The galaxy birthed many languages, but one of them was older than most, so old it was almost forgotten except by innkeepers and those like us. I opened my mouth and the lilting words of Old Galactic rolled off my tongue like a song that was as ancient as the stars.
“Greetings to the Assembly. I bring two matters before you. First, two of my guests are Hiru. Tonight the Draziri besieging my inn fired a nuclear missile at the inn’s grounds. To save the lives of my guests, I directed it off world. I deeply regret the resulting loss of life and hope no sentient beings have been harmed as a result. I do not require assistance at this time.”
There. I made a formal notification that the treaty had been breached. The ball was in their court. I’d included the coordinates of the nuclear explosion and they could view the evidence for themselves.
“Second, I was attacked by an unknown enemy at Baha-char. It was a creature of darkness and corruption. With the assistance of friends, it was defeated and brought to my inn, where the corruption attempted to leave its host and infect me and the inn itself. The corpse is contained, but I do not know how long the containment will last. Before sealing the body, I took a DNA sample, and a match was found in the database. The body belongs to an innkeeper, a friend of my family. I’ve enclosed the evidence for your review.”
The blue light changed to deep indigo as the scanner encrypted my message, chewing up data and images I’d attached into a chaotic mess decipherable only by innkeeper decryption protocols.
A digital clock appeared on the wall. Thirty seconds to communication window. I cut it a little closer than I should have. Twenty seconds.
Ten.
The scanner light pulsed with white. The message was off.
“What now?” Sean asked.
“Now the Assembly has to decide what to do. I’ve done my part.”
“How does that work?” he asked. “Do they poll all of the innkeepers?”
“They can if the matter concerns a change to innkeeper policy. This almost never happens. Most of the time, things like this are discussed among heads of the twenty-five oldest or strongest inns on the planet. I think Mr. Rodriguez is part of that twenty-five. When my parents…”
I’d almost said when my parents were alive. I pulled way back from that thought. I couldn’t think like that. They were alive now. Until I saw evidence of their death, irrefutable evidence, I had to think of them as alive and I would look for them.
“When my parents’ inn was active, my father and mother shared a single vote among twenty-five. My father was unique and his input was valued.”
“When will you know something?” he asked.
“It’s impossible to say.” The wall parted in front of me, opening into a long hallway. I walked into it and Sean joined me. “They may choose to send some reply back, they might act on it without telling me, or they might ignore me.”
“This doesn’t seem like the most organized system,” Sean said. “If you needed help and asked for it, there is no way to know if you’ll get it.”
“Each innkeeper is a world unto herself,” I said. “It’s the way it’s always been. There were times in history when we spoke in one voice, like when we banned a species from Earth for gross disregard of the treaty.”
The tunnel opened and we walked onto a wide covered balcony with a sunken fire pit in the center and a ring of couches around it, strewn with bright pillows. A kettle waited, hanging off a hook on a metal pole. Sean raised his eyebrows.
“The Otrokar quarters?”
I nodded. “I don’t know why, but sitting by the fire makes me feel better.”
The fire had already been laid out. Sean took a lighter from the side table and lit it. The hot orange flame licked the logs. The tinder in the center of the stack caught fire, cracking. The flames spread, gulping the logs. Warmth spread through the balcony.
I picked up the tea kettle dangling from the ceremonial stick and hung it on the metal rail above the fire.
Sean sat across from me on the bright pillows. “The Khanum would approve.”
I nodded. That’s how the Otrokars made their tea for hundreds of years.
“How are your ribs?” I asked.
“Not as bad as they could’ve been.” Sean smiled.
“I have a medbay, you know. It’s not as nice as what the Merchants had, but I’m sure you could slum it just this once…”
“I’m okay.”
I sniffed. The water boiled and I took the kettle off the fire, hung it back on the hook, and tossed the leaves into it. Tea in winter was the best… Oh. The realization hit me like a train. Maybe I was off by a day or two… No. I was right. I felt like crying.
“What is it?” he asked, focused on me.
“It’s Christmas.”
Sean frowned.
“Tonight is Christmas. I don’t have a tree. I didn’t get any presents. I didn’t decorate. I have nothing.” I couldn’t keep the despair out of my voice. “I missed Christmas.”
It was the stupidest thing, but I had to strain to keep the tears back.
He moved over, sat next to me, and put his arm around me.