The Absconded Ambassador

by Michael R. Underwood

  “So, we’re in space now. Like, actual astronaut space.”

  Shirin said, “You got it.”

  Leah’s hair floated up and around, wrapping around her head, bouncing back and forth. The edges of her dress rippled free, held back at the waist by the straps.

  Not only were they in space, but their ship didn’t come with artificial gravity, which meant zero-g. Honest-to-goodness, Sally Ride is my homegirl zero-g.

  “I’m in space right now,” she said, her brain processing the reality of the situation through the excitement of a five-year-old who had watched shuttle launches like they were the World Series, who had made cardboard spaceships several years beyond the time frame when child psychologists said was “normal.” Fantasy had been her first love, but her heart had made space for, well, space.

  “Quite something, isn’t it?” King asked.

  “Permission to squee, sir?”

  “Just don’t get it on the seats, Probie.” Leah could hear the man’s smile, an old theater trick for reading tone when you were upstage of your castmates.

  “Aye, captain. Sanitary squeeing only.”

  “Carry on.” Her grin went ear to ear, watching the interplay of light and darkness play out for infinity. What she wouldn’t give for a 360-degree view-screen right about then.

  “One hundred thousand klicks to broadcast range of Ahura-3,” Shirin said. “No anomalies or other ships within sensor range.”

  “That is what a dimensional crossing should feel like. Well done, team.”

  Leah took a few minutes to stare out into the nothing. Internally, she was doing a class-A booty dance.

  King turned in his seat. “Leah, see if you can squee and finish getting dressed at the same time. We’ll be hailing Ahura-3 in about ten minutes.”

  Leah unbuckled and floated out of her seat, hands out to brace herself against colliding with the seat in front of her or the hull above.

  “How’s it feel?” Roman asked.

  “This is so cool!” Leah said, failing to keep her voice professional.

  “Get it out of your system—we won’t be able to mess around once we port,” Shirin added.

  Fly in zero-g. That’s another one off the bucket list, she thought to herself, grabbing her chair and pulling herself toward the bulkhead, applying Ender’s lesson and interpreting the base of the ship as “down.”

  I need to be able to talk about this with someone outside the team. They’ve got to have allowances for best buddies or something, right? she thought. But the orientation package had specifically said that no one, not even loved ones, were allowed to know the reality of Genrenauts operations. So she’d have to contain her excitement with friends.

  For a moment, she was content to tool around the ship and tackle the challenge of applying jewelry and makeup in zero-g. Necklaces would be . . . interesting.

  Two: Not Remotely in Kansas Anymore

  LEAH COULD NOT BELIEVE her eyes, even as Ahura-3 filled the windshield, then grew too wide to see all at once. It followed the ring-and-spokes design model, three massive tubes with a dozen corridors, each connecting the tube to the central axle. Shuttles and maintenance drones swarmed around the station, and ships moved in and out of the axle, which seemed to be the main port.

  She’d wrestled her jewelry into submission and applied a base layer, ready for whatever weird science fictional makeup job would be required for the station.

  “That. Is. Awesome,” Leah said, gobsmacked.

  Roman chuckled. “It’s not even the biggest thing around. Ra’Gar battle-moons are more than five times this size. Around a third of the size of Mercury.” On base, Roman was always doing two or things at once. Here, in the field, he was steady, both calm and more animate. Focused.

  “Mercury?” Leah asked, her brain stuck in “WOW” since Ahura-3 had gotten large enough to make out as its own thing.

  “Okay, opening comms. Everyone shush and act like you belong.” Shirin flipped a switch, and then held a button. “Ahura-3, this is Free Trader Grendel, come in, Ahura-3.”

  Leah restrained from laughing at the name.

  A woman’s voice crackled through the radio, speaking with a Russian accent. “This is Ahura-3 Command, we copy you, Grendel. Welcome back. We don’t have a flight plan from you, but what else is new?”

