wrimo 3
Government House, Eastwold
Sascha Littlecrane Baskt shifted uncomfortably in her seat in the upper gallery. She had been sitting for three hours, already, and the ceremony to present the new cabinet ministers, which was scheduled to last an hour and a half, seemed barely to have gotten underway. David’s father had risen to speak on three occasions thus far, but each speech had been an effusion on behalf of another. Of the 12 men stepping down, only two had successfully done so and introduced their successors; the third was still alluding to his successor but had yet to mention a name.
David was expecting to be named to be his father’s successor; but his father was number ten on the program. The room, warm enough when the session started in the early morning, was stifling now, and the doors were traditionally locked once all of the invited attendees had entered. They would not be unlocked until all of the offices had been passed on to their new holders. If they all continued at this rate, everyone would be here for another 11 hours.
Sascha wondered if the cabinet members and their staffs were more comfortable. Seated on the rotunda floor, they were at least not in the top third of the room, and she could see that in front of their seats were counters with pitchers of ice water. Those in the galleries had to leave their seats to get a drink, although she had noticed that a few had brought drinks and snacks with them. There were vendors in the lobby, with salty snacks and sticky beverages, and there were water fountains as well, but she didn’t think she could handle eating any of the food on offer.
‘I wish I’d brought some fruit,’ she thought, ‘or tucked a snack into my bag.’
She rose ponderously to her feet, and eased along the row. It was mid-morning, and they’d left the house at dawn in hopes of getting her a good seat, but when they’d reached Government House, they’d found people lined up at every entrance, waiting to go in. They had gotten her a seat with a clear view of the proceedings, but it was at the front of the uppermost gallery, and to get to the rest station she had to climb the steep gallery past fifteen other rows of seats. ‘I should never have agreed to do this,’ she thought, ‘not in the last weeks of a pregnancy!’
Then again, she shouldn’t have been in the last weeks of a pregnancy. When the twins had been born, David had agreed that he would carry their third child, since he’d have plenty of time before his father stepped down. But, of course, that was before he had the chance to get involved with the formation of the monorail company. They might well make a great deal of money by being in at the very beginning of that, and the monorail had been something David wanted desperately to promote. It wasn’t until much later that Sascha had learned that David had been invited to join the group after assuring them that she had no interest in working outside the home. When there was no longer time for David to carry before his father was to step down, Sascha had agreed to carry again. Now, once again feeling like she was carrying a transport, she was within three weeks of delivering their second set of twins, and she wondered what had happened to her perfect marriage.
She reached the top of the gallery and collapsed on the bench just inside the doors, trying to catch her breath. Down the long slope of the gallery below her, she saw David’s father rise to his feet yet again.
My dearest darling beloved sister,
Congratulations on your impending birth. There is no way I will ever return to Eastwold. You know I disliked David from the moment he came oozing in the door, chasing after mother and hoping for some crumb of political preferment. While I stayed with the two of you I was treated as an unpaid servant; had I stayed after the twins were born, I might be there still, raising your children and keeping your house.
I’ve been here almost three years, now, and Quaine and I have three pads between us. I started out working as Quaine’s factor, and now we are partners. I am almost as much in demand as both a carter and as a guide as Quaine is. We were married last year, as much because it made financial sense as because neither of us could imagine parting ways.
Quaine tells me you wrote him a couple of years back that in a very few years it would be possible to take the monorail from Eastwold to Grapt for a vacation. I was in the interstitial range last month, and looked to see if there was any sign of the monorail. On a clear night you can se the lights of Center City, but there is no sign of the monorail visible from the best vantage point in the interstitial range. If it is to be available for tourist traffic in a mere 18 months, I would think that there would be some sign of it having reached the halfway point by now.
I’m also curious because the people who do travel to Eastwold and back say that the monorail isn’t even halfway across Eastwold yet. Do you know why? Is there some engineering difficulty? I know, from talking to John Parker, that the government was funding the monorail, so it can’t be a funding problem, can it?
Quaine was just reading over my shoulder and says I’m badgering you. Sorry! I don’t mean to, honestly. It’s just that we had friends over last night and there was a very heated debate over what’s going on in Eastwold. Ras Alden’s sister, Clara, said that she’d had a letter from someone in Eastwold that made it sound as though the upcoming changes of office were prompted not by the incumbents’desire to step down but by the oversight committee’s discovery of some sort of malfeasance. She said that Pol Amarz was involved, but she didn’t give us many details. I think she’s writing her fiancé, and doesn’t want to give us enough details to guess who she’s marrying.
Not that I blame her. Ras is a bit intense, and convinced that there has never been anyone fit to marry his sister. He’s also a bit creepy. The first time I met him was shortly after I came here, while Quaine was off guiding Pol through the Interstitial Range. Ras came to the house to talk to Quaine and while I was talking to him, he invited me to meet his sister. I thought he was trying to lure me away, he was so weird. Turns out he wasn’t too sure I was supposed to be there. He’s a little odd anyway, and the combination made me think he might be a psychopath who had somehow eluded the psych screenings.