by Jim Rudnick
Helena leaned forward to clasp his hand. “Honey, you don’t need my approvals at all—you’re Lord Scott. Command, and it will be done. But I do have one question, Tanner—what will you do if, in time, the doctors pronounce her cured? Commute her sentence?” she asked.
He took a sip of his wine which turned into a big gulp, and he shrugged.
“I’ve no idea. Would be years, I’d think, so no need to decide anything as yet. Oh,” he added after a second’s pause, “will we need to have a real public trial and all?”
Helena shrugged as she answered. “Not really, as your Lord Scott. Command and it’s done … but there are millions of Eons and Neen citizens who might like to see the assassin of their heads of state get that trial, be found guilty, and sentenced. Might be the best way to give them closure, Tanner?” she asked.
He nodded.
“True. Let’s do that then,” he said, and he picked up his glass again.
“Could I ask,” Helena said, “that we stay just one more day? I’ll notify the staff that we’re leaving the day after tomorrow, bound for Neres City?”
He nodded once again and smiled at her. The wine went down nicely as he hoped he’d actually made a good decision about the future of his assassin sister …
#####
The news came in as usual, via an EYES ONLY, to the head of the Hospital Ship over Neres, and as soon as it was over, messages for the team to assemble in the administrative meeting room were sent out by the chief of medicine for the Barony Hospital Ship, Doctor Zacrom Mendoza. It took almost thirty minutes, but eventually Maddie was able to close the door to ensure privacy, and she nodded to Mendoza that all were there.
He looked around the room and half-smiled at them all. “I was just on an EYES ONLY with Lord Scott—our own patient of a year ago or so—and I have some interesting news as well as a caution for you all,” he said.
Doctor Craig Nelson, the head of family medicine and a general practitioner of some stature, was agitated a bit, and he leaned forward. “Doctor, could we not have just gotten an IM on this? I have patients to attend to—as I’m sure we all do,” he said as he looked around the large conference room on Deck Twenty-four for support.
Doctor Lathan Trystan, who was the head of the group sessions department, nodded. “We’ve got another session starting in like twenty minutes, Doctor Mendoza … so …” he said.
Maddie, the nurse practitioner who acted as the meeting secretary nodded, and the only other person in the room, Doctor Etter, the psychiatrist, sat silently without moving.
“Fine,” Mendoza said, “then in a nutshell, here’s what the half hour EYES ONLY was all about. We’re getting Gia Scott, the girl who assassinated the Master Adept and the Duke d’Avigdor, as a patient. She will be held in the strictest of modes here, and she will be treated by you three. Maddie, for all the normal orientation to the Hospital Ship; Doctor Nelson, you’ll be her general practitioner; Doctor Trystan will have her in his groups; and Doctor Etter, you will look after her psyche. Clear?” he said and leaned back.
Surprised, everyone in the group, except Maddie, sat back and did not make a sound.
Maddie leaned forward in her seat. “Doctor Mendoza, might I inquire as to why we were picked for this—and in fact why the patient is not just going to be tried in a court and found guilty?” she asked.
He nodded. “That’s the part that is the easiest to answer. Lord Scott instructed me—that as you all were in charge of his ninety-day observation time awhile back—that you’d be the best ones to do this. He felt—and I think his reasoning is sound here—that you’d all bring something extra to the table as you have already studied him. He thinks—please keep this confidential—that his sister is what he called brainwashed and she was acting as she’d been trained by her mother. Lord Scott’s mother too, I’d add, and I think that Doctor Etter will need to consider much to come up with a diagnosis,” he said.
Everyone nodded, and he checked the tablet on the table in front of him. “She arrives the day after tomorrow. Normal check-ins—all of you to attend same—and, Maddie, she is to be put into Lord Scott’s old room, E-217. He was quite specific on that—and that his own time here should be shared with her, if needs be. She is to be implanted with a chip—we need to know where she is at all times, and that’s a certainty. I expect you all to remember that while we all saw—some of us closer than others”—he looked over at Doctor Etter—“that she committed a horrendous crime in killing those two at Lord Scott’s wedding, she is a criminal second and our patient first as our oath stipulates,” he finished and smiled at them all.
