Quarus

by S J MacDonald

  Then came the private ambassadorial meeting. Alex never told anyone what happened in that, not even Buzz. He, the League Ambassador to Serenity and Tali Jones spent nearly two hours in the groundside office, nearly all of which was occupied with the replaced ambassador repeatedly expressing his opinion while Alex was glacially calm and his Diplomatic Corps colleague sympathetic. Nothing of any value was said, but at least Tali Jones had the solace of having been heard out.

  And the consolation, later, of the grand official dinner in his honour. Again, this was something which should normally be held at the embassy which the replaced ambassador was departing. Since Alex wasn’t taking over aboard the Embassy I, though, the resident Ambassador had offered to host a suitable event at Serenity. Tali Jones had accepted, recognising this as some slight sop to his dignity.

  This was, quite literally, a red carpet event. An event canopy had been set up at the Embassy entrance and a thick red carpet laid between the doors and the point at which guests would disembark from the cars. To one side of the carpet, the media had set up their cameras and various platforms. To the other, ‘members of the public’ were permitted to stand, watching the guests arrive and taking their own holos.

  It was absurd in so many ways that Alex felt as if he was taking part in a pantomime. Being picked up at the spaceport by a limousine which took him the eight hundred metres to the Embassy entrance was ridiculous in itself. Then there was the media pack, as excited as if they were covering a major awards ceremony. Alex paused there, as he had been asked to do, and gave the ten minute yes/no media call, but it was a very different experience from the normal indoor type of briefing. All the while he was answering their questions there was applause and cheering from the crowd of base personnel behind him, eager to show their support on camera and treating it just like a celebrity interview, too.

  Once he’d got past the red carpet, though, things got a lot worse. The Embassy, unleashed, had thrown everything they could into this one event, so the red carpet arrival merged into a cocktail reception which went on for an hour and a half before the dinner itself. Everyone who was anyone at all had been invited to the reception – four hundred people all in their posh togs and nearly all of them wanting to be presented to Alex.

  This, he found, was particularly bizarre when it was people he’d already met. It was different, apparently, being presented to him and exchanging a few words in that milieu than it was just meeting him around the base. It was as if just about everyone there wanted to be able to say that they had shaken his hand and talked with him at this event. Which, given their numbers and the time available, meant that the Embassy was gliding them through at the rate of between two and three a minute.

  They were experts at this. Junior staff mingled with the crowds, ensuring that there was no unseemly mobbing of high-demand guests. As Alex himself was gently wafted around the venue in a figure-eight ‘circulating’ route, small groups were gathered up and guided into intercept paths, with more senior people easing them into a flow of introductions rather than intermittent lumps. The difficult bit was to keep it moving, as people naturally tried to get as much time with him as they could and not everyone had the social skills to just exchange a little pleasantry and move on.

  Alex certainly didn’t. His pleasantries were a mechanical series of appropriate remarks which he had learned by rote and delivered with all his usual public-manner warmth and charm. By the end of it he was bored stiff, longing for a coffee, and his arm was aching from all the people who’d grabbed rather over-enthusiastic handshakes. He was hungry, too – really, uncomfortably hungry. Previous experience of Embassy dinners had led him to anticipate that he would end the evening feeling in some danger of exploding, so he’d skipped lunch and now he was regretting it. Delicious looking hors d’oeuvre were being offered around the reception but as an ambassadorial guest himself Alex was expected to meet-and-greet, not stand there stuffing his face. He had no more than an occasional token sip of an alcohol-free cocktail to sustain him.

  Dinner, at least, did mean that he got fed and watered. Fed and watered a lot, in fact, since it was a seven course menu from the amuse bouche to the final palate cleanser, and every one of them came with a drink.

  As was customary, three menus were being served. Traditionally, one menu was Chartseyan, one that of the hosting world, and one from the homeworld of the guest of honour. Serenity had always used Cestus as their second world on that menu. Cestus was the closest League world to Serenity and they got most of their supplies from there.

  In this case, though, Tali Jones was himself from Cestus so the catering staff had gone by precedent and ordered the third menu to be Novaterran in compliment to their other very high ranking guest.

  This was unfortunate, for many reasons, not the least of which was that Tali Jones already felt that his special dinner had been somewhat upstaged by the presence of the Fourth’s captain. There had been far more of a buzz amongst people eager to meet Alex than there had been to shake hands with him. It was some comfort to note, as the first course was served, that very few had opted for the Novaterran menu.

  Closer observation, though, would note that very few, other than for senior staff who were obliged to share the guest of honour’s cuisine, had opted for the Cestarian menu, either. Cestus had the dubious distinction of being rated the most boring planet in the League. It wasn’t unlike Novaterre in many ways – a very quiet, suburban-style world whose people were extremely reserved and well-conducted in public. It was said that someone had scrawled a rude word on a lavatory wall on Cestus and that they were still shocked about it fifty years later. That was an exaggeration, of course, but it was true enough that they had nothing like the graffiti, littering or casual vandalism which was accepted as normal in many urban environments. The same might be said of Novaterre, where public displays of emotion – any emotion – were regarded as socially unacceptable. A loud burst of laughter on a bus, for instance, was considered as offensive as thunderous farts.

