Quarus (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 6)
Page 26
To his relief, it was Davie who was the object of those outstretched arms. He was swept up by them, engulfed, as Papa lifted him off his feet and deposited a kiss on the top of his head.
‘Davie-Boy!’ he crowed, as if it had been months since he’d seen his son rather than a few hours. ‘Good boy!’ He dropped him back to the deck, beaming approval at him, and in the same moment turned to look at Alex, rather as if Davie had brought a gift and laid it at his father’s feet.
Alex looked up at him. Andrei Delaney, he knew, was in his sixties but he looked no older than Alex himself. He was massive – as Bull had told him, a great bear of a man. He seemed to occupy a good deal more space even than his physical bulk, with a personality that filled the space around him. He was, Alex noted, wearing a turquoise silk suit – natural spider silk, Alex guessed, and hand made for him, and was right on both counts. It didn’t occur to him that the buttons angled across the business-style tunic were of real emerald and diamond, but he would not have been surprised.
‘Well, well,’ said Papa, eyeing him with just the same fascinated scrutiny, ‘Alexis Sean von Strada. My son’s best friend, so he tells me.’ He seemed oblivious to how embarrassing this would be for Davie. And, having subjected Alex to that forensic scrutiny, he gave him a nod of qualified approval. ‘You,’ he told him magnificently, ‘may call me Uncle Andrei.’
‘Papa…’ Davie uttered, on a small, despairing note.
Alex did not grin – he was in formal mode here, stone-faced and giving nothing away. He was aware, though, that Papa’s offer there had been intended as a compliment, granting him the same familiarity as if he’d been a member of the Founding Families himself. And it was, if you thought about it as a grown up welcoming his son’s little playmate to their home, a friendly offer, too.
‘I don’t think I will, sir, but thank you.’ He did not offer to shake hands, but addressed the older man respectfully. That had nothing to do with Andrei Delaney’s wealth, which was vast, or his unacknowledged power in League affairs, which Alex had some issues with. It had everything to do with the fact that Andrei Delaney too was dedicated to the service of the League, which he served in his own way just as Alex did in his. Andrei Delaney, too, had been involved in exodiplomacy since his youth. He had no direct contact with Solarans because even at his quietest he was far too noisy for them to cope with, but he supported exodiplomacy in all manner of ways from funding to making his many homes available to the Diplomatic Corps. He had been an accredited goodwill ambassador, too, since before Alex himself was learning to toddle.
‘Sir!’ Andrei gave an amused snort at that, evidently finding it an entertaining novelty. Nobody in his world addressed him that way. He was ‘Mr Delaney’ to the menials and ‘Papa’ to his intimates. He hardly ever saw anyone from outside that highly restricted circle. Alex, in fact, was the first outsider he’d met for nearly two years. All other contact was filtered through his people. There were around thirty of them there right then, filling the corridor beyond. And they weren’t just following in a mob. All of them had their places in the retinue and adopted them according to the available space, with the security team in prime position and such service personnel as the valets waiting discreetly at the back. ‘If you’re going to ‘Sir’ me, I’ll have to ‘Excellency’ you,’ Andrei observed. ‘But come, come, come – come and have coffee, I know you like coffee.’
Alex was ushered along and into an arena which more than gratified his wish to see for himself how awful Andrei Delaney’s taste really was.
On a princess liner, this space would be the first class Promenade lounge. Alex discovered later that Andrei Delaney actually had the whole of the two first-class decks for his private use, with his retinue and crew occupying the rest. This was one of his sitting rooms, a lounge he tended to use when he wanted to walk about a bit. There was a promenade around the outside, like a gallery slightly above the central area. In that central area was a sunken lounge with an ovoid sofa, the rest of the space set about with a number of display cases. It looked more like an exhibit than somebody’s home.
And what an exhibit. When Bull had been attempting to describe to Alex how astounding Andrei Delaney’s homes were, he had said that it was as if a five year old had been let loose with an unlimited credit card.
