Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [5]
“We understand.” Miss Theonella rubbed her tiny pink palms as if kneading bread dough between them. “All embassy envoys, functionaries, ministers, delegates, and clerks will be going, as well as four Pojjana defectors who lost their homes in the last Constrictor. They’re being given asylum here and we have clearance for them to be evacuated with us. In all there are thirty-five of us.”
‘Thirty-five!” Perraton blurted. Then he instantly clammed up, but the number twenty kept flashing in his eyes like beacons.
How could seven of them safely escort thirty-five dignitaries through fifty meters of rioting?
“We’re prepared, ma’am;’ Stiles shoved in, more loudly than necessary, before anyone else could speak up. “About the landing… the ambassador is probably wondering why we were so… out of formation …. “
“What?” Miss Theonella’s white temples puckered and her brows came together like pencil points. “We can’t see the courtyard from here. There are only reception rooms on the court side of the building. Was there some reason you wanted us to be watching you? Was there a signal?”
He stared at her, caught between relief and disappointment that nobody had been watching. “Uh… no, no signal”
Preoccupied, the thin young woman simply said, “Continue to wait here, please, Ensign. I’ll get the ambassador.”
Again the evac squad stood alone, holding their rifles, standing in the middle of the gleaming tile floor, listening to the drumming chants of angry people outside in the square and trying to imagine how they were going to hustle thirty-five dignitaries through that. The unpleasant possibility of rushing half of them out to the coach, then coming back for the second group-Stiles winced. Two trips through that courtyard full of alien-haters? Was that safer than one big rush? If he ordered two separate groups, would the angry people see that as their last chance to get them and attack the second group? “Wonder why they hate aliens” Dan Moose voiced.
Stiles noted that his men were looking at the windows and doors, but his own eyes were focused on the long hall of offices into which Miss Theonella had disappeared. The ambassador was in there somewhere.
All the men turned to face the hall to their left as a crowd of elegant dignitaries bobbed toward them. In the midst of them was the tall, instantly recognizable figure of the famous Ambassador Spock. Bow? Kneel? Handshake? “Don’t faint! Eric, stand at attention!”
Perraton’s anxious whisper boomed in Stiles’s ear like a foghorn. “Stand at attention!”
“Attention….” Stiles planted his boots on the tile, but wasn’t able to get them together. He squared his shoulders, raised his chin, held his breath, clutched his rifle, and forced an appearance of adept steadiness and control. Cool. Calm. Military. Crisp. In control. In charge. Confident. Smelly.
The ambassador and his party approached them, but Spock wasn’t looking at them. Instead his dark head was bowed as he spoke to Miss Theonella, who was clipping along at his side. The ambassador listened, nodded, then spoke again while a male attendant slipped a glossy blue Federation Diplomatic Corps jacket onto the boss’s shoulders.
The sight was a shock-Stiles had expected the flowing ceremonial robes that Vulcan seniors were usually seen wearing, but now that he saw Spock in the trim gray slacks and dark blue jacket with the UFP symbol on the left side, that outfit seemed to make more sense for a spaceborne evacuation. Robes might be harder to handle on boarding ramps and in tight quarters. Why hadn’t he thought of that?
Though Spock-tall, narrow, controlled-possessed all the regal formality common to his race, his famous form was somehow less imperious in person than Stiles had anticipated, his angular Vulcan features more animated, and framed by the fact that he was the only Vulcan in the bunch. Of course, Stiles had only seen still photos or staged lecture tapes. Seeing Spock in real life was very different-he wasn’t stiff at all.
As they approached,