Ambasadora book 1 of amb.., p.15
Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora), page 15
One name that he didn’t recognize always brought about the most violent episodes. If this Faya had been around tonight, he believed Sara would have torn her apart with her bare hands. At this point, Sean could have done that himself.
The lights of her intra-tat bounced around in erratic pulses in a frightening way that wasn’t alluring like when he first touched her hand. Tonight they were a physical sign of whatever horror she was experiencing.
He brushed her damp hair back with his fingers and whispered words of reassurance, knowing this could be the biggest mistake of his life. She had been sent here to flush out a fragger operative, that much he knew. Right now she and the Embassy thought David was their man—he didn’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity or be insulted. If that’s what her Embassy intel was saying, then it might be easier to bring down this government than he thought.
“Sean.” She reached out to the empty space beside her.
He put his hand over hers. “I’m here.”
When she whimpered and shook, he lay down next to her because he knew what it was like to go through this alone. He knew what it was like to go through everything alone. Folding Sara in his arms, he pulled her tight against his chest until her body relaxed against him. He kissed the top of her head to soothe her.
If she betrayed him later, he’d deal with that when it happened. It’s not like he hadn’t thought of offing himself, and not the pleasant way with passing drugs and a bedside full of family crying for him. Maybe she’d be doing him a favor. Sean’s older brother had killed himself. He told Sean before he did it that Sean wouldn’t understand because he had never known their father, so couldn’t really miss him. But Sean did miss having a father…and an older brother.
Sara’s breathing deepened with exhaustion. So did Sean’s. He rested his cheek against the top of her head and fell asleep.
TWENTY-FOUR
Rainer looked out the curved window of the Embassy council’s chamber. The noon sun glinted off the water at Shiraz Dock far below, and small shadows followed the bustling pedestrians scurrying along the elliptoid pattern of the Hub’s blue pavement.
The interior here was cold and gloomy today, and not just from the dark filters on the massive skylights or the room’s climate controls. Lately, it was always dismal whenever the Sovereign met with his council.
“Does this have anything to do with the recent fragger uprisings?” Archivist Harlo Andravo asked.
This was the argument Rainer had been waiting for after ten minutes of strained pleasantries and mundane business discussions. He shifted his attention to Prollixer’s diminutive frame draped gracefully over a leather armchair at the head of the long snaking table.
“Yes, I have evidence to prove that fragger operatives plotted the attempt on Ambasadora Mendoza’s life.”
The lie never showed on the Sovereign’s gaunt face.
“Why would fraggers go after an ambasadora?” Phoebe Llewellyn’s tone was more critical than questioning.
Rainer hadn’t seen Phoebe since that day in the underground corridors, on his way to see Sara’s new body. The archivist avoided his gaze now.
“They did it as an affront to the Embassy,” the Sovereign said.
“There are more worthy adversaries in this system than a newly entitled Socialite and her pilot,” Llewellyn said.
Rainer silently agreed. The three other council members also remained quiet.
“Do you suppose they did it to humiliate me, then?” Prollixer asked.
“It would seem from their previous protests that humiliating you would only be a bonus to fulfilling some higher ideology.” Llewellyn’s pitch raised enough on that last word to strengthen Rainer’s suspicion that she was sympathetic to the fraggers. Yet, the Sovereign had never seen the signs. Rainer attributed the man’s distraction to his failing health. Or perhaps he just hadn’t shared his thoughts with Rainer. He’d kept quite a bit from him ever since Sara’s time at Palomin, not that he was ever really open with Rainer or anyone else. As the years went by, there was coincidentally less and less history available concerning the Sovereign.
“Let’s ask Contractor Varden.”
Prollixer had never asked for Rainer’s opinion before during a council meeting.
“Do you believe the attack on Ambasadora Mendoza is the result of fragger dissidence?”
“I don’t think we have enough intel to say for certain.”
The warning in Prollixer’s stare reminded Rainer of the power the man still wielded, making him rethink his assumption of the man’s frailty. Rather than subduing Prollixer, desperation energized his deviousness. Rainer would need to take more care in the future if he was to outlive his Sovereign.
“The most intelligent comment I’ve heard thus far,” Andravo said.
Before either Prollixer or Llewellyn could respond, a contractor with lime and black hair ridging down the middle of his head strolled into the chamber. A synth-flesh bandage covered his forehead above his right eye.
“I’m afraid the meeting is adjourned,” the Sovereign said.
Phoebe balked. “But, we’ve not—”
“Contractor Varden, perhaps you should escort the council out as they seem to have forgotten where the door is.”
Retaining all the dignity they could, the archivists filed out of the chamber in silence…and without escort. They all understood that Sovereign Prollixer kept the council alive as a faux check to his unmitigated governing; only, he’d never made the point so blatantly until now.
Simon waved a hand and the windows tinted further, throwing the room into complete darkness. Airscreens popped on in front of each of the empty council chairs.
“Since you don’t believe we have enough intel on the matter, I would like your perspective on this.” The Sovereign motioned to his own viewer. “This is a feed from several cameras secreted in one of the Nanga Ki guest suites.”
