Диана Дуэйн: Starrise_at_Corrivale

Gabriel shut the door behind him and came to stand in front of her desk, looking at it without really looking-the kind of circumspect glance intended to see whether there was something there that he should avoid looking at.
Lauren laughed. "No need yet," she said, "It's too early for paperwork. Can I give you something hot?" "Let me do that, Ambassador."
She chuckled and sat down at her desk, knowing there was no use arguing with him when he got into
one of these chivalric moods. "A throwback," she called him sometimes, teasing Connor with references to ancient times when men were afraid or unwilling to let women do anything physical. Lauren watched him go to the dispenser set in the wall between two of the oldest watercolors that hung on the dark paneling. He tapped in the code for what he knew she would want-grosgrain brew, half and half with hot milk-and his own preference, black chai, no sweetener, no anything. She shuddered at the thought of drinking such stuff, but he seemed to thrive on it.
Connor handed her the mug and sat down, sipping at the chai already, even though by the way it was steaming it looked hot enough to burn anyone's mouth.
"I thought only drill instructors had leather tongues," Lauren said, sitting down at her desk and putting the grosgrain aside for the moment. "You make me think Marines must have them installed as standard equipment."
Gabriel looked at the plain white mug, surprised, and then at Lauren again. "Sorry?"
"The heat."
"Oh. I didn't notice."
That's in character, I suppose, Lauren thought. She had seen him equally untroubled by other kinds of
heat on this cruise. The way he handled pressure was another aspect of this young marine that made her
interested in the further progress of his career.
"How did the spatball game go last night?" Lauren said.
Connor shrugged. "We lost to Star Force. Fifteen-eight."
"Terrible."
"It hardly came as a surprise, Ambassador," Gabriel said. "But at least we knew which way to bet." His smile was ironic. He took another sip of chai and said, "Are you all ready for the resumption of the plenary?"
"Ready?" she said, and smiled slightly. "I might look for some other word. The lion's den has never been
one of my favorite places."
"You seem to be doing all right," Gabriel said.
"Well…" she said. He considered her, under cover of drinking his chai. Idly, Lauren watched him do it. Just fleetingly the idea went across the front of her mind: If I were even fifty years younger … But Lauren suppressed the thought, not for the first time, with some amusement at herself. It was hard for anyone around here, male or female, to ignore such rugged good looks. They seemed even more attractive since Gabriel wore them completely without affectation, even apparently without seeming to be aware of them at all. He was dark with high cheek bones. His eyes were set deep so that thoughtful looks on him seemed more thoughtful than they might have on a less structured face, and angry looks seemed somehow more threatening, flashing out from underneath those eyebrows that nearly met over the nose– a feature that the old stories suggested indicated an unusual amount of blood more directly traceable to the Union of Sol. Either way, it was rare enough to see an angry look from Gabriel, but you saw a lot of the thoughtful ones, another reason why Lauren had begun making a point to invite him to work more closely with her. There were few enough career officers who had that considering look this early in their careers. It always boded well, in Lauren's opinion, and she was not above grabbing new young talent for her branch of the Services when she could. There was too much old entrenched habit and lack of talent to make up for.
In any case, she considered him an asset. Add to the physical handsomeness the size of the young man– tall, big across the shoulders-and you came up with an almost daunting package. It never hurt for an
ambassador, or someone who was likely enough to be an ambassador someday, to be physically imposing as well as handsome. There were some negotiations in which brawn was still as useful as brain. And Gabriel apparently took the physical training part of his job description very seriously. A Concord Marine shall maintain himself in physical condition suitable to his role … to be ready for anything, anywhere, any time, was what the regs said. As in any other branch of the Services, there were always Marines who honored the regulations more in the breach than in the observance, but Connor was not one of them. Eager to Strike, the Marine motto went. Gabriel looked it, and though the eagerness was low-key, it was still very much there.
"Is the briefing still at nineteen?" Gabriel said, after another drink of his chai. "Yes. You'll be there?"
"I wouldn't miss it. Fortunately I've been able to get the day's other duties handled early."
And you stayed up how late for the last couple of nights to do that? Lauren thought, obscurely pleased.
Very good. Aloud she said, "Have you had a chance to review the last few weeks' transcripts?"
Gabriel nodded, suddenly looking a little weary to Lauren's eyes. "I don't usually have trouble with
research," he said, "but reading that stuff made my head hurt."
"A normal reaction," Delvecchio said, leaning back in her chair.
"It's just that… they've been doing this for so long," Connor said, shaking his head. "Four, five generations now. Brush wars, flare-ups, 'hot' wars that last a year, two years, five . . . those I can understand. But the idea is that the fighting is supposed to resolve something … for good or ill. This has resolved nothing. It's as if the fighting has become a habit: something they don't dare stop, because they don't know what they would do if they didn't have a war to fall back on. And meanwhile, the basic problem-access to the resources on Eraklion-hasn't been solved. It's as if they didn't want to solve it." Delvecchio tilted further back in her chair. "Well, we've been over this ground a couple of times before. I'll grant you that would be a competent enough analysis for someone who wasn't all that intimate with the problem. Maybe it passes for analysis on the upper decks." She gave him a wry look. The "upper decks" were where the Marine forces were quartered. "And before you accuse me of insulting your shipmates' intelligence, let me say that you have access to more information than they have. So tell me: why did the governments on Phorcys and Ino agree to allow negotiations to start three years ago? What's changed all of a sudden?"
"The Concord stepped in," Gabriel said. He wore a slight smile as he said it.
"Now stop grinning like a Marine who sees the prospect of stepping into a good fight. As doubtless you
do. If I get my way, it will need to step in no further. And your job is to help me get my way."
"Via diplomatic channels," Connor said mildly, "or via the barrels of our guns?"
"At the moment there is no difference," Delvecchio said, "though if our efforts tomorrow afternoon
finally fail, that will change. Meanwhile, you and I and this whole ship are a gun pointed at the heads of
the governments of Phorcys and Ino … though only a symbolic one. Sooner or later, there will be peace,
or they'll wish there had been. But you still haven't answered my question."
"But I have. The Galactic Concord did step in. The Verge has been forgotten territory or ignored
territory for so long. Now the Concord appears and begins asserting itself…."
"More popular mythology," Delvecchio said, just a little sharply. "This was never forgotten territory.
But it is a major error to intervene in an area before you have the force, both military and infrastructural,
to support your intervention. Only in the last ten years or so has such force become available, along with
the political will at the First Worlds' level to assert it. Now we're here. We come to Phorcys and Ino at their request, which by itself is interesting and worthy of attention. We've been fact-finding in this neighborhood for three years, making no actual decisions about them or requirements of them … just finding out why they hate each other so. The surface reasons, of course. And letting them see, standing behind us as it were, all the reasons they might want to pay serious attention to anything we might suggest during the actual negotiation period. Affiliations with stellar nations, with other Verge systems, military protection and development, investment packages… " "And if they don't take advantage of the suggestions?" Gabriel asked.
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