‘Problem?’ Bull enquired, rather puzzled by Buzz’s and the crew’s reaction to that apparently supportive and encouraging signal from the League President.
‘Hmmn,’ Buzz confirmed, then paused and chose his words very carefully indeed. ‘It may be a matter of concern,’ he explained, ‘when carefully structured and phased plans are advanced unexpectedly.’
Bull considered that, and figured it out. The last time President Tyborne had taken a personal hand in one of the Fourth’s missions, deciding to push things forward on his own authority, it had been disastrous. His decision to involve the Solarans in the mission at Carrearranis had resulted not only in the immediate self-destruction of the ancient alien ship which had been protecting that world, but in the rapid withdrawal of all Solarans visiting League space. Nobody knew when, or even if, they would return.
And now, here he was, doing it again. Massive plans had been drawn up for the careful dissemination of the Beeby Disclosure across all League worlds, with the official confirmation by the League President having to wait until positive response had been confirmed by all their worlds. President Tyborne had evidently decided that he wasn’t going to wait. They would just have to wait themselves to see what impact that plan-jumping might have on the highly sensitive and rapidly changing situation League-wide. The impact it had on their mission right then, though, was immediate. There were, as usual, twenty quarians aboard the ship. Seeing the dismay running through the crew they naturally asked them what the problem was. And finding only confusion and a certain reluctance to explain in terms that quarians could understand, they demonstrated how much they themselves had learned about human culture by coming up to the command deck to ask the people in charge what was going on.
Buzz was ready to take that one, seeing quarians heading their way from all areas of the ship, but Bull rose to the challenge with true heroism.
‘My responsibility, I believe,’ he replied, in response to Buzz’s discreet offer to respond to questions on Captain von Strada’s behalf.
And so it was that Captain Bull Stuart, the most senior and most highly respected of the Fleet’s exodiplomacy branch, went on record, on camera, with the most controversial statement of the entire Quarus mission. Later, indeed, conspiracy theorists would claim that von Strada had arranged to be well out of the way for this one, though quite how he was supposed to have anticipated the arrival of that signal was never really explained.
As it was, though, Bull Stuart never even considered recalling Alex from his medically-imposed rest day to deal with a situation just because it was hideously embarrassing.
‘The situation is considered sensitive,’ he told the quarians who gathered in a curious mob around the command deck, ‘because President Tyborne is ultimately commander in chief over the Fleet and our culture does not permit us to criticise him officially or on record. The concern you can see amongst the ship’s company is due to the fact that they have previous experience of President Tyborne acting in a manner which may be described as impatient, impulsive and ill-advised. They are concerned that his decision to advance the official League-wide confirmation of our relationship with Quarus ahead of the conditional timetable may have detrimental effects. It may, possibly, lead to anxiety and the risk of panic in populations which would otherwise have coped well with the phased disclosure as it was planned. His signal also indicates impatience with the progress of the mission here, with his instruction to ‘focus’ and to bring quarians to Serenity ‘as soon as possible’. That isn’t in keeping with the philosophy of Captain von Strada’s approach which is very much to allow the relationship to develop at its own pace until such time as you yourselves feel that you want to take it to the next level with visitors heading to Serenity. That puts pressure on the Fourth which may in itself change the dynamic of how they interact with you and in doing so, affect how that relationship develops.’
The quarians continued perplexed, with a buzz of debate amongst them before one, a tall reef adapt called Sarad, spoke up for the group.
‘So you’re saying that you’re concerned that your president may be sabotaging the attempt to make your people aware of us without panicking them,’ she said, and hazarded, ‘because he doesn’t really want that to happen?’
