Sarah Zettel - Reclamation

“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.”

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.