  “Hey, Commander. No plan? Again?” Shirin asked, slipping seamlessly into character. “That’s what I get for hiring a new assistant. She must have flubbed the form before sending the Ansible. My apologies. We’re about twenty minutes out, what are my chances of getting into the docking queue this side of moonrise?”

  “You do like to play right on the edges, don’t you, Grendel?” came the commander’s response.

  “What can I say? Keeps things interesting.”

  The station-side audio stayed on, chatter and beeping audible through the staticky connection.

  “Come on over to bay five. You’re behind the freighter Salex Crown.”

  “You’re a peach. Catch you in the Bazaar?”

  “You know it,” the commander responded. “Mallery with you this time?”

  Shirin winced. “Sorry, Oksana. She couldn’t make this circuit.”

  “So be it. I will be happy to claim those apologies in vodka. Twenty-one hundred.”

  “Got it. See you then.” Shirin released the comms button.

  “Over and out.”

  “Okay, we’re good.” Shirin turned to speak to Leah, one eye still on the dash. “Oksana’s the executive officer on the station. She’s tapped into anything that happens officially and most of the stuff under the table. If we haven’t gotten the problem sniffed out by then, she’ll be able to point us in the right direction.”

  Leah asked, “Last trip was you and Mallery, then?” She didn’t need to finish, just judging by the shift in Shirin’s demeanor.

  Maybe ask a few less obvious questions, there, self, she thought.

  Shirin flipped some switches and then unstrapped and swung herself down toward the gear. “Okay, newbie, let’s get our faces on.”

  “So, what did you mean by lots of makeup?”

  * * *

  Walking across the gangplank into the customs and clearance area, Leah felt like an utter fool. And not just because she was still wobbling after having been in zero-g for less than a half hour.

  Mostly it was because she had on more makeup than she’d ever worn in her life, maybe even more than she’d worn for a makeup final in college, which was impressive, since her assignment had been “zombie.”

  But apparently, the custom for human women traveling in space was to wear red carpet levels of makeup. Red carpet followed by a David Bowie birthday rave.

  Though that would be pretty awesome, to be honest.

  The embarrassment was made somewhat better by Shirin being as dolled up as she was, but the older woman wore the cosmetic face with enviable nonchalance.

  May I give so few fucks when I’m her age, Leah thought.

  King went ahead, wearing an outfit that was a combination of shabby chic and Han Solo. He wore a sweet forearm tablet-computer-wearable thing on his left arm, and code-switched into a patois of English, French, and something else with the customs agent, a black woman of maybe twenty-five, wearing a prim-and-proper black-and-silver uniform.

  The rest of them stood by at the gate, a glass wall that ran twenty feet up toward the hundred-foot-high ceiling. Light projectors of some sort formed a red laser crosshatching across the only open way through the glass. Beyond, a similarly uniformed man with dark tan skin, in a silver beret, stood by a console.

  King bade the guard farewell, and her companion pushed a button, which changed the color of the laser netting to green. King went first, then Roman.

  “Go ahead,” Shirin said, and so Leah stepped through the netting. The light filled her vision for a second, but it didn’t feel like anything else, no pressure, no tactile sensation, nothing. The guard nodded, and she stepped forward.

  They
passed from the customs area into a long hallway.

  “I have to clear our cargo, so you three go ahead and start asking around, discreetly, to figure out what the source of the breach is. Roman has your covers for this mission.”

  They approached a T-juncture. A sign overhead said CUSTOMS with an arrow pointing left, the other way labeled STATION ENTRANCE. King broke off to head toward CUSTOMS.

  “And Probie, don’t go wandering off alone. This place is big enough, we might not be able to find you.”

  Leah watched King stride down the opposite corridor. “Well, that’s not terrifying or anything.”

  Shirin tapped her neck. “Don’t worry. We’re all chipped, so the wrist-comps can find us anywhere on the station.”

  Leah rubbed her own neck, though the injection site wasn’t sore anymore. “Yeah, I remember that from orientation. But he couldn’t resist the chance to be alarming, could he?”

  “Nope,” Roman said, picking up the pace. “Come on, this place is amazing.”

