by Patty Jansen
Whoa. Definitely something going on there. I glanced at the other military people. There were seven, a complete association. Which meant he’d gone in here like Ezhya had come to Barresh before the Exchange outage: alone with a complete association of personnel, not as the head of that association.
And was probably regretting it. He wanted to go back to his people as soon as possible, and I should take him there. Instability of Asto’s troops was the last thing we wanted.
“I’ll stay with my troops and guard this ship,” he said, “if that’s what Ezhya wants. We’ll even retreat from this ship if that helps us honour our agreements. The fact that these people violate rules of negotiation doesn’t mean that we should, but if they pull a trick like this again, there will be shots fired.”
Chapter 26
* * *
I WENT TO CAPTAIN Luczon’s chair. He looked slightly less woozy and his green eyes focused on me as I stopped before his chair and bowed.
“We have decided that we can take you to Asto, if you wish.”
He raised white eyebrows. “After all this, you’re going to let us pass? I thought you would have more objections than that.”
“You alone, on our ships, to negotiate. This ship stays here.”
“Hmmm.”
He said nothing for a while. His face was impossible to read.
“We’re also happy if you want to send an envoy, if, being the captain, you prefer to stay with the ship—”
“No. I’ll come.”
That was quick.
“I need to inform my crew.” He made a move to get up, but Sheydu, with the gun next to him, shifted ever so slightly. The captain eyed her. “If you call off your fighter.”
I made the Indrahui hand gesture for fall back and Sheydu retreated.
He rose, still eying Sheydu suspiciously. He muttered something under his breath in Aghyrian.
He shuffled across the floor and the soldiers who stood guarding the group of crew moved aside for him to pass. He kneeled amongst them, speaking in Aghyrian. I hoped Thayu or someone else would be smart enough to record his words so that we could get them translated. Seated in the middle, he looked like a father speaking to his children. They all listened, wide-eyed. Occasionally, one of them asked a question, always in a subdued and timid voice. I remembered that quiet obedience from the Aghyrian children I had seen on the train in Barresh. It unsettled me. Was he only a captain, or a leader, or given god-like status? Was he their father?
Thayu, on the other side of the group, was definitely making a visual recording of this. We’d go over it and analyse it, pass the recording onto the experts in behaviour and they’d tell us what they thought. Not Coldi people but Damarcian academics who looked at it with fresh eyes.
Then the captain rose and came back to us, without looking back once to the crew he was going to abandon.
I said, “Some people in our group are very keen to get back to our fleet as soon as possible. Do you want to pack a bag with some clothes?”
He gave me a blank look.
That was right. Had he ever left the ship in his life? Had he ever travelled anywhere? Had he ever felt the breeze on his skin or heard the rustle of leaves on the wind.
He again went to the group of crew and spoke to a young woman. She rose.
“Can she go to my cabin?”
Asha’s guard jerked his head. A junior member of the association left the room with her.
We remained in a tense situation. No one spoke. The Coldi guards held their guns and walked around the group trying to look impressive, but to me it looked like they weren’t certain what to do. I had no doubt that they’d have been much happier with an armed battle. Have a shootout, settle the score, move on. That was the Coldi way. Standoffs and an uneasy peace was not. Negotiating was not.
The young woman and the guard came back. She carried a case that she put next to the captain.
Ah, I saw, he was of the type who expected to be served. “Do we allow him to take two servants?” I asked Veyada.
He pursed his lips while thinking. I could follow his likely line of thinking. More people would increase the risk. But by having more people, we could learn more things, too.
I had an idea. I pointed at two random people in the group, a middle-aged woman and a young man. “You, and you. Come with him.”
I didn’t know why I chose those two. It might be the worst decision I made, but it beat letting him choose his companions and later ending up with accomplices.
Both came without complaint. The young man picked up the case with the captain’s luggage.
Ready to go. None in the group of crew showed any reaction.
What a strange people.
It was a short walk through the passage, past another gravity change into the big hall. As soon as we entered, shafts of lighting came on from all around the walls, piercing the dusty air. It allowed me to see a greater portion of the hall than before. It was really strange to see the platforms hanging at random angles that bore no relationship with the next platform.
Captain Luczon made one of the landing platforms turn up with a wave of his hand. That was how it was done. I tried not to take too much notice of the dust on the surface.
The first stop was the shuttle that had brought Asha here. He and his guards got off before the platform zoomed through the hall to our shuttle.
The pilot must have been in contact with the other pilot, because the engine was idling, the outside lights on, and the door was open.
I went up the gangplank first, followed by Thayu and then Veyada and Sheydu guarding the three Aghyrians.
We all found seats and strapped in for the journey. The pilot was going through his pre-flight routines when suddenly he said, “Oh, wow!”
Displays of emotion were rare in Coldi military, so I looked over his shoulder to the viewscreen in from of him.
Floodlights had come on in the hall, showing its vast size. There were hundreds of floating platforms, many with small surface to orbit craft, some fighters, too. The opening through which we had entered the ship was one of four. This was massive.
The captain sat behind me, sandwiched in between Veyada and Sheydu. His face remained impassive. No doubt he wanted us to see this.