“Questions?” he asked.
Maddie shook her head. Doctor Nelson and Doctor Etter also shook their heads.
Doctor Trystan, however, did have one. “Is she to go into the mix for group? Can I add her, I mean, to any of same, or is there to be special treatment—after all, she is Lord Scott’s sister …” he asked, his eyebrows raised.
Doctor Mendoza shook his head. “No special treatment—treat her like any patient needing our help. But a reminder—I need weekly reports on your interim prognosis for her all the time she’s with us. And a gentle reminder to keep them very medical, as they will all be forwarded to Lord Scott on his orders, too.”
While he didn’t say it, they all knew that meant that any subjective comments by any of them would need to be backed up medically—it would keep the gut instinct opinions to a minimum, which sometimes were counter-intuitive to good healthcare. The meeting broke up a few minutes later.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
This time, the hallway outside the RIM Confederacy Council chambers had only a hint of water from the recent DenKoss members’ tanks, Admiral McQueen thought as he carefully picked his way down the tile hallway. Whomever had invented tile floors, he thought, should have thought about what happened with a bit of water on same and how you could go head over heels in a split-second.
He shook his head at the stray thought. There are more important fish to fry today, and he continued on his way to the monthly Council meeting. As he gingerly turned the corner into the room, one of the Provost guards nodded at him and waved him to one side as he was carefully mopping up the water. “Good to see,” McQueen said to himself as the uproar over a Council member slipping on the tile was not a good thing at all. He remembered the to-do a few years back about a Council member slipping on the tile.
He shrugged, went around the huge Council table to his left, and nodded to some of the members already seated at the table. He noted that a large white-haired man sat in the late duke’s chair. He knew he’d meet the man filling in for the Duke d’Avigdor later, and he nodded to others as he went past the head of the table.
Behind the table itself, in tiered seating rows, his own seat was at the front of the section reserved for Confederacy departments. As the admiral in charge of the RIM Confederacy Navy, he sat just to the left and behind the Council chairman. He dropped his papers and files and his tablet, which he swore got heavier as the number of files on it grew. He made his way over to the new Master Adept who was already seated on the right-hand side of the enormous horseshoe-shaped table. He smiled at her and she rose—somewhat unusual for her to do so— but he bowed his head to the Issian.
“Ma’am, good to finally meet you and to say hello before the meeting starts. Might I add that the Confederacy Navy is so proud of what you’ve built on Eons for the naval academy and in record time too,” he said. And he was right, he knew, that the academy was up and running and now housed almost six thousand cadets, all enrolled to become naval officers after graduation.
She smiled at him, returned the bow, and spoke softly so that only he could hear her in the busy room. “Admiral—yes, so nice to meet you finally. And might I say that your own help, along with the other admirals and Lord Scott too, to aid us in getting the academy finished and launched on time was very much the foundation of our success,” she said. She held out her hand too, and he shook it gently, a bit surpri
sed at her grip too. Strong and hearty was her style, it appeared.
“We should talk often and about many things,” he said. He grinned at her. He grinned at her. “And about the academy too,” he said pointedly.
She tilted her head to one side, as she looked into his mind. Moments later, she nodded. “I will make myself available whenever you can meet, Admiral, but until then, be advised that the duchy presentation today concerns Lord Scott. I thought you should know,” she said. Being able to read a mind was an Issian characteristic that she more than understood, and the admiral did not have to speak his thoughts to her out loud. The Duchy d’Avigdor and Lord Scott appeared to be the topic, and he smiled back at her.
“I will contact you tomorrow to see when we can meet, Master Adept, if that suits? And I thank you too,” he said and got a nod in return.
