Desert Planet (THE RIM CONFEDERACY Book 6)

by Jim Rudnick

  He tilted his head to one side and looked at her questioningly. "Ma'am?" he said.

  "I am hoping that you can get away from this Enki diplomatic mission and get down here to KappaD immediately so that you can help here. I trust you're wider experience than anyone here has and want you on this on behalf of the Barony. Can I ask—can you get away from there now?" she asked.

  He looked at her and realized he needed to be honest with her. He took several minutes to spell out where the diplomatic talks were, why they were on hold, and what he and Bram had come up with regarding the graduation and food pellets. He explained how they believed that would fix the election next week to swing to the Fine Arts Muse and ensure that the RIM diplomatic offer would be accepted. And, he noted, the probe metal would come to the RIM too.

  She listened. She nodded. She asked a couple of questions—including what they'd do if the election did not go as planned for which he had no answer at all yet. She nodded again and then spoke.

  "Fine, then you can't leave just yet. You need to stay until the deal is a done one—say sometime next week right after the election—but then I want you down here on KappaD STAT. Use the Atlas like she was made, and get here as soon as you can. Do we concur?" she said.

  Tanner nodded and they smiled at each other.

  "Ma'am, one thing? In my experience, refugees always are scared and afraid but never of where they've just come from. Instead, they are scared of where they are going as well as their acceptance there. So if you think that the fear is from something behind them, that's just bloody odd, Ma'am. You be careful, yes, and keep a couple of those blue-booted EliteGuards close, Ma'am. Yes?" he asked, and she nodded back to him too.

  The EYES ONLY ended quickly, and he sat alone for a moment, wondering if he'd be able to get back to sleep at this point and noted that his alarm would be going off in less than two hours. “Might as well stay up,” he said to himself, and that meant the gym.

  He slipped off his robe and went to find workout clothes. Damn, he thought, no clean shorts. He grabbed the cleanest pair he could find in his dirty laundry bag and slipped them on. Hell with it, he thought, who else is gonna be there at this time of the night?

  He left his quarters up on Deck Five, went down the stairs to Deck Nine, and then back toward the officers' gym. As he went through, the AI chimed at him, and he said, "What's up, AI?"

  AI replied quickly and asked if he would like to update his registry and add in today's workout to his totals and he agreed.

  When he went down the long main aisle to the rows of treadmills, he was surprised to see one other soul there already—Kondo, his XO.

  “Should'a known,” Tanner said to himself as he took the machine beside his XO and quickly got up and into stride as the AI took care of all the settings and paces. He worked hard, telling AI to up the pace twice while his body slowly got back into the swing of working out.

  I really hate this. It's stupid to have to exercise. Anyways, why is there no pill for that?

  He worked harder then, and AI responded with another pace change. His breath began to get labored and thick. The sweat poured off his brow, and he shook his head every few minutes to try to get the sweat off his forehead and his eyebrows. He worked hard. His body worked hard, but he knew that he was getting on—forty in less than a month was the mantra he didn't want to think about.

  Kondo finished before him and moved off his treadmill to sit on a bench off to one side to wait for him.

  Instead of just stopping, Tanner ran his full twenty minutes, and then the AI turned off the machine. His breathing very harsh and thick, he went over to sit beside his XO.

  As his breathing slowed and he drank a big bottle of water to re-hydrate, Kondo just sat and rested himself.

  Eventually, he got his wind back, and he half-turned to talk to him.

  "Damn body is getting older, XO," he said with a half-grin, which got him a nod of agreement.

  They passed the first few minutes commiserating about exercise, their bodies, and why there was no pill yet.

  After that, they talked about their current situation here on Enki—about the upcoming failure of the food pellets and that it should happen today. Kondo admitted he was up early because of that alone.

  Tanner started to admit to that too, but then he shook his head, told Kondo about the new Pentyaan refugee situation, and asked for his counsel on that too.

  Kondo thought quietly for a moment and said he could add little. In his experience on Amasis, he offered that everyone who got there claimed either some kind of refugee status to gain immigrant status or they arrived rich and didn't need to apply at all as entrepreneurs. Other than that, he offered, he knew little. But when questioned, he agreed with Tanner that all refugees feared what lay ahead—not behind.

  Both sat and cooled off even more, and Tanner groaned as he rose on his tired legs and grinned again at his XO.

  "Thanks for the counsel, Kondo. Later—see you on the bridge in about an hour or so," Tanner said.

  #####

  Eecesoe Qig, leader of the Fine Arts Muse, turned and looked out the bright blue windows at the circle of pyramids that surrounded the Resources pyramid in the center of the capital city of Enki. He knew he had to come up with a response, but what it would be he had no idea yet, so he turned back to the Caliphate captain who sat opposite him.

  "Captain Abu al-Hasan, yes, I do understand what the thrust of your asked-for meeting is today. But I still have a problem trying to understand the difference between the RIM offer from the ambassador and your own from the Caliphate."

  Qig smiled and to anyone who might have been watching, he looked like he was being honest. But in fact, he not only fully understood, he was playing a negotiating card to see what the eager alien across the table might give up.

