by C. Gockel
The ambassador-to-be’s expression went blank, and he touched the neural port in his temple.
Carl hissed. “You don’t have to confirm Volka’s assessment of Sixty’s cooking skills with the admiral. I can attest to his ability, her truthfulness, and her good sense. I trust those, as you should, too, would-be-ambassador.”
Starcrest’s hand fell to his side. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his eyes shifted between 6T9 and Carl. “Very well,” he said. “You will be our chef, 6T9 Unit.” To the party at large, he said, “You have a week to take care of your affairs in the Republic.” Bowing, he left the small compartment.
Volka’s shoulders fell. “He thinks I am an asset but also a child.”
“But you stuck up for yourself,” Carl said, hopping over and putting a paw on her arm. “I was impressed, Hatchling.”
“And you stuck up for me,” Volka said. Her eyes met 6T9’s. “Both of you did.”
Circuits all over his body hummed. 6T9 shrugged. “I’m not going to stay on this hell hole of a rock without you.” All the butterflies, trees, and flowers…but no humans! A sex ‘bot’s nightmare.
“And I’m not letting you go to Luddeccea alone.” Carl hissed, pulling away from Volka and pacing the worktable on his back four paw pairs.
Volka’s ears went back.
Pricks of electricity traveled up 6T9’s neck. “Carl, is there something you aren’t telling us?”
Carl’s tail swished. “There are things even my kind can’t know.” His six limbs that weren’t on the bench rose and fell in a tiny sigh. “There is a new premier loyal to Archbishop Sato and the tentative alliance with the Republic and my kind. But we know that Abraham still has sympathizers in the Luddeccean System. Sympathizers who would rather certain truths remain unknown.”
Volka drew back, and 6T9 heard her swallow. He remembered the men that had come to kill her and their torture devices, all for knowing of a weere-human child. His head tic returned, and he slapped his hand behind his neck to hold it steady.
“What we don’t know is how many and who they all are,” Carl hissed, tail swishing. “Or how far they will go to make the Luddeccean system their own.”
12
Invitations
Planet Luddeccea
The maid had left, the boys were in bed, and the pterys were calling when Alexis took two cups of tea into the library. “Here you are, Uncle,” Alexis said, setting two cups of bornut tea and cream on the end table beside the older man.
He sat in a high backed upholstered chair in the library. Bent over a sketchbook on his lap, at her words he jerked upright. His glasses slipped down his nose, and he pushed them up with a finger smudged with graphite, transposing the smudge to his brow.
“Oh…Alexis, thank you,” he said. He turned his head and his neck cracked. Wincing, he said, “Sorry about that. Old joints.” He pushed his glasses up his nose again. “Old eyes. Old everything.”
She sat down in the chair beside him. “And handsome despite it all, Uncle.” Picking up her own cup, she smiled at him. She tried to cross her legs, but pain stabbed from her groin, and she kept both feet on the floor. The smile never left her face, though.
He snorted and picked up his own tea. “What will I do when you move out?”
“Languish,” Alexis said with a wink. She gazed at the caramel-covered liquid in her cup and frowned, her chest feeling heavy. “And I will languish, too.”
“Do you think if I sabotage your new home’s construction site, it will be traced to me?” he asked. “I’ll wear my black suit and beret.”
Alexis laughed, but felt the corners of her eyes prickle, too. It was this sort of witty banter she’d miss so much. “I think if you wore a black beret, it would give you away,” she countered.
Silas sighed theatrically. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe my—”
The phone rang.
Both of them fell silent. Alexis’s smile dropped, and a chill wrapped around her.
Frowning, he said, “Who could that be at this late hour?”
No one ever called so late unless someone had died or was very ill.
She turned toward the phone, but didn’t rise, hesitating to hear the bad news.
“No, no,” he said, putting out a hand. Echoing her thoughts, he said, “I’ll get it. It’s bound to be something horrid, and it’s my manly duty.”
He went to the desk, lifted the receiver, and his shoulders tensed. “Darmadi residence. Silas Darmadi speaking. Who is this, please?”
