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let the prime minister know it's not urgent, if she has— Constance. That was quick.”
    “Hi, Fred. I was at lunch,” Constance Riel said, chewing, her image flickering in the cheap holographic display. Valens smoothed the interface plate, cool plastic slightly tacky and gritty with the omnipresent dust. The prime minister covered her mouth with the back of her left hand and swallowed, set her sandwich down on a napkin, reached for her coffee. Careful makeup could not hide the hollows under her eyes, dark as thumbprints. “I was going to call you today anyway. How's the Evac?”
    “Stable.” One word, soaked in exhaustion. “I got mail from Elspeth Dunsany today. She says the commonwealth scientists have arrived safely on the
Montreal
. One Australian and an expat Brit. She and Casey are getting them settled.”
    “Paul Perry said the same thing to me this morning,” Riel answered. Her head wobbled when she nodded.
    “That isn't why you were going to call me.”
    “No. I have the latest climatological data from Richard and Alan. The AIs say that the nanite propagation is going well, despite the effects of the—”
    “Nuclear winter? Non-nuclear winter?” Valens said.
    “Something like that. They're concerned about the algae die off we were experiencing before the Impact. More algae means less CO 2 left in the atmosphere, which means less greenhouse warming when the dust is out of the atmosphere and winter finally ends—”
    “—in eighteen months or so. Won't we want a greenhouse effect then?”
To counteract the global dimming from the dust.
    “Not unless 50° or 60°C is your idea of comfort.”
    Valens shook his head, looking down at the pink and green displays that hovered under the surface of the interface plate, awaiting a touch to bring them to multidimensionality. He shook his head and ricocheted uncomfortably to the topic that was the reason for his call. “We've done what we can here. It's time to close up shop. Do you want to tour the exclusion zone?”
    “Helicopter tour,” she said, nodding, and took another bite of her sandwich. “You'll come with, of course. Before we open the Evac to reconstruction and send the bulldozers in.”
    “You're going to rebuild Toronto?” Valens had years of practice keeping shock out of his voice. He failed utterly, his gut coiling at something that struck him as plain obscenity.
    “No,” she said. “We're going to turn it into a park. By the way, are you resigning your commission?”
    Valens coughed. Riel's image flickered as the interface panel, released from the pressure of his palm, wrinkled again. “Am I being asked to?”
    The prime minister laughed. “You're being asked to get your ass to the provisional capital of Vancouver, Fred. Where, in recognition of your exemplary service handling the Toronto Evac relief effort, you will be promoted to Brigadier General Frederick Valens, and I will have a brand-new shiny cabinet title and a whole new ration of shit to hand you, sir.”
    “I'm a Conservative, Connie.”
    “That's okay,” she answered. “You can switch.”
     
    HMCSS Montreal , Earth orbit

Thursday September 27, 2063

After dinner
     
    Elspeth touched the corner of her mouth with her napkin, careful of the unaccustomed weight of lipstick. She leaned a shoulder against Jen Casey's upper arm and nudged, the steel armature hard under the rifle-green wool of Jenny's dress uniform. Jen's glass of grapefruit juice clicked against her teeth. She shot Elspeth a tolerant glance. “Doc—”
    “Sorry.”
    In present company, it wouldn't do for Jen to drop that steel arm around Elspeth's shoulders and give her a hard, infinitely careful hug, but she managed to make her answering jostle almost as comforting.
    They had moved into the captain's reception hall after dinner, and Captain Wainwright herself was propping up a wall in the corner by the room's two big ports. It was too cold for Elspeth's taste, that close to the glass, and she'd joined