“He sure is taking his time," Sam said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “It’s been more than twenty minutes.”

He and Nat and Basher waited in an alcove off the central shipping cavern, waiting for Senator Fontley to come down the elevator from his ship. Many ship berths had private lobbies and waiting areas, but the Human Coalition Committee didn’t have that kind of money to throw around. Senator Fontley had arrived in a small Spo ship with only his pilot.

Sam had confirmed the time they would be there to escort him to the embassy, but the Senator hadn’t made an appearance yet.

“He probably enjoys making us wait,” Sam added.

“Maybe he’s just reluctant to get off,” Nat said.

They’d heard through other channels that the Senator had expressed grave concerns about this trip and undoubtedly would have shoved it off onto someone else if he could have done so while avoiding political suicide. He was one of the most popular committee members on Earth… but if he appeared too afraid of aliens to represent humanity out in the galaxy, he would rapidly lose that popularity.

Finally the elevator descended and Fontley stepped out.

His face looked as camera-ready as Sam remembered, as if he’d just stepped away from his job as a news anchor.

He looked around quickly, and Sam wondered if he was looking for Shara, whom he despised. Sam and Nat had tactfully sent her away for a time, for just that reason. Basher hadn’t been sorry to see her go either. She was safely on a trip to visit the cadet facilities on the Spo planet and Sam envied her.

He tried unsuccessfully to inject welcome into his voice. “Senator Fontley, welcome to Selta.” He held out his hand and Fontley shook it perfunctorily. He was affable during his introduction to Basher and greeted Nat more warmly than he had treated her before, but his manner toward Sam was as cool as ever.

“Can I speak to Sam for a moment alone?” he asked. “Just give us a few moments.”

After Basher and Nat awkwardly retreated from the alcove, Fontley turned to him. “I would like to get a few things clear before we get to the embassy.”

“Of course.” Sam was pretty sure he knew what was coming.

“Now that I am here, I am the ranking representative of humanity. I expect you to behave with all respect and compliance during my stay.”

Sam’s jaw clenched. “That’s fair enough.”

“I am serious, young man. You have attained your position of authority through the merest chance, and I will not tolerate any disobedience. If I am not much mistaken, the treaty you so rashly thrust us into is on the brink of dissolution. If you attempt to undermine my decisions upon this point, I will have you sent to the penal colony on the moon until Earth is more stable.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “I hardly think you will unilaterally be allowed to send me to prison, but,” he raised his hand as Fontley began to speak, “I understand what you’re saying. I will not attempt to undermine you during the remainder of the investigation and negotiations.”

***

Akemi could hear the words, and she could see Senator Fontley’s strained neck and bulging eyes from Sam’s point of view. Sam was taller than the senator, and Akemi was sure the smaller man resented the heck out of that, in addition to the other reasons he’d taken Sam in violent dislike.

Akemi thought Sam had answered him with great restraint so far, but the Senator clearly disagreed. He went off about his authority over Sam.

Sam’s temperature (which Akemi recorded through the glasses) was rising. “I won’t try to undermine you,” Sam said again, “but I do know a lot more about the Merith and the Spo than you do. You might think about that.”

Senator Fontley jabbed Sam’s chest with a finger. “That’s what I’m talking about. You’d better not correct me,” another jab, “question me,” jab, “or disagree with me in front of them.”

From Nat's glasses Akemi saw Sam slap the senator’s hand away and step closer, leaning over the man.

“You’re an idiot. I’m offering to help you, and a smart man accepts good help.”

Nat sighed. “Why is he always baiting Sam?”

Fontley and Sam’s conflict was going to be a problem. Sam had taken a lot of rudeness from this guy, and Akemi had seen Sam’s control slowly erode.

And... Akemi could see this more clearly than Nat, who was in love with him, and Shara, who was too self-absorbed and too Rik to notice what was happening... but Sam had treated him rather arrogantly when they first met.

Sure, Sam had done something impressive, handling the trial, getting the traitor Downy to confess, and masterminding the Rik deal off the top of his head. The problem was, he had been a little too aware of it. The galaxy had been buzzing about the trial ever since it ended. She’d monitored a lot of the reports (it was SO handy to learn languages through computer) and they were calling Sam things like, "political genius," and "child prodigy," and "species forerunner." Akemi wasn’t sure exactly what the linguistic context of that last one was, but the tone was clear, and Sam had seen enough of the reports to have his head turned.

