Ambassador

by William Alexander

  It drew a little arrow inside its helmet self. Gabe reached for a dial.

  NO, THIS ONE, the Envoy wrote. It drew a more forceful arrow, and then a circle around the right dial.

  Between them they managed to get the environmental systems cranked up again. Gabe shed the Envoy suit and took his first breath of stale, metallic station air.

  The Envoy kept a sticky hold on all the dust and dirt it had accumulated outside. It rolled itself and the dust into one lump, and carefully spit the lump into a corner. Then it made a mouth and took a breath of its own.

  “Dirt is dangerous here,” it explained, “both to your lungs and to the equipment. All the dirt has sharper edges than the stuff at home. No water or air has moved over the particles to smooth them out.”

  Gabe shivered and rubbed both arms.

  “It’ll get warmer,” the Envoy said. “Follow me. The observatory is down this way.”

  It led Gabe to a pod filled with ancient-looking computers, most of them open and spilling out their wires and circuit boards. Something like a submarine periscope dangled from the ceiling. Another window-like screen showed more grainy mountain footage. An actual window took up most of one wall. Gabe saw stars through it.

  Small, abstract sculptures lined the windowsill. He leaned in for a closer look. He couldn’t tell what any of them were—or if they were supposed to be anything other than themselves. “Did you make these?”

  “Yes,” said the Envoy, sounding embarrassed. “I spent a very long time here. And I was able to extract more ice from the lunar soil than I needed for drinking water, so I used some of it to make mud and clay. Please don’t touch. The little statues don’t hold together well.”

  The Envoy began to tinker with the spilled puddles of electronic equipment.

  “We can actually scan the asteroids with this stuff ?” Gabe asked, skeptical.

  The Envoy sighed. “I know it doesn’t look tidy, but this was very advanced equipment in 1974. And I’ve been improving on it in all the years since. Watch.”

  A floating map of the solar system burst into existence in the center of the room. It didn’t look like a projection. It looked as though the Envoy had somehow shrunk the actual system and squeezed it inside itself. Gabe took one careful step closer. He didn’t want to disturb anything. He felt as though touching a projected planet might knock the real thing out of orbit like a flicked marble.

  “There,” the Envoy said, sounding pleased. “That’s more interesting to look at. I’ve cobbled the model together out of data gathered over forty years, since of course we can’t see the whole system at once from any single vantage point. This still gives us something to work with. I’ll start making new scans and examine the data I had already collected.”

  “Sounds good,” said Gabe, still watching the projected model. “What should I do?”

  “You should sleep,” the Envoy told him. “Continue to investigate your fellow ambassadors, especially the Centauri neighbors you’ve already met. You might even threaten to make public accusations.”

  “But I don’t know who to accuse,” Gabe protested.

  The Envoy grinned. “They don’t know that. They might panic and reveal themselves by panicking.”

  “Aha,” said Gabe. “So you think I should bluff.”

  “Just an idea,” the Envoy said. “You gather information there. I’ll gather it here. We can compare notes after you wake up—unless, of course, you discover our enemies, expose them, and drive them out of our system before then. Good luck. There are bunk beds in the next pod on the left.”

  The Envoy focused its attention on a bulky monitor, where a mess of numerical data glowed lurid green.

  Gabe found a bed.

  He was tired. He had been up for a while, and he had seen things entirely new to him. He felt both elated and frayed.

  The bunk mattress was thin, like the kind of tiny foam camping mats that never actually stay underneath a sleeping bag. But Gabe didn’t have as much weight as he usually did, so the thin mattress still felt comfortable.

  Before he fell asleep, Gabe thought of a way to frighten his neighbors.

  18

  “Greetings, Ambassador,” said Protocol.

  “Greetings, Protocol,” said Gabe. He felt less disoriented this time. The transition between waking life and entangled travel became shorter and smoother with each Embassy visit. “I have a request. Please call a local match for me. I challenge every adjacent civilization to a game of my choosing.”

