The View from the Imperium (14 page)

“I don’t know,” DeKarn said, beginning to waver.

Others joined in the argument, but it was clear that the council was beginning to agree with Councillor Quelph. Was Sgarthad the answer to their need for a single negotiator? True, he didn’t belong to the council, but that might be an advantage. He lacked the resentment of those who felt the Imperium abandoned them. He had no loyalties to any one of the eight systems in the Cluster, he would not show favoritism in presenting their requirements to the ambassador. And she would not know the breakdown of the council of who favored repatriation and who independence. On the face it was an outrageous suggestion, and yet . . . and yet . . .

“All those in favor of asking Captain Sgarthad to represent us, vote now,” Councillor Pinckney said. He turned on his light. All around the room, lights went on. DeKarn found her finger hovering over her voting key. What should she do?

“No!” Marden roared. “Captain Sgarthad is a suitor for our hand, just like Ambassador Ben. Put them
both
in quarters until we have hashed this out,
without
their input. It has been too long since we made a decision. It must be unanimous, majorities in all eight systems agreeing.”

Thank fate for Marden,
DeKarn thought, pulling herself together.
What was she doing even considering such a ridiculous suggestion?

“I agree,” she said, jabbing her forefinger at the master control. All the screens around the council chamber went blank. The members burst out with their protests, then halted, looking around in bafflement.

“First Councillor, I am so sorry,” Five said, breaking the silence.

“Me, too,” said Twenty.

“I’m not,” Tross said. “I fear subterfuge on the part of the ambassador.”

“Well, that is a chance that one of us will have to take,” DeKarn said. “I will contact the city-state governor, Dr. Yuchiko, to make arrangements to house our two guests in comfort
and
isolation until we have come to our own conclusions, then we will send one of our own to speak to them.”

“One at a time, or together?” Councillor Bruke asked.

“We can decide that later,” DeKarn said. “And now, I would like to adjourn for the day. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would like to eat and rest.”

“Can we see Captain Sgarthad?” Ruh Pinckney asked eagerly.

DeKarn exchanged glances with Zembke, Marden, Tross and Bruke. “I don’t see any harm in it, but he is not to approach any other members of the council unless we send for him first. You may so inform him.”

“Of course, First Councillor!” Pinckney said, looking overjoyed. “Then move to adjourn!”

“Seconded,” said Six, planting both palms on the table and boosting himself to his feet.

“Then we are adjourned until the tenth hour tomorrow morning. Good night, all.”

DeKarn rose and rubbed the small of her back with both palms. Councillor Nineteen sidled up to her. They watched the Yolkovians all but shoulder the rest of their colleagues to one side to be the first out of the chamber. She glimpsed the handsome silver head and one quick flash of those blue eyes before she looked away.

“Gorgeous, isn’t he?” Nineteen asked. She lowered her long, black lashes slyly. In her life before the council, the actress Barba Linden was known Cluster-wide on the digitavids for her roles as temptress and siren. Behind the luscious looks, she was a chemist, a philanthropist and a long-married mother of four. She was an old friend, to whom DeKarn felt she could say almost anything.

“Too gorgeous,” DeKarn agreed. “Think what he’d look like in tattoos.”

“Breathtaking,” Linden said, running a delicate fingertip over the pattern of vines and minute blossoms on her cheek. “But I’ve often wondered what it would be like to go bare-faced like that. Why the warning to the others? Afraid of what you might say if you met him on the street?”

“That, and afraid of what I might
do,
” DeKarn agreed. “Perhaps, perhaps I don’t trust myself. That is the most forceful charisma I have ever encountered. It’s attractive and dangerous, like a tiger.”

“All you have to do is close your eyes and say no.”

DeKarn smiled. “I hope I can remember to do that. In the meanwhile, it is better if none of us meet him until we have come to a decision.”

“We might have to buy each of them a mansion to wait out the argument, dear,” Nineteen said. “It could take years.”

“It shouldn’t,” DeKarn said, closing down her station and palm-locking the data. “Zembke is right. In two hundred years we should have come to a conclusion already. This forces us to take a direction. In a way I welcome it.”

