“And if I had not agreed to, then all the humans would likely be dead because our rescue mission might have failed. And you dead with them, I might add.”
“You wouldn’t have sent me on the rescue mission if the Colonials hadn’t been there,” I pointed out. “And if the humans from Earth were dead that would indeed be tragic, but it would not then be leverage for your enemies.”
“The fact their ship was destroyed in our space would be.”
“That’s something we could finesse with findings and if necessary with resignations. Torm Aul would not be pleased to be out of a job but that’s easily dealt with.”
“This line of conversation is the sort of thing that makes me smile when people who don’t know you praise your gentility to me,” Tarsem said.
“You don’t keep me around for gentility. You keep me around because I don’t lie to you about your situation. And your situation is now worse than it was when we woke up this morning. It’s going to get worse from here.”
“Should I send both sets of humans away?”
“It’s too late for that now. Everyone will assume you’ve had clandestine meetings with both groups and your enemies will intimate you had that meeting with both at once, because they are functionally the same in their eyes.”
“So no matter what, we’re damned.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes we are. Although as always I am merely providing you with information. It’s what you do with it that counts.”
“I could resign.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, I could resign,” Tarsem said. “You said before that I was most effective when I was building the Conclave, when I was a symbol of a great idea, and not an administrator of a bureaucracy. All right, fine. I resign, stay a symbol, and let someone else be the administrator.”
“Who?”
“You could take the job,” Tarsem said.
“What in this benighted universe gave you the impression that I would ever want it?” I asked, genuinely shocked.
“You might be good at it.”
“And I might be appalling at it.”
“You’ve done pretty well so far.”
“That’s because I know my talents,” I said. “I’m the advisor. I’m the councilor. I’m occasionally the knife you slide into someone’s side. You use me well, Tarsem, but you use me.”
“Then who might you suggest?”
“No one,” I said.
“I’m not going to live forever, you know. Sooner or later it has to be someone else who is in charge.”
“Yes,” I said. “And until that moment I’m going to make sure it will remain you.”
“That’s loyalty,” Tarsem said.
“I am loyal to you, yes,” I replied. “But even more than that I am loyal to the Conclave. To what you’ve built. To what we’ve built, you and I and every member state has built, even the stupid ones who are now trying to tear it apart for their own gain. And right now, being loyal to the Conclave means keeping you where you are. And keeping certain people from making confidence votes in the Grand Assembly.”
“You think we’re that close to it,” Tarsem said.
“I think a lot matters in how the next few sur play out.”
“What do you suggest?”
“At this point you have to take Ambassador Abumwe’s report,” I said. “You have yourself locked into that action.”
“Yes.”
“Abumwe expects to make it to you directly.”
“She does,” Tarsem said. “I imagine she expects you will be there, as well as Vnac Oi, either in person or via surreptitious listening device.”
“She does not expect the report to stay private for long.”
“These things rarely do.”
“Then I suggest getting to that point a little earlier than expected,” I said.
* * *
“You still think this is a good idea,” Vnac Oi said to me.
“It’s a useful idea,” I said. “This is a thing separate from good.”
Oi and I sat in the far reaches of the Grand Assembly chamber, on a level typically reserved for observers and assistants to representatives, the latter of whom would occasionally swoop down into the inner recesses of the chamber, like comets in a long-term orbit, to do their representative’s bidding. Normally when I was in the chamber I sat on the center podium as Tarsem did his regular question-and-answer period, counting heads. This time, Tarsem was not on the podium, and I wanted a slightly different vantage for the head counting.
The Grand Assembly chamber was filled. Tarsem sat, alone, on the bench usually reserved for the chancellor and her staff; for this particular address the chancellor had been demoted to her usual representative bench and her staff milled at the level just below mine. I saw some of their expressions; they were vaguely scandalized by their demotions.
On the level below that were the humans. The Colonial Union diplomats sat on the side of the arc; the humans from Earth filled the other side. There was a substantial gap between them.
“We still don’t know what’s in this report,” Oi said.
“A fact I find very impressive, considering who you are,” I replied.
“Yes, well,” Oi said, and made a gesture of annoyance. “Obviously we made an attempt.”