Trang (3 page)

A waiter passed them with a tray
full of some kind of savory pastry, and Wei almost leapt to stop him.

“You have to try one of these,” she
said, gesturing at the pastries.

Philippe obeyed. The pastry turned
out to be an
excellent
crab puff, with just the right mixture of crab,
sauce, and pastry. Wei, Philippe quickly determined, was a fellow foodie, and
she had taken a careful and thorough inventory of the appetizers available.

After that crab puff, he was more
than willing to mine her knowledge of the other tasty bites available, and her
judgment did not disappoint. For the first time, his smile felt natural, and he
began to feel like this evening might not turn out to be an excruciating slog
after all.

“You know, I guess I’m surprised
that you’ve never been to Beijing before, given how much you must travel,” said
Wei, after steering them to some delicious chicken feet.

“I’ve actually never been assigned
to East Asia,” said Philippe. “I’ve spent most of my time in much more troubled
places—non-Union countries and the like.”

The woman standing there obviously
was not a diplomat, or even an assistant undersecretary. Everything about her
was a little
too.
She was a little too young and a little too thin. Her
breasts were a little too large for her body, and her lips were a little too
big for her face. She wore a little too much makeup, and her short dress was
both a little too short and a little too tight. Her hair was a little too
shiny, and her eyes were open a little too wide.

This woman was either a politician
or, judging from her skirt length, a spouse. Either was virtually guaranteed to
be a bother.

“Um,” she began. “Um, I couldn’t
help but hear you mention the non-Union countries, and, um, I’m just wondering,
what do they think about what you’re doing? Do they think it’s, um, dangerous?”

Of course they think it’s
dangerous,
thought Philippe.
It
is
dangerous.

“Well,” he said, “the non-Union
countries have largely decided to let the Union take the lead in Earth’s
dealings with the aliens. The Union is the closest thing we have to an Earth
government, after all.”

“But, um, before we were just, um,
talking
to them,” said the woman. “And now, um, we’re sending somebody
through the Titan portal to, um, actually see them.”

“We’ve been talking to them for
five
years
,” said Philippe. “Presumably if they wanted to attack, they would
have done so by now. The aliens have never even come through the portal, and
they say they never will without a formal invitation. They’ve been consistently
friendly and, as far as we can determine, truthful in their communications. I
think that it’s natural at this point that we would explore the possibility of
deepening our relationship with them.”

She looked at him, wide-eyed.
Philippe couldn’t quite decide if her expression indicated actual fear or was
merely the vestige of some cosmetic procedure. He really wasn’t in the mood to
spend time justifying his mission at this late date to someone who clearly
hadn’t bothered to educate herself on the subject, but he decided that a little
additional reassurance couldn’t hurt.

“I mean, it’s not like there’s
perfect unity among the Union countries, either. Of course, there’s a risk to
going through the portal. But there’s also a risk to staying on opposite sides
of the portal forever—if we don’t engage the aliens, if we don’t build a
positive relationship with them now, then maybe there will be negative
consequences down the line from
that
decision. I can speak only for
myself, but I’m not afraid to do this.”

He smiled at her, in what he hoped
was a reassuring fashion. But he was thinking,
Whatever happens, I’ve seen
worse right here on Earth.

“Well, I just don’t think that it’s
fair,” she replied. “I mean, um, the Union is making these decisions that
affect everybody, and, um, what are the non-Union countries supposed to do?”

Philippe looked about for Wei, if
only as a reminder of better days, but the assistant undersecretary had cleared
off, leaving him to his troubles.

“Who
cares
about the
non-Union countries?” exclaimed a red-faced man who suddenly appeared by the
wide-eyed woman’s side. “They don’t have the money, and they don’t have the
clout—am I right, Trang?”

Philippe’s smile thinned. “Actually,
the non-Union countries do have a say, through the United Nations, and two
years ago they passed a resolution of support—”

“What’s the United Nations?” the
woman asked the man, putting her arm around his thick waist. He looked like he
was about 30 years older than she was—but Philippe was willing to bet that he
had never been as good-looking.