“In the meanwhile, I’m starving. Do you want to come home and eat with us?”

“Thank you, dear, no,” DeKarn said. “I had better be alone for a while. I need to think hard about my vote.”

“Well, you know mine,” Linden said with a smile. She touched DeKarn on the arm and glided out of the room.

DeKarn remained in the chamber. On her personal communications device she touched the link to her assistant. On the small screen—she deplored that others in the council used the full holo when speaking to others outside; it made it seem as if there were others in the room—she saw the young man glance up from his keyboard. He had a long nose and thin bones like a jester, but his bright eyes were intelligent. The lines of scarlet and gold tattooed on his cheeks were like exclamation points, drawing more attention to those eyes. “Colm, come in here, will you?”

“Yes, Madam Councillor,” he said. He sprang to his feet. The screen went dark.

DeKarn had time only to settle herself in her chair before Colm Banayere appeared at her side. He had come in through the privy door, an ancient term for both privacy and for the relief booths in the hidden corridor behind the chamber.

“I guessed that you didn’t want me to be seen, madam,” he said.

She smiled. She appreciated his instincts. “One moment,” she said. On the table console, she activated privacy mode. It was never used during open meetings, to prevent secret deals, but had never been purged from the programming. She waited until the lights at both doors flickered subtly to indicate that no transmissions from the chamber would be detected, and no listening or viewing devices from without would work. She nodded.

“What do you require?” Colm’s best trait was that he never asked stupid questions.

“I need an investigation of the ship and the beings that brought the Yolk contingent here to Boske.” She keyed in a code on her comm. A pip erupted in Colm’s own unit, indicating that it had been received. “This is a video-capture transcript of this afternoon’s meeting, from their arrival to adjournment.”

“What am I looking for?”

She tapped the table with a forefinger. “I am not certain there is anything to find, but that man . . .”

Colm smiled, throwing the apples of his cheeks into sharp relief. “The Trade Union captain? There have been a lot of messages through the Grid during the last several hours. The TU ship is larger than any vessel presently serving the Cluster. The captain himself is handsome and charming. He seems to make friends everywhere he goes, from the port authority across the city to this building. Everyone who meets him likes him.”

“That is just it,” DeKarn said, frustrated. “It is uncanny. Yolk treats him like a friend, a mentor and a savior. True, he did save them when their ship was damaged . . .”

“Or so he says, madam.”

She blinked and stared at him. “But all five councillors said he rescued them.”

The young man waved a hand. “Perhaps I am too cynical, madam. What do you require?”

He raised more questions, but DeKarn had to keep her mind on the first and foremost. She scanned the room, half-lit once the others had left. She let her gaze rest on the place where Sgarthad had stood.

“It was not only the councillors from Yolk who found him irresistible. I found him unbelievably attractive. I believed what he said while he was saying it. Only after I had a chance to think that my own cynicism—if you like—came back. He
charmed
me. He gained influence over my colleagues in moments. They were ready to accept him after having seen him only once, without knowing anything about him. That is a dangerous thing. What did he do to us? How did he do it? Such a response had to be artificial in nature, but I didn’t smell anything or see anything unusual. Was he wearing a device of some kind that affected our minds? Did he dispense a gas or a nanoparticle of some kind? It’s vital that I know, so I can decide how to react. He is being sequestered in the governor’s mansion for now, but beware of his crew.”

“What became of the ship carrying them before the
Marketmaker
took them on board?”

“Lost,” DeKarn said, “or so he said. But the
Little Darling
would fit into a landing bay on that behemoth.”

Colm’s right eyebrow rose. “It’s a puzzle of many pieces, I see. I will investigate.”

“Thank you, Colm. I know I can depend on you.”

He smiled. “Always, madam.”

Silently as an owl, he departed. DeKarn marveled at his ability to analyze a mystery as if he had been given advance notes. Once more, she was grateful to have him in her service. Four years, now, he had worked in her office, gradually promoted from receptionist to data clerk to personal aide. He was willing, quick-moving and eager. If he had had an ounce of ambition for public office, she would have backed him to take her seat when she retired—whenever that day would come, but he had shown no interest in being in charge. He liked solving problems, and that was that. A puzzle was a puzzle.

