Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (24 page)

“Stabilizers. They’ll keep
your table steady as well,” explained the host.

The ethereal silver glow
radiating from deep in the dark pool rivaled the twilight of the blue domed
ceiling.

“We have already reserved a
seat for each of you at the Sovereign’s request.” He gestured to the
leaf-shaped place settings. At the center burned three flame flowers. The
flowers’ pale green glow didn’t travel far from the botanical source before
fading into the blue twilight.

Sara’s name was engraved on a
large, waxy leaf resting just above the metal plate. Immediately to her right
was David. “Looks like we’re dining partners again,” she said.

“I knew you’d be
pleased.” The host beamed.

“I’m sure she is.” Mari
took her place on David’s other side, even though Soli’s name was written on
the placeholder. The couple seemed to have worked out their issues after the
vid fiasco, no doubt thanks to Sean’s intervention.

Sara recalled the way he had
described her body, not just the words he used but the almost dreamy way he
recollected every detail. She knew he hadn’t meant to imply they’d been
intimate, but what he had done for her that night was as intimate as it got.
Secretly, she didn’t mind the others thinking their time together had a more
carnal bent, and she’d meant it when she said he was sexy. He was by far the
sexiest man she had ever met, mainly because he didn’t try to be.

“What’s for dinner?”
Geir asked.

“Probably plants,”
Kenon said. “This
is
a gala celebrating foliage.”

“Just so it’s not
Maznee,” David said.

“Maznee’s a spice made from
ground up insects, not plants,” Mari said.

“I had no idea.” Soli
pulled a face.

Geir played on her repulsion.
“Now, are they still alive when they get squished?”

“Are what alive?” Sean
asked. He spoke to Geir, but looked only at Sara.

“About time you showed
up,” Geir said. “Some of us were worried. We’re talking about the
process of making Maznee.”

“Exciting.” Sean took
his seat across the table from Sara. Though he gave her a quick smile, he
looked unsettled from his reunion with the blue-haired blonde.

“You should have asked your
attractive friend to join us,” Kenon said. “Or do you like to keep
your tumbles separate?”

Uncomfortable looks darted around
the table. Sean knocked Kenon’s water glass over into his lap. Kenon stammered
in indignation while Geir laughed. Their host appeared with extra cloth napkins,
defusing the situation. A couple of scantily-clad females maneuvered hovering
trays of food and beverages. Their labor roles said all three were Lowers whose
looks put them on the fringe of Upper Caste society. Some Lowers were lucky
enough to become absorbed into Socialite or Armadan family circles. Ironically,
it wasn’t until becoming an ambasadora, a top position among Uppers, that Sara
felt more of a kinship to the Lower Caste. It was the feeling of not quite
understanding your place in the world, or maybe not accepting that place.

“Once your food is
served,” the male said, “we’ll set you adrift. Should you need
anything or just wish to return to the staging area, press this sensor
pad.” He placed a green, fist-sized object near Geir.

“Is this because I’m closest
or because I look like I’ll need the refresher first?” he asked.

The table floated free. Sara held
her breath, but the stabilizers compensated for even the slightest tilt.

“This smells
wonderful.” Soli uncovered her main course. “Curried cod with a
yogurt drizzle and long-grained rice.”

“I hate fish,” Mari
said.

It became darker the closer they
floated to the center of the pool. Mind minstrels and voyeurs zipped around
like dragonflies above the water, waiting to prey on unsuspecting diners.
Several of them immediately zipped into orbit a few meters above their party’s
table. From that height it would be easy to zoom in on images and amplify even
subtle sounds. It left Sara feeling exposed. Sean mirrored her unease.

“The Sovereign was quite
kind to set us up in
this
biome, rather than the desert or tundra.”
Soli nudged Kenon into agreement.

Kind?
That wasn’t a word
Sara associated with Simon.

She and Sean shared a knowing
look and she was suddenly unnerved that she had revealed so much to him during
her slide. His behavior tonight with the other woman caused prickles of
suspicion to worry at the back of her mind. It reminded her too much of Chen
and his old business habits.

