Articles of the Federation - Keith R. A. DeCandido [42]
Fred answered, “It really really can’t, Esperanza.”
Opening her eyes back up, Esperanza said, “Fine, come in.” She stared at the empty glass. I get the feeling I’m gonna need another one of these. Or three.
President Nan Bacco stood alone in the Ra-ghoratreii Room, just down the hall from her office on the fifteenth floor of the Palais. She looked up at the painting of President Ra-ghoratreii. The Efrosian was known to most Federation citizens as the president who signed the Khitomer Accords on the Federation’s behalf. Previously, the room had been simply called the Red Room, after the color scheme of the walls, provided by President al-Rashid in the early days of the Federation. After Ra-ghoratreii served out his third and final term, his portrait was hung in the Red Room, and the space was renamed (and repainted).
During the administration of President Amitra, she had converted this room to her office. She’d felt the presidential office was too ostentatious, a feeling shared by Jaresh-Inyo. However, Min Zife had felt the president should have the grandeur of the larger room, and so he’d converted this room back to a meeting room and returned to the larger room with the panoramic view.
There weren’t a lot of things on which Nan agreed with her predecessor, but that larger office was one of them.
This room now had a large replicated wooden table in the center, rectangular in shape, and able to seat up to fifty people if needed. Nan had arranged for there to be only seven chairs-one at the head, three on either side. The wood on the table was meant to simulate oak, and the only thing that broke its elegance was the padd sitting in front of the head chair.
A few moments later, one of the doors opened. Nan turned away from Ra-ghoratreii’s image to see Councillors T’Latrek of Vulcan, Matthew Mazibuko of Earth, and Kellerasana zh’Faila of Andor enter. They each nodded to Nan and took their seats. Soon they were followed by the last of the permanent members of the security council-Bera chim Gleer of Tellar, who did not nod, but simply took his seat, and Huang Chaoying from Alpha Centauri, who gave Nan a small bow before taking her seat.
Finally the subject of their meeting entered: Artrin na Yel of Triex. He also served on the security council. Along with the ones from the five founding worlds of the Federation, the security council also included councillors from eight other worlds. The present configuration had Cait, Damiano, Gnala, Huanni, Rigel, Sulamid, Triex, and Zakdorn as the “back eight,” as it was called around the Palais.
Nan feared that Triex would be off that list by the time this meeting ended.
When Artrin took a seat between Gleer and Mazibuko, Nan sat at the head of the table. “Thank you all for coming at this late hour. I apologize for being cryptic, but it was necessary.”
“Madam President,” T’Latrek said, “should this meeting not be held in council chambers?”
Somehow, Nan managed to control her reaction. After the previous day’s eight-hour marathon, she was in no rush to go back there, especially since she was the only one who had to stand the entire time. “It may come to that, but I want to keep the meeting informal-and off the record-for the time being. I want to tell you all something that my staff informed me of tonight, and then I want Artrin to tell his side of the story just to the six of us.”
With an understandable undertone of indignance, Artrin asked, “My side of what story, exactly, ma’am?”
Nan picked up the padd. “On 5 Torus in the year of the Fortil on Triex, in an emergency session, you rendered a judgment in your capacity as SMA to imprison a Federation citizen by the name of Wusekl without a trial.”
Most of the councillors looked at Artrin at that. T’Latrek, however, looked at Nan. “There is no record of Councillor Artrin rendering any judgments in emergency sessions during his time as Supreme Magisterial Authority.”
“Public record, no,” Nan said.
Artrin spoke up more readily