Steel Beneath the Skin (27 page)

‘You look… absolutely gorgeous.’ There was a hint of hostility in her tone and Aneka wondered whether Ajax had been eyeing her a little too avariciously from afar.

‘We’ll be making a short introduction to the assemblage shortly,’ Ajax said a little too quickly; yes, he had noticed his partner’s reaction. ‘It would be good if you could say a few words…’

‘I’m a soldier, not a politician… I guess I can say, uh, something.’

‘Excellent. I’ll make the arrangements. Coming, Lidila?’

He walked away and she followed him, giving Aneka a glance over her shoulder before putting her arm around her partner’s waist. Well, she could keep him. Springing a speech on her did not put Barriman Ajax on Aneka’s Christmas card list; not that she was going to be writing Christmas cards. If she had had notice she could have… Actually, she would have fretted about it and failed miserably to write something, and ignored anything she might have written anyway. It was probably better that she just had to wing it. That was what she usually did.

‘The Dean told you about the speech then?’ Gillian said as she stepped up beside Aneka.

Ella appeared on the other side, handing Aneka a glass of wine. ‘You should at least hold something to drink.’

‘Thanks’ Aneka said, taking the glass. ‘Yes, he just mentioned some speeches. I’ve just been cursing him silently, but in practice it just means I have less time to worry over it.’

Something like an electronic version of a spoon being struck against a glass drew everyone’s attention up to a small podium which had been erected in a corner of the room. Ajax was standing up on it, waiting for the sound to die away before speaking. There was no microphone Aneka could see, but his voice was still amplified before it was broadcast out to his audience.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, as you will all have heard by now, one of the University of New Earth’s archaeological expeditions out into the old human territories made a discovery which surprised everyone concerned. The Jenlay home world was lost a thousand years ago at the end of the Xinti War, as much else was lost. When we found
this
world, we named it “New Earth” in memory of the world we once lived on, but we never thought we would ever have a piece of that world with us again.’

He paused, looking out across the crowd to check where Aneka was. Knowing what was coming, she started forward. ‘A woman from our past was discovered in stasis aboard a xinti science vessel, derelict in space since before the war. Tonight I have the exceptional privilege of introducing you all to Miss Aneka Jansen, native of Old Earth.’

He had timed his introduction well; Aneka stepped up onto the podium beside him just as he finished, enveloped by the sound of the applause. He smiled at her and shook her hand, and then backed off the stage to let the audience get a good look at her. She spotted various cameras looking her way; certain specific members of the media had been invited to attend. Aneka swallowed hard and fixed her face into a smile.

‘I don’t know whether you still use this phrase, but… “Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking,” thank you for that welcome. I really am unaccustomed to public speaking. Back home I was a soldier and I didn’t have to make speeches, I just had to get on and do. That’s pretty much what I want to do now I’m here. I spent over a thousand years asleep and now I’d like to get on with my new life here on New Earth.’ She raised her glass, which seemed to surprise everyone. ‘A toast. To the future, it seems like a nice place.’ There was some laughter and a chattering of replies from various people around the room. Aneka tilted her head. ‘You guys don’t have toasts anymore? Okay, Old Earth custom we’re bringing back for the occasion. Really easy. I call the toast, you guys repeat it, and we all drink. It’s a little like your celebration of First Day, but easier to remember. Ready? To the future!’ This time she got a proper response out of the audience and she saw people lifting glasses. So far so good.

‘Miss Jansen,’ someone at the front called out, ‘everything must seem very different for you after coming out of stasis. How are you adapting?’ Aneka’s hearing localised the sound and she tracked it to target; an attractive man in a black mesh shirt who reeked of reporter. Aneka’s gaze flicked to the Dean, getting an encouraging smile in return.
Bastard wants me to field questions too…

‘Honestly, there’s not that much difference. You have great advances in technology, you live on a different world, and have aliens for next door neighbours, but you’re still fundamentally human, if you’ll forgive the old term. Since I’ve been here I’ve seen compassion, love, trust, and also hatred, prejudice, and distrust. You have terrorists and criminals just as we did. I’ve had to adjust to the technology and the sex life, that’s about it.’

