Mike glared at her. “This is a demonstration of the new regime, Senior Secretary. Mark is one of my closest friends and I trust him unconditionally, He is closer than a brother to me. If I were to act in the tradition of my predecessors, or of the cabinet, you would, at the very least, lose your freedom for what you just said. If you had spoken to me that way, I would have broken your neck by now. It is a measure of Mark’s good nature and civilized manner that he is able to let your insults run off him like rain runs off skin. But I have to ask myself, are you someone that I want in a position of power?”
The Senior Secretary smiled. “A lesson I learned from the late First Advisor was that a little barbed probing could often reveal what was under the surface. I believe Mark has revealed his true self. What you just said of him tends to reinforce the lesson from his response.” she turned to Mark. “Mark, Friend of the People, I apologize if I offended you. I am grateful that the Empire has you as an ally. Tell me, how did you make that enormous storm cloud?”
Keeping a straight face, Mark said, “It was magic.”
“He’s being a dick.” Mike said. “Of course it wasn’t magic, it was his clever use of technology he had available to him, but like the People, he has some secrets he won’t share. We have finished here now. I can tell you that I do not approve of your use of ‘barbed probes’ to find what’s underneath the surface. In the environment I live in, that tactic would get you killed. Contact my AI when you have a list of civil servants who support the changes, and a list of those who won’t. If my investigations into the civil service don’t give me confidence in your suitability to continue in post, you will hear from me very soon. Otherwise, I’ll let you know when I next want to meet you.”
Mike stood and the Senior Secretary leapt to her feet.
“Come on Mark, don’t dawdle.” Mike said as she strode towards the door.
Chapter Ninety Eight
Truce
As the lander took off from the Palace lawn, Mike said, “Tell your AI to investigate the working of the Herassan civil service, and make an evidence backed recommendation as to whether they can be trusted or not.”
“No. I’m going to get a tea. Would you like one?”
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“It was a simple question, would you like tea?”
“Not that. You said no!”
“Oh that. Until you start acting like a normal person, and I know you are so far away from normal that it will be difficult for you, you can stuff your orders up your cloaca. In fact, I’m not taking any more orders from you at all. You can ask me for things in a polite and civilized manner, and I’ll consider them, but with no guarantee that I’ll acquiesce. Do you want tea?”
“Yes. To the tea that is. Why are you suddenly being so difficult?”
“Because I’m pissed off with you treating me like some kind of simple minded servant. You’ll be calling me Baldrick next.”
“Who? What are you talking about? Look, I made a perfectly reasonable request for you to ask your AI to perform a simple task and you’ve suddenly got spiky and demanding I beg you to do even the simplest thing for me! All right, worshipful Mark, Friend of the People and wielder of scary weapons, would you please, please, please ask your AI to do that investigation for me?”
“And that won’t work either. You’ve always been annoying, but you’re making an art form of it now. Pack it in.”
“I’ve already completed the investigation and done a report with a recommendation.” Mark’s AI told him.
“I thought you might have.” Mark subvocalized, “but she needn’t know yet.”
“Well stuff you!” Mike said. “I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately – or hadn’t you noticed? A fine friend you turned out to be.”
“We’ve all been under pressure. We haven’t all started acting like complete arseholes! Or cloacas in your case.”
Mike sat down and put her head in her hands. “Just leave me alone.”
Mark walked to the back of the lander and brought back the teas. He sat next to Mike and offered her a mug. She took it without looking at him. He put his tea on the tray in the back of the seat in front of him and folded up the arm rest between himself and Mike, then put his arm round her shoulders. She stiffened, then put her tea down and leaned into him. He sent her the report and they travelled the rest of the way back to the Swift in silence.
As the lander settled into the dock on board the Swift. Mike sat up and said, “I’m prepared to meet you half way.”
“I didn’t know we were negotiating.”
“I’ll stop giving you orders, but don’t expect me to start being polite to you any time soon.”
“That’s not meeting me half way! That’s you edging towards behaving in a barely civilized manner.”
“Take it or leave it. That’s the best offer you’ll get from me.”
