The Mandala Maneuver (23 page)

“You two were alone together for what, five days?”

“More or less,” Alexa replied, her tone guarded.

“And I suppose the ambassador was a perfect gentleman.”

“He was more than that. He — ” She hesitated, then said, “I would be dead if it weren’t for him. He saved my life on more than one occasion.”

“How very noble. And so of course you felt drawn to him out of gratitude.”

“Again, my feelings for Ambassador Lirzhan are not a topic for discussion.”

“I think they are.” Melinda opened a leather case lying on the tabletop and drew out a tablet. After bringing the screen to life, she tapped a button or two, then pushed it across the table to Alexa. “You might want to take a look at this.”

Puzzled, Alexa picked up the tablet. Displayed on the screen was a pretty young Gaian woman with reddish-brown hair. She looked to be around twenty or twenty-one standard years old. “I don’t understand. Who is this?”

“That is a young woman named Annika Jespers. Her family has a homestead on Lathvin IV.”

“And?” True, the Gaians and the Zhore had been arguing over the rights to that obscure colony world for some years now, but Alexa couldn’t begin to see the connection between Lathvin and her current situation with Lirzhan.

Melinda Ono sipped at her tea again. “Her family’s homestead was very close to a property owned by a Zhore named Sarzhin.”

“I still don’t see the point.”

“Then let me spell it out for you.” She set down her teacup and folded her hands on the polished granite tabletop. “We have gathered intelligence that not only did this Annika Jespers cohabit with the Zhore Sarzhin, but they also recently had a child together.”

Well, that answered one question. Thank God she was up to date on her contraceptive shots. Alexa leaned back slightly in her chair and raised an eyebrow. “I suppose congratulations are in order for the lucky couple, but I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”

Melinda Ono’s smile returned. This time it had an oily quality that made the hair on the back of Alexa’s neck prickle. “Maybe it will be clearer once I tell you that for some time the Zhore have been experiencing a near-catastrophic collapse of their birth rates. They’ve done their best to keep the situation secret, of course, but there are limits to how much these sorts of things can be concealed. As far as we have been able to determine, the Zhore are now attempting to keep their race from slowly dying out by interbreeding with other races — especially Gaians.”

Forcing her expression to stay neutral was one of the more difficult things Alexa had ever done, but she thought she’d managed it. Barely. “That is unfortunate for the Zhore. But if they were simply attempting to find another female to impregnate, surely I’m not a very likely candidate.”

“One would think that, on the surface.” She pushed her teacup to one side and fixed Alexa with a penetrating stare. “However, the Zhore are patient…and choosy. We do not completely understand the mechanics of the process, but it seems they must have some sort of emotional bond with the mate they choose. What better way to bond with you than through days of hardship and isolation, where Lirzhan could function as a protector and guide, and conveniently ‘save’ you as necessary?”

“That’s — ” Alexa broke off. She had been about to say “crazy,” because that’s what this whole situation was…completely insane. Drawing in a breath, she finished, “That’s not very plausible, Ms. Ono. Our ship was pulled from subspace and fired upon. Surely you’re not accusing the Zhore of manufacturing that entire situation?”

“I am,” Melinda Ono replied without blinking.

Somehow Alexa managed to prevent herself from bursting into laughter. “All so I would be driven into Lirzhan’s arms? Please — even if he does believe that he shares some sort of bond with me, how on earth could the Zhore have come up with such a plan at such short notice? We’d never even met before he stepped onto that shuttle!”

“Not that you know of,” the other woman said darkly. “After all, how can you
really
tell the difference between two Zhore by just looking at them?”

All right, she had a point there. Alexa had crossed paths with one or two Zhore on Eridani; it was the Eridanis who had given the enigmatic aliens subspace flight, and so you did see them around, although they were not great travelers and generally did not leave their home world. “So…what? You’re saying that Lirzhan saw me on Eridani, realized he could bond with me and therefore reproduce with me, and so the Zhore engineered the attack on the shuttle and our crash? Don’t you think it would’ve been easier if he’d just asked me out for a drink?”

