One of the guards in the hallway looked at her and said, “Blood is blood. Let her through.”
The words were part of a Nyangari cultural expression, and they had an immediate effect. The secretary’s ears relaxed and the doors in front of Cygni slid open with only a hint of a rumble. The musty smell of old plaster hit her as she stepped through.
Ambassador Shef’s office was smaller than she expected, though she could fit both her living room and her bedroom within it and still have extra space. It was narrow, with a low ceiling that seemed more appropriate to a middle-manager than the ambassador of a sovereign nation. The red fangs of the Nyangari flag hung from the walls to either side of her, and a broad desk rested beneath a large, rose window in front of her.
Shef launched himself out of his seat the moment she laid eyes on him. His mouth gaped open, and the pouch below it shook over his ornate black and red shirt. He had a guest, she noted, a humanoid creature with six limbs sat in one of the two chairs between her and the ambassador. She wasn’t sure what gender the sentient was, or even if niu had one, due to the rich-looking, purple cloth covering every centimeter of niur body. Niu had a bullet-shaped skull at the end of a long neck, and niur face, which turned towards her as she entered the chamber, flowed out into a wide, almost-flat plane like the melted bottom of a candle. A pair of cobalt-blue eyes stared out at her from between the strips of cloth binding the sentient’s head. Cygni’s implant informed her this was a Fumeni, but she didn’t get the chance to absorb the rest of the information streaming into her brain since Ambassador Shef recovered from his shock and started spitting words in her direction.
“What is the meaning of this?” he growled out in his native tongue. “I’m in a meeting. How dare you interrupt!”
“You fired Shkur.” She jabbed a finger at the flower of his nose. “You had no right to do that.”
The ambassador’s eyes darted to his guest. “I’m very sorry about this, Tun’di Myth’lar. I had no idea this Solan was going to burst into my office today.”
Her implant identified the name as gendered male. The Fumeni rose to his feet. He was shorter than she was, and gave a quick bow of its head to the ambassador before turning towards her.
“Cygni Aragón, if I am not mistaken.” Tun’di Myth’lar’s voice was smooth, rumbling, and masculine. His Solan was perfect.
“You aren’t.” His tone took some of the anger from her.
“I enjoy your reports. There hasn’t been one for a while, I’ve noticed. Are you still with the Spur Herald?”
“I’m on a hiatus,” she said, sinking into a deeper surprise that quenched the fire in her gut.
“I look forward to your return to the ‘web. Ambassador Shef, I will leave you two to your business.” He bowed his head again and walked out with gliding steps.
“Thank you,” Ambassador Shef said once the doors closed behind the Fumeni. “You just cost the Protectorate a valuable trade agreement.”
“Why did you fire Shkur? You told me his career wouldn’t be affected by what we talked about in the limo.” Some of her anger returned, but she wasn’t nearly as hot as she was when she walked in.
“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend? He challenged me.”
“After you pressed for more than you deserved. I paid you what you wanted, that should have been the end of it you greedy son of a bitch.” The curse translated into Nyangari well.
“Me? The deal was for you to answer my questions in full.” Ambassador Shef banged his fists against the top of his desk. “You held back!”
“I did no such thing.” She glared. The truth was, she was only half-aware of her answers because she had her implant splitting her consciousness at the time in order to review her recordings from the Queen Gaia. “And you asked too much. What kind of pervert wants to hear the sordid details of someone else’s sex life, anyway?”
“Pervert? Whole industries are based on exactly that. I am the Ambassador of the Nyangari Protectorate to the Confederation of Sovereign Systems. Who are you to judge me?” He was frothing at the mouth now. It was a bad sign. The Nyangari usually settled disputes with violence. She became aware of the danger she might be in when the light gleamed off the saliva-slick rows of backward-curving, razor-like teeth in his mouth. Nyangari were short, but very strong.
She switched on the record function in her cerebral implant. “You’re on camera, Ambassador. As your guest pointed out, I’m a reporter. I can make this meeting public if you’d like.”
