“And Roge is now the Senator from Paradiso,” Vascorn added.
“Yes. My wife’s aunt took the opportunity to return full-time to her scientific studies on Shelonia,” Senator Maruchal added. “I ran for the Federation Senate seat and was elected. With my sons, Tomas and Elias, both capable of managing the Estate, my wife and I are free to live the political life.”
Mikal remembered Tomas and Elias from his time on Paradiso and commented that he’d like to get together with Senator Maruchal, at a later time, to hear news about them and Paradiso. For the moment, however, that would have to wait. There were more pressing concerns.
“Madame Hsiss,” Maryse said, “do you need anything special when it comes to your diet? Cruiser Pilot Anwar told me that Xeon Station did send some supplies especially for your use, onto the vessel before you left Port, but that you had mentioned that you could eat almost everything that the humans did. I chose this restaurant, Calli’s, for this meeting, because they are known for the variety of foods they serve, having had a lot of experience with the varied clientele that the Seat of the Star Federation Government attracts. So if you have special needs or wishes, speak up and our servers will do their best to satisfy them.”
“Please, just call me Xoraya. On Xeon, we don’t often bother with the formality of family names.” The Xeonsaur grinned. “If they have toasted mahi grubs, or something equivalent, I’d be delighted. Otherwise I’ll settle for the standard fare.”
“Mahi grubs? Toasted?” inquired Yung Yora, looking interested. “If they don’t have mahi, you might want to try toasted wengish. It just so happens that someone was telling me recently that the wengish, which are very much a delicacy on Torrones, are a lot like the mahi of Xeon. And I know for a fact that Calli’s has wengish, having often eaten them here.”
Maryse nodded to the waiter who had come to stand between her and Xoraya.
“Look into it, will you,” she told him, and then, like a good Lamanian Hostess, explored everyone’s food preferences before sending the waiter off with the order, which he did after refreshing the wine glasses.
“If I’m to call you Xoraya,” she then added, turning to the Xeonsaur, “you must refer to me as Maryse. Yes, first names are, indeed, much easier than Madame This, or Senator That. We Lamanians can be a little stiff sometimes.”
“We Shelonians have an easier time of it,” the President threw in. “We use only single names so there’s never a question of This or That.”
“However,” the Master Healer added mildly, “we do have a tendency to start with ‘President’, or ‘Master Healer’, or some other such respectful nonsense. So allow me to state that to everyone in this room, henceforth I’ll simply be Vorlund without any honorifics.”
“Does that go for lowly employees of the Peace Officer Corps, too?” Mikal asked the Healer with a teasing grin.
“It especially goes for such employees,” Vascorn answered with a broad smile, before Vorlund had the chance. “After all, they do the real work of the Federation, the work on which we politicians depend.”
They all agreed to skip the honorifics and to deal with one another on first name basis. By the time the conversation reached serious topics they had all become quite friendly with one another—that was no doubt as Maryse had planned it.
What the Director of the Human Trafficking Division of the SFPO had in mind was a reception to which all the Senators whose votes she was hopeful of gaining would be invited. She had already convinced President Vascorn to call a vote concerning an Official Investigation of Vultaire, since there was reason to believe that at least some Vultairian Exalted Citizens had been importing slaves to their home planet. That was one hurdle leapt, and now she was working on the next, which was to win the vote. Mikal’s timely arrival with Xoraya in tow had given Maryse the idea that at least some of the vacillating Senators might vote for approval, if they heard an Xeonsaur endorse the Investigation. The Xeonsaurs were revered by the humankind. They were considered the wisest of all the galactic races; the opinion of an Xeonsaur carried a lot of weight. Maryse wanted to take advantage of that for her ends which, of course, were Mikal’s as well.
“Obviously I was unable to invite even a smattering of those whose support we already have, to this dinner,” Maryse explained at one point. “The reception will give the others an opportunity to meet Xoraya, too. Maybe not in as intimate circumstances, but nevertheless, they will meet her.”
