Signs and Portents
© 2021 by Walter Reimer

Thumbnail art by  DragonMelde, color by  Major Matt Mason



“Drr’k’hōth’chagin game designers,” Varan growled, using the standard contraction of a rather complicated multi-part curse that implied that the target’s parents didn’t know each other and at least one was not sophont and that was the one who raised the target to adulthood, as the elephants again dragged the mage and the paladin away to be prepared, cooked and eaten. The game brought them back to the last saved point, and the vir sat back to think.

There had to be some way past the current obstacle; she and Meredith were nowhere near the final battle that ended the game.

She loaded a previously saved ending and watched carefully. The thin metal hats must be only a part of the mice’s strategy, Varan guessed, so there must be another factor involved. While the ending replayed, the vir went through her character’s inventory for something that might be useful . . . wait a fraction.

Varan still had the cookbook she’d acquired in Pyewackethorpe, on the previous game level. Offering it to the elephants might help distract them. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try.

Another possible solution entailed questioning one of the mice, something that Varan had several spells for. Meredith’s character, being a paladin, could not be a part of what the vir was planning, as the moral ambiguity would interact poorly with the mare’s consecrated armor.

With a plan in mind, the mage headed back to the mouse village alone.


***


“That’s odd,” Meredith muttered.

“Hm?” Fuji asked. “What’s odd?”

“Here,” and she passed her padd over to him as he set his bowl down. The two had spent the day hiking around their campsite, and while the monitor was finishing his dinner the mare had accessed their favorite entertainment program. “Monsoon Poultry Hospital’s changed their main character.”

“Nurse Dara? It’s not the end of the season yet, is it?” the bull asked as he started the episode again. Sure enough, the avuncular male wolf that had played the principal character had been replaced by an otteress. Fuji frowned and flicked back and forth through the entertainment node, failing in his attempt to find any news or announcement about the change. Finally he sat back and reached for his bowl again, spooning up some more of the stew as the episode unfolded.

By the time the show ended, Meredith was snuggled in beside him and they watched it together. “Well, that was certainly different,” the golden palomino mare remarked. The overall tenor of the show had changed, with the emphasis no longer on the hospital’s mission to care (or cure) the sick; instead, the episode had concentrated on the sacrifices of the military against Terra’s many enemies. “So, what do you think?” she asked her lover.

“Pretty obvious,” Fuji said with a shrug. “The Confed’s started leaning on the media they still control, and DHC’s based on Afrodite if I recall. Don’t know why they changed Dara’s character, though.”

“Might have refused to play along.”

“Hmm, yeah.” He glanced at his empty bowl. “Whose turn was it to clean up?”

Meredith smiled. “Mine – or would you like to trade?”

The monitor grinned. “What have you got?”

He laughed as the mare stood up and struck a pose. It was a warm night, and neither of them were wearing anything. “If you have to ask by now . . . “ she teased.


***


The artwork was titled simply Discord, and the work matched the title. It was a random collection of metals, transparisteel, glass, and even some wood; all polished to a high gloss and combining to form a veritable thicket of jagged points and razor-sharp edges. The artist herself was accompanying the work on a tour throughout the Terran Sphere.

Of all the stupid things, the Political Officer thought as he looked down at the free-form sculpture and the small crowd of admirers, this was literally the stupidest. The antelope couldn’t fathom why – or how – the Confed, Colonial, and Imperial governments all seemed to agree to allow the artist to lug her works all the way out to Downtime Station. Either she was rich enough to bribe everyone, or she was so politically connected that it was best to avoid her.

Well, let the squirrel peddle her so-called ‘art.’ The antelope had other priorities.

He was certain that Balakrishnan had come to some sort of arrangement with the Kashlani, but so far, he’d received no orders from either the Foreign Ministry or his actual superior regarding the canine. It wasn’t hard to notice that Balakrishnan had started scrupulously avoiding high areas and corridors adjacent to the station’s emergency airlocks.

He would have to think of something else.

The antelope stepped back from the sixth-level balcony he’d been leaning against and started toward the elevators. He had found that the sixth floor, overlooking the forest on the Terran side of the station, gave him an excellent view of everyone moving about the station concourse.

And it made spotting the Terran Ambassador that much easier when she returned from whatever meetings she had been having with her Critter counterpart. She’d been acting hesitant about informing him of what she was discussing, and she’d made several transmissions to Terra without asking his input.

But apart from a coded message to get ready, he’d had no word from his superior.

The lift door he was walking toward whispered open, and the artist stepped out. Squirrel, maybe a head shorter than him and quite a bit on the portly side, she took up more of the walkway than he did.

She muttered, “Excuse me,” and the two squeezed past each other.

The antelope found himself flying – no, falling.

He’d never felt the blow to the back of his neck, and as the floor of the concourse rushed toward him he allowed himself to feel a small amount of respect. One professional to another.

The antelope landed with considerable force, for although he was on a space station, the artigrav was set for one standard Terran gravity. So fall he did.

Directly onto the collection of jagged shards that made up the artist’s masterwork, Discord.


***


Chief Minister of the Colonial Provisional Government Zulfikar Mo glanced at his padd, then at his Foreign Minister, before turning his gaze on the two femmes facing him across his desk aboard the Satan. The bull asked the Minister, “Have they been fully briefed?”

The bear nodded. “They also know the dangers, Chief Minister.”

“All right.” The pair of femmes facing him were otter sows, close enough in appearance to be identical twins, although there were tiny variations in the fur pattern that showed that they were not sisters, and one was also a centimeter or two taller than the other. “Upon the advice of Foreign Minister Krasov, I approve your accreditation as ambassadors to the Terran – “ here he snorted derisively “ – Empire. Chang Lin,” and the otteress on his left cocked her ears, “you are assigned to negotiate with Ambassador Balakrishnan on Downtime Station.”

“I don’t envy you,” Krasov muttered.

“Baxter Ludmilla,” Mo said, and the sow on his right smiled politely, “you are assigned to Terra itself, although our advice is to establish your embassy on Lalande. I don’t want you and your staff getting taken hostage or killed outright, so I want you to stay under Kashlanin protection. Understood?”

“Clearly, Chief Minister,” Baxter said.

“Chang-jih, you and your staff watch your backs on Downtime. We have no idea how many Confed Intelligence operatives are waiting for you.”

Chang merely nodded. In addition to being carefully briefed on what their tasks were, the two new envoys were special forces officers, as were their respective staffs. Anyone who attacked them was hopefully going to be unpleasantly surprised.

Mo huffed a breath through his nose. “Deus go with you both. Be careful.”

“Sir,” the two otter femmes chorused, and left the office.

“They’ll do well, Zulfikar,” Krasov remarked after the door had closed.

“I pray you’re right,” Mo said.