by Diane Duane
But once again everything had shifted. She had climbed into the flitter that had been sent for her the evening after she talked to Eveh tr’Anierh—having spent the whole day, it seemed to her, not packing, but reassuring the household that she would be all right—and realized that her life had become peculiar again. The flitter had not taken her to the spaceport, but straight up and out of atmosphere, to the new heavy cruiser Gorget. She had stepped from the comfort of the flitter out onto a great shining floor in the cruiser’s shuttle bay, with yet another honor guard waiting, this time of Fleet personnel; and these had brought small arms up to honor poise and walked her through the corridors of Gorget, Arrhae thought, like a queen. At a door high up in the deck structure of the cruiser they had halted, and one had opened the door for her; and Arrhae had walked into a space in which she could have had that nha’rei game, if she had chosen.
Huge windows on space, and carpeting, and antique furniture, and artwork, and a table off to one side, laden with food, and looking so good that Arrhae had to remind herself to treat it with disdain at the moment—the place was palatial. If all Fleet lived like this, I could see why young Rihannsu would fight for commissions, Arrhae thought. But she had a strong feeling that most crewmen didn’t live like this; she knew that Gorget had recently been refitted, probably with an eye to the transport of notables and government figures. If a small fish like me gets rooms like these, she wondered, what do the more senior Senators and the diplomats get?
The honor guard had presently taken itself away, and Arrhae had discovered that the suite came with a small service staff of its own—maidservant and steward, the more senior of whom, Ffairrl the steward, bowed and scraped to Arrhae in a most unseemly way, one that suggested that he was either a spy (possible) or used to being mistreated by the high-ranking guests (equally possible). She allowed him to show her around the suite—a master bedroom with a bath suite that must have been most extravagant in water use, even aboard a starship where water could be manufactured at will from ramscoop “scrapings”; a bedroom and sitting room which together were nearly a quarter the size of House Khellian’s Great Hall; and the outer meeting room and sitting room, with a buffet sideboard loaded with piles of food and pitchers of drink, and a small ancillary workroom and study, equipped with a state-of-the-art computer and communications suite. The tour over, Ffairrl begged to be allowed to give Arrhae food and drink. This she allowed him to do, and then sent him away, over his protests, while she wandered through the place, getting the feel of it and wondering where the listening and scanning devices were.
In the little office Arrhae had found a tidy printout of information concerning the mission. This went well enough with the “solid” information which she had received by courier that morning, and had read between fits of dealing with her own panicky household staff. The solid had contained copies of the legislation that had empowered the mission to leave, the mission statement, the document with which the mission would present the Federation on arrival, and a much fatter document containing speculation by intel staff on the Federation’s possible reactions to the presentation document. The printout sitting on the desk included names and some limited personal information on each of the Rihannsu delegates empowered to actually negotiate on the Empire’s behalf, the Senators assisting them, and the so-called observer group, of which Arrhae was one. She flipped along to her own description and was amused to see its brevity. Signeted 20.10.02156, it said. Senator for i’Ramnau-Hwaimmen. House: Khellian. Decorations: none. Many of the other biographies had a category that said “Service,” but not hers. Arrhae wondered if someone had been embarrassed by the prospect of the jokes it might enable.
She had looked up from her examination of her biography that evening at the slight shudder that had gone through the ship. Gorget was moving out on impulse, heading past the golden glare of Eisn; when there was enough distance between her and the star, she went into warp. Arrhae had breathed out when that happened, and then realized how she had been holding her breath. Anything could happen to me now, she had thought. What if I never see that star again?
The thought had left her peculiarly cold. Arrhae had pushed it aside, taking her reading out into the main room, where she could keep the buffet sideboard company.
