Venturi

by S J MacDonald

  ‘Though not,’ said JDT and it was almost possible to hear the snarl under that urbane tone, ‘as required, in a timely manner.’ He fixed Alex in what he obviously wanted to be a fierce, intimidating glare, but which only succeeded in looking petulant. ‘I should,’ he said, weightily, ‘have been informed at an early stage in the negotiations, not merely notified about them at the conclusion of the process.’

  Alex was genuinely puzzled for a moment, unable to see what the ambassador was complaining about. Then, just as he was about to ask him what he meant, realisation clicked. JDT was assuming that there had been a lengthy process of documents and meetings, from which he had been excluded.

  ‘Ah,’ said Alex and as little as he either liked or respected the League Ambassador, felt obliged to set the record straight. ‘There was,’ he told him, ‘no process. This was quarian diplomacy.’ Seeing that JDT was looking more suspicious than reassured, he went on, ‘Ambassador Silver had a private, informal meeting with President Moffaret, at which I was present on a confidential basis.’ He was trying to speak a language JDT would understand, rather than just saying that Silvie and Roll’em had wanted him to stay in case the meeting turned awkward. ‘During that meeting, Ambassador Silver raised the possibility of acquiring a plot on Embassy Avenue. She and President Moffaret discussed her request and came to an agreement. I was not involved in those discussions myself, other than to agree to providing some logistical support for the garden project. The whole thing was discussed and agreed within about eleven minutes.’

  JDT looked as if Alex had gut-punched him.

  ‘In an off-record meeting?’ His voice was rising towards an incredulous falsetto. ‘No agenda? No minutes? No documentation at all?’

  ‘None,’ said Alex, with a certain satisfaction. ‘All the paperwork was generated by the relevant people afterwards. The decision itself was made very rapidly and informally, as is the nature of quarian diplomacy.’

  JDT swallowed. Alex could practically see the words That is insane! written on his face.

  ‘I see,’ the ambassador said lamely, though it was clear that he didn’t, really. That was just not the way his universe worked and not the way he felt it should work, either. That the quarian had made such a suggestion in such a chaotic manner was perhaps excusable, but that President Moffaret had been party to that seemed almost criminally irresponsible to the career diplomat. Where was the process? Where were the carefully worded agreements with their lengthy clauses and sub-clauses and contractual agreements? If people just made such agreements on the basis of good faith and goodwill, what was the point of diplomacy at all?

  ‘So you were, in fact,’ Alex said, ‘informed of the event in a timely and appropriate manner. Now, if you will excuse me…’

  He ended the call with JDT making a small bleating sound.

  Idiot, thought Alex, but the thought was only fleeting. He had already relegated JDT to the status of wholly unimportant peripheral nuisance and had forgotten about him again almost as soon as the call flicked off the screen.

  Instead, he returned his attention to the construction site, watching with real interest. It wasn’t simply that this was a crucial step in the success of the Fourth’s mission, but simply that he’d never seen a building being put together Lundanian style. Almost as soon as the siliplas insulation layer had hardened, air-cranes were coming in with prefabricated foundation-cages. They were like a complex, geometric cat’s cradle of heavy girders and interlacing struts, each of them slotting into one another as they were lowered into the siliplas-lined pit. It only took a couple of hours for them to be installed and they had barely even cleared the site before three other companies swung in simultaneously. One was installing a water tank, itself the size of a swimming pool. Another was installing a set of hydrogen-powered generators which would give the embassy an independent power supply. The third had several crews working at once, installing a waste-processing and recycling system which fitted into prepared slots and supports within the foundations. Under the glare of day-bright arc lights, the site was swarming with safety-suited figures wielding far more powerful tools than Alex would have expected to see used in construction. One bit of kit which looked like a cannon mounted on an air-crane turned out to be a bolt gun, firing bolts into place like missiles. If Alex had been in charge of the site, he would have had it cleared of all personnel while such gear was being used. Lundanians, however, had their own ideas about site safety and people were often walking within metres of where the bolts were being fired. They had, evidently, total confidence in its reliability and precision.