  Protocol paused. That pause had its own gravity. “Are you certain, Ambassador? The Outlast will be among the representative civilizations called to this match.”

  Gabe straightened his posture and tried to feel as if he had some authority, though he found it very difficult think of himself as tall while talking to a room that had no visible ceiling. Empty space towered above him.

  “I’m certain,” he said.

  “Very well. Where would you like to meet?”

  “An open area,” said Gabe. “No trees, no hills.”

  “Very well,” said Protocol again. “I have sent the summons. It is traditional to meet in constellation, which means that you will initially stand in relative positions that model your homeworld locations in miniature. You may then move around as your game requires.”

  “Thanks, Protocol,” Gabe said. He wondered what it would look like if everyone stood in constellation. They could form a map of the whole galaxy with a great, big, spiraling crowd of kids.

  “You are welcome, Ambassador Gabriel Sandro Fuentes. I hope that you will adequately resolve whatever matter prompted you to do this.”

  “Me too,” said Gabe.

  The mirror-door slid aside. Gabe walked through the space where it used to be and followed the corridor into the wide expanse of the Chancery. The clouds were different colors this time. Gabe didn’t have words for the colors that they were.

  Other ambassadors played their games and went about their business. A tournament of several dozen leaf-throwers lined up at the beach, took aim, and tossed their folded planes over the lake. Swimming and hovering ambassadors judged which gliders flew farthest, which ones flew highest, and which ones flew with the greatest style.

  Gabe found a ball dropped by one of the flying games. It was dark and almost clear, as though made out of obsidian, though the texture of it felt leathery in his hand. It was also baseball-size. He brought it with him.

  One cloud became a pointing arrow and descended toward an open field, otherwise unoccupied. Gabe also heard a low and gong-like sound boom from the same direction, but everyone else seemed to ignore it. They must not have heard it.

  He set out for the cloud arrow place. It was a bit of a walk. He took his time, thinking hard.

  Ambassador Sapi came bounding toward him on his way downhill.

  “Hello, you extremely stupid person,” she said. “What are you up to? And wouldn’t you rather be climbing trees? I know I would rather be climbing trees. I’d like to assume that you feel the same. And I need to explain to you, slowly and clearly, that you should not ever catch the attention of a genocidal species. You keep doing that. I wish you would stop.”

  “Can’t climb trees,” said Gabe. “Not right now. I have a local match to play.” He tossed the ball and caught it while he walked.

  “Ah,” said Sapi. “We just played one of those. We had to hold a shapeshifting duel first, because the Ven and the Gnoles hate each other and they won’t talk without dueling first.”

  “What’s a shapeshifting duel?” Gabe asked.

  “That’s when you face off, hack your own visual translation, and take turns transforming into the scariest shapes you can think of. The first one to scream, laugh, or drop back into their usual sense of shape loses. Actual shapeshifters are best at it, of course, but even they can’t mess with someone else’s perception for long. Protocol gets snippy if they try. Duels are always fun to watch, but I wish the Ven and Gnole delegates didn’t have to go through w
ith it every single time we all meet.”

  “Why do they hate each other?” Gabe wanted to know.

  “I don’t remember,” Sapi told him. She sounded bored, as though she found the whole idea of hatred boring. “Anyway, we all played a guessing game after the duel. And after that we got around to helping the Ven get clear of their exploding star. The less fuel a star has, the less gravity it’s got to hold itself together, so then it yawns and stretches and grows until it swallows everything else around it.” She snatched the ball away from him in mid-toss and made it grow huge like a monstrous beach ball. Then she heaved it up, caught it with both arms, and squished it back down. “The sun burns out after it gobbles up its planets. That’s starting to happen now. But it’s only just starting. It’ll take a couple of Gnole lifetimes to finish, and Gnoles live a long while, so we still have time to send ships and help the Ven relocate. Once we sorted that plan out, the new guy from Treem wanted to know what kind of music other people play, so we switched over to a singing sort of game.”

