Ambassador 4: Coming Home (12 page)

Thayu came in, her hair mussed up and the impression of folds in the sheets in her cheek. She held out her reader. “He’s finally sent the agenda for the meeting.”

That was none too early. “Any items about the ship or the captain?”

“No, it’s all internal matters.”

As I had thought. This did not improve my mood.

I didn’t always go to these meetings, nor did I need to. Attendance was only mandatory if there was an issue to be voted on. Out of consideration for some of the assembly’s elderly delegates, those voting meetings were usually scheduled in the afternoon.

I read through the agenda while Eirani did my hair and while I held my reader with one hand and a slice of bread in the other, getting angrier with every line. Budget this, report that.

“Seriously, what the fuck? Not even a single mention of either the captain or the dig site?”

“They’ve passed responsibility to the council,” Thayu said from inside the cupboard where she was getting changed.

“That’s ridiculous. Whose idea is this?”

Eirani complained, “Do sit still, Muri, because I don’t want to have to redo this plait again or you will be late.”

Finally we were ready to go. I caught Thayu throwing a sharp look at the door to Nicha’s room. Of course now that we had to get up, the little monster was fast asleep.

Even at that early hour, Telaris stood at the door. He raised his eyebrows as we came out. No, he didn’t need to come, I told him when he asked, and also, please go to bed because there might be work to do when I got back.

He nodded, but remained at the door.

Well, whatever. He was a big boy and could look after his own well-being.

Neither of us said anything on our way to the assembly hall. All around us, other candidates were coming out of their apartments, many of them looking equally unimpressed with the time of day. It was not so much that meetings were held at this time, but that the time in relation to Barresh time kept shifting so much. Yes, I understood why they did it, and yes most worlds had shorter days, but right now the massive four-hour difference was not welcome.

The meeting turned out to be very boring indeed. As always, it was quite dark in the hall with exception of the floor surrounding the speaker’s dais and the brightness of the spotlights made my eyes feel even grittier than they already were.

We sat through discussions about funding and operational details that were comprehensible only to those people with intimate knowledge of the Exchange. A lot of the delegates’ boxes around us were empty.

I had trouble staying awake.

But then the time for questions arrived. Thayu had to poke me in the side or I would have missed it. I scrambled for my prepared statement, couldn’t find it, so I had to write a hasty replacement from memory and sent it off not a second before applications closed.

The secretary read out the submissions, of which there were only three.

When my name came up, Delegate Namion looked suspiciously in my direction. Maybe he always looked suspicious. I was starting to see ghosts everywhere.

I stood up in my box and asked him, without much preamble, why Kando Luczon had been refused entry to the dig site, and stated that he should be one of the people allowed access to the site.

Delegate Namion gave me an annoyed look. “I remember telling the Delegate that it is a matter for the Barresh Council.”

“No, it is not. The Barresh Council is free to instate their own rules, but
gamra
can override their decisions if this is deemed to be in the interest of all member entities.” I had looked that up.

“I cannot see a reason we should take such action. While excavation is in progress, it is only fair that the party conducting the work gets the say over who is allowed on-site.”

“The captain and his companions can help with the excavation. They have important knowledge about what we might find. Their entire ship is built using the same technology.”

“If we give them access to the site, there will be a lot of other people who will want access, too. There simply isn’t the room in this small excavation area.”

That had to be the lamest argument I’d yet heard. “We have this man here and he or his companions will become extremely impatient if they’re not allowed to do anything.”

“Is this of importance to us? Who brought this man here in the first place?”

“The reason I brought him was to preserve the peace and break the standoff.”

“Whose fault was the standoff?
Gamra
did not provoke them.
Gamra
did not follow them or push them into corners where their only option was to use violence. It could well be that your employer wants these things to happen, but I cannot see why we should be beholden to these people’s wishes. The captain is a most rude and unforgiving man. I don’t wish for him to think that in our world that sort of behaviour gets rewarded. He can wait. He can sit at the table when we resume the talks about the Aghyrian claim that’s still outstanding.”

“Certainly, that claim should be killed as soon as possible.” In fact I was surprised that it hadn’t been declared void already.

“Not if the claimants let it stand.”

Letting the claim stand, of course, suited any conservative person well enough. That’s what he seemed to be saying: bury the process in bureaucracy and eventually people will forget about it.

There were just too many places where I could see openings for manipulation.

I asked him, “So what would you suggest that I let these people do? They want to access the historic sites. They are going to get impatient if I have to deny all their requests.”

He held up his hands as if he wanted to say,
That is not my problem
.

But it was my problem, and yes I knew that it had been a gamble, but I couldn’t possibly send Kando Luczon back to his ship without having seen anything, because he would wake up all his crew and come back to get that information by force, as well as everything else he wanted.

Delegate Namion gestured at another delegate.

“Hang on, I wasn’t finished.”

“We are finished with the current subject.” The tone in his voice was cold.

“This is about a different subject.”

“I only noticed one submission from you.”

“One submission that contains two questions.”

He glanced at his screen. His scrunched up in an expression of distaste as he saw that I was right. He said nothing.

In the hostile silence, I went on. “Yesterday I filed a missing person report for Trader Marin Federza. I want this to go on the record as having been said in this room. I’ve looked through recordings of the past meetings, but cannot see any places where people have discussed the fact that Federza hasn’t been seen since his apartment was shot at.” It had gone very quiet in the hall.

“Why does this need to be mentioned here? Trader Delegate Federza has been replaced.”

Yes, I noticed the Kedrasi Trader Delegate in the box—her hair stood out like flaming fire in the glow from the spotlights. Still very keen to attend all meetings, I guessed, because Federza would never have come to this early morning sitting.