All external controls on our shuttle had been removed. The trip to the fleet’s command vessel was a short one. As soon as we set foot outside the shuttle, an officer came to me to say that Ezhya wanted to speak with me. He took me to a small comm room where he gave me an earpiece and let me sit on a stool surrounded by equipment, no doubt much of it highly secret. Apparently I had acquired some degree of military clearance.
The feeder that I still wore in my hair combined with the earpiece to project Ezhya in the room with me in a fashion that was so realistic that I had to resist the temptation to poke him to check.
I told him what we had found. He seemed only mildly interested in the images of Asto before the disaster. He was more interested in the ship’s military capability. Overall, he seemed not unhappy with my meagre efforts.
He was about to sign off and let me get on with returning to Barresh when I remembered something.
“The captain spoke of someone I’ve never heard of. Do you know who Waller Herza was?”
“He asked about him?”
“Yes, is that strange?”
“Well, no. Kando Luczon and Waller Herza were both in the employ of the Aghyrian government, in the research and colonisation division. Kando Luczon took his ship to other worlds and left colonists on those worlds. He wanted to modify the worlds so that they resembled Asto. Waller Herza had a different approach to the process. He wanted to breed people that were versatile and could adapt to many different environments without the need for extensive climate modification. He was the ‘father’ of the Coldi race. According to most of the historical texts, those two men hated each other with the passion of a burning sun.”
Oh, now a lot of the captain’s comments made sense.
An
d I was taking this man into the stronghold of the products of his archenemy? Great. Just great, Mr Wilson.
* * *
I returned to Thayu, Veyada and Sheydu, Captain Luczon, and his two shy companions. They were waiting with a higher-ranked flight crew to take us back to Barresh. We would have to make the best of this situation. Keep him talking, keep him away from militant groups.
Back to Barresh and the slew of domestic problems I was facing. Was it wishful thinking that Xinanu would have had the baby while we were away and that our association would be free to speak to each other as normal in my apartment?
That Marin Federza had simply been on a trip and had resurfaced?
That gamra had elected a sensible person to replace Delegate Akhtari?
That the Barresh council had realised its errant ways in employing Tamerians and had apologised for doing so?
That both Aghyrian groups had realised that they were facing a much stronger opponent and that they had decided to work together?
That Thayu had agreed to use Menor and that we could at least move ahead on that front?
Dream on, as they said.
Most importantly, we were going back to Barresh where the serious negotiations over Asto were about to begin, with a participant who could throw a very large spanner in the works.
The gamra assembly would probably hate me for the next few years to come, but whatever Captain Luczon had up his sleeve, I couldn’t see how I could have handled it differently.
A Word of Thanks
THANK YOU very much for reading Ambassador 3: Changing Fate. The threat posed by the old ship may have been contained temporarily, but the trouble is far from over. What has happened in Barresh while they have been away? Who is the new Chief Delegate? What has the Barresh council found underneath the marshlands? What happened aboard the Aghyrian ship and why are the crew in stasis? The story continues in Ambassador 4: Coming Home.
As author of this book, I would appreciate it very much if you could return to the place where you purchased this book and leave a review. Reviews are important to me, because they help readers decide if the book is for them.
Also be sure to put your name on my mailing list, which I use exclusively to notify subscribers of new fiction. All other chat about my writing or world-building and interaction with readers happens on my blog Must Use Bigger Elephants, which you are welcome to follow.
About the Author
* * *
PATTY JANSEN lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was published in their 27th anthology. She has also sold fiction to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Redstone SF and Aurealis.
Her novels (available at ebook venues) include Shifting Reality (hard SF), The Far Horizon (middle grade SF), Charlotte’s Army (military SF) and Fire & Ice, Dust & Rain and Blood & Tears (Icefire Trilogy) (dark fantasy).
Patty is on Twitter (@pattyjansen), Facebook, LinkedIn, goodreads, LibraryThing, google+ and blogs at: http://pattyjansen.com/.
More by This Author
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In the Earth-Gamra space-opera universe
The Shattered World Within (novella)
RETURN OF THE AGHYRIANS
Watcher’s Web
Trader’s Honour
Soldier’s Duty
Heir’s Revenge
The Return of the Aghyrians Omnibus
The Far Horizon (For younger readers)
AMBASSADOR
Seeing Red
Raising Hell
Changing Fate
Coming Home
In the For Queen and Country universe
Whispering Willows (short story)
FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY
Innocence Lost
Willow Witch
The Idiot King
In the ISF-Allion universe
His Name in Lights (novella)
Charlotte’s Army (novella)
The Rebelliousness of Trassi Udang (short story)
Shifting Reality (novel)
Epic, Post-apocalyptic Fantasy
ICEFIRE TRILOGY
Fire & Ice
Dust & Rain
Blood & Tears
The Icefire Trilogy Omnibus
Short story collection
Out Of Here
Shorter works
Looking For DADDY (absurd horror novella)
This Peaceful State of War (Writers of the Future winning novella)
Visit the author’s website at http://pattyjansen.com and register for a newsletter to keep up-to-date with new releases.
