Ambassador 2: Raising Hell (Ambassador: Space Opera Thriller)

by Patty Jansen

  Someone had mentioned that this was a mild day.

  We went up a wide set of stone stairs and into a hall.

  Fortunately, it was cooler inside.

  We walked through a long curving corridor, where natural light filtered through a semitransparent ceiling. The material of the floor was soft and bouncy. People in uniform rushed past us, disappearing into the constant curve.

  A group of people came the other way, wearing silver suits with splashes of red. Someone shouted an order I didn’t catch. My guards stopped, too.

  “Who are these people, mashara?”

  “They’re Taysha’s guard,” Veyada said. “Don’t get involved if you don’t have to. This will be between guards.”

  I had no intention of doing so, but the key in my pocket felt heavier. The suit was doing a good job of keeping me alive, but if this was a mild day, I didn’t think I wanted to know what a hot day was like.

  There were seven guards in classic formation: the leader first, the seconds following to the sides, the thirds at the back. All guards wore silver suits with a thin red belt, not the sash. The suits were sleeveless, the guards’ arms tanned and muscled.

  In their midst walked a stocky man in a maroon robe. I had never seen him in the flesh but recognised him from the pictures.

  Taysha Palayi.

  ‎

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  DAMN IT. Straight into the fire.

  Trust a Coldi to face a situation head-on.

  Taysha was a lot shorter than I’d imagined. His face was unusually narrow, with the darker skin which I’d heard was more common on the island of the second major city, Beratha. His hair was, in typical Coldi style, tied back behind his head with not a wisp of hair out of place. Was it the visor or was his hair duller than that of the average Coldi? He had small, deep-set eyes with a fair bit of gold flecking.

  He wore a loose robe with flowing sleeves that hid most of his arms. His hands looked quite young, and he wore the traditional rings and jewels of an important clan figure. I couldn’t stop the thought: had he bought any of those things with my money?

  He addressed the guards. “So. mashara, you bring our foreign visitor. Let me see him.” His voice sounded belligerent and his pronouns were commanding. I associated vhi forms with talking to young students or children. Condescending, really.

  Ezhya’s female guard Sheydu greeted him in the subservient position. “This is gamra delegate Cory Wilson, representing Ezhya.”

  She stepped aside a fraction so that he could see me, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to bow for him. I might have considered it had he been polite to the guards, but not now.

  He eyed me up and down.

  “You.” His voice was disdainful. That was a very accusatory you. “You thought you could step in the history books, huh?”

  “I have come for a reason.” My voice echoed back at me. I wish I didn’t have to speak through that blasted helmet. What would happen if I took it off? Fifty-eight degrees? Maybe not.

  He came towards us and stopped a few paces away from me. Didn’t bow. Looked me in the eye through the visor. I held my breath. When I had met Nicha, he confessed later that his dominance instinct had fired. It didn’t often happen facing non-Coldi people, but it seemed I was one of those exceptional cases where it did happen sometimes. Just my luck.

  “Ha, you’re a cocky one.” Taysha snorted and turned around, retreating to the company of his guards.

  “I was hoping to see Risha.”

  “You’re out of luck.”

  “Is he out?” Risha’s continued absence bugged me perhaps more than it should, since no one else seemed to care. Was he stuck in Beratha, perhaps?

  “Of sorts. But come. I had rather not let you faint, because that would mean I’d have to forego your interesting replies to the questions I’m going to ask you.” His voice held a hint of laughter—and laughing in Coldi was a rude thing.

  He waved his hand.

  Without a word, his company turned and set off in the direction from which they had come.

  I glanced sideways to the female guard Sheydu. Her face showed no emotion.

  “We follow?” I asked her.

  She nodded and we set off. I couldn’t say I liked the wary expression on her face. This woman was hard-faced and wiry, older than most guards. She had probably been with Ezhya most of her life and I should pay attention to her cues, especially where Taysha was concerned.

  While we walked, I noticed there had been a subtle change in the exposed skin on her face since we’d arrived. The surface had gone matte and velvet-like as if she wore a crapload of powder. I’d heard that this would happen on Asto. This was another adaptation of the Coldi people, in addition to their ability to vary their body temperature. The skin became really rough so that it had more surface area to lose heat.

  Taysha and his party led us through a maze of corridors to an underground station. Here, Taysha commandeered a vehicle for us, a sleek, bullet-shaped carriage that, like the trains in Barresh, seemed to come with its own engine. Through wide doors and a floor that adjoined the platform so precisely that there was hardly a gap, we entered into a spacious interior. Cloth-covered seats lined both walls and we sat down, Taysha and his guards on one side and our group on the other. I’m sure it was no accident that Taysha sat opposite me. While the doors shut and the carriage started moving, he took in each of us, letting his gaze rest on Sheydu.

  I felt her tense next to me.

  He said nothing, just stared at her.

  She avoided his gaze by looking at her hands in her lap, but her back was straight and she held her shoulders in a tense position.

  Taysha had a full association of guards with him, all seven female. Two of them sat between Taysha and the window; two more on the other side of the aisle. One stood behind us in the aisle, another ahead. The last one, probably the leader, sat across the aisle from Sheydu.

