Ambassador 8: The Alabaster Army

Chapter 1-2

It was past lunchtime, she said, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t have any lunch. She had spent most of the morning and also last night shopping and cooking so that I would get my favourite food.

“It’s very good to be back again.”

I left out the bit that I wasn’t particularly hungry. But I knew I would have to gain some weight and do some strength training, which would fit in well with the recent drive of my team to keep up that alertness and training. I had heard, while I was in hospital, all about how they went out and did night training, but without quite realising how difficult that really was for them.

We came out onto the gallery, where Evi and Telaris stood guard at the door to my apartment. They were normally much more reserved, but their grins showed that they were happy to have me back.

“Now we have something to do,” Evi said.

I had no doubt that in my absence my team would have given them something to do, but it would not have been terribly interesting. Things like administration.

We went into the hall.

Everyone was there: Nicha, Devlin, Ynggi, Sheydu, Deyu, Reida, Karana, Ayshada—

He ran up to me, throwing his little arms around my knees.

“You have grown so much!”

Nicha picked him up and held him close to me. He babbled while running both his chubby hands over my almost bald head and pulling my earrings.

Nicha laughed and pulled him away. “Come on, Ayshada, don’t hurt Cory. He’s just come from the hospital.”

Ayshada babbled some words that only his father could understand.

Everyone came to greet me. Deyu and Reida both also looked happy.

Ynggi was more reserved, but his tail would not keep still. “I’m happy that you’re back.”

Devlin clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be so shy.” And to me: “This young man managed to evict the meili from the roof, and seal up the hole where they were coming in.”

Those bat-like creatures had been an issue for a while. “What about your course?” Ynggi had been doing a course in communication and electronics.

Another tail-waggle indicated that he was happy to be asked. “Very well. I got top marks.”

“That’s great! I’m looking forward to you using your knowledge.” And that was no lie. Pengali excelled in using knowledge in unexpected and inventive ways. I was sure that with spying electronics, that could only be a good thing.

Sheydu greeted me in her usual I don’t want to show any of my emotions way.

I looked around for—wait . . .

“Where is Veyada?”

“He went into town,” Sheydu said in that way that could kill a conversation in a second flat. Into town was code for doing something secret.

“Anything wrong?” Damn, I hoped not. I was looking forward to some rest, but of course trouble always managed to find me when I was least prepared.

“No.” That was a conversation killer as well. Don’t ask. But then she surprised me by adding, “Just Veyada being Veyada.”

Whatever that was supposed to mean. Oh, I knew it meant something, but right now my brain was misfiring on all cylinders. Thayu was still holding my arm. The big doors to the balcony in the living room were open, bringing in a breeze that carried the scent of food, of flowers, of the marshland outside, mingling with the overwhelming scent of her.

Blood rushed to my face.

“Sorry.” I gently pulled my arm out of her grip.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, it’s just . . .” I blew out a breath. This was going to be very hard to get used to.

“Come, there is tea.” Eirani said from the door into the living room, where she stood with a trolley full of dishes.

We all sat at the table, and Eirani unloaded a veritable feast of cakes and breads. No red-coded food. I’d have to take a quiet occasion to speak to her about that. I was sure red-coded food would be on my diet now. She’d probably feel slightly betrayed.

Thayu went to shut the doors. I’d always been annoyed at her doing this, but the breeze was actually cold. I’d never felt cold in Barresh.

At this moment, Devlin got up and ran across the room and into the hall. I watched him, because he clearly had been expecting something.

He came back not a moment later, and beckoned me. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

Clearly, it was important.

I followed him across the hall into the hub. I hadn’t been here for so long, and it felt so familiar. It even smelled familiar—not that I had ever known there was a smell associated with this room. Mostly it had to do with a few empty cups that Devlin had left on the bench next to the central workstation, and maybe there were some empty bowls there as well.

He gestured to me. “Sit here.”

By now I was wondering what this was about. I had already talked to my father a few times, and he had told me that he would contact me tomorrow.

Devlin sat at his workstation and pressed a few buttons. The projector sprang into life, displaying the hub’s logo, and then he connected to the Exchange.

Devlin said into his earpiece, “He’s here now.”

He then gave the earpiece to me, got up from his seat and left the room. I sat in the dark waiting for the image to come up.

It did so after a few seconds, and by that time, I already knew that it probably came from Asto, because I could see the coordinates appearing in the bottom of the projection. It was slow because Asto was currently on the other side of the two suns, and the signal had quite a distance to travel.

I had expected Asha, my father-in-law, because he had a tendency to be secretive and spring surprises on me. He was the commander of Asto’s air force, and his whereabouts was never advertised. He was also the leader of the Domiri clan, and would probably need me to sign some of those forms that I was supposed to send.

But to my surprise it was not Asha. It was Ezhya himself.

I could honestly not remember the last time I had spoken to him like this. He preferred to come in person or send me short and cryptic messages on my personal account. He was well aware of the fact that anything sent through the Exchange was not exactly secure. He was wary and very careful.

I didn’t know whether it was the slow connection or something else, but for a while he just looked at me. To be honest it was quite disconcerting.

