“The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.”

—Sen. Adalai E. Stevenson, D-Ill.

“’Of course Titans are bigots.’ That’s what Loona Armac’s friend believes. Does she believe it too?”

“That’s not what I meant!” Nonah yelled at the vidscreen. “She damn well knows it!”

“Of course she knows it,” Ammer said, watching the ad for Dis Falosen that had just dropped. “What you meant was obvious to anyone who isn’t a politician. But Falosen is a politician, and she just has to get through about 180 more hours. By the time it’s been deconstructed, it will be too late. Sorry, boss,” Ammer said, turning to the Titan who’d been sitting quietly on a chair. “This was my call, and I blew it.”

“No, it’s my fault,” Nonah said. “I should have been more careful. Led with ‘not all Titans are bigots, but some….’”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Loona said, finally. “Not yours, Ammer, not yours, Nonah. It was my call, and I don’t regret it.”

“Can I fix this?” Nonah asked, miserably. “Do another interview, release a statement…something? Loona….”

Loona looked down at her friend. She knew Ammer was right, knew Nonah might have cost her the election.

She had told the truth, and the truth stung. People don’t like to hear the truth. They much prefer the lie that draws a smile.

“Ammer, I need you to schedule a press conference,” she said.

“Nonah won’t be able to fix this. They won’t….”

“Not for her. For me,” she said.

Ammer blinked. Loona was right – they had to go into damage control mode. But she had to know what the risks were. “Boss, they’ll push you on whether you agree with her. Best thing you can do – and I’m sorry, Nonah, because you’re right – but is to repudiate what she said. Denounce it in strong terms.”

Loona nodded.

“Looney…if you have to….”

Loona looked down at her best friend, and gave her a smile. “Don’t worry, Nonah. I know exactly what I’m going to say,” she said.

Two hours later, the media was assembled in the front room of the office. Loona walked out alone, and stood behind the lectern; she looked up, and faced them, and smiled. She hadn’t brought a prepared statement; Ammer had tried to write one, but she’d said she was going to wing it.

She wasn’t going to say what he wanted her to say anyhow.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “The news is full of a statement made today by my best friend, Nonah Armac, who said that Titans were bigots. My opponent is already running ads implying I believe this. Well, let me set the record straight.

“I absolutely do.”

As the press began to murmur, Loona faced them head on. She hoped Ammer wasn’t having a heart attack.

“I absolutely believe that Titans are bigoted against humans. And Dunnermacs. And Avartle. And Ler. And frankly, against the Jotunn. Are all Titans bigoted? No. But as a group, are we? Absolutely we are. We don’t like to admit this. We don’t like to admit that our great Empire still is inequitable. That we still have echoes of our past misdeeds in the way we act today. But we do. We do.

“My opponent has made much out of my friendship with a human. This morning’s interview made much over two of my friends, one titan, one human, who dare to be married. But it isn’t just human, is it? How many of us have heard dark rumblings about the girl down the street who married a Ler, or what it means when the boy we went to high school dates one of the People? How many of us have heard an acquaintance cluck dismissively over someone with a braid? Use the casual epithet ‘blueface?’”

Loona looked down for a moment. “I bought Nonah. I still have the electronic receipt. Legally, I own her. You’re all here because you listened to her statement and treated it as something a friend of mine said. Something a friend of mine said,” she repeated for emphasis. “Not my pet. Not my possession. My friend.

“Well, Nonah Armac is my friend. My best friend. And you’re right, you should treat her statement exactly like you have. But consider again that I own my friend, and tell me how she is wrong that we are bigoted? Tell me how she is wrong?”

Loona shook her head. “I know, this statement may cost me the primary. But there are more important things than elections. I am not going to lie to you about how I feel. The way this great Empire treats humans is wrong. Utterly, utterly wrong. And the day will come when our descendants look back on it with horror. I will make no secret that I believe this, and let me be clear – when the day comes that I can vote to give humans a path to citizenship, I will. If that bothers you, there are other candidates in the race. I encourage you to vote for them.

