Reclamation (Book One of the Art of War Trilogy), page 23
Yano had to stop his jaw from hanging open. No provar he had ever met had been so pleasant, so friendly and accommodating. Talking to the Xhevegan was a pleasure. Talking to the Ascendancy executors had been unremittingly stressful and had caused him to fear for his life.
Codey extended an arm and gestured Siun towards the door. ‘We were just leaving, Observer. Please, follow me.’
Codey led Siun out the door, and Yano followed. In the hallway, Velsze was waiting for them. ‘Ready to begin?’ he asked, his own Terran sounding positively mediocre by comparison.
‘Yes,’ Yano said, ‘we are.’
They made their way to the summit chamber briskly and with a pervading air of adrenaline. With the last-minute preparations made, there was little to discuss, and the group moved in silence – broken only by the quiet, melodic voices of Siun and Velsze.
Though he would not admit to being nervous, Yano still opted to distract himself for the short journey. The walls, where they were not interrupted by ZEN-stacked alcoves, were layered in intricate murals and carvings, and he took pictures of as many as he could with his corneal-mounted cameras. Some of them were instantly recognisable, including replicas of murals discovered decades before Contact, when UN exploratory missions had uncovered decolonised worlds mere light years from the Demilitarised Zone. Others were older still, and given the age of the Memorial Tower, undoubtedly authentic. His IHD, using image-matching software, compiled a file on each one for him to study in his downtime.
Yano smiled to himself. For many within Xeno Division, cultivating an active interest in xeno art, architecture and other cultural pursuits was both a hobby and a professional necessity. But while many of Yano’s peers maintained their interest under relative sufferance, he himself genuinely enjoyed poring over hardcopy texts and high-definition pictures of xeno paintings and sculptures. When he wasn’t working, there was little he relished more than visiting galleries and exhibitions of alien art. Like bipedalism, mathematics and a free market economy, art was the one thing all Tier-Three species shared. Provari religious murals, Xhevegan political cartoons, zhahassi sculpture – even the golgron partook in the creation of art, though it was strange and often impenetrable.
They made their way from the thirtieth to the fifteenth floor via a labyrinthine series of corridors and maglev elevators. The final elevator journey saw them segue from quiet, largely empty passageways to a cavernous hall, easily twenty metres from floor to ceiling and packed with Tier-Three players. The air was rife with shouted conversation, and there was a palpable air of tension. Huge holos lined the walls, each split into subscreens displaying news feeds and the mostly empty Grand Chamber, where the summit proper would take place.
‘I’ll be around,’ Charlotte said and disappeared into the crowds before anyone could say anything.
Andrea Constance intercepted them twenty seconds out of the elevator, her face grim set. Behind her, Tanja and Bennett were both occupied with IHD comms, judging by their vacant expressions and occasional mumblings.
‘You’re about to get some bad news,’ she said. Any trace of banter was gone.
‘What do you mean?’ Codey said in the same second Yano’s IHD flashed with an incoming priority communiqué. Between the official UNDM markings, the extraneous Presidential Seal and Constance’s tone, he did not have a good feeling about its contents.
‘It’s Vargonroth,’ he murmured, opening it. He waited patiently for the security coding to satisfy itself that he was who his IHD claimed.
‘Is everything all right?’ he heard Siun ask behind him.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,’ Kaivan said in an admirable imitation of reassurance.
‘Good,’ Siun replied, ‘good.’ It was only then Yano detected a trace of anxiety beneath Siun’s warm, if slightly obsequious, exterior. Well, the Xhevegan had every reason to be anxious. Despite the summit’s veneer of civilisation, it would be considered fairly de rigueur by many if one of the Ascendancy executors murdered him.
‘Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands,’ Ghani added. Again, it seemed to appease the observer, but Yano wasn’t really sure what she had meant by it. If it came to a fight, he and Codey wouldn’t be much use against a pair of Ascendancy caldars – not that he’d even attempt to get in the way. He wasn’t even sure the ZENs would put a stop to it.
The message decrypted, and his vision suddenly filled with a field of text.
