Quarus (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 6)

by S J MacDonald

  She walked towards the birds and they flew up to meet her, settling onto her outstretched hands. They were humming birds, turquoise and scarlet, with tiny crests and long beaks. ‘How lovely!’

  She kept the birds with her for a while, then, as they walked around, until something else caught her attention and they flew away.

  ‘Nobody,’ she observed, ‘is panicking.’ It was getting towards the end of the afternoon and quite a few people were leaving offices, mostly heading over to town. Everyone looked at them – it would have been ludicrous to pretend not to be aware that the Fourth’s captain and the quarian ambassador were strolling amongst them – and there were some nervous looks, but a lot more smiles and ‘Good afternoons’ from people in passing.

  ‘I should hope not,’ said Alex. Everyone here had passed Diplomatic Corps vetting and had been given some level of training, too, in quarian encounters. That had been allowed to lapse in the years before Silvie’s arrival, but had been tightened up now. The training itself had improved significantly, too, now that they’d learned so much from Silvie, and the standard ‘think about a brick wall if you don’t want them to know what you’re feeling’ advice had given way to ‘Look, just be open and honest and be prepared to be embarrassed and bewildered, that’s exodiplomacy, guys.’

  ‘The atmosphere is just so different,’ Silvie marvelled. ‘It felt like the back end of nowhere before, small and grubby and really unloved. But now it’s like it’s the zone, the place to be, such an excited buzz about it.’

  Alex chuckled. Quite a number of the items on his request-list had already been dealt with in the aftermath of Silvie’s arrival. Enquiry teams, arriving from all agencies trying to find out what the heck had been going on here, had been shocked to find a run-down, tired looking base and many people demoralised even before the cataclysm of Silvie’s arrival. Waiting for quarian visitors had become a joke, and not a funny one. It had started to become a place where agencies sent people they couldn’t get rid of but didn’t quite know what to do with. Inter-agency cooperation had dwindled into inter-agency bickering. Just an hour spent reading the minutes of the interminable monthly base meetings was a revelation as to the petty in-fighting over resources and responsibilities. When Silvie had arrived without warning they had not been ready, not in any sense.

  Now they were. And nowhere was that more evident than in the area they called town. It had degenerated into a sense of bleak disuse even though people were living there – as Silvie said, grubby and unloved. Few people lived here for more than a year or two so there was no sense of home, or of community. Now all the housing had been cleaned outside and redecorated within, upgraded with stylish new windows and doors. The streets between them, never used by vehicles anyway, had been landscaped with greenery, seating areas and bubbling water features.

  ‘It’s like a different planet!’ Silvie exclaimed.

  Best of all though was the mall. It had been called ‘the mall’ ironically by the residents, since it was their only shopping outlet. If you couldn’t get what you wanted here, you had to order it to be sent from Cestus, the nearest world, with shipping costs even for the smallest items making that prohibitively expensive. In theory, at least, you shouldn’t need to order anything, since the basics were provided with accommodation and you could get toiletries, luxury foods and hobby equipment from the base shop. They also had an SEP which produced clothes and a range of other items on demand.

  It had been a dreary place, though. The base shop had no kind of displays, everything was in crates. You ordered what you wanted and it was delivered by drones – which was fine for those who liked that, but not so good for those who liked the actual experience of browsing real goods in a real shop. The SEP was old, too, with a tendency to be out of order or under maintenance whenever you wanted to order something. And the café, entirely automated, had all the ambience of a bus depot.

  Now there really was a shopping mall, even if it was a very small one. There were separate shops for toiletries and other goods, each with appealing displays, and fashion outlets too with casual or designer outfits. The new SEP had a much wider range and there was a homewares shop with throws, cushions and ornaments to personalise quarters. And the café, once used primarily as a toilet stop, had become one of the base’s most popular hangouts.

  This was due to Mit. Mit worked, officially, in the kitchens at the Embassy, where he’d been allowed to stay on a part-time basis after his tour of duty here was done. He was one of the few who’d fallen so much in love with this world that he didn’t want to leave, and since he made himself handy about the place, nobody had objected.

