Assegai

by S J MacDonald

  She was confused. ‘The pebble?’

  ‘The planet.’

  She stopped dead, let go of his hand.

  ‘You did not!’ she gasped, and gave him a little push on the arm as if retaliating against a leg-pull. ‘Alex!’

  ‘Did so,’ he said, with a grin. ‘The pebble is all there is left. Brought it back with me, see, as a souvenir.’

  ‘Oh my God – you’re not serious! You can’t be serious!’ She was half laughing, half aghast.

  ‘I am, though,’ he said, and turned a look on her which held a completely serious apology. ‘It was a combat training exercise; we needed a big target. That sized target. It didn’t have any life, had never had any life and was never going to get any life, not a microbe. So it was, you see, a viable target. But I did take a moment, first, to watch the sun rise. Call me daft, if you like, but I felt it was only right – courteous, I suppose – to pay my respects. What to, I dunno, perhaps to the cosmos, but nothing that defined. But… yes, I’ve seen things. And done things, too, I can’t tell you about.’

  His gaze was searching, a little worried. Is this a problem? Is this going to frighten you off? But it had to be said, he felt sure of that – if this was going to be anything more than a sightseeing trip, she had to know him, the real Alex, not the one she’d seen holos about.

  ‘Huh,’ she said. ‘You are serious.’ Then, having taken a breath, looking searchingly at him in return, ‘You obliterated a planet… a whole planet.’ At his slight nod, with a rising note, ‘You wouldn’t destroy an inhabited… no,’ she broke off, speaking sternly. ‘Forget that!’ she said. ‘I did not say that. Because if I thought for one instant that there was any possibility in this universe that the answer to that might be yes, I’d be on that bike heading as far and as fast away from you as I could get. But it isn’t yes, I know it isn’t, and it never could be yes. It was just an exercise, and… serve and protect, I get it.’ She drew another breath, and looked at him, and it was apparent to him that she would not object if he kissed her, right now.

  He smiled, and held out his hand. Kissing her when she was so off-balance would feel like taking advantage. And besides, he had no intention of kissing her in the middle of a public street.

  Migan reached out too and took his hand, relaxing again and giving him a smile.

  ‘You’re an amazing person, Alex,’ she said. ‘Really amazing. And me, I’m in town planning on the World the League Forgot. No – please,’ she silenced him when he would have protested. ‘I know what this is,’ she said. ‘I know all it can be, the attraction of opposites, as our lives pass one another. You want, just for a little while, to be part of a small, quiet, simple life so very different from your own. And me, I would like to share that with you, like a time out, I suppose, from your world, into mine. But I think it only fair to tell you – have to be honest – that I would be making shameless use of you. I am,’ she laughed, a little pink but determined, ‘So much on the rebound, you wouldn’t believe… have more or less patched up a thoroughly trashed self-esteem and what was left of my dignity, but I’d be lying if I said anything other than that I’m looking for consolation, validation, and the opportunity to give a big fat geercha! at everyone who sees me as an object for compassion. So, you know, having a mad fling with this hugely famous superstar hero… I am way up for that.’

  ‘I’m… rebounding too,’ Alex said, and only then fully admitted it even to himself. ‘And I like you… very much. But it is only fair for me to say – have to be honest – there are serious security issues, things we have to discuss, if we…’

  ‘Oh, hush,’ she said, and put a finger to his lips, sending a shiver right through him. ‘I have already had that talk,’ she said, ‘With four different people, including the League Ambassador and a couple of guys I think were secret agents. Would I be mad in guessing they were LIA? No, I know, you can’t answer that. But I’ve had the talk, Alex, and been vetted, and signed the paperwork!’

  ‘Oh.’ He said, and realising what hoops she must have been put through since the previous evening, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. It was thrilling.’ She tucked her arm through his, snuggling closer, and laughed. ‘A glimpse into your world, I think. Anyway, I know the risks, I’m fine with it, the Ambassador says the Embassy guys will take care of me if need be, and they’ve got me an intersystem court order which stops the media identifying me even on other worlds - pretty cool, huh?’

