by Chogan Swan
“What did he say?” Amber whispered.
Kest put his lips to her ear. “He said, ‘you look good in your war paint’.”
Amber giggled. “Yeah, she means business alright. This is going to be an interesting press conference.”
For the remainder of the wait-for-the-press party, Tiana let people come to her. Following Latin American custom, the Mexican president introduced them to her. Tiana always greeted them by name after the introduction and spoke with them in their own languages, and answered questions ranging from: ‘What can you tell us about your home?’ to ‘Are you enjoying the weather here so far?’ The last from someone who must have been snoozing during the ‘Here since 1800’ part of Tiana’s remarks.
Tiana usually worked the conversation around to a story of a visit to their country near where they lived. It seemed most people were fascinated with stories from the past about their own homes and history. Vargas followed the stories from a polite distance, scribbling shorthand notes in a rush.
Kest glanced at his watch. The bar had put a sign up announcing they would be closing soon for the press briefing.
“Where should we stand for this?” he said to Amber.
“I’ll be next to Jonah. You’ll be next to me. Let’s go. They’re bringing in the cameras now.”
“Shouldn’t we be looking out for Tiana?”
Amber snorted. “She’s as hard to kill as a cockroach and her security team is the best. I should know. I trained them.”
“I don’t see a security team.”
Amber looked at him with pity. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” she said and grinned.
Kest felt his face flush in embarrassment, but he shrugged and laughed. He’d walked right into that.
Tiana made her excuses to her crowd of admirers and took the president’s elbow as he walked her to the front of the room again. The Native American representatives and their UN delegate lined up on the right. Jonah stood on the opposite side with ambassadors to Mexico from various countries. Iceland was there. Conspicuous by her absence, was the US ambassador.
Tiana pulled her cape over her shoulders. Kest supposed she didn’t want to upstage the president while he was speaking.
Hotel staff rushed in and out, bringing in more chairs and arranging them. The people remaining from the breakfast meeting—all of them, Kest estimated—were quick to take seats at the front.
When the chairs were set up, the press came through the doors like a flood. El Presidente stepped up to the podium. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, welcome,” he said. “This is an international briefing and will be conducted in English. At the end, each of you will receive a hard copy information packet in the language you requested when answering the invitation to this meeting. As that packet will contain a great deal of information and studying it will answer many of the questions you will have, we will not waste valuable time answering questions when we will already be giving you the answers. After you have had time to review those documents and check the facts, you can direct questions to the emails provided or through your embassy representatives.”
He turned to look at Tiana then said, “Allow me to introduce the speaker for this briefing, a good friend and ally of Mexico and other countries of goodwill in the international community. She is my friend and has helped our country in its times of trouble in ways that your information packets will make clear. I can attest, as will many others who have met her, that the very first thing she will tell you is incredible but true, and from that, the rest of what she reveals follows. Please welcome, Captain Senana Tiana, Ambassador at Large from the Nii Federation.”
Tiana moved to the podium with lithe grace and the natural stride of her kind that Kest so enjoyed watching. Her gait was long and filled with relaxed power, but not a human movement. The representatives on the stand and the specially invited people she had met that morning who now took up the first rows clapped with eagerness, and the press corps followed suit.
The podium was a simple, clear-acrylic stand for holding microphones and it concealed very little. Tiana stood quiet, nodding to the people in front, giving them a small smile. When the clapping died down, she spread her hands to the audience, a gesture which opened her cloak a little, and said, “Good day, ladies and gentlemen of the press. My name is Senana Tiana, and though I have walked this planet Earth since 1799 of the Gregorian Calendar. I am not of your world.” With deliberate simplicity, she lifted her hands to her shoulders and pushed back her cloak to reveal her skin.
The room was silent.
Shock and awe.
Tiana spoke again. “Would those of you who know me or met me this morning attest to their belief that my statement is true by raising your hand please?”
Kest counted sixty-seven hands in the audience, but from the corner of his eyes he could see that everyone with him in the front also raised their hands.
“Thank you,” Tiana said. “I suppose that the events of June the 10th make it clear why we of the Nii Federation have chosen now to reveal both our alliances and our presence on this world and in the same galaxy. Humankind is not the only sentient species. There are, in fact, many. Some are good neighbors and some are not. It is time for the people of Earth to decide which they will be. Who. You. Are.”
Tiana turned sideways and let her tail slip outside the fabric as though by accident as she gestured to the UN ambassador. The Nii Federation has many different worlds who are members, not unlike the United Nations or the Federation of one of your popular space opera entertainment dramas.”
Her tail slipped back inside the cloak. “We have decided to step in to prevent even greater tragedies than the events in the North American states since the 10th of June. The first step in that direction is to say without equivocation that we have proof that the EMP attack on the people of the United States was not an act of terrorism by an internal secessionist coalition among the Native American Tribal Nations as the US government has accused.”
Tiana pointed to the press. “Nor was it from any nation represented in this room.”
