Envoy to Earth (19 page)

The man smiled, but Gerent didn't
which got slightly widened eyes.

"I... Is Tor a particular
friend of yours? If so I apologize for..."

He shook his head, then
explained.

"No... Or, yes, being that
he's my adopted brother, but I'll let him deal with that part of things. Count
Rodriguez. I..." He took a breath and then looked around, and explained to
the assassin. The whole situation. For some reason, the man became hard
suddenly. Angry even.

"I understand. It will be
hard, sneaking into the palace to kill the man. I think I can help, but it
would be best not to mention it to anyone."

Gerent looked away.

"Actually, I'm not sneaking
in anywhere. It's part of why I need to chat with the rebellion. I'm going to
see about getting their support, and simply doing what's needed. The King is in
on this plan and having everyone, well... It might not work, so it would be
good to have a back-up plan. You can help with the guards though. We'll tell
everyone that it's Vagus' part in this." That would be a good enough
explanation, though the man being on his crew would work too, if he wanted.

Gerent mentioned that, which got
a smile.

"That might be better. I can
set up a mobile base, on your ship, for trading. Or, as the case may end up
being, giving things away. That still sounds funny. Like it can't work. I've
seen it happen, but I keep waiting for it to end, somehow. For someone to steal
all the wealth for themselves."

They chatted for a bit, then he
walked away, to pack and say his goodbyes. It all went smoothly enough, until
the very end, when Dorgal moved to climb onto the ship, and about half the
Mages followed along. They didn't have bags with them, and were of all
different ages. Deshi tried to go too, which had Gerent looking at them all,
tilting his head and not getting what was going on.

The short, red robed mage waved
at him, and then spoke to Dorgal directly.

"You said that they should
prepare to go, and learn from the Great Brother, Tor the Wise. So they have.
They will travel with you to the Moon, and learn from him, and then return when
they have the needed skills. I shall endeavor to teach the rest here, and help
them learn the tongue of your land, so that when their turn comes they may go
and learn as well." There was a very definitive tone to the little speech.

Gerent could only see one problem
with it.

"We
might
want to
warn Tor first? He has his own life and ordering him to teach people seems a
tiny bit heavy handed. Not that I won't try it, but I may need to beg and
humble myself in person for a while first." He was trying to hint that it
might be best if they stayed there, but clearly no one thought that was a real
concern.

So he put his foot down, smiling
at the same time. After all, they only wanted to learn, and possibly get to go
on an adventure.

"Take a hint, Deshi! I'll be
back in a month or two, after properly getting cooperation. We don't have to do
this all today. For one thing, they'll need places to stay while they're there.
You have the communications device now, so they won't ignore you. I won't
either. It won't take years to get this done." He understood that they
might be afraid of being abandoned. Their Great Mother had left them, and only
recently. Now Dorgal her consort was leaving, too.

It would be too easy for them to
be left behind.

They weren't a rich land and not
yet powerful in magic. They would be, that was true, but they weren't, at that
moment.

"So, why not elect an
Ambassador? I'll take them around with Dorgal and myself, and they can help get
things set up?" He didn't know how they did that there, but Deshi mentioned
it to the people in the mainly empty goods bay they were in, which got a tiny
girl to step forward.

She wasn't a child, probably
being old enough to marry, but she was small. Like he used to be, if perfectly
formed. Maybe four foot tall, or a few inches more than that.

"I'll go, if that is
service?" Her words were accented, and high pitched, but clear enough.
"With acceptance of Mage Deshi, Standard do I have the best of."

Gerent looked down at her, and
nodded slowly. She wasn't a grand beauty, and small, but there was a dignity
about her, as if none of that mattered. Only her work did. It wasn't humility,
but still, he was quietly impressed.

"That could work. Good, this
lady, Mage..." He hadn't been told that, so Deshi filled it in for him.

"Mage Eto."