New summary position statement:
1. The UN requires an AOC and an official apology from the Ascendancy for the deaths of Captain Jacob Rynn and the Fleet servicemen killed in Uvolonese voidspace.
2. The UN requires an AOC and an official apology from the Ascendancy for the destruction of three UN Fleet destroyers, and reparations to construct like-for-like replacements.
3. The UN requires an AOC and official apology for
a. the deaths of Pilot Officer Elyan and Pilot Officer Vandemarr;
b. the technical death of Pilot Officer Syoba;
c. the damage to and/or the destruction of 11 Goliath Squadron; and
d. reparations for that damage and destruction.
4. The UN requires an AOC and official apology from the Ascendancy for the [as yet] unquantified damage to the United Nations Sovereign Territory of Anternis and the unquantified civilian death toll thereof.
5. The UN requires forthwith the removal of the Ascendancy naval cruiser Impraxes from Uvolonese voidspace and a guarantee that the commander of the Impraxes be immediately stripped of his rank and subjected to a UN-mandated court or courts martial on a location to be agreed with the Zhahassi Commonwealth.
Yano pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a potent mixture of rage and frustration well up from the pit of his stomach. Codey finished the message and winced.
‘Shit,’ he breathed. Andrea nodded, her face a rictus of genuine sympathy.
‘What?’ Abena and Kaivan asked simultaneously. Behind them, Velsze and Siun shifted uncomfortably, the latter once again visibly anxious.
Yano forwarded the message to the two junior envoys and Andrea’s comms officers, shaking his head bitterly.
‘What’s an AOC?’ Bennett asked stupidly.
‘Asseveration of culpability,’ Codey said. Yano had a face like thunder.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he said after a while. ‘What is McKone playing at? He must know we won’t get any of this.’
‘They’re the President’s orders,’ Andrea remarked. ‘Xander didn’t come up with this.’
‘What was your briefing with Vargonroth? This morning? What did they tell you?’ Yano asked. He couldn’t keep the anger from his voice, which was quickly transforming into petulance. He sounded like a teenager who had just been given more homework.
‘That the President had authorised the activation of the Buhrman Protocol and we were to anticipate a harder line from the UN.’
‘We’ve already filed our position statement,’ Codey observed. ‘This is going to look very unprofessional.’
‘Well, unfortunately I don’t think you have much of a choice,’ Andrea said. She paused, visibly irritated, as a troop of golgron walked in between them, trailing a vapour cloud that smelled of petroleum. ‘This one’s from the top.’
‘We only deal with the top,’ Yano snapped. ‘It’s all been from the top.’ Idiot.
‘Be that as it may,’ she continued, close to rolling her eyes, ‘we should start canvassing again. Everyone will be onside while we’re yapping about peace. We’ll lose friends quickly if we start demanding apologies and threatening war.’
Yano opened his mouth but Codey got there first. ‘You’re right. I’ll take the quorl and the golgron. You take the zhahassi.’ He checked the time. ‘We’ve got a couple of minutes yet. This should surprise as few people as possible.’
Andrea nodded and departed into the crowds with Tanja and Bennett. Codey turned to Yano.
‘I know you don’t like it, but she is right. We don’t have a choice, so we might as well make the best of it.’ He turned around to check one of the huge holos. The Grand Chamber was slowly filling up. ‘I’ll see you in ten minutes. Take this lot inside.’
Yano grunted. ‘See you in there.’
Codey disappeared into the crowds. Yano batted a pressbot away irritably and turned to his entourage. ‘Everyone ready?’
Nods.
‘All right, come on,’ he said, turning back. ‘This is about to get ugly.’
The Grand Chamber was half-full by the time they had moved through the press of diplomats. One final security check – for visibility only, given the continuous scangrid maintained by the ZENs – and they were through one of the dozens of archways that led inside.
The chamber itself was huge and airy in keeping with zhahassi architectural mores, a fat cylinder with a cavernous, vaulted ceiling plastered in murals. A mezzanine stacked with hardcopy volumes of Tier-Three Galactic Protocol overlooked the circular table surrounded by concentric rings of chairs, those closest to the table for lead diplomats, followed by seconds, attachés, politicians and sanctioned press. Holos lined the walls and would provide written translations.