The man waved his hand in the air,
dismissively. “A useless relic.” He thrust the hand out to Philippe. “Tau Li.
Beijing office. DiploCorps.”

Of course,
thought Philippe
as they shook hands,
the suit.
Li was wearing a perfectly tailored suit,
a model of understated elegance. It seemed somehow not to fit.

“Philippe Trang. Nice to meet you.”
Philippe said.

He waited for a moment, but Li
didn’t offer to introduce his—wife? girlfriend? Hopefully not his daughter,
considering where his hand was now. Whoever she was, she didn’t seem willing to
introduce herself.

“So, you’re the wonder kid who gets
to go meet the aliens tomorrow,” Li said. He waved his free hand in the air as
he talked. “
Through
the portal, and
to
the alien station.”

In that instant, Philippe realized
two things about Li: The man was profoundly drunk, and he was profoundly
jealous. At this very moment, Li was wondering why, with his big mouth and his
trophy girlfriend and his willingness to get sloshed at official functions, he
wasn’t getting the kind of assignments that put him on the global news feed as
the public face of the DiploCorps.

Schadenfreude
wasn’t a noble
emotion, Philippe knew. But it could be a useful one. He used that feeling of
superiority to help him glide fully into the diplomatic frame of
mind—confident, serene, benevolent.

“I’m very excited,” he said
blandly, “especially about meeting the Communicator.”

Li opened his mouth, but quickly
closed it. Philippe realized why when he heard Ming say, “I would be, too.
Philippe, I’d like you to meet someone.”

Even Li has the sense not to
mouth off in front of his boss,
Philippe thought.

He turned to Ming, and all thoughts
of Li vanished from his mind. Standing by Ming was Shridar Bhattacharjee.

Shridar Bhattacharjee?

Philippe did a double take, but
there was no mistaking that friendly, bearded face, that long, slightly crooked
nose, those large, chestnut-brown eyes. Shridar Bhattacharjee! Winner of the
Nobel Peace Prize!

“This is Shridar Bhattacharjee,”
said Ming, as though Philippe needed to be told.

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,”
Philippe managed to say, eagerly shaking the older man’s hand. The hand felt somewhat
thin, and Philippe noticed that Shridar did seem somewhat frail—he had retired
from the DiploCorps at least a decade before, and of course his remarkable work
in Korea had taken place quite some time before that.

Shridar’s eyes were still lively, though.
“It’s an honor to meet
you,
” he said, generously.

Philippe suddenly felt warm.

“Now, don’t you think,” brayed Li
in Shridar’s general direction, “that someone like
you
should be the
first diplomatic contact with the aliens?”

Shridar laughed and waved his
hands. “Oh, no. I’m far too old. This is a job for a younger man.”

“But really,” Li klaxoned.

“The Space Authority was quite
specific in their physical requirements,” said Ming, cutting Li off without the
least visible trace of irritation. “And Philippe’s not exactly a child—how old
are you?”

“Thirty-six,” said Philippe.

“And you’ve got a lot of experience
in, shall we say, non-conventional situations,” Ming replied with a smile.

Philippe smiled back. “Well—don’t
tell anyone I said this—but I think the DiploCorps’ attitude is, if somebody
has to be eaten by a space monster, it should be somebody junior.”

Li exploded with laughter. His
companion waited a moment, and then joined in with a nervous giggle.

Ming and Shridar didn’t laugh,
however. Instead, the two older gentlemen exchanged a look of concern.

“About that: What do you think of
your security arrangements?” Shridar asked. “Are you satisfied with your level
of personal protection?”

Philippe paused for a moment. It
seemed like a bizarre and tragic waste of possibly his only chance ever to
speak with Shridar Bhattacharjee to be talking about the minutiae of his own
life. Still, one had to be polite.

“I don’t—” Philippe almost said
care,
but that sounded a little too blunt, or perhaps a little too honest. “I
don’t worry about that—like Ming said, I’ve been in any number of dangerous
missions, and I’ve always felt like the Union Police had those sorts of matters
well in hand.”

