Part 41 (1/2)

”Those are my conditions.” The governor-general spoke softly, yet there was great force in her words.

Bowles looked like she was about to be ill. ”All right.”

”Good, because the reporting you did today on Noelle DeRicci amounts to the worst kind of journalism,” the governor-general said. ”You made up rationales for events you did not understand. You did not allow Chief DeRicci to defend herself before you aired your hate piece, and you combed through her sterling record to find some sort of case-any case-to support your claims. If you do the same thing with this interview, hack it to bits and make it say what you want it to say, the unedited version of this next hour will make it to your rivals' desks before your hack job finishes airing.”

DeRicci felt her mouth open. No one had ever defended her like that.

”I don't appreciate being threatened, Governor,” Bowles said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes flashed with something like hatred.

”I don't appreciate having an exemplary public servant being trashed for saving lives,” the governor-general said.

DeRicci leaned back in her chair. She listened as the interview became a jousting session between Bowles and the governor-general, learned that manipulating the press had a whole new meaning when it was done by someone with experience and skill.

Bowles got in her questions, but DeRicci never had a chance to answer. The governor-general dominated the entire interview, allowing DeRicci only to describe the reasons she had made such quick decisions.

”Tell her what you told me about decisiveness,” the governor-general said before DeRicci could answer. ”Tell her about political decisions versus life-and-death decisions.”

So DeRicci reiterated her case, and as she did, she felt increasingly lightheaded, as if everything she had understood about her world had s.h.i.+fted.

”The reason we chose Noelle DeRicci,” the governor-general said, before DeRicci had a chance to finish, ”is because she makes decisions like this, because she is not political, and because she thinks of lives first. I suggest the next time you come out with a hastily conceived story that could stir up the citizenry, you think of lives as well.”

DeRicci tuned out the rest. She allowed herself a few moments of relaxation while the two women near her sparred. DeRicci had survived her first test as Security Chief, and she had survived it because she had defended herself.

Because she wasn't political; she was outspoken.

Because she was decisive.

And because she had a true friend in Miles Flint.

69.

Sharyn Scott-Olson watched as her team carefully lifted the last body from the ma.s.s grave. One hundred and fifty people had died at this location one hundred years before. One hundred and fifty men, women, and children, piled on top of each other, their secret lost to time.

Until someone-an unknown someone-had tried to revive it with a single skeleton. The Disty claimed they knew who that someone was, and they would perform a ritual with that someone's help, clearing out the last of the contamination.

But first they had to clear the entire Dome, then this ma.s.s grave site, and finally the skeletal remains. Scott-Olson had already been told to report to a Death Squad office as soon as the last of the autopsies were done. This last body meant that the victims of the ma.s.sacre would be laid to rest. The victims of discovery of that ma.s.sacre had already been cremated, most of them dead of crushed bones and shattered skulls.