“Sounds like you’re putting our guest to work—gladhandling,” Mikal pointed out. He did not altogether agree with the plan; it smacked too much of manipulation of a rare guest.
“Desperate circumstances call for desperate moves,” Maryse countered. “There’s no way I want to lose this vote; you’ve seen Vorlund’s nodal record of healing that child, Kerris, with the help of your friend, Kati. We have to do something, and the Vultairian diplomats have switched into high gear of thwarting tactics. The reason why the particular politicians who are with us right now, are here, is that I can trust them to not run and tell the Vultairians what we are doing. The offers of benefits from the Vultairian Offices to anyone who agrees to vote their way, have grown rather obscene, and there are, unfortunately, plenty of Senators who are looking for the best deal, with no concern for the ethics involved.”
“It has been ever thus,” Vascorn sighed. “Before I took on the Presidency I used to wonder why Stolts didn’t stop it. Now I know that he didn’t because he couldn’t, and being too heavy-handed would have just sent the thing underground where you can’t keep an eye on it. Vultairians, especially, seem to keep a nest-egg of bribes on hand, precisely to influence votes which they consider important.”
“As a Federation employee, I don’t have access to the kind of funds that a planet has,” Maryse added. “So I can’t beat them at their own game. Therefore, my friends and I are working every angle we can think of, Mikal. Xoraya here, thanks to the awe that Xeonsaurs are generally held in, has just become one of those angles.”
“I could make a speech denouncing slavery,” Xoraya offered. “At this reception which you mentioned. Do you think that it would sway a few votes in your direction?”
Maryse’s face broke into a wide grin.
“Would you do that Xoraya? I am certain that it would sway votes for us.”
“Before I formulate the speech, however, I’d like to see this nodal record of the healing of the abused child,” Xoraya said. “Is that possible?”
“It certainly is,” the Master Healer replied. “I can see to it myself, since I was heavily involved in the process. You haven’t seen Kati of Terra’s record of the event then, have you?”
“No,” Xoraya responded. “I did study the record of her time on the slave ship, the escape from it, and the events afterwards. Although I’m certain that what I saw was a heavily edited version—she and you, Mikal, were on that Drowned Planet for a number of months before you succeeded in shipping out, weren’t you?”
“What you saw were the high-lights,” Mikal conceded with a grin. “The information most relevant to the issue at hand.”
“I have available a copy of the nodal record which Kati made after she discovered that the boy who had been moved into the room next to hers, at the Second City Transient Housing Centre, was an abused slave running away from the couple who had bought him,” Maryse said. “If you want to look at it, Xoraya, it clearly identifies the slave holders as a Vultairian couple.”
“The more information I have, the better speech I can put together. So, yes, I’d like to see it,” Xoraya answered.
*****
After the dinner, Xoraya and Mikal were accompanied to their Suite in Hostel 17 by not just Maryse who was staying down the hall from them, but also by Master Healer Vorlund who was a guest of President Vascorn at his Official Residence. En route, Vorlund entertained the other three with stories of his stay at the Official Presidential Residence, telling humorous anecdotes of his difficulties with being surrounded by real, live servants wh
o apparently had orders to pick up after the guests almost before they had dropped items of clothing or other possessions, on the floor, on the bed, or the chairs.
“I’m normally a somewhat messy person,” Vorlund said with a sigh, “but my node usually keeps track of where I’ve left things, so, at home, I seldom lose anything. But my node cannot keep track of where the servants stow things, or hang them up, so now I’m constantly losing items. Vascorn told me to just call the head housekeeper whenever I can’t find something; apparently he’s a wizard at finding the objects his staff pick up. But I hate to be bothering a hardworking man all the time—and believe me, I’d have to be bothering him all the time.
