Venturi

by S J MacDonald

  Alex returned to the ship, gave back his sash to the attendants who were waiting to receive it and went back to work. His curiosity about what had happened during the meeting remained unsatisfied, as he confided to Buzz over lunch.

  ‘I’ve been trying to remember,’ he said, ‘how long it’s been since I was so far out of the loop, asked to take part in things but not told what’s going on. And I think,’ he mused, ‘that that hasn’t happened since I was a cadet.’

  Buzz nodded understanding. Alex had not experienced the usual exclusion from command information as a junior officer because he’d been on the tagged and flagged programme with privileged access right from his first assignment.

  ‘It is strange,’ he said. ‘I feel it, too – and it really makes you appreciate how frustrating it is for junior officers and crew aboard regular ships.’

  Alex nodded. He had not been able to maintain the shipwide open comms system the Fourth had used on smaller ships; the Venturi was just too big to make that practicable. He did, however, provide a live feed from the conn at all times and broadcast of the command table at any times when there was anything of importance going on. The Venturi’s crew, therefore, had access to live information about both day to day and operational matters, far beyond that which any regular crew could expect.

  ‘I am,’ he admitted, ‘resisting the temptation to ask to see Lady Ursele, to ask her how things went.’

  Buzz grinned affectionately at him. He knew that it was not easy for Alex to take a back seat, supporting rather than directing operations.

  ‘We’ll find out,’ he said comfortably, ‘soon enough.’

  He was right. Luce asked to see Alex privately just a few minutes later.

  ‘Lady Ursele,’ she informed him, ‘has given both Ambassadors the Big Bad briefing.’

  Alex’s eyes opened wide in shock. He had taken such great care introducing those concepts even to his own crew, the idea of simply coming straight out with it to the Prisosan and Araki Ambassadors hit him with a physical jolt. He sat upright, a little catch in his breath, and Luce grinned, nodding agreement.

  ‘High impact!’ she agreed. ‘But my understanding is that she simply put it to them that it was imperative that they work together to overcome the Marfikians’ obviously unfounded claim to any kind of sovereignty over their worlds. I don’t think she went into details, simply described their claim of sovereignty as unfounded and left it at that.’

  ‘And they accepted that?’ Alex’s tone was incredulous.

  ‘Evidently,’ Luce confirmed. ‘I think that things will get a lot more complicated as discussions move on, obviously, as the details come out and they get to the point of why the Marfikians have never invaded beyond what they consider to be ‘their’ territory. Things will get very heated at the point where they realise that the League has stayed safe behind our borders when our own worlds were never actually under threat. But for now at least, they are accepting the concept that the Marfikians are making unfounded claims of sovereignty over their worlds, which chimes with their historical experience of the Marfikians claiming those worlds as their territory, after all. I believe that Ambassador Berrtra’s response, in fact, was ‘So far, so obvious.’’

  Alex did not ask how she knew that. He knew that the answer would take him into murky ethical territory and that made him feel grubby even by association. But at the same time, he didn’t try to stop her giving him the information.

  ‘The real issue for them,’ Luce went on, ‘was the question of whether they could ever trust one another in any kind of mutual support agreement. At which, I gather, there were the usual accusations of imperialism and cowardice and they were both building up to a dramatic storming-out when Lady Ursele asked them to be quiet.’ She grinned. ‘And they were.’

  Alex chuckled at that, well aware of how much strength of personality it would have taken to silence the Prisosan and Araki ambassadors. He could even picture them, sitting there, half indignant and half amazed at the ease with which the Pirrellothian had made them feel like bickering children.

  ‘She had them sitting there for a quarter of an hour in complete silence,’ Luce reported. ‘Then she said some things about trust and how she knew she could count on them both to rise above personal feelings in the service of their people.’ She laughed and so did Alex, nodding understanding. He knew just how they would have felt at that, ashamed of themselves for the way they’d behaved and yet at the same time inspired with a dawning conviction that they could be the noble, heroic people Lady Ursele saw in them.

  ‘And they apologised?’ he hazarded, hopefully.

  ‘Well, not quite.’ Luce told him. ‘They mumbled a bit and then competed with one another to tell her grace that it wouldn’t be their fault if negotiations broke down. Which is astounding, huh?’

  Alex nodded again. Making such a statement was in itself a commitment to undertaking negotiations, a miraculous achievement.

  ‘She is a phenomenon,’ he observed, with profound admiration. Luce nodded too.

  ‘She is that.’ She said, with the satisfaction of someone who’d been even a small part in bringing that miracle to Lundane. ‘And she finished up by asking both ambassadors to ask their governments to send representatives with executive authority to negotiate a treaty. She’s set a date in three years for that meeting.’

