Ambassador 1_Seeing Red

by Patty Jansen

  I plugged in my comm unit and rang the security post at the Nations of Earth complex. It was busy, not once, but all five times I tried. While I redialled and listened to the busy recording, please log your message at the following ID, I wriggled my bag open and extracted the infusor band, managed to loop it around my arm, tighten the strap with my teeth, and find the box of canisters.

  I tipped them on the bed and slotted one into the receptacle. Click. A faint hissing sound. White powder whirled behind the glass as the infusor shot nanoscale dust into my arm. It tickled and a patch of cold spread out over my skin. I knew the treatment didn’t work that fast, but I already felt a lot better.

  Then I rang the hotel’s reception. Could I please have something to eat; I didn’t care what.

  They could order a take-away, they said, and I told them yes, please. Then I tried to connect to security again while I waited for the food to turn up. My stomach rumbled.

  This time, the call was answered by a man whose gravelly voice sounded like he had one hell of a hangover.

  I cringed, but pushed ahead with my question. “I believe you took a man in custody at the president’s office tonight.”

  “Sorry, Mister, I can’t comment about that.”

  “But I’ve been—”

  “Look, I’ve had about a hundred calls from the press—”

  “I’m not from the press—”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “But I’m Cory Wilson, his employer!” I almost screamed. I was losing it. Definitely not coping very well. Tired, sore. Out of patience. Out of ideas.

  “Mr Wilson? Cory Wilson who was in the office with the president?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I have your ID please?”

  Pain spiking through my bandaged palms, I dug out my Nations of Earth identity chip, and patched him the number, flooding with relief, until he said, “He’s at the police station.”

  So I called the police station. Same story. We don’t talk to the press. Hundreds of people have already called today. Please get off the line in case of a real emergency.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to scream this time to get myself believed. I didn’t think I could have. All I could see was Nicha pacing around a concrete cell. Coldi hated being alone; their need to be with their associates was pathological. If he could only hear my voice . . .

  But the senior officer who came on the line said, “No, you can’t talk to anyone who’s in custody.”

  “Nicha Palayi is a gamra citizen. He has the right to speak to the nearest gamra representative, which is me. And I don’t even know why he’s in custody.” And damn it, my voice wasn’t holding up.

  “A reason which shall be heard in court.”

  “Court? On what basis? What proof?” My heart was thudding. Was there proof?

  “I’m not authorised to discuss that, sir.”

  “He has the right to one call.” Clutching at straws now.

  “He’s already used it.”

  That hurt. Nicha hadn’t called me. It also made sense. He would have called the Exchange. Maybe Nicha had tried to call me first when I was still at the hospital, where there was no reception. Shit. Besides, the Exchange would have been a better choice; that’s what I would have done. At the Exchange, in Athens, they had staff to help gamra citizens out of legal trouble.

  It still hurt. “I’d like to give him a message. Can you pass it on for me?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Look, he’s Coldi. He needs to hear a familiar voice or he’ll start attacking the walls, or your personnel. I have to talk to him.”

  “You can’t, I’m sorry.”

  “But we’re leaving the day after tomorrow!” Frustration spiked.

  That was no excuse and predictably got me nowhere. For as long as the police needed him, Nicha wouldn’t be going anywhere, least of all out of the country, never mind off-Earth. After a minute or so more arguing, I gave up. I would have to contact someone higher in the department tomorrow.

  Oh, if only I hadn’t handed in my feeder.

  While I had been talking, a black Indrahui shadow had snuck into my room to put a box on the table, where it sat exuding tantalising smells.

  My stomach grumbling, I ripped the cardboard lid, but the contents didn’t look half as nice as they smelled. The chickpea pita had gone soft with tomato sauce and fell apart when I poked it with the fork. Bloody hell. I’d paid—how much—for this? I swore that every time I left the Exchange life outside became more expensive.

  Still, I was hungry and I ate it, half-cold. Couldn’t stop thinking of how Nicha loved chickpea pita—not this bland stuff: he made his own in the unit we shared at the Exchange complex in Athens, which was like a gamra enclave on Earth. We would eat it on the balcony, looking at the city stretch out towards the hazy horizon, discussing some theoretical issue. Dip-length of Exchange anpar threads as a relationship to the distance from the galactic centre, things like that.

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my bandaged hands. Damn Nicha.

  I picked up my unit again and pressed the one-button shortkey for my office at the Exchange. The beeper rang, and rang, and changed tone several times before the call was answered by a young man at general reception who sounded like he hadn’t even heard the news about Sirkonen. Some of the people over there got so damned insular, like they were an island of civilisation on a barbarian world, populated with Neanderthals unable to hold a conversation—the Neanderthals being us.

  Deep breath, Mr Wilson.

  Anyway, the young man knew nothing. Leave a message and call back tomorrow.

  I leaned my head in my hands, remembered too late that they hurt.

  What was I going to do? Was there anyone else I could try?

  Gamra people on Earth had a database: an extensive directory of local extraterrestrial contacts, people who would always help you if you were a gamra citizen, which I was, yes nosy journalists, having passed the exam three years ago.