  ‘Impressive,’ said Davie, watching with just as much interest as Alex and drawing his attention to where a new team was starting to drop fire safety walls into slots within the structure. ‘Construction,’ he observed, ‘Fourth’s style.’

  Alex was startled for a moment, then realised that Davie was right. This was just how the Fourth would approach such a project, safety considerations aside, with a structured task-list and teams swinging in the moment they had access.

  ‘If we had a container with that kind of kit,’ Davie mused, ‘we could throw up buildings when we need them instead of relying on domes.’

  Alex considered that.

  ‘I don’t see any need,’ he said, ‘for us to go into the building industry.’

  Davie grinned sideways at him, one eyebrow quirking up, and Alex laughed. It was apparent to him that that had not been a casual remark, that Davie really did want to acquire building gear. Alex didn’t really see the point, but nor was he so firmly against the idea that he’d reject it out of hand.

  ‘You can,’ he conceded, ‘give me a project propo…’ he broke off as a file pinged into his in-tray, identified as a project proposal from Davie suggesting that they acquire the tech and expertise to put buildings up should they need to in future. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and his smile confirmed that he would certainly sign off on that once he’d read it through.

  For now, though, Alex was content just to watch the building of the Pirrellothian embassy, something he continued to do with as much time as he could spare over the following few days. It took just over a week for them to build up the five-storey structure, slotting more prefab cages into place and installing tech at each level. And for the next week after that, it was a skeleton, the levels only partially floored with neither external nor internal walls. This allowed free access to drones bringing in tech which became increasing complex as the days went by. Plumbing, power and air-con systems were layered in the floor spaces and ran vertically in ways which made no sense, at least to an untutored eye.

  Everything ran amazingly smoothly… amazingly, at least, if you didn’t know that every company involved had secretly been practising for their part in this, assembling mock-ups in out of the way locations. Everything had been measured and tested at least five times to ensure that there was not the smallest glitch. So it was not without reason that the construction of Lady Ursele’s embassy was considered to set new standards for both speed and precision, even by Lundanians.

  The rabnak crowds were certainly enthusiastic. There were rarely fewer than a quarter of a million people milling about the Avenue during the day, often combining a look at the site with a stroll up and down to look at the other embassies. Some people came every day, monitoring progress with considerable knowledge of what was being done. Others only came once, merely to be able to say that they had been to what had become the ‘must do’ rabnak event of the year. It was even more popular than the continuing drops of icebergs to the Eloten Flats depot.

  The building was still in skeletal phase when Luce asked to see Alex privately one morning.

  ‘I have a request,’ she said, once they were settled in his daycabin. ‘I have been asked if you would be willing to allow a visitor to board the ship and meet with Mister under conditions of absolute anonymity.’

  Alex had resigned himself, by then, to having the LIA agent aboard ship until such time as they could dischar
ge him at X-Base Sentinel, so his face brightened at this hint of a possibility that they might be able to be rid of him sooner. All the same, he didn’t leap to agree.

  ‘On what assurance?’ he queried.

  ‘Vouched for by Fleet Intel,’ Luce replied. ‘I believe I can state with full confidence that this is a bona fide approach by the LIA. But their conditions are…’ she grinned suddenly and shrugged, ‘LIA!’ she said, as if that said everything that needed to be said.

  ‘Go on,’ Alex said, reaching for his coffee.

  ‘They want to send their agent aboard wearing a forensic suit,’ said Luce and waited quite deliberately until Alex was giving his coffee a thoughtful sip before she added, ‘and a mask.’

  Alex gulped, cracked up laughing and then realised she was serious.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ he said. ‘Even they wouldn’t…’ his voice trailed off as Luce raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, yes, I suppose… but honestly? A mask?’

