“Has he had anything to say about President Bacco’s victory, or about her policies?”
“We haven’t heard from President Zife since his resignation. I’m sure he’s enjoying his retirement.”
Ozla smiled. She’d only met Zife two or three times—press access to the president had been at an all-time low during his administration, mostly due to security concerns—but he’d struck her as the type who would enjoy retirement. Some politicians were born to be in politics, but Zife had always seemed like someone who’d simply been doing a job. That wasn’t necessarily an indicator of poor performance, but it didn’t indicate an overriding passion, either.
Bacco, on the other hand, came across as the type who would continue to be involved in governing until the day she keeled over from exhaustion. Ozla generally found that she preferred that kind of politician, though Zife’s type tended to live longer.
Maria wouldn’t let the point go. “C’mon, Jorel, you expect us to believe that Zife doesn’t have an opinion about Bacco?”
“I long ago stopped expecting you people to believe a thing I say. T’Nira?”
The briefing continued for several minutes. Ozla noticed that Kant never once called on Sovan, even though the Bolian had his hand up several times. Looks like Kant’s still angry about Sovan’s performance on ICL . I did warn him….
Ozla always turned down invitations to do talk shows like that. She never felt like she was accomplishing anything except self-promotion, and she didn’t feel comfortable doing that. She reported news; the fact that it was her reporting it was comparatively irrelevant.
Besides, she was terrible at speaking extemporaneously. That was why she liked writing.
When the briefing ended, the holocom room faded and she was back to seeing where she really was: in Chartres at her desk.
As she went over the draft of the article on the changing face of the top three floors of the Palais, she made a bet with herself as to how long it would be before Sovan called her.
Five seconds later, her comm beeped. “Hi, Sovan,” she said without even checking to make sure it was his blue face on the screen.
“Can you believe him?”
“I rarely do.” Ozla still hadn’t looked up.
“He cannot keep treating me like this.”
“Actually, he can. He’s under no obligation to call on you when you raise your hand.” Then she did look at him. “And you’re under no obligation to stay quiet on the subject, either.”
“If I write about him snubbing me, it’ll just annoy him. I don’t want to get on Kant’s bad side.”
“Oh come on, Sovan, you’ve been doing this longer than I have—you know he doesn’t have a good side. He’s not gonna like you anyhow, so run with it.”
“Look, you’ll be talking to him, right? About your trip?”
Ozla was, in fact, planning to let Kant know that she’d be out of the room for a few months while she did her Tezwa story. “Yeah, why?”
“Any chance of putting in a good word?”
Rolling her eyes, Ozla said, “There is in fact no chance of that.”
“Ozla—”
“Sovan, you went on ICL and talked about how incompetent Kant’s boss is.”
“Yes, but he respects you. I think he may even like you.”
Kant had, in fact, treated Ozla with less disdain than he did most of the press, which, she supposed, could be construed as liking her by his lights. “Doesn’t matter—see, my editor respects me, too, and if he found out that I sang the praises of a competitor—”
“Never mind, then.”
Ozla sighed. “Look, Sovan, you’re a good reporter, and you’ll still get the good stories. Why are you worried about this stuff?”
Sovan’s face widened into a huge grin. “I’m not, really, I just wanted an excuse to talk to you before you went to that disaster area. Why are you going there, anyhow? It’s a pit.”
“Because it’s a story—and it’s one nobody’s talking about anymore.”
“It’s all anybody was talking about for a month.”
“One month is nothing. This needs more attention.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Now that you’ve contrived your excuse to talk to me—”
“Listen, Ozla—be careful, all right? We already lost Vara.”
Ozla hesitated. “I know—that’s why I’m going.”
“All right.” Sovan moved as if to cut the connection, but Ozla stopped him.
“Sovan, listen—Zife. Did he retire to Bolarus?”
“No.”
“You’re sure? He didn’t maybe come in discreetly?”
Sovan chuckled. “Zife doesn’t know how to be discreet. No, he’s not here. Trust me, someone at BY would’ve found him. He was never able to keep his movements secret, not when he was a district representative, not when he was planetary minister, not when he was a councillor, and certainly not when he was president. He’s nowhere near Bolarus.”
“All right.” She tapped her finger on her desk. “Thanks, Sovan—and thanks for the well wishes. I’ll see you in a few months.”
“I hope so. Good luck, Ozla.”
Sovan signed off.
Ozla tapped her finger for a few more minutes. Then she com’d her assistant. “Traya, can you get me President Zife’s speech to the council of governors on Pacifica from three years ago?”
“Sure.”
Then she put a call through to Zhres.
“It’s Ozla.”
“I am sorry,” the Andorian’s soft voice said over the speaker—Ozla was talking into his ear unit, so there was no visual feed. “Mr. Kant’s in a meeting with Ms. Piñiero right now.”
“That’s fine, Zhres—could you just let him know that Gora Yed is going to be taking my place in the room for a few months?”
“I can’t imagine he’ll care all that much.”
Ozla laughed. “No, he probably won’t, but I want to let him know as a courtesy.”
“I’ll pass that on—then I’ll remind him what that word means.”