The next day, and the day after that and the day after that, she had been kept busy with meetings with the other delegates, other members of the observing group, and with more reading. Arrhae knew that she had very much been tossed in at the deep end of Rihannsu politics, but she was moderately well prepared for that. Her years on ch’Rihan had not been spent only telling people where to dust and mop. Part of the job Starfleet had assigned her was to be as perfect in understanding of the language as she could, and this had meant doing all the listening and reading, of all kinds, for which her position allowed her time. By virtue of that—time stolen late at night, reading and watching the news services, days spent in judicious eavesdropping—she had learned as much about the politics of the Two Worlds as most Rihannsu ever did, and more than many ever bothered to. Now, of course, the game had moved up to a higher level, and she started meeting the faces who belonged to names which until now she had only read or heard of.
Noonmeal on the first day had been another lavishly catered affair—Arrhae made a note to herself to find out whether the ship had a gymnasium, or even a steambath where she might try to melt some of the carbohydrates off her between “briefings.” It had ostensibly been informal, a “meet and greet” gathering of the delegates, negotiators, and observers. The way people carried themselves, and the groups into which they gathered, soon enough told Arrhae that, despite the polite introductions, everyone knew what everyone else’s job was, and what their status was, and anyone who stepped out of position would soon enough be reminded. The negotiators kept to themselves, talking in a jovial and important way, and looked down on the delegates: the delegates did the same and looked down on the observers. The observers, having no one to look down on but the officers and staff of Gorget, did so, and Arrhae watched with considerable annoyance as they ordered the poor underlings around.
Arrhae for her own part tried to be social with her fellow observers as she met them over the second and third days. They were mostly jurists and tribunes—sober, sometimes somber people who seemed rather taken aback by the position into which they had suddenly been elevated—and a couple of other Senators whom Arrhae knew slightly. One of these, a round, blunt, balding little man named Imin tr’Phalltei, had plainly expected her to carry the drinks tray around out of habit when he met her first in the Senate, and was openly surprised to see her here. The other, a handsome, tall, broad-shouldered woman named Odirne t’Melanth, a Havrannsu with a name like that, had greeted her kindly when they met at that noonmeal, and Arrhae had realized that she found all this as disconcerting, and as absurd, as Arrhae did. “That lot over there,” Odirne said, signing with her chin at the negotiating group which had ostentatiously seated itself, as if of right, up at the top of the table, “do they even want to breathe the same air as we do? Great swaths of observing we’ll be able to do, indeed, once they get down to their work. As if they’ll let us near them when they’re making their alleged minds up about what to do!”
At first glimpse Arrhae was inclined to agree with her. Some of the negotiators were not exactly congenial types. And two of them were Praetors, though not on the level of the Three, of course—none of the Triumvirate would go out on a mission like this: their job was to sit home and rule on the information the underlings, even the very high-class underlings, sent to them. One of the two Praetors wore a face Arrhae recognized slightly from McCoy’s trial: Hloal t’Illialhlae, the tall, dark, hawk-faced woman who had been wife to the commander of Battlequeen, one of the ships lost to the Federation attack on Levaeri V. His death had made a martyr of him, and a harpy of her—if anyone would be pushing for the last drop of blood from the Federation in this negotiation, it would be she. The other Praetor was Gurrhim tr’Siedhri, a great name on ch’Havran
. He was a big, bluff, growling mirhwen of a man, a fire-breathing warrior and former Senator, one of the stranger and more individual figures in the Praetorate, and very much a nobleman in the old mold—as proud of being a farmer (if on a spectacular scale, for his family’s lands spread around a quarter of the planet) as a poet. He was one of very few exceptions to the rule that the negotiators and general delegates on the mission were inimical to the Federation. Tr’Siedhri did not like the Federation much, but he did not hate it either; and he emphatically did not fear it—which, Arrhae thought, was possibly a contributing cause to his lack of hatred. Either way, his presence here was something of a puzzle to Arrhae, for he was ill liked by most of the other Praetors, who had to put up with him whether they liked it or not because of the vast wealth and power his family had amassed over the past three centuries. Unless, Arrhae thought, someone has sent him here to embarrass him somehow—which will happen if he tries to treat the Federation fairly, and all the others side against him.