  The captain nodded and looked down at his tablet, but he wasn't reading it at all; instead, he was trying to judge how far to go if he was to sweeten his offer.

  "Leader Qig, there are really some major differences—especially when one considers that becoming a full voting member in the RIM Confederacy is such a costly enterprise," he said as he scrolled the page on his tablet to read out the short list.

  "One, you will become a full member which means that you will share one fortieth or so of the costs of the operation of the joint ventures of the RIM and its various bodies and departments. You will be tithed with your share of everything from the RIM Navy to our marines, air force, and all of our resource needs too.

  “Two, you will be tithed with your share of the costs of full government departments that are used to run the RIM. That would include our Health and Safety, Customs, Excise, and Tax departments. Our judiciary and our Provost guards as well. Our full seven shipbuilding centers spread around the RIM. Our shares of the higher education facilities too, like the Navy Academy on Eons, the Air Force Academy on the planet Ttseen, and the marines over on Combat in the Duchy. There are a ton of costs of same, and each and every single member of the Confederacy gets their share of costs to pay for as well," he said as he continued to look down at his tablet.

  Qig nodded thinking perhaps of what kind of costs those items would add up to in a year.

  "Three," Captain al-Hasan said, "you will be required to attend our RIM Confederacy Council meetings, on a monthly basis. Each and every month, you'll be sent an Agenda for your knowledge of upcoming issues, discussions, and final voting on same. You need to be on Juno every month, which may be an issue for you, I'd believe.

  “And lastly, four, we here in the RIM Confederacy believe in the simple fact that united we stand. We face every single threat, incursion into our Confederacy as a united front—no matter the cost in credits or in lives. It's what makes us strong out here on the RIM," he finished off his short list.

  Qig nodded one more time. "And how, as that is what we're already offered by the RIM ambassador, is that any different than your own offer—the Caliphate's offer, I should say?"

  Captain al-Hasan n
odded back and held out his hands, palms up, as if to show that he was being open and honestly frank.

  "Leader Qig—we, the Caliphate, offer the option of Enki, under your leadership as the new head juror, to become one of the members of our own realm, the Caliphate. As I've already said, that would mean that not a single cost that I just listed would be an Enkian item. Those costs—all of those costs—would be paid by the Caliphate itself. Enki would become a full member of the Caliphate realm, would attend the RIM Council meetings, and sit with the rest of the members of the realm too," he said and smiled.

  Qig chose that moment to go all in. "And to do that—to get to Juno on a monthly basis—will the Caliphate give us FTL technology for us to be that full member of the Caliphate?"

  Captain al-Hasan had no inkling this was coming, but he really wasn't surprised. The big technology that was missing from Enki was faster than light speed for their ships. Without it, they'd never be any kind of a member—the captain knew that would be true.

  "Yes, I have been enabled to offer up first, a pair of frigates that yes, have FTL as their basic technology. You can use them as you see fit, of course, as full members of the Caliphate. As well, we will accept in our Engineering Academy your own Resources technicians, who will be trained and taught—at no cost to Enki—on how to build and maintain the FTL technology too. Again, this is our best and final offer ...”

  Qig nodded. His “all in” had worked as he could simply say yes and then he'd have acquired FTL technology for Enki—at no cost at all.

  He wondered, though, if that really was the captain's final offer.

  #####

  On the Atlas bridge, Lieutenant Irving was getting quite a workout as she answered Ansible calls, messages from Enkians, and EYES ONLY from Ambassador Harmon direct through to her captain. Tanner thought she looked like one of those octopi from DenKoss, with the ten arms that could reach out in their own direction. Her hands were flying on the Ansible console connecting, disconnecting, and putting conference calls into effect. “Amazing what a glitch in the Enkian society could cause,” he said to himself, as he quickly wiped the smile off his face and nodded to his Ansible officer that he'd take the ambassador's fifth call of the morning.

  All the Ansible calls had to do with the same thing. This morning, all over the five muse pyramids, not a single youngling had arisen with colored feather crests. All stayed white—and that made all the muse citizens see red! So far, the Militia, the RIM group had found out, had quelled two brawls when upset citizens had gained entry into the Words Muse pyramid and had gone on trashing sprees. The display on one wall of the pyramid rotunda had been spray-painted, and the documents, some of which were old and valuable—or had been before—had been destroyed.

  The Dance Muse leaders had gathered together all of their new citizens and had marched their younglings over to the Words Muse pyramid in protest. They gained entrance somehow, even though the Militia had cordoned off the whole Words Muse pyramid, and the Dance Muse leaders had gotten those younglings chanting that they had been cheated by the Words Muse and they wanted justice.

  Ambassador Harmon skipped a greeting and updated Tanner on the current situation. "Captain, there appears to be some kind of a group of Music Muse Enkians who are marching on the Words Muse pyramid, and while they're speaking Enkian and not English, I'm told they're looking for blood. Qor's blood, they say, as it was his doing that the feathers did not turn," he said.

  Tanner nodded and took a moment before he answered.