  She had the distinctive cross-hatched scars on her upper arm that marked her as having been a member of the Hedron guard. Hedron, the world settled by zeyshi. My gaze lingered on her, but not too long. These Hedron guards were said to be highly-strung and dangerous.

  Five of the other guards were mothers, as I could tell because their breasts were developed. None, except for the ex-Hedron guard, had Natanu’s build. The others were more slender, more female.

  So, the shapely creatures were supposed to be guards, huh?

  Just the thought of this creep getting his hands on Thayu made me angry. She must have been desperate when she agreed to that contract.

  The uncomfortable silence lingered. Sheydu fidgeted. Taysha stared at her as if undressing her with his eyes. The only sound in the cabin was the whine of the wheels on the rails. I wanted to tell him to stop staring at Sheydu. I wondered why he’d come to meet me if he wasn’t going to say anything.

  To get me away from other people, including Risha?

  I was hot. I was angry. Neither were a good state to be in, if my experience was anything to go by. Damn, I wanted Nicha and Thayu here.

  A few stations zipped past, with people waiting on the platforms. The train weaved its way between tall buildings, underneath underpasses, over streets. All of this I only saw out the opposite window, because I didn’t want to look away from that man. I didn’t want him to think I was afraid of him or that I would back down from whatever he was going to throw at me.

  The train slowed down approaching the huge Inner Circle complex. From all the time I’d spent studying the upper levels of Asto’s society, I recognised the tower of the Inner Circle and the domed area at the very top that was the Chief Coordinator’s residence. The hub where I needed to take the key was up there.

 
The train shot into a tunnel and came to a halt not much later. The doors slid open.

  I followed Taysha and his party onto the platform which was in an underground hall. The cam in my helmet showed the air to be quite humid here and reasonably cool. Only forty degrees.

  I unclipped the helmet and lifted it off my head. Then I took off the mask.

  A hot breeze that smelled of wet stone wafted across my face. My hair felt damp from sweat. Tangled strands had escaped my ponytail and stuck to the skin of my cheeks and neck. I teased them off with my fingers, rolling my head. That helmet was not very comfortable.

  The ceiling and walls of the station consisted of exposed rough-hewn rock. That and the humid breeze made me think that this passage was part of the system of underground aquifers.

  We walked across a long platform, past a number of bullet-shaped carriages similar to the one that had brought us here, all standing idle.

  A few screens hanging over the platform showed messages about delays and cancellations. We were the only people at the station. I had no doubt that this place would normally be buzzing with activity. It was hard to comprehend that the absence of one person could have such a huge impact on society, but there it was in front of me: the evidence that one person was the glue that held all these loyalty networks together.

  The thought chilled me. How long would people be happy to stay home and wait for Ezhya to return?

  A group of silver-clad guards came towards us out of the passage that led off the platform. A ripple of alertness went through Taysha’s guards. They rearranged themselves into defensive positions, in front and to the sides and back of their leader. Sheydu and Veyada walked closer to me, both with alert looks on their faces.

  When we came closer, the other group split and the members lined up on both sides of the passage. All of those guards also wore the thin maroon belts, but the patches on their chests were different to those worn by Taysha’s guards. I made a guess that these troops belonged to Risha.

  Taysha ordered his own guards, “At ease.”

  The guards’ faces showed no emotion.

  We progressed between the two lines of the group in tense silence. None of the newcomers moved, although their eyes followed us all the way down the passage. They didn’t look at Taysha, but they sure looked at me.

  Phew. What was all that about?

  The corridor opened out into a well-lit hall where we went up a sweeping staircase into a circular hall with a number of doors.

  A pompous affair it was, too, with white stone floor and walls, thick doors and a high ceiling. A hall where our footsteps sounded like thunder, a hall that meant to say, You are puny—enter at your own risk.

  Taysha went through a door at the far end. A house servant stood next to this door, and he stopped me when I tried to follow.

  What the heck?

  The man didn’t meet my eyes. He looked like a doll dressed up in a stiff maroon coat with gold piping.

  Sheydu said in a low voice, “We need to be invited in first, Delegate, after we have freshened up. Mashara advises taking off as much gear as you can.”

  So, things were going to be that formal, huh?

  On the table next to the servant stood a bowl with water and a stack of cloths.

  I unclipped the hoses to my helmet, which I had carried on my arm, and lifted vest with the tank off my back. There was a slit window next to the door where we had come in. The wind chose this moment to blow a gust of sharp tangy desert air into the room. Holy shit, that was hot. I coughed.

  Sheydu gave me a concerned look. She spoke softly. “Mashara will take the tank in with us if you need it.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I dragged my hands across my face, half-expecting to find blisters on my skin.

  “We can’t risk you fainting on the job.”

  I shrugged, feeling both annoyed and flustered. Everyone kept saying that.

  But I didn’t protest when she picked up the tank and the helmet.

  “Do I take off anything else?” I could feel the sweat rolling down my stomach. Not coping very well with the heat all of a sudden.

