Ambassador 4: Coming Home (25 page)

“How much do you know?” I asked both men.

“My daughter briefed me,” Asha said. It was, too, the first time I had heard him publicly refer to her as such. “That’s why we’re both here.”

“So you know that the ship has communicated with groups other than the Barresh Aghyrians, and that this communication has been going on for many years. You know that Joyelin Akhtari is one of the main financial backers of the Tamerian project, and that Delegate Namion might be involved, too?”

“We know.”

“There is more,” I said. “More and worse.” I went on to recount what Lilona had told me after Thayu had left. That Kando Luczon had left behind an Aghyrian community that had settled on worlds they had found in the Renzha galaxy. That he had fallen out with them because they wanted to supplement their limited genetic material with local genetics. That he had forced people to provide crewmembers, and that those crewmembers were slaved to him or the ship. That he had no interest in peaceful discussions, not with us or with the group who had financed the Tamerians. “You do know about the relays, right?”

They did. I guessed those were the main urgency right now.

“I have people working on that,” Asha said. “These things are a bugger because these they’re not big and in their inactive state they’re absolutely impossible to see. We’re talking here about an active component that’s the size of a fist. The Astronomy branch is dealing with that headache.” The
military
astronomy branch, that would be, somewhere in that giant station that orbited Asto, that could, at Ezhya’s command, disgorge a burst of fire power the likes of which the galaxy had never seen, and that Asha
still
didn’t judge adequate to destroy this ship.

Ezhya blew out a breath. Asha shook his head.

Nicha stared at me, an expression of horror on his face while he held his son to his chest. A little hand clawed at his shirt. I didn’t know that Nicha had known
any
of this, or had realised the seriousness of it.

Everyone was silent for a while. Sounds drifted in from the hall: Eirani talking, soft conversations from the hub, where Devlin and Thayu would be busy. Maybe the others, too. I suspected Thayu was conducting a second meeting to bring the rest of my association and staff up to speed with the situation.

Then I asked, “What am I supposed to do next?”

“I think the time for you alone to do anything that’s going to impact this situation is over,” Ezhya said. He spoke slowly, deliberately with a sense of dread to his words. I knew the gist of what was coming. He pushed his reader over the carpet to me. “This is why I’m here. This is why we’re both here.”

I wiped my hands before picking it up. There were drops of water running down my arm.

The screen displayed a document.

In bold characters at the top, it said,

To the occupants of the ship reported to have come from the Renzha galaxy: Intention to take defensive action, Beniz-Yaza system, Ratanga cluster.

To local authorities: this is a notification only, from Asto’s Chief Coordinator. Not for debate or voting.

Underneath, it said,

The Beniz-Yaza system in the Ratanga cluster contains the home worlds of the Coldi, keihu, Mirani and Pengali people. We have lived on these worlds in their present state for many thousands of years. We will view any invasion of this system by non-declared ships as hostile. Any foreign vessel not known to the Exchange approaching the system will be eliminated. Any piece of foreign equipment in orbit in the system will be destroyed. If you want to speak to us, speak to our representatives directly. We urge that you do this as soon as possible.

The document contained, damn it,
miyu
pronouns which I knew existed but had never seen anyone use before.

The most famous use of them was in the declaration that had almost led to an invasion of Hedron by Asto—and both were Coldi worlds.

Miyu
pronouns were for declarations of large-scale war.

I looked from Ezhya to Asha and back again. “Something else has happened, right?”

“The ship has turned on power and fired what we think are auxiliary engines, possibly to kick up the main reactor, which is still dormant. There has been no change in their lack of response to us. We will be sending this declaration to them.”

I doubted the Aghyrians would understand Coldi writs and the deadly seriousness that lay underneath the fairly matter-of-fact language of the text.

“I want you to present it to the
gamra
assembly as soon as possible. Call an emergency sitting if there is none planned. Those willing to join us in the defence of our system will be welcomed. If it comes to an armed conflict, we will allocate privileges in accordance to their involvement.”