  Ambassador Harmon was nervous, no doubt about that, Tanner thought. He also was worried about what would happen—this was without precedent here on Enki. This had never happened before, and no one knew what it meant—what it did to the status of the newly graduated younglings. Were each of the muses allowed to accept their new graduates without the color change? Currently, no one could tell which of these new graduates were members of which muse. No identifying feathered crest meant that these new graduates were not full muse citizens.

  The ambassador shook his head. "Captain Scott, I'll keep you in this loop, but at this point, I still feel very safe here in the Words Muse pyramid. As you know, our on-site quarters are up three floors off the main grade rotunda level, and we are fully protected by a full platoon of RIM marines. And yes, thank you for sending down the extra platoon of EliteGuards too, we are fine, I believe. It's Qor and his leaders that I think might be at risk—at least today. Most likely, as in all things, this will settle down tomorrow. Of course, there are considerations to be made about the election next week, but then I'm sure that Qor has that in mind as well. We all just wonder what happened to this food pellet situation is all ..." He nodded to Tanner and then disconnected.

  Guess being a diplomat meant you can just quit a conversation anytime, Tanner thought. Soon enough. Soon enough, this would all come to a head ...

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Iavoesi Qax, head juror, stood, and his crest rippled, but it did little in the current circumstances. Normally when he stood and the crowd noticed, they instantly quieted and all took their seats and the whole rotunda seating was silent.

  Not today.

  Instead, there were still hundreds of citizens of all the muses talking, arguing, yelling, and almost coming to blows. This time in the Words Muse pyramid, all five of the muses were represented by their citizens. Each of them had their younglings, the recent graduates from the big ceremony just two days ago, seated in the front of each of their bleachers. All, Tanner could see, still had the white feathers of a youngling.

  On the stage were the leaders of each of the five muses, as well as the jurors. And Qax, realizing he was not going to be able to use his position to gain silence, called over a Militia officer. Moments later, a huge siren sounded. The wailing siren filled the rotunda and got everyone's attention. Most of them sat down quickly.

  "I must apologize to one and all for my use of the storm siren, but it comes to me that this is very apropos. We are facing a storm—unexpected, huge, and yes, perhaps even changing our way of life here on Enki. Please, take your seats—we have a statement to make ... please be seated," he said over and over.

  Eventually, the thousands in the rotunda area were seated. They were quieter than before, but the grumbling from the muse citizens was still loud. Tanner waited to hear what Qax would say about the younglings and their feathers that had remained white. He sat in the small seating area that had been provided for the RIM diplomatic team. As well, the Caliphate was there, the captain of the Pollux and a few of his officers were there too, tall in their seats as they always were. A few more RIM members from UrPoPo were also present, but that was about it this morning as the emergency meeting had just been called.

  Ambassador Harmon sat right up front, but Tanner had been lucky enough to duck out of that row and move to the back one to sit beside Bram.

  "We okay, you think?" he asked Bram, hiding his mouth behind a hand over his face.

  "Should be. I can see nothing to be worried about at this juncture," Bram said as he looked around and then looked at Tanner. "About twenty feet is the limit—I lose them when they get farther away than that," he said, and Tanner knew his unasked question had been answered.

  On stage, Qax moved to one side to confer with the same Militia officer, and moments later, a company of Militia soldiers took up picket duty around the stage with three platoons per side. Tanner and the thousands of muse citizens noticed, and that deployment started some whispered conversations going, but Qax ignored that and went back to the podium.

  "As the rest of you, I too am surprised that the current graduating class of younglings have all failed to change their crests; not a single feather has changed to its proper muse colorations. We all know that this has never happened before. And yes, there could be many items to consider—"

  Some Enkian from the Fine Arts Muse seating bleachers yelled out, "The Words Muse is responsible, they ran the event," which started catcalls, yelling, and beak clicking about the W
ords Muse and the Resources section too.

  "And yes, thank you for that—the event was run by our Words Muse, and I think the event was a success. And as someone else has also added, our Resources section is in charge of the food treatments too. We will be beginning our investigations into how this happened so that we can prevent it from ever happening again. Of course, that may lead to someone who has done this for a reason that as yet, we do not know ..."

  That got a huge response from the crowd, as there were many callouts and more beak clicking.

  "We will investigate. We will determine what happened and how and then work on the changes needed to prevent this from ever happening again. You have my word on this—the whole jurors' words, in fact," he said, and that got him a rousing roar from the crowd.

  Tanner knew, of course, what had happened. He also knew that as he and Bram had planned, some in the crowds today put the blame squarely on the Words Muse as being the responsible party. He also knew that the Fine Arts Muse would be talking that position up all over the city in the next few days up until the election.

  “This should work, right,” he thought to Bram, and Bram gave him a thumbs-up signal.

  "One final thing," Qax said as the emergency meeting was coming to a close, "we will be supplying each of the five muses with new food pellets that we know will work as expected. So sorry for this, one and all—but we will get to the bottom of this disaster very, very soon." His feathered crest rippled one more time. Beaks clicked in unison all over the rotunda as the crowds were happy with the proceedings.