Alex grinned. ‘And – things are good?’ He asked, with some delicacy. Davie’s last letter had indicated that he and his father were having one of their occasional differences of opinion. In which, it went without saying, his father was entirely in the wrong, bullish, obstinate and beyond any reasoning with.
‘Oh – yeah,’ Davie looked abashed for a moment, remembering the fiery tone in that letter. ‘It was a spat,’ he admitted, and explained, ‘He wants a yacht on Carrearranis, and a house – his own island.’
Alex’s eyes widened. Andrei Delaney was not the only person to want that. Wealthy individuals and corporations had recognised at once the unparalleled boasting rights of owning ‘a little place’ on the newly discovered world. And there were, after all, thousands of uninhabited islands – tens of thousands, if you included the smaller atolls. Only five hundred and ten of the planet’s islands were inhabited, all of them in the near-equatorial zone with its sub-tropical climate. There had once been five hundred and twelve, but two had been abandoned after a volcano and mega-storm, respectively, had rendered them uninhabitable.
The Carrearranians had never expanded beyond their original settlements – not in all the ten thousand years since the Olaret had founded their colony. Their villagers were clustered around the ‘singing stones’, the plinths which had enabled them both to communicate between islands and with the Guardian. And this did not look like changing any time soon, even though they had personal comms now and high speed hydrofoils as well as their traditional sailing boats. Carrearranians just didn’t see any point in starting new villages – why would they do that? Their home was not just the island where they lived on, anyway, but all the islands and atolls within their reach, between them providing for all the resources that the village needed. To spread themselves out further would serve no purpose other than to destroy their communities. And even with vastly increased resources at their disposal now, with ships arriving every day, they were not inclined either to increase their population or their spread across the planet.
But nor were they, even before they’d been advised on the matter, inclined to sell or even lease their islands to offworlders. They’d leased one to the Diplomatic Corps, which had become the mission base and visitor centre, but had agreed as a global policy that they would not allow any further purchase or development even on the tiniest, most barren island.
And that, really, should have been that, with a firm refusal returned to all the many billionaires, corporations and entrepreneurs keen to grab a little bit of paradise. Andrei Delaney should not be any exception to that.
‘He offered it to the Diplomatic Corps,’ Davie explained, and Alex understood. Andrei Delaney owned many houses across many worlds… estates, really, including some of historical importance. He rarely stayed at any of them for long and some he’d never visited at all. But when he wasn’t using them himself, they were at the disposal of the Diplomatic Corps, to be used as retreats for visiting presidents and the like, and for exodiplomacy. Solarans had stayed at his houses, many times, in suitably modified rooms. So, if he built a palatial residence on Carrearranis, on an island away from the tourists and with a luxury yacht thrown in, the Diplomatic Corps could certainly make use of that for VIP or exodiplomatic visitors. Andrei himself might only visit once, if at all. But he would be the man, the only man, who owned a private island on Carrearranis.
‘I was not happy,’ Davie said, and Alex could see why. Davie himself was the primary investor at Carrearranis, having won the contract to supply the necessary infrastructure there. His many corporations, in fact, were under orders to give them whatever they asked for.
But that was the point – the crucial point which had won him that contract. He was not interfering, not pushing development on his own agenda, merely serving as supplier, providing no more than what the government of Carrearranis themselves decided upon. ‘Government’ there meant both the Carrearranian Council and the Protectorate, working together. And in that, the Council had ultimate veto on any development they did not want on their world.
‘He was muscling in,’ Davie said. ‘And what he wanted to do there was crass – zero sensitivity, of course, a huge pink yacht with mirror windows – yes, okay, but I’m serious, he’d come up with some ideas for the house design and décor, and the yacht he fancied, and trust me on this, it would make the Entrepus look bland.’ He grimaced. ‘I… expressed my opinion.’
‘Ah,’ said Alex, with sympathy.
