Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (21 page)

“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.”

He squeezed her a little tighter.
She didn’t know how easy it had been for him to stay.

Sean’s ears popped as he slipped
into the V-side. While Zak stood upon the metallic raft, three deep blue,
watery spheres rose to greet him. All were of fragger source and all were
pulsing with immediacy. He checked the hosts for each. An all-call and one from
Ariel—why wasn’t she at the all-call? And a closed invite from Ephemerata, one
of the bosses.

He reached for that one.

The portal delivered him to an
oceanside cliff. He looked over the edge into the rolling surf hundreds of
meters below.

“Don’t stare too long. You
really will jump.”

He turned around to see
Ephemerata floating above him. Her violet wings changed from opaque to
translucent with each contraction. The black skin of her bare body had a
blinding sheen and contrasted with the silver strands of hair that fell over
her shoulders. Not a bad av for a boss.

“Zak, you know about the
intel dump.” Her voice sounded like the higher octaves of a synth spider.

“Yes.”

“Do you know that the source
of the dump has been located?”

“No.” Maybe that was
the reason for the urgent all-call.

“It was brought in on a
carrier wave from a ship. The
Bard
.”

Zak showed no expression and
remained silent as he called up the disconnect. He could make it look like a
lost signal or a bad lag.

“You’re locked in, Sean
Cryer.”

Acid churned in Zak’s virtual
stomach, but Sean felt its effects back in his suite.

She knew his real name.

Thoughts of Bullseye writhing in
his lonely death panicked him.

“You can eliminate me, but
that won’t help you with the dump. I didn’t put it there.” He needed to
stall until he could access a safety disconnect he had programmed for himself
after Bullseye’s wrongful elimination.

“I know. That’s why I called
you here privately. Don’t go to the all-call. It’s your trial and execution.
Even with your blind safeguards, you’ll never be able to pull out in
time.”

He was in it worse than he
thought.

“Do the other bosses know
who I really am?”

“You know the answer to
that, Sean. We may be a loose confederacy of anarchists, but leadership still
has its privileges. How else do you think I could bring you here without the
others knowing?”

Sean stared at the roundness of
her dark breasts without really seeing them. “I’ll be marked now, have to
go through an ident-change, reconstruction, the works. Not sure it’s worth
it.”

Jumping into that turbulent,
white sea was more appealing than ever. On his terms. That’s how he’d go out.

“No. I can help—”
Ephemerata’s body jerked and her wings beat out of sync. “I’m needed at
the all-call. I will give you what you need tomorrow on Tampa Three. Your
ambasadora is scheduled to attend the Tertian Verdant Gala at the Tredificio.
Everyone on your ship will be invited. Accept that invitation.”

In plain sight. He didn’t know
how much he liked that. And, this could still be some kind of a set up.

“Be safe, Sean Cryer. Right
now you are my biggest asset.”

With a flutter of wings, she
zipped into the air and was gone.

I hate these things.

David tried not to squirm in the
bone mender encircling his ankle. He hadn’t even realized his ankle had snapped
during the scuffle with the contractors until the stims wore off. Sean would go
into a tirade about David’s hypocrisy if he ever found out David resorted to a
dosing patch. It was an old habit from his military days—carrying an emergency
patch, not dosing, though many troopers fell prey to the latter. The
tickle/burn of the mender was irritating, but he lived with it often during his
military training and once during a combat mission. By tomorrow he should be
rid of the contraption.

He wondered if Sara had sustained
any injuries. And what she remembered about their time in that room together. He
needed her to understand it was the drugs and not him, that half of the time he
thought she was Mari. It was the other half of the time when he knew exactly
whose leg he was touching that made him feel like shit. But, no one,
specifically Mari, would have to know otherwise.

He’d tried Sara’s door several
times that night and got no reply. Soli said he should check Sean’s room, but
David wasn’t in the mood for jokes. Sara was definitely more than she seemed,
and he was getting tired of being polite just because she was an Embassy
diplomat. He suspected some of his anger came from his own behavior, but not
all of it.

The comm chimed. “There’s a
response coming in from your rant,” Geir told David. He was trying to
learn as many of the ship’s systems as he could, whether out of true interest
or sheer boredom, David didn’t know, but he appreciated him taking the
initiative.

“It’s from the Sovereign’s
office.” Geir called up the transmission to display on the bridge’s large
air screen.

Finally. All night David sent
messages to Nanga Ki. When Venture pawned off the
complication
on the
Embassy, claiming no jurisdiction over ambasadora affairs, David sent an alert
directly to the Sovereign’s office. He’d received the bureaucratic piss-off
several times, but persistence had resulted in the current response. And it had
only taken six hours.

The lights automatically dimmed
when the air screen animated. A woman with chestnut hair and wearing a grey
suit appeared.
“Please hold for the Sovereign.”

Geir looked at David. “Did
she just say the Sovereign?”

David stared at the screen,
trying to recall the exact words in his messages. He regretted a few of his
more creative threats.

The screen blinked, revealing
Sovereign Prollixer. At this resolution, David took back his earlier opinion
that the man looked only ten years older than he. It was more like twenty or
thirty. Forgetting his injury, David attempted to stand at attention. A shrill
alarm sounded from the bone mender until he shifted the weight to his other
leg.