  * * *

  Roman was not lying.

  As they stepped out into the station proper, Leah was greeted by complete sensory overload.

  Lights, speech, music, and the sensation of standing on something that was moving. There was no way she could feel the specifics of the rotation on a station this big, but it was distinct from standing in a car or a plane or bus. It was . . . its own thing.

  The main building looked half like an airport terminal and half like an open-air version of the Star Wars cantina. She spotted a dozen different non-human races, and guessed at another dozen human-ish races, with different head shapes, skin colors, or some combination of the two, from walrus-looking people with large whiskers to tree people to a race that looked like big versions of fantasy dwarves—proportionally short limbs, but instead of being around four feet tall, they were six feet tall, nearly all in the torso, with massive, golden beards in elaborate braids that swung down to their belts like strands of Viking jewelry.

  One race walked on all fours, legs as thick as a telephone pole, torsos built like rhinos, but red-scaled with the heads a mixture between a rabbit and a Gila monster. Another seemed to be nothing more than brains in jars, floating along on personal hover-disks.

  “I should be trying not to stare, right?” Leah asked.

  Shirin passed Leah. “Your cover’s as a tourist from Mars who has never been off-planet, so you’re good. This gives you a bit more leeway, but you’re still responsible for knowing the whole setting dossier.” The older woman wove her way through the crowds, working the room like she’d done on Leah’s first mission. Judging by how many people seemed to recognize her, Leah wondered about the boots-on-the-ground reality of the “don’t make waves” commandment that King had hammered home right away, and the orientation material repeated.

  Another thing she’d like to ask about, but probably shouldn’t. Instead, Leah took the opportunity to rubberneck, taking in the brains in jars, the lizard-rhino-people, and everything else.

  A short walk and a longer elevator ride later, they reached a trade district, with more market stalls, airport-esque kiosks, and a two-floor bar called How Bazaar.

  Shirin chatted up the hostess, a green woman wearing a dress that was half rave-wear, half space-opera gown, bands of cloth crosshatching an otherwise bare back as the alien woman led them to a black leather booth in the corner of the first floor.

  “So how many people here do you know?” Leah asked as they filled the booth.

  “I know a lot of people. And they think they know me. But it only takes one or two odd details for people to fill in a whole painting about someone they barely know. It’s just another mask, like the others we pick up and put down on the job. Which reminds me, covers.”

  Shirin slid the sleeve of her dress back to show the wrist-screen. “Works like a tablet. The first file that pops up should be your cover, and then the details for the rest of the team. Read up, there will be a quiz. There’s a ton of material to get through, and you’ve got a couple of hours at most before we’ll be working the room trying to sniff out the source of the breach.”

  Leah poked at her wrist-screen, which pulled up a text file establishing her as Leah Summers, assistant to Freelance Attaché Narissa Shirin. Summers was a country girl from Mars, graduated summa cum laude from Olympus Mons University and aced the Stellar Service Exams, now two months into her apprenticeship with Shirin.

  Many of the other details were drawn from Leah’s real life—parents’ names, Han Chinese heritage, and so on.

  Roman and King were the Head of Security and Pilot, respectively. Other files showed the team’s last three visits over two years, the stories they’d stitched together, breaches they’d resolved. The reports were hyperlinked, with names and races and events linking over to other files. It was a whole story universe wiki, but for a story that was real, was all around her in its three-eyed, antennaed, spinning space-station glory.

  “Turn it up,” someone across the bar said, piercing her rabbit-holing fugue state.

  Leah looked up to see a view-screen above the bar turned to a news feed. A Chinese woman in a sequined suit addressed the camera.

  “Gentlepersons of Ahura-3, good evening. This week is expected to see a historic event as Ambassador Kaylin Reed finalizes negotiations for an Interstellar Alliance, binding Earth with the Ethkar, Gaan, Enber, Xenei, Jenr, Nai, and Yai civilizations. This alliance is expected to create a huge surge in interstellar trade, as well as serving as a mutual defense pact in case of another Ra’Gar invasion.