A flurry of latecomers to the Council chamber suddenly came in, and the Admiral nodded and returned to take his seat. The latecomers, from Faraway, Novertag, Ttseen, Farth, and Skogg had all arrived and were taking their seats when the last missing Council members, the Baroness and Chairman Gramsci both took their seats as well.
“Call to order, please, ” the clerk said as she rose from her seat in the area in the middle of the horseshoe table.
Chairman Gramsci, the head of state of Alex’n, the largest realm in the Confederacy, banged a gavel with one hand, juggled file folders with two more, scratched his ear with another, and tapped his fingers on the tablet in front of him all at the same time. Having six hands was the best thing about the Alex’n aliens and was a well-known fact. But as usual, it gave them little advantage in a meeting. Maybe it is better in situations where manual dexterity is important, the admiral thought.
“Order, please … order. Clerk, any regrets for this meeting?” he asked.
She nodded to him as she glanced over to the left-hand wall and the large display of the table and the members seated so far today.
“We do have regrets from Carnarvon—they will miss this meeting due to a series of heavy thunderstorms with rains that are causing major issues with some of their coastal cities. We wish them well. All others,” she said as she pointed at the icons around the table on the screen that were green—only the Carnarvon one was red, ”are present and accounted for.
“Small point, though, Mr. Chairman, that the Duke d’Avigdor, of course, is not present. In his place is Ambassador Bedre, the head of the Duchy Provisional Government, acting in that capacity.” She pointed out the ambassador.
Ambassador Bedre nodded and smiled.
Chairman Gramsci thanked the clerk for the notices and said, “Agenda, please, Clerk”
“Mr. Chairman, yes, Agendas were distributed, and all items there are ready for discussion. Please hold new business until the end of the meeting as is our usual way,” she answered, and she sat to begin to record the meeting.
Admiral McQueen was not so much interested in the bulk of the Agenda items, but he was more than a little interested in the Duchy d’Avigdor item and the fact that the ambassador would be making a presentation on it soon. It was item number four, but still, there was a bunch to wade through to get to that item. He sighed to himself and half-smiled to the room.
First up was the general point on the recent trade wars between Leudi and Faraway. A summary of their current positions was made by both the Leudi and Faraway Council members. Amazing how in sync they were and how ninety-five percent of their issues had disappeared once push had come to shove. Each had threatened to leave the RIM Confederacy if they didn’t gain supremacy over the other, which would have meant much hardship, economically and culturally, for all the realms on the RIM.
But the Baroness had quelled that in one act: giving the Barony Drive—instant travel anywhere—to RIM Confederacy members only. With the ability to now go from UrPoPo to Randi, more than eighty lights apart, in seconds, the cost of shipping and trading had been too much for the two trading races to bear. They’d “folded their tents in the night” and the previously partisan-based planets had complied to find ways to compete without triggering a trade war.
He ducked his head as he remembered that the number of protests in one of his departments had gone from more than a thousand to less than a dozen in two days. All had been rescinded and all had been done away with. The Barony Drive worked for us all, he thought as he began to listen in to the discussion.
The Council moved on to item number two, the new academy on Eons. With more than 1300 graduating naval cadets—soon to be second lieutenants—the pipeline of new naval officers was about up to where it should be. With more than ninety planets in the forty-realm Confederacy, navies were always looking for more officers, so this was a good thing.
There were more than two hundred new naval ships in the Confederacy, which was also a sign that the RIM was both alive and doing well. New naval officers were needed for sure, the admiral thought.
The member from Eran, the Nizami himself, didn’t bother to rise to speak. At twelve feet in height, this head of state was more than impressive. He said, “Not enough ‘accommodations’ have been made to the academy to allow us to send through officer candidates in any large numbers.”