And it was. There was no rhyme or reason to this décor, no theme, no kind of coherence. That Mr Delaney liked bright colour and sparkles was the only discernible style. Alex felt as if he was being clubbed by the décor – pink, yellow, glitter, twinkles – before he even tried to take in the enormities of the items on display. There was a cannon there, a real historical iron-cast cannon that looked as if it might have been lifted straight from a Canelonian castle, and there was a giant platinum manta-ray hanging from the ceiling, and a case of exquisite pottery being ruined by the colour-changing spot lamps on them, a vivarium with what appeared to be living snakes, a massive slab of rock which looked as if a giant had vomited several lurid paints over it, something which looked disturbingly like a real stuffed ostrich and oh, so much that Alex would have liked to look at but just couldn’t take it all in. Much of it, he felt sure, belonged in museums. But Andrei was already ushering him over to the sofa, gesturing and uttering a booming call for coffee.
Alex sat down facing him. Davie attempted to sit next to his father with a small distance between them, but was immediately swept in with an arm around his shoulders. Stewards glided in, setting small tables before each of them – pink crystal tables – and serving their drinks. Davie’s table held a lavishly furbished cake stand, while his father’s contained a display of small nibblesome savouries. Alex’s own table contained a pot of coffee with the accompaniments he liked, and his favourite kind of nut-chip cookie. Or at least, not quite his favourite kind of nut-chip cookie. It was inconceivable that Mr Delaney or his guests would be served with anything so low-class as manufactured food, so the chefs here would have prepared these cookies for him, the haute cuisine version.
‘So – good to finally meet you at last,’ Andrei declared, and giving him another look of appraisal now that they were seated, ‘You’ve had quite an influence on my son, Alex – I can call you Alex, yes?’
‘By all means, sir,’ said Alex. It didn’t matter to him one way or the other what Andrei Delaney called him – he would continue to keep a professional distance with ‘sir’, regardless.
‘Oh, I see,’ Andrei Delaney was amused, and showed it with a hearty guffaw. ‘Davie-Boy said you’re as touchy as a porcupine. Proud, too, won’t take any favours from anyone.’ He seemed more to approve of that than otherwise. ‘But I want you to know, I like what you’re doing – good work, pushing things on for the Fleet and for the League – and if there’s anything you’ll allow me to do to support you in that, any time, any way, you only have to let me know, okay?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Alex said coldly, with an undercurrent of not a chance in hell. He knew perfectly well that many of the things he’d asked to be done here had been provided and paid for by Andrei Delaney, but that was not his doing. He’d made his request to the relevant authorities and it had been up to them to decide logistics and funding.
Andrei roared with laughter at that, recognising it as the determined snub it was. ‘Por-cu-pine!’ he crowed, and gave his son a crushing sideways hug. ‘One to you, Davie-Boy,’ he acknowledged, and Davie just gave a tolerant grin, reaching for another cream cake.
‘That said,’ Andrei went on, in just the same hearty jovial manner, ‘I do have to ask, Alex, if you really are the right person to be heading up this particular mission – no disrespect intended to you whatsoever, but come on, I’m sure you can see – Davie-Boy was actually designed for this role, this purpose, and it’s just weird to have him playing second fiddle to someone who doesn’t have a fraction of his intellect and abilities.’
Alex did not look at Davie, though he was aware that Davie was gazing at the ceiling with a long-suffering give me strength expression.
‘I was appointed by the Senate, sir,’ he pointed out.
‘Yes, and I respect that, of course, obviously,’ Andrei said. ‘Their decision. But they agreed at little Silvie’s asking and I don’t think she was making the right call – she looks on you as a father, I get that, and you’re very protective and fond of her, I understand that too, but that doesn’t make you the best choice for ambassador; Davie-Boy is. So if she sees that and wants Davie-Boy, who is after all the obvious choice, you won’t kick up a problem over it, will you? Just step aside gracefully and follow Davie-Boy’s lead?’
