Quarus (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 6)

by S J MacDonald

  This, though, was where all previous human encounters had taken place, right up to the point where the Fourth had dropped people randomly out of the skies. This was where contact had stalled – right here, at the point where the early ambassadors had told the quarians that they would not be allowed to visit human worlds, at least not yet and not openly.

  ‘That is… magnificent,’ said Bull, gazing at the encounter zone with an awed expression.

  Alex thought it was rather sad, himself. The encounter zone had been built in the first excitement of contact, in which it had been envisioned as a bustling hub of scientific and cultural exchange. Instead it had dwindled very rapidly into being used primarily as the presidential office, rarely visited by quarians other than by those responding to a request for a meeting. It would only be magnificent, he felt, when it was achieving its original purpose, busy with quarians and humans sharing their knowledge and culture.

  It was even more forlorn when they went inside it. Bots had maintained it, but it had that odd, cavernous feel of a building which had fallen out of use. They found themselves speaking in lowered tones, as if their voices might echo strangely.

  ‘We’ll need to provide catering here,’ Alex observed, adding that to the weather-shielded walkway and beach facilities already on his list.

  Bull gazed at him. They were in the lowest air-breathing level of the building. Around them was a riot of flowering plants, pools, fountains and incomprehensible artworks. Beyond the transparent walls was a breathtaking panorama of sun-dappled waves rolling above and a glorious reef in constant motion. The scent of the air, the feel of the place, was subtly but intoxicatingly alien. Bull himself, for all his encounters with Solarans, felt himself dwarfed and humbled by it. But Alex, he could see, was perfectly at home here and happily making notes about where they could put in coffee machines.

  ‘I think,’ he said, after a long minute to think about that, and how his crew would react to this environment, ‘that we may also need to provide…’ he hesitated for the right word. ‘Guides… hosts…’

  Alex nodded agreement. ‘Newcomers should have a safety orientation,’ he said. ‘And there should be someone on hand in case people are finding it too much or having any problems – I’ll have a couple of my people here for that, all right? And we’ll put in safety-monitoring cameras, too.’

  Both the others looked relieved, and they continued their tour with more confidence. Andru Thurlough, indeed, led the way into the presidential suite, though with a rather wry expression.

  ‘Well, this is it,’ he commented.

  Alex looked around. He’d seen a lot of holos taken in this place but it was only really when you saw it in context with the rest of the building that it became apparent how anachronistic it really was. This was a mock-up of a human environment, as off-key and unconvincing as the plastic bus-depot environment the humans had created, with every good intention, aboard their transport ships. There were all the features which humans would expect to find in a presidential office – the grand décor, the over-sized desk, the plush carpet. But it was all just a bit wrong. The carpet was disconcertingly like a foam mattress underfoot, the presidential chair was ridiculously huge, the desk was bright green and the lighting would have been more suited to a kitchen environment than an office. The quarians had done their best, clearly, to model what they thought the humans wanted based on what they’d seen aboard the Embassy, but had only succeeded in creating an environment which was bizarre both for themselves and for the humans who came here.

  Alex looked at the big child-friendly button on the desk which the quarians had provided for the humans to call for a president when they wanted one, and had to make a real effort not to groan aloud. So much time, so much earnest effort on both sides, and such absolute, fundamental lack of understanding… it would have been ludicrous, if it hadn’t been so awful.

  ‘I sat here,’ said Andru, eyeing one of the stiff-backed visitor chairs set before the presidential desk, ‘for five days, pressing the call button every morning and then waiting all day in the hope that someone would turn up.’ He was silent, evidently remembering that when a quarian had eventually arrived he had been so excited about it that the president of the moment had turned right around and left again. ‘Ah well,’ he turned away and managed a smile.