  He had seized his opportunity, though, in the wake of Silvie’s visit. When the refurbishment of the mall was being discussed he’d asked to take on the café, adding hand-made patisserie to the menu. A year later the café was thriving, and going to Mit’s for dessert was as much a part of life at the base as pausing to watch the morning earthquake.

  ‘Captain! Hello!’ This was a busy time of day, as people stopped by either to wind down on the way home or to pick up treats for later. Service was, however, still completely automated so Mit, when he wasn’t baking, was free to mingle with the customers and add that touch of personal hospitality which made all the difference. ‘Oh!’ He saw that Alex had Silvie with him, and there was just a momentary uncertainty before he greeted her. ‘Good afternoon, ma’am.’ He looked at her and broke into a grin. ‘I don’t suppose you remember me, do you?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Silvie said, since her memory was more reliable than many a computer hard-drive. ‘You’re the guy who needed to fart. And I…’ she broke off, looking quite taken aback.

  ‘You sprayed me with air freshener,’ Mit reminded her, unnecessarily.

  ‘Oh.’ It seemed to dawn on Silvie that her own behaviour here might have been some contributing factor in the panic she’d complained about. ‘That was really rude of me,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

  Mit gave her an entranced look. He was taking in the young woman he could see now – impish, cheerful, quite scruffy in her shipboard overalls and her platinum hair in tousled spikes – with the manic creature he’d encountered just over a year before.

  ‘You were dressed as some kind of sea-goddess, I think,’ Mit recalled. ‘And you said your name was Oceanica.’

  ‘Oh – yeah! Oceanica!’ Silvie gave a peal of laughter at the recollection. ‘One of my earliest efforts to meet human expectations! It lasted three days. The seashell bra, you know, very uncomfortable.’

  Alex and Mit looked at one another.

  ‘You had to be here,’ said Mit, then, to Silvie, ‘I thought it was funny, myself. And I could see it, you know – that you were trying to be what people wanted you to be, just didn’t understand.’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Silvie admitted. ‘It took months before I stopped trying to be all those different people and learned to be just me. It was all very difficult, back then, so confusing, I hardly understood anything. I’m sorry I upset people.’

  ‘Oh, we needed it,’ said Mit, with a grin. ‘It was a heck of a shock, of course, seeing ourselves and this base through your eyes – shameful, really, how we’d let it all go. And now it’s great, really alive and buzzing, so we’ve a lot to thank you for. You were, frankly, just the kick up the backside this place needed.’

  ‘That’s very nice of you to say so, thank you,’ Silvie said, and looking around her at the displays, beamed. ‘And this all looks delicious!’

  After several minutes of looking at it all and Mit telling them what was in each dish, they settled in a booth with their selections. The first of the Fourth’s shoreleavers came in shortly afterwards. Alex had kept his promise of buying everyone dessert for their success in inspection, but rather than have a bulk order delivered to the ship he’d arranged with Mit for all the shoreleavers to have their own choice of dessert at his, Alex’s expense.

  ‘Thanks, skipper!’ The shoreleavers called out, waving cheerfully as th
ey got their treats, but that was the only interruption.

  ‘So… what do you think about it now, then?’ Alex asked. ‘Serenity?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t have known it was the same planet,’ Silvie said. ‘Isn’t it amazing, I thought it was such a dump, but I can see now that it was mostly me, and just not understanding things. And everything just looked so weird here anyway, it was just overwhelming. And then, you know, straight from here to Chartsey, very bad idea. I should have listened to Davie. But yes, skipper, I like it here now, it’s great.’

  Alex smiled, savouring the moment.

  ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘It’s yours.’

  Silvie looked at him interrogatively, figuring out just what he meant.

  ‘The base?’ she hazarded, then, seeing his reaction… ‘The planet?’

  ‘The system,’ Alex clarified. ‘Star, planets, every little rock and comet.’

  Silvie looked uncertain.