Some legations had already taken their seats. As Yano moved to their designated section, he could see representatives from the Old Colonies and the Kansubashi Empire. A couple of quorl stood opposite, wearing dark grey togas. They looked like ugly, insect-bastard versions of the zhahassi, although neither race had anything to do with each other genetically.
He took his seat without saying anything, his palms sweaty and his heart rate jacked. He refused to have his IHD run anything. He wanted to be alert, but naturally alert, quite contrary to what the UNDM Practice Manual prescribed. He consoled himself with the fact that if anyone else had been in his position, they’d be both nervous and hopeless, whereas he was still possessed of his natural ability to act under pressure. Even Codey, affable old Codey, was no more than a first-rate, dependable second now, backup-tier, working junk in Veigis and little more than junk in the Outer Ring. They’d picked him for his outstanding admin skills and xeno-magnetism, but as a first, he was finished.
Abena and Kaivan sat quietly behind him, not wanting to disturb his abundantly foul mood, and behind them, Siun and Velsze. Velsze would spend the remainder of the summit with them as an escort and advisor. Every legation was urged to take on a zhahassi attaché, though the UN was routinely in the minority in actually doing so.
The room was nearly full now. Using the UNDM’s diplomatic database, he began scanning and tagging every individual present. Everyone who was supposed to be there was there. Aks-sta, McKone’s personal contact and whom Codey was meant to be finding and briefing, was one of the quorl sitting at the table. Hasato, the Kansubashi lead, was engaged in conversation with José Lenés, the third for the Old Colonies. Fhalco was talking to a group of zhahassi. The Golgron Alliance mob were all from Ghessis, and a quick IHD history told him that it was Ghessis which was embroiled in the Perseus ore dispute with the Ascendancy. He filed that morsel of diplomatic intelligence away for later.
The atmosphere in the Grand Chamber was what he had expected: largely irritatingly light-hearted. Because the dispute was between the Ascendancy and the UN, the rest of the legations spent time socialising, sharing jokes, bantering and talking to the press. They had no skin in the game, no commitments which they were expected to honour. Any side-taking on their part would be a favour, and probably symbolic anyway. So while the ten-strong provari legation stood in one corner, haughty and unmoving, the rest swaggered about, shaking hands and catching up. Yano just wanted to stand up and scream at them all to take it seriously.
Charlotte came in at the last moment with Codey and Tanja. Codey looked pleased and winked at Yano on approach. ‘Constance got Zvell,’ he said quietly as he sat down next to Yano. ‘The zhahassi are happy to take a harder line. There’s plenty sick of the Ascendancy in the Demilitarised Zone. I’ll tell you more about it later.’
‘Good,’ Yano said absentmindedly. There was no sign of the kaygryn anywhere, which was his latest preoccupation. ‘Where are the kaygryn?’
Codey wasn’t given a chance to answer. The mediator – an old, wizened zhahassi who sat in a large, throne-like chair at the head of the table – instigated a harmonic that was something between a lullaby and an alarm, and the Grand Chamber fell dutifully silent. The provar who had been standing in the corner sauntered over to their seats opposite Yano. They all wore the same blue sarongs, though only Xavanis and Folgana wore caldars, meaning the remaining seven were not executors. All ten pointedly ignored Yano, their collective gaze instead falling on Siun over his left shoulder.
‘Representatives,’ the mediator said, his voice like tearing paper, amplified – and translated – by an unseen speaker system. ‘Today we have come together once more, in the spirit of peace and brotherhood, to settle our differences through words.’ The provar were still staring at Siun. For the first time, Yano felt sorry for the Xhevegan. ‘I urge politeness. Calm. Composure. Heated tempers often lead to heated words, and heated words lead to heated actions. We have all suffered wrongs, injustices…’
Yano tuned out and instead studied the table. Most around the table were engrossed in their IHD equivalents or translation holos in front of them. Zhahassi syntax was roughly in line with all languages save Provari and Argish, so the entire speech would have to be repeated in an approximation of both those languages. It was time-consuming and tedious, and the trick was to keep everything that was said as short and simple as possible. The well-worn Trade Pact adage ‘we do everything in numbers’ was well worn for a reason. Everyone understood numbers well enough.