  Where Cestus had scored points over Novaterre, though, in an evaluation of which of them merited the award for Most Boring Planet, had been in their architecture and their natural environment. Novaterre had quite interesting architecture, for their public buildings at least, with a grand style often based on some variant of the step-pyramid. Cestus had boxes. Big, grey boxes with very small square windows. Novaterre had a widely varied and beautiful natural environment, too, with an abundance of rivers and lakes which were at the heart of their culture. Cestus was an old world, their sun too moving into white dwarf phase and the planet itself barely tectonically active any more. Mountains had largely been eroded, the landscape flattened, the rivers sluggish and turgid. It was almost as if the planet had used up all its energy and even its capacity for vibrant colour, as the brightest flowers there were dusky lilac and the brightest leaves a dusty shade of green. Cestarians themselves loved their delicately pastel-coloured world, but those from more obviously beautiful planets did not tend to be impressed.

  Cestarian cuisine was no more vibrant either in style or flavour, and those sharing a menu with the guest of honour were doomed to a succession of bland vegetarian dishes – few Cestarians would eat even vat-produced meat – of which the centrepiece was a terrine of nuts.

  Despite his hunger at the start of the meal, Alex was wishing by the fifth course that he’d asked for the Cestarian menu as well. He wasn’t alone. Nyge Tomaas hadn’t even made it to the third course before realising that it had been a really bad idea to ask for the Novaterran menu. He was Alex’s ‘plus one’ for the event. Taking a junior officer along was usual for a senior officer attending such an occasion. It was considered to be good experience for young officers, and an excellent networking opportunity at that social level, too.

  Nyge had been enjoying himself enormously, so far. He had followed the captain along the red carpet and around the reception feeling tremendously privileged and just loving all the glitz and glamour of it all. He’d tucked i
n with enthusiasm to the first two courses, too, confident that his Academy-trained table manners would carry him through the event without any awkward issues over cutlery or dinner table conversation. Just as he had been taught, a look of friendly interest and various intonations of ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am’ was generally enough to keep up his end of table talk as nobody at high table would expect a youngster like him to have much to say for himself.

  Then the third course arrived – more stodge, more cream – and Nyge’s enthusiasm started to wane. The food was not at all to his taste. He’d only asked for the Novaterran menu because Buzz had said it would be courteous to the captain to do so. It was dawning on Nyge, too, that he was being served with bigger portions than the captain’s… bigger, even, than anyone around him was getting, though they were mostly eating Chartseyan.

  In a restaurant, Nyge would simply have stopped eating. In a wardroom dinner, he would have signalled discreetly to the steward that he wished only nominal portions for the rest of the meal. Here, though, he was compelled by etiquette to keep eating all the dishes which were put before him.

  Alex was, too. People at lower tables might get away with casually folding their napkins over food they didn’t want to eat, but high table protocols were stricter. To refuse a course or leave more than a morsel of it would be considered discourteous. He had asked for the smallest portions but still, even the lightest course was six hundred calories, and for Nyge, the bigger portion of the same salad course was more than a thousand.

  When the dessert course arrived Alex was glad of his Novaterran heritage, which enabled him to regard it without flinching and to say, ‘Remarkable!’ when what he actually wanted to do was groan and beg for mercy.

  Dessert, inevitably, was blancmange, the ubiquitous dessert in Novaterran cuisine. Alex had actually enjoyed a blancmange cooked for him at a similar dinner on Carrearranis, which had been a light foamy mousse, barely sweetened and served with piquant fruit.

  This, however, was the kind of blancmange his father would have taken holos of. It had been his Dad who’d been the dessert king in the von Strada household, as meal preparation had generally been shared that way between his parents, his mother preparing the main course while his father got the dessert ready. Neither had required much in the way of culinary skill since, like most people on the central worlds, they lived almost exclusively on meals which needed only to be heated and served. There was usually some kind of personal touch, though, a choice of croutons or sides. And where blancmange was concerned, a wide range of toppings from the simplest candy sprinkle to elaborate sugar-craft. His Dad often took snapshots of the centrepiece blancmange on buffets, particularly on the river cruises which he and Alex’s mother went on two or three times a year. Sometimes, if they were very special, he would send the pictures out to Alex, along with snaps of particularly prized plants in the garden.

  His Dad’s camera would come out for this one, for sure. It was a fiesta of the most extravagant sugar-work the chefs could contrive, actually looking like a floral display with its flowers, leaves and curling ribbons. There were sounds of admiration when it was placed ceremoniously in front of Alex – mostly from people who were not going to have to eat it – with the Chartseyan dish, a tower of coffee profiteroles, and the Cestarian, a light sorbet, placed either side of it.

  It was not possible to switch menus mid-way. Or at least, it was. It was entirely possible to switch menus, to stop eating altogether or to ask the stewards to bring you a sandwich instead. Nobody would raise an eyebrow, nobody would comment. All the same, you would have damned yourself for all time as an uncouth boor. As a Fleet officer, Alex knew his social duty, and bore up under it manfully as he was served with the first helping from the blancmange.

