I mean it’s not like I was morally opposed to a position of civilian leadership. But it needed to be something a whole lot more along the lines of them thrusting the job on me by popular demand, rather than me trying to somehow worm my way into power. I had better things I could do with my time, like continue fighting off every single threat to the Sector 25 in particular, and the Spine in general.
“If you say so,” she said.
“I do say so!” I nodded firmly, and the conversation lulled temporarily as I thought over what she’d said. “Still...you’re not completely wrong with your notion of keeping an eye on things,” I grudgingly admitted.
“It is hard to derail your enemies' plans when you aren’t even aware what they are,” she agreed. “And sitting at the table where the deals are made also gives you more options when it comes to making plans of your own.”
“I’m not sure I like where this is going, but I can’t refute anything you’ve said on the face of it,” I said finally. “In another month or two we should have all but two of the most damaged Battleships back into service. At least of the repairable ones. Even our team can’t do much with a warship that’s been broken in half. Fortunately, Destroyers and the smaller Cruisers are more easily repaired than ships of the wall.”
“It sounds like you have fleet matters well in hand,” Akantha said with a smile.
“Thanks,” I said. It was nice to hear a little affirmation now and again.
“In the meantime, let me deal with the Governor and this notion of a new Confederation,” she said.
“What?” I asked nonplussed. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea. I mean, sure, we can send some observers but a constitutional convention isn’t really something we’re set up for. I suppose the best person to go would be me personally, but I’m really needed here at the fleet—and that totally ignores the fact I swore I would never set a foot back in Central without at least a full fleet at my back.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jason. I’ve already started assembling a delegation to represent Tracto,” she remarked.
I lifted a brow. It was time to get serious now. Until now I’d just been upset and venting with my wife, but Akantha sending a Tracto-an delegation was a horse of a completely different color.
“Now I am worried. If you are sending an actual delegation…” I trailed off, wondering if I needed to send a few ‘observers’ along to keep an eye on the goings on in Central and an eye on my wife! “Is there any particular reason you feel you need to be personally involved in this other than the obvious?”
“Among my people this is women’s work; of course I’ll be involved. Oh, I’m not going myself,” she said, leaning over and putting a kiss on my brow, “let me deal with the politics and you just focus on getting the fleet back into order. I have the perfect woman in mind for the job. You know, the more I see of your galaxy among the stars the more I realize Tracto and Messene are still far too underdeveloped compared to other worlds. Without sufficient combat power, we are nothing in their eyes. But then, that’s always the way of it. It’s just more apparent this time.”
“Women’s work,” I muttered. It was clear she intended to send a delegation to this convention whether I wanted her to or not. Short of a war, I didn’t see an easy way to stop her. And that wasn’t making me happy
Chapter 53: Akantha and Polymnia
“Greetings, Hold Mistress,” asked the older woman with a smile.
“Greetings, Hold Mistress,” the younger woman repeated the words happily.
“So how is my Daughter this day?” asked the first.
“What, not your favorite daughter, Mother?” the second smirked.
“It is a mother’s duty never to show favoritism, as you yourself will learn as your own children grow older,” she answered serenely.
“That’s not how I recall it when you were comparing my studies to my younger sisters, Polymnia” she snorted.
“The burdens of a First Daughter, who stands in line to inherit the Hold, are significant. To be held up to her younger sisters as a standard to meet or exceed is normal, Adonia Akantha Zosime. I would have thought you’d learnt that by now,” her mother said with an eye-roll.
“Be welcome in my hold Mother…I mean, Hold Mistress Polymnia Sapphira Zosime,” Akantha said formally.
“I am welcome, Hold Mistress,” her mother replied. “Now what is this all about? You said something regarding the need for me to act as an Envoy for our world in your letter. I have come prepared as best I could; tell me more.”
“A delegation from our world Tracto has been invited, along with delegations from a host of worlds in and out of this Sector, to Sector Central,” said Hold-Mistress Akantha.
“The home of your current enemy, the Governor Isaak,” Hold-Mistress Sapphira said grimly, “why have you called upon Argos for this task?”
“Our world cannot be unrepresented any longer. We are exposed. Our world has limited defenses, and our people and industry are inadequate. Right now, all our strength resides in Trillium and my Protector’s personal fleet. We need time to build. We need time to grow. We need time,” said Akantha, leaning forward, “as I cannot go myself there was only one name that sprung to mind that had the ability and trust: Argos.”
“A heavy task, but it is not unexpected for a daughter colony to rely on her mother Hold in times like these,” Sapphira muttered before looking up. “In some ways it relieves me that I can do as a parent should, acting as a shield for her child in such matters. I had feared once you left this world there would be no use for a mother such as me in your life. Oh, not in your personal life but your public life. It relieves me that I can be of assistance.”
“It is your training that made me the woman I am today. You are always of use to me,” Akantha said, impulsively reaching over and holding her mother’s hand.
“And I thank you for that,” said the Argos Hold Mistress, giving Akantha’s hand a squeeze and then letting it go. She moved back and cocked her head. “The other Mistresses might not take kindly to being left out of this,” Sapphira said with a wicked grin.