  Alex grinned, and as the hyper-responsible part of him started to surface, slapped it down again, emphatically. Migan was fine, and would be fine, she knew what risks there were and he knew that she would be protected. And he could not, he just couldn’t, face the prospect of spending the rest of his life too scared to be with anyone.

  But their time that afternoon was running out. He had to be back at the Embassy in time to get changed and head up to the ship, where he was… oh lord… hosting the dinner for President Prince Glynvawr. They were making their way back towards the bike park, their pace getting slower and more reluctant with every metre they got closer to parting.

  ‘All right,’ he joked, ‘let’s shamelessly exploit one another – my thrilling world for your peaceful one, and rebound validation galore.’

  She laughed, and leaned against his shoulder as they walked.

  Alex felt deeply content. This was more than a mere physical attraction. However brief their time together might be, there was an honesty between them, a frank understanding, a meeting of minds. And a delightful, intoxicating meeting of bodies, too.

  So talk turned, then, to where they might meet next – and where. It was tacitly understood between them that they would like that to be somewhere a little more private, but Alex did not really want to invite her back to his apartment at the Embassy. There were far, far too many politely blank faces to get past, there! And she, of course, lived with her parents and shared a room with her sister.

  ‘I know!’ Migan stopped a few metres short of the bikes, struck by a thought, and reached for her comm. ‘We’ll go to the croff,’ she said, ‘just give me a minute.’

  She tapped the circle of thin plastic stuck to her left wrist, activating a comm screen and making a call. She had set it so that Alex could see too, moving back up close to him when he would have stepped away politely. ‘Calling Aunt Migan,’ she told him, and added, as she waited for the call to be picked up at the other end, ‘You’ll like her.’

  A wrinkled, weather-beaten woman appeared on the screen, looking back at Migan with appraisal and enquiry in her shrewd, watchful eyes. She had the same fine arched eyebrows as her great-niece, Alex saw, and the same firm set of her chin.

  ‘Hello, Auntie,’ Migan greeted her, and with no further ado, ‘I’m going to need the croff, okay?’

  Aunt Migan’s expression changed to a look which combined concern with severity.

  ‘It does you no good,’ she stated, ‘to go off moping by yourself. What you need is a…’

  ‘Auntie!’ Migan interposed, and it was apparent from the older woman’s reaction that she was not used to being interrupted. ‘I am not going on my own,’ Migan said, forestalling what was obviously going to be a formidable lecture on manners. ‘I’ve met someone.’

  ‘Dio, Dio Vir!’ Gratification spread across Aunt Migan’s face. ‘Who is it? Do I know him? What do your parents think?’

  ‘I haven’t taken him home,’ said Migan, at which her aunt’s jaw dropped perceptibly.

  ‘Young woman!’ she said, drawing herself up as the matriarch she was, ‘If you think I’m going to let you go off to the croff with some man we’ve never even…’

  For answer, without saying anything, Migan simply angled the comm so that her aunt could see Alex standing beside her.

  Alex saw the puzzlement, that moment in which she was startled by an obvious offworlder – which he was, even in local attire, with his short cropped, grey flecked hair and glacier-grey eyes. Then the moment in which she was sure she’d seen him somewhe
re… on the news? Then the moment when the penny dropped.

  Aunt Migan guffawed. ‘Go girl!’ she said, with the heartiest approval. She had a filthy laugh, and a way of looking at him which made Alex feel a blush starting somewhere round his knees and rising fast. He was glad when Migan turned the comm away so that the head of her family could no longer see him. ‘Croff’s yours!’ her aunt told Migan, with another fruity chuckle. ‘I’ll have Dafid and his lot out of there in ten minutes!’

  ‘No need – tomorrow will be lovely,’ Migan assured her, but the aunt waved that away with firm dismissal.

  ‘He’s there too much as it is,’ she said. ‘All yours, Migan!’

  She ended the call with a cackle which brought to mind fairy-tale witches rubbing their hands over a cauldron, and Migan grinned at him. ‘Told you you’d like her.’

  ‘Uh.’ Said Alex, and Migan burst out laughing. With, Alex noticed, just a little hint of the ripe old-lady guffaw she would have herself, one day.