Alex looked thoughtfully at Davie, who was paying fixed attention to the chandelier over their heads while eating a cream sponge. Then he looked back at Andrei, figuring it out. Little Silvie, he thought. Oh, of course. As far as Andrei was concerned, Silvie was family – Davie’s little cousin. And in his head, that gave him the right to comment on the choice she had made, just as if she was his niece.
‘Ambassador Silver can, of course, request my withdrawal at any time,’ Alex acknowledged. ‘And if Mr North is appointed ambassador and my orders are to support him in that role I would certainly do so to the best of my ability. I will not, however, withdraw from my appointment and I won’t advise Ambassador Silver to make any change at this stage, either.’
‘That’s a bit selfish,’ said the man who had eight hundred people on this ship to look after him, including one employed exclusively to attend him when he went to the lavatory. ‘But all right, I understand, you’ve got your appointment from the Senate and you’re going to cling on to it. But you won’t object, I take it, if I have a chat with little Silvie, myself?’
Alex found it necessary to take a keen interest in the chandelier, too. It was an eye-catching object, that was for sure – a thousand little lights were flicking and flowing around the mass of diamond drops, and tiny reflections were shifting all over the lounge like a super-expensive version of a child’s glitter ball.
‘No,’ he said, managing to bring his gaze back to Andrei Delaney and to speak with the self-control he’d learned as a boy. ‘I have no objection to that, sir.’
Davie, he knew, would be able to detect the slight tremor in his voice and interpret the heightened colour and brightness in his eyes. Davie would know very well how hard he was fighting not to howl with laughter, here. But then, Davie himself had closed his eyes at that point and was apparently saying a prayer.
‘Really?’ Andrei seemed astonished by that victory, as if he’d expected Alex to be a great deal more protective of Silvie and defensive of his own position.
‘Of course, sir,’ said Alex, and as he got his hilarity under some control, spoke more readily, ‘Naturally, you will want to meet her. She and Mr North are recognised as cousins and you will obviously have a familial as well as a diplomatic interest in meeting her. And if…’ he cleared his throat, ‘if you feel it appropriate to advise her on her choice of ambassador, I won’t raise any objection.’
‘Don’t do it, Papa,’ Davie begged. ‘Just do not go there. Silvie will slap you into marmalade. And I don’t want it anyway…’ He gave his father a hopeless, imploring look. ‘Can’t you understand how a tag-team works?’
‘A team,’ said Andrei, with the didactic certainty of a man who had not been told no or you’re wrong since his childhood, at least not until Davie started doing it, ‘is one leader and the rest. You cannot have two captains on a ship, or two ambassadors on a mission.’
‘Actually…’ Davie started, but his father gave a happy roar, crushed him and kissed the top of his head again.
‘Always with the actually,’ he observed, with doting affection. ‘Eat your cake, Davie-Boy.’
Davie gave Alex a look which conveyed apology and it is a total waste of time arguing with him, upon which he reached resignedly for the cakes.
Alex took a sip of his coffee, which was excellent, and put the cup back down.
‘So – when can I see our little Silvie, then?’ Andrei asked, apparently expecting Alex to fetch her there and then.
‘Oh – that’s up to her, sir,’ Alex said. ‘I’m sure she knows that you’re here…’ a nod from Davie confirmed that, ‘and she’ll come to see you whenever she chooses.’
‘But I am not allowed to go to her?’ Andrei queried, as if he found that hard to believe, ‘or even to call her directly?’
Alex shook his head. ‘At her own request,’ he said, ‘she’s gone swimming and has asked not to be disturbed. I wouldn’t call her myself, and we cannot allow anyone else to do so.’
‘Told you,’ said Davie, and licked cream from his fingers.
‘Manners,’ said his father, and it was unclear whether he meant the told you or the inelegant finger-licking. ‘So, how long do you think it will be, then?’ he went on, to Alex, with evident frustration. ‘We’ve been waiting here for days already and then before you’re even parked you whisk her off groundside without even a chance for me to say hello, and she is as good as family, you know.’