“Those old tyrants? I should hope not,” Akantha sniffed, “after the way they stood back or joined their strength to Jean Luc when our planet was invaded.”
“He was incredibly charismatic and he said he was the One,” replied Sapphira pointedly.
“In the end, there can be only One,” Akantha quoted and then glared, “and I have him. All others are pretenders to the line.”
“And now we are getting into matters of dogma and religion, not the practical arena of politics,” said Polymnia Zosime.
“Fair enough,” allowed Akantha.
“Good. Now then, let’s discuss my purpose in this diplomatic event,” urged the Hold Mistress of Argos. “Am I to bat my eyes and beg for scraps at the table, or is it time for Tracto to spread her wings and take flight by dictating to all who surround her as is her rightful place?”
Akantha grinned.
“I think we’ll try for a more moderate approach. We are strong right now and well-protected, but the slightest misstep would leave us at the mercy of our enemies,” she said.
“As is always the case in the great game of city-states, I see why you’ve called for me,” said Sapphira.
“No one is a more seasoned hand than the Hold Mistress of Argos,” Akantha said.
“I can think of a handful that are older and have been Mistress of their Holds without holding my breath,” Sapphira said with a phantom smirk.
“But none who have my trust,” said Akantha.
“Well…it’s nice to feel useful in one’s old age,” the Hold Mistress of Argos sighed.
“You, old? You are still not past your child-bearing years,” scoffed Akantha. Sapphira laughed. “So you will do it?” pressed Akantha.
“It will be interesting to see how a group comprised mostly of men handle politics in the River of Stars,” Akantha's Mother finally agreed. “This is going to be fun.”
The two women shared a look that would have sent shivers down the spines of anyone who saw them, before sharing a laugh which was somehow ten times more chilling.
Chapter 54: The Spineward Sectors Assembly
“I see we’ve got quite the number of representatives here,” Sapphira said with a small tilt of her head, her eyes calculating and her expression serene.
Her assistant looked at the Hold Mistress with youthful eyes filled with shock.
“There’s as many representatives as there are servants in the citadel,” exclaimed the young priestess.
“Not quite that many, Aigle,” Sapphira demurred.
“This entire trip has been eye-opening,” said Aigle the young priestess and assistant to the hold-mistress.
“There appear to be many differences on how things are done between Tracto and the River of Stars,” observed Sapphira, smiling while accepting an out-thrust hand and shaking according to the local custom instead of using the traditional handclasp native to Tracto. She managed to forget for several minutes that a male offering a forearm handclasp to a Holder, let alone a Hold Mistress, would be a rudeness to the point of a potentially lethal transgression in her world.
“But we must learn to accommodate the locals and accustom ourselves to their ways while we are here,” said the Hold Mistress.
“There are so many hover-cars they literally fill the skies. To say nothing of the floating couches they use everywhere here in the Sector Palace!” Aigle enthused.
“A seemingly frivolous use of such scarce machinery,” Sapphira said with a frown while thinking about the bi-weekly shuttle run which was all that most the people of her own hold ever saw of hover-machinery that was so plentiful here at Central Palace that they literally used such technology to make floating couches for leisurely reclining.
“It’s scarce in Argos, less scarce in Messene, and clearly present in abundance here,” observed Aigle.
“We have a long way to go,” Sapphira agreed with a sigh at the thought of her planet’s relative poverty. She wasn’t sure that she would allow floating hover-couches in her Palace, let alone her Hold. But that her people, even their Hold Mistress, were too poor to afford even a tithe of what the people here took for granted grated... Not so much that she didn’t have such conspicuous luxuries, which she thought too much of would lead to weakness, but that Argos couldn’t even do so if its leaders had been so foolish as to want to.
“Someday our people will be as wealthy as the people here today,” said Aigle.
Sapphira raised an eyebrow, a habit she’d picked up from her daughter’s Protector. “Each person here is among the elite of their world, or was delegated to personally represent their home planet,” remarked the Hold Mistress, craning her head to observe a pair of figures who appeared to be holding an emotional conversation many man lengths up in the air and only a few feet from the overarching grand ceiling of the Sector Palace.
She then looked back down, taking in the many political figures gathered from around the Spine as they shook hands, forged personal connections, and tried to gather support for any one of a hundred things.
Which all by itself would have been one thing, but what might have thrown another Hold Mistress off her stride were the sometimes pale, sometimes sharp-lined-yet-see-through, sometimes almost indistinguishable, virtual ghosts that seemed almost as numerous as the politician’s they accompanied. Ranging from miniature Holo-images that sprouted from hand-held tablets and to half-sized people projected from wrist bands to full-sized individuals projected from desks or the ends of floating hover couches, these images came in all shapes and sizes and in a few cases appeared as fantastical creatures or abstract images. Mostly they were responding to a real life person, but in a few disturbing instances while the representatives were turned away the projected holo-images actually seemed to be speaking to each-other.
Just the wildly varying forms of the many people present in the room was challenging to a Tracto-an used to a generally homogenized population where everyone looked rather similar. But when you tossed in the nearly incomprehensible holo-people, too, it was all a tad overwhelming.
