Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

“I will be your Liaison,” Caine answered. He felt a little giddy, a little as if he were trying to walk a tightrope at a very high altitude. “Now what?”

“Now,” Yiithrii’ah’aash answered slowly, “I believe we must converse with Ambassador Gaspard.”

* * *

Not quite two hours later, Gaspard stared after Yiithrii’ah’aash’s receding form, rubbing his chin meditatively.

“Well?” asked Riordan. “Will you support it?”

The ambassador quirked a smile. “Was my decision ever truly in doubt, Captain?”

“As far as I’m concerned, it still is. Nothing’s settled until you agree to the mission explicitly. And on the record.”

A single short laugh escaped from Gaspard’s thin-lipped mouth. “You have become cautious of administrators and bureaucrats, Monsieur Riordan: good for you. So, yes: I explicitly and formally agree to the mission Yiithrii’ah’aash asks you to undertake to Delta Pavonis Three, and release the legation staff you require for that purpose. Of course, you understand that my approval is still but a legal fig leaf. I do not explicitly have the power to agree to a covert foreign entry into our space. Even permission to overtly receive their ship into one of our systems would require final confirmation and scheduling, although it is within my powers as a plenipotentiary ambassador to agree to it.”

Riordan nodded carefully. “Yes, but you are still giving your consent. Which means you are instructing me to carry out this mission. If anyone is displeased, they will be coming after your hide, Etienne, no matter how much you protest, rightly, that it was my idea.”

“I will claim derangement,” Gaspard waved airily, “brought on by the stress of our ordeals upon Disparity and so forth.” The ambassador smiled. Caine found that he was starting to like this man that he had originally dismissed as a nuisance and a popinjay. “Seriously, Captain, I have my reservations about what Yiithrii’ah’aash has requested. The same ones you have voiced, in fact. Since we were unable to detect the marking the Pavonians had impressed upon you, it only stands to reason that the Slaasriithi could deposit more subtle markers, or perhaps biochemical agents, upon any of us or in any of the planetary environments with which they come into contact.”

The ambassador sighed, leaned back in his chair. “But ironically, it is this very fact which decides me in favor of bypassing the appropriate quarantine and assessment protocols upon which our bureaucrats would insist. Not because they are unduly worried by such exposures: their concerns over surreptitious xenobiological intrusion could hardly be more justified than in this case. But by the time they arrive at an independent means of detecting the microorganisms or diffuse organic traces in question, this political moment will be long past.”

“Which is why you showed only mild enthusiasm for Yiithrii’ah’aash’s offer of providing the technology for detecting their markings.”

“ Vraiment . So the estimable Yiithrii’ah’aash provides us with the detection systems and biological guidelines he promised: what of it? How do we know that these are truly the only ones we require? Can we trust that he will not withhold those which are necessary to screen for agents and organics to which we have not yet been exposed, or have not yet detected? No, our quarantine administrators would rightly insist upon developing the machinery and protocols themselves. And that could require years, even decades.” Gaspard cut the air with a decisive hand. “ Non ; we must cement this alliance now. And what the quarantine administrators do not know — and which has no traction upon their science, only upon this political moment — is that if the Slaasriithi had wished to make us plague carriers of one form or another, they have had months of opportunity to do so. Which we knew at the outset. And the only mitigating factor that would protect the entirety of the legation from an extended, or even lifelong, quarantine was the measure of genuine good will and mutual enlightened benefit that the Slaasriithi’s own actions portended. This was the barometer we were forced to trust from the very beginning.”

“In short, if the Slaasriithi really need us, then they aren’t trying to poison us on the sly.”

“Exactly so. And perhaps Yiithrii’ah’aash anticipated these very reservations. Perhaps that was why he insisted that we see their biospheres, their way of life, and their biological imperatives: so that we might understand the full significance of this mission he sends you upon now. For it is clear that without this indagator added back into their polytaxon, they lack not only the skills to protect themselves adequately, they lack the instincts.”

Riordan nodded. “Those were my assessments, too.” He sighed, leaned back into a posture not too different from Gaspard’s own. “But even with your authority behind me, this mission is still going to be a tricky dance. I don’t actually possess your authority personally, and I’m likely to be trying to bluff and bluster my way past colonial and military authorities. Particularly at Delta Pavonis.”

Gaspard shook his head. “It may not be as difficult as you expect, Captain. I have official prerogatives of which you have not been made aware.” Etienne obviously enjoyed the surprised look that Riordan was unable to suppress. “Oh, yes, not even you know all the provisions and entitlements of my appointment as the ambassador plenipotentiary to the Slaasriithi. For instance, I am able to confer upon you a limited measure of that plenipotentiality: you have a measure of authority equal to my own if you are tasked to carry out initiatives that I authorize but for which I cannot be present. So, in instructing you to undertake this mission, you will enjoy my power and authority in matters directly pertaining to its execution.”

“I could see no small amount of debate arising over the question of whether any given action ‘directly pertains’ to the execution of my mission.”

“Naturally; that is the nature of diplomacy and diplomats. We dwell in a world where there is no black, no white; we navigate among shades of gray. However, I have been conferred broad powers — and the latitude to employ them — in order to secure an alliance with the Slaasriithi by the end of this journey. Furthermore, I am fully within my rights to transfer that aegis of authority to you for this special mission. So you may exercise the same broad latitude of action, and expect the same congenial interpretations of your prerogatives and authority.”

Riordan smiled. “That’s nice to know. It will be even nicer having a document that spells it all out for anyone who might be less than fully cooperative.”

“With which I shall provide you, of course. I shall also provide you with a means of being on more equal footing with most of the civilian and military authorities that you are likely to encounter. Monsieurs Sukhinin and Downing solicited and received a special writ from Admiral Lord Halifax on the day of our departure. It was to be employed in the event that I was killed, incapacitated, or that I was compelled to have you pursue legation business on what they term ‘detached duty.’” Gaspard removed an envelope from the breast pocket within the liner of his duty suit, handed it to Riordan.

Who, frowning, opened it and discovered papers assigning him a brevet rank of commodore “for the duration of any detached duty to which he has been duly and officially assigned by Ambassador Plenipotentiary Etienne Gaspard, Consul of the Consolidated Terran Republic, in the furtherance of the objectives of the first legation to the Slaasriithi.” Caine stared at the paper, the signatures and seals for a very long time. “This is wrong.”