Or possibly someone wants to try to get rid of him, said some small suspicious voice in the back of Arrhae’s head.
There might always be suspicion…but Rihannsu life was full of unproven suspicion and paranoia, and eventually it would fade.
Arrhae thought about that as the second and third days went by, and she went to meetings and firstmeals and lastmeals with her fellow observers, making sure that she was available for the contacts she had been told would come. The one that did come, finally, on the morning of the third day, was as unwelcome as it could have been.
Her steward was bustling around trying to feed her, and Arrhae had been trying to resist him, while attempting to put right the formal clothes that she had packed—they had all looked good in the clothespress, all these kilts and flowing dark tunics, but now they seemed to require endless belting and pinning to drape as they were meant to. And the doorchime had gone, and Arrhae had breathed out in annoyance; it would be the “door-opener”—not that Gorget’s doors did not open automatically by themselves, but this particular Fleet officer was doing the same office as a ground-bound opener, arriving to escort guests around the corridors of the ship, which was all too easy to become lost in, and making sure they got where they were needed without putting their noses in anywhere they didn’t belong, or stealing the silver. “Of your courtesy, get that,” Arrhae had said to the steward, turning away to try to straighten out one more wayward pin, and then very carefully sitting down to her dinner. She was ravenous; the good dark smell of the osilh stew that Ffairrl had laid out on the little table beside the most comfortable chair had been making her stomach rumble, and Arrhae was determined to do something about that quickly, before she embarrassed herself in the day’s first meeting.
The door slipped open and the steward said not a word. Arrhae sighed, looked up…and found herself looking at Commander t’Radaik of the Rihannsu Intelligence Service.
What have I done to deserve this, Arrhae thought, trying to ignore the shiver that ran down her spine. The woman stood there, with those oblique eyes and sharp cheekbones of hers, tall and cool and good-looking in her dark, green-sashed uniform of tunic and breeches and too-shiny boots, and gazed down from her considerable height at Arrhae with an expression that suggested it took more than clothes and a signet to make the Senator. Still, “Deihu,” she said, and bowed, and Arrhae gave about her two-thirds of a breath’s bow from where she sat, not an overly committal gesture, one way or the other.
Arrhae looked over at the steward. “Out,” she said, so that t’Radaik would be deprived of the opportunity to say it first. Ffairrl took himself away at speed.
“Well, deihu,” said t’Radaik, looking around her with incompletely concealed amusement, “you seem to have settled in nicely.”
“Except for interruptions,” Arrhae said, “which not the Elements Themselves could prevent, it seems. What can I do for you, Commander?” She lifted the ale cup standing beside her plate, and drank.
T’Radaik bent that cool, arrogant regard on her again. “You have spoken in the past with the Terran, Mak’khoi,” she said.
“With no great pleasure,” Arrhae said, and at the time it had been true. She picked up a small round flatbread that was still warm, tore it in two, and turned her attention to the plate of dark, spicy osilh stew that Ffairrl had laid out for her.
“You were…close to him.” She was watching Arrhae very closely.
“Only in terms of seeing to his needs,” Arrhae said, “as one might see to the needs of a guest of one’s House.” And irked by the intensity of t’Radaik’s regard, she scooped up a little of the osilh with the flatbread, and ate. It was a calculated insult, to eat in front of someone and not offer them anything, especially if they fancied themselves your equal…but right now, Arrhae didn’t care.
T’Radaik’s eyes narrowed. “And he treated you in a friendly manner.”
“In that he did not kill me when last we met,” Arrhae said, becoming increasingly annoyed as she began to suspect where this was leading, “if you regard that as ‘friendly’, yes.”
“You might then have reason to be grateful to him,” said t’Radaik, “and to wish him well.”
“I might also feel like killing him should we meet again,” Arrhae said, tearing off another bit of bread and scooping up more stew with it, “but somehow I doubt that such an action would suit your intentions at the moment.”