Uncle Silas’s shoulders loosened. “Oh, yes, she is here. Just a moment.” Putting a hand on the receiver, he winced and whispered, “Alexis, it is your mother. She sounds…happy?”
They both had strained relationships with domineering mothers, and Alexis whispered back, “Do I have to talk to her?”
He rolled his eyes and smiled, but he whispered, “She is calling from the moon…or a moon. I think you have to.”
Sighing, Alexis put down her tea and stood, ignoring the sting in her insides, and took the receiver from him. He sat back down and smirked at her over his teacup. She stuck out her tongue, and he snorted.
Putting a hand over the mouthpiece, she took a moment to compose herself. That her mother was happy meant that no one had died. Her lips tightened. No, that wasn’t true. There were plenty of people her mother would not be disappointed to see gone. Still, she’d be unlikely to call to fill Alexis in on such a death. It would be unseemly.
Taking a breath, Alexis held the receiver to her ear. “Hello, Mother, this is Alexis. How are you?”
“I’m fine, dear! Has it come yet?” She did sound happy. Ebullient even.
Alexis’s finger nervously threaded through the spiral cord connecting the receiver to the phone’s cradle. “I did get the baby blanket a few weeks ago. Thank you. It’s lovely.”
“No, no…” Her mother sighed dramatically on the other end of the line. “The authorization papers. They were supposed to arrive by now.”
“Authorization papers?” Alexis said.
“To come visit us!”
Alexis blinked. “On New Fargo?” she asked dumbly.
“Yes, of course on New Fargo!” said her mother. “There aren’t civilian flights, naturally. You’ll have to fly aboard the Manna; it’s a Guard supply ship. But the nice thing about Guard ships is that they have gravity. And I’ve already gotten permission from the captain.”
“Oh…” said Alexis, trying to stall. It was a great honor to be allowed to leave Luddeccea. She’d always dreamed of going to Libertas and seeing the Red Gorge in spring, or to Atlantia, to watch the brilliant orange gas giant rise above the icy moon. But New Fargo, on LO8M44—the forty-fourth moon of the Luddeccean system’s eighth planet—was dark and cold. LO8, the gas giant it orbited, was supposed to be an otherworldly sapphire blue, but from the moon’s surface it was only another blurry moon…if one could find a window from the underground bunkers to view the planet from. The outpost there had been built with mining in mind. It was, she’d read, efficient and sterile, with only artificial gravity to recommend it. Well, and it was safe. Unlike the other moons of LO8, M44 was seismically stable. Also, it was on the side of Luddeccea’s star farthest from the pirates of the Kanakah Cloud, and, because of LO8’s 165-year orbit, would remain on the other side of the sun for many more years. Alaric had assured her that it was the safest place in the solar system when her father had been reassigned. It was a place where the Guard Outpost never had to deal with pirates—so safe for the men under her erratic father, as much as it was safe for him. She was sure that was why he’d been assigned there.
“Alexis…darling?” Her mother’s voice snapped her to the present.
“I’m here,” Alexis said.
“You must visit,” her mother said. “When will you get the opportunity to travel at lightspeed again?”
Alexis frowned and wished the line would devolve to static, but her mother’s voice was crystal clear. She blinked. “There is no time lag w
hen we speak,” she marveled. New Fargo was hours away, even at lightspeed.
“Guard tech, darling. Things that we civilians don’t usually get to use. There are a lot of technological wonders here on New Fargo. It may be the farthest from the Republic in parsecs, but it’s the closest in culture. The base was built before Revelation, you know. I have a coffee pot that makes coffee on its own every morning—but I’m assured it isn’t ethernet dependent.”
Alexis took a deep breath. “Well, no, it has not arrived, Mother.”
She looked down at her hand. She’d pulled the phone cord taut and balled it in her fist.
“That’s no good.” Her mother’s tone became low, almost dangerous. “I’ll have to talk to my contact.”
“Mmmm…” Alexis demurred.