Colm was a Cluster-wide champion of puzzle-solving, eking out his government salary with prize money from contests and tournaments. Several times a year he brought in a holo-trophy or a medal with the name of an obscure kind of puzzle engraved on it. A plaque on the wall over his desk spelled out his primacy in a number enigma no one else she knew could even understand. Her personal secretary felt indulgent toward him, as if he was a bright son with an acceptable idiosyncracy. DeKarn supposed she felt the same way. Others, she knew, were jealous, but that was the way office politics went. Nothing to be done about it.

Fortunately, Colm paid his critics no attention—the best way to deal with them. He came from Carstairs, though he had shed its harsh accent without a trace. She blessed the utility of an aide she could always rely upon. As now.

With that investigation under way, she had to handle the other problem that had dropped into her hands. Still in the security of the chamber’s secrets mode, she keyed in the number of the Imperium’s envoy.

Hiranna Ben was gently outraged. “I await your pleasure, of course, First Councillor, but His Imperiality demands my return at the earliest possible moment.”

“I understand, Ambassador. Please understand that it is not intended as a personal affront. Our council was only made whole hours before we heard from you. We are . . . rather behind in our negotiations. I trust it will be a brief interval before we are able to meet with you.”

“May I know the nature of the delay?”

DeKarn bowed her head. “It would be improper of me to discuss unfinished business of the council chamber. I hope you understand.”

Ben cocked her head. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that handsome man I see all over the press this evening, does it?”

“What?”

DeKarn squinted as the screen changed to show the beginning of the best-known evening opinion report. She seldom watched the transmissions; they were rarely kind to politicians, whether planetary or interstellar. Still, the various channels were key to understanding segments of the population. Yes, there in the midst of a huge, clamoring crowd, was Captain Sgarthad.

“My friends!” he was saying. He raised his hands, palms out. “Your support is gratifying! I promise that the Trade Union will be a good partner to the Castaway Cluster!”

She clicked back to Ben’s image. “May I visit you later?”

Ben’s lips were pressed together with grim humor. “I hope you will.”

Chapter 7

“It has nothing to do with me!” Dr. Yuchiko protested, as the Boske contingent, some of whom had been pulled out of the mob and others dragged away from their long delayed dinner, and the other representatives who were outraged. The governor held up his hands as if to fend off physical blows. “All these people insisted on following him here from the Council Complex. They say they are his friends. No one was causing trouble. They are peaceful. I’ve never had such a cheerful assembly. The media arriving was inevitable under the circumstances.”

The assembly, though cheerful, comprised several thousand beings of every gender and race represented in the Cluster, not to mention several mechanicals. At its center, at the top of a plinth from which rose a golden stone obelisk, Captain Sgarthad was holding court. By his movements, he was laughing and joking with the people around his feet. No one came too close to him: DeKarn could see a few grim-faced humans and Uctu in dull purple shipsuits holding riot batons. The ones who appeared to wield the most authority were a human male with a prognathic jaw and military-cropped hair, a muscular female human with very short curls, and an older Uctu whose scales were distinctly flattened at the edges. They had sidearms out, a violation of Cluster law.

“The council asked you to keep media silence around the visitors,” Zembke said, though DeKarn and the others knew it was futile. Anyone with a viewpad could create an opinion report and find an outlet willing to broadcast it over home receivers, across the Grid, or both. Undoubtedly fan files and tribute files were popping up and being widely exchanged. “You will have to delete all references to either visitor. Planetwide. One is an official diplomatic visit that technically has not yet begun. The other is a . . . new item on the agenda. Until we have decided our public response, neither is to appear in electronic streams.”

“That will freeze the Grid for hours!” Dr. Yuchiko protested. “Think of the error messages! The lost revenue from advertising! Pthohannix relies upon that income.”

“If you had followed instructions we would not have error messages to cope with,” Vasily Marden said.