‘I won, kind of,’ said Davie. ‘At least I got him to drop the fantasy castle and pink yacht. We agreed that he would offer funding to the Corps for a retreat, and a yacht, and that if that’s accepted by the Council and Protectorate, design, décor and ownership will be theirs. He’s offering funding for quarian facilities, too, but then, he’s splatting those around just about everywhere.’
Alex couldn’t help but laugh – Andrei Delaney certainly was very enthusiastic in his promotion of human-quarian relationships. Any world which decided they would welcome quarian visitors at some future date would be offered fully equipped aqua-dome facilities by the Embassy… not at their own or taxpayers’ expense, but donated by unnamed philanthropic sponsors.
‘Anyway, we’re good now,’ Davie said, with the affection he generally displayed for his father when the two of them were at least fifty light years apart. ‘And you?’ He looked at Alex with those bright, preternaturally intelligent eyes, and Alex did not even try to pretend he didn’t understand that Davie was looking to see whether Alex knew about what his ex-wife had done.
‘Yes, I’m good,’ said Alex, with a sense of contentment he knew Davie would see was sincere. Davie was not empathic, himself – his father had asked for him to be engineered without the empath gene, something quarians had agreed to, however odd it seemed to them, accepting that it would be extremely difficult for a quarian-level empath to grow up amongst humans. So Davie was effectively esper-blind, with little instinctive awareness of the feelings of others. He made up for that, though, with superhuman observation and analytical abilities, reading micro-expressions far more swiftly and accurately than Alex would ever achieve. ‘I do know,’ he said, knowing that he did not need to be any more specific than that. ‘But it’s all right.’
Davie nodded, though still looking at him intently.
‘And Silvie?’ he asked. ‘Is she okay with it?’
‘I don’t think she knows,’ Alex said. ‘I only found out myself yesterday. And she doesn’t watch, does she?’
He meant holovision – any kind of holovision, whether it be news, magazines, movies or any sort of entertainment. Quarians were just not engaged by holovision. Without empathic connection, for them, it was like trying to watch holos with the screen so dark that you could barely see it, and half the soundtrack missing.
‘And if she does find out,’ Alex said, ‘She’ll be all right, because I am.’
Davie conceded that with a little shrug, hitching up his ankle to rest on the opposite knee and reaching for another bun.
‘Okay,’ he said, and having rammed one bun effortlessly down his gullet, reached for another. ‘Anyway, I only called in to say hi – got some boss-stuff to do on Karadon.’ He flicked Alex a mischievous grin. ‘Giving them five minutes,’ he explained, ‘to come to alert.’
Alex laughed. Very few of the employees aboard Karadon or the ISiS Corporation in general would be what the Families called ‘Shareholder Aware’. If they prided themselves on being well informed in such matters they might just know that members of the Founding Families owned some of the corporation’s shares. But it would need a forensic accountant to figure out that there was in fact one majority shareholder effectively controlling the corporation.
Quill knew, and had accepted the fact that the owner of the station was a kid with superhuman genetics. He would never be on the kind of terms that Alex was with Davie, though, as Quill could never look at him without seeing the kid with superhuman genetics. And to Alex, he was just Davie. But ev
en the lowest ranking janitor on Karadon would have been told by now to prep the station for an uber-VIP. And one look at the glorious yacht riding in orbit would tell them all that someone very rich and important was coming to visit.
The Stepeasy was glorious, too. It was, in fact, the same size as the destroyer – the prototype of the Defender class. It had glossy white paintwork and its guns were rather more discreetly concealed, but even a groundsider could see at a glance that the ships were the same size, the same shape, with their long sweeping angles. The Stepeasy even had a hangar bay like the Assegai’s, which in their case carried a gunboat sized tender. It had, though, a very much smaller crew, most of them ex-Fleet, along with a cohort of business staff handling corporate affairs.
‘I’m going,’ Davie mentioned, ‘to hijack Quill… he’s done everything here we could have hoped for, and more, and I don’t want him getting stale.’
