Ambassador

by William Alexander

  Ripe stood on his hands and used both feet to catch the ball. “This is a sphere,” he said. “Its volume would be two thirds of a surrounding cylinder.”

  “Don’t be so literal,” Jir told him. “Make something up.”

  “This is the sharp-smelling seedpod of a sheltering home tree in last bloom,” Ripe decided.

  I don’t understand you, Gabe thought, despairing. I don’t know what you want or what you’re afraid of. Maybe you want to assassinate me for reasons I won’t ever get. But I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

  If none of his neighbors were actually ice-pirate assassins, then he had just brought them together and terrified them with Outlast attention for no good reason. He felt sick.

  Ripe tossed the ball to Ca’tth, who caught it and held it.

  “Omegan’s here,” Ca’tth whispered. He sounded less worried now that the danger was clearly visible. He looked ready to run. Jir looked ready to fight—but in a hopeless way, as though she knew that the fight wouldn’t matter except as a distraction to help the others escape. Ripe didn’t really look ready for anything.

  Gabe glanced over his shoulder. Omegan of the Outlast stood apart, watching their game. He did not attempt to come closer, to join them, or to stand where he could hear them.

  “Don’t talk about evacuation,” Ca’tth whispered, his voice still calm and placid as though talking about breakfast or the weather. “Don’t talk about where we are, or where we’re going, or anything about travel capabilities, or weapons capabilities, or any other capabilities. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t let him spy on us.”

  “I don’t think he’s trying to spy on us,” said Gabe. “Look at him.”

  Ca’tth’s ears fluttered like moth wings. “The Gabe keeps looking at the Outlast. Stop it.” He threw the ball at Gabe’s head.

  Gabe fumbled, dropped it, and picked it up again.

  “Look!” he insisted. “Look how he’s standing apart where we can clearly see him and where he can’t hear us. That’s not spying! That’s the opposite of spying, a refusal to spy. Maybe he’s trying to avoid causing any more damage. Maybe he’s trying not to learn any more about us.”

  Jir cautiously considered the Outlast ambassador.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “But it looks to me like Omegan stands aloof, not just apart. And I’m not impressed either way. Willful ignorance isn’t impressive. A passive objection to genocide isn’t nearly good enough.” She held out both arms to encompass the four of them. “You see how sparsely our part of the spiral is populated. You’re new, so you might not understand what this means. You wouldn’t understand how many we’ve lost. You might not be able to even think about numbers that high. But understand this: I will not speak to the Outlast. I will not play games with the Outlast.” Her voice was steady, but Gabe heard the rage in it. “Look at us. We’re all that’s left out of hundreds of thousands of worlds. In a whole spiral arm of our galaxy, there’s just us and a few scattered nomads passing through.”

  “Don’t talk about the Kaen!” Ca’tth told her in a sharp whisper. “The Kaen doesn’t want to be talked about. And she didn’t come to join this game. Their ships are in the chase already, running hard, hard, hard, and we mustn’t speak any hints about their running path.”

  Gabe felt prickly tingles on the skin of his arms. If he were something with fur, like a fox or a cat, then all his fur would have bristled.

  Kaen is nearby. Kaen is passing through local space. Kaen was the very first person to talk to me here. She and Sapi were the first to ask me questions. And Kaen has kept an eye on me ever since, standing behind Sapi and glaring. Ambassador Sapi might live far away on the other side of the center, along with the musical Treem and the Ven and the Gnoles who always duel with each other. But Kaen is here, right here, hiding in local space and watching me from a tree branch.

  “I’m sorry,” he said out loud. “I’m sorry that I called this game together. I’m sorry if I put you in any more danger.” He held up the ball. “This is an apology. It’s for all of you, but I’m going to throw it to him. Everybody else scatter when I do.”

  He turned, held the ball high so Omegan would see it coming—Gabe wouldn’t toss anything at an unsuspecting outfielder, even one culpable in galactic genocide—and then threw hard, unsure if the ball would make it so far. It did. Omegan caught it, clearly surprised.