“You really are an obnoxious lizard.”
“Yeah, and you really are a complete twat of a mammal.”
Mark held out his hand to her, she took it and pulled herself to her feet. “Come on,” he said, “let’s find the others. I could do with some civilized company.”
◆◆◆
Mark messaged Sally to meet him on the beach by the pool. He arrived just before her and she walked down to meet him by the water’s edge.
“How did the meetings go?” Sally asked.
“Fine. I only sat in on the one with their senior civil servant. She’s going to brief the rest of them and them Mike will meet them again.”
“And you’ll go with her?”
“One of us has to, to act as bodyguard, though she stands a damn good chance of me punching her if she doesn’t learn some manners.”
Sally laughed. “You two are like siblings, constantly bickering.”
“She’s more like a cross between a bloody annoying and spoilt little sister, and a puppy that hasn’t been house trained.”
Sally paused a moment and then grinned. “My AI just gave me a cultural explanation about a puppy that hasn’t been house trained. It suggested that you should use a now discredited form of training by rubbing her nose in it when she makes a mess.”
Mark grinned too, “That’s a tempting idea. A muzzle might be a good start. It might stop her ordering me around like I was a bot. Anyway, how did you all get on clearing the defense ordnance from the Freedom Movement HQ?”
“Fine, of course. In what way could it not have done?”
“Uh, I don’t know, I was just making polite conversation, trying to show that I’m interested in what you’re doing.”
“I see. Is that a human thing to do?”
“Yes. I’ve never done it before of course, but I’ve read about it.”
“It’s probably better you don’t try again. It seems a bit weird.”
“It’s not weird! It’s normal!”
“For humans maybe, not for anyone else.”
“Bloody aliens.” Mark muttered.
Sally was about to respond when Mike blinked in. “Have you come here to swim?” she asked.
“No, we came here to get away from you.” Mark said.
“No we didn’t.” Sally said, “At lease, I didn’t. Mark might have done.”
“He was very sulky this morning, He said he wasn’t going to do anything I asked any more. It must have been something Seltet or Ranesh said last night that’s put him in a bad mood.”
“If you want Mark to continue to help you, you’d better start being a bit nicer to him.” Sally said.
“What? I treat him as though he was fully sentient. I even let him sit next to me on the lander.”
“You need to do a lot better than that.” Sally said.
“Well, I could let him shag me, but we’re not physically compatible.”
“Mike!” Mark snapped at her. “There are limits, and you’ve just stepped over one of them!”
“Get a sense of humor.” Mike said. “You know I couldn’t do this without you. I’ve r
ead through the report you sent me. It seems the civil service are to be trusted – going by their previous performance. I’ve just messaged the Senior Secretary to tell her we’ll be meeting her in the morning. We’ve got some stuff to work out first. Would you come to the meeting room with me?”
“Uh, yes, sure.” Mark said, taken aback. Mike was talking to him like a normal person.
“Come on then mammal boy.”
“I don’t like that expression. It’s specist “
“And you think I like being called a skinny little lizard?”
They both blinked out. Sally shook her head. She had never wanted to have children. Now she seemed to have two. She decided to speak to Touren and Bekkreshan. They had experience dealing with children during their time with the Boran Medical Emergency and Recovery group.
◆◆◆
“Right, we’re agreed.” Mark said, “We need one communications node for the Palace. It will only accept Bryd and Pem’s AI’s connections. It can only connect to my AI, because the People’s technology protocols don’t allow it to be used for third party – that’s you, Bryd and Pem – to have the use of the instant communications, but I can relay messages and data packages.”
“That seems like you’re breaking the rules doing that. I don’t want them shutting it down, or I’ll have to come back and stay on Tefran until the new voting system has got full user acceptance.”
“I told you, my AI says it’s OK, as long as it’s only a temporary arrangement. Once you’ve abdicated you won’t have any power to do anything, so there’s no point them being able to contact you. But they will still be able to contact me, I just won’t be able to set up an automatic relay to you.”
“How long will it take to set it up?”
“If you will agree to it, about an hour.”
“And where exactly will it be?”