She hoped she’d injected the right amount of disbelief into her words without sounding too mocking. Exactly what Melinda Ono’s position was, Alexa didn’t know for sure, but clearly the woman had power, and influence, or she would not have been managing the facility on Mandala, and certainly wouldn’t have been allowed into the Gaian delegation’s sanctum here on Targus Station.

“They’re aliens,” Melinda said, with a lift of the slender shoulders under her expensively tailored suit — a suit that had probably cost the equivalent of a month’s salary for Alexa. “We still don’t know very much about the Zhore. Their motivations can sometimes be very cloudy. But I’m guessing it would also have been a good test for their subspace disruptor.”

“Their — so, what, now
they’re
the ones who developed that device? What about the equipment Lirzhan saw on Mandala?”

“The equipment he
claims
he saw. What better way to obfuscate the entire issue than by claiming the Gaians were responsible for your shuttle being pulled from subspace? What Admiral Castillo told the Council earlier today was no more than the truth. What we’re mining on Mandala is basic, garden-variety quartz, although it is very high quality and requires less processing than the material we’ve found on most worlds. It will power your watch and your tablet and your computer, but it certainly doesn’t have any mystical quality that allows it to disrupt a ship’s subspace passage.”

Everything Melinda Ono said sounded plausible enough. That was the problem. Alexa couldn’t tell how much was lies and how much was truth mixed with falsehood so you couldn’t begin to figure out where one ended and the other began. All this would be difficult enough to process on a decent night’s sleep, but now, when she’d been up for more than thirty-six standard hours —

“If that’s the case, then why all the secrecy on Mandala? Why the people shooting at us? I can tell you that those mercs Lirzhan and I neutralized at the science station weren’t Zhore.”

“You think the Zhore are above hiring mercenaries when it suits them?” The woman frowned. “And the heightened security was specifically because we’d had reports of outsiders in the area. That mining facility represents a significant capital investment, and of course we would take steps to ensure that it was protected.”

Alexa’s head began to throb. There was something fundamentally wrong with what Melinda Ono was saying, but Alexa couldn’t put her finger on it. Everything made sense — if you began with the supposition that everything had been maneuvered by the Zhore to make it look as if the Gaians were up to no good. Not that difficult, really, since most of the other races would assume the Consortium was at fault in any given situation.

“This Lirzhan was playing on your sympathies,” Melinda Ono said, her tone soft, persuasive. “And your weaknesses. The young woman raised in foster care, who had no true family, who had never been loved? Who better to exploit than someone like that? Given time, I’m sure the ambassador would have convinced you he loved you, that he wanted to give you a better life and sanctuary on Zhoraan. Then he would have been in a position to demand as many offspring as possible from you, once you were safely removed from your current situation.”

“I can’t — ” The words seemed to choke in Alexa’s throat. “I can’t believe that of him.”

“But you would believe instead that your own government would knowingly invent a device that would upset the balance of power in the galaxy?”

“I didn’t say that — ”

“You didn’t have to.” Melinda Ono’s eyes might have been chips of polished jet, so black and glintingly hard they were in that moment. “You think he had you come to his apartments last night simply for a quick lay? He
wanted
you caught — wanted you discredited so you’d be vulnerable. I’m sure he was hoping Ambassador Castillo would dismiss you outright. Then you’d have no place to go…except back into that Zhore’s arms.”

No. Alexa refused to believe that. And yet…it had been reckless of him to ask her to come to his quarters last night. She wasn’t so vain as to believe he couldn’t live another moment without taking her to bed. So he could have done so coldly, hoping their liaison would be discovered…indeed, expecting that it would be. But he hadn’t counted on Castillo being more or less forgiving, if grudgingly so. She’d been given another chance. The thing was, what was she going to do with it?

