Kris Longknife - Emissary

by Mike Shepherd

  “And those are?” Amanda asked.

  “Nelly, call up the pertinent part of my official orders.”

  Beside the written version of Ron’s suggested title for Kris now appeared her formal instructions.

  “You will function as my Royal Emissary in all ways, establishing an Embassy to the Imperial Court and representing us in all factors, diplomatic, economic, political and military. You are empowered to negotiate treaties and agreements that will be submitted to the appropriate bodies for ratification.”

  Kris walked over to the screen and ran her hand along the words. “I had thought the ‘appropriate bodies,’ that would be ratifying my treaties was the Congress of the United Society. Now, was that intentionally left vague to blind-side me or did someone blind-side Ray?”

  “Gee,” Jack said, a sardonic smile on his lips, “six, seven years ago, they were all upset that you had gone off on your own and started a war with the alien raiders. Now they’re giving you power to negotiate for all humanity. My, what a few years on staff will do to gentle a gal’s reputation.”

  “Gentle is not a word I’ve ever heard applied to me,” Kris said, throwing Jack a scowl that curled up too much around the edges.

  “I know that,” Jack quickly said, “but does the rest of humanity?”

  “It appears that they are about to find out,” Kris said.

  “There is a third option, or possibility,’ Jacques said. Immediately, he had Kris’s attention. “The Iteeche asked for you by name, right?”

  “Yes,” Kris said.

  “Is it possible that they intended to treat you as a single point for all human contact and negotiations? Do we know what’s going on over on Ron’s flagship? Could he have negotiated in good faith and only now is discovering that he, himself, was cut out of some really byzantine goings-on at court?”

  Kris considered that for a moment, then scowled. “They’ve got this little civil war they failed to mention. They’ve gone out of their way to keep us in the dark about that. Yeah, Jacques, I could see some corkscrew minds thinking that if they could get me to bargain for all humans, the rest of humanity would just have to follow me. Or Ray. Could they really misunderstand we humans that badly?”

  That left everyone mulling their situation for a bit.

  “The semantic questions bother me. Are we sure Ron meant something so loaded?” Amanda asked. “Could it be that Ron just does not understand how loaded what he just said is? Nelly?”

  “I have been doing a very careful search of my linguistic data since this issue came up less than a half hour ago. I’ve also reviewed all the special requests for language that came in while Ron was meeting privately with the King.”

  “They made special requests of you?” Kris asked.

  “Not of me but rather of my data. They also managed to put those requests under lock until we left Wardhaven. I didn’t think to review them until now. The recommended title for you was the subject of several questions. I seem to have answered the questions, then placed the questions under Royal seal.”

  “Then you didn’t know, Nelly, what the result was.”

  “No, Kris. I didn’t know, but if I’d accessed the queries sooner, I might have seen this coming.”

  “Then again, without any context or the final product, you might not have,” Kris pointed out.

  “It is embarrassing to have allowed a human to get around me in that way. Your Grampa Ray is one sneaky bastard,” Nelly said, not sounding at all happy to have been outmaneuvered by a mere human.

  “Or Ron could have been jobbing him, too, Nelly,” Kris said. She remembered looking into her grampa’s eyes as he told her and Jack just how much he didn’t know about this mission he was sending Kris on. She had trusted him then. For now, she would continue to trust him.

  But he had a strike on him. One strike.

  She took a deep breath to rally her thoughts, then went on. “So, what have we got so far? Kris said.

  “A civil war no one mentioned,” Jack tossed in.

  “An embassy that may represent not just United Society and those other alliances that sent along representatives, but possibly more,” Jacques said.

  “How much more?” Amanda asked.

  “I know I’ve got five deputy ambassadors with me. Nelly, send to the Earth merchant ship and those others from alliances outside the five diplomatic spheres we have representatives from. Ask them if they are carrying any diplomatic missions.”

  “I’m doing so, now, Kris. Wait one.”