  “The outer layer only, if you feel you have to.”

  Yes, I did. I had to appear strong and in control in front of this man.

  I undid my belt and almost dropped it. Then I undid the arm bracket that held my gun, slid it from my arm and looped the belt through it.

  Now I was free to peel off the suit and found that, indoors, it didn’t seem to do much against the heat anyway. The material fell to the floor like a silver puddle.

  The servant eyed it, but didn’t move. Protocol, Delegate, observe the protocol. Not that there was any-bloody-where to hang it. Normal visitors here didn’t, of course, wear such ridiculous overgarments. Never mind that normal visitors could stand the heat outside.

  I glanced around, hopeful of finding some piece of furniture to hang my suit. The servant still didn’t move. The dark eyes didn’t even blink, and the glistening green blue and pink highlights in his hair didn’t twinkle with the merest movement.

  I spread my hands. My eyes met Veyada’s while he was washing his hands in the bowl. Where the fuck do I put it?

  He dried his hands on one of the towels and took the suit from me, hanging it over his arm. Well that was embarrassing. They were my guards, not clothes horses.

  I stuck my hands in the bowl, quickly, because I remembered that the water might be too acidic to be safe. My hands tingled when I dried them, so maybe the water wasn’t safe, or maybe my senses were just too screwed-up to be of much use.

  Apart from the table, the hall contained a single piece of furniture: the obligatory long and narrow table against the far wall with the customary decorative arrangement on it: a couple of simple rocks in a bowl on one side, and a vase with a single closed flower in the other.

  I had learned to observe those signs that influential people put on display for visitors to indicate their mood. The rocks signified something uncultured, probably me. The closed flower was no bud but a flower that had finished. It could signify that the time for business was past, or that he waited for me, but I failed to show.

  If so, it wasn’t a good start.

  I missed Thayu’s sharp interpretation of these arrangements.

  The door to Taysha’s domain opened. Another servant gestured for us to come in.

  I walked first, with the two guards behind me.

  The official room was smaller than I expected. Low couches stood around a square table. The carpet and all the fabric upholstery was in the same maroon colour. I recognised this setup from Ezhya’s room in the gamra complex. It was about the same temperature, too, and the same colour. I didn’t get the Coldi’s obsession with maroon. Their eyes didn’t see the colour red and my lenses showed that without red, the colour was an ugly kind of purplish black.

  I stopped on the rug in the middle of the floor, and held myself in the traditional subservient position—looking down, my hands by my sides, hating every bit of this, but I could not risk upsetting him.

  Taysha gestured for me to sit down.

  I sat on the couch, feeling the fabric of the bottom layer of my suit stick to me.

  Sheydu and Veyada went to stand behind me. Both of them still wore Ezhya’s red sash and I wondered what they made of being forced to act like subordinates to a man and association they normally far outranked.

  A servant came in with a tray. This was yet another woman. She wore a long and flowing dress of a type I’d only ever seen Coldi wear for official occasions and showing more skin than was normal for Coldi women in professional positions.

  She bowed to Taysha first, then to me, then his guards and, finally, Ezhya’s guards despite their higher rank. Both Ve
yada and Sheydu refused the drink on her tray.

  There was probably a message in that.

  Then the woman came to me and held out the tray. I hesitated. The glasses held a pale yellow liquid that looked safe enough. There was also a plate with parcels wrapped in fried pastry and fried curly things that didn’t quite look the same as the fried worms that were so popular at the markets in Barresh.

  The most important warning about red-coded food was: stay away from the mushrooms. Which was pretty useless advice when food had been processed.

  Was this food safe or red-coded?

  Sheydu leaned over my shoulder and studied the plate. She said while not meeting Taysha’s eyes, “The Delegate eats only green-coded food.”

  Taysha pursed his lips. “I have not catered for delicate stomachs.”

  The woman retreated.

  When she passed him, he beckoned her over. He took a parcel from the tray and stuffed it in his mouth and loaded a few more pastries on a small plate. I sat as quietly as I could, kept my face as unemotional as I could. All right, the game was on. Let’s play it.

  In silence, the servant left again, her hips swaying.

  Taysha took his time eating and said nothing while he did so. I had to forcefully remind myself that I was in no hurry. The less I spoke with him, the better. Asha, Natanu and the others would create their diversion soon, and maybe I would not have to speak with him at all. Wishful thinking.

  Apart from the couches and table, the room contained a glass-fronted cabinet against the back wall which contained a number of clay pots with sigil-like inscriptions—I hated to think what was in them, somebody’s ashes probably—and also various objects that seemed decorative. Vases made of glass and metal, statuettes depicting people and animals, quite a lot of them of voluptuous women, and also a white porcelain coffee cup. In faded paint, on the front, it said, I [heart] NY. Next to that stood a garish silver-painted model of the Eiffel Tower, and on the shelf below, a whole army of plastic figurines in garish colours depicting late twentieth or early twenty-first century Earth culture figures. From where I sat, I recognised Superman and Pikachu, but none of the others. All those things had to be more than a hundred years old. I knew that some of those statuettes were worth serious money to collectors.