  The other three ambassadors scattered in three different directions.

  Gabe took a deep breath. He knew what he needed to know. Now it was time to do something about it.

  He took two steps. Then he felt wrenchingly dizzy, and woke up.

  20

  Gabe woke to find the Envoy shaking his shoulder and his mother’s voice practically shouting. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

  “I’m up!” he said. “I’m up. I know who the pirate assassins are, and I’m up.”

  “Good,” said the Envoy. “Because they’ve found us. They’re coming here. Three more repurposed mining ships are en route and will arrive within the hour. It took them far less time to launch new ships at us than I’d hoped, so it might not have been the best idea to bring you to the moon after all. But you know who they are! Excellent. That’s a huge relief. You need to get back to the Embassy to expose them. You need to be sleeping. Hurry.”

  “I was just about to expose them when you woke me up!” said Gabe, annoyed and still groggy but extremely awake. “I haven’t learned how to do the deliberate trance thing yet. How can I get back to sleep now?”

  The Envoy frowned its puppetish mouth. “You’ll just have to trust me,” it said, moving closer. “Good luck to you.”

  It jumped, smothered Gabe’s face, and choked him unconscious.

  * * * *

  “Greetings again, Ambassador,” said Protocol. “Very little time has passed since your most recent visit. Are you well?”

  Gabe crouched on the floor, still choking—even though his actual, Envoy-smothered nose and mouth were very far away.

  It worked, he thought. You can let me breathe now. Please let me breathe.

  He finally caught his breath and kept it. Then he climbed up to standing. His reflection looked unsteady in the mirror-door, and his face was flushed.

  “I’m fine,” he said, insisting on it, trying to make it true.

  “I am glad to hear that,” said Protocol, still clearly concerned.

  “I’m fine,” Gabe said again, to the room and himself.

  He stood, and he breathed, and he furiously thought.

  “How can I send a message to all the other ambassadors?” he asked. “If I have a public message or a public accusation, how can I talk to everyone?”

  Protocol told him without sighing or complaining first. “There is a small platform at the very center of the Chancery. You may address all your colleagues from there. This is rarely done, however.”

  Gabe stood and thought in furious circles. I can expose them. This is what we planned to do. I can condemn their ice piracy and assassination attempts in front of absolutely everyone. Then Omegan will know where they are. The Outlast will know. So the Kaen will have to leave the system. They’ll have to keep running. That might not necessarily stop them from shooting me first, though.

  Gabe decided what to do.

  “Protocol, I need to meet with the Kaen ambassador. Somewhere private and hidden. Somewhere in the forest. Please send her that message. Ask if she would meet me there as soon as possible.”

  She’ll come, he thought. Even though she didn’t come to our local game. She might be keeping her distance, but she’ll still need to find out how much I know and how much I might reveal to everyone else. She’ll talk to me to find that out.

  “Very well,” said the room. “I will send the message and guide you to such a meeting place.”

  “Thank you, Protocol,” said Gabe.

  “You are welcome, Ambassador.”

  The mirror-door opened, and Gabe started running.

 
He raced across the Chancery, avoiding clusters of ambassadors and their games. He ran as though pursued by more silverfish dragon ships with cannons—which he was, somewhere else, somewhere extremely far away. He made for an arrow-shaped pillar of cloud that descended into the forest in front of him.

  Omegan stood waiting at the edge of the trees, still holding the ball from their local game.

  Gabe stopped and stumbled, unsure what to do. The two faced each other. Omegan made eye contact this time.

  He threw the ball at Gabe. It was a bad, clumsy throw. Gabe scooped it up from where it bounced and rolled.

  “Why did you call for me to join you?” Omegan asked. “You should not have. Others will always find out what I learn.”

  “Then I probably shouldn’t tell you why,” said Gabe. “But I’ll tell you this much: I wanted to scare the other ambassadors, so I used you to scare them for me. You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that. I wish I hadn’t.”