There was an undertone to that remark – one of the reasons the drugs gangs had got away with using Karadon so blatantly and for so long had been the absolute refusal of its former director to believe that such a thing was even possible aboard his station. He had, it turned out, been suffering from social closure – not having left the station for years, his world-view had narrowed and narrowed to the point where the station became all-important and whatever might be happening on planets was just vague and far, far away. Policies had been brought in since making it mandatory for management to make regular visits to planets, with far more movement between stations, too, to keep people fresh. Alex was a little surprised, though – Davie had gone to some trouble to recruit Quill for that role at a time when the future of the station, certainly as a tourist destination, had been in some doubt. Quill had turned things around, restoring the station to the thriving hub it was now. It was ISiS Corps’ flagship station, too, so moving him anywhere else would look like a demotion.
‘I want to build a next-gen station to replace ISiS Kavenko,’ Alex told him, seeing the flicker of concern for his friend which was so obvious to him on Alex’s face.
‘Oh, I see.’ Alex said. The existing station there was very small and clearly inadequate for the traffic they were experiencing already – traffic that was only going to increase as Carrearranis was developed. ‘And you want Quill to manage it?’
‘I want him to build it,’ Davie said, and as Alex’s eyes widened, ‘Not personally, of course – project management, big budget, latest tech, next generation standards, yes?’ He gulped another bun, and flicked another grin. ‘And once he’s pulled that off,’ he said, ‘I want him on the Board.’
‘Ah,’ said Alex, and contemplated for a moment the very different directions their lives had taken since he and Quill had been cadets together. ‘He’ll love that,’ he observed, meaning the project to build a new design of deep space station, rather than a future as a high-powered corporate executive.
‘Well, I hope so,’ Davie said. The job offer would come with a penthouse apartment on Flancer, an office building with several hundred staff at his disposal and a breath-taking financial package with a host of benefits not the least of which would be exclusive use of a fast, luxurious executive yacht. And Davie would not even mention any of that, knowing very well that what would really lure Quill into this would be the opportunity to create his dream station. ‘But if he calls and asks your advice,’ Davie requested, ‘Please tell him yes, of course, Quill, do it!’
Alex grinned – Quill had asked his advice back when Davie first offered him the job on Karadon, not because he didn’t want the job but because he wanted to be sure that it was all above board.
‘I don’t think he’ll ask me this time,’ he said, and was right, at that, since the next time he saw him Quill told him delightedly about the offer Davie had made, and his acceptance.
This was at the dinner that evening, over aperitifs – or as Simmy said, opratiffs – with the guests arriving in ones and twos over a quarter of an hour or so. They were having drinks and nibbles in the daycabin, which Simmy had spruced up for the occasion with a floral display and fairy lights. The floral display had been provided – tactfully – by the Assegai’s own chief steward, who’d done his best to guide Simmy through the protocols of a dress dinner. Simmy, though, had a sublime confidence in her own management of the dinner, rooted in her understanding that The Captain really hated all that stuffy pompous crapola and would appreciate her bringing a little fun to the event. So she had, having looked at the very formal flower arrangement – siliplas, of course, there were no real flowers to be had out here –decided it was too dull for words and found some pretty twinkling lights to liven it up.
‘That’s, um…’ Min eyed the festive sparkles with a dubious glance, but just at that point, Simmy appeared in front of her, flourishing a silver platter.
‘Horsedurrs, mum?’
‘Uh… thank you.’ Min took a tiny nibble and watched with a kind of awe in her eyes as Simmy gave her a big beaming smile, span on her toes and flitted away. Someone had told Simmy that a well-trained steward should glide with grace and serenity. Simmy’s glide was more that of a comedy ballerina. And as a nearby guest declined the platter being thrust towards him with an assurance that he’d already had some, Simmy told him cheerfully, ‘It’s okay – you can have two.’
Min looked at Alex, with much communication in her eyes, and he gazed back, oh, so innocent.
She’d been told he had a wicked sense of humour, and had had many a laugh with him since Chartsey, too. But she was starting to see now what they meant by wicked. Alex was having fun.