  They moved on, discussing the work that would have to be done and agreeing a provisional timetable which saw, just four days later, the first shoreleavers venturing down from the escort ships. The spaceport, by then, had been thoroughly cleaned and spruced up, with a weather-shielded walkway and dome on the beach with all the facilities shoreleavers could want, there. The real attraction, though, obviously, was the opportunity to visit the encounter zone, a real quarian building. For many of those who went down there, this was the most thrilling experience of their lives, even without the opportunity of meeting quarians. For most, in fact, they were so excited and overwhelmed by the environment that any quarian coming near them would have had to cope with a babble of shrieking emotions. It was, all the skippers had agreed, essential for people to get used to being at the encounter zone first, before they even considered asking quarians to go there.

  Unfortunately, that carefully planned phasing did not go entirely according to plan, thanks to a slightly over-enthusiastic crewman from the Eagle.

  ‘Alex, I am so sorry,’ Bull said, going over to the Fourth’s ship to apologise in person. ‘It was inexcusable, and I’m just mortified that any member of my crew could cause such an incident.’

  Alex, however, was grinning broadly. He had laughed when he was told about the incident and there was a chuckle in his voice even now.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he assured his fellow captain, and as Bull looked dubious, ‘Come on! It is funny.’ He adopted, suddenly, a very grandiose manner indeed, miming pushing a button as he did so. ‘This is His Excellency Ambassador Ja-Ja Jablonski,’ he declared, ‘speaking for the human race. I would like to meet with your president, please.’

  He broke down into laughter again as he said it, recalling the footage which had been slapped up onto the ‘mission moments’ board as well as provided in the incident report.

  Bull smiled a bit, but he was still not appeased.

  ‘Pressing the call button…’ he said, and shook his head.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Alex said, managing to stop laughing, ‘that he is far from being the only visitor to indulge in a little role-play in the presidential office. And if he missed that bit of the tour where they were told not to press the button, well, a momentary distraction in a very distracting environment, understandable enough, and understandable too that he would assume that the call button had been deactivated. And just, you know…’ the giggles were coming back into his voice, ‘his face, when the quarian turned up. Priceless!’

  Bull was coaxed into a reluctant grin. There was a swim tube arising into a pool in the presidential office. Able Star Jablonski had been having a fine time pretending to be His Excellency right up to the point where a copper-scaled quarian had stepped up out of the water, looking at him with bright enquiry, ‘You wanted a president?’

  It hadn’t been a long meeting. A/S Jablonksi’s reaction had been such that the quarian hadn’t stayed long enough even to introduce himself. He had merely pointed out in a friendly way that the crewman was peeing his pants and departed, evidently more amused by the mad human than offended.

  ‘He’ll certainly never live this one down,’ said Bull, and was obviously a good deal more relaxed about it now that he could see Alex wasn’t taking it seriously. ‘But I am sorry one of my people has caused problems, Alex – and I do think that we should review security in the light of this, and at the least, make the presidential office out of bounds.’

  Alex shook his head. ‘I don’t see any need for that,’ he said. ‘I think it will be apparent to everyone now that the button is still live and with a reminder that nobody is to call for a president, no reason to tighten things down.’ As h
e saw that the Eagle’s skipper wasn’t convinced, he pointed out, ‘That way, every incident tightens things down and down and down until…’ he made a gesture in which his hands came together, encompassing a smaller and smaller space before finally clenching into a ball, ‘we do nothing but sit on our ships for fear of causing the smallest offence.’

  Bull took the point. That was how the Diplomatic Corps had ended up with such little activity groundside and such a huge list of topics considered too sensitive to talk about.

  ‘Just mark it down,’ Alex advised, ‘as today’s funniest diplomatic incident, shake it off and carry straight on.’

  Bull conceded the point with a rueful look, then, and even allowed himself a slight chortle.

  ‘I suppose it did have its amusing aspects,’ he admitted. And then, as he thought about the speechless gaping face of the crewman, the chortle became more definite. ‘Yes, all right,’ he grinned back at Alex and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. This, he recognised, was a completely different kind of exodiplomacy from anything he was used to, and he was more than happy to follow Alex’s lead.