I returned her nod. “I know that he has been replaced. I am concerned for his safety.”

“He’s a trader. He’s travelling.”

“He is not answering my correspondence. Unless my correspondence is being held up somewhere.” I glared at him.

He glared back. “We’re still in the process of setting up filters to direct the appropriate messages to my account.”

“Was there anything from Trader Federza?”

“I’m not a message boy.”

“I would appreciate if control to my account could be returned to me, along with
all
the messages that have arrived in the last two days.”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t move. I gathered that there hadn’t been a message from Federza.

I said to the assembly, “If anyone here has any information about Trader Federza’s whereabouts, you know where my office is.”

I sat down to an increasing murmur of voices. The Trader delegate gave me a strange look. Disturbed, almost. She might be living locally, I don’t think she’d been here long. I had no idea what the people in the Barresh Chapter of the Trader Guild had told her.

By the time the meeting finished and I left the hall, it was light outside. Both suns were above the horizon, bathing the island in a rich golden glow.

Neither Evi nor Telaris was at the door to my apartment, and the hall lay equally deserted. I went into the bedroom to get changed. Out of curiosity, I opened the door to Nicha’s room, and found that it was dark inside.

Nicha lay in the double bed, on his back with his head on the pillow, his eyes closed and mouth slightly open. The infant lay curled up on his stomach, his little head on Nicha’s chest.

I shut the door as quietly as I could.

“Is he still asleep?” Thayu had been grumpy because she had to get up early and she sounded even grumpier now.

We had breakfast at the dining table. Neither of us said much. We were both tired. We weren’t getting anywhere. Kando Luczon was going to be extremely unimpressed and some people, possibly including Delegate Namion, were actively obstructing us. I mean—how long could it take to redirect messages relating to a particular subject?

“What can we do?” I asked myself as much as Thayu. “Everything we do is turning into a mess. I don’t even know why it’s our task to try to find Federza. We don’t have time for it.”

“Then don’t. He’s not our responsibility.”

No, he wasn’t. But I couldn’t forget how he’d been genuinely scared when he came to my apartment, before he was shot at.

I let out a deep breath. There
was
no time.

“I’m going to get Veyada to dig out every single law he can find that says that
gamra
has to make a decision about the captain and the ship. The only thing they do is bullshit around the margins. Meanwhile, we have the captain getting into the security accounts.”

“Security reported that they fixed that.”

“Not for long, I bet.”

“Until they find out what else he’s been getting into.”

It disturbed me deeply. I knew that on Earth a lot of modern technology contained chips that had little preprogrammed routines that Coldi had planted there, and that the Exchange could access, if necessary.

What if the Aghyrian technology—the very one Coldi had used as blueprint for their development—had similar hidden routines?

“I promised him that he could visit the historical sites. He
needs
to see some of these sites. How long is it going to be for the Pengali or Miran to grant me a permit?” Which, fuck it, I couldn’t receive if Delegate Namion was going to hang onto control of my message account.

“I think we should take him to look at Asto.”

“That might be the most logical solution, but I’m afraid that he will either do something stupid to himself or to us.”

“He hasn’t come here all this way to do stupid things. He won’t be in control of the craft in any way. You have the permit already. We should arrange it to keep him occupied.”

“All right then, let’s do it.”

W
ITH THE
E
XCHANGE
in operation, a trip to Asto wouldn’t be anywhere near as long and uncomfortable as my previous one. Not long after he became fascinated with me, when I was very new to this job, Ezhya had taken me to look at Asto from orbit a few times. Looking at stars or some other celestial phenomenon was his euphemism for a private talk, or some other private activity. In a way it galled me that I had to do this with a very unpleasant person. I had
good
memories of floating in orbit and seeing the planet’s surface pass under me while sipping some kind of liquor.

I spent much of the morning trying to organise a pilot, without a great deal of success. They were busy. They wanted exorbitant amounts, or they didn’t take tourists. I was left with two I didn’t particularly like but which I would use if there was no other option. Thayu remained conspicuously quiet in this matter, so I half-suspected that she was working on something else. My guess: her father.

After lunch I went downstairs to tell Kando Luczon about the trip. No need to notify Delegate Namion by sending the message through the account that he was spying on. Lilona opened the door this time. I told her about the trip and that we would contact her when it was organised.

She acknowledged my efforts with her usual empty smile.

When I came upstairs, Devlin notified me that some correspondence had come through in my account. I guessed Delegate Namion had figured that he couldn’t hold onto
everything
that arrived in the account without being asked to explain. Most of it was boring stuff, but one was a message from my father, presumably sent before he received my message not to send anything to that account anymore.

In any case, the message contained nothing important.

My father had bought a new boat. It was a classic catamaran with a kitchen and three double cabins. He lived with Erith—my Damarcian stepmother—and an ever-expanding herd of animals, to which he had recently added a camel—yes, seriously—so who was going to occupy all that space on the boat? Oh yes, I got the hint, Dad.

While I was reading, transported to salty sea breezes and dolphins gambolling at the bow—and that surfboard that sat in the storage room downstairs and that I’d promised Raanu I’d use to teach her to surf—someone came into the office.

Devlin. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but you have a visitor.”

Again, I thought
Marin Federza
and while following Devlin to the living room, formulated a response that would be neither unfriendly nor give any indication that I’d been waiting for him.

However, when I entered the living room, I found Asha Domiri standing at the balcony door overlooking the marshlands beyond. It was now late afternoon, and the room filled with golden sunlight.

“It’s a nice sunset,” I said, and it was, with a flock of little sheep-like clouds, pink-edged and bright in contrast to the dark purple sky directly above.