Her jaw tightened, and she lifted her chin and stared squarely at Melinda Ono. “What do you need from me?”

A wide smile, showing off the best teeth that cosmetic dentistry could buy. “Oh, that’s simple enough. The Council will call you in to get your side of the story. And when they do, make sure you tell them that the Consortium is an innocent party in this, and that it is the Zhore whom they should be investigating. Do that, and we’ll all be willing to overlook your brief lapse in judgment with Ambassador Lirzhan. After all, I doubt you want a promising career sidelined because of one mistake. Am I correct?”

And although something inside her seemed to break as she replied, Alexa forced herself to nod, and smile, and say, “Yes, you’re correct. And I’ll do whatever I need to in order to fix this.”

Miranda Ono’s eyes glinted, even as she leaned forward and replied,

“Yes, I know you will.”

H
e couldn’t understand
why Alexa wasn’t responding to any of his text messages. Calling her would be too obvious, but surely just a few words to let him know that she was all right weren’t too much to ask. Unlike the previous night, when he’d slumbered deeply following the lovemaking he’d shared with her, he hadn’t slept well at all the evening after he’d made his statement to the Council, as he found himself brooding over Alexa’s silence, and attempting to determine the reason for it.

Now, as he sat at his desk the next morning, a crawling sense of foreboding seemed to overtake him, and he found himself staring out the window, watching as the glittery starscape slowly moved past, giving way to the pale glowing shape of the ringed gas giant below, and then shifting once again to a starscape dotted with the slightly larger circles of the planet’s moons. Such a cold, austere view, and one he did not particularly think he would enjoy watching for the next few years. In that moment, his desire for service off-world appeared to him as a peculiar fancy, one he should never have indulged. Now he wished he could be back on Zhoraan, feeling its gentle breezes on his face, smelling the scent of wildflowers and grass and sun-warmed earth.

But he did not expect to see his home world for some years. It was a sacrifice he had made willingly, so to be regretting it now, simply because things around him were in turmoil, struck him as childish. In time this matter with the Gaians would be sorted out, and he would be free to pursue his connection with Alexa. The taste of her seemed to fill his mouth again, and he pulled in a deep breath. Why in all the galaxy’s worlds was she ignoring him so completely now?

Perhaps she was discovered, and she is being disciplined somehow.
The thought sent another chill over him. He’d believed they were being careful. Would they dismiss her? And if that happened, where would she go?

Back to me…and then to Zhoraan.

He dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it had come. Surely he couldn’t expect her to give up everything to go to his home world. And he had his own post here, although he knew his superiors would allow him to return to Zhoraan if it meant a chance at another precious child.

But if she is relieved of her current post…what will she even have to give up?

No. He would not allow himself to think such things. Their relationship was so new, so fragile. One push in the wrong direction, and it could shatter into thousands of pieces. He knew she was the one for him, had known from the beginning, and having her share his bed two nights ago only confirmed that. Most likely she was only busy. Perhaps the Council had called her in to give her side of the story. Yes, that had to be it. And of course if she was in chambers with the Council, then she could not be answering her text messages. He would have to be patient, and wait for her to be available.

In fact, he should be glad that she was getting a chance to provide her own account of what had happened to them on Mandala. It would only corroborate his own report, and show that the Gaians were engaging in highly dubious research, research that should be scrutinized by responsible parties.

And once she was done with her own account, surely she would be back in contact with him.

S
he’d thought
this would be easier after getting — well, not exactly a decent night’s sleep, as she’d still tossed and turned even though she was in desperate need of rest — but at least
some
sleep, and a decent breakfast and a hot shower and all those things that were supposed to make it easier to get through the day. However, now that she’d come to the Council’s chambers alone, prepared to make the speech Melinda Ono had requested of her, Alexa didn’t feel good at all. In fact, she felt terrible.

