Carrearranis (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 5) Read online

  There was laughter, all the more amused because they hadn’t intended a set-up, just handed him the beer that had become customary on the Heron for whoever was up on the bar.

  ‘Tolmers.’ Ali told him, grinning broadly. ‘It’s what the miners drink at Tolmer’s Drift. We picked up a taste for it while we were there.’

  ‘Really?’ Tan gave the glass a cautious sniff. ‘What is that? Aniseed? It’s a crime against the name of beer.’ He handed the glass to the civilian who was running the bar that night. ‘Please,’ he requested, ‘give it decent burial.’

  He was up on the bar for a while, answering questions and discussing the verdict of the inquest, which had decided that the evidence of the boarding party was the result of group hallucination. It remained, though, the best authenticated ghost story in spacer lore and Tan, as someone who’d seen the original files and evidently believed that the boarding party had seen a dead man at the helm of the stricken ship, renewed all their hair-tingling pleasure at being spooked.

  Commander Mikthorn, of course, did not believe in ghosts. It was undeniable though that weird things did happen out in space and not all of them could be put down to fakery or overdeveloped imagination. As for the Surehaul 7, it really had been a ghost ship, since that was what spacers called a ship which was continuing on course with everyone aboard it dead. And that, in itself, was enough to send shivers down the spine of any spacer. Commander Mikthorn found himself very aware of how vast and dark it was beyond the hull of this ship, and grateful, too, for the warm fug of human companionship in that little bar. It was companionable, too. Nobody was glaring or cold-shouldering him, no sense of enduring his company on polite sufferance. If anything they seemed pleased to see him unbending enough to come for a quiet drink, for once not glowering or making notes.

  ‘We’ll go for a walk, tomorrow.’ Tan said, as they strolled back to their respective quarters at the end of the evening. ‘I’ll book us a room.’ The commander didn’t argue, and Tan evidently didn’t expect him to. ‘Goodnight,’ he said, and went into his cabin with a cheerful wave.

  They went for their walk the following morning, though it was more of a stand than a walk, really. There were three small rooms within the gym complex, equipped with full surround VR and free rolling floors. They were used for training, as sports courts and as clubrooms. They were also made available for passengers to use, capacity permitting. Tan had no difficulty securing the use of one of them for an hour, and no difficulty selecting a programme, either.

  It was Capital Square, the heart of the capital city of the League’s capital world. Familiar on holovision to every citizen across the League, it had a special place in their hearts – bordered on the one side by the building which held the original Declaration which had founded the League two thousand years before, and on another by the imposing and almost equally historic bulk of the Senate frontage. All round was the famous skyline, with the multi-levelled streams of traffic so criss-crossing the sky above that there was no gap through which to see the clouds.

  In the VR, the square was authentically packed with tourists posing for souvenir footage, a media crew filming an interview on the Senate steps with a crowd gathered round to watch, more crowds around the celebrity food vendors who were as much a part of Capital Square as the Senate itself. The VR was good, crisp and tight perspective, sight and sound as if you were actually there. Starship tech reproduced the gravity, air content and even the smells of the real square, too, although safety regs meant that it could not recreate the authentic levels of pollution.

  Commander Mikthorn took a few steps over the rolling floor, then stopped and stood, just looking around him and taking it in.

  Tan did the same – the VR was good, but it could not cope with divergent paths, if they went in different directions the holographics could not track and adjust for them both. Tan was happy just to stand there, anyway, breathing in the smell of burnt onions and freshly cooked pretzels, surrounded by a crowd so dense it was like being in a packed stadium, only with people moving around and taking holos, mostly of themselves.

  ‘Ah,’ Tan smiled. ‘Home.’

  Commander Mikthorn said nothing, but his face showed agreement. Rangi had tried taking him for a relaxing walk in one of these VR rooms, choosing a path through an evening-lit forest. Commander Mikthorn would never have set foot in such a place in real life, and saw no more pleasure in it in simulation. This, though, was nice, familiar and comforting.