T’Radaik gave Arrhae a lofty look. “It would not. The service requires your assistance. You will be given a package which will be—”
T’Radaik stopped suddenly as Arrhae put down the piece of bread and fixed her with an angry stare. Arrhae lifted her right hand, turning its back to the Intelligence officer so that her signet was in plain view.
“The service may indeed desire the deihu’s assistance,” Arrhae said, keeping her voice level, “but the service is the Senate’s servant. Does it not say so, in great handsome letters, right around the seal emblazoned across your main building in Ra’tleihfi?”
T’Radaik simply looked at her. “I have been charged by the Praetor Eveh tr’Anierh to assist you,” Arrhae said, “and to his wishes, I am obedient. But I would advise you to mend your manners, Commander, and mind your tone, or the Praetor will hear of both. There is rarely such a galling sight, or one so likely to provoke the great to action, as an ill-behaved servant stepping out of its place.”
T’Radaik opened her mouth. “And you are thinking that you knew me when I was only a hru’hfe,” Arrhae said softly. “Think more quietly, Commander. Things change, in this world. ‘Half the Elements are mutable; nothing stays the same,’ the song says. And no matter what I was three months ago, the office of Senator still commands some respect. Now tell me about this package, and whatever else you need me to know, and then begone. I have no intention of allowing you to make me late for my next meeting.”
T’Radaik swallowed, a woman choking down anger, but not dismissing it. It would be saved carefully for another time. “The service has a small package which it asks you to deliver,” she said. “It will be left here in your rooms later today. Should the Terran Mak’khoi be present at the negotiations, you are requested to see that it comes to him.”
“Not without knowing what is in it,” Arrhae said, picking up the rolled-up morsel of flatbread and popping it into her mouth.
T’Radaik frowned. “That is no affair of yours.”
“Indeed it is,” Arrhae said after a moment, “for a Senator’s mnhei’sahe rides on such knowledge, and on acting correctly upon it. I know enough of how the service works to desire to be sure of what passes through my hands.”
“A data chip,” said t’Radaik. “Nothing more.”
“Oh? Well, I shall open it first, and read every word.”
Arrhae thought as she tore off one more bit of flatbread that taking on quite so assertive a shade of green did not improve t’Radaik’s otherwise highbred looks. “I am not such a fool as to think it is love poetry,” Arrhae said. “It will eithe
r be something that does us good, or does McCoy or the Federation some harm. I will know which before I assist you.”
T’Radaik looked at her darkly. Then she said, “Disinformation.”
Arrhae waited.
“There are Federation spies among us,” t’Radaik said, “and you more than most people here should know it.”
This stroke Arrhae had been expecting, and now she raised her eyebrows and gave t’Radaik an ironic look. The thought of what had happened to her old master Vaebn tr’Lhoell after he “sold” her away into the safety of House Khellian was much with Arrhae, but if t’Radaik expected her to react to the painful memory with terror, she had misjudged her. “Such is inevitable,” Arrhae said, “as inevitable as our having spies in the Federation, I would suppose. So?” She used the bread to eat one last bit of stew.
“We catch them, sometimes,” said t’Radaik, and this time she actually smiled. “Usually we manage to get at least some useful information out of them before we kill them. In this case, we managed to get quite a lot.”
“I am delighted for you,” Arrhae said. “Again: so?”
“We desire that the information the spy sought, along with other data of our own providing, should come to the Federation by quicker means than usual,” t’Radaik said. “Seeing that you have had contact with the criminal and spy Mak’khoi in the recent past, you are the perfect one to pass it to him. If you must justify your actions, you will pretend concern for him, and feign that this information comes from someone who was trying to contact him when he was on ch’Rihan last—for we have learned that his capture by our forces was not an accident. It was planned by the Federation itself, to allow him to check on some of their agents here.”
Arrhae allowed herself to look astonished while she took another drink of ale, relishing the burning fruit of it as much as t’Radaik’s annoyed look. “They must have little concern whether he lives or dies,” she said.