  I froze, staring at the opposite wall, horrified that the option had crossed my mind.

  That gamra help me—against my own people, whom I was to represent?

  Gamra loyalties, and Coldi ones, too, spread out like an interconnected web. There was no either/or. A person was the sum of his or her ties, often to wildly different and sometimes opposing camps. Always in pairs, always spreading outwards, reaching like little spider veins without regards for societal boundaries. Once there was a boundary, a break in the network, society fractured. Nations of Earth would never understand. Once I used gamra intelligence against them, I might as well resign.

  One last option: the unofficial mantra amongst the bureaucrats of Nations of Earth was: if in trouble, send it to your boss. I didn’t like the attitude, but I was running out of ideas.

  I selected another ID, which rang four times before it was answered with a muffled, “Hmph . . . whozzat?” A female voice.

  “Delia, it’s Cory here.”

  “Cory . . .” The sound of rustling. “What the fuck is the time?”

  I glanced at the clock. It was 1:35 am. “Oh—I’m sorry, I was at the hospital . . .”

  “Fuck, Cory.” More rustling. Of sheets, I was sure by now. “How is Sirkonen?”

  “I don’t know. No one’s saying.” How could she sleep while all this was going on?

  A sigh. “Fuck, Cory. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the hotel now, but I have a problem. Nicha hasn’t come back here. The police say he’s been held overnight and they won’t give me any information on why. I need to talk to him and I was wondering if you—”

  “I? Cory, I’m a Nations of Earth employee. He’s Union. How am I supposed to do anything?”

  “Because within Nations of Earth, you have far more authority than I.”

  “Not to inquire about a Union citizen. I have no authority to do that. Cory, if the police say they have a reason to hold him overnight, then that’s what they will do. There is nothing, nothing,
I can do about that.”

  “But you know about the Coldi need to be with someone. He’ll go crazy alone.”

  “Let his Union look after that.”

  “I’m trying, but I’m not getting through!”

  A small, awful silence. “At this time of the day? No, of course not. Go to bed.”

  Thousands of swear words whirled through my mind, not all of them in Isla. But there was mahzu—a Coldi word meaning calm or pride. A person must maintain it, because to do otherwise would be embarrassing as well as counterproductive. So as calmly as I could, I said, “Good night.”

  “Good night, Cory.” Oh, did the ice in her voice chill me.

  I dropped my comm unit on the table and sat there, panting, hearing my own voice, I’m trying, but I’m not getting through. And then the little silence as Delia processed that sentence, and found it meaning, I’m in discussion with gamra. I am gamra before I’m Nations of Earth. And that was exactly the accusation oft levelled at me.

  Oh damn, that was not smart.

  Delia was right; there was nothing I could do, not to get to Nicha, nor to undo that horrible slip of the tongue.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

  I went into the bathroom and turned on the tap in the bath. I sat under the gurgling stream, taking care not to wet my bandaged hands, until I’d used up the room’s daily hot water allowance. Steam rose from the surface of the water, warm and comfortable, but if I had hoped it would make me sleepy, I had been mistaken.

  Thoughts whirled in my head. Nicha’s face as I went into the president’s office, his gold-flecked dark eyes, almost without whites, his hair tied traditionally in a ponytail. Sirkonen’s nervous talk, his sudden turn to the window and then—bang. Space-proof glass. That must have taken some explosion.

  I knew there were hand-held, Coldi-produced weapons which could shatter walls, so I didn’t think they’d have trouble with glass, no matter how space-proof.

  But why suspect Nicha? Just because he happened to be the only gamra person close to the president’s office? Nicha could never have done anything. He’d been waiting in the foyer. Even Sirkonen could confirm that. The secretary had been there. He could confirm it, too. They had to be fucking kidding. Thoughts chased each other through my mind.

  I heaved myself out of the bath, found something vile and strong in the minibar and downed it in a couple of gulps.

  Talk about Sirkonen . . . I made a grab for my jacket, dug the datastick from the pocket—ouch—and slid it into the reader.

  The first page was empty, as if title and author had been removed. I scrolled down. Text and diagrams flashed over the screen. There were maps, many of them, with coloured areas, and large blocks of text with longs words like “subequatorial jet stream”, “closed cell systems”. Pretty dry scientific stuff. This might be something of interest, but to me, it hardly looked dramatic.

  I took the datastick out and slid it back in my pocket. I’d made the right decision not to make a fuss over it.

  Then I settled in bed with my reader, flicking aimlessly through the world’s news services. No news about Sirkonen other than what I already knew. A terse statement prepared by Sirkonen’s chief of staff, peppered with words like “grave concern for his health.”

  The weather. A low-pressure area moving over western Europe. Wind and rain expected. Nothing new there, either.

  South Africa had cemented its unbeaten position in cricket.

  Something about a scientist who had disappeared. I had no doubt the story would have made the headlines had it not been for the attack on Sirkonen.

  I fiddled a bit with the puzzles, trying to solve the crossword; but by that time the effect of the drink kicked in, and I started to feel sleepy.