‘No,’ Bull answered calmly. ‘I think, perhaps, because he wants it too much. President Tyborne is an extremely high energy individual, always on the move, always talking, always pushing for things to happen and to happen right now. Waiting patiently will always be an extremely difficult thing for him to do, personally. Waiting patiently while extraordinary events are unfolding on all our worlds and being micro-managed by the Diplomatic Corps is, I suspect, simply proving too much for him. And this is one of those delicate situations in which the Senate has decided on a plan but the President can exercise executive prerogative to change that plan without their agreement on the grounds of changing circumstance. It looks to me as if he wants things settled, wants to give the speech which will be possibly the most important and certainly the most famous public broadcast of his life, wants far more open and detailed news broadcasting right from the heart of the mission and wants to see quarians at Serenity as fast as you can be persuaded to go there. I would expect that by now he already has the League Alpha, the official presidential transport, fully supplied and with a course laid in to Serenity so he can come racing out there to meet with the first visitors himself.’
‘So… this is more about him,’ Sarad observed. ‘His desires, his fame, his self-aggrandisement, than with the future of the relationship between us and your people.’
Bull thought about that for a moment.
‘I doubt that he sees any conflict there,’ he said. ‘My understanding is that he believes the relationship between your people and ours to have already been rescued and secured by the Fourth, already believes that the peoples of the League will be fine with full disclosure and sees no reason to shilly-shally about waiting for that to become obvious to everybody else.’
‘So,’ said Sarad, ‘he’s an idiot.’
Bull Stuart looked at the intent faces of the group of quarians all watching him for his response. If he answered this honestly, he knew, his career would be over. On the other hand, if he refused to answer it on the grounds of duty of respect towards the League President, he could see, he just knew, that the relationship with Quarus would take a long step backwards.
Faced with a choice between prioritising his own career or that relationship, Bull Stuart didn’t hesitate for a second.
‘Yes,’ he said resignedly, ‘He is a buffoon.’
The quarians looked pleased. They were genuinely pleased by that, not by the revelation that the president of the League was a fool, because Silvie had already told them that, but by the fact that Bull, speaking for the humans, was willing to admit that so frankly.
‘So, why was he selected for the highest role in your culture and given all this authority when you must have known he would mess things up so often?’ One of the others in the group asked, amid murmurs of satisfaction.
‘That’s complicated,’ Bull replied, but when they continued to look at him expectantly, did his best to explain. He felt strangely liberated, with his career in tatters behind him, released from any obligation to be tactful. ‘We don’t elect our presidents directly. They are chosen by the Senators at the start of each ten-year electoral cycle, through a series of nominations and elimination votes which frankly become so complicated even our own people struggle to understand the processes.” They were still looking curious, though, so he gave another rueful look and admitted, “There is a feeling – quite widespread – that President Tyborne won the election because he looked the part and because most of the Senate believed that he would be fairly easy to manipulate. It is, you see, perceived that he has a tendency to change his opinion on any given issue depending on the last person he’s been talking to.”
He let them think about that and saw understanding.
“Anyway,�
� he went on, “There will, I am sure, have been a great deal of discussion on and off the record, with a good many people encouraging President Tyborne to believe that things are going so well that he doesn’t have to wait for the Diplomatic Corps to complete their slow and careful managed disclosure. What their reasons are for doing that I couldn’t begin to speculate, but I do know that the Senate as a whole are solidly behind the decision to make that disclosure and to give the relationship with Quarus utmost priority. This mission has, effectively, unlimited funding, and Captain von Strada has been granted extraordinary powers by the Senate, which shows how important this is to us. It may also be – actually, certainly is – the case that the President is coming under extreme and increasing pressure from the media on those worlds on which disclosure has already been made. People there will be wanting to know more, wanting to see the promised reports and footage from Quarus, and the media will be screaming for that on their behalf. Anyway, there it is. He is the President and when he does things like this, crashing carefully made plans, we just have to accept it and do what we can to keep things on track. I can’t speak for Captain von Strada, of course, in predicting how he will react, but it would surprise me if he changes his plans here significantly.’
Bull was right. Alex’s reaction to the message was, in fact, a key moment in the mission in itself, as most of the quarians aboard ship at the time gathered on the command deck to watch how he responded to it.
Alex’s reaction to Buzz breaking the news to him that evening came in four rapid stages. The first was one of immediate and strong irritation at the news that the President intended to make the official disclosure about Quarus ahead of schedule. Oh, the bleeping idiot! was spoken only in his head, but with eighteen quarians watching him so closely he didn’t need to say it aloud.