"
Mage Eto
, will be
your Ambassador? That seems about right. Let's get that all set up. Thank you
everyone." That got them to leave at least, and meant that all he needed
to do was set Erid to helping her. She got a nice room, a communications device
and managed to find her way to the bridge, where she promptly started to watch
his every move. For his part he just caused a comfortable chair to appear for
her, to his left hand side and explained to Dorgal how to pilot a ship. They
didn't practice, since it was dangerous, given all those people being with
them, but he did use his new device to get in touch with his contacts,
including the Prime Minster of Austra, Timon and Queen Tiera.

It was strange that he avoided
Tor, or perhaps not so much given the current mess he was making for him. So
Gerent finally sighed, as he orbited the planet, noticing that both Dorgal and
Eto had gone silent. It was impressive, looking down on it all like that. Ger
was just used to it.

"Can you get in touch with
Petra for me? I need my hands on the controls, but she's working in Printer, and
that's a good enough place to start our last deliveries. Or, well, part of
them." He had a lot of visits to make, he realized, thanks to the
generosity of Terrence Baker.

Most of whom were people that he
didn't know, and a few of them might very well take exception to him, just on
general purposes. If that was the case, then he had to be careful. Except that,
as things would no doubt prove, he didn't control that part of things. Other
people controlled how they reacted, and that might lead to his death.

Luckily for him he had a shield.
It didn't hurt that he looked the part of visiting noble now, either. He could
blend with them, and leave them thinking he was one of their own.

This also let Dorgal do something
that would keep him busy. Plus it made it seem like he had a secretary, which
was very formal. Dorgal Sorvee, no matter who or what else he had been, killer,
or King of the largest land in the world, was very smooth with words, when he
wanted to be.

He tapped the code to get to
Petra's name, and found it faster than Gerent thought he would have. Then he
pulsed the unit and waited about a minute before a familiar voice spoke. Her
face was just visible from where Gerent sat, and the mustached man smiled.

"Petra Ward? I'm calling for
Gerent Lairdgren. One moment." Then he turned the thing in his hand and
held it, so that Ger's fiancé would see the side of his head as he piloted the
space vessel.

"Hey! I was thinking that
I'd visit with Countess Printer, first, and let her take her part of things
directly. Can you help set that up? You know her and I don't, really."

Dorgal rolled his eyes, but
didn't speak, and Petra smiled happily.

"When are you coming? We
could have a parade ready."

"Um, probably about fifteen
minutes, if I go slow. Where should I land? Outside the main city there?"

There was a long pause. "I
don't think so. We had an attack here a few years ago, from the air. That would
frighten everyone. Let's see... Can you set down over the ocean and come in
from the west? Slowly? It will take a while to get everyone around. If you
orient on the castle, that should work. I need to get with Holly now."
Then the thing turned off.

He didn't comment, just settling
the huge vessel over the ocean, and taking time to use Ali's special device
again. For the last time, he decided, until after he slept again at least.
There was a lot to get done, but staying up forever would end up going wrong.
There was already a fuzzy quality to his thinking, for all that he felt fine. A
haziness that didn't seem to go away this time when he hit the sigil on the
front of the stone slice.

So, real rest would be needed,
soon.

Not until after that delivery
however. He needed to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything, so looked around
and blinked, hard. There was someone missing.

Collette. Panicking a little bit,
he patted his right side tunic pocket and then realized that he had to land
before reaching out to her. He felt pretty bad, but he hadn't even remembered
her, until that moment. He was her ride home, too. If she'd been left on the
Moon, then he didn't doubt that a certain newly minted Lunar Prince was about
to end up in a great deal of pain. He decided to get into place first, before
trying to talk to her, since the yelling and screaming might distract him
otherwise.

He settled the ship about a half
mile off the coast, and started walking toward the mainly empty holding bay at
the back of the craft. As he did, Dorgal and Eto following, with Erid coming
along as soon as they walked by the open door to his room. Gerent pulled the
correct speaking device, and found the right name. Baronetta Collette Coltress.
Just in case he'd forgotten her title and what that might mean. That he'd
probably insulted a noble woman. Greatly. That was never a good plan. There was
a quick response at least.