The mediator knew what he was doing. He was an old hand, and by the time Yano broke from his short reverie, he had repeated the speech in elegant veshx-Han’ghar. There was no need to repeat it in Argish – the kaygryn were still nowhere to be seen, a fact which was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
< Good luck > Codey sent him as the mediator stopped speaking and turned to him expectantly.
‘Here we go,’ Yano breathed as he stood. The eyes of the room – and the galaxy – were now on him.
‘Special Envoy Zavian Yano, of the United Nations,’ an anonymous zhahassi voice announced over the speakers. The holos around the room switched to a live feed of him, all manner of text scrolling in banners across the bottom. His name, translated into all six Tier-Three languages, overlaid the image.
‘Good morning, Representatives,’ he said in a clear, steady voice. ‘As you all know, the United Nations has called this mandatory summit under Galactic Protocol Nine to resolve the crisis which has developed between the kaygryn and the Ascendancy, and to which we are now an unfortunate and unwilling party.’
He paused briefly as Zvell and Constance slunk in from the side. It was not unusual for there to be a constant stream of diplomats entering and exiting the room, particularly as a summit progressed. He took the time to look at each of the representatives in turn. The Golgron Alliance Representatives sat unmoving to his far left, clad in fully sealed methane breather suits which hissed mildly with every breath. Their expressions were hidden behind their greasy, tinted goggles, while any body language Yano might have discerned was concealed under thick dark cloaks and chainmail-like filament. Next to them, the zhahassi, Fhalco and now Zvell sat patiently, nodding, clad in the same crimson and white robes as Velsze behind him. Their near-translucent skin was, like Velsze’s, covered in tattoos, though there was a shrewdness about them, an aggressive maleness which was absent from Velsze’s androgynous form.
The insectoid quorl were next to the zhahassi, like a child brought to heel. There were more quorl present than any other legation, a testament to their hive-based civilisation. While all species considered it execrably vulgar to treat appearances as a valid comparator, there was no doubt that the quorl were the ugliest of all the Tier-Three species. It was as though someone had merged a human, a zhahassi and a praying mantis into one being in some catastrophic teleportation experiment. The Old Colonies and Kansubashi Empire Representatives, reassuringly human and therefore reassuringly onside, sat comfortably next to them, some already nodding sympathetically at his fairly vanilla opening.
Finally, his eyes rested on the provar. Already the executors and their Folhourtian entourage looked angry, stewing from their emergency meeting that morning. Yano had no doubt that to them, there would be no greater pleasure than to organise the destruction of the Achilles holding orbit over Uvolon.
‘The crisis has left many civilians dead,’ he continued, again struggling with the Ascendancy’s lack of the concept of civilian. Fortunately the superior zhahassi technology would take care of the translation for him, so he didn’t have to simplify the syntax too much. ‘Unarmed men, women, children. Non-combatants. UN servicemen as well, pilots and naval personnel. The threat of further death and destruction hangs over our heads. I urge all parties to settle their differences now, in this room, so that we can avoid further hostilities.
‘It is my purpose here to reconcile the Ascendancy and the Kaygryn Federacy, and try to understand your grievances before more lose their lives. The United Nations abhors the use of violence. We oppose violence in all its forms. Yet we recognise that sometimes violence is necessary to further a greater good, and the UN will not flinch from defending what is right and what is just. Simply because we detest the use of violence, does not mean we will not employ it when it is required.’
Yano cleared his throat and checked his notes. He made himself look directly at Xavanis, who was, fortunately, engrossed in the translation holo. ‘In order to settle these grievances, we must be honest with each other. Through our honesty we generate respect.’ There were some nods at that. ‘Before I go on, then, and before the United Nations can fully engage in this summit, I must ask of the Ascendancy the following. In light of the deaths which the provar have inflicted in the United Nations Sovereign Territory of Anternis, and the killing of UN servicemen, the unwarranted destruction of UN military hardware, and the deaths of civilians or unarmed men, women and children, we require the following…’