His second reaction, moments later, was to the instruction that he was to ‘focus’ and bring quarians to Serenity ‘asap’. This produced a flash of indignation. The implication, that he was just hanging out here having fun, really stung. He was hanging out here having fun, of course, but that was the whole point, the one and only strategy of this mission, to make friends with the quarians in an unstructured, unpressured and unhurried encounter. Telling him effectively to focus into a more structured approach, put the pressure on and hurry things up was demonstrating a disastrous lack of understanding and support.
His third reaction, coming so hard on the heels of the others that it almost merged into them, was one of philosophical acceptance, recognising that he could expect little better from that moron. Against black holes and idiots… he mused, with an inward sigh.
And with that, then, he moved into his fourth reaction, deciding what to do. He was acutely aware not only of the watching quarians but of the alert gaze of every member of his crew and, more remotely, the rest of the squadron almost holding their breaths as they awaited his response. What he did here would set the tone for all of them, whether that was to be grumbling about the stupid unwarranted interference from Chartsey or disregarding it as unimportant.
Alex gave a rueful grin, and shrugged. It was a very small movement, just the slightest raise and drop of his shoulders, but it conveyed volumes. So did that slightly crooked grin, with the wry glance exchanged with Buzz Burroughs.
Relief ran through the ship. The skipper wasn’t going to react with one of his rare but volcanic bursts of rage. He was shrugging it off. It would be fine.
And to the quarians, at least, that rapid sequence of strong emotions and the quality of the mind which overcame them in calm, purposeful control was truly a thing of beauty. There had been a good deal of joking about calling him Captain Gorgeous, but in that moment the observers really saw the clarity of mind and personality which had made Silvie call him that. Alex himself didn’t understand it at the time – was quite confused, in fact, by the quarians’ exclamations of admiration and a burst of applause from them – but seeing him work through a moment of stress like that had raised trust levels between him and the quarians significantly. They already knew that he was pleasant company, a strongly unified identity with all the adventurous, caring and fun-loving qualities Silvie had told them to expect. Seeing how he kept it together when things went wrong, though, even when the mission which meant so much to him was being put under pressure, that was truly impressive.
Even more so, though, was the way he stepped up, straight away, to protecting Bull Stuart.
‘I will,’ he promised the other captain, ‘make sure that there are no consequences to you arising out of what happened today.’
He meant, as Bull understood, to protect him from court martial for conduct unbecoming a Fleet officer or, more likely, being quietly obliged to resign his commission.
‘No,’ Bull said calmly. ‘You will not.’
Alex was surprised. He had taken it for granted that Bull would just say ‘thank you’.
‘I will,’ he insisted, and before Bull could speak, ‘You were acting on my behalf, in command of my ship, following Fourth’s protocols and my mission orders. That makes me responsible, no question, no argument.’
The watching quarians swivelled their heads from Alex to Bull like enthralled watchers of a tennis match. They could have had that conversation in Alex’s daycabin or even on the Eagle for absolute privacy, but that never occurred to either of them. If anything, had they been asked, they would have welcomed the presence of quarians observing such an interaction and through it, learning more about human ideas about responsibility. As it was, they were both so used to having a quarian audience now that they were hardly even aware of them.
‘Forgive me,’ said Bull, ‘but there is absolutely question and argument. I am more than happy to operate under your orders as Your Excellency but I should point out that I too am a flag officer and fully capable of making decisions for myself and standing by them on my own responsibility. I made my own decision, to express views in professional role which I knew very well to be contrary to Fleet regulation and I will stand by that, absolutely.’ He held up a hand to silence Alex as the younger man would have objected. ‘Alex, please,’ he said, and it was a command, not a question. ‘Turn this around. Put yourself in my place, same situation. Would you allow me to take responsibility for what you’d said?’