“Isn’t this just the most exciting environment?” asked Aigle as she gazed around the room with the fervent look of one in the midst of a high stakes shopping spree.
“It is exciting,” Sapphira said serenely. Personally she found all the strange and unusual stimuli just a little too hard to parse to ever be what she would consider comfortable, but so long as she focused it was doable. Not what she would personally consider a favorable thing but, from her aide’s response, it didn’t appear to be deliberately designed to discommode the Tracto-an delegation which was all that was really important. Understanding their opponents' and neighbors' political gestures and responding appropriately was key. Diplomacy, after all, was just warfare taken to a different level.
“Where has the rest of the Border Alliance delegation drifted off to?” she asked her aide.
“We’ve all been assigned seats on the side of the room near the other end,” Aigle said promptly, in showing why the currently excited young woman had been chosen for her job, “do you want us to join them?” she asked.
“Hold Mistress Messene says that in addition to the trade route to Sector 23 we have many vital trade partners throughout the Border Alliance on the edges of Sector 24 as well as the many fleet and warrior recruits of course. It would be best to join them sooner than later to remind them of our mutual support,” she replied and then sweeping up her assistant with a look she began gliding toward the Border Alliance seats.
“I wonder if we will be able to secure any of those trade partners for Argos,” Aigle said with envy, “securing even a tithe of that trade for Argos would be a coup.”
“Oh we already have contacts, Aigle,” Sapphira reprimanded, her brow creasing, “what kind of Mistress do you take me for? The problem is that, compared to Messene, Argos has little of recognized value to trade among the stars, other than our people’s lives and labor—something which I am, I hope understandably, reluctant to spend without deep thought.”
There was a small silence.
“It’s not true that we have nothing my Mistress,” Aigle said after a half minute of meandering their way to their table, “stone rhino hide if nothing else should be of great value. I am also aware of a number of wild plants and weeds, most poisonous in some manner that are sold to trade factors in Messene for trade, barter or credits. Now that I think about it, if any of that trade is going beyond Messene, we could begin quietly gathering larger quantities by harvesting it from other Holds and then going direct to Messene’s contacts among the stars.”
“Weeds, is it?” Sapphira laughed wryly shaking her head. “I never thought I would see the day that women and children gathering wild weeds in forest would be one of our Hold’s greatest assets. It certainly stands as a more favorable option than sending our warriors out as mercenaries or selling slaves.”
“We still have any number of war captives we could sell, but it is my understanding from my studies that slavery is considered quite illegal among the stars,” said Aigle.
“Oh it is. But I have received a number of reliable reports over the years. It is said that anything can be bought or sold in certain places. The word 'Omicron' comes to mind,” said Sapphira, “not every man who leaves his home polis forgets his former Hold Mistress. Especially those who intend to retire back home someday and hope for an introduction to a good wife,” she finished with a smile.
“We’ll have to redouble our efforts when we get back home, Mistress,” Aigle said with a sharp smile.
Sapphira smirked. “Why wait?” she asked archly “As of right now we have one of the most lucrative of things to trade.”
Aigle looked at her questioningly.
“Political influence and the power that comes with it,” Sapphira explained impatiently, “I cannot imagine that even a band of unbridled men such as we have here could change the basic calculation of su
ch things.”
“I agree, my Mistress. After all, for all their talents they are just men after all,” Aigle said with certainty.
“Don’t underestimate men, young priestess,” Sapphira scolded coldly, “they are the most dangerous and most important task handed to womankind by the god. Remember why we rule.”
“You remind me of scripture, Hold Mistress,” the assistant said, ducking her head.
“Good,” Sapphira said as they reached their seats, “and you know the best part of all this?” Aigle looked at her, “It is that since we will have to wield the influence of our world anyway, we might as well ensure Argos in particular, as well as Tracto as a whole, benefits from this arrangement.”
“It is always a boon when duty and pleasure tie together in a neat bow,” agreed Aigle.
“Yes,” agreed Sapphira taking a seat and then turning to her neighbor and catching his attention.
“Hello?” the overly rotund man said politely.
“What world are you from, my dear?” Sapphira asked artlessly. “You see, I am just a simple woman who has never been away from her world before now and I was wondering if you could explain things to me? I know so much less than I should about things like inter-sector politics and inter-world trade.”
“Trade, you say?” the man immediately looked interested. “Well, the politics of things are easy. Perhaps after I explain the gist of it we can circle back around to inter-world trade. I know my people are always eager to open up new trade lines…what world did you say you were from again?” he asked.
“Oh, I am from a small world out on the edge of the Sector called Tracto,” said Sapphira.
The man’s eyes bulged and he quickly fell all over himself to explain things as he understood them.
It was interesting, as well as illuminating, to compare the differences in how he understood things to her daughter’s multi-page reports.
To his credit, before he was very far into explaining the benefits of trade with his own world, he recognized from her penetrating questions that the ‘simple woman’ was something very much other than simple or unsophisticated—and he adjusted his approach accordingly, which only served to heighten the matron's awareness of just how adept these Starborn were at the very games she had spent a lifetime winning.
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