  ‘Is this a joke?’ She asked. ‘Because you’re serious and laughing at the same time and that’s confusing.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Alex focussed himself, stifling the laughter. ‘Perfectly serious,’ he assured her. ‘I, as the duly appointed representative of my people, am giving the system of Serenity to you, on behalf of your people, in its entirety and in perpetua and without condition.’

  Silvie looked a little surprised. ‘Can you do that?’ she asked. ‘Just like that? Aren’t there treaties and things?’

  ‘There are formalities,’ Alex conceded. ‘Which we can sign any time. But yes, Silvie, I can do this, I am going to move the League border back just far enough to cede sovereignty over this system to the people of Quarus.’

  ‘But,’ Silvie asked, perplexed, ‘what will we do with it?’

  ‘Whatever you want,’ said Alex. ‘It’s your system, your world now. You can develop it any way you want to. Obviously, we are hoping to be able to come to some agreement which enables us to keep using this base, but that will be up to you to decide.’

  ‘Oh.’ Silvie considered this, licking blueberry gel from her spoon. ‘Couldn’t we split it?’ she queried.

  ‘What – north/south?’ Alex was trying to figure out what she meant.

  ‘I was thinking more of you get the land and we get the oceans,’ Silvie explained. ‘Wouldn’t that make sense?’

  ‘Practically, perhaps, legally, a nightmare,’ Alex said. ‘Take my word for it, Silvie, it is infinitely better if you accept sovereignty and grant us land usage – at your discretion, of course.’

  Silvie looked pleased. ‘I have discretion,’ she stated, with a slightly smug air. ‘And I think I understand – this was the secret, wasn’t it?’

  Alex smiled. ‘I didn’t want to put you under any pressure,’ he said. ‘And I wasn’t going to offer it to you if you still thought it was a rancid hole. But it was always my intention, yes, to give it to your people if you liked it. And that isn’t, by the way, even my own idea. It’s been discussed several times in the history of contact between our people and an agreement was actually attempted, once. One of our ambassadors attempted to do a deal, offering you sovereignty of Serenity in return for your most advanced biotech.’ He grinned as he remembered reading those particular files. ‘But you just gave us the biotech and weren’t the slightest bit interested in Serenity – wouldn’t have it, as they say, if it was given away with a packet of cornflakes. But now, I think, you are in a position to understand the potential. And it is different this time – no deal on the table, no conditions, just a straight out gift. Serenity is yours, all right? From the mountains to the deepest ocean, every tree, every jellyfish, all yours. Which means that we are now living on your world – your world, you make the rules.’

  Silvie’s expression changed as the import of that sank in.

  ‘You mean…’ she looked awed, ‘if I said that I wanted everyone to get off our planet…’

  ‘We’d go,’ Alex confirmed. ‘Though I’m hoping you won’t do that… here,’ he passed his comp over the table to her. ‘Take a look, see what you think.’

  It didn’t take her long to read it. It wouldn’t have taken her long anyway, even if it had been the usual huge and complex tome of bureaucratic detail. This document, though, was remarkably short and clear, especially considering the importance of what it achieved.

  ‘Just to be sure I’ve got this right…’ she looked back at Alex, who’d continued to eat his dessert while she read, ‘this says that the humans will provide system infrastructure and port management in return for the use of those facilities and this land as a base. And you’ll build us whatever facilities we want, provide us with vehicles and things, for the next hundred years, free of charge. And we get to say who comes here, with this visa thing, so if we don’t like people we can just tell them to clear off.’ She looked at him appraisingly. ‘Seems to me like you’re doing all of the work, and paying for it, while we have all the control.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alex agreed. ‘That about sums it up.’

  ‘Well, that’s very nice for us,’ Silvie observed. ‘But are your people really going to be happy with this?’

  ‘The Senate has approved it,’ Alex told her. ‘And they’ve come to an agreement with corporate sponsors who are willing to carry the cost.’

  ‘Oh!’ Silvie gave a crow of realisation. ‘Uncle Andrei!’