Shef trembled for a moment, blinked, then struggled to close his mouth and pull his arms in towards his body. The threat wouldn’t have meant anything in Nyangari space, violence was considered a normal part of society, but the ambassador was aware that such behavior would be taken a very different way by a Confederate audience.
“Enough play, what do you want?” His words were so full of growls that it was hard for her to understand him.
“You exiled Shkur, undo that.”
“No.”
“No?” She cocked her eyebrow.
The petals of his nose fluttered as he snorted. “I mean, I cannot. Your boyfriend issued a challenge in public, then withdrew it on the day we were to fight. He shamed himself by doing so, and I took appropriate action. I could have killed him for it, but I gave him as much leniency as I was able. If I rescind my decision now, I will lose face and my position. I will not do that, no matter what you do.”
Her mouth went dry.
“Yes, I can smell you understand. I spared him for your sake and the respect I had for his years of loyal service. The decision cannot be undone. You ruined my meeting for nothing.” The ambassador sat down in his high-backed chair. “If you want to help him now, you find him a job at your news stream, otherwise cut him loose and let what happens after be none of your concern. Now, get out.”
The energy drained from her as the ambassador spoke. By the time he was finished her shoulders slumped and she wanted nothing more than to fall to the golden carpet beneath her feet and die.
“Thank you for your time, Ambassador.” She turned and walked out of his office. The doors slid shut behind her with the knock of wood on wood. Her shoulders slumped.
Biren was outside on the street with his back to her when she came down the consulate stairs. The sight of the black limousine resting on the fastcrete in front of him slowed her feet and sent a chill down her spine. He turned towards her as she came within a few steps, revealing the person standing beside him.
“What are you doing here?” She glared into Giselle’s black eyes. With her diamond-blond hair and fair skin they gave the woman an unearthly look that she once thought of as fascinating, but now just put an itch on the wrong side of her skin.
“Cygni, don’t be like that. You know I did what I had to do to get you out of that prison cell. I’m sorry the baroness threatened you, but you’re out, you’re safe, and now you have major backing for your investigation,” Giselle said.
“Major backing? You mean now I get to hand my investigation over to the baroness and do what she says.”
“She wants the same thing we do, as I was just telling your friend here.” Giselle responded.
Cygni looked up at Biren.
“She explained some of it,” he said. “She’s made a good point.”
“A good point?” She felt her ears burn.
“Come on, get in. We should talk about this on the way.” The limo behind Giselle raised its passenger door.
“On the way to where?”
“The boss wants to see us.” She got into the compartment and slid over on the black leather bench.
“I’ll meet you back at the apartment,” Cygni said to Biren.
“Apparently, she wants to see all of us.” He shocked her by getting into the limo and saddling up next to Giselle.
“What the hell?” She entered with a sigh.
The door shut as the limo lifted off.
“I was coming to get you when I saw target 621b standing in fron
t of the consulate,” Giselle explained as they flew through the city.
“That’s me,” Biren said as though she couldn’t figure it out on her own. Cygni elbowed him in the ribs as hard as she could. “Ouch!”
“Don’t talk down to me,” she said. “And what do you mean, he’s a target?”
“The Baroness has been tracking him since he started showing up in the park to attend Ila’s gatherings,” Giselle explained.
“You’re an idiot,” she said to him. “I knew you were going to screw something up.”
“Whoa, what’s with the hostility? Haven’t I just spent the last couple of days helping you out?” He frowned.
“Well, yes.” She deflated. “But you shouldn’t have been there.”
“It is irrelevant now,” Giselle interrupted. “I know you two are working together, and that’s fine by me. It helps things, actually, since the Gaians have been involved in this a lot longer than we have.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I’d help you.” Biren frowned. “You know my mother won’t.”
“You’re helping Cygni, and she’s working for us.” Giselle smiled.
