4
TWO GUARDS TOOK US to the very end of the passage. It was a dank room, with minimal lighting, and the lush furniture did not dispel the feeling of darkness and disuse.
To my surprise, the man seated at the desk reading something on a screen was not the president, but Simon Dekker, aide to the Acting President Sigobert Danziger of Nations of Earth.
I’d met Dekker a few times and he always struck me as a perfect companion to Danziger: tall, thin, dark-skinned, perpetually dressed in grey, with a less well-developed sense of humour than a corpse.
His eyes met mine as I came in through the door. It was a cold, calculating look.
He pre-empted my question, Where is the president? by saying, “The president is indisposed.”
“He’s all right?” I felt compelled to ask, although I felt that if