  ‘Uncle Andrei,’ Alex affirmed. ‘He’s already undertaken upgrade work to the base, as you’ve seen, and is willing to put investment in here on the same basis as he and his family, his ancestors, have always supported both League colonies and exodiplomacy. I must admit I wouldn’t feel entirely comfortable coming to such an agreement with him myself, I think that kind of decision needs to be made, and implemented, at government level. But I know it is all above board and that you can rely on him to make all the provision you want, here. More accommodation domes and cars, say, so if your people want to come for visits they’ll find comfortable facilities.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ Silvie laughed as realisation finally dawned. ‘It’s an encounter zone! A place where my people can meet yours – and yours can meet mine!’

  ‘Ultimately, yes,’ Alex confirmed. ‘And if the Beeby Disclosure goes as well as we are hoping, it is possible that in the future this may become a place where my people do come to meet yours. But that will be for you to decide and for you to control, to be no more than you are comfortable with. And for now anyway, it might just be a start to see how your people feel about coming here for visits.’

  Silvie gazed at him. ‘You’re enjoying this,’ she commented. ‘No big meetings, no sub-sub-clauses and parties of the second part – just us, fixing it up over pudding.’

  Alex remembered the three hours he’d spent with the ambassador. The ambassador was in on the secret that Alex might give this system to Quarus, of course, and had been provided with a copy of the suggested agreement. He had gone over it with Alex line by line, word by word, ensuring that he understood its provisions, when in actuality it was so simple a child of eight could have understood it. Literally. Alex had specified that the agreement must be written at a level of literacy accessible to the average human eight year old. Quarians were in fact more intelligent than humans, but had an extremely low boredom threshold and no tolerance for bureaucracy.

  ‘It is,’ he admitted, ‘extremely liberating.’

  Silvie gave a little crow of triumph. ‘I’ve taught you,’ she declared, ‘to do things our way. And you like it!’

  ‘Very much,’ Alex laughed, and saluted her with his spoon. ‘But it would be appreciated, really would, if you could bear with us enough to have a short signing ceremony at the Embassy.’

  ‘Oh.’ Silvie considered. ‘Dress-rig?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Alex said regretfully. ‘It’s expected when something so important is being done.’

  ‘I could say no and spare us both the… oh, all right,’ she burst out laughing as he gave her a steady look. ‘Duty! Okay, okay – we’ll do t
he signing bit your way.’ She surveyed him complacently. ‘I can be diplomatic, too. Which reminds me…’ she flicked a file onto his comp from her wristcom. ‘I’ve done you a risk assessment,’ she told him, ‘And I’ll be wearing skin-suit in these areas.’

  Alex looked at the file, which contained a map of the planet identifying all those areas of ocean which were too dangerous for Silvie to swim in at all, those for which a skin-suit would be required and those which were free to swim in. The accompanying document was a standard environmental risk assessment of the kind Shion had taught her to do.

  ‘Thanks,’ Alex looked at her with as much a glow of love and pride as if he was watching his daughter graduate from high school. Silvie basked in it like a lizard in sunshine, making a small crooning noise as the well done, I’m so proud of you washed around her. Mischief, though, was sparkling in her eyes.

  ‘Uncle Andrei,’ she commented, ‘says you’re like my Dad. And he’s right, it is like that, the love and care you have for me. And me and Davie are cousins, of course. So does that make you and Uncle Andrei like brothers?’

  She gave a peal of laughter at the fizzing horror which went off in Alex’s head at the very idea of being in a brotherly relationship with Andrei North Delaney. ‘Yay!’ she crowed, and as he realised that she’d been pulling his leg, Alex breathed again.

  They signed the treaty which gave the system to Quarus the following day. Alex had specified that the ceremony must not take any longer than fifteen minutes, but the Diplomatic Corps packed as much high ceremonial as they could into that, complete with a twenty one gun salute and aerial fly-past in the moments after the treaty had been signed.

  ‘Could you do something for me?’ Silvie asked Alex, as they went off to Mit’s to recruit their strength after the ordeal. ‘Could you go to the terraforming place at the Uni and tell them we want monkeys?’

  This was evidently something of importance to her, and Alex could tell that she had only been waiting till the treaty was signed before making that request. It was, indeed, the first governmental decision by the new owners.