She leaned forward. “Nor was it from any power outside your world,” she said, offering a grim smile. “And you can all be thankful for that... because it is obvious that this world doesn’t need any more enemies than the ones we have standing on it right now. All the people, the beasts, the birds and the wondrous creatures beneath the sea, all of you—only the breadth of a hair away from self-annihilation.”
Kest almost had to shake himself; Tiana’s voice and her gravitas had captured the room.
“The culprits who have done this are people—human people—who we have been watching for some time. And we say to those people, we know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you will run to. You cannot run far enough, but in the interest of staying a monumentally stupid gesture, we will let you step away. Our threat is not to any nation but to people, individual people, people like Samuel Rutherford before our justice found him when he attempted assassination on our allies twice. Mister Rutherford was in a coma in one of the finest hospitals in the US when the grid was destroyed by the EMP, but our justice did not do that. That crime was committed by him and others like him, by his associates who rule behind the scenes in the US. Our evidence will show that it was a US military satellite that detonated the EMP and destroyed the power grid in the United States, wiping out millions of their own citizens.”
Tiana bared her teeth. No one could mistake it for a smile. “We tell the individuals who comprise the power of the Deep State within the US. If you wish to survive, walk away from your influence over the government now. We tell the individuals who lead the military in the US, stand down or you will be numbered among those who have committed the crimes against your citizens, no matter whether the command comes from your commander-in-chief or anywhere else. We do not yet know if the president of your country was culpable or deceived, but we will find out and punish all responsible if this mad attempt at genocide on the Native America people
does not stop now. If you step back, then the people of the United States can take care of justice themselves. Perhaps the guilty ones can hide from them, but we will not pursue unless attacked. If this war goes forward, everyone loses, even those of you who thought yourselves untouchable.” Tiana bowed to the camera, keeping her eyes up and watching, then flipped her cloak back around her shoulders and stepped away from the podium.
The president stepped to the microphone again. “Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen of the press. There may be some here who would be willing to share their own experiences and conversations with Embajador Senana Tiana, but please refer to your information packages for verified information from the Nii Federation and the government of Mexico.”
Amber leaned closer to Kest. “War paint. No doubt about it.”
Chapter 48 — Family Meeting
Kest lay back and stared at the ceiling to take his mind off watching Amber pace as she worked through the possible tactical scenarios they might be faced with after Tiana’s announcement. Kest wanted to think about that too, he needed to prepare for what might happen, unless it was thermo-nuclear annihilation... you couldn’t really prepare for that.
Perhaps I should be praying...
At any rate, watching Amber’s nude pacing wasn’t helping him think... or pray. As he stared at the ceiling, he worried about Ayleana again.
Tiana still wouldn’t let them see her.
“Ayleana isn’t ready yet,” she’d said.
Kest sighed. He should go back to watching Amber pace.
“Can you talk it out for me?” he said. “I’m feeling clueless about the wargame scenarios.”
“Not without the gear to do a bug sweep of the room first.”
“You mean someone might have been listening to us last night... and this morning?”
“Baby, everyone in the whole wing was listening to us. But they won’t get any intelligence advantages there. Though it helps explain the bug in your sleeve from Maya... Why are you staring at the ceiling instead of looking at me when I’m talking to you?” she demanded.
Kest scrubbed his face with his hands. “Because I can’t think about anything when I watch you walking,” he said, raising his hands off the bed. “It just goes, POOF!”
Amber giggled.
“I should take a cold shower.”
“Maaybee... you should—”
A tap sounded at the door, and Amber ran to check the peephole. “Aylie!” she shouted and slammed the door open. Kest vaulted off the bed and raced to wrap his arms around both of them. His heart felt like it was trying to beat its way out of his chest.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Ayleana’s armed escorts slipping down the hall, though they couldn't refrain from sneaking a second peek at Amber.
Can you blame them after all?
Kest looked at Ayleana.
Or perhaps they were looking at her.
Ayleana wasn’t trying to pass for human anymore. Her attire matched Tiana’s—native dress—a regal cape with a slit in the back for the tail, a bustier and loincloth. So, pretty much a cape and a bikini. She seemed well, but, Acta Vila! Did she look... different. She’d grown even more since yesterday. The striped swirls that had returned at the beginning of her threshold transition were more pronounced. They’d become broader, straighter and bolder than Tiana’s fine swirling stripes. Her shoulders had broadened, her muscles rippled in powerful bands across her arms, legs and body. Mostly though, she was TALL, at least five centimeters taller than Amber now.
“Damn, girlfriend! You are hot!” Amber said, pulling them all back in the room and shutting the door.
“I feel ridiculous, like a giant with zebra stripes.”
Ayleana swore in nii.
The ordering principle is chaos.
Kest snorted, trying not to laugh.
Amber glared at him. “Stop talking behind my back.”
“She just swore, Amber. Ayleana, you are SO not ridiculous looking. Totally bad ass and hot.”
Ayleana shook her head. “You don’t get it. To the nii, I will look like a freak. I’m too big to even fit in a regulation spacesuit. I’ll be mustered out of the service. And my stripes are thick and stupid-looking. I’ve never even seen anything like these.”
