Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) Read online

  The lights of her intra-tat bounced around in erratic pulses in a frightening way that wasn’t alluring like when he first touched her hand. Tonight they were a physical sign of whatever horror she was experiencing.

  He brushed her damp hair back with his fingers and whispered words of reassurance, knowing this could be the biggest mistake of his life. She had been sent here to flush out a fragger operative, that much he knew. Right now she and the Embassy thought David was their man—he didn’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity or be insulted. If that’s what her Embassy intel was saying, then it might be easier to bring down this government than he thought.

  “Sean.” She reached out to the empty space beside her.

  He put his hand over hers. “I’m here.”

  When she whimpered and shook, he lay down next to her because he knew what it was like to go through this alone. He knew what it was like to go through everything alone. Folding Sara in his arms, he pulled her tight against his chest until her body relaxed against him. He kissed the top of her head to soothe her.

  If she betrayed him later, he’d deal with that when it happened. It’s not like he hadn’t thought of offing himself, and not the pleasant way with passing drugs and a bedside full of family crying for him. Maybe she’d be doing him a favor. Sean’s older brother had killed himself. He told Sean before he did it that Sean wouldn’t understand because he had never known their father, so couldn’t really miss him. But Sean did miss having a father…and an older brother.

  Sara’s breathing deepened with exhaustion. So did Sean’s. He rested his cheek against the top of her head and fell asleep.

  AMBASADORA

  by

  Heidi Ruby Miller

  Ambasadora

  Heidi Ruby Miller

  Copyright Heidi Ruby Miller 2011

  Published by Union City Publishing

  Cover image Copyright Byron Winton 2007

  For Jason—Even after all these years I still have an emotional fallacy for you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Because Ambasadora was my thesis for Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction Graduate Program, I have more people to thank for the completion of this novel than I have room for, but here are some of the highlights:

  Thank you first to my critique partners, Mary SanGiovanni and Christopher Paul Carey. Mary, you lived in the world of my novel with me, getting to know my characters until they became real. You are my Jersey sister and a best friend. CPC, our common background in anthropology allowed me to create a culture with real world rules and all the drama and fascination they entail. You understood my vision better than anyone else.

  Thank you to Michael A. Arnzen. You are a dear friend and confidant. Those many hours drinking coffee and talking about books and life kept me inspired and motivated.

  Thank you to my mentors and final readers, Thomas F. Monteleone, Tobias Buckell, and Lawrence C. Connolly, who each brought their individual expertise to my manuscript while helping me to maintain my vision.

  Thank you to Mike Resnick, Patrick Picciarelli, and Timons Esaias for taking time to be unofficial mentors.

  Thank you to Becca Baker, Kristina Buchanan, Hanna Gribble, KJ Howe, Russ Howe, Jared Maraio, Mike Mehalek, Rachael Pruitt, Bruce Siskawicz, Maria V. Snyder, Steven LaTullipe, and K. Ceres Wright for read-throughs of drafts that should have never been read.

  Thank you to all the Seton Hill Writers who workshopped parts of this book over two years. We had fun coming up with names and techiness. I know this isn’t all of you, but here are some whose comments helped to transform this story: Mike Brendan, Penny Dawn, Ron Edison, Elaine Ervin, Lee Allen Howard, Adrienne Kapp, Chun Lee, W. D. Prescott, and Shara Saunsaucie White.

  Thank you to Liz Coley. You were there with me to the very end of this one!

  Thank you to my brother Tom Ruby, my brother-in-law Mike Miller, and my cousin Michael Ruby, who will forever have their old gamer tags immortalized in the V-side.

  Thank you to my parents Albert and Sharon Ruby and my grandparents John and Wanda Hawk for supporting me in writing and all of my life’s adventures and for passing down the creativity gene accompanied by an insane work ethic. I couldn’t have done this without both. And, special thoughts for my Grandparents Ruby, Albert and Anna, who never got to see this project come to completion.

