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
âWhat have you done, François-Xavier?â Gaschel demanded, with a feeling of falling hopelessness. âI have to address lâAssemblée in a few hours. What am I going to tell them?â
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.
âIâm sorry, Madame la Présidente,â Labourière said, âbut DâAquillon will be back in custody shortlyâor if weâre lucky, heâll be killed resisting arrest.â
Gaschel put her forehead between two hands.
âThe bank is ready to cut us off at the knees because we donât have control of the colony,â Labourière argued, âbut now weâve found the Causapscal-des-Vents. The whole DâAquillon plot is so alien to everyday life that people will believe us. And so will the bank. Marthe DâAquillon dying in that storm was a godsend. Dead people donât argue back. This almost worked.â
âThatâs not what we have now,â Tétreau said. âWe now have two live people who know this government tried to kill them.â
âMarie-Pier Hudon doesnât need to talk to anyone right now,â Labourière said.
âSolitary confinement doesnât stop our bigger problem of Ãmile DâAquillon running around,â Gaschel said.
Tétreau was steady and quiet, but his tense body language betrayed a deep anger. She eyed him questioningly.
âMy people can get him, Madame Présidente,â Tétreau said. âI just hope itâs before he talks to anyone.â
âTalks to anyone who believes him,â Gaschel said.
âThere is that,â Tétreau acknowledged.
âThereâs more than that,â she said. âI donât want this pointing at us anymore. Make it clear that DâAquillon broke out of the bay, that he deliberately depressurized it to escape. Whatever happened to Marie-Pier Hudon is on him.â
âThatâs not what the evidence will show,â Tétreau said.
âFrançois-Xavier will make sure the evidence shows precisely that,â she said with finality.
âIâll begin immediately,â Labourière said, standing. Tétreau stood too.
âLaurent,â she added, âafter managing your constables, why donât you see Cinthia and take a look at modifying my speech to lâAssemblée this afternoon? Make it work in light of all this.â
Tétreau stood a little straighter. Labourière pursed his lips tighter, but did not object.
Gaschel rose in the special meeting of lâAssemblée 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-Ãdouard, among others.
âThank you, representatives,â she began, âfor joining us on such short notice. I bring sad news. It was important to me that you hear it right away.â
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.
âThese images are a few weeks old,â she said. âThis is the Causapscal-des-Vents, suspended from engineered trawlers at about forty-eighth rang.
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