Articles of the Federation - Keith R. A. DeCandido [52]
“I’m afraid I must respectfully decline. My place is on Romulus.”
“Not hardly, Mr. Ambassador,” Nan said.
Again the eyebrow-raise, this time at Nan. “Madam President, you yourself sanctioned my mission to Romulus.”
“I sanctioned the mission because you made a good argument down on the first floor a couple months ago. But throughout this meeting, everyone’s been calling you ‘Mr. Ambassador’- except for Molmaan, of course, but Zaldans aren’t big on honorifics. You know why we’re doing that? Because, to the best of my knowledge, you’re still a Federation ambassador. Which means, in real terms, that you work for me-unless you’re resigning your post, in which case I’m going to have to have security throw you out, because you will no longer have clearance to be on this floor.” Nan leaned forward in her chair, looking Spock directly in his unblinking eyes. “Am I making myself completely clear?”
She and Spock continued to lock eyes. Neither of them blinked. Finally, Spock said, “Very well-I will go to Qo’noS and speak to the High Council.”
Nan turned toward the sofa. “T’Latrek, if you’d be so kind as to work out the travel arrangements and the itinerary with Ambassador Rozhenko.”
T’Latrek bowed. “Of course, Madam President.”
“All right,” she said as she got up from her chair, “that’s it. Thank you all.”
Most of those in the room said, “Thank you, Madam President” before they left. The exceptions were Molmaan, naturally, and Spock, who simply inclined his head toward Nan and departed with T’Latrek.
Esperanza stayed behind. “What do you think?”
“I think Spock’s pissed at me.”
Grinning, Esperanza said, “I thought Vulcans didn’t get pissed.”
“He’s half-human.” She shook her head and walked around to the other side of her desk. “You know, Esperanza, when you sold me on the notion of running for president, you never mentioned the part about having living legends in my office and irritating the hell out of them.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Nan chuckled. “Seriously, though, I don’t like any of this. We’re making preparations, we’re making recommendations-but we’re not doing anything.”
“We’re not empowered to do anything,” Esperanza said. “It’s the Klingons’ call.”
“Yeah, and it always goes well when they’re left to their own judgment.” She sighed. “Anything else?”
“You did good here. It may not seem like we’re doing anything yet, but we’re putting the pieces in place so we can.”
“Yeah.” President Bacco sighed. “We’re gonna get our asses kicked on Artrin, aren’t we?”
Esperanza nodded. “Yeah, but we’ll weather it. Don’t forget, you wanted to drop in on the Wescott Room before Toshiro’s birthday thing.”
Nan brightened. “Right! I forgot about that. Good, maybe I can accomplish something there- ‘cause I gotta tell you, Esperanza, right now I don’t feel like we’re accomplishing a damn thing.”
Chapter Eleven
ALFEAR YORGAS was bored.
This entire negotiation was a waste of time. He had been given very simple instructions by his superiors on Carrea: “Don’t give the Deltans anything.” An easy enough instruction to follow; it only required that he be creative in coming up with ever more ridiculous demands on the Deltans in exchange for their water reclamation system.
However, the negotiations had dragged on for months, including eight weeks trapped on this madhouse of a planet in this hideous room, sitting across from the beautiful face and bald head of Ambassador Tierra, a face he would gladly cave in with a jagged rock at this point.
He stared up at the portrait of the human who had served as this tiresome Federation’s president over a hundred years earlier, and after whom this Wescott Room was named. According to Yorgas’s researches, this human was the youngest person to attain the office of the presidency in the Federation, a distinction he retained to this day, apparently. Yorgas didn’t care that much; he had only investigated out of a morbid curiosity. He found the entire concept