“But this isn’t like
any
other mission,” said Ming.

“Well, of course,” Philippe agreed.
“But I guess I feel like people who know a lot more about security than I do
are taking care of that end of things. There’s not much I can do except leave
them to do their jobs.”

“Unambivalent,” Shridar nodded.
“When the mission is clear, then, of course, you would leave security to the
Union Police. They’re the experts. But when things are like they are now—the
mission is utterly open, there is no way to define success—then sometimes you
don’t really get the support you need.”

“You may be pulling in one
direction,” said Ming. “And there are factions in the Union that may be pulling
in another. There is still, as I mentioned, a great deal of xenophobia, even
among the upper echelons of the Union. It can complicate things.”

Philippe stared at the two older
men, the noise of the party washing over him. What was there for him to say?

“It’s a bit like what happened to
you with General Jesus in Guantánamo,” said Shridar. “When the larger direction
of a mission is unclear, the staff on the ground tends to suffer.”

Philippe heard a gasp.

It was the woman. Her eyes were
open even wider than before. Philippe was momentarily surprised that such a
thing was possible.

“
You
were at
Guantánamo?
”
she asked.

Philippe stared at her for a
moment.

Li let rip with another braying
laugh. “Sweetheart, you are so dumb—it’s cute. Trang here was the
hero
of
Guantánamo.”

The buzz of the conversation around
them seemed to rise and cover Philippe’s head.
Bzz-mbzz-bzzz. Bzzz-bzzz.
Bzzz-bzzz. Bzzz-bzz-bzzzzzz.

“There were no heroes at
Guantánamo,” he said.

Bzzz-bzzzz-bzzz. Bzzz-bzzz.
Bzzz-bzzz. Bzzz-bzz-bzzzzzz. Bzzz-bzzz. Bzzzz.

Chapter 3

Philippe left the party as soon as he could—everyone knew he
had a big day tomorrow, so aside from a few pitying looks shot his way by
Shridar and Ming, no one acted like anything was amiss.

He entered his temporary residence
and relished the quiet.

Solitude was what he needed
now—solitude and time to prepare. He read farewell messages from his parents
and several friends, and he deleted a message from Kathy without opening it.
The staff had provided him with a packing box for any items he had brought to
Beijing that were not approved for the mission, so he dutifully packed his
personal belongings away and ordered them shipped to storage in Alberta with
the rest of his things.

The next morning a car was there to
pick him up. Space Authority headquarters was located on the outskirts of the
city, and Philippe sat in the back and watched the car’s controls as it drove
itself through the city. Beijing was reasonably quiet at this hour of the
morning, although not entirely so. There were still people puttering about the
sidewalks, opening up the shops where they wore and sold their Space Authority
merchandise.

Looking at them, Philippe felt a
pang of guilt. These people would be so happy to be going where he was going—it
was every child’s dream. And yet he just felt numb.

The car drove him out of the city
to the walls of the SA compound. Philippe opened his window and looked out at
the facial scanner. Everyone said you didn’t have to do that, but he always did
anyway, just like he always kept an eye on the car when it drove.

He arrived at the gate, which like
always, read his transponder just fine despite the fact that he carried it in
his pocket. Likewise the building knew who he was, and text lit up on the wall,
directing him to Flight Preparation. He noted with amusement that he now ranked
high enough to have personalized directions flash on the wall screens as he
walked by, but not high enough to have an actual human being take him where he
needed to go.

He entered a booth at Flight
Preparation, where his flight suit was waiting. He pulled the baggy jumpsuit
off the wall, wondering if he could wear it over his clothing, or if he needed
to strip down to his underclothes, or at least take his shoes off.

“Hello! And welcome—” There was a
short pause, just long enough for Philippe to recover from the shock of having
a booming video of a person suddenly appear on the wall. “—Philippe Trang!” the
video person continued, the mouth not matching the words and the voice a
suddenly different pitch.