What Ms. Ono had said to Ambassador Castillo, Alexa had no idea, but he’d been all smiles this morning, clearly relieved that she’d decided to do the right thing and support her home world and her government. And she thought she should be feeling better about it as well, now that she knew what Lirzhan had really been up to, but she didn’t. Doubt still nagged at her. Melinda Ono could ascribe whatever motivations she wanted to Lirzhan, but she hadn’t been there when he carried her across that underground lake…when he’d kissed her for the first time…when he’d made love to her.

Alexa jerked her thoughts away from those memories. For one thing, she shouldn’t even be thinking of such matters while sitting here in the Council’s private chambers, decorated in serene shades of blue, and on a much smaller scale than the main audience hall. Besides, she was an idiot if she thought just because Lirzhan had made love to her that his motives were pure. When it came to such things, probably a majority of the time a man’s intentions were anything but pure. Why should a Zhore be any different?

“Thank you for coming to see us, Ms. Craig,” said Gerhard Stolz, after they’d all formally introduced themselves to her and taken their seats. “Since we did not get to hear your side of things yesterday, and because we are all attempting to determine the best way to move forward on this matter, we thought we should have your input before proceeding any further.”

“I understand, Your Honor,” Alexa replied. The words hardly sounded as if they were coming out of her mouth. They were cold, clear, clipped. They were not the words of a woman who had spent the night trying to find some justification for what she was about to do, for the betrayal she was about to commit. Or was it even a betrayal? Melinda Ono’s plausible truth-twisting statements had confused things so much that Alexa couldn’t begin to guess who was in the right anymore.

The Stacian councilmember got up from his seat, looming over her. Since she was sure he had done that for effect, she kept herself from flinching and gazed directly into his hot copper-hued gaze. “Ambassador Craig, the junior ambassador from Zhore has made some fairly sensational claims about what he witnessed on the world known as Mandala. Do your own experiences support these claims?”

Nothing for it. Chin high, she replied, “No, Your Honor, they do not.”

The Stacian’s eyes widened, even as the Eridani Lir Danos frowned at her and Gerhard Stolz, the Gaian councilmember, seemed to be fighting to keep a grin from his face.

The Zhore councilmember said, voice mild, “Please explain.”

“Well, for one thing, we were separated for some hours. It was during that time that he claims to have seen the equipment and devices that supposedly had been used to pull our ship from subspace. Since I did not personally witness any of these things, I can’t in good faith say that he saw them, or that they even exist.”

The Eridani councilmember cocked his head to one side and appeared to study her for a few seconds. “Ambassador Craig, you spent a good deal of time in Ambassador Lirzhan’s company, did you not?”

“Yes,” she replied, attempting to force from her mind the memory of the time she had first seen him, the alien beauty of his face…the sound of his voice…the feel of his arms around her.

“Would you say that it was an adequate amount of time to form a good opinion of his character?”

“I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘good,’” she said. “Are you asking whether I formed an accurate opinion, or whether I found his character to be honorable?”

“The first,” Lir Danos responded. “For if you do not think your opinion was accurate, then it hardly matters what that opinion was.”

“At the time he seemed trustworthy enough. Certainly he was very proactive about ensuring our safety, up to and including killing in self-defense.”

Nelazhar, the Zhore councilmember, stirred at that revelation. “So it was Lirzhan who killed the mercenaries who attacked you at the science station?”

“Well, two of them,” Alexa admitted. “I — I took care of the third.”
There’s a roundabout way of confessing to murder.
“At the time, I didn’t quite know why Lirzhan would ignore his people’s customs and take the life of another, but I didn’t think to question it. I was just glad that he’d turned out to be so good at keeping the two of us alive.”

“‘At the time’?” Gerhard Stolz repeated. “Are you now in possession of new information that clarifies his actions?”

She hesitated. From the way Melinda Ono had spoken, it was not common knowledge that the Zhore population was in decline, and so Alexa was not terribly eager to mention the subject here in front of the members of the Council. What had passed between her and Lirzhan was one thing; dragging the Zhore home world and its problems into it was another matter altogether.

