Miles in Love - Lois McMaster Bujold [338]
"Ah," said Dono, in a tone of enlightenment. "And you expect our opponents will also be making this calculation? Hence the value of the last-minute switch."
"Just so," said Miles.
"Will they anticipate the alteration?" asked Dono anxiously.
"They are not, as far as I know, quite aware of your alliance," By replied, with a slightly mocking semibow.
Ivan frowned at him. "And how long till they are? How do we know you won't just pipeline everything you see here to Richars?"
"He won't," said Dono.
"Yeah? You may be sure which side By's on, but I'm not."
By smirked. "Let us hope Richars shares your confusion."
Ivan shook his head, and snabbled a flaky shrimp puff which seemed to melt in his mouth, and chased it with coffee.
Miles reached under his chair and pulled out a stack of large transparent flimsies. He peeled off the top two, and handed one each to Dono and René across the low table. "I've always wanted to try this," he said happily. "I pulled these out of the attic last night. They were one of my grandfather's old tactical aids; I believe he had the trick from his father. I suppose I could devise a comconsole program to do the same thing. They're seating plans of the Council chamber."
Lord Dono held one up to the light. Two rows of blank squares arced in a semicircle across the page. Dono said, "The seats aren't labeled."
"If you need to use this, you're supposed to know," Miles explained. He thumbed off an extra and handed it across. "Take it home, fill it out, and memorize it, eh?"
"Excellent," said Dono.
"Theory is, you use 'em to compare two related close votes. Color code each District's desk—say, red for no, green for yes, blank for unknown or undecided—and put one atop the other." Miles dropped a handful of bright flow pens onto the table. "Where you end up with two reds or two greens, ignore that Count. You've either no need, or no leverage. Where you have blanks, a blank and a color, or a red and a green, look to those men as the ones to concentrate your lobbying on."
"Ah," said René, taking up two pens, leaning over the table, and starting to color. "How elegantly simple. I always tried to do this in my head."
"Once you start talking maybe three or five related votes, times sixty men, nobody's head can hold it all."
Dono, lips pursed thoughtfully, filled out some dozen or so squares, then moved around next to René to crib the rest of the names versus locations. René, Ivan noticed, colored very meticulously, neatly filling each square. Dono scribbled bold, quick splashes. When they'd finished, they laid the two flimsies a little askew atop one another.
"My word," said Dono. "They do just jump out at you, don't they?"
Their voices fell to murmurs, as they began to develop their list of men to go tag-team. Ivan brushed shrimp puff crumbs off his uniform trousers. Byerly bestirred himself to gently suggest one or two slight corrections to the distribution of marks and blanks, based upon impressions he'd, oh quite casually to be sure, garnered during his sojourns in Richars's company.
Ivan craned his neck, counting up greens and double-greens. "You're not there yet," he said. "Regardless of how few votes Richars and Sigur obtain, no matter how many of their supporters get diverted that day, you each have to have a positive majority of thirty-one votes, or you don't get your Districts."
"We're working on it, Ivan," said Miles.
From his sparkling eye and dangerously cheerful expression, Ivan recognized his cousin in full forward momentum mode. Miles was reveling in this. Ivan wondered if Illyan and Gregor would ever rue the day they'd dragged him off his beloved galactic covert ops and stuck him home. Scratch that—how soon they would rue the day.
To Ivan's dismay, his cousin's thumb descended forcefully on a pair of blank squares Ivan had hoped he would overlook.
"Count