  They stood there for several minutes, just looking and breathing. When they did move on it was to take just a few steps and pause again. It was understood that this was not an interactive simulation, just a scenic walk. Users had themselves to avoid the holoprojected people and scenery; it tended to bust the illusion somewhat if you walked right through people, after all. The rolling floor meant that they were never actually getting any closer to the real walls of the room, effectively just walking on the spot. If you didn’t walk through people or try to touch anything, though, it was possible to immerse yourself in the experience and almost believe it was real.

  ‘I love Tani’s pretzels,’ said Tan, as they got to the stall where crowds of tourists were filming him making them. ‘That smell is good, I can practically taste them.’

  ‘I’ve eaten them too,’ Commander Mikthorn admitted, a little shamefacedly as it was rather a touristy thing to do. That got them talking about their experiences of living on Chartsey, and that in turn made them laugh. Even Commander Mikthorn ventured a mildly amusing anecdote about a group of tourists who’d flocked around him taking pictures of themselves with him in his uniform, twittering excitedly and rushing off again. Tan laughed at that and capped it with one or two of his own experiences while wearing Diplomatic Corps regalia, and they wandered on slowly, chatting and gazing. Commander Mikthorn was surprised to find that he felt better – breathing more easily as the tight duralloy bands around his chest seemed to release some of their pressure.

  ‘It feels good to get off the ship for a while,’ he said. ‘Even just pretending.’ He looked at the ambassador with stiff-necked embarrassment. ‘Uh … thank you, sir.’ A deep breath. ‘And I am sorry, I do apologise for the way I spoke to you. You were absolutely right, of course, I was out of order.’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ Tan said, with a smile. Then, seeing that the commander was regarding him with some degree of apprehension, he smiled again. ‘No heart-to-hearts,’ he assured him, well aware that the other man would find this difficult and embarrassing and that it would more than likely end up with him in a self-justifying rage. ‘I would just like you to think about something, though – not now, I mean, really give it some thought, sleep on it, be a hundred per cent sure. I’d like to know, when you’re ready, exactly what it was that got that Snowball rolling – think back and find the moment, the thing, whatever it was, at which things tipped from being a professional concern to something that made you feel angry. But let’s not talk about it now – I want to go and see what they’re filming.’

  It wasn’t very interesting, just a Senator being interviewed for a news feature about housing policy, so they didn’t linger for long, just wandered off and looked at their respective headquarters, the grand stateliness of the Diplomatic Corps’ Chartsey Embassy and, in the skyline, the visible top floors of Admiralty HQ. Having agreed that their head offices looked far more glamorous from the outside than they were in reality, they lingered, again, smelling the pretzels until their time was up. The choir, indeed, or at least the chunk of it available for rehearsals this morning, was already waiting outside the door, greeting them cheerfully but surging in to get straight to their singing.

  ‘I’ve asked for a choir on the Embassy,’ Tan remarked. ‘And an orchestra, too.’ He smiled at Commander Mikthorn’s startled look. ‘Only a small one, of course, we can’t run to a Symphonia.’ Another quick, searching glance at the man walking beside him, and he grinned. ‘You think that’s frivolous, huh.’

  ‘Oh, I, er …’ Com
mander Mikthorn’s look of reserved disapproval changed to one of embarrassment.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Tan assured him. ‘It often surprises people, the range of skills we employ both in groundside and space embassies. The difference is of course that we can bring in whatever we need groundside – heading out in space we have to anticipate all the different kinds of events we might be hosting. We always have several kinds of art exhibit in the hold and live performers aboard – exactly what is the personal choice of the ambassador. Some like to take dance groups – I know one who always includes a team of freefall acrobats. Me, I like to have an orchestra. Cultural exchange isn’t a bonus in exodiplomacy, you see, it’s at the very core and heart of it, showing them who we are as a cultural people. My own background, of course, is in that – I was a cultural attaché before I made the move into exodiplomacy. We’re bringing out all the teams and resources needed for aid and first phase development, too, of course, the Embassy is stuffed to the airlocks and there’s a squadron of supply ships chasing after.’