“But I cannot insult the President by moving into the extra bedroom in Maryse’s suite—she offered to let me have it, didn’t you Maryse? Vascorn and I have known one another for a long time, and do favours for each other when the occasion arises, and right now, I guess you could say that we’re trading favours.”
“Maybe you could offer to ‘heal’ the staff of the need to pick up after you,” Mikal suggested while a corner of his mouth twitched.
“Ah, I wish I could do that!” Vorlund laughed. “Unfortunately that would be about as ethical as a Vultairian Exalted Citizen owning slaves!”
He shook his head. “No my friend, Mikal, it does not do for a Master Healer to even contemplate misusing his talents!”
“And I’m sure that you wouldn’t,” Mikal agreed readily enough. “And I wouldn’t have joked about slave-snatching with Gorsh, believe me.”
When they reached Hostel 17 Mikal hung back to let Xoraya use her ID Chip to gain them entry, and then lead them to the suite, and open its door. Xoraya seemed pleased with herself for performing these simple tasks.
“I’m practising behaving like a human,” she told Maryse and Vorlund with a laugh, “and Mikal, knowing how keen I am to learn everything I can about human behaviour, is giving me the chance to do so.”
“Did we mention that Xoraya studies human behaviour?” Mikal asked Maryse and Vorlund. “She’s a researcher at an institution which we would call a university, but which on Xeon is called something else.”
“It’s known simply as an Institute,” Xoraya explained, walking over to the communications console. “Doesn’t a good human host offer her guests refreshments? Will this thing allow me to order some in?” She looked hopefully at Mikal.
“Actually, our pantry is well stocked; I had a look at it earlier,” Mikal told her. “There were even a number of wine bottles there, and teas of various kinds. And who knows what else? To me it looked like we could survive for weeks without stepping outside, or ordering anything in.
“I’m sure that I can root around in there and find something for every one of us.”
“If they have the drink that Roge Maruchal’s world has been exporting very successfully, let’s have some of that,” Vorlund suggested. “Coffee, I believe is the word.”
“My suite has a supply of it so I’m certain this one does,” Maryse said. “But Mikal, you likely don’t know how to brew it; allow Vorlund and me to mess in your kitchenette while you two get the console screen ready to display the nodal records. Here—” she dug out a button-sized disc from her pocket and handed it to Mikal, “—this is the one Kati downloaded about Kerris. Maybe Xoraya can watch that while we make the coffee; when we’re done with that Vorlund can download his nodal record of the healing into the machine.”
It really was the sensible arrangement, Mikal thought, as he listened to Maryse and Vorlund, old friends from many a past campaign, banter in the kitchenette, while he showed Xoraya how to use the viewing screen of the communications console. She, having no node to connect the console to, had to rely on the screen and the associated ear plugs. It was a simple alternative to the total experience that connecting nodally was, and at times, if the material was too disturbing, preferable. Sometimes Mikal chose that route to ingest information; and people who were new to nodes, such as newcomers from the Fringe Worlds, relied on it almost exclusively. Some vicarious experiences were very disturbing when accompanied by full sense data; they could be hard to take even when the perceiver was limited to sight and sound.
*****
“It’s hard to see how this Vultairian Exalted couple can claim to be innocent with evidence such as this against them,” Xoraya said when she had finished with the clip.
“They can’t.” Maryse had arrived from the kitchenette with a tray of four mugs and spoons, and a steaming, covered pitcher in the middle.
She laid the tray on the nearest table. Vorlund followed with another tray, this one with a plate of tiny pastries, and small jugs of cream and honey, on it.
“The Vultairian contingent here on the Station have thrown the Morhinghy couple to the wolves, claiming that the two of them are in no way representative of what is happening on Vultaire. The Morhinghys must have obtained the boy during their travels, is the way the story goes, and were hiding his slave identity even from their fellow Exalted.”
“An old story,” Vorlund said. “When you get caught at your first level of defence, you back up to the next one, and make your stand there.”