  Alex nodded. That made perfect sense. It would give both governments time to process the news of Lady Ursele’s arrival, debate it at length and come to the inevitable conclusion that they had no choice but to send such a representative. If they did not, their rivals certainly would and the potential benefits were just too valuable to refuse. And with both of them attending, virtually every other planet in Marfikian dominated space would be clamouring to get in on that meeting. The obvious exception would be the Teralians and even they would probably want to get in on it if for no other reason than spying on what the others were up to and threatening to report them to the Marfikians.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Alex and Luce smiled agreement. It had taken Lady Ursele less than three months to bring the Araki and Prisosan ambassadors together after centuries of them refusing to even be in the same building. It was impossible to say how much progress she would have made by the time the negotiations began for a formal alliance in three years, but Alex had total confidence in her. Had he been a betting man, he would have put everything he owned on the probability that such negotiations would be a pure formality, consolidating a rapprochement which had already been achieved. And from there… well, optimism and imagination could take the wildest flights and Alex knew it was far too early to be celebrating yet. It was only the first step on a long, hard, difficult journey in which there would certainly be many twists and turns and setbacks. But it was the first step, happening right here and happening because the Fourth had stepped up to supporting the Pirrellothian mission. And that, Alex felt, was quite probably the most important thing he’d done in his entire career.

  Twenty Six

  Three weeks later, the Pirrellothians broke ground on their Embassy site.

  The Fourth, by then, was deeply involved in Lundanian affairs. Since the completion of the new comms system they had turned their manufacturing capacity to providing tech for a groundside charity. Simon Penarth was heading up one project, providing medical equipment to free clinics around the planet as well as leading a series of medical seminars. The main thrust of the ship’s activity, though, was in supporting their chosen charity, an organisation which provided aid to Lundane’s disadvantaged. They were, in many cases, the only safety net people had, with every service operated by private companies and no kind of governmental assistance. If you were without a job here, without family or friends to support you, without funds for medical treatment, for shelter, food or water, your only chance of survival was a charity like Fallna.

  The Fourth had chosen Fallna as the best fit for what they were able to help with while in port. There had been a little uneasiness from the charity a
t first, but by then they regarded them in the light of orbital fairy godmothers. The Fourth would not send techs or teams to work on projects around Lundane itself because of security concerns, but any tech or vehicle needing repairs could be delivered to their dome at the Samartian embassy and techs would fix them there. Domestic tech, too, was manufactured and handed over as fast as the Venturi’s workshops could produce it.

  They were also fundraising, not only donating all the money they’d earned which was now surplus to their own needs, but finding lots of ways to raise money for their chosen charity – funds which would be doing good here even many years after they’d gone. One of the most popular fundraisers was a concert held aboard the ship, filmed and broadcast live to the planet’s biggest entertainment company, which paid well for the privilege. Star of that show had undoubtedly been the Fleet’s most newly qualified officer, Specialist Sub-lt (Engineer) Katrin Naos. She had sung both an operatic aria of soaring beauty and a traditional Lundanian desert-song which had gone down a storm. And people were still talking days later about the climax of the show, when everyone had gathered on stage to sing the Gloriatzi and the filming had picked up the tremendous choral harmony of the entire ship’s company joining in. The Fourth had made the classical sports anthem their own, largely down to the efforts of their finance officer, also their choir director, in teaching every newcomer their part in the song.

  They had been busy, too, in training the pilots that the Lundanians had chosen to continue the water-ferrying after they’d gone and the technicians who’d be responsible for maintaining the shuttles. They were using the Samartian embassy as a base for this and by the second week, their Lundanian trainees were going off with the shuttles on ice-collecting trips. Before they left, they’d have handed the shuttles over entirely, along with the workshops established at the Samartian embassy.

  They had also, a few days previously, taken Lady Ursele’s capsule down to that workshop, keeping it concealed while they worked on it. It would take some time for them to remove the supportive foam with which they’d packed its interior, to repair the long rip in the shell and to burnish it back to pristine condition. But there was time for that; the capsule would not be placed outside the Pirrellothian embassy until the building was complete. And for now, today, the Lundanians were simply breaking ground on the site.

  Even that was an important event in the life of the Avenue. Alex was there on the VIP stand, along with a host of other dignitaries who’d been invited to watch the ground-breaking ceremony. Amongst them were both the Araki and Prisosan ambassadors, thoughtfully placed at either end of the front row so that they didn’t have to acknowledge one another directly, but there, actually there in public, attending the same event. And this was, indeed, the best attended diplomatic event anyone could remember on Lundane, since the presence of both the Araki and Prisosan ambassadors had brought all their allies and supporters out in force, too. Even the Teralians were there, sulking mightily because nobody was taking any notice of their prophecies of doom. Everyone was enjoying themselves far too much even to notice the tutting and head-shaking Teralians. They were in the moment, everyone fully aware that they were witnessing and even being part of a moment of history, the day that the Pirrellothians established their embassy at Lundane.

  And they did that, of course, in some style. Lady Ursele herself did not attend, but the twelve members of her staff not currently in attendance on her did a fine job of representing their people. Such an event on Pirrell, the ground-breaking for an important new building, would draw tens of thousands of people to celebrate.

  Celebrate, of course, Pirrellothian style. Which meant slow, stately, ceremonial, with a ritual unveiling of the ground and a solemn dedication.