  Commander Mikthorn was reminded, as Tan had intended, that the cheerful, friendly man beside him was about to head up a mission on a scale beyond anything the commander had even served in, still less commanded.

  ‘So…’ the question was asked with respect, even cautiously, as if Commander Mikthorn feared it might be considered impertinent, ‘will you be taking over when the Embassy ship arrives?’

  ‘Lord, no,’ Tan said comfortably. ‘That ship and all its resources will be at Alex von Strada’s disposal, of course, as he is the Ambassador in post. Unless orders come in to the contrary, I won’t be taking over until we’ve reached second phase and only then when it is the right time to do so – and that determination, by the way, is Alex von Strada’s, not mine. Though we will, obviously, be working closely together throughout and we’re planning to slide things gradually so that there’s a smooth handover, no sudden ‘tag, you’re it!’

  Strangely, it was the realisation that the huge Embassy ship and all its resources would be put under von Strada’s command that really brought home to Commander Mikthorn, all at once, how powerful Captain von Strada actually was.

  ‘I…’ he stopped dead, flabbergasted. ‘I never…’ he caught his breath, quite lost for words.

  ‘I know,’ Tan laughed. ‘It’s difficult to get your head around, isn’t it? He has such an easy command style, aboard ship at least, shipboard rig and having a laugh, it’s easy to forget just how high powered he actually is. And this, too…’ he reached over and gave the nearest wall a pat. ‘No disrespect whatever to the Heron, it’s a fine ship, but it is only a frigate and quite an old fashioned one, too. They’re good, solid ships, these Seabird 37s, but nobody could call them stylish. Of course it’s deceptive, looks blocky and dated but is actually bristling with the hottest tech in space. He could have a carrier, of course – he’s been offered one but turned it down; made a case for the operational benefits of sticking with smaller ships. But the Embassy is his, yes, when it arrives.’ He chuckled. ‘He could, if he liked, move aboard it, base himself in the big office and be ‘Your Excellency’. But he won’t, of course, he’ll work from here, as always, and be ‘skipper’.’

  He said no more than that, seeing that he had given Commander Mikthorn enough to think about, which he certainly had. The commander was realising that he had seriously underestimated the true extent of von Strada’s authority, treating him effectively as if he was no more than a frigate skipper.

  True to form, though, Commander Mikthorn very soon decided with great indignation that this was von Strada’s own fault. Officers in high command should be the part, conducting themselves with proper gravitas. If von Strada found himself treated with a lack of respect for slobbing around his ship in tech overalls and behaving far beneath the dignity of his rank, then he only had himself to blame. And what was he doing? The diplomatic crisis was still rolling on, with efforts being made to speak with every person on the planet individually or at least in small groups, and still the ‘up yours’ counter ran up and up. Von Strada was doing nothing about it, just getting on with other things and apparently not in the slightest concerned.

  He wasn’t, either. As Silvie had exposed with her mischievous comments, Alex shared the view that the Carrearranians themselves should have the right to decide whether they considered themselves part of the human family or not, and he was glad that Silvie had given him the opportunity to deal with that.

  So, later that day, he had an open discussion with Tan on the command deck.

  ‘I didn’t ask Silvie to speak to them, I didn’t know that she was going to do that and if she had asked me I’d have asked her to stay out of it,’ Alex said, ‘Though if she had insisted on her rights as the Quarian ambassador to open diplomatic discussions with the Carrearranians on the quarians’ behalf, I don’t believe I’d have had the right to prevent it.’

  Tan nodded agreement. ‘No – it was unexpected, of course, and ideally she should not have taken over your broadcast, but Silvie was within her rights to speak for her people on this or any other issue.’ He grinned as a message flashed up on the desk screen open in front of him, Thank you, darling. ‘And since the views and wishes of the Carrearranians are now abundantly clear…’ he indicated the screens which showed a near-unanimous 94% of the population declaring that they were human and would not allow the League to tell them otherwise, ‘this is, clearly, a critical-point decision.’