  Around Kris, the table fell silent. On the wall, an old-fashioned clock appeared and began ticking off the seconds. Kris found herself relaxing as she measured her breath by those ticks. Maybe she could learn to relax.

  “Kris, the Earth ship reports that it carries an Ambassadorial level official with orders to join you upon your request.”

  “Any more?”

  “Answers are coming in. Kris, I have six more ambassador level representatives. They are all under orders to wait to present themselves to you until you asked for them. Ah, one point, Kris. These twelve ambassadors represent over five hundred of the six hundred plus planets in human space. The remaining hundred are small, usually still in their start-up stage and dependent on a major planet for finances and development.”

  “Hmm. So, we’ve got the whole enchilada here and Grampa Ray either played me, or four other planetary associations played the both of us?” Kris grumbled.

  Agent Foile, who’d been silent so far, cleared his throat. “I seem to recall that both the King and our Prime Minister did not broadcast the invitation for ambassadors very far and wide.

  They may have thought there was too little time. They may have only wanted to pick from among the people they knew and thought were highly skilled and professional. I don’t know. What I do know is that those who were not invited to the table back at Wardhaven appear to have dealt themselves into the game. It’s familiar bureaucratic behavior to those of us who have spent out lives in a bureaucracy. Show up for a meeting whether you’re invited or not,” he said, with a shrug.

  “Does any of this really matter?” Jack answered, then raised both hands in his defense when Kris made to round on him, fists only just missing.

  “I wanted. No, I want to think that I’ve gotten smarter,” she said, settling back in her chair. “I swore to myself that I wouldn’t be led down the garden path. Again. Yet here I am. Again. I’m within a stone’s throw of the Imperial Palace and just now discovering my diplomatic mission is double its size and covers most of human space.”

  “My lovely wife, I think you were really tired of all the bureaucratic in fighting in Main Navy. Here was an important job. One with a whole lot hanging on its success. Of course you jumped at it before we finished looking as thoroughly as we might have if some people weren’t throwing up smoke screens to make sure we didn’t see what they didn’t want us to see.”

  “So it would appear,” Kris agreed. “Ron asked so nicely for me. This new job would get me free of all the back-stabbing at Main Navy. And it was so new. All sparkly and exciting and never done before. So I took it; hook, line, and sinker. When Ron disappeared for his little trip to all the Iteeche enclaves I should have smelled a rat.”

  “Your Highness,” said Jacques, sounding very deferential. “I don’t think you should be too hard on yourself. The Iteeche clearly did not come at this with open palms. The selection of the ambassadors we included was not a transparent process. Clearly those that were left out have gone to great lengths to weasel their way into your embassy. Based on several thousand years of human history, I can’t say I’m surprised. If they hadn’t done something like this, I’d be shocked.”

  Kris nodded, then said, dryly, “Thanks, Jacques. It’s nice to be told a Longknife can make human mistakes.”

  That got a laugh from those around the table.

  “You want to turn around?” Jack asked.

  “You know I’m not going to do that,” Kris spat.

 
; “I just thought you might want to get that out on the table for a quick look-see.”

  “We’re not going back. Grampa Ray is definitely right about one thing. If the Iteeche Emperor asks him for help with his little civil war, of course His Majesty would grant it. If the Emperor in his need was willing to offer to open up the Empire to full diplomatic and trade relationships with Humanity, you bet he’d jump at it.

  Kris looked around the table at her key staff. “For the last hundred years, we humans and the Iteeche have managed to ignore each other. But any thinking person knows that sooner or later bad was going to come of this wall we built between us. Sooner or later, some lieutenant or captain was going to screw up and we were going to be at each other’s throats. The wall has got to come down and we have to work together. Enough chipping a hole here, another one there. Let’s start treating each other like civilized people.”

  Kris paused to slam her fist on the table. “So, of course, I jumped at this job.”