  This went down well with the crowd, particularly as it was conducted entirely in Pirrellothian, a language which hardly anyone there could understand. That gave the ceremony a gratifying sense of mystery as the tall, graceful Pirrellothians paced about the boundary of the site, each with a sash floating from their shoulder, each carrying a white lotus-like flower in both hands. There was something almost religious in both the ceremony and the tranquillity with which they went about it. When the flowers were placed simultaneously on the ground, bordering the land which would become the embassy, there was a sigh of satisfaction from the crowd before they broke into applause again.

  Shion, standing amongst the parade of Fourth’s personnel providing honour guard, smiled at the roar of approval which went up from the crowd. She was there in uniform, emphatically present as a member of the Fourth. Her role as liaison officer, supporting and assisting her aunt, did not stretch as far as taking part in such a ceremony as a chamlorn herself. She would not appear as Lady Ursele’s deputy, nor undertake any diplomatic role on her behalf. Her presence, indeed, was a visible statement of that; her uniform, her place in the Fourth’s ranks, made her role and allegiance absolutely clear. Even that happy grin at the roar of the crowd made it obvious that she was not on duty here as a member of Lady Ursele’s household, all of whom maintained their own serene expressions.

  ‘Oh – are we done?’ Roll’em sounded a little surprised, though the ceremony had taken more than an hour. The attendants had formed themselves into a line and were now pacing off the ground in that gliding, ritual walk. They were heading for their shuttles, parked at the back of the embassy site.

  ‘Yes,’ Alex said, seeing the same kind of confusion amongst many of the other VIPs and wondering whether this was a reflection of their own competence or that of their staff. The invitation had been accompanied by an event advisory, after all, explaining what would happen, with the attendants withdrawing once they had placed their flowers.

  ‘I thought there’d be something more definite to end it,’ one ambassador remarked, within Alex’s hearing.

  ‘Well, they’re leaving,’ said another and so they were, boarding their shuttles with just the same kind of quiet poise as they’d displayed throughout.

  ‘Right,’ said another and clapped his hands as the airlock hatches were closed and the shuttles began to drift upwards. But this was not clapping to join in the tremendous applause which was sending the attendants on their way. It was a private, self-hugging gesture, a clap of gleeful anticipation. ‘Lunch!’ he declared.

  Lunch was being provided for the VIPs in the dome behind the Samartian embassy. This was not being hosted by the Pirrellothians since there was no tradition in their culture of food being served as part of such an event. There was, however, very much that tradition on just about every other known world, so the Fourth had stepped up with the offer of a post-ceremonial buffet.

  Simmy was having the time of her life. Nearly all of the ambassadors were attending – again, consolidating the miracle, both the Araki and Prisosans had indicated that their ambassadors would be there.

  Such acceptance was not in itself without precedent. One of the charming ways the Avenue had of putting newcomers in their place was to accept invitations to embassy-warming events and then fail to turn up. So Alex was quite prepared for most of the VIPs to melt away at this point, with or without the courtesy of excuses.

  He had, however, underestimated his own standing on the diplomatic scene. Having failed to persuade him into acting as the de-facto League Ambassador here, the big players were if anything even more impressed by his integrity. And integrity, it had to be admitted, was not a quality they normally associated with representatives of the League. So, to Alex’s surprise and Simmy’s unbounded delight, every one of them filed out of the VIP stand and proceeded across the road, between ranks of Lundanian security, to eat lunch as Alex’s guests.

  Alex himself found the whole thing highly amusing, though there was never a crack in his granite expression to give away the chuckles within. On the surface he was merely doing duty as the host, greeting people urbanely and fending off any effort to get him to discuss anything of diplomatic significance. Underneath, he was watching the complex evolutions people were putting t
hemselves through in order to meet the people they wanted to be seen with and avoid encounters with those they did not. The Araki and Prisosan ambassadors were remarkably skilful at this, contriving to remain on opposite sides of the dome at all times while never once even so much as glancing in the others’ direction. As had been previously, privately agreed, Alex greeted the Prisosan ambassador first, here, as he had greeted the Araki first at the event itself. Both were effusively friendly towards him, Ambassador Senoza actually holding on to his arm for some time while Ambassador Berrtra came alarmingly close to flirting with him over how handsome he looked in his dress uniform.

  ‘My compliments, Commodore.’ Ambassador JDT was not in the least bit inclined to flirt, his formal compliments served with a twisted smile and a sour note detectable under the professional urbanity. ‘A quite remarkable achievement.’

  Alex glanced around. All the ambassadors had turned up in ceremonial attire, presenting a rich and exotic range of colours and styles. It was, indeed, the first social event ever to be held on Lundane at which every embassy there had a representative. It was more than a ‘quite remarkable achievement’, it was a triumph and JDT knew it.

  ‘Ambassador,’ Alex inclined his head with noncommittal formality which close analysis would have revealed held more than a hint of contempt. He had tried to be understanding, even making excuses for the man when other people criticised, but had he been under oath Alex would have had to admit that he considered Ambassador JDT to be a lily-livered jobsworth and a downright liability.

  He was not alone in that opinion. Hardly any of the other ambassadors present were even acknowledging the League representative. Even the Teralian ambassador was getting more nods of greeting. If a stinking poo-squirting Urr had turned up at the event, indeed, Alex felt that it would probably be made more welcome.