“Well, I guess, yeah. I see your point,” he responded.
She nodded and leaned forward to look at Cygni. “How are you feeling?”
“Why do you care?”
“I do, believe it or not. I told you before, I really want to be your friend. I know this situation sucks for you, and I know what you’re feeling—”
“The fuck you do,” she interrupted.
Giselle shook her head. “—but we’re all going to get what we want if we do things right. The boss knows what she’s doing.”
“She killed her father, what’s to stop her from doing the same to us when she’s through?” Cygni asked.
“You mean her step-father, and I don’t think she did.”
“Were you there? I was. I saw the look on her face as she watched him bleed out into the fountain.” She glared.
“I’m sure she saw the advantage of it. She’s been quick to take advantage of unusual situations for a long time. She didn’t kill Mitsugawa Yoji.”
“No?” Biren asked. “How would you know that? Are you in on her plans?”
“No, not those.” Giselle looked out her window. “She called me in shortly after his death, but I know her.”
They rounded a line of towers and the polyglass snail-shell of the Elthroa Staffing Corporation came into view down the street.
“You know Baroness Cronus?” Biren snorted.
“Yeah, I do.” Giselle turned to look at them again. “And killing Baron Mitsugawa Yoji isn’t her style. Taking down her real father is, though.”
Cygni scowled, wondering how the hell Giselle would know Baroness Sophiathena Cronus so well. This can’t have been her first assignment from the baroness if it were true. She wondered if she could find anything on the two of them in the Cyberweb, and got a search going through her implant.
“Do you know the current Baron Mitsugawa?” she asked.
“Only in passing,” Giselle replied. “Look, that’s not important now. We’re here. Come on.”
The limo touched down right on the path in front of the large, transparent doors leading into the building’s lobby. Two-stories tall, it was peppered with long columns centered around a huge, fastcrete desk where three Isinari receptionists busied themselves. All three had, like Ila, green skin and eyes. Their bodies appeared more female than male, which in itself wasn’t so unusual for their species, but having so many female-leaning Isinari in one place was. The baroness, Cygni realized, must have made a conscious decision about the makeup of the lobby employees. Each wore a white jumpsuit with a blue symbol over their left breasts showing the first character of each of the five major writing systems of the Confederation.
Giselle walked them right past the desk. The receptionists looked up but on seeing her went back to looking busy. For some reason it struck her as odd that the blond woman would be so well known here. Biren chuckled when they boarded the lift and started up for the baroness’ suite.
“What?” she asked him.
“I’ve been trying to get in here for weeks. We get caught and bang! I’m in. Life’s weird.” He shrugged.
She rolled her eyes. Trust him to make light of a dire situation.
The lift came to a stop at the top floor and opened into a broad office with a panoramic view of the surrounding towers through dark, tinted windows. The decorations, she noted, were quite macabre. Holograms depicted wars from various times through the Confederation’s history, and included a topic usually avoided in polite company: the subjugation of the Achinoi by the Cleebian Greater Prosperity Sphere. The crown jewel of the décor was the statue at the center of a bubbling fountain near the baroness’ desk. Black and white stone showed an Orgnan and a Volgoth locked in deadly combat. Each had gory wounds from bites and cuts on their naked bodies, and the snarling expressions on their faces were so realistic that she felt her stomach twitch. What kind of woman would choose to stare at this day in and day out?
The baroness stood up behind the desk, and her pale lips twisted upward into a wry smile. She wore a company uniform beneath a blue and white shawl that draped behind her like a cape. Milk-white braids trailed off her shoulders, over her breasts, and vanished somewhere beneath the surface of her workspace. Clearing her throat, she surveyed them with faded blue eyes before moving around the desk and locking them onto Cygni.
“Welcome, Miss Aragón. I hope your trip over was comfortable?” Baroness Cronus said with honeyed words.
“Only somewhat,” she replied, staring at Giselle.
The baroness frowned. “Quarreling?”
