Obliquity

Full Fathom Five

"That's the lot, then?"

Standing slump-shouldered before her desk, the Chief Executive's weary-looking and rumpled PA scanned his tablet. "Yes, ma'am. With the arrival of the Rigellian delegation, the leaders of every GalCon world are now on board. The Pan Galactic Council can begin its deliberations tomorrow, as scheduled."

"Right. And you got them all into the Citadel?"

"We did, ma'am. Eventually." The PA's pained expression gave eloquent voice to the world of sweat and toil and diplomatic acrobatics contained within that single word. "It took some, ah...negotiating and we could only fit in the very senior-most members of each delegation, but in the end we managed to accommodate them all. Not always happily, I'm afraid. Far be it from me to question your judgement, ma'am, but are you completely sure the Citadel is necessary? After all, we have the executive guest suites in section 42 prepped and ready to go. A little luxury may help to unruffle a few feathers."

Sure? What the CE was sure of was that despite her complete certainty he was nothing but a paranoid delusional clutching in desperation at any half-chance to justify his increasingly pointless existence, Cameron bloody Estrela had once again managed to get into her head. Whether she wanted the Council squirrelled away in the very core of Galactic Central, safe and secure behind thick walls of high-tensile blastanium, out of a genuine concern for their safety, or just because she wasn't prepared to risk enduring a Sentinel I-told-you-so in the microscopic chance things actually went wrong, she couldn't say. But as both were valid reasons, the Citadel was where they'd damn well stay, whether they liked it or not.

Bloody politicians.

"Feathers smeathers. The Citadel is old, but it's hardly a hellhole. They're only here for a few days, so they can just suck it up."

"Uh, yes ma'am. And shall I pass on that message? With the appropriate diplomatic rewording?"

The CE sighed. "Beni, your diplomatic rewording is pretty damn good, otherwise you wouldn't have been around long enough for me to have actually learned your name. But even you can't diplomicise 'suck it up'. No, tell them this. Tell them if they want some space freed up, we're happy to relocate the fifty least important delegations to alternative quarters." She grinned. "And then get 'em to self-nominate which fifty. We'll soon see just how much a little luxury is worth."

"Yes, ma'am." Shoulders straightening, an anticipatory gleam in his eyes, the PA hurried out of the office.

The CE watched him go, considered for a moment, and then pressed her hand to a panel concealed behind her desk.

"Yes, Chief Executive?" The disembodied voice which replied in instant response was crisp and perfectly modulated. "How may I be of service?"

The CE leant back in her plush office chair. "You can show yourself, for a start. I can't abide talking to empty air. You should know that by now, S1."

A figure popped into existence before her desk, a lean female figure in a smart military uniform, hologrammatic epaulettes gleaming golden in the office light.

"Of course, ma'am. My apologies. Now, what can I do for you?"

The CE took in the refined aristocratic features of the figure standing before her—the avatar of the AI system in charge of GalCen security. And, not for the first time, reflected on how much those features resembled her own. The hologram could pass for her sister. Given the AI could have chosen any of a trillion faces from a multitude of species, it was hard not to wonder whether the digital entity was trying to—for want of a better phrase—suck up to her. Quite why it should feel this necessary was beyond the CE. It wasn't like she could give it a pay rise. In any case, now was not the time for such speculations.