Articles of the Federation - Keith R. A. DeCandido [96]
“Maintenance looked at the door this morning before you came in.”
“And?”
“They said it was fine.”
Dogayn rolled hir eyes. “It isn’t ‘fine.’ Doors that are ‘fine’ don’t open partway, take a coffee break, and then open the rest of the way.”
“If you feel it’s necessary, I’ll call maintenance again.”
“I feel it’s necessary.”
“Very well.”
Turning back to Eduardo, s/he said, “Anyhow, I’ve got twenty minutes- “
“Fifteen now,” Mikhail put in.
Ignoring him, Dogayn went on. “- so let’s talk now.”
Eduardo hesitated. “Thing is- “
“What?”
“I don’t want to talk about this here. You and I have a closed-door meeting, people will notice.”
Dogayn frowned. “Eddie, we’re not having a closed-door meeting. We’ve known each other for ten years, we’ve worked together on a dozen pieces of legislation over the years, and you’ve just come up to see how I’m enjoying my cushy-tushy new job.”
Eduardo just stared at hir.
“What?”
” ‘Cushy-tushy’? What does that mean?”
“It means my job is finally better than yours. Now will you please get in here?”
Letting out a very long breath, Eduardo finally said, “Fine, we’ll talk here.”
Dogayn entered hir cramped office. The office was a quarter of a circle in the center of the fourteenth floor of the Palais, matching those of the other three deputy chiefs of staff, with smaller offices and desks surrounding them, where their assistants and staff sat. It was smaller than hir previous office with the rest of Saltroni’s staff on the eighth floor, but it was also better by virtue of hir not having to share it with anyone.
Offering Eduardo a seat on the only one of hir three guest chairs that wasn’t piled with padds, s/he said, “So what’s so urgent?”
“Cardassia.”
Dogayn shrugged, assuming Eduardo was talking about the renewal of aid to Cardassia that was to be voted on the following day, and not the planet itself. “It’ll pass in a walk, why?”
“It won’t, Doh.”
That got Dogayn’s attention. “What?”
“It won’t.”
“How can it not pass?”
“Well,” Eduardo said dryly, “the usual method is to not get enough votes.”
“Very funny,” Dogayn said, though that was the first sign s/he’d seen that Eduardo had regained his sense of humor. “Who’s left the Neutral Zone?”
“I’m not sure.”
Glaring at hir old friend, Dogayn said, “If you’re not sure, then how- “
“All I know for sure is that Huang’s voting against it.”
That brought Dogayn up short. “What?”
“She’s voting against it-and before you ask, I don’t know why. All I know is that she told me not to bother drafting a decision on Cardassia.”
“Which she wouldn’t do unless she was voting against.”
“Yup.”
“Damn.”
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you this in a meeting in your office.”
Dogayn still didn’t get this. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t want Huang thinking I’m going behind her back to Bacco.”
“Eddie, you are going behind her back to Bacco.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want it to look like that.”
“Fine.” Dogayn sighed. “If anyone asks, you just came here to set up lunch.”
“I hope that works.” Eduardo got up.
Dogayn did likewise. “Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you go behind her back?”
Eduardo hesitated. “Remember that trip to Cardassia a few years back, after Ghemor was elected?”
Dogayn nodded. S/he hadn’t taken that trip because Saltroni hadn’t, but Huang had, and she’d taken her top aides, as part of a goodwill trip that several councillors had taken in order to help lend legitimacy to Alon Ghemor’s rather fragile government.
“When I was out there, I met this reporter from FNS. She took me out to where they weren’t letting the councillors go. We had to sneak through some checkpoints, and I swear to you, Doh, I thought for sure we were gonna get killed. And what she showed me…” Eduardo shivered.
In over a decade of working together, Dogayn had never seen Eduardo look like this.
“Children, Doh. Little children, who were skinnier than