I countered with a stroke of my paddle and kept myself upright.Shit! It had only been two weeks since Ahmed appointed me to the Council and already I was getting rusty. I had hoped that Ahmed and his boys would see the light and we could put this whole Council bullshit behind us, but the chance of that happening was slimmer than the chance of the atmosphere spontaneously healing.Getting up to speed on Council business was a lot tougher than I had thought. For eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, I had pored over the lists, familiarizing myself with the inhabitants and the pool of candidates. Then I studied the profiles of those who were on the proposed list. What was it that Shannon had told me? They were just quibbling over a few names? Maybe it was the Irish in her, but the word quibbling turned out to be an epic understatement.The list was stuffed with hundreds of ineligible candidates. Vote after vote was held, but the same people kept showing up on the list. I felt like Don Quixote in some new level of hell.
