Up Against It - M. J. Locke [40]
She knew herself too well. Some part of her was doing exactly the same: observing the interpersonal dynamics, saying what she knew she was supposed to say, seeing how to work the crowd—a gesture here, a word there. It was habit, deeply ingrained. And many of the cluster’s key players were here: Thomas Harman, Val Pearce, and others of Benavidez’s team; Jacques Reinforte; members of the opposition. She had been neglecting her peers, and she was going to need their continued support.
She felt weary. No more. Not today. Let me be only a person today, not an official. Let me give honor to the dead.
But it was not to be. The mayor, Jimmy Morris, pulled her aside. Steering her so their backs were to the “Stroiders” cameras (for all the good it would do, with all the spy motes in the air), he said in a low voice, “I got the allocation numbers. You gotta do more for me, Navio. Hiro is seeing signs of hoarding. I’ve got the city council on my back. I can’t hold things together without a more serious commitment from you.”
“What do you expect me to do? I’m hearing the same thing from every alder in the cluster. It is what it is. There’s only so much to go around.”
“I’m telling you, it ain’t enough!”
She eyed him. “What kind of support are you looking for?”
“I need you to call the city council. They need to hear that Zekeston will be your top priority in the recovery effort.”
“How can you even doubt it? You know good and well Zekeston is the eight-hundred-pound parrot in all this.”
“I notice Kukuyoshi’s not suffering much.”
“We can put on sweaters. Kukuyoshi’s species can’t.”
“I see. And your decision has nothing to do with the fact that your husband gets most of his funding from the university.”
“Do you really want to go there?” she asked mildly. Jimmy Morris epitomized cronyism. She had things on him, and he knew it.
“All right, all right,” he said. He lowered his voice. “But I have a city to feed. Zekeston has ten times the population of the other two towns, put together. We’re gonna have riots. That won’t do your planning efforts much good, will it?”
She couldn’t blame him for putting the heat on. In his place she would do the same. In fact, she had held out a little on him so she would have something to give him now. But she put on a show anyway.
“You’re killing me, Jimmy.” She gave a noisy sigh. “But all right. My people say we have a little wiggle room.” She did not want to be more exact than that. “If you’ll put your weight behind the PM’s cluster-wide rationing plan when it comes up in Parliament next week, and give me your full support for my plan to get ice out of Ogilvie & Sons, I’ll boost Zekeston rations five percent.”
“Five! Don’t make me laugh.”
“Six, then.” She had set aside nine. “And I’ll add Hiro to my eyes-on list.”
He made a dour face. “What good does that do me?”
“It puts Hiro in the loop, Jimmy. Way in. There aren’t many people on it. The PM, his chief of staff, my direct reports, that’s about it. I don’t move without alerting the eyes-on list. Hiro can give me a heads-up if you get into a bind and we’ll see if we can shuffle some resources around.” It also made her job, of coordinating with Hiro, a lot easier. But she did not need to tell JimmyM that. Unfortunately, the idea backfired.
“I want on that list, too, then. I’ll tell you personally when we’re in trouble. Eliminate the middle man.” He smiled, sharklike.
You deserve your rep, JimmyM, Jane thought. She felt sorry for Hiro, working for a man like him. She shook her head. “Not ‘too.’ Instead. Too many voices means sluggish decision making. We can’t afford that.”
He thought it over. “All right.”
“And you don’t get a vote. You’re just an observer.”
“All right, all right.”
“And you only stay on the list as long as the crisis lasts.”
His gaze glittered like polished rocks. “We’ll see,” he said.
“That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
They both knew that once he was on the list it would be hard to get him off it. He