  She tossed the ball back to Gabe and sang a tune to herself. Gabe thought it was a tune, at least. The notes fit together according to a whole different sense of math and rhythm than Gabe was used to.

  He fiddled with the ball while they walked. “How did you make it change?”

  “Twist it this way,” she said, miming a demonstration with both hands. “It’ll change color, too, if you whack it hard enough.”

  Gabe tried it a few times, just to get the hang of it, before twisting it back to baseball-size.

  “There you go,” said Sapi, approving. Then she gave him an alarmed and curious look. “Wait. Hold on. You’re from that dinky little spur of a spiral arm on the other side of the center from me.”

  “How can you tell?” Gabe asked. He hadn’t noticed any geographically identifying characteristics about her, or about anyone. He must not have been looking properly.

  “It’s obvious,” she said. “But nobody from your part of the galaxy ever holds a local game. The Outlast dominate most of the arm just beyond yours. If you call for a complete match, then you’ll call them. You have to interact with them. Again.”

  “That’s the idea,” said Gabe.

  Sapi stopped walking. “That’s every kind of stupid that there is! And stupid is infinite. You’re still every single kind.”

  “Thanks,” said Gabe.

  “What are you trying to do?” Sapi pressed. “Collective suicide? Or are you trying to make a formal complaint? Conquering types don’t much care about reprimands. And no alliance of worlds has been able to slow them down, either, so the very best thing to do is avoid them. Maybe you should reconsider this game?”

  “Nope,” said Gabe. “No time left. Someone’s trying to kill me, and it isn’t the Outlast—well, I’m pretty sure it isn’t the Outlast. But if I can scare them with the Outlast, then I might find out who they are.”

  Sapi made an untranslatable noise. Then she made it again. Finally she said something that Gabe could understand. “If you think playing a game with Omegan is the least dangerous option available to you, then your circumstances must be very, very bad.”

  “Things are bad,” Gabe agreed.

  “Then good luck playing games with your various enemies.”

  “Thanks.” Gabe smiled what felt like a Zorro-ish smile. “That’s what this place is for, isn’t it? Playing games with everyone?”

  Sapi gave him a long look, shook her head, and ran for the trees. She seemed to prefer running to walking.

  19

  Gabe was the first to arrive at the designated place. One large circle glowed in the grass. He figured that was his place to stand, his spot in the larger constellation. He stood inside it and tossed the ball from hand to hand.

  Ripe arrived next. He walked with each foot lifted high, and he placed each step very deliberately before lifting the next. Gabe lobbed an easy throw in his direction. Ripe let the ball land on the ground in front of him. Then he picked it up with one foot, looked it over, and lobbed it back.

  Ca’tth climbed cautiously down from the hills and took his own position close to Ripe. His ears fluttered in a flustered, uncomfortable sort of way, but he caught the ball easily and tossed it back.

  Gabe let the visual translation do its work. He kept his gaze relaxed and didn’t squint at the others. They looked like two kids to him—one with glowing eyes and no hair, and the other with long, oddly bent legs, but still kids. Both watched him closely, expectant, waiting to learn why he had called them together.

  He stalled instead of telling them.

  “This is the first game I can remember,” Gabe said. “My dad and I would sprawl out in the grass and look at the sky while he tossed a baseball into it. I watched the ball go away and come back, over and over. It made a really satisfying smack each time he caught it, like the ball was saying ‘I belong right here.’ And then Dad would tell me, with his goofy self-importance, that it was a very great magic to throw something and catch it again. He promised to teach me this powerful magic. Then he did. After that we played catch all the time. We’d toss baseballs whenever he was too happy to know what he wanted to say and whenever he was too angry to say anything and just needed to throw things instead. He had a baseball signed by Luis Gómez, another tapatío who played for the Twins. It’s gone now. He kept it in the basement, in a little glass box, and our basement doesn’t exist anymore. Anyway, this game is the first one I remember.”

  “Remembering,” said Ripe. “We make them out of words and out of games and out of strong, important smells. I remember memory games of hidden incense and berry juices first.”