  “And, of course, the king did, too. The Iteeche Emperor asked for the right woman for the job and he went along with it,” Jack pointed out. “Who but you could sort out this bucket of snakes?”

  Kris looked up at Jack. “You think I can?”

  “Who better, my beloved admiral? Who better?”

  Again, Kris took a deep breath. Her grandfather may have manipulated her younger self into bad, worse, and worst assignments, but she’d learned from every one of them. Now, no matter who was gaming whom, she was facing the biggest and baddest challenge of them all.

  She found she had to chuckle. She was actually looking forward to getting her teeth into this whole mess. If she was honest with herself, she’d been missing the excitement of the new and awful.

  “Nelly, send to the newfound ambassadors. Tell them to transmit their credentials to me by 0800 hours tomorrow. We will have a diplomatic reception aboard my flag as soon as we dock on the Imperial planet. Senior Special Agent Foile, will you do whatever background checks you can on these new additions to our great enterprise? I don’t expect any of them have known vendettas against anyone here, but I’d like to know who to steer clear of if I must.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” the head of her Secret Service detail answered.

  “Lieutenant Longknife, you will, no doubt, enjoy taking care of all the technicalities with the Forward Lounge.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” had far too much enthusiasm behind it.

  She’ll learn. Oh yes, she will learn. She’s a Longknife. They all learn. Or die.

  Chapter 28

  Kris spent the rest of the afternoon meditating on all that had been dropped on her. She was sure that her advisors had offered her the best they had, but was that all the advice she had available?

  “Nelly, give Grampa and Gramma Trouble my most sincere compliments and ask them if they might drop by my day quarters at their earliest convenience.”

  “I’ve asked. They are playing with the kids, but they’ll be here as soon as they can pry John off Trouble’s leg.”

  “Trouble’s leg?”

  “They were rough housing. Several of the four year olds were attacking the monster and doing their best to drag him down. I suspect they may win a bit faster than they normally do.”

  Kris could only shake her head. Shake her head, and feel deep in her heart a sense of loss. She should be the one playing the monster while their nannies tried to exhaust the children’s energy before supper.

  “Nelly, set me up a comfortable conversation group.” A small coffee table with two comfortable chairs and a couch appeared in one corner of Kris’s expanded day quarters, taking space from her night quarters. On the table, a pot of tea stood with several choice teas to choose from.

  Kris went back to her ruminations, examining the sensor take for the last two hours. It was huge. Even Nelly and her kids, controlling a massive server farm were having trouble figuring out what was worth extracting and what was minor communications of no import.

  Fifteen minutes after Kris’s request, her great-grandfather and great-grandmother knocked respectfully. “Enter,” Kris said.

  In theory, her five stars outranked Trouble’s four stars, but there was no way Kris would consider herself anything but outranked by these two. She stood and went to greet them.

  “You having a ball with the kids?” she asked as Gramma Ruth engulfed her in a hug.

  “Oh, I’d forgotten what fun a dozen four-year-olds could be. A barrel of monkeys has nothing on these tykes.”

  Kris went from one hug to the next from Grampa Trouble. Greetings done, she offered them seats. The elder couple took the couch together. Grampa took the seat closest to one of the chairs and that was the one Kris settled in. She offered them tea. The water was still hot. They poured for themselves and then sat back to quietly steep their tea.

  “You have a problem, Kitten?” Ruth finally asked.

  Kris, the grand admiral smiled at Ruth’s use of the endearment she’d given Kris harkening back to a younger, more innocent self. Still, her problem today was all grownup. Grownup and big, mean and nasty.

  “I need your opinion on Grampa Ray,” Kris said.

  “What’s he done this time?” Gramma Ruth drawled.

  “I’m not sure. That’s why I want to talk to you. You know him best.”

  “If any one does,” Ruth shot back.

  Kris nodded. “I suspect you’ve heard about the little civil war we’ve sailed into.”