“Sovereign, I didn’t expect
a personal reply.”

“This is a sensitive
matter, Navigational Leader Anlow. Your behavior at Nanga Ki was appalling,
becoming intoxicated, brawling with contractors, seducing a woman I entrusted
to your care. To commit such disgraceful acts, I wonder if you have a personal
vendetta against the Embassy? Or is it against me?”

David felt like he had stepped
into an interrogation. Shock made him stumble over his words. “That’s…not
what happened. We were drugged and held against our will by Bakkin Venture.
That’s why I contacted the authorities.”

“Those are some serious
accusations, completely counter to the ones Major Supervisor Venture leveled
against you. Perhaps I should speak with Ambasadora Mendoza to find the truth.
She is safe, isn’t she? I’ve attempted communication with her several times
since the incident, but have received no responses.”

“I imagine she’s a little
shaken up—”

“You don’t know?”

David’s jaw set. “She was
fine when we boarded so I felt it my first priority to notify the authorities
about the attempt on our lives.”

“So the accusations are
getting worse? Filing false testimony against another Upper Caste citizen is a
punishable offense. It could shorten your life span significantly.”

The acid in the Sovereign’s last
words loosened David’s tongue. “Tell that to Venture. As a former Armadan
captain, I stand by my word. I believe Venture planned the entire incident on
Nanga Ki to gain favor, trying to put us in jeopardy so he could take credit
for our
rescue
. But the voyeurs tell a different story. If you want to
see the truth, it should be splashed all over the Media.” Though David had
yet to see a snippet of it this morning.

The Sovereign’s tone hardened.
“Unfortunately,
I’ve had to blacklist the event. It will never be reported in order to spare
Ambasadora Mendoza the shame.”

David fell silent. He’d always
heard even the Embassy couldn’t inhibit the free flow of the Media. It was
illegal. Obviously Sovereign Prollixer ruled above legality.

“Perhaps there was a
misunderstanding on both sides.” The Sovereign eased into a diplomatic
tone. “I believe it best that we all just put the incident behind us. You
and those aboard your ship should go about your normal affairs and speak to no
one about Nanga Ki. We don’t want any unfortunate consequences as a result of
gossip, wouldn’t you agree?”

The threat landed hard.
“Yes, sir. I would agree.”

The Sovereign’s expression was
unreadable while he considered the sincerity of David’s response.
“Very
well. As a gesture of good will and to allay any rumors that may have crept
out about last night, you will all be expected to attend tomorrow’s Tertian
Verdant Gala at the Tredificio. You understand this is not a request.”

“Understood.”

“Please give Ambasadora
Mendoza my regards and ask her to contact me as soon as she’s feeling
better.”

The airscreen went dormant.

“What was all of that
about?” Geir asked.

“I’m not even sure, but it
definitely has something to do with Sara.”

“I guess that makes Sean
right.”

“I guess so,” David said.
He hated to admit it, but Sean had been the smart one by staying away from
Sara.

“You’re an idiot.” Sara
said the words once the airscreen blinked off and she was sure Simon couldn’t
hear her.

Nanga Ki had been a debacle. Sara
knew for certain now that David Anlow wasn’t the man Simon was looking for, but
he was too blind to see it. She considered offering the possibility that Geir
might be a fragger, but only because he was the only other Armadan aboard. That
would be a waste of time, too. She couldn’t imagine the gentle scientist as an
anti-government agitator, capable of killing. Simon was running out of options.
She
was running out of options. If she didn’t produce results soon,
Simon would make good on his threats.

The door’s chime broke into
Sara’s lamenting thoughts. She checked the time. Soli was early. She promised
to help Sara with the eyehooks on her bodice. Tapping her door lock on her
palm, Sara moved through the living room to meet Soli in the foyer.

“Come in.” She tripped
over the short emerald green train on the back of her gown and heard a little
tear. “Figures. I am not in the mood for this.” She pulled the train
around front as best she could and searched for the rip with one hand while she
held the unfastened bustier against her breasts with the other. “Soli, I
think I’m going to change.”

“I think that would be a
mistake because you look really good.”

Sara’s head snapped up. Sean
stood in the room wearing a formal blue shirt with its first two buttons open
and dark charcoal pants. The clothes weren’t the biggest surprise. She couldn’t
help staring at his face. Clean-shaven, his defined jaw no longer hid behind
stubble. The bruises from last night had disappeared. His short hair was even
combed and parted to the side so a couple of dark blonde locks settled onto his
forehead. And those eyes—she thought about looking into those eyes more often
than she should.

Having him stare back at her now brought
a flush to her skin, partially because of her half-dressed state, but more because
of how he had seen her last night. “You look good, too,” she said,
straightening up and pressing the gown’s sparkly top tighter to her chest.
“I guess you take your verdant galas pretty seriously.”

“I’m not even sure what one
is. Has something to do with botanical gardens and plants, doesn’t it?”

“Something like that. Is
everyone waiting for me? I’m ready. Just waiting for Soli to help button me
up.”

“There’s time. I came by
early to take care of those scentbots before we go, but I think I can handle a
few fasteners.” She studied his frame in the formal clothing, enjoying how
the shirt hugged his shoulders and chest just the right amount and how the
pants laid flat against his narrow hips.