  Alex nodded. He didn’t appear to feel that it was particularly critical – he looked, in fact, as if he was enjoying himself, a definite twinkle in his eyes.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘I am making an executive call, under the powers vested in me as Presidential Envoy, to add a Codicil to the Homo Sapiens Identification Act which will recognise the Carrearranians as homo sapiens.’ He held up a hand to keep Tan quiet, going on quickly, ‘I’m not asking you whether you agree with that decision, that would not be fair to you and isn’t necessary, either, this is a decision only I can make. I’m just telling you what I am going to do, all right?’

  ‘Understood,’ Tan answered. ‘And thank you, I appreciate that you are giving me the opportunity to stay out of it with good grace. But I would like to go on record, here and now, as saying that you have my wholehearted support for that decision – I would be honoured, indeed, if you would allow me to be one of the witnesses.’

  Alex said nothing, but reached out, and the two of them shook hands solemnly.

  ‘And if I might suggest…’ Tan went on, ‘that you sign the Codicil in the Embassy office, and…’ he eyed the grey tech overalls the skipper was wearing, adding delicately, ‘groundside rig?’

  Alex grinned. It was actually perfectly normal for Fleet skippers to wear the same overalls with tech patches that were worn by officers and crew aboard ship. They were, however, expected to change into the smart groundside rig for more formal occasions.

  So, shortly after that, Alex went to the Embassy office on the interdeck, wearing a crisp jacket with all his insignia gleaming. Buzz was there, too, looking distinguished in his own groundside rig, while Tan had changed into one of the business suits the Fourth themselves had provided.

  The Codicil was signed with all due ceremony. The ship fell almost silent for it, indeed, with a call of ‘All hands, attention on deck!’ and everyone watching on screens as the captain took his place. The office, for all that they joked about it, really was a tiny enclave of Diplomatic Corps aboard the ship. It was decorated and fitted out just as an attaché’s office would be in any League embassy, with an imposing desk, neatly organised notice boards and framed pictures of famous diplomats from the Corps’ history.

  Alex did not look out of place there. He was accustomed to high ceremonial as a member of the Fleet – one of the few ancient traditions he hadn’t tried to modernise was the ritual of reading in, a ceremony performed on all Fleet ships immediately prior to their launch for a tour of duty. He enjoyed doing that, the fine archaic language rolli
ng out with such grandeur, the ringing shout of ‘Aye!’ at the end. This was much the same and he carried it off without a trace of self-consciousness or a hint of a grin.

  The Diplomatic Corps did this kind of thing rather well, too. They had set up a signature lectern on the desk, a formal affair of real wood and blue velvet. Standing behind the desk, Alex placed his right hand on the document displayed on the lectern. Instinctively, around the ship, members of the Fourth got to their feet, many of them putting their hands behind them as if on parade.

  Alex made the legal declaration without so much as glancing as the wall-screen displaying it for him to read.

  ‘I, Alexis Sean von Strada, do declare and assert upon mine honour that I have bestowed in me the right to ensign a Codicil to Law under the seventeenth Device of the Constitution of the League of Worlds, said right bestowed in me in the capacity of Presidential Envoy, and I do further declare and assert that I so ensign the Codicil before me with all diligence and being assured that it is needful, purposeful, bound in the letter and the spirit of the aforesaid Constitution and undertaken for the service and benefit of the peoples of the League. I declare and vow that the Codicil will be communicated to the Senate House on Chartsey by the swiftest and the surest means available, and I do further declare and vow that I will honour ratification, amendment or refutation of the aforesaid Codicil by the duly elected representatives of the peoples of the League. This I do declare, and swear, this day…’

  He gave the date and location of the signing, then picked up the platinum-mounted lightpen provided by Jun Desmoulin and wrote his name, with all his ranks and all the various letters he was entitled to put after his name. This took a few seconds, after which he stepped aside and Tan Ganhauser took his place.