  ‘Don’t tell me that you - you - are scared of my Aunt Migan!’

  ‘Terrified!’ said Alex, and as they both laughed, told her, ‘One of the toughest people I’ve ever met is an old lady on Carrearranis – stands about yay high,’ he indicated about the level of his midriff, ‘and has never been further than the neighbouring island. She’s quite fond of me really, but is firmly of the view that I’m an idiot and tells me so, straight. She and your Aunt Migan would get on like a house on fire.’

  Migan exclaimed and laughed at that, and they stood there, talking, quite forgetting the need to head back to the bikes. And they were still there, half an hour later, when Alex got a discreet call asking if he’d like the car to pick them up from Turu, as there wouldn’t be time for them to ride back to the Embassy house as had been intended.

  So they left the bikes there to be collected by Embassy staff, talking and talking till the very last moment when Alex had to get out of the car, leaving it to go on and take Migan home.

  ‘Good day, Alex?’ Min enquired, when he arrived aboard ship an hour or so later. It was late morning shipboard time, and would be mid-afternoon in President Prince Glynvawr’s personal time zone, too, but he too was used to eating ceremonial dinners at odd hours. The timing of this meal, at President Prince Glynvawr’s own insistence, had been to Alex’s convenience.

  ‘Very good, thanks,’ he said. ‘Been doing some sightseeing – you?’

  ‘All good,’ she said, and as they walked aft from the airlock, ‘The guests are on schedule, I’m told the dining room is ready, and the balloon is ready to go up.’

  ‘Oh,’ Alex said, deliberately misunderstanding this jibe. ‘Are there balloons, too?’

  ‘Ptchah!’ Min spluttered, and grinned. ‘If there is bunting,’ she said, ‘I warn you, Alex, I will howl!’

  There was no bunting. There were no fairy lights, either, and the pirate-hoard of gold tableware was not in evidence. With the greatest of tact, Alex had commended his adjutant for the initiative he’d shown at Karadon, and had sent him off with clear instructions to bring back a dinner service more to his own, Alex’s, taste.

  The result was a table which might have been a little on the minimalist side, with its plain white dishes, angular glasses and austere cutlery. The dishes, however, were the finest of porcelain, the glasses rock crystal, and the cutlery silver. The only table decoration was a single, curious abstract by a Camag artist who sculpted in duralloy. The overall effect was one of restrained elegance, entirely suited to the dignity of a flag officer entertaining VIP guests.

  And to Min’s great relief, Simmy was on her dignity, too. She was a lot smarter than people gave her credit for, after all, and understood very well that the dinner at Karadon had been a bit of fun the captain was having, encouraging her to liven up the kind of stuffy dinners captains were expected to hold.

  This time, though, it wasn’t the captain’s mates who were coming to dinner, it was a prince. And a prince who was the system president, to boot. There were other guests too, of course – the League Ambassador, the Port Admiral, people like that. But as far as Simmy was concerned the only one who really mattered was President Prince Glynvawr. She had been training and practising every chance she got, almost all the way from Karadon, to be a credit to the captain when he held a proper VIP dinner for real. And though she was nervous, with a tendency to turn scarlet every time she even thought she might do something wrong, her service of drinks and hors d’oeuvre was silent and did not, today, include hurtling through the reception like a demented ballerina. Nor did her service at table involve snarling back off, buddy at a fellow steward, thumping a guest on the back or giggling at the table conversation. A purist might observe that she had not yet quite mastered the art of gliding, as her movements did sometimes resemble those of a self-conscious, slow-motion ice skater. But at least, as Min observed thankfully, it was quiet.

  And President Prince Glynvawr, as Alex had said, was perfectly charming. Simmy could have shoved horsedurrs under his nose, spilled soup down his tuxedo, sneezed in his ear and trodden on his foot and President Prince Glynvawr would have borne it all without complaint, assuring her with smiling urbanity that it was nothing at all to be concerned about. As it was, he was able to thank his host for a most enjoyable dinner with honesty as well as courtesy, giving Simmy a smile that she would, as she said, treasure in her memory box for always. Alex commended her, too, leaving her dancing for joy as he headed back down to the Embassy himself.