I’d been afraid that he’d wanted me to do this, but what else could I say? It was yet another way in which people would say that I was a mouthpiece for Asto. “I will. There will be fireworks. The assembly will be hostile to this.”

“There will be not nearly enough fireworks. We have to get rid of that idiot they voted in.”

I nodded. I agreed.
Gamra
could never function with Delegate Namion at its head. “He’s only been in the job for a very short period of time.”

“Long enough,” Ezhya said.

“Too long,” was Asha’s judgement. “Depose him. Immediately.”

“I can’t. I’m not . . .”
an influential figure
. Although I should probably acknowledge that I was becoming influential, in my own way. “I can’t just . . .”
When the process has broken down measures must be taken to prevent further damage.
That was a quote from the
gamra
manual itself. If we could prove Delegate Namion’s involvement with the Tamerians, then he was as good as gone, but one didn’t make it to the top by being stupid and his tracks would be well covered.

I spread my hands. Let them sink again. If they thought I was going to stand for the position and challenge, they were wrong. I would never stand up to
gamra
’s constant scrutiny. I was not impartial. I was not made of endless patience. I had not covered any of my tracks.

In amongst all the conflicting feelings and thought that ran through me, I found some sanity.

“I know the
gamra
assembly well enough to know that they get easily distracted by details. Not that I call the attempted deposing of a Chief Delegate a minor detail, but compared to the approaching ship emergency, it is. Let’s not try to distract them with internal politics. We can always depose him later. I dare say we don’t even need to get our hands dirty in that process.”

Ezhya nodded. He rubbed his upper lip, and then he nodded again. It was at times like this that he scared me most. I couldn’t believe that I’d said something that he hadn’t considered, yet he acted like I had, and as if he was arranging the pieces in his head.

“All right,” he said. “Don’t waste any time with the assembly. I have better things for you to do. I’ll just send it to them, if I can use your equipment.”

“Sure.” At the same time it occurred to me that my
gamra
account was still routed through Delegate Namion’s. That would be an interesting message for him to intercept.

Ezhya continued, “As for any matériel support, is there any group in the assembly you judge capable of giving us useful support?”

“Kedras is also in the Ratanga cluster. They’re small, but they have the Trader Guild. Their new
gamra
representative is Kedrasi.”

“Hmmm.” A look passed between the two men.

Asha said, “The Trader Guild is not a military organisation.”

“No. It’s not. But they have a lot of ships.”

“They do. Hmmm, not sure if I can do anything with that, but leave it with me.”

Ezhya gave him one of those mysterious hand signals. Asha seemed happy.

“What about the captain?” I asked.

“We have him under strict observation. He will receive this document as well.”

“He’ll likely misinterpret it.”

Ezhya snorted. “Misinterpret? How much clearer can we be about: do not come here or we’ll blow you to pieces?”

“He hasn’t shown any understanding about any of the things we’ve attempted to talk to him about.”

“That’s why it worries me that you have one of his crew here.”

“She’s been very helpful today. I would not have known all the things I just told you if it weren’t for her.”

“Nevertheless, I would be much happier if she were with the others under the guard of my people and not with that . . . fop.”

“Look, I will take responsibility for them. They will stay here, guarded by my staff. They will not jeopardise our actions.”

“The only way that man won’t jeopardise anything is if he’s dead.”

If nothing else, that remark showed me absolutely how important loyalty was in Coldi society. Federza was perceived as wavering, untrustworthy. He had a lot of damage to repair, if it could be repaired at all.

“Please. I trust him. Leave both of them here.”

“We’ll see.” That was by no means an encouraging reply, but the best I could hope for.

“Whatever we do must not preclude giving assistance to the ship crew who want to escape. The crew are not there of their volition and their supplies are low. They are weak and sickly. The mission to retake Asto is driven by the captain only. Let’s not act in a similar manner to his actions when refusing to save people, if we can.”

