The House of Saints by Derek Kunsken

Author:Derek Kunsken [Künsken, Derek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781786188694
Published: 2023-06-08T23:00:00+00:00

FORTY-ONE

“What have you done, François-Xavier?” Gaschel demanded, with a feeling of falling hopelessness. “I have to address l’Assemblée in a few hours. What am I going to tell them?”

She, Labourière and Tétreau were in her office. Her assistant Cinthia had stalled a number of people in the waiting area to fit the two men in.

“I’m sorry, Madame la Présidente,” Labourière said, “but D’Aquillon will be back in custody shortly—or if we’re lucky, he’ll be killed resisting arrest.”

Gaschel put her forehead between two hands.

“The bank is ready to cut us off at the knees because we don’t have control of the colony,” Labourière argued, “but now we’ve found the Causapscal-des-Vents. The whole D’Aquillon plot is so alien to everyday life that people will believe us. And so will the bank. Marthe D’Aquillon dying in that storm was a godsend. Dead people don’t argue back. This almost worked.”

“That’s not what we have now,” Tétreau said. “We now have two live people who know this government tried to kill them.”

“Marie-Pier Hudon doesn’t need to talk to anyone right now,” Labourière said.

“Solitary confinement doesn’t stop our bigger problem of Émile D’Aquillon running around,” Gaschel said.

Tétreau was steady and quiet, but his tense body language betrayed a deep anger. She eyed him questioningly.

“My people can get him, Madame Présidente,” Tétreau said. “I just hope it’s before he talks to anyone.”

“Talks to anyone who believes him,” Gaschel said.

“There is that,” Tétreau acknowledged.

“There’s more than that,” she said. “I don’t want this pointing at us anymore. Make it clear that D’Aquillon broke out of the bay, that he deliberately depressurized it to escape. Whatever happened to Marie-Pier Hudon is on him.”

“That’s not what the evidence will show,” Tétreau said.

“François-Xavier will make sure the evidence shows precisely that,” she said with finality.

“I’ll begin immediately,” Labourière said, standing. Tétreau stood too.

“Laurent,” she added, “after managing your constables, why don’t you see Cinthia and take a look at modifying my speech to l’Assemblée this afternoon? Make it work in light of all this.”

Tétreau stood a little straighter. Labourière pursed his lips tighter, but did not object.

Gaschel rose in the special meeting of l’Assemblée Nationale. Gaschel had kept such meetings rare, and many representatives had made the effort. Not everyone could reach the main flotilla in just a few hours, but representatives in secondary flotillas had tuned in by radio. Most of the key members waited patiently in the chamber, though, including supporters of her governing coalition: Barnabé Chambeau from the Petit Kamouraska, Casimir Daigle from the Montée de Corte-Real, Maëlle Guillot from the Escuminac, Ovide Dubé from the Lac-Édouard, among others.

“Thank you, representatives,” she began, “for joining us on such short notice. I bring sad news. It was important to me that you hear it right away.”

Beside her, Labourière transmitted the photographs of the half-disassembled habitat hanging in the clouds, draped in radar-blunting epiphytes. Representatives began squinting at their data pad in puzzlement.

“These images are a few weeks old,” she said. “This is the Causapscal-des-Vents, suspended from engineered trawlers at about forty-eighth rang.

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