  ‘It’s the LIA,’ Luce pointed out. ‘They will only send an agent aboard if they have an absolute assurance that they can come in a forensic suit with face-concealment and that no attempt will be made to fossick out their identity. Your word of honour is required on that. They want half an hour alone with Mister and to be allowed to deploy their own tech to ensure that that meeting will not be recorded.’

  Alex thought about it. The security risks involved in that were obvious and serious. But Luce said that Fleet Intel was willing to vouch for them. And the Fourth, after all, had been making every effort to get the LIA to claim their agent.

  ‘And our guys advise…?’ Alex queried, at which Luce grimaced wryly and shrugged.

  ‘Caution,’ she said. ‘But this is the best offer we’re going to get.’

  Alex nodded. ‘Give me the conditions,’ he asked, knowing from past experience with the LIA that that was not all there would be to their request.

  And it wasn’t. Luce had written down the specifics of their request, which detailed exactly how the visit must be organised, which airlock would be used, where and how the meeting would take place and how the route and venue must be secured. One of the first things Alex noted was that the visit was scheduled for 0300.

  ‘Typical,’ he commented. ‘Never do anything at three in the afternoon when you can make it mysterious and dramatic at three in the morning.’

  Luce chuckled. ‘I think,’ she commented, ‘that you just nailed analysis of LIA culture.’

  Alex grinned, but continued to read down the list, finding nothing that he had any particular issue with, beyond the profound sense of unease at allowing anyone aboard his ship with their identity concealed.

  ‘And what guarantees do we get,’ he queried, ‘that Mister will come to no harm?’

  Luce considered that as a serious question. ‘I don’t see what advantage they’d gain from assassinating him.’

  ‘He is a problem,’ Alex pointed out, ‘and an embarrassing one.’

  ‘Undeniably,’ Luce agreed. ‘And if they could make him cease to exist with no records and none of us having any memory of him ever having been aboard, if there was such a magic button, I have no doubt they’d press it. But as it is, his death under these circumstances would just make things a hundred times worse.’

  Alex thought about that and nodded, but slowly, still not entirely convinced.

  ‘This is the LIA, though,’ he said. ‘And Lundane. Intel agencies play rough here. Even our own guys.’ He tried not to look accusingly at Luce, with that, reminding himself that it was her friend who’d been abducted and subjected to sustained interrogation under drugs.

  ‘Yes,’ Luce conceded. ‘But I really don’t think we need to be concerned about assassination, Alex – either of Mister, or you.’ She grinned at his surprise, seeing that that possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. ‘Our guys are a hundred per cent,’ she told him, ‘that Mister is out on his own in his belief that taking you out is justified here. You’re right, the LIA is embarrassed, mightily so, that one of their agents has been making such a fool of himself…’ She broke off as Alex interrupted, exclaiming.

  ‘Making a …?’

  ‘Well, see it from their point of view,’ Luce suggested. ‘They planted this young, inexperienced junior operative on us on a purely observational mission, though they must have known his cover wouldn’t stand up for long – certainly not for two minutes after he met Silvie!’

  It was a good point and Alex nodded, waiting for her to continue.

  ‘We’ve had confirmation,’ said Luce, ‘that he was chosen for this mission because he is junior and frankly not that promising as an agent, considered pretty low grade by the LIA, expendable. And because he is young and inexperienced they knew it was likely he’d be treated kindly when his cover was blown.’

