Ambassador 11: The Forgotten War

Chapter One There was a headless dinosaur in the courtyard underneath my balcony. A giant chicken with a red rubbery comb that bobbed with the chicken suit occupant’s movements was doing up the straps over the dinosaur’s shoulders while the dinosaur’s head lay on a chair that stood outside the entrance to the storage container that—evidently—held all the performers’ props. A monocycle leaned against the wall which separated the hotel’s courtyard from the courtyard of the next hotel. Instead of working on my urgent and very boring messages, I was looking down in fascination, wondering how someone wearing a dinosaur suit with a giant head and awkward tail was going to ride a monocycle. Welcome to the New World entertainment precinct, and welcome to Los Angeles. Strains of cheery music drifted between the buildings, where, if yesterday was anything to go by, a show was taking place in the square outside our hotel. The dinosaur head went on, the tiny Tyrannosaurus paws adjusted the visor, the chicken grabbed the monocycle, jumped on, and then the dinosaur ran after it through the alley along the side of the hotel with a speed that would make me freak out. A cheer went up when they arrived, a few seconds later, in the square at the front of the building and I could no longer see them. Sigh. Back to my messages and attempting to be polite to a man who, frankly, had not deserved my politeness. Although I had no illusion that if I let it fly and wrote Why the f**k won’t you respond to my correspondence? it would have any more effect than my previous messages to Nations of Earth president Simon Dekker had. All nine of them, since we’d prepared for this trip. I’d started off asking for a meeting, when we were still in Barresh, saying that we were coming through the Exchange, and I could drop into Rotterdam for an informal chat, to tell him that there were a few things I’d like to touch base on, just like I’d do with his predecessor. And he had continued to ignore me. And now we were out of range in the northwestern corner of Mexico to honour my promise to a Coldi family—it was a long story. We were also about to go even further out of range, if I was successful at procuring a trip further inland, which might or might not breach a raft of international laws. I didn’t want Dekker to find out I was here, and that we were doing this, but I did want to talk to him once we came back to Rotterdam, but either way, he continued to ignore my messages. The performers of the previous act now filed into the area around the storage container, cordoned off from people on the ground by screens, but visible for me, three floors up. They peeled off colourful jackets and tossed hats aside. Someone passed around a tray with cups of water. A mother and a small child had come to the pool on the other side of the barrier. It was early March, and I didn’t think it was that warm, but I guess they thought differently. The mother spread out a towel on one of the deck chairs that stood on the fake grass. Damn, I was really not getting any work done. I picked up my reader and went inside. As Earthly as the courtyard outside of my balcony had been, the inside was all off-worldly. Thayu and Sheydu had moved the table in front of the window, and they had set up as much security equipment as they could fit on it. Sheydu was on her knees under the table, trying to connect leads to a power box that led from a very old-fashioned power point. I hadn’t seen any of those in many years. After arriving yesterday, she had complained bitterly that the level of power was not up to what she needed to operate her scanners, chargers and transmitters, and she had borrowed or purchased or otherwise acquisitioned a box to make this happen. “Is it working now?” I asked Deyu, who stood watching the goings-on. She shrugged. “This is only the first step. Connectivity is poor and there is next to no Exchange coverage.” Yes. I knew that and we’d known that, coming into this area. Somehow, I’d not expected that to be such a major issue, because I’d expected to have made arrangements with Dekker by now. “People are watching us,” Thayu said. “Yes. People are always watching us, aren’t they?” “It would be nice to know who they are.” “I can make some guesses,” I said. Asto military, people sent by the Exchange out of pure curiosity about what we were doing in this unusual part of the world, people sent by local authorities to follow out of curiosity about what we were doing here. Those were just the ones I could think about off the top of my head. “Those are only guesses,” she said. “We’re on a fun trip. Just do the best you can,” I said. “There are people on the register,” Sheydu said from under the table, apparently her preferred option. The register of Coldi people on Earth that assist in case of an emergency. But there was no emergency, and I preferred solving this via Earth channels, even if only not to put any pressure on any Coldi who lived in this very strange city in a very strange place where people wore chicken suits and performed for the rich, while many others lived in the endless dusty slums we had passed on the roadsides while coming into this place. “The guide said she’d be here soon,” I said, as a warning to my team to make sure that their most