And because I hadn’t seen him for quite a while, I was never really sure where I stood with him. There was sometimes a level of unease between us that he would laugh away with some kind of joke. Was he my friend or my employer—because Coldi didn’t really have friends—or was it something else? Did he expect me to affirm his superiority, or was it all right to look at him because, one time, years ago, he had told me that I could meet his eyes.

I knew he could see me, because his eyes moved as he studied me. He looked at my bare head, over my face, and at my clothing. And he said nothing for an uncomfortably long period.

Finally, he said, “So, you obviously survived.”

“Yes. I understand that, for a time, that was under question. But it takes a bit more to kill me. Not even a bottom cleaner can.”

He chuckled and I laughed as well, but it wasn’t an easy kind of laugh. I was referring of course to the time that my leg had become infected, and I had been besieged by leeches and had needed a blood transfusion, all through my own stupidity.

“It does take a little bit more to kill us,” he said.

Coldi put a lot of meaning in their pronouns. It was a very inclusive us that he used, a form that I didn’t hear very often, and that was frequently used within a family.

He obviously thought that, having Coldi genes, I was part of the Coldi race now. I didn’t know that I could feel it, but maybe he could.

I was still trying to make sense of all the strange emotions that awakened in me.

I said, “Is everything all right there? Is there anything you want me to do?”

It was a bit odd that he was officially my employer, but he rarely gave me a specific job to do. I had asked him once. He told me to use my own judgement of what needed doing. As long as I understood that my task was to go into places where he couldn’t, and represent his views.

“Yes, everything is all right,” he said. “Nimazhu is becoming such a big girl. She is running around the house keeping all my staff busy. Raanu loves her. She takes her out on walks and plays with her all the time.”

It was a very strange conversation, talking about the daughters he rarely mentioned. Perhaps he was attempting to ask me, out of genuine concern, if I was all right. The notion of a friendship between unequals was unknown to Coldi. But he probably knew that we humans valued that sort of emotional interaction and that I would appreciate it. Which meant he most likely wanted something from me, and I wasn’t sure when he was going to ask.

“Yes, I’ve heard that they are quite a handful at that age.” Ayshada certainly was. I could hear him yell across the hall.

“Have you chosen a name yet?”

There was that naming problem again. I really had to do something about it fairly soon.

“I’m going to deal with it within the next few days. I will notify Asha.”

“I would like to know what I need to call you.”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“I would like to call you Rizha.”

That shook me a little bit.

In Coldi the letters M and R were sometimes interchangeable. Mizha had been chief coordinator at the time that settlements were planned on Earth. Was there any meaning in his suggestion?

I also felt embarrassed to name myself after such a high-ranking person. I knew that sometimes Coldi parents chose these names because they wanted their children to do well, but it was seen as pretentious. I didn’t like pretentious. He liked the name?

It was because of Mizha that he had faced a number of problems with Nations of Earth. I could hardly imagine that he would want me to choose a name similar to this man’s. Surely he had to be joking.

But I could see no sign of it on his face.

“I will consider all the options very carefully,” I said.

He let the subject rest after that. He asked me a few things about the medical procedure and my health and what Lilona had said about travelling to Asto for the initiation ceremony. I hardly felt that he was the person to organise logistics about my trip, but I answered him as best as I could.

It looked like he was about to sign off, without having said anything of significance.

And then he said, “Have you heard anything from Margarethe recently?”

Oh. That was why he had contacted me—he needed to tell her something. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what it was.

I told him that the last time I had been in contact with her was before I went in to the hospital to have the procedure that went so horribly wrong. So it was probably about a month ago.

“But if you want to get onto Margarethe, you can always contact Amarru, and she will relay the question without any interference from the local media,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, without further comment.

I suspected that the matter was too sensitive even for the usual channels.

And that worried me even more. For several reasons. Because I had never found out what exactly had happened in those two weeks that Ezhya and Margarethe had been together at Kedras. Both of them had said very little about it. All the worries I had about appropriateness resurfaced. As far as I knew Margarethe still had at least two years of her term to serve as president of Nations of Earth. Ezhya was not a young man, and those in his job did not retire. Chief Coordinators kept serving until the end. When someone at that level in Asto society stepped down, they usually committed suicide, or someone else killed them. It was a harsh and violent world up on the top of the Asto society.

Heart thudding, I suggested, “I can contact her, if you want.”

“No, it can wait.”

And I knew it couldn’t, because otherwise he wouldn’t have contacted me. Nor would he have been so casual about it. But he obviously wanted no one else to know.

He signed off in his usual abrupt fashion, and it was only when the connection was cut that I remembered that Margarethe had sent me a message that I could expect Minke Kluysters to turn up somewhere, because they had traced him leaving the planet. But surely Ezhya would care little about that. To him, Minke was just a hustler, a small time politician trying to fight for his attention. I hadn’t even briefed Ezhya on exactly how Earth’s referendum to join gamra was won. It didn’t matter.

Ezhya didn’t need to know about Minke Kluysters and other Earth-based self-important businessmen.

I was expecting Minke to turn up in Barresh and had already contacted him because he had asked me to help him set up an office. I would deal with that request. I would lead him around and oversee his meetings. It was called keeping one’s enemies close.