Magenta flame sconces accented grey stone walls. In the middle stood an elevated square bed with an open canopy, curtained at the posts in gauzy silver sheets.
The pilot from Sara’s ship pounded on the suite’s door. Rainer’s chest tightened each time David Anlow’s fist made contact with the metal. He was certain the door would eventually give under the Armadan’s blows.
“Just think if we hadn’t switched off their aggressor genes,” the Sovereign said. “We’d likely be governed by our own military.”
Since when did Simon Prollixer worry about losing power? His unnatural longevity and lack of interest in breeding separated him from the other citizens. Now he was cursed with mortality. That brought him just a little closer to his own kind and made him a little more dangerous; he finally had something to lose.
The shot switched to Sara. Rainer forced his fists not to ball as Sara touched the Armadan. He held his composure, knowing the Sovereign’s gaze was as much on him as the people on the screen. It was an exercise in self-control for Rainer as Sara smoothed one of David’s eyebrows while they chatted. He rested his hand on her knee, then moved it the entire way up her body. When they kissed, Rainer wanted to smash the viewing console.
His six amours engaged in this type of intimacy with other men on a regular basis, but Sara wasn’t his amour and could never be if he wanted to maintain a pure line. She was never to be had by him. Yet he couldn’t stop others from being with her. He had no control over her, nor his emotions concerning her, and that enraged him.
The screen showed Sara pull away from the kiss and look around wildly. Her behavior changed to that of a crazed person, stumbling to the floor, crawling around. The Armadan struggled as well.
“You drugged them,” Rainer said.
Sara punched at the stone wall, and Rainer flinched, feeling her pain.
“She obviously had a bad reaction. The drug affects every person differently.” Prollixer’s matter-of-fact tone almost pushed Rainer too far. He gripped a handle on his cender, then forced his fingers away from the pistol.
On the screen, David Anlow sprung at the green-haired contractor standing in the room with them now. The Armadan lifted him off his feet, then hurled him at two other contractors. Rainer was unnerved by the larger man’s strength, but not as much as seeing Sara fight off her attacker.
Prollixer had hoped to get his information, then dispose of them both. Drugged out of their minds, they would make easy prey, only the Sovereign hadn’t counted on Sara’s resistance to the dosing. Rainer knew how Faya had used more drugs than she had license to and what that did to Sara. He tried to forget he never stepped in to stop it.
The image switched to a voyeur view of a large hall decorated in the same grey stone and hot pink flames. Sara grabbed a woman who resembled Faya, but even at this distance, Rainer could tell it wasn’t her.
From another angle, David argued with a guard until he opened the airlock doors, allowing Sara and him to escape. The viewer went blank and a dim light returned to the chamber.
“Why not finish it, even with a voyeur present?” Rainer asked. “You’ve already suppressed this from the Media with your delay protocol.” No one else in the entire system could stop a live feed to the Media. And, no one knew the Sovereign could either.
“Because the ambasadoras represent the smiling, gentle aspect of the Embassy. I gave them to the masses so they could ignore the ugly resentments the fraggers have stirred up about my government. I can’t take that away right now.” He coughed, a rattling from down deep in his chest.
Recovering, he continued, “I need to release edited bits of this recording when it is most advantageous. It’ll accompany an official response saying that fraggers attempted an assault while the ambasadora was coupling with her new pilot. David Anlow’s fragger colleagues will see him compromised by an agent of the Embassy, putting his own carnal entertainment above the security of his organization. His loyalty will be questioned. Some of his constituents may even turn on him. That will make him reactive, prone to mistakes.”
Even with the intel suggesting that an Armadan aboard the Bard was the fragger operative, Rainer could see that David Anlow was not the man Prollixer wanted. Nothing about his personality, his actions, his background pointed to involvement. Rainer knew it because he didn’t have a hunch about the Armadan like he did about Phoebe Llewellyn.
“Don’t you think it will make good viewing for the citizenry? This drama will get massive air time; such predictable Upper Caste behavior. Physical cues are so deeply ingrained in this society that actions and reactions are automatic, like androids programmed for coupling.”
Rainer disagreed. Prollixer was the one becoming an automaton, single-minded in his obsession for a longer life.
“It’s all those classes to make them aware of every signal, every gesture, both conscious and subconscious. But isn’t that what everyone wanted, better gene stock?”
He noted how the Sovereign spoke of them, separating himself from society and its tenets. Maybe he needed to brush up on his History, remember what happened on the worldships and why all citizens, both Uppers and Lowers upheld the tradition of selective marriage. Or, maybe once the fragger threat was quelled, the Sovereign just needed to be dethroned.
TWENTY-FIVE
The small stream of water whooshing from the faucet thundered into the drain like a flash flood through Palomin Canyon. Somehow in last night’s confusion, Sean had left the bathroom faucet on. He hadn’t noticed it until about an hour ago when his full bladder forced him in and out of sleep.
He should have just gotten up, but Sara was lying on his arm.