obvious off-worldly items were packed away. Like readers, like spy equipment. In the room behind the table, a full scale security meeting was still underway. Isharu and her team had put their readers on the bed, with the screen up, and they had somehow rigged them up so they joined and formed one projection in the air. Anyu was there, trusted Anyu with her extensive knowledge about communication. Zyana was there, because as ex-guard of the Athyl Third Circle, he had some sort of loyalty towards one of our young charges. I hadn’t asked about it, and my team had found it unnecessary to bother me with the details, but he was very handy with equipment and because he was an ex-guard, he made for a formidable presence. Most of the rest of Sheydu’s association had remained in Athens, including Leisha, our pilot. Reida was in the room, and Veyada. I couldn’t see what was being projected, but again it would be about security and people following us or listening in to us. Isharu nodded to me that she acknowledged my words and continued the briefing. I went into the small hallway to the apartment. In the adjacent room, Nicha and Mereeni were preparing for today’s trip, a preparation that involved electronic trackers and spare clothes, nappies and tubs of safe food. Jaki stuck his head into the room. “How long before the guide is here?” he asked. His tail waved at waist height, showing that something bothered him. “She said she’d entered the precinct and would be here soon,” I said. The guide had only communicated with me. I hoped she understood what the makeup of my team was and that it included some unearthly visitors. Then Jaki asked, “Have any of you seen the kids?” Oh. To be honest, I had not. And we had too many kids on this trip to keep an eye on all of them. Nicha said, “I gave them a card, because Larrana wanted to get some trinket from the shop downstairs.” “Did they all go out?” Jaki asked. His tail hit the door frame when he turned around. It was his task to look after the younger kids, but Ileyu and my daughter Emi were still too small to take part in any of the older kids’ mischief. We shared joined responsibility over Ayshada, Larrana Azimi, who we’d agreed to take, and Thayu’s son Nalya. Those two were a few years older than Ayshada, and Ayshada had picked up a lot of their naughty habits. And there were also two Pengali youngsters—I wasn’t sure if they were Ynggi and Jaki’s children or if they knew or cared about their parentage in an utterly Pengali way. Both Pykka and Amay were born in the same cycle and had lived at my house with Ynggi and Jaki for the last few months. They were hard to keep up with, even when they were at my house in Barresh. And this band of kids had gone down to the hotel foyer to buy some souvenir, because Larrana was obsessed with this strange part of Earth culture that involved plastic figurines, and had not come back. Right before the guide was supposed to arrive to take us for our long-awaited trip into the park, too. Typical. I blew out a breath. “I’ll go down to check on them.” Nicha handed me a tracker. “Take this.” I stuck it in my pocket. “Do you have the gun?” Thayu asked from near the window where she and Sheydu had progressed to connecting the devices on the table to the power box. I wanted to say, “I’m just going to the foyer,” but I knew what she would say, that there was never a “just going” in terms of security, that we should stay vigilant, especially here, and that this was not a friendly place. Yes, yes. I collected the weapon. I’d probably be carrying the damn thing all day. I left the unit. One of the hotel staff was cleaning the apartment next to ours. He had wheeled a trolley onto the balustrade that ran outside the front doors of all the units. The young man gave me a nervous look, one I’d sadly grown used to. “Do you want me to clean your accommodation, sir?” he asked. “No, we will be fine.” I had to speak really clearly. They didn’t speak Isla here, but an archaic form of English, one of the languages that made up Isla. Other people spoke Spanish, but I wasn’t familiar with that either. “I’m sorry, sir?” “No cleaning.” He nodded. “Have you seen a group of children come this way?” “You should probably get them, sir. People might complain, sir.” “Are they making too much noise?” I asked. I didn’t think the noise had been as bad today as it had yesterday, when the kids had put on very loud music and attempted to sing to it at the tops of their voices and I’d needed to intervene to tell them that people in the building didn’t like the noise. “No sir, it is about the kids outside sir.” He seemed decidedly nervous. “They went outside?” I thought they’d only gone to the foyer. I walked down the balustrade, and down two flights of stairs, then through the accommodation’s reception area and out the front. The sunlight hit the square, and it was already hot. It was busy in the square. I’d known this because of the dinosaur activity going on in the hotel’s courtyard. A sizeable group of tourists had gathered around the performance. Music drifted over the square. It was always busy when those performers were here. I’d seen a schedule of performances displayed, which I meant to obtain, because the children loved it. As soon as I entered the square, a man in dark clothing came to