Alex struggled with himself for a moment and only just managed to prevent himself retorting, ‘That isn’t the point!’ It was the point, and he had to be honest, accepting it.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But you put yourself in my place, then. Would you just let me carry the can if I’d been acting under your orders?’
‘Well, no,’ Bull admitted, after a similar struggle with conscience and honesty which had the watching quarians wincing a little at the confusion of feelings. Then back their heads swung to Alex, breathlessly awaiting his return of volley.
‘Well, then,’ said Alex, and they gazed at one another for a long moment. There was a battle of wills in play there and both of them knew it. And both of them knew, too, how destructive that would be to the relationship between their crews if they allowed it to become a really angry argument. Weighing one another up, seeing the strength of the other’s feelings and determination, it was obvious that neither was prepared to give way. And in that moment, Alex showed why it was he and not Bull Stuart who had risen to the heights he had as an exo-diplomat. ‘Together,’ he said, and held out his hand.
Bull hesitated for a second or two. His own sense of responsibility was as immovable as Alex’s, his stubborn pride rather more deeply embedded and his instinct to protect the younger officer was very powerful. But then he, too, recognised that this was the only honourable solution for both of them.
‘Together,’ he confirmed, and as they shook hands there was an outburst of some relief from amongst the Heron’s crew. Which was nothing to the reaction amongst the quarians. They were deeply moved, several of them even on the verge of tears. As they saw that, Alex, Bull and everyone else around promptly forgot their own issues and switched st
raight to concern, worried that they’d upset or even hurt the quarians by the sheer force of their feelings.
It was quickly established, though, that the quarians were neither hurt nor offended. They were crying in the same way that people did at a heart-tugging ending to a movie, only in this case the movie had been real life and the emotions surging back and forth had been so genuine and so intense that they’d swept the quarians along with them.
‘When you took hands,’ said one, wiping tears away, ‘it was just beautiful.’
And then they all laughed, seeing how embarrassed both captains were by this perception of that debate. The quarians were quick to spread the word, though, when they went home, sharing not just an account of that incident but the emotional intensity of it. They might not understand the actual problem, the career-ending disgrace of a Fleet Captain stating on record, actually telling another species that the President of the League was a buffoon, but it was clear enough that when they were facing trouble, the two captains had stood together with a loyalty which had settled once and for all the question of whether humans were even capable of true friendship.
And, once the quarians did understand that the reason for that united heroism had been because Bull Stuart would lose the command of his ship for what he’d said about the President, they themselves stepped up, even more powerfully, to intervene.
Silvie came back to the ship.
‘I’ve been asked – told,’ she said, having asked to meet Alex and Bull on the Heron’s command deck, ‘to make it clear that my people would consider it to be a great injustice if either of you or any member of the squadron was to be penalised in any way for answering their questions, as we have asked you to do, with complete honesty. My own understanding is that there is an overriding exodiplomacy card which allows you to set aside normal regs and protocols. I don’t quite understand why that doesn’t cover you,’ she looked at Bull, ‘for what you said, whether you were in command here or not, and no,’ she went on quickly, as he would have tried to explain, ‘I don’t want to know, it isn’t important because whatever stupid rule it is you broke it is a stupid rule and if anyone is responsible for you breaking it it’s us, pressing you for answers to questions and demanding full honesty when we didn’t understand the consequences to you. Now we do know and we will not allow you, either of you,’ her gaze included Alex, ‘to be penalised in any way because you were doing your job, doing what you were sent here to do, being completely open and helping our people to understand yours. So I want it logged, on record, an official diplomatic protest against any action being taken against either of you or any other member of the mission for opinions and feelings which may be expressed in answer to questions from us. And we want it to be absolutely clear that if you are treated unfairly, unjustly, we would regard that as a serious step away from establishing a positive relationship.’ Seeing that Alex was about to speak, she held up a hand to him, palm outward, in a rather obvious imitation of Hetty Leavam at her most authoritative. ‘No.’ She said. ‘I’m not speaking here as Silvie, I’m being Ambassador, expressing the united and very strong views of my people. So, no argument. Just shut up and be told.’
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