“Good luck. How’ve you managed to last so long in the job?”
“There is a human saying that applies: Mr. Kant’s bark is worse than his bite.”
Frowning, Ozla said, “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means he sounds worse than he actually is.”
“Thanks, Zhres.”
She was about to cut the connection when Zhres asked, “If you do not mind my asking, Ms. Graniv—where will you be? A well-deserved vacation, I hope?”
Ozla chuckled. “No such luck. I’m going to Tezwa.”
A pause. “Why in Thori’s name would you go there?”
Wondering if everyone was going to ask that question and resigning herself to the fact that they were, she said, “Because someone needs to.”
“That does not strike me as a good enough reason.”
“It’s good enough for me. Take care, Zhres.”
“Good-bye, Ms. Graniv—and good luck.”
Chapter Four
FRED MACDOUGAN struggled over adjectives.
It was always the most difficult part of the speechwriting process for him. He had no trouble with metaphors, with imagery, with references, with alliteration, with cadence—but adjectives nailed him every time. Were the people being honored “noble” or “upright” or “steadfast”? Was the location of the speech “verdant” or “pretty” or “beautiful”?
If it wasn’t for adjectives, I could write twice as fast.
Right now he was working his way through the speech that President Bacco would be giving in two weeks’ time when he went to Andor to meet with their genetics council. The trip was opening with an address to a gathering of Andorian scientists who were struggling with the Andorians’ population issues, and Fred wanted to get it just right. True, it didn’t need to be finished until the trip—of which Andor was but one stop—started the next Monday, but he wanted to nail it and at least get a draft into Espe
ranza’s hands by the end of the day. Andor was a founding member of the Federation, and three years earlier their genetic crisis had finally been made public. The president had to support their research, and it was important to show that every effort was being made—not just on Andor but throughout the Federation—to help them along. Zife had done absolutely nothing in this regard; he hadn’t visited Andor once in the past three years. Fred was glad that the president had taken the initiative to rectify that oversight of her predecessor.
The intercom beeped. Sighing, he activated it. That sigh was leavened by the sight of a beautiful dark face framed by intricately braided waist-length hair. “Hey there, babe,” he said to his wife before he realized that Z4 was standing next to her at her desk.
“Fred, c’mon, we’re on the job.”
“Right, sorry.” He grinned. “Hey there, Deputy Babe.”
“Much better.” Ashanté shook her head. “What’re the president’s next few speeches?”
“Tomorrow at 2000—1100 local time—she’s dedicating the Dominion War memorial museum on the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Z4 made a tinkling noise. “I thought that was at noon.”
Fred frowned. “Hang on, let me check.” He called up the president’s schedule for the following day on another screen. “Yeah, sorry—the event’s at noon local, which is 2100 our time, but she’s leaving the Palais at 2000.”
“Why is she leaving the Palais an hour early? Is there another stop?”
“No.”
“Then why—?”
Fred rolled his eyes. His wife was a lovely woman and a world-class political mind, but sometimes she missed the obvious stuff. “Because that’s how long it takes to get to San Francisco from Paris by shuttle.”
“It takes five seconds by transporter, and she’s got one right next to her office.”
“Uh—” Fred blinked. She’s not the only one who misses obvious stuff, I guess. “Yeah, good point.”
“I’ll get on that,” Z4 said. “It’s probably the travel office again.”
Ashanté chuckled. “That’ll give Xeldara something new to complain about, at least. In any case, that won’t work for what we want. What’s next?”
“It’d help if I knew what you wanted.”
“We need to have the president show her support for her nominees—starting with Artrin.”
“Ah.”
She pointed at the screen. “What about the trip next week?”
Fred didn’t need to consult the schedule for this one. “She’s going to Vulcan for the annual FTC meeting on Monday.” The Federation Trade Council had its annual meeting on a different planet every year. The previous three years, it had been Bajor, Betazed, and Pacifica—all garden spots. So, of course, my first year going, and they hold it on a desert. “Then we go to Rigel to talk to the couriers, then to Andor for—”
“Hang on, why is she talking to couriers at Rigel?”
“They won’t upgrade their warp drives.”
“So?”
“About ten years ago, a couple of Hekarans discovered that existing warp engines were damaging the fabric of space. All vessels had to stay at warp five or lower until they found a solution—which Starfleet did, inside of about six months, and within a year, all Starfleet ships were upgraded. Within three years, so were most civilian ships.”
Z4 made another of his noises. “What does—”
Ashanté put a hand on one of Z4’s legs. “Let him work through it—it always takes my darling husband three times as long as is absolutely necessary to explain himself. It’s part of his charm.” She grinned. “At least that’s what I keep telling myself.”
“I love you too, dear.” He frowned. “Where was I?”
“Warp five.”
“Right. There’s a whole mess of couriers in the Rigel system that have ships of their own design that were about fifty years old when this new regulation got handed down. They haven’t made the upgrades because they would take too long with the design they’ve got. Since most of their work is within the Rigel system, they don’t go to warp that often, and they almost never reach warp five when they do, so it isn’t really much of an issue.”
“So why’re we—?”