"Hello? This is
Collette."

"Hi! Um, Gerent here. I was
just wondering if you needed a ride anywhere?" He held his breath, waiting
for her to say that, yes, she
would
like to be on her own planet. There
were just a few soft chuckles however.

"I, surprisingly, am good. I
needed to get to my businesses back here, in the Capital, so got Sara to bring
me. I figured it would be faster. Besides, I wanted to make a connection there.
The woman goes almost everywhere, and it can't hurt to have some connections
that can do that. Or two, given that I
also
know you. Is everything
going well? Do you need help with your end of this?" There was a guarded,
and hesitant, spacing to her words.

Ger thought he understood that.
She was passing him a message.
His
end of things. Not the program's. To
her, that probably wouldn't mean the aid. No, it was the
other
project
that she was most concerned with. Taking down the people that had hurt Petra,
who was, after a fashion, a relative of hers.

"Not so far. That might
change however. Most of the cargo is gone, but a lot of visits are left to
come. I think that I'm going to dump a lot of that work on the various fast
message services. I'm going to have to sleep soon, too, so I was thinking that
after my next meeting, with Countess Printer, that I'm going to catch a nap.
Everyone on the ship has to be close to exhaustion. Oh, I um, have the former
King of Vagus,
and
their current Ambassador, with us. That isn't the
same person. We need to take the Ambassador at least in to meet the King and
Queen of Noram. Probably the Prime Minister of Austra too, and that lady that
runs Afrak now. Abbey's mother? Tiera of course, but that will be in a few
days." He stopped and looked at the others with him, who all
seemed
to be ignoring his conversation, which probably meant it was being memorized
for all time. He would have been doing that if someone else was talking about
casually visiting all the world powers like that. "Thankfully we have all
these devices now. It will speed things up so much. So, am I forgetting
anything important?"

There was a moment of silence and
then a rustling of paper in the background. He'd asked, so Collette was
actually checking the documents and notes she had on the subject. It was
fantastically efficient. For a second he wondered if he wasn't making a mistake
marrying Petra. Not that she wasn't wonderful, too. He smiled, thinking about
it, because frankly, having that kind of a dilemma was so much better than
anything he'd ever felt before. He was worried that he hadn't picked the
correct
incredible woman to be his wife. Him? Gerent the freak? If that was the kind of
thing he got for problems from then on, he needed to plan more parties, because
life was, truly, worth celebrating finally.

His friend's voice was very
businesslike when she replied.

"I'll set up something with
the King's people for the Ambassador. Do you know anything about him?"

Gerent looked over at the tiny
woman, and then smiled.

"Yes. First of all, that's
her
,
so we need to get that one correct. Her name is Mage Eto. That's her title,
too. High Ambassador Eto of Vagus. The polite form of address is just Ambassador
Eto however, or Mage Eto, to her friends. She's very nice and speaks some Standard,
so that shouldn't be a problem. Their Mages are different than our wizards, so
everyone needs to make certain not to try and bribe her for
anything
. It
would be
highly
offensive." He wondered if he should add in a
hundred silly protocols, but decided not to be that mean. Part of being funny
was in knowing when to quit.

Collette, from the scratching
sounds she was making, was taking notes.

"Got it. I'll pass that
along. Now, the former
King
?"

"Dorgal Sorvee. He's
traveling with me for now. Crew. Running a business out of his room, and one of
the back docking sections." There was more writing then, and Dorgal just
tilted his head side to side, but didn't speak.

Collette didn't get the idea that
he was right there either. Luckily she was a polite person, most of the time.

"That's kind of you. I
imagine that he'd want to leave there, after what happened. That's so sad. He
and his wife had just gotten married. Is he well? I've met him a few times. A
friend of Tim's I think."