“I like them,” Kest said. “Tiana’s are pretty, but yours are bold. And see this? They have tessalae in them. It’s like they blossom. It’s a mathematical wonder. Why the hell would you want to be like everyone else on your planet when you can be THIS?”
“I’m with Kest on this one, sweetness,” Amber said. “I’m proud to be seen with you...” She giggled. “Except for the cape thing.”
Kest plopped on the bed, laughing. “No capes!” he said in a cartoonish German accent.
At last, Ayleana smiled. “It’s just theater, nobody wears these anymore, and I made sure mine would tear away if it got sucked into a jet engine or something.”
Amber’s giggle turned into a frown. “Aylie, you are NOT allowed to run off to the nii space service anyway. You are our family, and we have our own little war to fight here, you know. Unless Tiana’s gambit works, and then it will just go back to spy vs spy again.”
“Yeah, I guess it is ridiculous to worry about that.” Ayleana took a deep calming breath.
Kest got up and hugged her again. His face fit right into her neck, and he tilted his face up and kissed her. Ayleana kissed him back, but broke away soon after.
“Thanks for the pep talk guys, but can I open the door to the balcony? The pheromones in here! Did I interrupt something?”
Kest stepped back.
She pushed me away.
He had a strange sensation in his chest.
“Oh, Kest. God, I’m sorry,” Ayleana said.
Kest held up his hand.
“No, really. I’d better explain. Let’s sit on the balcony. Come on.” Ayleana captured his hand and pulled him out the sliding door, collecting Amber on the way.
“Okay,” Ayleana said, plopping down on the bamboo mat as a fresh breeze from the gulf swept over them. “Let’s work through this. What happened at my threshold wasn’t just my size changing. It was more like what Daniels calls a cluster fuck.”
“Once again,” she said. “Ayleana goes where no one has gone before... in total ignorance, because nii don’t talk much about threshold. Families are prepared for it with traditions and rituals so old that many have even stopped thinking about the purpose of them. Adults are trained to ensure their young at threshold have moderately satisfying sex then rest and quiet with enough nourishing food in controlled doses to get through the growth spurt. This is to keep them from sliding into full-on bloodthirst. Tiana had told me to tell her when I was hitting threshold so she could take me through it, but that didn’t work out when the SHTF.”
Ayleana shrugged. “Everything we went through made my body spiral out of control.” She frowned. “Before the total, all out, war between the nii and the niiaH, the difference in threshold rituals were one source of conflict. The niiaH culture became more fierce and bloody with successive generations. They would encourage the young to fight, fuck and consume as much as they could during it to become stronger and fiercer. Lucky for the nii, the niiaH never had a source of nourishment like the humans of Earth. Of course, it could have killed the niiaH too, since human blood is strong enough to trigger a bloodthirst that could make you mad... in the Shakespearean sense.”
“Oh, yeah, because I thought you meant... never mind,” said Kest.
Ayleana smiled. “You know I don’t think for a second you didn’t get that right? Amber was the one confused.”
“Hey, I’m not THAT old,” Amber said. “Besides, I never even learned English till I was thirty-eight and I never saw what the fuss was about with Shakespeare. Besides, how many kids in the room have read Don Quixote AND 1001 Nights?”
Kest raised his hand at the same time Ayleana raised hers.
“In the original languages?”
They bo
th nodded.
“Fine! That’s what I get for falling into symbiosis with the two of you. Get back to the story about how you almost ate El Paso.”
“Thanks for trying to make it light, Amber, but I may not be ready to laugh until I get it fully under control.” Ayleana shook her head. “At least I didn’t get crazy and do anything I regret. Though I did kill some of those guys with a bit more enjoyment than I should have.”
“That, I can understand,” said Amber.
Kest grunted agreement.
Ayleana sighed. “Yeah, so there is the blood lust thing I have to watch and also something that even Tiana only realized with me going through this. HumanaH and I both thought her and Jonah being together in a sexual relationship was strange. But when Tiana's new body came out of the crèche it had never had sex with a nii partner. Nii have a strong taboo concerning nii having sexual pleasure with another species. Connecting at the hip is fine, as long as it’s clinical. She might never have found the reason for her attraction to Jonah if not for what happened to me. I knew I needed intense orgasms to make it through threshold, and I had memories of sex, so I knew how to get there. But neither of us realized the first orgasmic sex after threshold could cause a female to imprint on the DNA type of their partner, not that person, just the species. If they are of the opposite sex and have at least a remotely compatible DNA. We smell it in humans as a sort of ‘potential’, at least that’s what Tiana calls it. It seems to point to good character and other stuff. For her, the orgasm was accidental while she was giving Jonah a genetic upgrade and nervous system work-over. It’s a long story, and for me it was a little TMI.”
Kest scratched his head.
Where is this going?
“So that’s why Tiana is into Jonah,” said Amber.
Ayleana nodded.
Amber’s eyes widened. “And why you are into...”
Ayleana nodded again and pointed with her chin to...
“ME?!”