To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [60]
“You’re too smug by half, Avren. Too smug and too daring. One day someone is going to teach you the difference between courage and folly.” Udar Kishrit sounded as if he would relish giving the agent a lesson or two himself. “All right, make your report. Quickly.
If they walk in on you in communication with me, I doubt they’ll still think of you as just another emptyheaded shepherd.” Briefly and rapidly, Avren relayed all that he had witnessed and overheard: Lelys’s ploy at the shrine to Ma’adrys, her conversation with Data, and the words she’d just exchanged with Riker. “In short,” he concluded, “the Orakisan ambassador is not very kindly disposed to us at the moment, and her word will be enough to kill any chance we have of renewed contact and commerce beyond this star system.” “Through the Skerrian union, yes, but there would still be the Federation.” Udar Kishrit mulled this over, then added, “But the Federation would never provide us with the full measure of technological aid we want. Some, yes, but what we desire they would view as undue interference in our culture.” “Even if we tell them that we don’t see it that way?” “The Federation has its paths and policies, and no doubt its reasons for them. I have been speaking with this Mr. La Forge on the subject, and his words confirm my suspicions. On the other hand, the union of Skerrian daughterworlds would be much more forthcoming about helping one of their long-lost sisters regain the stars.” “Not if Ambassador Lelys has her say,” Avren commented.
“Which is why,” Udar Kishrit said distinctly, “you must make sure that she does not.”
Chapter Ten
GEORDIE KNEW That HE WOULD find her in the garden.
That was where he always found her, whenever he was able to absent himself from his duties as the Enterprise’s senior representative to the Ne’elatian government. As Captain Picard had told him, it was a purely ceremonial appointment. While the captain and Hara’el pursued the Orakisan delegation’s quest for the elusive n’vashal plant in the settled hinterlands of this world, someone from the ship had to stay in the capital to show the flag. Besides, Geordi’s presence had a secondary purpose. As long as someone of his rank from the ship was present at all the fetes and festivals the Ne’elatian government was staging in honor of their starfaring guests, it was unlikely that anyone would comment on the absence of certain others.
In other words, Geordi was a distraction, a sop to the Masra’et to prevent their wondering why they had not seen Commander Riker or Counsellor Troi or Ambassador Lelys lately. He knew this; it didn’t bother him in the least. He couldn’t have asked for an assignment that suited him more.
“Ma’adrys?” He knew her favorite spot in the gardens, the place where they always contrived to meet at least once a day. It was one of the smaller enclosed spaces, a bower where a narrow stream trickled over smooth brown stones, where only the most fragrant native plants bloomed between high walls of prickly hedge. At the head of the stream, presiding over the heap of stones from which the waters bubbled up, was a statue of a robed and crowned woman holding a pair of scales. Unlike the old Earth images of Justice, this lady did not carry her balances by the centerpiece, but supported the pans of the scales in her cupped hands. The power to tilt them one way or the other didn’t depend on the weights tossed into either pan, but solely on her will.
This was where Ma’adrys waited always for him, sitting on the tender grass beside the stream’s source, flowers in her hair. This was where he found her today also, yet seeing her there, her face greeting him with joy, was just as sweet a shock to his heart as it had been the first time they had met in this little garden.
Why does it always surprise me? he wondered. I ought to know by now that she~ going to be here. She’s always here