‘Yes sir, I know,’ said Alex. ‘But Ambassador Silver goes where she wants and when she wants – my job is not to control her, but to facilitate her wishes wherever that is safe and possible. She wanted to go swimming as soon as we got here, so…’ he gave a philosophical gesture. ‘As you said, sir, before we’d even parked. And I couldn’t say how long it will be before she gets in contact with you – I shouldn’t think, though, that it will be more than a day or two.’
Andrei looked for a moment as if he was going to protest that that was unacceptable, but then just grunted instead.
‘Stubborn porcupine,’ he commented, with a look which seemed to be half reproof and half reluctant admiration. ‘And there’s nothing I can offer you to make you change your mind?’
Alex drew himself bolt upright, no hint of laughter in him now as outrage flooded it away.
‘Sir!’ he said, and managed to pack a good deal of icy rebuke, offended honour and mighty dignity into that one small monosyllable.
Slightly to his surprise, Andrei gave a shout of laughter, slapping his son on the back in exuberant celebration.
‘Oh, you’re right!’ he told Davie, and with a bright-eyed, wolverine grin for Alex, ‘Hilarious!’ He mimed something which, with some difficulty, Alex guessed was meant to be a porcupine firing off its quills. ‘Don’t worry, son,’ said Andrei to Alex, with a kindly if patronising assurance, ‘I am not trying to bribe, corrupt or compromise you. Your virtue is safe from the villainy of the Corporate Emperor. Should I have a snake?’ He turned his head and addressed one of the retinue who’d disposed themselves unobtrusively around the lounge. ‘Don’t they have a snake, or a cat, or something, in those movies?’ he asked. ‘I’m sure I should sit here stroking a snake and saying things like…’ he dropped his voice to a melodramatic purr, ‘Everyone has their price, Mr von Strada.’ Though actually,’ he added, resuming his normal manner, ‘they don’t, it’s the other way round, really, things people will not do at any price. But perhaps I should have a snake?’
‘I believe,’ said the man he was speaking to, straight-faced, ‘that you may get away with a menacing laugh.’
‘Ah.’ Andrei turned back to Alex, hamming it up like the mad scientist in a B-movie horror, ‘Harrrrrrarrrarrr!’
Alex could feel himself trembling a little, but he held his granite expression in place.
‘No, you really can’t crack him, can you?’ Andrei commented, to Davie this time, who giggled. ‘Good boy,’ said Andrei, and this time he was talking to Alex. ‘You’re a fine lad, I know that – a tadlet prickly, perhaps, but Duty and Service, I like that. And you take good care of my boy, I know that too.’
It occurred to Alex that he did not mean that in general terms, or that he had been told so by Davie himself. Andrei Delaney had not allowed his son and heir to go off with the Fourth entirely unsupervised. Always, everywhere, there had been people ensuring that Davie was safe and happy and reporting back to Papa exactly what he was up to.
‘I did want to come over to Quarus myself,’ Andrei went on. ‘Purely in a private capacity. And I still might,’ he glanced pointedly at his son, ‘if Silvie wants me to.’ Davie held his peace, so his father continued, ‘It’s a long time to go without seeing my son, or having any news of him. So whether you’re the ambassador or he is, you take good care of him, yes? Make sure he eats properly and don’t let him be eaten by a whale or anything.’
‘Sir,’ said Alex.
‘Good. Well, I won’t keep you – sure you’ve lots to do.’ Andrei got up and gave him a wave in lieu of a handshake. Like many members of the Founding Families, he was paranoid about disease and preferred not to shake hands with people even when they were fresh from decontamination.
‘Sir,’ Alex did not salute, as Andrei Delaney was a civilian, but he inclined his head with formal courtesy before turning and following the aide who’d materialised to escort him.
‘I’ll run you back,’ Davie gave his father a quick grin and ‘Won’t be long’, then walked with Alex back to the airlock. Neither of them spoke, nor even looked at one another, not until they were well clear of the liner and the frigate was in sight ahead of them. Then it was Davie who spoke.