  Finally, thank you to my husband Jason Jack Miller. J, you read, you listened, you encouraged, and most of all you loved. How did I get so lucky? Oh, wait, that’s right, I picked you. You didn’t really have a say in it all.

  AMBASADORA

  ONE

  “They’re watching us again,” Sara whispered against the smoothness of Chen’s cheek. His soft bergamot scent mixed with her vodka-tinged breath.

  A voyeur hovered six meters above them, narrowly missing the snaking track of blue lights suspended from the hippodrome’s ceiling. A man from the balcony overhead reached out in a drunken swat for the voyeur, but came nowhere near the mass of cameras and directional microphones. His mates pulled him back with loud guffaws when he almost toppled over the railing.

  Sara laughed, too, basking in the celebratory atmosphere. Hot pink swirls of light traveled along the floor and walls in complex patterns, painting the opulent furnishings and beautiful guests with dizzying, ephemeral artwork. The hypnotic beats pulsing through the speakers worked in time with the lighting, enhancing the dream-like quality of the evening. She found it hard to believe this cavernous playground, this entire stunning complex, was once part of an ancient worldship.

  The voyeur descended closer, several of its cameras telescoped through the darkness to capture the couple from varied angles. Chen pushed Sara up against the bar and nuzzled her neck, hiding his face and hers for the third time since they’d arrived tonight. His actions annoyed her. The whole point of coming here, at least in her opinion and every other Socialite worth her birth right, was to be seen, and not just by the party guests.

  She wanted the whole system to know she was at a function for the Sovereign’s nephew, even if it was an honorable passing celebration. Normally she declined invites to suicide parties because she felt a morose mixture of jealousy and pity for the guests of honor. Jealousy because of the lavish attention bestowed upon the celebrants; pity because the next morning the honorees would take the passing drugs, choosing to die honorably than to live sterile lives and bring shame to their family circles.

  She much preferred the charm of formal dinners and the exhilaration of techno-dances, and even the one sex party she had attended a few months ago for her eighteenth birthday, but Chen was insistent, finally winning her over by mentioning that her cousins and half-sister would never turn down this opportunity.

  Plus, she was going with a contractor—though still part of the Upper Caste Socialites, contractors may as well have been their own sub-group with very strict marriage and family traditions. Her mother, who didn’t approve of Chen, perpetuated the gossip that contractor children underwent secret reconstructive surgeries to look so perfect, and to hide the inevitable consequences of a shallow gene pool.

  Apparently her mother chose to ignore the little tweaks the doctors did during Sara’s matriculation through the nursery, and the bigger tweaks to her half-sister when they hit puberty. Laws regarding reconstruction were often overlooked in this society, unless you were a Lower, then the Embassy assumed you were trying to hide your birth caste. That warranted a Writ of Execution.

  Sara pushed those thoughts from her mind. If she left them wander around inside her head too long, she started to question the traditions, the History. That could only lead to trouble.

  “You’d think the voyeurs would be more interested
in the guy who’s about to kill himself and head to the Otherside,” Chen said.

  “I guess the Media will take news and gossip wherever they can get it.” Sara ran a hand through her short chestnut hair, showing off the new obsidian cuff on her forearm, just in case one of the cameras was still interested.

  With his usual warped sense of timing, Chen decided this occasion was the perfect way to celebrate his gift to her. The coveted offering of black jewelry meant Chen was ready to marry her, take her on as his third amour, and have a child with her. So, tonight they would celebrate the linking of their genetic lines while the party’s honoree pretended not to mourn the end of his.

  Another tenet of their society she barely understood, but was she to question if a man wanted to kill himself rather than live with the shame of being a non-breeder?

  “There are so many people here,” Sara said. “Maybe five or six hundred.” She scanned the sea of gowns and formal suits, looking for familiar faces, either friends or rivals.

