He thought about the man who the night before had burst into Parliament House brandishing his gun—his unloaded gun, it transpired. Did that make them all faintly ridiculous, scattering in all directions like chickens when a fox has got into the coop? Are we the men, then, to lead this nation, he wondered, that a madman with an unloaded weapon can so easily throw us into panic and disarray? He was glad that the only person to have witnessed his own panic and disarray was Charles Booker-Reid and possibly not even him. He thought, too, about the incident at Granville overnight. A signal box destroyed. A train that might have been wrecked but was not. Youths were blamed. Perhaps by the time the later editions came out someone would have been charged. Well, he was not responsible for the railways; he certainly was not responsible for the disaffected and disenfranchised few who chose to advertise their cause with threats of violence and acts of destruction. He was one man in public office and he represented the law-abiding majority. The country he was helping to create was built on solid ideals, on Christian values. Destruction for the sake of it had no place and was without meaning. Without end.

Anarchy, Charles Booker-Reid had said.

But the train had not been wrecked and Granville was a long way from the city.

Do you remember when you ran your first campaign … and how you said it would all be worth it in the end?

What on earth had prompted Eleanor to say that about his first campaign, about the halls and the people, about it being worthwhile? Alasdair shifted uneasily in his seat. He had no wish to be reminded of a time that was long past when his thoughts were set clearly on what was to come. For his greatest moments were ahead, he felt it: the new nation, the new century, just a few short months away. Close enough to touch.

It had begun already, the future, his future.

It had begun the moment he had met Miss Verity Trent outside the offices of the shipping company four months ago. Life, of course, was filled with curious twists of fate, some minor, other portentous. If, for instance, his cab had turned into Victoria Street a minute or two later than it had, they would be stuck in that queue of vehicles right now and not sailing through Woolloomooloo. If he had decided to remain in his office that Friday afternoon in February to finish some item of work, or if he taken some other cab via some other route that day …

But he had not remained at work. He had taken that cab, he taken that route and there was fate, awaiting him beneath the spreading branches of a giant golden wattle at Circular Quay.