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considerations, however...
    “How did this come through?” he asked.
    “Tachyon transmission,” Carlotta §aid. “I requested they maintain silence until further notice, and they complied.”
    “Who knows about this?”
    “Laura Sunshine and one tech at planetary observation.”
    Royce let out his breath slowly. Only the Ministry of Media had the equipment to pick up tachyon transmissions. Only two other people knew. “Seems as if it’s effectively sat on,” he said.
    “For the next twenty days, anyway.”
    “No good,” Royce said flatly. “We can’t do that. If we don’t break the news soon, there’ll be a Parliamentary vote of confidence.”
    Carlotta frowned, indeed almost pouted. “I figured that much out myself,” she said rather plaintively. “But if we release this before we have a policy, we’ll be in the middle of a full-scale planetary debate when those bastards arrive, and my hands will be tied.”
    “I believe that’s called democracy,” Royce said dryly.
    Carlotta glared at him. “It’s called the Pink and Blue War,” she said.
    Royce studied her face, and saw a very un-Carlotta-like defensive tension there. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little?” he said.
    “What do you mean?”
    Royce nodded toward the image of the Heisenberg on the obscreen. “What we have at the moment is not the Pink and Blue War,” he said. “We have a Transcendental Science mission. We have no Femocrats. We don’t even have an Institute of Transcendental Science, only some people who want to talk about establishing one.”
    “I don’t quite follow,” Carlotta said. But her expression had softened, and she really seemed to be looking to him for advice and guidance now.
    “I’m looking at this strictly on a current political level, because that’s what we’ve got to handle right now” Royce said. “The options are limited and so is the problem. We can’t not talk to this Falkenstein and we can’t refuse him permission to land, because that would violate interstellar protocol. So you have to negotiate, but at the moment, that’s all you have to do. So between now and then, all you need politically is to line up Parliament behind some negotiating position. Right now the issue isn’t the Pink and Blue War, it’s putting together political backing for a talking position with Falkenstein, period.”
    Carlotta’s expression brightened. “I see what you mean,” she said. “Call a closed session of Parliament and line them up behind a negotiating position between now and the time the Heisenberg makes orbit”
    “Right.”
    Carlotta stared out the window at the lagoon for a moment “And I know just what that has to be,” she muttered. Oh-oh, Royce thought Carlotta turned to Royce again. “But what do we do in the meantime?” she asked. “We can’t sit on the news for very long, but we can’t release it until we’ve hammered out a consensus position in Parliament either.”
    Royce nibbled on a thumbnail. It was all a matter of timing and nuance. “Okay...” he said slowly. “So we have to do something immediately to cover ourselves. A simple press release by a low-level Media official to the effect that a starship has entered the system, nothing about contact, the gov is trying to determine its identity. We can get away with that for a day or two...
    “And two days from now... ?”
    Royce grimaced. “By then, we’ll have to release the whole story or be charged with denial of media access when it finally breaks. No choice.”
    “Which gives me less than two days to call a closed session of Parliament together in Gotham and line up a majority of the Delegates behind some kind of tentative policy...”
    “ ’Fraid so ”
    “Shit.”
    They sat together silently for a long moment. “How?” Carlotta finally said. “If I tell them why I’m calling a closed session, do you think a hundred and three Delegates can keep a secret like that for two hours, let alone two days?