‘Surely,’ another male voice said from off to Aneka’s right, ‘you find the rather decadent nature of our society something of a let-down?’ Aneka had done a little research since talking to Gillian; this man was Charles Hunter, one of the few men in the room with a powerful-looking body and an opaque shirt. ‘Back in the old times people were harder working, more…’

‘Well, some had to work harder, and others didn’t,’ Aneka interrupted. She could see him starting up on a full diatribe and wanted to head it off. ‘I don’t see that as changing any either. I’ve just come back with the crew of the Garnet Hyde from a trip out beyond the Federal Rim. That was pretty hard work and I didn’t notice anyone shirking their duties. You have more leisure time than we did, on average, but the average person back on Old Earth didn’t want to have to work. Now your lives are far longer and you can probably get to do what you want with your life. Every man and woman back home would wish to be in that position.’ She noticed Hunter’s eyes narrowing; he did not like that reply, but any rejoinder would have to wait since another reporter was bucking to have a question answered.

‘I understand that you’re helping Doctor Gilroy to correct some of our misconceptions of Old Earth,’ the woman, dressed in what appeared to be silver cobwebs, said. ‘Can you give us an example of something we’ve had wrong all these years?’

Aneka grinned. ‘Elvis. He was called “The King,” but he never was one.’ There was a rumble of laughter. ‘I think the thing you have most wrong is the generalisations. You’ve lost the details so you have tended to believe that the details you have applied to everyone and everywhere. So, you’ve heard of “King Elvis” and where there’s a king there must be monarchy. So we lived in a monarchy. Actually, there were very few true monarchies left by my time. The most powerful country was a representative democracy, the most populace one was communist. I came from a country called England and our head of state was a queen, but she was essentially a figurehead and the country was ruled as a representative government. But if you want to know more about that kind of thing you need to talk to Doctor Gilroy.’

‘And I think that’s all we have time for now,’ Ajax said, smoothly stepping in beside Aneka to stop the questions. ‘Miss Jansen will be here for a while so that you can talk to her. Just remember, she is a trained soldier so let’s not get her annoyed. We’re here to welcome her to her new world.’

Uh-huh, that’s so going to work…

Aneka headed off from the podium to the sound of hands clapping enthusiastically together. More hands patted her on the shoulders and arms as she filtered through the crowd toward Gillian and Ella. The hands did not stop at her arms, however, and she was starting to feel grumpy about the number of hands sliding over her behind when the path in front of her suddenly parted and she found herself looking at her first ever herosian.

Ashipha D’Jarnis was around the same height as she was, but very powerfully built. His body was all smooth muscle hidden beneath dull, brown, scaly, more or less snake-like, skin with various bony protrusions. His belly was a paler colour than the rest of him. He had slightly elongated feet and was balanced on his toes. His face was humanoid, with thick lips, slightly darker than the scales on his face, and an elongated jawline, his nose flattened and barely more than a couple of holes below his eyes, which where red, but did not have slitted pupils. They faced forward; predator’s eyes. His ears were narrow and pointed, angled back from the sides of his ridged skill. Just like many Earth lizards, he had a forked tongue which flicked out a few times as he looked at Aneka, tasting the air for scents. He was dressed in traditional herosian garb, a black sarong-like skirt with a silver belt, and a pair of metal bands around his thick biceps, silver with gold trim. It was his hands which caught Aneka’s attention, however; they were powerful with thick fingers ending in long talons.

‘Miss Jansen,’ the lizard-man said, ‘your discovery has caused much concern among my people.’ He did not hiss or lisp as he spoke. Aneka was a little disappointed. ‘Discovered aboard a xinti vessel which we have been refused access to. We do not know how the Xinti might have influenced you, what you still might do under their direction.’ His head did weave and bob slightly as he spoke, his tongue darting out. She figured he was trying to determine whether he made her nervous.

‘Ambassador D’Jarnis, I believe,’ Aneka replied since the man had not been polite enough to give his name.

‘Indeed.’ He was not exactly easy to read, but she got the impression he would have preferred that she did not know his name.

‘As I understand it, you don’t “want access” to the ship I was on, or me, you want possession. The authorities here seem quite happy that I am no danger to anyone and the Xinti were unable to complete the brainwashing they had planned for me. The ship has been dead for eleven centuries, along with its crew, so it is no danger to anyone either.’