He was right, the admiral knew, as the academy could at this point handle only twenty-five Erans. With them being twice the height of normal humans and aliens, that meant separate larger-sized dorm rooms, classroom seats, computer desks, and more, and currently, there were only twenty-five each of all the necessary items in the larger size.
The Nizami continued, keeping a polite tone in his voice. “Next year, we’d like to double the size of our candidates.”
That received a consensus around the table. The member from Hope said, ”If that means more ‘accommodations’ would need to be made, then so be it. I’d vote aye for those changes right now.”
Moved by the Nizami and seconded by the Hope member, the idea was quickly passed. It went to the Confederacy and the Eons members to work out the details and get back to the Council by next meeting with a timeline and a budget too.
Done, the Admiral thought and looked down at his Agenda. Oh, the Ikarian vaccine is next.
The Baroness rose, and the room instantly quieted. The woman who ran the Barony realm was human, and all agreed she was one of the most beautiful women on the RIM. Dressed today in a shade of teal and deep green, the woman certainly knew how to look impressive. Her golden hair and haloed her beauty. Her nails, he noted, had a glint of blue behind some sort of polished crimson. More than enough woman for any man, thought, or maybe too much for most.
She looked around the room and the small talk ended. “I come before you today,” she said nicely, “to report that we have been successful in finding an answer to the Ikarian vaccine.” She half-turned to point behind her. There, sitting in the bottom tier, was Ahanu, the Ikarian member who represented his planet of Throth.
Ahanu was tall with jet-black hair and his piercing blue eyes took in all around him. Wearing a leather jerkin and a large beaded necklace, he looked like a warrior, there was no doubt about that, and even though he appeared to be unarmed, the admiral knew he would be a formidable foe.
Ahanu smiled at them. H dipped his head but then held up his right hand, clasped into a fist, and placed the back of that hand on his forehead in the traditional Ikarian sign of respect.
“Ahanu is an Ikarian—the representative of Throth—who helped to bring his race to our Confederacy. As you all know,” the Baroness said as she turned back to fully face the table, “we worked on this for almost four years. And we can now offer up to the RIM Confederacy members that the vaccine, which captures the virus, gives what we think is a doubled lifetime to anyone who simply drinks the single dose.
“Our testing continues, and we’re up to,” she said as she glanced down at the tablet in front of her, “more than an eighty-one percent success rate for all. That is, for eighty-one out of every one hundred races, human or alien, our testing has proved, the vaccine will double thei
r lifetime range. If you should live to be one hundred and twenty, then our vaccine should double that to two hundred and forty years, all things being taken into account.
“Might we ask,” the Caliph interrupted her, “if it works on all our Confederacy races? Each of our alien and human ones?” he queried.
The Baroness nodded. “Yes, it works for all. In fact, we’ve, as yet, not found a race that it does not work on …” she said nicely.
She knows what is coming next, the admiral thought.
“And can we inquire as to what this will cost us Confederacy members? With more than a billion citizens in the Caliphate, the costs are very much an important factor for us,” the Caliph went on.
The admiral looked around to catch many nods from many of the members.
“Yes, Caliph, we intend to sell the vaccine—to Confederacy members only—at cost. That would be less than four credits per dose, at least at our current manufacturing levels. Should we ramp up our production and find cost efficiencies—the price to you would go down. We do not look at the vaccine as a ‘cash-cow,’ so to speak—rather as a way to enrich the whole RIM Confederacy.”
That got silence in the room. Each of the members was multiplying their number of citizens times four to come up with a cost for them to adopt the vaccine realm-wide.
“And should we, say, buy a million doses and then offer them for sale on our own planets at a markup, would that be allowed?” the Caliph went on.
“We do not have a problem with that,” the Baroness said, “as long as you’re aware that it would be available on every single commercial ship, space stations, and the like all at the four credits per dose, base price,” she said.
Bingo, the admiral thought. So should the Caliph, say, try to charge twenty credits or a hundred credits per dose, the population would simply find another outlet at the base cost.