“I know it must be hard for you having your husband home while his ship is repaired. A husband at home is like having another child to take care of, but children at least have the decency to respect and fear you.”
“Mmmm…” Alexis said again. Surprisingly, it hadn’t been horrible having Alaric home. Except for that one time he called out to that weere. She closed her eyes. It had sounded like he’d had a nightmare, in retrospect. That weere was lightyears away in the Republic. And in the present, in the real world, Alaric kept the boys diverted, walking them to school every morning and taking them out into the woods before dinner or into the shop in the garage. She’d only had Markus to look after—and Alaric even helped with him. She bit her lip, thinking of Alaric laying Markus on his knees, gently bouncing him, and practicing sign language. The memory did strange things to her heart. Her husband was so…odd. But it was nice to be able to take a long shower on her own after the maid had gone.
“And after that horrible affair on Libertas and then in S33O4 when that weere was aboard. It must make you sick to your stomach.”
It was like a cold bucket of water had been dumped over her. The worst part of Alaric’s betrayal was its public nature, and here was her mother dragging it out into the light again. It was cruel…but wasn’t truth a cruel thing?
“Come here. Get away for a while,” her mother said, her tone now a purr.
She might have said “yes” immediately, but Alexis remembered her mother’s reaction to Markus’s deafness, her quick dismissal of his potential. She squared her shoulders. Even if her mother had only been on the other side of the province, she wouldn’t go for an extended visit. “I couldn’t leave Markus, not when he’s so young.”
There was near silence, broken only by a faint crackle on the line. She swore she could hear her mother pursing her lips. “You have a maid. I’m sure you could employ her for overnight help, and you’ll have to get used to letting him go sometime. He’s deaf, Alexis. He’ll need to go to one of those institutions. Sooner will be better for him—”
“He will not. There are day schools for the deaf in New Prime. He will be able to lead a nearly normal life.”
There was more crackling on the line. Alexis thought about pretending the connection had been lost.
“Oh,” her mother said. “I…did not…know that. That is…good news for you?”
Alexis’s hand ached from squeezing the phone cord so tightly. She released it, and then immediately began bunching it up again.
“And for little Markus, of course,” her mother added.
It was strange to hear her sound uncertain. Alexis’s brow furrowed. When did her mother ever back down?
“I’m just so lonely, dear,” her mother said.
“Why not invite Veronica to see you?” Alexis’s younger sister was still unmarried and finishing up her last year of school. It was strange that her mother hadn’t invited her to begin with. Veronica was silly, but also far more conventionally beautiful than Alexis, petite, cheerful, and obedient. Alexis was too tall, too pale, and “too cold,” according to her mother. Her mother had been planning Veronica’s marriage for almost two decades and banking on the political influence that could be gained by it. The only thing still missing from the plan was the groom…Alexis’s head bowed, and she stared at the intricate patterns of the rug without really seeing them. Finding the groom would be hard from New Fargo. Why had her mother moved with her father? Her mother hated and despised him and the reassignment. At least Alexis’s unfaithful husband was more than competent professionally, and they were in New Prime.
“No, it can’t be Veronica.”
Alexis blinked. Her mother sounded almost fearful. “Pardon?”
“Oh, you know, she’s so flighty,” her mother said. “She is prone to histrionics.”
Both were true, but Veronica wouldn’t be afraid to travel aboard a starship and would probably like to go to New Fargo just to say she had.
Her mother sighed. “Well, never mind. Has your husband said anything about the preparations for the new embassy?”
“Just that there will be one,” Alexis said. “I don’t think he knows much about it.” No one did. A high-school friend at the paper said that they’d been told by the interim premier not to run front page articles on it so as to “not alarm the public.” He’d defended the interim premier’s request, saying, “It’s a matter of public safety now, what with the war. I saw the men of the Merkabah who’d been exposed to the Republic’s robots. They’re fine…We’ll all be safe from them as long as their nano-machines aren’t put in our bodies. The Dark’s victims…I cannot speak about it in the company of a lady. It was too horrifying.”