  Omegan nodded. He watched Gabe for an uncomfortable stretch of time. Then he turned to go.

  “Thanks for trying not to learn about us,” Gabe told him. “Thank you for trying not to do any more damage. Please don’t watch where I’m going now. Please don’t follow me.”

  “You are welcome,” said Omegan as he walked away. “And I will not.”

  Gabe went searching for Protocol’s cloud arrow among strangely shaped trees.

  * * * *

  He found it in a small clearing set apart from all the arboreal games. He could hear shouts and laughter, but they all sounded distant and faint.

  Gabe stretched out on the ground and tossed the ball at the sky. He did that over and over, performing a very great magic while waiting. He wondered if the attack on Zvezda would wake him up before it killed him, or if he would sleep through it. He wondered which way he would rather have it happen.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  Kaen stopped and stood at the edge of the clearing, well away from him. She maintained a large amount of personal space.

  “I’m here,” she said, but Gabe had already noticed. He got to his feet and held back, respecting the distance she had already established. He recognized this expanse of personal space from playground fights—even though he was usually pretty good at avoiding playground fights. Kaen stood outside his reach. If he did anything aggressive then she would have time to notice and respond—either by running or by doing something aggressive back at him. She also faced him directly, a hint that flight wouldn’t be her first instinct. She didn’t cross her arms. She kept both hands free.

  “Ambassador,” said Gabe, by way of formal greeting.

  “Ambassador,” Kaen answered.

  “You’re in our system,” said Gabe. He did not say it as a question or an accusation. “You’re on board one of those ships in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.”

  “Yes,” said Kaen.

  She didn’t try to duck, dodge, or stall him with dithering. Gabe appreciated that.

  “You could have asked for the ice,” he said.

  Kaen shook her head. “If we had asked, and you said no, then we would have died. If we took the ice anyway and you censured us for it, then you would have revealed our position and we would have died. And at first we had no one to ask. This system had no ambassador when we arrived.”

  “But now it has me,” said Gabe. “So you approached me when I first got here.”

  “I did,” said Kaen. “That was when you threatened us.”

  “Wait, what now?” Gabe shook his head. “I didn’t threaten you. I joked around with Sapi while you held back and glared at me. We barely spoke.”

  “You threatened us,” Kaen repeated. “You mentioned that you had already noticed our ships among the asteroids. Immediately after that you sent a signal to the Outlast ambassador.”

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t . . . Oh. You mean the airplane? That was an accident. I didn’t mean to hit Omegan in the head with a leaf-paper airplane.”

  “Did you intend to speak with him every other time you’ve come here?” Kaen demanded. “Was that also an accident? And did you accidentally call for a local match that would include the Outlast, putting all of us in more danger? Why did you do that? Are you trying to suck up to the Outlast? Do you actually think that they’ll spare this system out of gratitude? They won’t.”

  Oops, Gabe thought. She thinks I’ve been conspiring with Omegan the whole time. No wonder she sent black holes and huge mining bugs after me. It was self-defense. And I’m not at all sure how to untangle this now.

  The two watched each other in wary silence until Gabe broke the tension by laughing.

  “What?” Kaen looked more surprised than insulted.

  “This is my fault,” he said. “Well, no. It’s the Outlast’s fault, but I stumbled into it. I’m sorry about that. And now you’re stalling, because your mining ships need more time to close in on me and fire their drills. I’m on the far side of moon, by the way, facing away from the planet. Facing you. I’m stranded there. Helpless. No one on Terra will notice if the base explodes, no matter how bright and spectacular the blast.” He smiled. He was Zorro facing down a line of muskets.

  Kaen stared at him, openly incredulous. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Gabe took a step back, extending the distance of their shared comfort zone. He dropped the ball and held both hands out sideways to show her how empty they were.

  “I’m telling you because there’s no such thing as safe,” he said. “There’s only trust. I need you to trust me when I say that you have official permission to hide in our system and share our ice.”

  Kaen kept her voice cautiously neutral and her posture absolutely still. “Why?” she asked again. “We tried to kill you.”