“Not new information precisely,” she equivocated. “More that, once I was out of the situation, I had additional time to evaluate our interactions and realize Lirzhan might not have been acting from the purest of motives.”

“If Ambassador Lirzhan has been involved in anything dishonorable, I want to know about it,” Nelazhar said, quietly enough, but there was a ring of steel to her smooth tones.

“No — not that at all, Your Honor,” Alexa replied immediately, and then realized she should have kept her mouth shut. She was here to cast doubts on Lirzhan’s account of what had occurred on Mandala, not to defend him. In that moment, however, she found herself unable to do so. Perhaps it was simply that she worried the Zhoraani councilmember would sense any lie she told, and so the sensible thing would be to say as little as possible.

No, it was more than that, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself.

Nelazhar shifted in her seat, hood cocked to one side. Even though Alexa knew the alien woman couldn’t precisely read her thoughts, she feared she would detect enough to know something was terribly amiss.

After a long pause, Nelazhar turned to address the three other members of the Council. “Gentlemen, would you mind terribly if I spoke to Ambassador Craig alone for a few minutes?”

“Yes, I do mind!” protested Gerhard Stolz, while Lir Danos interposed,

“If you think it will be valuable.”

“I think it will be
very
valuable,” Nelazhar replied. She tilted her hood upward in the Stacian councilmember’s direction. “Councilor sen Barthran, it is up to you to cast the deciding vote here. Do I have your permission to speak with Ambassador Craig in private?”

“Of course you do,” he rumbled.

No huge surprise there. Of course the Stacian councilmember would do the thing that irritated the Gaian representative the most.

“Well, then,” the Zhore woman said mildly. “I believe that settles it. I don’t think this should take very long.”

Lir Danos nodded and rose from his seat, and a few seconds later Gerhard Stolz did the same, although he was clearly displeased at the turn the interview had taken. They exited the room, sen Barthran a pace or two behind them. The door shut, leaving Alexa alone with the Zhoraani councilmember.

“You are very troubled,” Nelazhar said, once they were alone.

That was an understatement. Even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good, she replied, “No, really, I’m not.”

Silence for a few seconds. “I’m surprised Lirzhan did not tell you that it is foolish to lie to a Zhore.”

“Are you saying I’m lying?” Alexa replied in desperation. Perhaps if she tried to bare-face her way out of this, she might be able to salvage the situation.

“That is an ugly word, so perhaps we should attempt to avoid it. Rather, you are saying things that you know are not correct, and are conflicted over it. I believe you are saying what you think you should say, rather than what you want to say.” Her tone softened. “It must be difficult for you, to try to protect your home world and your reputation and your career, when the things you should actually say and do are so diametrically opposed to those goals.”

This was impossible. Alexa wondered what the penalty would be if she just got up and walked out, ran away and didn’t look back. But that was the coward’s solution, and she refused to believe that was her only option.

“I — ”

“Do you believe Lirzhan was telling the truth about what he saw on Mandala?”

Oh, God. Alexa’s fingers twined around one another, twisting as they lay in her lap. No way out of this.

Except one. The path she should have followed all along. She could not fight against it anymore.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“And you were sent here to try to salvage Gaia’s reputation, to cast doubt on Lirzhan’s assertions about the Consortium’s activities on Mandala, because you were told that to do otherwise would be to jeopardize your career, and indeed the very future of your world.”

“Yes.” Alexa’s head drooped, and she stared down at her pale hands, at the nails she’d broken on that rough world and filed down to almost nothing once she’d gotten back to civilization. Foolish that she’d be thinking about such a thing at a time like this.

“Do not be ashamed,” Nelazhar said in her smooth, gentle voice. What was it about the Zhore that gave them such beautiful speaking voices? Was it because their native tongue was so lovely?

“I should be ashamed,” Alexa replied at once. “I wouldn’t listen to my conscience, even though I knew what I was doing was wrong.”