  “I remember hiding,” said Ca’tth. “My home has many, many, many, many hunting things, so everyone learns early how to hide, how to chase, and how to make a game out of it.” He looked around, frowning. “We’re too exposed out here. Good for chasing. Bad for hiding.”

  Jir of the Builders and the Yards jogged up to her own place near the other two. Her long hair twitched, restless.

  “What’s the first game you remember?” Gabe asked while tossing her the ball.

  “Wordplay,” she said, catching it. “And counting games. Math and language. We made up our own codes so no one else could understand us. That’s what we thought at the time, anyway. It felt private, rebellious. But they were already grooming us for the Ambassador Academy, so it was probably the kind of game we were supposed to be playing.” She threw the ball back, hard. The impact stung Gabe’s hand. “What are we playing now? I hope it’s something with teams. More satisfying to see lots of moving parts and players working together.”

  Gabe eyed his three neighbors. Maybe it was true that they cared more about leaving their shared corner of the galaxy than making piratical claims in Gabe’s solar system, but any one of them might still want to steal some ice on their way out—and then make sure no one complained about it by killing the local ambassador. Any one might be an ice pirate. All three of them might be working together, sharing their evacuation plans and excluding Gabe’s planet and species from rescue.

  His hand still stung from Jir’s throw. His pride still stung from Ca’tth’s attempts to exclude him from their games and emergency plans. But he tried not to glower and glare. He tried to carry himself with casual confidence. More like Zorro, he thought. Less like Batman.

  Gabe held up the ball. “We aren’t all here yet, but let’s start anyway. The game is catch. Sort of. Pretend the ball is something else, something new with every throw. Say what else it might be when you throw it.” He tossed the ball at Ca’tth. “This is a question hoping to be answered.”

  Ca’tth fumbled the ball. “What do you mean, we aren’t all here yet? Who are we still waiting for?”

  “Omegan,” Gabe said. He felt like smiling, but he didn’t. Maybe now you’ll all feel as scared and vulnerable as I do. That thought was satisfying, but it also made Gabe uncomfortable. He set his discomfort aside and kept talking. “I guess the Outlast homeworld is farthe
r away, so he’ll take longer to get here from his starting point in the constellation. But I did invite him.”

  Ca’tth dropped the ball again and stared at Gabe.

  “Play the game,” he said, but Ca’tth didn’t move—not even his ears.

  “I have a more important question,” he hissed. “Why are you doing this? Why, why, why, so many whys, all the whys there are to ask? Why call for a full match? We’ve already tried to censure the Outlast, to reprimand the Outlast, to build an alliance against the Outlast. None of it has mattered.”

  You’re still only worried about the Outlast, Gabe thought. It doesn’t occur to you to worry about anything else. It doesn’t even occur to you that I might be worried about something else. You’re not the one trying to kill me.

  Gabe ignored Ca’tth’s question and tried to ignore his own creeping discomfort. He no longer felt as if he were doing something right, or righteous. “Play the game,” he said, his voice flat and cold.

  Ca’tth didn’t pick up the ball. Jir walked over and retrieved it. Her hair lashed back and forth, back and forth, agitated and angry.

  “This is empty,” she said, and twisted the ball to make it bigger. “This is a vast area of empty space in which nothing now lives. This is Outlast territory. This is dead space.” She kept her eyes locked on Gabe. “And you’ve invited those responsible for massive, galactic extinctions to come play catch with us?”

  Jir’s long tail-hair raged behind her head. She sounded incredulous, hurt, and betrayed. She also seemed to think that the Outlast represented the only danger that any of them should be concerned about—Gabe included. You’re not an ice pirate either, he thought.

  She threw the ball. He caught it and twisted it back down to baseball-size.

  “Yes,” said Gabe. “I invited him to come and play. That’s what this place is for.” He tried to speak with casual bravado, but to himself he sounded defensive. “Now the ball is, um, a comet.” He tossed it to Ripe, because Ripe wasn’t glaring at him.