  “It’s the place to be tonight,” Chen said. His tone was distracted. He had been this way from the moment the transport dropped them off here in Palomin, not even rising to the bait when a contractor still employed by the Embassy chided Chen about his rogue status, the type of subject which normally led to heated arguments or physical confrontations.

  Contractors went rogue all the time, especially those in their twenties, but many of the older generation stuck to the idea that contractors had traditionally been the Embassy police force and that’s the way it should always be, punctuating the sentiment by marrying only other contractors, homogenizing their family circles with dark hair, blue eyes, and olive skin in varying shades.

  Chen shared those same physical features, but differed in his allegiance to the government, especially when independent contracting promised higher monetary compensation and faster occupational mobility than the Embassy could offer. It wasn’t illegal to leave the Embassy, but most rogues broke as many rules as they enforced and ended up on the wrong side of the law eventually.

  Sara looped an arm through Chen’s. She had never witnessed Chen doing any rule-breaking, but admitted it was his air of danger that originally attracted her. On occasion he expressed regret at leaving the Embassy, but said returning was next to impossible. Rogues had shown they couldn’t be loyal, and the Embassy demanded the utmost loyalty.

  “See anyone we know?” Sara noticed Chen scrutinizing the dark hippodrome with purpose and calculation. She followed his gaze to the illuminated exits at the far end. “What’s wrong?”

  Chen looked at her as though snapping out of a daydream. “Nothing. Old habits.”

  Now that they were enamoured to one another, she no longer liked his old habits. In fact, if he kept them up, she might threaten to find another prime. She’d had plenty of offers, boring as they were. If she gave Chen an ultimatum now, it could provide him a way out. Her mother’s warning came back to her about never trusting a contractor. She tried to ignore it.

  He pressed his lips to her forehead, a benign gesture that any man here could have bestowed upon her in formal greeting. She wondered if he was having second thoughts about their relationship, then chided her paranoia. Chen was stubborn and wouldn’t do anything out of a sense of duty. If he wanted her, he wanted her. The marriage token confirmed it.

  Shouts at the other end of the long granite bar sent the voyeur floating toward three arguing men. This drama, feigned or genuine, would ensure the trio some precious broadcast minutes on the Media channels, helping to build their minor celebrity status and making them more desirable mates.

  Chen relaxed a bit now that the cameras had found new subjects. Before the interloper could return, he said, “I’ll be back in a bit. Enjoy yourself. Have another drink.” His gaze lingered on her bracelet for a moment before he left.

  Sara noticed the purple glow highlighting each individual filament deep inside the cuff. Maybe the phosphorous lights in the hippodrome caused the effect, the same way they made the pink calcite fluoresce in the arabesque designs on the floor and walls.

  A quickening tempo from the percussionists brought her attention to guests entering the dance area to her right. The guest of honor, a man in his twenties, moved among the dancers, gyrating and laughing. Though all of his amours were in attendance, none of them shared in the antics. The rumor was that his third had gone public with his sterility in an attempt to save face for their childless relationship. Sara wondered if he would eventually be reunited with these same amours on the Otherside.

  The honoree seemed not to notice his inattentive amours, knowing he could count on one or more of the anonymous young women surrounding him to make his last night memorable, if only to give them a chance to tell the story at parties. To be someone’s last, now that was special.

  Since tonight’s invitation came to Chen, Sara didn’t even know the man’s name, only that he was part of Sovereign Prollixer’s distant family circle. She felt guilty that she really didn’t care who the celebrant was and uneasy because of Chen’s behavior. She finished her vodka, enjoying the vanilla-tinged fire as it slid down her throat.

  She watched Chen’s suited figure cross the expansive dance floor to the dining area. He stopped at a table near the balcony exit, leaned toward its sole occupant, a female with short, sleek hair, and helped her up. Her leg peeked from a waist-high slit in the silver gown she wore. Chen placed his hand on her lower back, and they left.

  Looking for a new amour already?