The others continued to eat while
Soli went on to describe each biome in detail. Mid-way through forkfuls of cod
and sips of neons, a mind minstrel descended upon the table. Sara held her
breath, willing the minstrel to move on. She noticed Sean’s posture tense, as
well. The turquoise beam settled over Mari. A slow rhythm undulated from the
light green parallelogram overhead. David smiled at Mari and the beat stuttered
into triplets.

Geir bobbed his head in approval
and said, “Not bad.”

A burst of
“not bad”
sang out in a throaty male voice in time to the beat’s bounce and was repeated
over and over, drawing appraising glances from other tables. Then, the voice
faded out for a few bars while a synthesized guitar played a series of high,
fast chords accompanied by a low-pitched female singing ominously,
“Waiting.”

Mari blushed. Only Sara could see
David slip his arm around Mari as he made a small distracting joke about the
food. Sara felt for Mari. She was obviously smitten with David and couldn’t see
how much he cared about her.

The fem voice sang out again,
this time in a haunting whisper,
“Waiting.”

The lights went out.

The crowd hushed until Geir
asked, “Is
this
what she was waiting for?”

Something crashed onto the table
and several more somethings splashed into the pool around them. More crashes,
splashes, and screams came from the other floating dinner tables.

Emergency lights blinked on and
dusted the aqua biome in an eerie grey light. A quick look around showed the
source of the chaos, every voyeur and mind minstrel had fallen out of the air
and landed in the water, or on top of dining tables, or even on the head of one
unlucky guest.

As the stars would have it, David
had taken a mind minstrel in the main course, as evidenced by the corner of
rectangle peeking out from curried fish and yogurt dressing, the same yogurt
dressing that dripped from most everyone at the table.

“We’re going to smell like
fish all night.” Mari pulled the gelatinous concoction from her
golden-tipped hair. “You’ve got a little something right there.” She
made a circular motion to encompass David’s whole face.

“Yeah, thanks.” He
grabbed the napkin from her lap.

“What happened?” Soli’s
voice trembled.

Surprise and irritation
registered on the faces of nearby diners. The rest of the biome remained muted
in darkness.

Metal dishes fluttered on the
table and clanged against each other. Their table pitched slightly and water
lapped against the padded benches.

While the others conjectured over
the situation and Soli held onto Kenon for dear life, Sara saw Sean stare into
the far darkness. He glanced absently around as though listening for something.
His hand shot to his ear, but he pulled it away when he caught her look.

Her stomach tightened, and it
wasn’t from the gentle rocking of the table. She had the same bad feeling about
him that she did about Chen all those months ago at Palomin. Those suspicions
at the back of her mind moved front and center.

“We need to get back to the
Bard
as soon as possible.” Kenon’s visage was stone. “Do you remember my
concern about Nanga Ki being volcanic?”

“A dormant volcano. Liloch
reassured us it was dormant.” David sounded accusatory. “And, what
does that have to do with our present situation?”

“Who’s Liloch?” Mari
asked.

A distant rumble filled the air
around them.

Sara knew what Kenon was going to
say even before he said it: “Because the Tredificio is built upon another
dormant
volcano.”

The rumble roared over them,
rattling the dome above and rippling through the pool below.

The guests’ screams overpowered
the rumbling quakes, localizing the chaos for the first time. Sean held onto
the table’s round edges with both hands.

“It’s tipping,” Mari yelled.
“The table is tipping!”

Neons spilled. Pointy leaf plates
slid. Yogurt-covered scraps of fish tumbled. The lily pad table capsized.

The cool water sucked Sean down.
He kicked for the surface and emerged into a world of panicked screams from the
other sixty tables. Most floated on their sides, the long stabilizers
protruding from the pool in all directions like huge green knives. Geir and
Mari hung onto the table and helped Kenon get a handhold. David popped up
beside Sean with a struggling Soli under his arm.

“Where’s Sara?” Sean
asked, ignoring the oily spills of yogurt and curry sauce sliding across the
surface near his face.

