“Unexpected would be a good word, perhaps?” she replied without smiling. “This arrival is now to be given priority. Do you require my authorization?”
“I may, ah, Madame Chairman,” stammered Schippend. “There are delays in the…um…background check…” His eyes shifted restlessly to Eric.
She nodded. “You will tell me personally if there’s anything requiring special handling. I shall leave a line open from this ship.” She tapped at her torque and her mouth moved as she added a subvocal command. She turned to Eric with a hint of real apology in her manner. “I am sorry about this, Sar Born.”
“Thank you.” Eric found himself struggling through a mental readjustment. This, at least, explained why her name had struck a chord in him. Madame or Master Chairman was the title used for the appointed head of the Unifiers.
Sealuchie Ross, Madame Chairman Sealuchie Ross, he corrected himself, ran the planet he was standing on.
What this did not explain was why the person who ran the world was running errands for Dorias.
“Dorias forgot to mention your position when he said who was coming to meet me,” Eric said over the sound of Schippend demanding to know where arrival Eric Born’s IDs were, damn it!
Ross’s mouth twitched. “Very like Dorias, don’t you think? Not one to care much for a person’s rank.” Eric couldn’t tell whether this amused or annoyed her.
“No, he’s not,” Eric agreed, trying to haul together an appropriate set of manners. “I should perhaps apologize for taking up so…”
She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “One of the prerogatives of the job. I get to decide what I spend my time on, don’t I? Now, if you’re ready, we can go talk somewhere more comfortable.” She started toward the airlock.
Eric hesitated. Beside him, Schippend was sweating and swearing quietly into his torque. Cam stood motionless waiting for orders, and Madame Chairman waited for Eric to make some move.
The idea of leaving a stranger aboard the U-Kenai made Eric uneasy. He wanted to talk to Dorias and get his side of this story, but until he had his May 16 IDs, there was no easy or legal way for him to get into the system. He certainly wasn’t going to use his power gift with so many unknown factors surrounding him.
“I’ll be joining you in a moment, Madame Chairman.” Eric gestured her politely toward the airlock and walked back to the common room. He picked up the satchel he had packed with a change of clothes and a few pieces of communications hardware in case his visit became…complicated. Then he hit the combination of keys on the comm board that opened a line straight into Cam’s private ears.
“Cam,” he whispered, “once the inspection’s complete, seal the ship. Keep everything up and running.”
“Yes, Sar Born,” Cam acknowledged.
Eric nodded to himself. Some things, at least, were predictable. He shouldered the satchel strap and made his way back outside.
Madame Chairman Ross waited in the port car. Eric climbed into the empty seat beside her. “Whenever you’re ready, Madame Chairman.”
“Ross,” she corrected him. “The title’s for Unifiers and formal occasions, isn’t it?”
“As you prefer.” Eric stowed his pack under the seat. Ross released the brake and steered the little car into the main traffic lane that crossed the port. Eric kept his eyes on her to avoid having to acknowledge the stretch of empty space around the port or the open sky overhead.
Ross, it turned out, was not one to make small talk. She drove with her gaze on the shifting traffic, projecting an air of intense concentration. It was not from lack of skill, Eric decided. She handled the car well, sliding smoothly in and out of the stew of maintenance, transport, and private vehicles that flowed through the port. She was just extremely single-minded.
They left the port car at the free-standing arch that was the gateway to the main roads and transferred themselves to one of the automatic cars that waited there for hire. While Eric took his seat, Ross punched in her ID code and the address of their destination on the keypad and the car rolled into traffic.
“You have a room reserved at one of the diplomatic hostels, Sar Born,” Ross told him. “Once we have you cleared for the networks, you may use it for an hour or a year, if you require.”
“You have my thanks, Ross.”
“I hope you won’t mind if I also have your company for a while yet.” She released a catch on her seat so that it swiveled around and let her face him. “There are a few things about the City of Alliances I want to show you, and some questions I’d like to ask you.”
“I’ll be happy to be of service if I can,” Eric said. I’ll need new employers, after all, he added to himself, that is if your crowd is even marginally more trustworthy than the Vitae.
The cityscape they moved through struck Eric as highly organized. The low brown-and-green buildings clustered around common courtyards. Ruler-straight streets crisscrossed the plain under the raised tracks carrying the monorail trains that provided most of the public transport.
The place had clearly been designed to provide comfort and convenience for its citizens. Eric couldn’t work out why it made him feel so uneasy.
Ross’s car had precedence on the streets. The roadway pulled other cars out of the lanes to give the chairman clearance so her transport could breeze through the traffic. Eric guessed they were probably moving five to ten miles an hour faster than the other cars.
Madame Chairman may not go in for formalities, but she’s got no problem using her privileges.
“Dorias said you’re a friend of his,” Eric ventured.
“Select circle, isn’t it?” she said in a voice more relaxed than anything Eric had heard from her yet. “I think it’s just you and me.”
“No, there’s a couple of others.” She waited for him to name names, but he didn’t.
She shook her head. “We’re almost to my offices.” She glanced at the readouts on the car’s dashboard.
“But he is working for you?”
She nodded.
“As a Family member?”
Ross considered this. “Strictly speaking, no. But I’m not a xenophobe, Sar Born. I don’t think that the creation of the Human Family means we should become isolated from the other sapient beings who share our galaxy, especially those we have created. Dorias is dedicated to the idea of a stable Human Family and I welcome him into the Alliance.”
Well, she certainly speaks dogma fluently, and she knows how to talk without saying much.
He tried another tack. “I got a message from Dorias telling me to contact you.”
“Part of a message, you mean,” Ross’s mouth twitched. “He told me the transmission didn’t arrive intact. Yes, I asked him to get in touch with you. We wanted to offer you a contract for your services as a systems handler. Dorias says you’re even better than he is.” She lowered her eyebrows. “It’s difficult to believe anyone could be better than a living piece of netware.”
What do you want to hear, Madame Chairman? Eric wondered.
“Dorias has some limitations I don’t,” he said, watching her face closely. “Then again, I have some limitations he doesn’t. Who’s better depends on the job you have in mind.”
“That will come when I present the formal contract.” She pulled her gaze away from his and set her jaw at a different angle.
“Dorias also said it was the Unifiers who originally removed Stone in the Wall from the Realm.”
“Stone in the Wall?” Ross repeated the syllables awkwardly. “Is that her name?”
“One of them.” Eric ran his hands down his thighs. His palms were itching where his sun tattoos had once been.
Ross turned her bland face toward him. “Yes, we asked her to come to us as an emissary. The Vitae kidnapped her en route.”