  Bull, however, was destined to find himself front and centre on the mission before very long.

  It happened just a week or so later, on the day that Silvie returned to the Heron.

  ‘You didn’t think I’d miss Kate’s dinner, did you?’ she asked, slightly overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of her welcome and how surprised they were that she’d just come back to the ship as casually as if she’d only been away a few hours.

  Alex laughed. They were fulfilling their obligation to provide Kate Naos with the same training she would have had at the Academy on Chartsey. The academic year was nearly at an end. Kate had already been informed that she’d come third in her year, and had signed the necessary forms to take her final year training as an engineer specialist. Classes had finished, and ahead of her was three months in which she was on leave from cadet training. There was just one final hurdle to cross – the end of year dinner.

  It was, as Alex recalled, something of an ordeal. Cadets were required to bring their parents as guests, or if that wasn’t possible, appropriate alternatives. It was highly ritualised, more like a social exam than an event to be enjoyed. Alex could remember his parents stressing about it for months ahead and being so anxious on the day that they could barely eat. His own stomach had been cramped up with anxiety, too, partly on their behalf and partly with the shameful dread that they might do something which embarrassed him.

  Kate would not have to face anything like that, of course, but it was still quite an occasion for her, a full dress dinner being held in her honour.

  ‘So, that’s all you’ve come back for?’ Alex teased.

  Silvie laughed. ‘I’ve missed you too,’ she said, answering his feelings rather than his words. She reached out and they gripped hands, gazing at one another with a long, warm, deeply contented moment. Then Silvie chuckled again. ‘I hope you haven’t been getting any ideas about leaving without me,’ she said.

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said, and they grinned at one another. Then, as they released hands, Silvie glanced around and looked at the ops screen tracking the thousands of encounters they’d had by then and how overwhelmingly positive they’d been.

  ‘You have been busy!’

  Alex smiled. Every day was full on, here, from the morning briefing to the midnight curfew. They always had twenty quarians aboard the ship between 0800 and midnight, as there were people waiting to come aboard as soon as a space became available. Those who visited might stay anything between ten minutes and ten hours, though the average was between two and three hours. That meant that they were hosting around a hundred and sixty visitors a day, though some days they’d topped two hundred.

  At the same time, of course, they had twenty of their own people groundside. There was no day without at least one diplomatic incident and no hour in the day when they could claim to be in control of what was going on. Chaos, as Buzz had observed one morning, was a constant companion. But so was fun, and even more importantly, friendship.

  ‘Pretty busy, yes,’ Alex agreed, with such happy satisfaction that Silvie chuckled. ‘You’re looking well,’ he observed. She had changed, somehow. It was nothing so obvious as a change of hairstyle, and he’d seen her in quarian style clothes often enough not to even notice that. Was she, perhaps, just a little taller?

  No, he realised, looking intently at her. She was more grown up – still quintessentially herself, but with a sense of maturity which was that of a young woman rather than a child.

  ‘I am well,’ said Silvie, regarding him with equally close appraisal. ‘And so are you… well and very happy. But there’s something…’

  Alex gave a wry look. ‘It is,’ he said, ‘a rest day.’

  Silvie picked up on the way he felt about that, and chuckled.

  ‘Simon?’

  ‘Simon.’ Alex confirmed, and then realised that this was unfair. ‘With my full cooperation.’

