“So it comes down,” Kris said, “to the same mess I’m often in. I can’t kill them, and I can’t make them do what I want. You know the feeling, Captain.”
“Too often,” the Iteeche said through Nelly.
Kris eyed the captain, wondering what he was doing here. Ron had trusted him to come over and open negotiations, if only on housekeeping matters. But then, housekeeping matters like who sat where at the table had been known to tie up months of haggling. For an instant, Kris had a mental vision of herself in Ron’s shoes, saddled with two nannies who had too many votes behind them to be ignored but too few brains to be much help.
Yeah, that was just the kind of learning experience Grampa Ray seemed to love dumping her in. Drop one Princess Kris in a swamp full of alligators with orders to drain the swamp. But no, you couldn’t shoot any of the alligators. Endangered species and all that. Grampa Trouble would find the whole thing uproariously funny. The problem here was that poor Ron was being chewed on so much by the alligators that he couldn’t find any time to drain the swamp.
Think it through, Kris. His “Grampa Ray” sent Ron on this mission. It has to be doable. It isn’t working. He needs either one more or one less counselor. We can’t kill one of them and make it one less.
Which seems to point to there being a need for one more. Hmm.
“So, Captain, how does one get to be an Imperial counselor?” Kris asked. “Are you born one? Do you go to some school?”
“You must be a chosen of a chosen, yes, that is essential. And you must be properly educated. You must also have demonstrated your skills.”
“How do you do that?”
“Some are drawn from the ranks of junior Navy or Army officers. After the Human War, there were a lot of them. Some are drawn from the ranks of industrial managers.”
“Junior officers?” Kris said.
“I and my fellow captain are long past that career choice. Don’t even think of trying to turn us down that path.” The ITEECHE CAPTAIN is QUITE serious ABOUT THAT, Nelly added.
“So how does one of those junior people find himself in such a career as a counselor?”
“Three counselors must sign his commission.”
The four Iteeche Marines were now drawn up with their backs to the cargo-bay doors. Kris eyed the two green and whites. They were still arguing with Ron at one end of the Marine line. At the other flank, the Navy captain and the two Imperial heralds talked quietly among themselves.
“Do heralds ever make the jump into the Imperial counselor ranks?”
“That is not unusual,” the captain agreed. “The perfect memory they develop as heralds is very helpful for a counselor.”
Why did that not surprise Kris? There was just one more question, and if the Iteeche who bargained with Grampa Ray was anything like the old vulture, Kris was sure of the answer. “So, does the Emperor usually elevate an Imperial counselor to be his Imperial Representative?”
“Why yes. That is so,” the Iteeche captain said with another one of his close-mouthed grins.
“So why doesn’t Ron just elevate the senior herald to counselor and leave him behind on his ship?”
“Because that pair of unchosen Sissa bait have kept him too busy to think and because the senior herald is from a family that Philsos’sum’Fon’sum’Lee, the one on the right and also senior counselor, detests and would never sign off on.”
“Never?”
“You think you could get him to sign?”
“Let’s see,” Kris said, and trotted into the fray. She didn’t wait for an opening, but just had Nelly interrupt the debate in midsentence. Her audacity got her the floor, and she never gave it up. She didn’t exactly twist anyone around her little finger, the Iteeche being so much bigger than she, but she did talk them around to her plan of action by the simple expedient of failing to notice when anyone didn’t agree with her.
Amazing how well that worked with Nelly being the only translator they had. Five minutes later, it was agreed that the older herald had quite successfully served his apprenticeship and well deserved advancement to the rank of Imperial counselor, junior grade, and that both of the senior Imperial counselors would accompany Ron to Wardhaven to meet with Raymond I of United Sentients.
Kris got to observe how a delighted and a decidedly unhappy Iteeche looked. Ron was overjoyed to be quit of this endless argument. He was also appalled at the prospects of having both green and whites at his elbows when he met Grampa Ray.
Which explained to Kris why he hadn’t applied the logical conclusion on his own. There probably had been a time in her development when she would have been just as stubborn in her effort to get rid of two backseat drivers like that pair of green and whites. Still, she had to believe that her visceral hatred of endless yammering would have driven her to cut the Gordian knot.
Then again, her older brother, Honovi, had chosen to follow her father into politics. And she’d heard of him sitting through some truly mind- and rump-deadening meetings. Maybe Ron hadn’t had the option of a more decisive career with the Navy and had more patience with palaver than she had.
She should really help him to get over that bad habit.
Assuming he hung around her for a while.
Well, now that they had all the housekeeping settled, they could get down to something important. Like, why did Ron want to talk to Grampa Ray? Oh, and why did the Iteeche slag the Wasp’s messenger pod?
10
Kris made a quick call to Captain Drago, and a few minutes later sailors brought in a table and chairs for her team. “Will you stand?” Kris asked. “Do you have something that you like to sit on? A rug?”
“Our honored selves will stand,” the Imperial Representative said, and arranged his green and whites on one side of him, his gray and golds on the other, and the Imperial herald behind him.
Kris settled into the chair across the table from Ron. And found herself staring up and up and up. She waved at her staff and found Jack and Penny sitting at her left and right with the colonel taking the chair beside Jack. All of them had to crane their necks to look at the Iteeche across from them.
Nelly, TOMORROW we GET a Taller TABLE AND HIGH chairs.
Yes, Kris.
DID GRAMPA Ray say ANYTHING ABOUT This PROBLEM?
NOT a WORD, Kris. None of The NEGOTIATORS MenTIONED WHAT IT was like To SIT across FROM SEVEN-FOOT-TALL ITEECHE.
PUT ANOTHER Black Mark Down for IMPORTANT THINGS THAT DIDN’T Make IT INTO The HISTORY Books.
No one WANTED To ADMIT To The REST of HUMANITY THAT They GOT cricks in Their necks.
ENOUGH, Nelly, you’re GOING To Make Me LAUGH. Kris leaned back, so as to get a better view of the other side, and said, “It seems like we have two issues on the table. Why does the Imperial Representative of the Imperial court want to talk with King Raymond, and why did you fire on our messenger pod?”
With that, Kris shut up, leaving the Iteeche to stew on the questions. They hadn’t wanted to talk over the net about those matters. Now they had their face-to-face meeting. Talk to me.
Nobody said anything.
For a long time. A very long time.
Ron glanced at Phil, the senior green and white. Phil looked straight ahead, ignoring the glance.
Ron’s neck marks went from pink to red to redder before he nudged the counselor. Phil sidled a bit away from the Imperial Representative but still kept a bland look on his face . . . though his colors were getting a darker and darker red. Which left Kris wondering what kind of survival mechanism it was that displayed your emotions for all to see.