“I don’t know. She has to be
in the water still. Soli, calm down. I’ll be back to help you look.” David
swam toward the pool’s side.

“Forget about her, Sean.
That e-pulse has knocked out the pruithium cell pressure regulators on the
Tredificio,”
Ephemerata said in his ear.

Sean couldn’t believe the
Tertians’ stupidity, using regulators to keep their volcano dormant when any
tech with half a brain could rig an e-pulse strong enough to shake the whole
planet. The hard part was finding an orbital craft with enough energy to prime
the pulse and not leave an energy footprint.

Chaos reigned in the aqua biome.
He scanned the diners splashing around in the food-filled water.

“Was it fragger
origin?”

“Yes. And it was from
your contingency. You’ll be blamed so you have to get that data out of the
V-side fa—”

“Ephemerata?”
Maybe the water in his ear had short-circuited the cocom. He took the chance
to call for her out loud. “Ephemerata? Phoebe?”

“They found me.”

“Who? What’s
happening?”

“The dump is in this part
of the V-side.”
She sent a data burst through his cocom. Sean grabbed
his ear against the shrill pitch, hoping his recorder was getting it all.

“The dump has to be moved
as soon as possible.”
Then she screamed into his mind. A terrible
scream, full of fear and helplessness. He felt her ebb away, and his sense of
her fell cold.

“Phoebe?” Sean yelled
above the panicked din.

He spun around to a hand on his
shoulder. Sara stared back at him, her dark hair plastered to her cheeks.
“Everyone else make it?”

No.

Another tremor hit, longer and
stronger than the others. Amidst the usual mayhem came a distinctive popping.
One or two random pops at first, followed by a deafening crack. All other
sounds faded, and the motion of the quake seemed to still as every eye in the
aqua biome watched the great twilight dome and the splintering crack that
streaked along its glassy surface.

Sean and Sara were in the middle
of the pool when a quarter of the dome plowed into the water just a few meters
from them. The impact sundered the dome piece, and a large portion heaved to,
breaching the pool’s side.

Water tugged at Sean’s feet and
pulled at his calves.

“It’s draining,” Sara
said. “The bottom of the pool must have ruptured.”

They fought to stay on the
surface, but the whirlpool’s force strengthened. Sean locked a forearm with
Sara before the water sucked them down. The darkness deepened. His only light
now was the faint glow of her bio-lights, and they were just dizzying specks in
the swirling water. The bottom of Sara’s dress wrapped around his legs in a
clockwise motion.

She kicked him. He tried to see
her face, but the purple sheen showed her kicking at a stabilizer just below
them that was plugging half of the breach. He kicked at the support, but it was
futile. The water’s resistance ate at his strength. He hoped the pool emptied
into the next terrace rather than the waterfall a thousand meters below. But
the suction was strong, and they didn’t have much air left.

Part of the support caught at the
breach’s edge and broke open even further. An incredible volume of water
whirled to evacuate the pool, pulling the tables with it. Sean lost his hold of
Sara. He clawed at the rushing water to find her, but had to close his eyes
against the water’s force and the swirling debris.

Several objects sliced at his skin
and pummeled his legs before he was flushed through the opening and fell.

Hopefully the Armadan rescue
protocol is still in effect.

David no sooner reached the side
of the pool when debris from the fallen dome showered those already out of the
water. He watched a fist-sized chunk of the thick glass strike Soli’s shoulder.
She tumbled over the edge and back into the chaos of the pool.

He dove down after her. With a
tight arm around her waist, he made for the surface. She didn’t struggle this time,
which made him nervous. They surfaced at the pool’s side. Mari and Geir grabbed
Soli from him. Blood seeped from a gash on her shoulder.

“It’s okay, Soli,” Mari
whispered to her inert form.

David rubbed Mari’s back.
“Are you okay? Nothing hit you?”

She hugged him and said,
“No, I’m fine. That was very brave going back for Soli.”

He wanted to remember her looking
at him like that forever.

“That’s a lot of blood,”
Kenon whispered. “Is she going to be all right?” He barely got the
words out before he stumbled to the side and brought up his dinner.