  “And you’re trying again,” said Gabe. “Right now. I don’t think I can stop you, not even if I did make a public complaint.” Lupe would have hated this admission of weakness. Dad would have too. Fighters prefer to go down in glory. Fighters worry about losing strength forever if they once admit it isn’t there. But Gabe wasn’t a fighter, no matter how tightly he held on to the rage that still simmered at his foundations, no matter how much he wanted to make someone else feel what he felt. This time he wouldn’t lash out, wounded. He could be better than that. He was an ambassador.

  “If all this is true,” Kaen said carefully, “and if these are your very last moments, then you still have time to hurt us by revealing where we are. The Outlast would find us. And even if they didn’t, it would still matter for other systems to know that the Kaen took guest gifts without local permission. Ports and docking rights would close to us. You can still hurt us before you die.”

  “Tempting,” said Gabe. “Omegan wasn’t far away, last I saw him. I could go right now and tell him where you are.”

  Kaen shifted her weight, obviously prepared to tackle him if he tried.

  “Or I could at least threaten to do that,” Gabe pointed out. “I could threaten you and make demands. But no. I won’t.”

  “Why not?” she asked him.

  “If I did sic the Outlast on you—which might be harder than everybody thinks, since Omegan is trying really, really hard not to learn anything about anyone —but if I did manage it, and they came to our system looking for you, they would also find us. That’s worth avoiding.”

  Kaen nodded. “True. Is that why you’re offering to help us instead?”

  “No,” said Gabe. “It’s not. I’m doing this because my best friend’s house used to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. And because it still is a stop on the Underground Railroad. You’re trying to make your way north. You’re crossing the desert. You need water. I won’t be the one who finds you and turns you in. I won’t tell the people with guns where you’re hiding. I will not do that.”

  Gabe’s anger stung him like a baseball caught without a glove. It felt painful and satisfying. He didn’t try to hide it. He held it in his voice, and he let Kaen hear just exactly
how angry he was—but he also held it close. He kept it his own. He threw absolutely none of it at her.

  “I’m offering the Kaen emergency hospitality,” he said. “Hide in the asteroids. Take some ice. In exchange, I’ll need a ride from the moon I’m on back down to the planet I’m from. I’ll also need you to stop trying to kill me. Do you accept this offer?”

  Gabe waited. He wondered if the mining ships had reached the moon yet, if they had landed on the surface. Maybe they were scuttling toward Zvezda on their many metal legs at that moment, drill cannon glowing, prepared to shoot holes in the walls that kept Gabe alive.

  Kaen took two steps closer, closing the distance between them. “I accept your offer of refuge and resources. I’ll tell the fleet captains to call off the attack and send you a transport.”

  “Thank you,” said Gabe. “Please hurry.”

  She nodded once and disappeared.

  * * * *

  Gabe wished he knew how to wake up so easily. He wasn’t sure which mental muscle to flex. He stood alone in the center of the clearing, in the forest that was not a forest, surrounded by trees that were not trees and that grew according to different rules. He tried to wake up.

  When Gabe left the Embassy, finally, he didn’t wake up. Instead he dreamed himself into an actual dream, the sort that people usually have: a scrambled mix of hope, fear, memory, and things translated into other things.

  He dreamed about his family, all of them together. They didn’t look like themselves. The twins kept turning into their pets and back again. Noemi also became a duck sometimes. She said “meow” no matter what she was.

  They sat on a blanket, in the grass, in the park. Dad had prepared a picnic. He was still nimble at opening Tupperware, even when he was an eagle instead of himself.

  Gabe closed his eyes, smelled the spices, and tried to guess what each dish might be from the smells that followed every open lid. If Gabe had shifted between shapes like the rest of his family, he hadn’t noticed. And he was not afraid. He didn’t worry that they might be noticed, seen, shot, arrested, deported, assassinated, or invaded. He did not fear conquering Outlast or men with guns and ICE written in white letters over black vests.