“In other words, none of you believe the back-up defence,” Xoraya stated. “You don’t think that the Morhinghys are an anomaly among the Vultairian Exalted Citizens.”
“No.” Maryse’s tone was flat. “I don’t believe it for one moment.”
There was a lull in the talk while Maryse poured the coffee, passed around the cream and the honey to flavour it, and Vorlund offered up the pastries which he said we’re “uncommonly good for Hostel Suite fare”.
“The Vultairian government does not allow the Ordinary Citizens to leave the planet, and they have done a very good job of preventing people from slipping through the cracks,” Maryse added, once she had her coffee in front of her, prepared the way she apparently liked it—with lots of honey and cream. “But a few people always make it through, if they’re desperate enough to take chances. Those few generally end up in The Second City; they’ve usually heard from some of the off-planet transients in Vultaire’s Port City that we’re welcoming to foreigners. I have made a habit of talking to newcomers, and have found them both hesitant to speak with a person they see as being an authority in government employ, and full of grim stories once the dam breaks, and things start pouring out.”
Mikal had learned to drink coffee without additives during his stint on Paradiso, and even though he had not had any since then, that was how he chose to consume it now. He did grab one of the pastries; he remembered that eating something sweet with the somewhat bitter brew created a pleasant contrast.
“The boy had been abused for some time,” Vorlund averred, stirring honey into his mug. “He didn’t get into the shape he was in overnight, or even in weeks. I’d say that he had been the Morhinghy couple’s plaything for at least half-a-year, and most likely considerably longer than that.”
“And the Morhinghys came to Lamania directly from Vultaire; The Second City was their first stop on the trip,” Maryse continued. “I had one of my people do some fact-checking and she could find no evidence that they had been travelling in the two years before that.”
“Which does not constitute proof, of course,” Mikal interjected. “If they were travelling with a Free Trader or on a Fringe World ship, there would be no record of it in Federation archives.”
“They would not have been travelling with a Free Trader,” Vorlund said scornfully. “Can you imagine a Free Trader putting up with their snobbish behaviour?”
Mikal laughed.
“You’ve got that right,” he conceded. “Although that’s beside the point. The point being that a determined individual can make the case, easily enough, that all of Vultaire is not necessarily implicated by the Morhinghys’ behaviour. And the Vultairians are going to fight this tooth and nail, and keep us from launching the Investigation, if they can.”
“But if they have nothing to hide, wouldn’t it make
sense to just let you do your investigating?” Xoraya asked.
Mikal was slightly taken aback by the naivety of the question. Hadn’t Xoraya been listening to him during the Cruiser trip to the Federation Station?
“Thing is that they have plenty to hide,” Maryse said patiently. “The Vultairian Exalted have been getting away with running their World in a manner which is in direct contradiction to Federation principles. Part of the reason why they have been given a pass by the other Members of the Federation is that they were one of the Founding Members of the Star Federation; they have been in the picture ever since the beginning. In the early days their society was a good one, just as good as any of the others, but they have been sliding for a long time now.”
“Do you have theories as to why that happened?” Xoraya asked.
“Oh, there are lots of those floating around; amazing numbers of them, considering that what they theorize about never officially happened.” Maryse grinned mirthlessly. “The one I favour recognizes that evil is generally a petty thing, in no way grand, or admirable. The idea that evil is classy is a big mistake as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve been in the position to see a fair bit of it during my years in the Peace Officer Corps. After the Oligarchs wangled themselves into a position of power on Vultaire, they grew lazy, bored, and egotistical. They liked being in a position to lord it over other people and not have to do anything to earn their keep. Not having to earn your keep gets dull, however, so they’ve been always looking for new entertainments. The thing is, that sort of boredom breeds ugly entertainments, and no-one willingly consents to them. Therefore it is necessary to have people who are too beaten down to object to being abased. Slaves fit quite nicely into the schematic at this point, especially if the local lesser classes have begun to kick up a fuss about mistreatment.”
On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted Page 46