D’Jarnis’ tongue flicked rapidly. ‘We cannot be sure of your loyalties without proper testing. If a xinti were here in place of myself, would you slay him or obey him?’

‘Neither,’ Aneka replied and she leaned forward, placing her lips close to one of the man’s ears. ‘I’ve had a lot of testing, physical and mental. In simulation I shot the first xinti I recognised, but I now regret that. It was far too quick. I was trained in various ways of making your last hours
very
painful, Ambassador. Don’t think I wouldn’t be willing to kill, slowly.’ Straightening up, she stepped around the herosian and continued on to Gillian and Ella.

‘Your first real alien,’ Ella said. ‘What did you think?’

‘About as much fun as a poke in the eye. Do the armbands mean anything?’

Ella bit back a giggle. Gillian’s smirk spoke volumes. ‘The silver indicates that he’s unmated. The gold trim indicates he has rank. You should meet Adjaxis,’ the Doctor said, ‘he’s a bit boring, but he’s quite pleasant. You handled Hunter’s question quite well.’

‘Thanks. I must admit, it’s a little weird how people always seem to romanticise the past. Nothing new. People were romanticising the Sixties by the time we got to the Nineties.’

‘The “sixties”?’ Ella asked.

‘The nineteen-sixties. Supposedly one-thousand and sixty years since the birth of Christ. It was twenty-eleven when I was kidnapped.’

Gillian sighed. ‘Over two-thousand years of history we have next to no idea about. It’s depressing.’

Aneka patted her shoulder. ‘Have another drink. Enough alcohol and you’ll forget all about it.’

~~~

Charles Hunter was a good looking man, but that was nothing special. He seemed rather more conservative than the rest of the jenlay at the gathering; less inclined to flirt, dressed in clothes which did not show off his body, despite the fact that he seemed to have a firmly muscled frame under his suit.

His partner was another matter. As tall as Aneka, and possessed of a fit, toned body with wide hips and a large chest, Andromeda Parry was dressed in a fitted micro-dress in a silver-blue mesh fabric which left little to the imagination. Her long, blonde hair was tied into a plait which ran down her back to her waist. She had the look of a professional soldier. Steely blue eyes watched everyone who got within a few metres of Hunter.

Aneka had been carefully avoiding them for over an hour, and taking her time to examine them. She had come to the conclusion that there was something not right about Parry, but nothing she could put her finger on. Hunter was simply a political animal who had never been selected for politics. She knew she could not avoid them entirely, and eventually she ran into them.

‘Miss Jansen,’ Hunter said, his smile of welcome not coming near his eyes, ‘such a pleasure to meet a genuine human.’

‘There are plenty of genuine humans around, Mister Hunter,’ Aneka replied. ‘Even if they call themselves something else.’

His smile became indulgent. ‘You’re from a time before genetic manipulation, when humans were really human…’

‘Would you mind if I asked how old you are, Mister Hunter?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Eighty-six.’

‘And looking so good on it. In my day an eighty-six year-old was planning their funeral. A “genuine human” would live a quarter as long as you will. Assuming some disease you’re basically immune to didn’t get them first. I doubt you’d want to go back to that.’

‘Simply unlocking the potential of the genome,’ Hunter replied dismissively. ‘Humans have come a long way, I agree, but now we are being held back.’

‘Really? I understood the Jenlay represented the largest portion of the Federation.’

‘We do, but we sit in council with paranoid lizards and an ancient race so wrapped up in their own survival that they refuse to progress. Humans need to strike out, get back some of the pioneering spirit of your time when we took the newly discovered warp drives and went out to the stars.’

‘A little after my time, but okay. Except that we got those warp drives from an alien race, didn’t we? Maybe we need
more
cooperation, not less.’

He had been expecting her to be more receptive to his ideas; she could see it in the way his jaw hardened and his eyes flashed. Hunter had a temper, but he also had Parry there to keep it in check. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder and his face calmed. ‘You’ve barely lived in this century. I’m quite sure you’ll change your mind once you’ve been here for a while. We’ll talk again.’