  She could see that he meant that, and understood why, too. Alex could not afford to run himself into losing weight and hovering on the edge of exhaustion here, as he had on the Carrearranian mission. He had to be completely well, or his encounters with quarians would generate concern or even worse, discomfort in them. He had, therefore, put himself entirely into Simon’s hands. He was wearing a discreet monitor by which Simon could check everything from his heart rate to the state of his bowels. These could be, admittedly, somewhat erratic. He was eating a lot of unfamiliar food, some of which turned out to be remarkably binding whilst others had quite the opposite effect. When Simon handed him meds, therefore, Alex took them without argument or even asking what they were. He also ate, without protest, any meals which Simon chose for him, and complied with Simon’s decrees as to rest periods. This was only the third time that Simon had told him to take a whole day off, so he certainly wasn’t abusing his power. Alex was conscious, too, of having climbed out of bed that morning feeling heavy limbed and needing to brace himself up for the day. Simon was right, he needed a break.

  All the same, Alex was regretting the necessity. At times like this he even grudged the need for sleep.

  ‘I’m going over to the Eagle, after briefing,’ he told her. This had been arranged for him, for his rest days. There was nowhere on the Heron to relax away from the lively, sometimes frenetic activity. The ship itself was frequently taken out of orbit by quarians taking it for a bit of a spin, it was a rare day when there wasn’t at least one alert going off and you never knew what was going to happen next. Even at its quietest, there was a constant buzz of voices, tours in progress, explanations, laughter. Alex couldn’t relax at the groundside shoreleave facility, either. For one thing, he loathed beach resorts and would consider any time spent at one more in the nature of captivity than recreation. For another, he found it impossible to switch off his command instincts, particularly surrounded by people from the other ships, and was constantly on the alert making sure they stayed safe.

  The Eagle, though, had proved to be extremely hospitable. Bull Stuart could not have been more supportive. Not only did he give Alex the use of his own quarters while his fellow captain was on rest time, but he came over to the Heron himself, standing in so that either Buzz or Bonny could leave the ship if they wished.

  Since this had happened more than once on the way out here, nobody got stressed about it. It wasn’t, after all, as if Captain Stuart was going to attempt to impose any changes on them during his few hours of nominal command. He was a friend of the skipper’s, too, and helping them out, so they were keen to show their appreciation by making things as easy and pleasant for him as could be.

  Bull was smiling as he arrived for the briefing, obviously looking forward to spending the day as the Fourth’s CO. This put him in command of the mission, too, though it was understood that Buzz would make any decisions which might arise during the course of the day. Bull’s role, really, was to sit on the command deck and sign thin
gs when required. Still, he was looking forward to it, and having seen Alex off at the airlock with a handshake and a reminder to make himself at home on the Eagle, he came back to the command deck, settled himself in Alex’s chair and smiled thanks to the rigger who brought him a nice cup of tea.

  Forty three minutes later, a signal arrived from Serenity. Two signals, in fact; the double-send which had been established to ensure that the message could be deciphered. That proved to be necessary this time because the first signal arrived as ‘#re#i# #y #n # #an v# #d# #m L# #t # # #t O# #tul# #l, k# #o# w# #e #. #nt T#: #ee# #lo# #ing s# #ell, #dv#g #dent# #on#r#n. #oi# T#: F#c# # p#y get# #s #o #eren#ty #P #t #o#: B# # #uck #.’

  Only when the second signal arrived a few seconds later, distorted in different places, were they able to reconstruct the message with a reasonable degree of confidence.

  ‘Presidential Envoy Captain Alexis Sean von Strada from League President Marc Tyborne.

  Point One: Congratulations Al, knew you would ace it.

  Point Two: Beeby Disclosure going so well, advancing Presidential Confirmation.

  Point Three: Focus on priority getting quarians to Serenity ASAP.

  Point Four: Best of luck, Marc.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Buzz, with a quiet regret which had every member of the Heron’s crew immediately on the alert. And as they saw the signal, too, and the quicker amongst them explained its implications to those a little slower on the uptake, consternation rippled through the crew.

  The signal had not been coded ‘captain’s eyes only’, nor even ‘private to recipient’. Ironically, President Tyborne was indicating, there, his understanding that Alex much preferred mission communications to be open and shared with the crew. It had, therefore, been automatically displayed on the mission update screen.