Familiar steel returning to her voice, her mother said, “Oh. Well, I must go. That authorization will be coming, and I know once you think about it, you’ll be coming here, too.”
Alexis’s hand tightened on the bunched phone cord. Not without Markus. No matter how lonely her mother was.
The line went dead. Setting the receiver back in the cradle, Alexis turned to find Silas gaping at her over his tea.
She arched an eyebrow in question, and he said, “Did she just invite you to New Fargo?”
Alexis nodded.
His teacup clinked on his saucer, and both clinked on the table by the chair. “I didn’t think civilians could go there?”
She shrugged. “The immediate family of command can go there by Guard ship.” The destitute, non-violent criminals, and their families could go there. But they went to colonize and didn’t come back…though sometimes their children did if they joined the Guard or were exceptionally talented in the arts or scholarship. Alexis waved a hand. “But the authorization isn’t here and I’m not going anyway.”
Smoothing his hands down his trousers, Silas said, “Well. It isn’t the first place I’d want to go, and I know how you adore your mother…” he winced, “… but so few people get to go to space.”
She thought about rehashing everything her mother said about Markus, but slumping against his desk, she yawned instead, just barely covering her mouth in time. “I’m going to bed, Uncle. Markus is still waking up a few times a night.”
“Of course,” he said.
A few minutes later, she was at the base of the stairs. She took a deep breath and stepped onto the first stair. Pain lanced along her stitches. She didn’t remember it lasting this long after her first two deliveries. It hurt too much to do her normal calisthenics, and she hadn’t regained control of her bladder. Gripping the handrail tighter, she told herself that at least she hadn’t sneezed or coughed since her last shower. She could change and tumble into bed as soon as she marched up these stairs. Gritting her teeth, she climbed the steps.
She found Alaric already in bed reading her book about three generations of women in twentieth-century China.
Without looking up, he said, “I think you might like this book of my uncle’s, Alexis. It’s very interesting.”
“Your uncle’s?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I found it in his library. Really good.”
She’d finished it but enjoyed it too much to give away. She’d put it in the library thinking—obviously correctly—that if it was foun
d, it wouldn’t be attributed to her. Since he was recommending it, he obviously didn’t disapprove of her reading it; still, best to be careful. “Perhaps you can just tell me about it when you’re done?” she suggested. It seemed safe. It wasn’t lording the fact that she’d already read it before him or denying his opinion that she might like it.
“Hmmm…” he replied, clearly distracted.
She stared at him a moment, feeling like she was missing something and also very alone. Yawning again, shaking her head, she went to the other room to change.
Right before her head hit the pillow, she almost thought about telling him of her mother’s invitation…but sleep was more inviting, a surer comfort than her husband, and nothing could make her go to New Fargo anyway.
13
Homecoming
Planet Luddeccea: Galactic Republic Embassy
Volka was going to kill someone. Or deactivate him. Or grind his gears…or…She scrunched her eyes. She wasn’t going to “grind” Sixty’s gears. That sounded way too much like innuendo. Lizzar’s snot, she was thinking like him now.
“Girl, are you awake?” The Luddeccean matron before Volka waved a copper chip the size of a quarter credit in front of her nose.
They were standing in one of the reception rooms of the Galactic Republic embassy on Luddeccea. Built pre-Revelation, it had been the official residence of the Galactic Republic Representative to Luddeccea before the planet had broken off from the rest of the human inhabited galaxy. When the residence had last been in use, hover cars had made travel from the original Prime’s center to remote exurbs convenient. Now it sat on the border of No Weere, closer to the Exclusion Zone than humans generally lived. Built by humans who expected to live for centuries, despite its age, it didn’t smell of decay and was decidedly Galactican in design. There were high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows that made the grounds moving canvasses during the day. Now, at night, the windows reflected the Republic staff and their guests. The walls, floors, and ceilings were made of polished poured cement stained a warm white. Modern Galactican free floating chandeliers designed to look like the Milky Way provided soft lighting. There were arched doorways covered by curtains of holographic and sound-blocking beads that let light and images pass through, but not conversation.
