Olmy felt as if he were being toyed with. It was not a sensation he enjoyed. “If you’re referring to the opposition of Earth’s former advocate, Suli Ram Kikura…we do not necessarily share political beliefs even when we share beds, Ser President.”

“These are past matters now. Forgive my interruption. Please continue, Ser Olmy.”

“There’s still a strong undercurrent of tension between most Old Natives and the ruling parties of the orbiting bodies.”

“That’s a painful puzzle to me,” Farren Siliom said.

“I’m not sure it can be surmounted. They resent us in so many ways. We robbed them of their youth—”

“We pulled them up from the Death!” the president said sharply. Ras Mishiney’s assigned ghost gave a faint smile.

“We’ve prevented them from growing and recovering on their own, Ser. The Terrestrial Hexamon that built and launched Thistledown rose from just such misery, independently; some Old Natives feel perhaps we’ve helped too much, and imposed our ways upon them.”

Farren Siliom picted grudging agreement. Olmy had noticed a hardening of attitude against Old Natives among Hexamon administrators in the orbiting bodies the past decade. And the Old Natives, being what they were—many still rough and uneducated, still shocked by the Death, without the political and managerial sophistication earned through centuries of experience in the Way—had grown to resent the firm but gentle hand of their powerful descendants.

“The Terrestrial Senate is quiet and cooperative,” Olmy said, avoiding Ras Mishiney’s eyes. “The worst dissatisfactions, outside those already mentioned, seemed to be in China and Southeast Asia.”

“Where science and technology first rose after the Death, in our own history…willful and strong peoples. How resentful are the Old Natives overall?”

“Certainly not to the point of worldwide activism, Ser President. Consider it a prejudice, not a rage.”

“What about Gerald Brooks in England?”

“I met with him, Ser. He is not a threat.”

“He worries me. He has quite a following in Europe.”

“At most two thousand in a recovered population of ten million. He’s vocal but not powerful. He feels deep gratitude for what the Hexamon has done for the Earth…he merely resents those of your administrators who treat terrestrials like children.” Far too many of that kind, he thought.

“Resents my administrators.” The president paced on the platform. Olmy watched this with a deep, ironic humor. Politicians had certainly changed since the days of his youth—even since the Sundering. Formal deportment seemed an art of the past. “And the religious movements?”

“As strong as ever.”

“Mm.” Farren Siliom shook his head, seeming to relish bad news to fuel a smoldering irritation.

“There are at least thirty-two religious groups which do not accept your administrators as temporal or spiritual rulers—”

“We don’t expect them to accept us as spiritual rulers,” Farren Siliom said.