  “For the changes to traffic during the negotiations, we go now to Security Chief Gary Michael . . .”

  As the anchor continued her report, Roman emerged from the crowd, metal-toed boots clanking on the floor as the crowd parted for him, his presence making its own wake. Roman jumped right in, saying “Smart money says our breach has something to do with this. Shirin, you and Probie work the room here until the commander shows up. I’m going to get King and start working the fringes, see if we can’t scare up some gossip.”

  And then, as quickly as he’d appeared, Roman was off, power-walking in a way that looked entirely badass and not at all like the dorky white people exercise regimen that it was.

  “Do we usually get this much of a road sign?” Leah asked.

  Shirin wobbled her hand. “Depends. We’ve gotten to the point where we trust our instincts in the field. When you think you’ve got the lead isolated, you work it until it’s done.” Shirin tapped her own sternum. “That instinct that told you you’d spotted Frank in the kitchen, that led you to dig with Maribel, that’s what you trust here.”

  She continued. “Our team in particular has an incredibly high accuracy on breach identification. I’d like to think it’s intuition, but King insists it’s because of the frankly ridiculous amount of primary-source research he makes us do. It helps that everyone he recruits is already an expert in code-switching from life experience. Easier to see something out of sorts when you’re used to being on the outside looking in.”

  “Does it often go like this, boys’ team, girls’ team?” Leah asked as a blue woman with four arms set glasses of white liquid with ice cubes in front of them.

  “What’ll you have tonight, Ms. Shirin?”

  “A Venusian Sunrise for me, and a Manhattan for my apprentice. Commander Bugayeva will be joining us presently, if you can make sure the hostess sends her our way.”

  “Of course, Ms. Shirin. Good to see you back.”

  Leah checked her wrist-screen. It showed 2040, just twenty minutes from their appointment with the commander.

  Shirin looped around to Leah’s question. “We divide and conquer according to our skills.”

  “Anything I should know about this commander before she shows up?”

  “She’s proud, she’s aggressively competent, and she would be much happier if Mallery were here in your place. She carries a bit of a torch. Chances are, it won’t make things pleasant for you, unless
you want to charm her yourself. Best bet is to sit back and listen. You’ll get more to do when we learn where the breach is. This place is so big, I’ll probably have to assign you to tasks on your own. Click through to the Interstellar Alliance briefing. I need you up to speed as soon as possible.”

  No job, not even stand-up, had put Leah’s improv comedy training of “always say yes” to the test nearly as much as this one, and this was only her second mission.

  Leah speed-read her way through the briefings about the Interstellar Alliance while Shirin tapped away on her own wrist-screen.

  There were six principal civilizations involved in the proposed Alliance: The Terrans; the Ethkar, a race of warrior-priests with bumpy heads and pointy ears; the Gila-monster-elephant people, who were called the Gaan; as well as the Enber, the tall bearded race she’d seen earlier; the Jenr, the four-armed blue people; and a pair of races that had purple and pink skin, but otherwise looked like humans, called the Nai and Yai, who shared common origins.

  The Nai (purple) were ruthlessly capitalistic, and the Yai (pink) had embraced communalism. The Nai lived on a planet, the Yai its moon, and only stopped fighting with one another when the Ra’Gar started nibbling at the edges of their overlapping territories.

  “Wait, so no one actually knows what the Ra’Gar look like?” Leah asked as she swiped through the briefings.

  “There are various reports. But they differ for every race. There’s a ‘speculation and lore’ tab on the Ra’Gar page you should be checking out. They’re the Big Bad right now, the reason for the Interstellar Alliance. Ambassador’s been banging this drum for years, but now people are scared enough to listen.”

  “What do you think the breach is? Someone sabotaging the Alliance?”

  “That seems the most likely. Assassination attempt, kidnapping, blackmail, maybe even a staged attack on one allied civilization faked to look like it came from another. Or the threat could come from one of the would-be allies, a minority faction trying to throw a spanner into the works.”