  The thought of him with another woman so soon pinched, but it was better than the alternative, business—probably the rule-breaking kind. For once she worried.

  A rumor that the Sovereign himself would be attending tonight made security at the party tighter than at any other social event she’d ever attended. Embassy contractors, clad in their traditional black clothing, policed the crowd, watching as closely as any voyeur.

  She moved to follow Chen, but a man stepped into her path. “Enjoying the celebration?”

  Though he wore a formal charcoal suit, the man’s black hair and deep blue eyes marked him as a contractor. He reminded her of Chen, though a dozen years older, with his short jaw and the perfect angle between his nose and upper lip. Without a doubt, the two men came from the same distant lineage. In other circumstances she might be interested, but her anxiety multiplied the longer Chen was out of her sight.

  “It’s a beautiful party. Unfortunately you caught me on my way out.”

  The contractor slipped a hand around her wrist and brought her arm up to admire the cuff. She caught a whiff of musky sandalwood on his skin.

  “Is this for your first child?” he asked.

  “It will be.” She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened.

  “So you just recently received this?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Rainer Varden, Head Contractor for the Embassy.”

  Her mouth went dry.

  “I didn’t catch your name either,” he said.

  “Sara Mendoza.” She ignored the shiver moving down her spine and tried to play confident. “You obviously come from an impressive line, but I won’t be in the market for a new amour until after my child is born.”

  He chuckled, his look making it clear that he would never be in the market for her.

  She blushed, but ignored the insult.

  “Have you already conceived?” he asked.

  “No.” She hated admitting that she was still on mandatory birth control.

  He didn’t look surprised, and that turned her annoyance into anxiety.

  “Maybe we can talk later,” she said with a shaky smile. “Right now I have to meet someone.”

  “I’d like to meet him, too.” Rainer pushed aside his long formal jacket to reveal a gun strapped to his thigh. All Embassy contractors carried the same static charge weapon—an incendiary pistol commonly called a cender. Chen carried one, too, but not when he could be searched, like tonight.

/>   Rainer kept a firm grip on her elbow as they moved through the mass of bodies. To anyone watching, they would look like two newly met individuals stealing away to get more intimately acquainted.

  Her heart raced. She looked around for Chen and tried to offer pleading looks to the people they passed on their way out. Most of the returning glances showed drunken indifference, some expressed a hint of envy, none recognized her fear.

  Rainer gracefully maneuvered her through the exit. The door shut out the energy of party guests and fast music. Outside, the sudden stillness rang in her ears. She fidgeted from foot to foot as they entered the grav lift and waited for it to activate. From the curving outside balcony of the hippodrome, she stared into Palomin Canyon Reserve. The moon illuminated the orange and pink undulations of the sandstone walls surrounding them. A fleeting scent of sun-baked rocks trickled into her lungs, and she shivered in the cooling evening.

  Two other white rotundas, like the one she just left, sprouted from the purpled stone of the ancient river valley like bloated mushrooms. Even from six hundred meters up Sara could make out the ambient light circles below each building. An amalgam of salvaged worldship sections, these edifices provided a home to all the archives of the Embassy’s six-moon system, its short, but all-powerful History.

  She tucked wisps of her hair behind her ear and tried to quiet her anxious mind. Rainer loosened his grip on her elbow as the energy walls of the grav lift enveloped them and hazed her view. Surprisingly, the sensation of being pulled up was somehow more comforting than falling down, though the one meter per second speed was actually the same both ways. When ascending, it simply was easier not to look down and see there was only a hazy nothingness between her and the dizzying drop into the mottled canyon.

  She thought of her ride on the lift earlier tonight, how Chen kept promising it would be a night to change their lives. How quickly perspectives changed.

  At the canyon’s rim, the lift slowed to a stop. Her heels tapped a nervous cadence across the portable metal gangway then fell silent when she stepped onto the sandy ochre earth. Six other contractors waited for them. Sara stumbled as her knees buckled. Rainer kept her steady.