Articles of the Federation - Keith R. A. DeCandido [34]
The president ignored Sivak’s rebuke and asked, “You postponed the afternoon’s meetings?”
“Yes, ma’am. The secretary of agriculture will return at 1800, the secretary of defense at 1815, the secretary of housing at 1830, and Mr. MacDougan at 1845.”
Frowning, the president asked, “Why’m I meeting with Fred again?”
Sivak tapped a command onto his screen. “To discuss the address to the Titan Shipbuilder’s Guild tomorrow.”
“Aligar’s gonna be an issue there,” Esperanza put in quickly before the president could object.
She objected anyhow. “We locked that speech two days ago.”
“And then this morning, the guild officially denounced your suspension of trade with Aligar. I told Fred to rework the speech, and then I put him on your calendar-for 1400, originally.”
“Dammit, is Aligar gonna bite me on my ass for the rest of my term?” Before Esperanza could answer, the president waved toward the entrance to her office. “C’mon inside, I’ve been standing for eight hours and my feet are about ready to sue for separate maintenance. I need to sit and I need to abuse someone, and you’ve always been my favorite target for that.”
“Ma’am, you know I serve at your pleasure, but I think sitting on me is taking that a bit too far. Or did you mean the abuse?”
They moved toward the door. “That abuse is gonna get physical if you don’t watch it.” She sighed. “Right now my pleasure is to yell at someone, and if I do it to the staff, it’ll be on FNS by midnight. Every other damn thing we do winds up there. Did you see ICL yesterday?”
“I thought Sorlak did well. And Quintor- “
“Quintor made an ass of herself.” President Bacco went around to the other side of her desk but didn’t sit down. “And where the hell does Admiral Wrongway, or whatever the hell her name is, get off pontificating like that?”
“It’s Janeway, ma’am,” Esperanza said as she took up a position on the opposite side of the desk, “and everything she said was completely right. But all of it is conditional on what the Remans actually want, and we still don’t know what that is.”
“Speaking of that, has Spock made it out alive yet?”
Esperanza nodded. “He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“About damn time-what took so long?”
“Flying around in Romulan space is dangerous these days; the relief ships were late arriving because they had to take more circuitous routes. Since that dustup two months ago, we’ve had, what, six different firefights erupt?”
“Seven. I started reading over Abrik’s reports again to keep myself from falling asleep during the council session.”
That got Esperanza nervous. “Ma’am- “
“It was during Gleer’s diatribe.”
Esperanza’s concerns abated. Bera chim Gleer, the councillor from Tellar, had a capacity for long-windedness that had to be heard to be believed. The shortest he’d ever held the floor during a council session was forty-five minutes, and that particular one was only abbreviated because the councillor had an illness. Usually he went on for an hour and a half at least. “What was he on about this time?”
“Well, it started out about the need for the council to carefully consider all appointments, then it went on to how the council has to carefully consider refugee requests, and then he went on and on and on about Artrin’s fine accomplishments on Triex-which I thought was hilarious given that he’s doing as much as anyone to hold up the man’s appointment-and then I stopped paying attention, to be honest, though he ended with something about Vulcans.”
“Well, Tellar, Kharzh’ulla, and Brantik have been making the most use of the trade agreement with Aligar, so his constituents