  She looked at him in such a way that Alex understood that it was his own response there which had been predicted by the LIA. ‘And they were right, of course, you gave him permission to observe, even a seat on the command deck, so his mission, his purpose, was still being achieved. So if things had gone to plan they’d have spent a few weeks doing a comprehensive debrief and then fired him, as they would any agent whose identity as an agent had been compromised. That was the plan, okay? At no point was it even considered that Mister would run active interference, let alone attempt either to sabotage the ship or assassinate you. He was never supposed to do anything more than watch and make notes. But he lost it, obviously, totally overwhelmed by everything that was going on and made the decision himself to invoke IFSL because he is young and inexperienced, a junior operative anyway and really not very good. From the LIA’s point of view – well, they may not like what we’re doing here and the way that we’re doing it may be scaring the pants off them, but they are a very long way off any consideration of shooting you, Alex.’ She chuckled at the thought. ‘So the way he’s been carrying on has horrified them. They intended this to be a minor incident which could be smoothed over with an apology and handshakes at the appropriate level, right? And now they’re looking at an official Senate investigation.’

  Alex knew she was right. He would have no say in that himself, other than to provide evidence when called upon to do so. But it was obvious that the authorities back on Chartsey would want to know how an LIA agent had ended up in maximum security containment on the Fourth’s ship, a direct threat and very real disruption during this important mission. It would be two or three years before all the arguments had been exhausted, all the resignations and firing finished, all the revised policy documents issued. But it would be two or three years during which the LIA would be under fire and in which no amount of squirming would get around the fact that they had interfered with a Fourth’s operation. Again.

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s some comfort that they don’t want to shoot me,’ said Alex, so drily that Luce laughed again. ‘And…’ he looked back at the list, considering again. ‘Put it to Mister,’ he said. ‘See what he says. If he doesn’t want to meet anyone under these conditions, we will respect that, all right?’

  ‘Okay,’ Luce confirmed.

  Mister, however, was so desperate to get off the ship by then that he would have agreed to just about anything. So after some further back-and-forth via Fleet Intel, the visit was confirmed for the following night.

  Their agent was on time. At precisely 0295 a hired shuttle deposited a figure at the door of the Samartian embassy. This figure was escorted straight through to the landing pads which the Fourth was using for their shuttles. From there, a Fourth’s pilot brought them up, attempting no conversation en-route.

  Most of the people on the ship were asleep, as Alex had not put it on the notice board that they were expecting a 3 am visit from an LIA agent. As keen as he was to inform and include every member of his crew in operations, he didn’t see any point in breaking their night’s sleep for no purpose. They would not be able to see anything as the route between the airlock and the meeting room had been locked so that the agent could pass throu
gh unobserved.

  There was nothing to see, anyway – only a humanoid figure in a semi-rigid forensic suit which concealed the physique of the wearer so that not even its gender could be guessed. The mask they had insisted on was not a holo-blur, but a physical screen within the helmet, heavily insulated so that no x-rays or other scans could penetrate and reveal the face of the person within. The only way they could have found out who was in that suit was to physically overwhelm them and remove it. But they were true to their word, to Alex’s word, and made no attempt even to speak to the agent more than was necessary in escorting them the short distance from the airlock to the room in which Mister was waiting.

  There, the masked agent was shown in and left, as agreed, for half an hour in conditions of complete privacy. They would, for sure, scan for hidden cameras and nano-devices, but they would find none. For one thing, Alex had agreed to those terms and would not try to subvert them. And for another, you hardly needed to be any kind of genius to work out what was being said in that room. The LIA was here to find out what the hell their busted operative had been thinking and he would be desperate to explain, to justify himself.

  ‘I wonder if he really does think that the LIA is here to rescue him and perhaps even that they’ll support him and have me killed,’ Alex mused, ‘or whether he’s come to his senses by now.’

  Buzz, who was sitting up to keep him company, looked at the commodore with kindly understanding.

  ‘He has never actually been out of his senses,’ he observed, having noticed before Alex’s tendency to talk about the LIA man as if he had had a psychological breakdown, for all his acceptance of the medical evidence to the contrary. ‘He’s been sane throughout.’

  ‘I know that.’ Alex answered with an apologetic look, knowing how frustrating Buzz found it that he, Alex, didn’t seem to be able to get his own head around that simple, medically proven fact. ‘I was speaking,’ he said, rather grandly, ‘in colloquial terms.’