  It took three attempts to get the room control to turn off the light, but finally I crawled into bed.

  My head spun.

  My palms throbbed.

  It was too hot in the room.

  Acid burned in my stomach.

  I was not tired.

  All the while I lay on the bed staring at strips of light moving over the ceiling as trams passed on the road outside, instead seeing the sails track lazily across the Bay of Islands, visible from my father’s spare bedroom window. Midday sun, wind in my hair. Nicha’s laughter.

  Damn jet lag.

  Oh, damn. I had completely forgotten to ring Eva. What sort of fiancé was I?

  3

  SOMEONE BANGED on the door, hard.

  I raised myself on my elbows, the sound still reverberating in the woolly space between my ears and my brain. Darkness.

  Green letters on the bedside clock glared 6:59. Last time I had seen those numbers they said 5:31.

  Bloody hell. Nich’?

  The eerie silence echoed inside me. No chatter, no garbled curses from Nicha’s thoughts. The room control must have noticed me move, because the annoying male voice asked me if I wanted lights on. I swore at the man-in-the-box, and to my great surprise he turned on the bedside light.

  The banging had moved further down the hall, a muffled sound, accompanied by a male voice.

  I scrambled out of bed, and as I told the room control to open the door, I realised what the man had shouted: breakfast. Two lots of breakfast in fact, on a tray on the floor. One for me, one for Nicha. That really brought it home to me. Nicha, alone in a police cell, pacing around, clawing at the walls.

  “Good morning, Delegate.”

  The two guards stood on either side of the door.

  I swallowed emotion, blinked. The tray blurred before my eyes. Blinked again. Bent down to pick it up. Pain spiked through my palms. Oh shit, my hands.

  One of the men jumped into action and picked up the tray, handing it to me with an intense look of those closely-set moss-green eyes. Did he see how much I was falling apart?

  “Any news, mashara?”

  “No news, Delegate.” Was that a cringe?

  I balanced the tray on my arm, carried it inside and manoeuvred it onto the table, awkward as hell. When I flicked the lid off one of the plates, the smell of fried eggs billowed from underneath. No bacon. The hotel didn’t offer oysters for breakfast and I hadn’t wanted to bother Nicha with the smell of the meat of a vertebrate animal, which Coldi people didn’t eat. Nicha’s presence was everywhere.

  I glanced at the clock. It was too early to start ringing.

  I pushed a chair back with my foot, sat down and dragged my reader by the charging cord, finding the site of the World Newspoint service with only the touch of one thumb. A single headline across the top of the page screamed Attack in huge letters. There was a live shot of the ruined window of Sirkonen’s office and another of an ambulance driving off said to have contained the president. Nothing on how Sirkonen was. At least that meant he was still alive. Let’s stay positive; although I felt that if there were any positive news, they would have published it, too.

  My comm unit beeped.

  I jumped up and retrieved it from the table next to the door, where it had been recharging. I pressed “answer” while fumbling with the earpiece and was blasted by a high-pitched squeak.

  Ouch. A relay.

  I ran across the room again, flung the unit next to my reader and, with my unbandaged left thumb, activated the wireless communication interface.

  Someone from outside, off-planet—relayed through the Exchange.

  The screen went white and at the top appeared the Coldi text, Sender 876735475-02 1.24 Beratha.

  By then, I knew. Beratha was the second-largest city of Asto, the Coldi homeworld. It hosted a massive armed forces base. I knew only one person in Beratha: Nicha’s father.

  While the bacteria in the crystalline screen worked to display the next lines of text, I scrambled under my discarded and bloodied shirt for the Coldi keyboard module, since I needed my feeder to get the thought sensor working in Coldi, and since I didn’t have my damn feeder . . . I found the keyboard projector and plugged it in while unfolding the stand from the bottom of the pen
-sized device so it stood straight up, it’s “eye” pointing at the table. A small light on the cylinder activated and the one hundred and twelve characters of the common Coldi alphabet appeared projected onto the table, just as the message on the screen completed.

  I hear my son is in trouble. Like a typical Coldi, Nicha’s father never wasted much time in greetings.

  I replied using a fork, because my bandaged and taped-together fingers didn’t allow the level of control I needed to touch the keys projected onto the table.

  Trouble would be an overstatement.

  I winced and cursed with every character. Was I ever glad Coldi had one character per syllable.

  Send. Wait until the dot had stopped blinking.

  I should have brought my tea. A person grew impatient waiting for communication to go through, even if that communication was beamed across the continent, up into space, through the Exchange network of anpar lines and halfway across the surface of another planet. Tea would be a great thing to have. I eyed the cup on the table, steaming in the glow from the bedside light. My eggs were getting cold, too.

  But the reply came back quickly. There is talk that blames Asto for this attack.

  I typed, Allegations only, but knew the damage had been done. Damn that movie.

  It is because of these allegations that my son has been taken into custody?

  I typed, He is innocent and according to local law should be released soon.

  Keeping all fingers and toes crossed of course, never mind that I couldn’t manage that at the moment—whose stupid idea had it been to tape my fingers together?

  The reply shot back, How soon?