And it was, too, amongst friends. The dinner was formal; just the kind of event a flag officer would be expected to hold while his ship was in port. All of the guests were those who would be expected, too – skippers and senior officers, station management, the Diplomatic Corps.
But all of them, to some degree or another, were Alex’s friends. Even people he had only met that day, like the Customs skipper and the Diplomatic Attaché, had got past cold formalities to get on easy terms with him – and if Alex had made some efforts in that direction himself, with this evening in mind, it had worked. Everyone here was someone he could have a laugh with.
That did not, however, mean that they were necessarily on easy terms with one another. When Davie turned up, resplendent in a Diplomatic Corps tuxedo, Min looked as if she might need something rather stronger than the alcohol-free champagne cocktail in her hand. She had already asked Alex, finding a private moment with him before the party, if he had known that the Stepeasy would be joining them here.
‘No,’ Alex had told her, with a smile, ‘But I’m never surprised when Mr North turns up.’
He showed no surprise then, either, though he had not in fact invited Davie to the dinner. Davie, after all, never attended such events, declining even presidential invitations.
‘Ambassador North…’ he greeted him. Davie was in full regalia – the swallow tailed tuxedo with the silk cravat which was the Diplomatic Corps’ dress uniform, with the ruby silk sash of his Ambassadorial Order a diagonal, shoulder to hip.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Davie glanced down at his attire with satisfaction. ‘Worth being an Excellency just for the suit.’ He glanced Alex up and down, in his high-collared black tunic with its array of honours. ‘Aren’t we grand?’ As he spoke, Simmy was approaching him in a hurtling glissade, handing him an entire platter of hors d’oeuvre with a look of frank admiration. ‘Thanks,’ Davie said, and commenced devouring them while not apparently doing anything of the sort. ‘I’ll have another,’ he told Simmy, and she gave an eager nod and hurtled off again, dodging around a couple of guests who were standing in the way.
So she had been expecting Davie, Alex realised. And she had been told about his unusual dietary requirements. But Davie was already looking at Min, evidently waiting for Alex to introduce them. So Alex, reminded of his duties as host, however absurd it seemed when he knew them both so well, duly made the introductions.
‘Sk
ipper Min Taylar… His Excellency, League Ambassador North.’
‘Your Excellency.’ Min seemed unsure whether to offer a salute or a handshake, and in the event settled for a polite half-bow of the head.
‘Davie, please,’ said Davie, and held out the platter, which still held a few of the delicate little fancies so lovingly crafted by the Assegai’s top chef. ‘Horsedurr?’ he offered.
A tiny little croaking sound came from deep in Min’s throat, which she covered with a hasty cough and an apology. She did not know what to make of Davie North, at all. There was this elven youth in the grandest of tuxedos, like a supermodel, but he was a League Ambassador, which was disconcerting enough in itself. And beyond that, she was aware, very keenly aware, that this young man had been responsible for the R&D and building of the ship she commanded, from bringing together the team to design it to building a new shipyard to bring their vision to fruition. Min was from Mandram, the League’s biggest ship-builders, and she knew how huge that investment and endeavour had been, with Vetris becoming one of the planet’s major shipyards and significant employers.
And that was him, Davie North, founding that company from scratch and pouring mind-boggling investment into it. And from her own knowledge of when Vetris had set up at Mandram, she knew, he could only have been ten or eleven at the time.
It was a lot to take in, as were the facts that the young man offering hors d’oeuvre with that cheeky twinkle in his eye was genetically more quarian than human, and one of the wealthiest people in the League.
‘Uh,’ she said, and with that, the platter was empty, anyway.
‘Got to be fast,’ Davie observed, having popped the last nibble into his mouth and swallowed it. With that, turning to discard the platter onto the nearest surface, he spotted the flower arrangement with its brightly flashing fairy lights. ‘Now that,’ he observed, with an air of deep appreciation, ‘is genius.’ He gave Alex a nod, as if of approval. ‘I love art that subverts the form.’
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