me. “Are those your kids?” He spoke Isla. “My kids? I don’t know what you mean. They could be.” I was getting an ominous feeling about this. “Come with me.” He pushed between a couple of tourists, who all turned around with slightly disturbed looks on their faces. There was something uncomfortable about how quickly they moved aside to let through the security guard with me following in his wake. We came to the middle of the crowd and I saw that what the people were watching was not the regular performance at all. The chicken and the dinosaur stood to the side. Both had taken off their heads. A woman occupied the chicken suit. Both were speaking into headsets, presumably to security. In the middle of the square, a bunch of kids on unicycles raced around in a big circle. Some of them were our kids. Nalya was riding a unicycle, and Larrana’s wheelchair was already a tricycle with independently moving wheels. A group of scruffy and skinny little kids had joined them with unkempt hair, many of them brown-skinned with mismatched, patched and too-large clothing. Ayshada walked around the middle of the circle with a basket full of the type of plastic toys they had gone downstairs to purchase. He was throwing these with deadly precision to the young kids on unicycles, who caught the toys that Ayshada was throwing them. They then juggled all the toys in a great tangle of colourful plastic objects over Ayshada’s head. One occasionally hit the ground, but Ayshada would run to pick it up. They had turned the music up really loud. The two Pengali kids were both dancing. They swung their hips and tails in time with the beat. Neither of them were wearing anything, which probably caused part of the consternation. Larrana came into the group and started dancing with them. Asto wheelchairs were not at all like the earthly ones. They resembled scooters, with the person strapped in and attached to the motor with nerve sensors that controlled the chair in a way that made riding one almost better than walking. It allowed the wearer to jump, to dance and do all kinds of things that people with normal feet and normal legs would have trouble doing, or at least have trouble doing for an extended period. He was bouncing up and down in his chair, walking on his hands, flipping backwards and forwards, somersaulting. Heavens. It’s even looked like an actual performance. I was unfamiliar with the music they had chosen, but it all looked very real. The people cheered and clapped. “Are these your children?” the guard asked. “Some of them.” “I mean the ones with the bike and with the toys.” “Yes, some of them are with us. I don’t know the other children.” “We’re familiar with the young rascals and will pursue this with their families.” It all sounded very serious. “They haven’t done anything, have they?” “This space is for authorised performers only. Our performers are professionals who are getting paid for their efforts. You wouldn’t want amateur medicine men to attend to you when you go to the hospital.” “Er… I guess not.” I was struggling to see the point of his argument. They were only kids, and they were only having fun. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know the kids were here.” There were no signs that people weren’t allowed to hold impromptu performances, especially kids. I didn’t think they were breaking any rules. “Please tell them to go back to their families.” “We’re about to go out for the day,” I said. “Good, the performers want to continue with their act.” Those performers were standing at the side of the circle. The dinosaur and the chicken had put their heads back on, but there were a few others in green outfits with bits of fabric dangling off their arms and legs, and they looked bemused more than anything. But they kept glancing at the guard. There was some strange, uncomfortable dynamic going on. I assumed that the guards meant to keep the square free so that the performers could do their jobs. The performers might even give the guards a percentage of their takings—and a little device stood at each corner where people could give money, even if entrance to the park and accommodation already cost a fortune. But maybe the guards were here to make sure that nothing inappropriate happened and that the performers didn’t go off-script. The thought chilled me. “I’m sorry. They are just kids having fun,” I said. “You might also tell them not to treat their toys like this. They might get damaged.” I walked into the circle and clapped my hands. “Kids, this man here says you have to stop this.” Nalya turned to me, and as his face took on a disappointed expression, one of the toys thrown by a dark-skinned unicyclist hit him on the side of the head and bounced over the ground. They might get damaged. What? Pieces of coloured plastic? Why did he care anyway? “Can we come back here later?” Nalya asked. “I don’t know.” I sighed. “I don’t think they like it when you perform their show.” And they didn’t like the fact that they played music in the wrong way and treated toys in the wrong way. Or something. I was struggling to comprehend these people. The young rascals on their unicycles jumped off their bikes. The legitimate performers rushed into the square. They reset the music, pushed the toys aside and took up their positions to start dancing.