“The subspace node will be cloaked and in a low geostationary orbit above the Palace.”
“A low geostationary orbit will decay pretty quickly, how long will it stay up there?”
“It’s People’s tech. It will have no problem staying in position indefinitely.”
“OK, I agree to all that. Would you set it up please?”
“Mike, this is getting a bit spooky. I am not used to you behaving like a normal person.”
“Consider this a temporary truce. When this is all over, the gloves are off again!” she replied with a grin.
Mark rolled his eyes. “I look forward to that, in the meantime, are you ready for tomorrow’s meeting?”
“Yeah, and we’re going to meet Bryd afterwards, so you can tell him how the communications will work.”
“And that’s it then. We’re all finished. We can leave after that?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank goodness for that. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m looking forward to some action again!”
“You’ve only seen action in what might be called a war. When we go to clear out outcasts, it’s much more chaotic, violent, and scarier. You’ve got the advantage of your phase shift armor. For the rest of us, when we’re in the thick of it amongst outcasts, we never know when we’re going to a get a blade in our side or back, and if like the rest of us you’re relying on field armor and body armor, you know that if someone sticks an RX4040 into your face – or anywhere directly on you and empties the magazine, at some point the field armor will collapse and there’s a good chance the rest of the magazine will chew its way through your body armor.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to get back into action?”
“No it doesn’t. When you see what those scum do to innocent civilians for no good reason, you’ll want to stop them at every opportunity. Anyway, we’ve all got to die one day. I’m going to take a shower. Join me for something to eat later?”
“Yes. I’ve got to do something first. Arrange a time with Sally and anyone else who wants to join us and let me know when to meet you.”
“Hey! Stop giving me orders!” Mike said.
Mark smiled, “See you later.” and blinked to the command center.
“OK Kate,” he said to his AI, “where’s the latest surprise?”
“It’s in Dock Three.”
“I didn’t know we’d got a Dock Three. I thought we just had two of them.”
“We did. You are forgetting that the Swift is completely reconfigurable. I had this one configured specially, as Dock Two still has part of the Herassan fleet in it”
‘Oh god.’ Mark thought. ‘Whatever it is, it must be massive. I need to put on a brave face. Kate was disappointed at my reaction to her last surprises. And I must remember to get rid of the Herassan ships.
“OK Kate,” he said, trying to sound cheerful and optimistic, “take me there.”
Mark blinked into the newly made Dock Three and saw a huge structure in front of him. He was too close to see what it was, so walked back to get a better look. He thought, ‘It looks a bit like… no, it can’t be. It’s too big.’
He walked round to see it from a different angle. ‘It still looks a bit like it, but I’m sure it was smaller than this.’ Hope started blossom in Mark, but he pushed it down to avoid disappointment, because he didn’t really believe his interpretation of what he was seeing.
“Kate, I can’t see it properly from here, give me an overhead view.”
“An image popped into Marks vision, and he almost fell over.”
“It is! I don’t believe it! Tell me I’m not dreaming.” he said excitedly.
“You are not dreaming Mark, it’s real.”
“But it’s huge! I don’t remember it being this size.”
“The specification for the original was too small to have made it really useful to you, so I scaled it up by a factor of six.”
“This is, this is… I’m lost for words! It’s fantastic! Is it fully functioning?”
“Yes, but using People’s technology of course..”
“Kate, that is brilliant! Thank you so much. I think I love you.”
“That is an interesting concept. It would probably be better if you didn’t share that information with Sally.”
Chapter Ninety Nine
The Drinks Are On Mark!
Mark blinked into the dining room. Mike, Sally and Seltet were already sat down. Simon, Bekkreshan and Touren were standing by the table with drinks in their hands.
“You look happy.” Sally said. “Have you had some good news?”
“It’s my AI, it’s come up with something great!” he said with a big smile. “The drinks are on me!”
The others all looked at each other, puzzled. Mike was the first to comply and threw her drink over him. Before he could protest, everyone else emptied their drinks over him.
While Mark stood open mouthed and drenched, Sally said, “I don’t remember that from my time on Earth. Is it a local custom?”
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