Her shallow breath brushed against his hand. He barely felt it as his arm’s circulation dwindled, but he couldn’t bear to disturb her. Most of the night she’d slid in and out of the real, until he lay down with her. She whimpered a few times after that, but settled back down with a few coaxing words. For Sean, it was the best sleep he had had in years. He hated for it to end.
Sara shifted. He tried to slide his arm out, dreading the inevitable discomfort of blood flowing back into his limb. The action woke her. She rolled over and looked at him, her sleepy gaze not quite focusing as she touched hesitant fingers to his cheek.
He eased his arm from under her, feeling a bit awkward. She looked confused, as though searching her memory to find out how she ended up here. He held up a finger for her to wait a minute and sprinted to the bathroom. Once again he scanned her vitals with his reporter as he had done several times last night. Her heart rate and respiration were normal, but large amounts of chemical dosers still lingered in her system. He wanted to study the compounds to see if it was an Embassy brew or something designer.
Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sink made him self-conscious. Dark blonde tufts of his short hair stuck out at odd angles, and he hadn’t shaved in weeks. A bruise hid near his lip, but the one blossoming above his right eye had nowhere to hide. He splashed water over his face and hair, but it did little good. He told himself it didn’t matter anyway, that he’d let an emotional fallacy get the best of him last night. It was time he really woke up. She was here to spy on him, maybe kill him, whether she knew it yet or not.
He returned, a healthy chip on his shoulder.
Sara sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed her wrinkled dress and fingered the strap that had broken during one of her fits. She looked at him, her pupils still a little too large. Sean kept a safe distance. So she couldn’t launch another attack, he told himself.
She ran her fingers through her hair. He could still feel the softness of it on his own fingertips. He shook off the memory. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
She didn’t respond, just stared. It was taking her a while to come out of this.
“Sara?”
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
“Fair enough.” What did he expect her to say?
“I’m going to make some tea. It will help.” The stronger, the better. “The bathroom’s right there if you need it.” He looked around for a minute, wondering if there was anything else he should say, decided there wasn’t and left.
As he rounded the hallway toward the kitchen, a fragger transmission whirred into his mind—mandatory briefing in three minutes. Standard invite was at least thirty. Something was up.
He grabbed a glass container of tea and added boiling water from the spigot. He’d have to get rid of Sara if he were going to respond to the invite. She would probably need a little time to recover this morning, though, so he shouldn’t push her out if she wasn’t ready to leave yet. He’d just say he wasn’t near an insertion point. This was dangerous thinking. It wasn’t so much that he was skipping out on the fragger invite, it was that he’d never done it before.
Sara walked into the kitchen, her hair falling over her shoulder in a long ponytail and her arms wrapped around her. She looked lucid, but her skin tone was a little paler, closer to Sean’s.
He poured the tea into his last two clean mugs and handed her one.
She took a sip without looking at him. “Thank you for helping me last night…though I’m not sure I wanted anyone to see me like that.”
“It was no problem. No one else needs to know.” He took a drink and hit the mug against his busted lip. He pulled his head back in reflex.
Sara caught the movement. She studied his face for the first time. Self-conscious, he stepped away, but her hand on his forearm stopped him. “Did I do that to you?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve had worse, though you are surprisingly strong.” He attempted a smile, but it became a wince as his lip split open a little further.
She brushed her thumb over it as though she could heal it with her touch, and Sean almost swore she could. Her hand caressed his cheek, moving to his brow line. He closed his eyes as she traced the bruise there and trailed her light touch to the little cut near his hairline. He would have let her beat him senseless last night just to have her touch him like this a little longer.
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice broke. “After everything you did for me.”
Another whirring reminder entered Sean’s mind. He ignored it.
“It’s nothing. Really. An hour or two wearing mender patches and it’ll be fine.” Sean had never used menders because he couldn’t see the need. Stuff healed eventually. Until then, it kept everyone wondering. But if seeing him like this reminded her of last night, he’d consider plastering a couple on.
“What else did I do?”
She didn’t need him to replay the terrible night for her, especially if she was lucky enough to have forgotten most of it. “You had some bad dreams.”
“I have those even when I’m awake.”
He had suspected as much, considering the intensity of her hallucinations when she showed up at his door. “We could try to overwrite those visions.” He had debated mentioning this to her.
“I didn’t know that was possible.” She held the mug between both hands and drank the tea.
“It can be done. It’s risky. Takes some serious dosing. Nothing I have on hand.” He should just let her go. It was her problem, not his. “I could take you to a place if you want. I’d make sure you were safe.” What the hell was he doing?
A spark of hope lit her eyes. “I’ll go.”
He hadn’t expected her eagerness. It made him feel good that he could help her. “I’ll set it up and let you know.” Then, “Do you want something to eat? I don’t really have anything here, but there’s probably something left in the main kitchen.”
“I think tea’s all I’ll have for a while. Can I take the mug with me?”
“Sure. It came with the suite.”
Sara put the tea down and wrapped her arms around him in a weary hug and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Sean,” she whispered against his shirt. “Thank you for not leaving me.”
