving before the end of the day.”

“Leaving, Miss Senall?”

She paused long enough to extend her hand. He put his hand in hers and shook it. “For now.”

To seek, to find, and not to yield.