  He was given a lift there, in fact, by the Port Admiral, seizing the opportunity for a few minutes in private with him as the shuttle made its way down from ship to air to ground in a series of decelerations.

  ‘I suppose you have to do it,’ he said, looking at the image of Camae as they approached, and giving a little sigh. ‘I mean, I know you have to do it. But honestly, Alex, this was the best kept secret in the League.’

  Alex tried to look apologetic, but grinned instead. He had detected very quickly, a distinct lack of enthusiasm in Port Admiral Dulsta for the Assegai’s visit, which he’d thought at first might be anti-Fourth opinions or even jealousy.

  It had not taken him long, though, to realise that he had entirely the wrong end of the stick. Bemmy Dulsta was actually a captain, the title of Port Admiral being more of a job description and the port at Camae really not meriting the appointment of an actual admiral. It was a posting, though, which was to be a step on the way to Dulsta being promoted to admiral in a career progression which would see him recalled to Chartsey. There, he would spend at least a year working at Admiralty HQ before a very much more important high command posting.

  Or at least, it would have. Bemmy Dulsta’s would go down as yet another of the careers which had come to Camae to die. He was only waiting, he told Alex, till the Admiralty sent out the officer who’d replace him, and when that happened he would quit. He would, as he was fully entitled to do, give the Fleet three months’ notice that he was resigning his commission, promptly take three months leave and walk away. He was staying on Camae. He had, following a pattern established so long ago by the first of the Lamarre family to settle here, met and married a local girl, settled down here, and never wanted to leave.

  ‘I know, it’s beautiful,’ Alex said. ‘And life here is amazing, I can see why people want to preserve it, ‘perfect as it is.’ But they do want more visitors, Bemmy, they want the status and involvement they’re entitled to as a League Member World, and we do have to respect that.’

  ‘They have no idea,’ Bemmy said heavily, ‘what they’re asking for. No disrespect, Alex, and no blame to you, either, I know you’re doing what they’re asking for, and on principle, yes, sure, they’ve a right to decide what they want and we have a duty to support them in that. But Dio, Dio, Alex – can you imagine the impact if liners swarm in here, treating the place like a damn theme park? And how do you think these gentle, charming people will cope in the cut-throat, backstabbing world of League politics?’

  It was a
point of view which Alex was starting to suspect was shared by the League Ambassador to Camae.

  He did not say anything until he was sure. It was a more than sensitive matter, after all, to even hint a suggestion that the League Ambassador was more inclined to act against League interests here than to promote them.

  The next day, though, he was sure. He was able to spend some time with Ambassador Suri alone – right alone, and away from any prying ears – when she suggested they might sit up on the roof garden to have their morning coffee. The roof garden was her particular refuge. It wasn’t much of a garden, really, just some greenery in tubs, but it was quiet up there, with sound-baffle and camera-dazzle shielding.

  ‘That went very well, I thought,’ she said, referring to the media call they’d just returned from. Alex had given his usual stone-faced performance, but the journalists, mostly, had seemed satisfied.

  ‘Tuh,’ said Alex. He’d been annoyed by one of the questions, which said more about how quickly he’d got used to Camag media than about how offensive the question had actually been.

  He had never seen anything quite like the way the media on Camag operated. Even on Telathor, the media saw themselves as guardians and monitors of truth, always on the alert and probing for the authorities trying to put any kind of misinformation past them.

  Here on Camag, the media accepted and broadcast any statement handed to them by official sources. They might call to clarify a point if they felt it was ambiguous, but they operated, always, on the assumption that the authorities were telling the truth. There was no school of investigative journalism here, no paparazzi, no pack of live-channel journos howling after any kind of drama that might give their channel a momentary edge over competitors. Most of the news on Camag was local – highly local, with regional news the most watched, then national, and global news running it a very long way third. Most journalists worked in offices, compiling broadcasts from official statements and from stories and footage their viewers called in. And there were no offworld journalists here, no intersystem station maintaining even a nominal office. By his third daily media call with them, Alex was so much at his ease that he very nearly smiled.