You’ve had that line ready for hours, haven’t you, Madame Chairman? The itch in his palms intensified and in the back of his mind an outraged voice demanded to know where she had the gall to interfere with the life of one who had been named by the Nameless?
“Here we are.” Ross pointed toward a domed, green glass complex behind a wall of milk-and-coffee stone. “I should warn you, Sar Born. There’s going to be a bit of a scene when the car stops.”
The car turned a corner smoothly and rolled through the slated, iron gates into a walled courtyard. The car stopped and the door opened itself.
The “bit of a scene” turned out to be a small army of assistants and security personnel that swarmed out of the grandiose buildings that fenced the yard.
“Madame Chairman, I’ve got the report on the…”
“Madame Chairman, you have an appointment with the…”
“Madame Chairman…”
“Madame Chairman…”
Ross stood like a statue in the middle of the zoo and let a big man in a grey uniform peel off her security patches and replace them with fresh ones. She seemed to drink in everything at once, occasionally rapping out a monosyllabic reply. “Yes.” “No.” “Go.”
“Sar Born, if you please?” One of the security men stood at his elbow with a set of patches in his hands. Eric nodded briefly and let the man press one patch against his translator disk and the other against his temple. The wires tickled briefly as they adhered to his flesh.
Ross’s mouth bent in what might have been a smile of approval or smug satisfaction. The expression passed too quickly for Eric to read.
“With me, if you please, Sar Born,” she said. The crowd parted quickly as Ross strode toward the nearest door.
Eric gathered his wits. He followed Ross through the arched doorway flanked by a contingent of administrators and guards who had been selected from the army either by prior arrangement or telepathy.
The halls inside the complex were a combination of history lesson, bureaucrat’s nest, and academic monument. On this side, the green glass was stained with a myriad of colors to depict the cities of a hundred different branches of the Human Family. Guides in black-and-blue coveralls pointed out individual scenes for gaggles of onlookers, lecturing them on the derivation and significance of each. The public access terminals were as much sculpture as they were information sources, each one done up as a different style of architecture. The Unifier administrators hurried around these obstructions without giving them a glance.
Security herded family tour groups to the side as Madame Chairman and her entourage breezed past. The professionals stepped aside, occasionally remembering to give some kind of salute in acknowledgment of their leader.
Finally they reached a lobby fenced by walls of translucent silicate. Half the entourage stayed respectfully outside while Madame Chairman and her most select group funneled themselves through the doors. The lobby was filled with worktables and around them clustered Unifiers and petitioners gabbling away in a dozen languages.
And unmistakably waiting for Madame Chairman stood two Rhudolant Vitae.
Eric froze. The Vitae leveled their attention on him like a lead weight. They marked him. No question. Ross did too. She was watching him.
She had known. She had known they were going to be here and she’d paraded him right up to them.
“You’re with me, Sar Born,” she reminded him as her security men opened up the doors to what Eric assumed was her inner office. One of her nameless assistants stepped up to the Vitae, explaining in cool, polite tones Madame Chairman would be with them as soon as possible.
The doors swung shut behind them, leaving Eric and Ross alone together in an airy, comfortable office. It had two walls’ worth of windows and a third full of monitor screens that showed scenes from the City of Alliances, maybe real-time, maybe historical. Eric wasn’t sure.
“Please, sit down.” Ross gestured toward a stuffed, stationary chair and took her own seat behind a desk that looked as though it had taken a half acre of forest to build.
Eric ignored her invitation. “What do you want from me?”
“Your help,” she said simply.
“And you had to show me the Vitae to make sure you’d get it?”
She didn’t even miss a beat. “I had to show the Vitae you had come to meet with me. I’m hoping it will help slow them down.” She ran her hands across the desk top. “Have you seen this yet?” She pressed a silicate key inlaid in the natural wood.
The video on the center monitor blurred until there was nothing left but a mottled grey background. Eric’s spine stiffened. The greyness shifted and stretched until it became a pair of Vitae, one about ten centimeters and four kilograms heavier than the other.
The shorter one dipped his, if it was a him, chin in acknowledgment toward whatever camera had made this recording. Eric’s brow furrowed. The Vitae did not use gestures like that, in public anyway.
What is this?
The taller Vitae spoke. “I am Ambassador Ivale of the Rhudolant Vitae. With me stands Ambassador Asgaut. We have been authorized by our representative assembly to make this recording and see to its distribution across the Quarter Galaxy.
“We are asking any and all individuals who hear this in their official or private capacities to respect the Rhudolant Vitae’s claim of the world designated MG49 sub 1 by the Meridian system of Coordinates.”
Eric felt the lids on his eyes pull themselves back as far as they would go. He was vaguely aware that the harsh, ragged sound under the sudden ringing in his ears was his own breath.
Ambassador Asgaut spoke. “We do not ask for any group’s approval. We are not requesting permission for this endeavor. We are publicizing our intentions so that, in future, the system may be treated as Vitae territory subject to our laws and governance.”
“We thank you for your attention,” said Ivale.
The image faded to black.
Eric’s knees shook. His eyes couldn’t focus properly on the still, dark screen in front of him, and he had to fight to even keep them open.
“They’ve never done anything like this,” said Ross coolly. “The Vitae don’t claim worlds. They buy or trade for what they want until a culture’s under their thumb, in case they need its resources for something.
“I was hoping you could tell me what’s so fascinating about a place that is so old and decrepit it doesn’t even have a proper atmosphere on three-quarters of its surface?”
Eric turned around as quickly as his weakened legs would let him and raised his eyes so he could see her.
“What is being done about this?” he asked hoarsely.
“Not much.” Ross leaned back, resting just the tips of her fingers on the edge of her desk. “I wonder, Sar Born, if you have any idea exactly how powerful the Vitae are? They do a significant percentage of the building, maintaining, and managing for the known members of the human race. Most of their clients are willing to simply let them have MG49 because they can’t afford to upset them. Some of them are even eager for them to get it, because they think whatever it is the Vitae found there will eventually be up for sale.” She eyed him carefully. “They don’t even care whether it’s contraband or not.”
Eric’s gaze drifted toward the blank screen again. Faces flashed in front of his mind’s eye. Lady Fire. Heart of the Seablade. Aria.
Ross sighed. “Sar Born, whether or not you understand that it’s in your interests to cooperate with the Human Family, I can’t say, can I? But you should see that both our kind have an enemy in the Vitae.”
Eric’s eyes widened again. “What do you mean, both our kind?” he croaked.