“It won’t be a problem,” Giselle said before she could answer.
“Good. I’m sure you two will get over it soon. We have a lot of work to do together.” The lift chimed behind them and drew the baroness’ gaze. “Ah, good.”
Cygni turned to see the baroness’ personal assistant, Haem Clearach’Kul’Tearae, lead a forlorn-looking Ila, and to her shock, a limping Sanul into the room. She turned back to the baroness with wide eyes.
“I had my assistant pick him up. All of you need to be here for this,” the baroness continued. “I want to make sure you know who it is you work for.”
“You okay?” she asked Sanul.
He nodded and winced as his leg tried to give out. Ila grabbed him and helped him regain his hooves.
“I’m sorry about this,” niu said.
“It’s not your fault, silly,” he replied.
“Still.”
“Quiet.” Haem Kul’Tearae moved around them to stand beside her mistress.
“You’re the new one.” The baroness swept her eyes up and down Biren. “I trust you know what happens if you betray me? Did you tell him?”
Cygni nodded.
He grimaced. “Yeah, I know.”
“Good.” Baroness Sophiathena walked around the desk and leaned back against it. “Give them their first assignment.”
“Baron Revenant is currently off-world, and with Baron Olivaar dead, we are presented with an opportunity,” Haem Kul’tearae said. “You will break into his office at Cosmos Corp and download his personal planner from the isolated system in his desk terminal. Bring it here when you have it. Do not dare transmit it over the Cyberweb. Do you understand?”
Cygni nodded. “Yes.”
The baroness smiled. “Good.”
“And what do you want me to do?” Biren asked, staring down at her. “I don’t work for Cosmos or Elthroa.”
“That just changed,” Haem Kul’Tearae said. “You’re our new courier.”
“Don’t you have messenger drones for that?” he countered.
“Yes, but Elthroa prides itself on a personal touch.” The baroness’ smile broadened. “I have a few errands for you in addition to running secure files to and from Miss Aragón’s team.”
“What the hell’s the point of that? Why do you want Revenant’s plann
er?” He stuck out his chin.
Baroness Sophiathena strolled over to the fountain where the stone figures wrestled and put her arm around the Orgnan. “You don’t have to know why, you just have to do it.”
“You know I’ll tell my mother what you’re up to?” he said.
“Yes, I do. You can tell her she’s welcome to share information with me just as she did with Yoji if she’s so inclined. If she isn’t, though, make sure she understands she needs to stay out of my way.” The baroness patted the naked figure on the buttock and moved back to her desk.
“Right.” His expression tightened.
“That will be all. Get that planner before Baroness Revenant has a chance to get oriented.”
“Baroness Revenant?” Cygni asked.
“Yes. Zalor’s cousin, Helena, is taking control of Cosmos in his absence. She’s also in the process of taking over the ETMC before her daughter can claim it, so you have a few days, but don’t delay. I will be very put out if you fail.” The baroness sat down in her chair and waved them away with her white fingers.
Cygni gave her a long, hard look, then turned around and headed for the lift. Her team followed her.
“Haem Aragón,” Ila said once the car was in motion.
“Ila, you can still call me Cygni.” She could hear the tiredness in her voice.
“I—” niu stopped herself, then began again. “I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“For what has happened, and for not doing the right thing when you first asked. Sanul told me what my baroness did to you. I feel it is my fault. If I had accepted your—”
She held up her hand. “No, Ila, don’t apologize. You did what you felt was right. It’s the same as all of us. None of this is your fault.”
“But—”
“But nothing. It’s fine, really.” She waved her off. “You’re with us now, and that’s what matters.”
“She’s right,” Biren added. He put a hand on Ila’s shoulder and rubbed the base of niur neck.
A contact request flashed in the corner of her UI. It was Giselle. She frowned at her, but accepted. What?
“How about we not discuss how much this sucks in the lift where the baroness is recording everything we say?” She cocked a blond eyebrow up.
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