  Nyge followed his captain’s lead, though anyone paying close attention might just have detected a very slight whimper when he saw the size of the portion being loaded into his bowl. The first taste of it confirmed his worst fears. The blancmange was a set cream custard, itself extremely rich and very sweet, and along with it he’d been given a good big helping of the decorative work which was pure sugar.

  Course six, served after a twenty minute interval, was the savoury – a cheeseboard for those on the Chartseyan menu, a leaf salad for those eating Cestarian and crostini for those on Novaterran. These particular crostini were toasted slices of buttermilk bread topped with a glutinous enriched cheese sauce and a bacon and tomato crust. Alex was given one. Nyge got two.

  ‘I do like to see young people with a hearty appetite,’ one of their fellow diners at high table regarded Nyge with motherly approval, and he managed a wan smile and ‘ma’am’ in response.

  The seventh and final course, at least, came as a relief, not just in that it brought an end to the culinary ordeal but because it was no more than a palate-cleansing spoonful. The Novaterran version was a mint-cream, admittedly, rather than the frappe being served to the others, but at least there was only one spoonful of it.

  Even then, though, the torment wasn’t over. Protocol at this point was either that the guest of honour retired with the ambassador to have coffee and liqueurs in private, or that they joined the rest of the guests in the after-dinner gathering. Where climate and facilities allowed, this was held out of doors, a stroll out into the gardens for coffee being considered an elegant round-off to the Embassy dining experience.

  Since Tali Jones had opted to have his coffee out in the gardens with the rest of them, that meant that the guests processed after him down a grand staircase and out onto a wide veranda, from which there were further steps down into a decoratively lit garden.

  Here, they were re-joined by the bulk of the guests from the reception. Only about eighty of them had gone through to the official dinner, the rest being catered for with a buffet supper and a cabaret. Now they came back together for the end of the evening, coffee and liqueurs in the garden.

  Nyge accepted a tiny cup of sharp black coffee, though more as a defensive move than otherwise. Stewards were circulating here, too, and anyone without either a coffee cup or a glass in their hands would be hovered and murmured at till they gave in and took something. Alex, carrying his own tiny cup, pretended to sip from it occasionally although close observation would reveal that it was still full of coffee when he eventually handed it back.

  Nyge, sweating from over-feeding and fighting the need to break wind, was obliged to keep standing and smiling while a succession of people told him how lucky he was to be going to Quarus.

  ‘I wish I was in your shoes,’ said one of the Excorps ground crew, enviously. You had to do at least five years in ground crew, in Excorps, working at a base and training, before you could be considered for a place on an expedition. This particular ‘ground crew’, like quite a number of Excorps people, had been recruited from the Fleet – a Lt, in fact, before he’d switched into the exploration service. It would be another year before he could go any further than Serenity, and small consolation to him right now than when he did head out it would be on expeditions going further than any humans had ever been before.

  There was a small part of Nyge, right then, which would have been happy to swap shoes with anyone, since his dress shoes were pinching, his collar was chafing under his chin and his digestive system was in turmoil. It was only a small part, though – present discomforts aside, he could not imagine any greater thrill or any greater glory than to be part of this mission.

  Eventually, though, he was able to follow the captain to where the limousine was waiting to take them the ludicrously short trip back to the spaceport. It was a chauffeured limo and Alex remained imperturbable, silent except for a ‘thank you’ to the chauffeur who hopped out to hold the door and salute him.

  Once they were aboard their own shuttle, though, the skipper relaxed. There was a pilot waiting to take them back to the ship, as it was considered to be beneath a skipper’s dignity to pilot themselves when in dress uniform. That was the official reason, anyway. Crew suspected that it was real
ly because real alcohol was often served at such events and officers might be coming back just a little bit squiffy.

  That was not the case for either Alex or Nyge, both of whom had been served with non-alcoholic drinks all evening. Since they were within twenty five hours of launch, the same would be true of the other officers who had attended the event. It would be at least ten minutes before they too would start to leave the party, as a mass exodus would have been rude. So it was just Alex, dropping into one of the passenger seats behind the pilot, and Nyge, perching primly next to him.

  ‘That went well,’ said Alex, and genuinely meant that. The evening had passed off, if not with any degree of enjoyment, in stately elegance, and nobody had thrown anything at him, which was a bonus.

  ‘Sir,’ said Nyge, faintly. Alex shot him an amused look.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Tomaas,’ he enquired, ‘Did you complete your menu card yourself?’

  ‘No, skipper,’ Nyge looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know there was a card. Mr Burroughs just asked which cuisine I’d like to eat.’

  Alex could not resist giving a little choke of laughter.

  ‘For future reference, Mr Tomaas,’ he said, ‘Guests at Embassy events are asked to complete a menu card indicating which menu they would like, portion size, alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks and so on. It is what the stewards use, in serving you.’

  Nyge took in the fact that Buzz had evidently completed that card on his behalf, having advised the Novaterran menu and then requested, evidently, the largest portions.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, and a little flicker of emotion crossed his own face. His stomach was making gurgling noises and if he didn’t break wind soon, he felt, he might actually explode.