“If we can,” Ezhya said. It was painfully clear that he thought we couldn’t. “If the ship backs off when we issue threats. If he’s willing to agree to restrictions on where the ship can travel.”

Asha snorted. “What’s the chance you’ll get that sort of agreement out of a man who’s stayed the same course for four hundred years?”

We let the answer hang between us.

Nicha looked decidedly disturbed.

Ezhya said, “We
will
fire if that ship turns up here and if the ship is unresponsive to our demands.”

“I do wish that you’d consider a diplomatic solution, if I can broker it.”

“Haven’t you tried that already?” His voice was disturbingly serious.

“Yes. I may have gone about it the wrong way. The captain, I think, is a dead loss. I do not, in any way, endorse the assassination of anyone, and the captain is a major historic identity, but I guess I wouldn’t be disturbed or surprised if somehow during skirmishes he didn’t . . . survive.”

Ezhya laughed a loud. It was a rare enough sound that it was both uplifting and threatening.

I went on, even though my ears were starting to betray me. Those damn ears. “I think there may be a reasonable chance that we can separate the crew from the captain, as long as there are no hostilities, as I understand from the crew member we had with us today that most of the crew will have left family behind.”

“All the more reason that a second mission of theirs will eventually follow the first one.”

“Which may not be a bad thing if, but only if, we can see the present mission to a peaceful end. From what I understand, the settlers of those new worlds have no love for the captain, and this appears to be one of the primary driving forces of his decision to make the return jump.”

“He can’t rule the people over there, so he wants to rule people over here.”

“Pretty much.”

“Whichever way, he wants to rule something.”

“Yes.”

“He’s downstairs under guard. At the slightest order from me, any of these people here can go there and assassinate him. We can do that, if it solves anything in their internal hierarchy.”

That was as close as Ezhya got to asking advice. “It’s not entirely that simple. He
is
their absolute leader, but they use the term
bound to she ship
. This appears to relate to some kind of physiological connection. I don’t know how this works, but the ship’s systems appear to have a need to ensure the safety of those with this distinction. The woman we have in here is also bound. The ship might have been set to follow them regardless of what the outcome of their visit here was.”

“How likely do you judge the chance that the crew will obey the captain?”

“Very high.”

“If we take out the captain?”

“Even higher.”

Asha made a hissing sound. “So, we have a ship unlikely to respond to a writ, already on its way here in response to the captain’s distress or command. We have a dedicated crew who we can’t access before they get here, who are unlikely to suddenly change allegiance anyway, and who are slaved to the captain and will carry out his commands, whether or not he’s on board the ship.”

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

“And out in the Renzha galaxy, there is at least one, but possibly more, inhabited worlds of these people, possibly infused with truly alien genetic material, who might come after this ship?”

“I am not convinced
those
people would have any interest in coming here, or if they did, that they’d be hostile; but yes, that’s what I understand.”

Ezhya folded his hands and leaned forward on his knees. His expression was dead serious now. He looked at Asha in a way that made me feel small and insignificant. “Our first and foremost priority has to be to destroy their relay network so that they can’t jump. It’s a monumental task, and one that may be impossible.”

“This is where I can see the Trader Guild being useful,” Asha said.

Ezhya nodded. “Yes. I can see that.”

Asha said, “Once they jump, destroying the ship may not be easy. If I had command on that ship, I would jump as close as possible to either planet as I dared, because any weapon that’s going to destroy a ship that size can’t safely be fired close to a planet’s atmosphere.”

“Anything that size can’t jump close to a planet.”

“Possibly. We have to run calculations on that.”

“They can’t. I want you to run calculations on any possible configuration of the array of Exchange nodes that they have remaining out there. I want to know which are the most likely locations the ship will appear when it jumps with the array’s current configuration, or if we can even speak of a configuration yet. I want to know which nodes we need to destroy to keep the jump from happening, if indeed that’s possible.”