  “Kind of hard to avoid it,” Grampa Trouble rumbled.

  “Very little misses your Grampa Trouble,” Ruth said. “Lots of people want to say they’ve talked to the great general, and he gets them talking and then pumps them for all they’ve got.”

  “Hey, what can I say? I’m good at gathering intelligence,” the old general said in his own defense. But he was smiling proudly while he said it.

  “Okay, do you think Ray knew about this little unpleasantness we’re sailing into?” Kris asked.

  The two elder warriors extraordinaire glanced at each other. Ruth leaned back into the couch as Trouble leaned forward. “That’s something we’ve been thinking about, Kris. I hope you know that we would have told you about this war if we’d known about it.”

  “I know you would have. Ray? I’m not so sure about.”

  Now Trouble leaned back, and it was Ruth’s turn to lean forward. The couple did it as if they had their own special Nelly Net to talk on. “You know I don’t have a whole lot of respect for that rascal Ray,” Ruth said.

  Kris knew about Ruth’s attitude toward their fellow Iteeche War commander and longtime friend. Great grandmother Trouble had never shared with Kris where this attitude sprang from, but she knew Ruth was sour on Ray.

  Ruth took a deep breath and shook her head as she continued. “Neither Trouble nor I picked up anything in our grapevine about civil war among the Iteeche. The appearance of that rebel fleet was just as much a surprise for us as it was for you. If we’d known, you can bet you’d have a larger escort or Trouble and I would have picketed that old bastard’s palace. Us and a whole lot of our friends.”

  Kris found herself chuckling despite the seriousness of their discussion. The mental image of these old war horses carrying picket signs, along with a whole lot of their friends, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren with greater grandkids in strollers would have been something to see.

  “Okay, for the moment, let’s assume we were all blindsided by Iteeche politics. I’ve got a second question. I’ve just gotten a name for myself from Ron, whom I thought was my Iteeche buddy. It seems I’m both emissary and speaker for humanity.”

  “Not the Royal US?” Grampa Trouble asked, his face a serious frown.

  “Nope, humanity. Oh, and I’ve discovered that I’ve got six or seven more ambassadors in my fleet, including one from Earth and the rump Society for Humanity.”

  Now both elders leaned back into the couch, looking very thoughtful.

  “My question to you is could Ray have warn
ed me, or even known that I was headed for a much bigger job and not bothered to tell me?”

  Now it was Ruth’s turn to chuckle. “You talk about mission creep.”

  Trouble snorted at that. “It ain’t got any better since our time, has it, honey?”

  Both shook their heads at that.

  It was Ruth who leaned forward first. “If you are asking me if that old SOB might have known about all the extra work he was slapping on you and not bothered to mention it to you, the answer is yes. He’s just the type to do that. But the question I think you really want us to answer is did he do that to you?”

  “Yes. I’m to stand in his stead at the Imperial Iteeche Court. Will I be doing it while mad as hell at him for doing this to me?”

  The two stared at each other for a long moment. Again, Kris had the impression that they were talking on their own private Nelly Net.

  Finally, Ruth shook her head. “I still have contacts in the Foreign Service,” she said. “I heard nothing about this mission being for all humanity. If anything, the folks I talked to were almost giddy, and I’d never seen them giddy before, about this coming to the US and them getting to set the tone for the rest of humanity.”

  “I agree,” Trouble said, now taking over from his wife. “There are people in the palace that will still talk to me. Everything I picked up was that Ray was kind of tickled that the Iteeche were asking for you, a Longknife. He also was doing everything within his power to help you succeed. Most people don’t know it, but Ray doesn’t have much actual power. He can ask, suggest, recommend, but most of the real power is with the planets. Wardhaven may have given you the US ambassador, but a whole lot of the other one hundred and seventy-three planets have people in the delegation. Everything I heard was that Ray was doing everything he could to make sure you got good people. That you wouldn’t have to waste a lot of time mediating between your own people.”