“Now, human rights aren’t the center of my campaign. Unfortunately, we haven’t reached the point where this Empire is ready to do the right thing. I’m not going to rush to Tuaut and engage in futile efforts to get humans the recognition they deserve, not with all the other problems we face. But do I believe humans are equal to Titans, to Ler, to Avartle, to Dunnermacs? Yes, I do. And I will never apologize for that. Questions.”

Loona took about six questions, all variations on “do you think Titans are bigots?” She answered them, then dismissed the press.

She walked back into the office, where she planned to apologize to the men and women who had worked hard to put her in a position to win, only to have her destroy her chances.

They were in there. They were standing. And as she entered, they welcomed her to raucous cheers.

She looked over to the top of the shelf, and noticed that her campaign manager was leading them.

“Boss,” he said, turning on his amplifier, “that may have cost you the primary. But if it did…I think I speak for all of us when I say I’m damn proud to lose with you.”

The cheers went up again, and Loona looked down. She looked back up, and nodded. “I’m so grateful to all of you. And…well, the race isn’t over. I’m gonna fight until the last poll closes. And I know, I know, that you will too.”

She nodded to Ammer, and walked back into the one office, which had been reserved for her. Nonah was sitting on her desk, tears streaming down her face.

“Nonah, you okay?”

Nonah didn’t say anything. She waited for Loona to sit down, and leapt for her, letting Loona catch her and hug her to her breast. “I’m sorry, Loona. Thanks for not…thanks for supporting me. You didn’t have to, you know.”

“Of course I did,” Loona said. “If I have to sacrifice my friends to win, I’d rather lose.”

* * *

The coverage could have been worse. That surprised Loona a bit; she knew how the news worked. She had expected them to pick out the worst of her quotes and run with them. As much as she had told her staff and volunteers that she was fighting until the end – and she was – she knew that she was to some extent self-immolating with her statement.

Still, while she hadn’t intended it, one of her statements had rather put Dis Falosen on the defensive. After all, Falosen’s ad itself had referred to Nonah as Loona’s friend. Loona had highlighted just why it was ludicrous to chastise someone she called friend for daring to believe that it was wrong for her to be property. And a surprising number of questions started popping up for Falosen, forcing her to try to explain why it was she didn’t think Titans were bigoted, and why, if she thought Nonah was Loona’s friend, rather than possession, Falosen wasn’t fighting harder for human rights.

It was something, Loona thought. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that this would turn things around for her campaign, but if she sparked a discussion in losing, then she had no regrets.

At any rate, there was no time to dwell on it. The primary was almost on top of them, and there was far too much to do.

Loona went on the road almost immediately after giving her statement, hitting stops throughout the district. She tried not to read too much into the facts that the crowds were enthusiastic and large, full of college students and young adults urging her on. She’d excited her base, she supposed, but she doubted it would be enough. Still, she pushed herself like she was two votes shy of victory. There was no sense giving up now. Back in Tannhauser Gate, Ammer and Malya let the staff’s get-out-the-vote effort, which they ran with military precision. Loona might lose, but she’d go down swinging.

When primary day dawned, Loona felt proud. She had run an honorable campaign. Her attacks had been about the issues, and she hadn’t sacrificed her friends. If she didn’t win, she could accept this defeat.

The many hours of polling continued the whirl of activity – Loona voted early (she actually went to the public polling station, rather than do so remotely – she didn’t have to, but Ammer said the photo op was worthwhile), went out and talked to people in techou shops and libraries, even helped directly with get-out-the-vote calls.

As the polls closed, Loona was in a hotel suite, battle-weary and spent, upstairs from her victory celebration. She’d asked Ammer why it was called a victory celebration when they’d probably lose. “It’s always a victory celebration,” he said. “Always. If you ran a campaign you can be proud of, you won.”

Loona wasn’t really resting. She was watching the news coverage and watching her pad for coverage; Ammer was in the corner of the suite, on his pad, and Malya and a couple others were on theirs, waiting to get data in. Nonah was pacing on a table, Dhan was sitting calmly, and the kids were bickering as kids are wont to do.

