The Whisper of Damkina Part 68
March 18th, 2019 | Published in Whisper of Damkina | 2 Comments
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A/N: Check out my two new stories Lawgiver’s Blade (Wednesdays) and Tales of the First (Saturdays).
Amanpreet managed to get a place in the viewing chamber for The Talisian and Coronan introductions to the Council and even given Niobe’s reassurances she couldn’t help worrying at her lip a little as Prima and Merit were introduced.
Fortunately Niobe was right and it was just a formality. Prima greeted the councillors in the languages she had been practising which seemed to impress then answered a few questions before the Council voted unanimously to give them associate membership – though they would have to build up their numbers a bit before Talis got a voting seat as they didn’t currently meet the planetary population minimum.
“That shouldn’t take long even though Prima’s too young to breed yet,” Niobe murmured. “There’s lot more eggs in the clutch she’s from and they’ve found several more egg caches.”
Amanpreet nodded. “At least the Coronan’s won’t have that trouble.”
“Nah, they’ve plenty of people,” Niobe agreed. “There might need to be some reallocating of settlement planets though. Both they and the Talisians will be looking for similar starting conditions to us.”
“Well it’s not like we don’t have more allotted worlds than we can conveniently populate,” Kane said. “So I doubt it will be an issue.”
Indeed as the Coronan representative were presented they were immediately offered a voting seat and were informed there were several worlds suitable for bioforming to their needs that could be assigned to them if they wished. They accepted both offers graciously and the session ended soon after.
Amanpreet hurried around to meet Prima and Merit as they emerged from the chamber.
“Are you disappointed?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Prima said. “We knew we didn’t have enough people for a voting seat yet. Councillor Krna is arranging more domes so we can start hatching more eggs and get our hive up to strength and the others restarted. It won’t take more than a couple of years if we can find all the caches.” She tapped the edges of her keyboard thoughtfully. “I have my lesson next. Merit would you go and see the Ambassador from the Mez home world and continue negotiations around letting them settle our sixth planet? I think we’ve nearly reached a deal.”
“Of course.” He spoke to one of their escorts who nodded and led him away towards the Mez section. Prima turned to her other escort.
“Where are the navigation training pods, please. I’m supposed to meet Councilor Krna there?”
“Ah yes,” the woman nodded. “She added that to your schedule this morning. Follow me please.”
Prima bounced and waved her arms. “I’ll see you later!” She hurried off after her guide.
***
Amanpreet had intended to spend the rest of the day reading but she had barely sat down with an antique copy of Grey Lensman when the chime on the suite door went. She sighed and went to answer it. Kayla was standing there with a perturbed look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” Amanpreet said.
“I’ve had a job offer from the Council,” she said. “But it’s kind of… well it’s a really bad idea.”
“They want you to pilot the Dreamsong on a kidnapping mission into enemy territory?” Amanpreet guessed. “I heard they were thinking of trying that.”
“Yeah,” she said. “They aren’t conscripting me but they are being pushy. They think I’m their best chance of getting in undetected. But even leaving aside kidnapping being wrong I can’t see this working even if they pull it off, which seems a tall order.”
Amanpreet rubbed her temples. “I could forgive the kidnapping if it might work. This enemy has done worse by a long shot. But you are right, it can’t work and is probably just going to get people killed. But seriously what can we do to stop them apart from continuing to say no?”
“I don’t know,” Kayla said. “And given the risk they aren’t going to force anyone but someone will accept the job given the money they are offering. It’s a silly amount… like enough to buy a planet levels of silly… if planets were for sale to individuals.”
Amanpreet whistled softly. “They really, really want to do this.”
“They’re scared,” Kayla said. “Which is reasonable but there has to be a better solution, and I just want them to leave me alone.”
“We’ll talk to Councillor Krna when she brings Prima back,” Amanpreet said. “She seems reasonable. Hopefully she can stop them bothering you at least.”
***
Krna gave an irritated whistle when they told her about the offer that had been made to Kayla that evening.
“What are they doing? They aren’t supposed to be recruiting people yet!” She gave some even angrier chirps. “The idea hasn’t even passed yet because it’s so dangerous.” She slapped her keyboard with one feathered tentacle. “Someone is going behind the Council’s back. I’ll need to bring it to my colleagues attention.” She looked at Kayla. “Would you be willing to make a statement?”
“Of course!” Kayla said.
“It’s a really really bad idea,” Prima said. “If you want to try talking to them you should use their message system. They already know about you now so it won’t make things worse. Trying to kidnap one of them? It’s dangerous and might well make thing worse.”
“That’s… actually not a bad idea. We think we have a handle on their main communication language,” Krna said. “I’ll bring that up as well. An alternative might stop this foolishness. I’ll get a human security person I trust to take Kayla’s statement. I doubt she’d appreciate having to come to the Ishtari section.”
“Well I wouldn’t mind, but yeah probably easier to do it here,” Kayla said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow to tell you what the council said,” she said. “Good evening.”
Ah, i am really happy you post updates to this story again.. really love the premise, as well as the characters, really good read 😉
Glad you’re still enjoying it