“Their ships are now sixty years old. They need maintenance, and it has to be done with parts that don’t exist anymore because their engine type is against the law. They need to upgrade, and they need to do it now before their crappy, ill-maintained engines suffer a warp-core breach.”
“So the president is going to Rigel to convince them to do it?”
“Yeah.”
Ashanté looked baffled and angry at the same time, a look that always worried Fred when he was on the receiving end of it, though the consequences usually didn’t manifest until they got home and she announced that he only thought he was sleeping in the bedroom.
“Fred, this is off the president’s sensor screen. Send the technology secretary.”
“That’s a great idea!” Fred hit his forehead with the heel of his palm. “Of course, why didn’t I think of that? Send Secretary Forzrat! What a brilliant notion!”
Ashanté knew him well enough to sense the sarcasm. Indeed, Fred was laying it on sufficiently thick that one need never have met Fred to be aware of it. “She already went?”
“Twice. No soap. The next step is to forbid them from flying with their ships, which will grind stellar commerce throughout the Rigel colonies to a screeching halt. The couriers are saying that the short-term falloff in usable ships while they upgrade will ruin them, but that’s nothing compared to what’ll happen if we shut them down.”
“But shutting them down makes us look bad—especially since they don’t actually go warp five, so what’s the big deal?”
“The president needs to convince them that it’s better to take the short-term problem for long-term gain, instead of getting short-term gain and the long-term problem of a ship exploding when it’s full of people because they couldn’t—”
“All right, all right, I got it. You sound like you swallowed a position paper.”
“Didn’t need to.” He grinned. “I wrote it.”
“Of course you did.” Ashanté groaned, then held up her hand before Fred could say anything else. “Never mind, we’ll talk about that later.”
Fred didn’t like the sound of that.
“What else is on that trip?”
“Andor—the genetics council—and Sirius and Kharzh’ulla. She’s—”
“No, that’s it—Andor. Can you work in something about the judiciary council and Artrin’s record into the opening remarks?”
“Uh—” Fred thought about it a moment. Judiciary did oversee some of the allocations for the research being done on Andor—mostly to make sure it conformed to ethical and legal research guidelines. “Yeah, I can probably swing that. I’m working on that speech right now, actually.”
“Trying to find the right adjectives?”
“Not at all.” Fred tried to sound wounded at the very notion and knew he was failing miserably.
Z4 said, “Thanks, Fred. Meanwhile, I’m going to have a conversation with the travel office.”
“Have fun,” Fred said.
After Z4 left Ashanté’s office, the latter gave her husband a penetrating stare.
“Don’t give me that look, darling,” he said in return.
“Don’t ‘darling’ me, cupcake—why the hell do you have the president—”
“She wanted to do it, Ashanté. She came to me after Forzrat came back the second time and said she wanted to put in an appearance. It’s not like she’s going out of her way—Rigel’s between Vulcan and Andor, and it fits into the schedule, since FTC ends four days before the genetics council meeting begins.”
Ashanté let out a long breath. “Fine. Add in some stuff about Artrin.”
“Will do,” he said as she reached for the control to terminate the call. Before she could, he said, “Hey!”
She hesitated. “What?”
“I heard a rumor, yeah.” She shook her head. “I love you too. Go find some adjectives.”
After she cut the connection, Fred opened a new one to his research assistant, an eager young Dorset named Rol Yarvik Rol. “Rol, get me everything you can find about Councillor Artrin na Yel.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
Z4 Blue was writing up his recommendation for C29 Green when his door buzzed. “Come in,” he said without looking up from his work.
The door to Z4’s office slid open to reveal Ne’al G’ullho from the travel office. “Uh, hi,” it said. “You wanted to see me?”
Z4 looked up at it. The Damiani was young, with teal skin, all-white eyes, and horns protruding upward from each temple. “Not especially, but it’s really the best way to talk to you.”
“You guys are still angry about Tamok, aren’t you? Look—”
Expressing his irritation, Z4 said, “I don’t care about Tamok.”
“It was Ambassador T’Kala, she—”
“We know whose fault it was, Ne’al, that’s not what this is about.”
Ne’al threw up its hands. “Come on, Mr. Blue, you guys have—”
“Us guys haven’t been doing anything. It’s all been Xeldara Trask—the rest of us know it was Ambassador T’Kala’s fault.”
Putting its hands back down, Ne’al said, “Oh. So what is this about?” It took a seat in Z4’s guest chair.
“The president’s itinerary tomorrow has her leaving for San Francisco for the dedication of the new museum at 2000.”
Ne’al nodded. “True.”
“That event starts at 2100.”
“Also true.”
Z4’s antennae curled in annoyance. “Any particular reason for that one-hour gap?”
Shrugging, Ne’al said, “Because that’s how long it takes to get to San Francisco from Paris by shuttle.”
“It takes five seconds by transporter, and she’s got one right next to her office.”
Ne’al nodded again. “I know, but the president’s transporter’ll be down at that time. Regular maintenance cycle.”
Z4’s antennae were now about to curl into his head. “You do know that there’s this big transporter bay down on the second floor, right? That hasn’t been removed by Breen saboteurs or anything, has it?”
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