“All right, first precinct in is from Stoboda,” Malya said, and the room grew quiet. She blinked. “Well. Interesting. Stoboda-7…have Zapat winning there, of course…but Boss, you’re second. Solid second. 600 ahead of Falosen.”

“Few others coming in. These are from Southwest Tannhauser, Falosen’s district,” said Ussu, their demographic analyst. He looked at them for a long time, before he said, “Mr. Smit, do you see these?”

“Yeah,” Ammer said. He hit some buttons on his pad. “Hey, Argnus, can you confirm those totals in Cano? Yeah, I know. Really? Well. You don’t say? Thanks.”

He hung up. Precincts were now starting to come in too quickly to look at them individually, fast enough for a pattern to start to emerge. “Malya, you seeing this pattern in our other precincts?”

“Yes,” she said. “Boss…you’re outperforming our models by double-digits.”

Loona looked up. “What does that mean?”

“It’s early,” Ammer said. “Doesn’t mean anything yet. Could be random noise. But…well, we won’t have to wait long. We’ll know by the time Tannhauser Gate comes in.”

Numbers steadily trickled in. Loona was running very well in the urban centers, running well in the suburbs – heck, even though she was running third in Southwest Tannhauser, it was a much stronger third than they had hoped for.

And an hour and a half later, when Tannhauser Gate came in, they knew.

“And we have a call to make,” the newscaster jabbered. “In Tannhauser West, Loona Armac will be moving on to the general election. Too soon to make a call for the second-place finisher, but it’s likely to be incumbent HyZapat, who is clear of Dis Falosen by eight percent. Armac had been left for dead two days ago, but she’s going to finish with under forty percent of the vote in the five-way race….”

Loona’s pad chimed. She’d already taken a call form Iro, who’d been friendly and cheerful and slightly odd, as Iro usually was. And she’d taken a call from Hy Zapat – just a short one, congratulating her and wishing her good luck as his opponent in the general.

This call, though, was one she was very happy to receive.

“Hello, Dis,” Loona said, trying to keep the venom out of her voice. “Yes. Thank you. It was only politics, I know. We’ll schedule a time in the next week. I do appreciate the support.”

Loona listened for a moment longer, and said, “Right, well, thanks. And Dis? It’s not gonna be a long meeting. Good-bye.”

She hung up. “Iro’s gonna speak in 20 minutes, Dis in 40, and Zapat said he’d let us go last.”

“Excellent,” Ammer said. “Artusus Jonen just sent us a note saying Zapat will be on in an hour. We’ll go on in an hour and a half. Perfect timing, just before the news.”

Loona looked over at the brain trust, and shook her head in bewilderment. “How?”

“Boss, I don’t know,” said Ammer. “I’ve got a guess, but it’s just a guess.”

“Your guesses are pretty good, Ammer.”

Smit ran a hand through his beard. “Well, if you’d been a conservative, wouldn’t have mattered. But you aren’t, you’re a liberal in Tez Magilna’s old district. There’s a long history of tolerance here. Falosen was taking a position that’s inherently…well, bigoted. Even if she and her supporters didn’t see that consciously, they knew it in their hearts. Between you and Nonah, you drug it out in the open for everyone to see. Your constituents, and Falosen’s, don’t want to be seen as bigots. Your speech tapped into that. Did exactly what we wanted – made your support for humans a strength. They couldn’t just play with the bigotry. They had to admit that was what they were doing. And when they did, they abandoned Falosen.”

Loona nodded. “So Nonah set us up for victory, then?”

“Gorram right,” Ammer said. “Now, we’ll see how this hurts you for the general election – it might have hurt you bad, we’ll know soon. But if it hurt you with swing voters, it helped you with the base. Yeah, maybe not everyone is ready to give humans full rights. But that doesn’t mean your voters want humans run down.”

Ammer gave Loona a half-smile, and looked back to his pad. “But we haven’t won anything yet. Get your speech ready, boss. Tomorrow, we start hammering away at Zapat.”