Now, of course, he was seeing most of what he’d accomplished undone, and definitely his ego had taken a beating. Akemi didn’t blame Sam for getting a little off-balance at this renewed attack.

He stalked away from the Senator and gave a forced smile to Nat and Basher. “The Senator just wanted to have a small policy discussion. Ready to go?”

***

Sam rode in the back seat of the ground-car with Nat, and Senator Fontley rode in the passenger seat next to Basher.

Sam knew he shouldn’t let Fontley get to him. Acting aggressive only made Sam seem more like a boy and not a man, but… wow, Fontley irked him. If he would only recognize that Sam could help him, Sam would gladly take second chair to him. But the man didn’t want Sam as his second. He didn’t want Sam as his most humble aid. He probably didn’t want Sam to get his coffee.

No, scratch that, he probably would let Sam get his coffee, and then spit in it and drop it on his feet.

 “When will the Rik director arrive?” Fontley asked abruptly. “Will she be housed at the same facility as us, and how many are in her delegation?”

Sam rested his forehead against the window.

“Don’t hurt the glasses,” Akemi reminded him. I have few enough inputs as it is.

Akemi was getting bossy these days. Sam clenched his teeth once, the signal that meant he’d got her message. Incidentally, it also let him express his occasional frustration with her presence at the same time. He’d picked the signal well.

He also sat up, because she was right, and he wasn’t a sulky kid.

“The Rik will not be staying at the Spo embassy,” Basher explained. “We’re housed there as the Spo are our late sponsors and we don’t have our own embassy yet, but the Rik have no such arrangement. I imagine the Rik director will come directly from her ship.”

“Good, good,” Fontley said. “The talks’ll be on our turf, so to speak, and we’ll be there first. I’d like a full tour of the facility as soon as possible. And I’d like to examine the negotiation room and possibly make changes there.”

“The tour is already planned. And I’m sure you’ll find the negotiation room satisfactory.”

“Well. I’d like to be sure – ” Fontley started belligerently.

Sam interrupted. “I haven’t happened to see the room yet, but I’m sure the Spo negotiation room will be everything we could wish, from a territorial perspective… particularly if it’s designed similarly to the judicial rooms on Spo?”

Basher nodded. “Are you familiar with them? With the Spo philosophy on negotiation?”

“Only a little,” Sam said, truthfully. “They model ‘rooms of decision’ after the desert in summer, when all things… uh, “slow and run together?” Do I have that right?”

“As far as I know. My partner explained it once. The room is supposed to show ‘an implicit recognition that the forces of entropy will more surely defeat us all than mere conflict..’ Anyway, they put a death glass, a sacrificial knife, and the skull of a trouncer in there. Pretty macabre, if you ask me.”

They pulled to a stop and Basher got out of the car, automatically opening Nat’s door for her. For a moment Sam and Fontley were alone.

Fontley took a deep breath. “In the future, you will apprise me of this type of information – like the negotiation room - privately. Or you’ll regret it.” He opened the door and stepped out smoothly, to the Spo waiting in front of the building. Sam noted that Fontley did remember to smile with a lot of teeth, as Sam had recommended to him once, when he first had dealings with the Spo. Or maybe that was how he’d always smiled.

***

Senator Fontley was afraid.

He had tried to avoid taking this assignment to Selta, but his fellow committee members had insisted and there had been no way to decline without losing serious credibility.

He was afraid, but not for the reasons they thought.

If all went as planned, he would have a meeting with the Rik director herself in only a few days. The thought filled him with absolute dread.

He knew her. What was worse, she knew him. He could hope that she had forgotten his face in the last fifteen years, but it was a vain hope and he knew it.

Senator Fontley had been one of the first Rik on Earth, as he’d gotten his human body nearly twenty years ago. The invasion plan had still been a vague undertaking then. It was in the first stages of the plan, long before they’d targeted the Large Hadron Collider.

Yes, Fontley had gotten his marching orders long before that. He’d blended into an Earth that had no idea extraterrestrials even existed (outside their ridiculous movies). He’d enjoyed it, too. After a few years, he’d been a state representative, then a Senator for one glorious term. People had praised his detached, unbiased viewpoint – no partisan politics here! Just good, plain solutions.

Detached – they had no idea. He’d waited impatiently for the Large Hadron Collider to explode, taking careful precautions to be in a safe location from the storms and tsunamis. All had gone to plan, but then the Spo came.

He’d known to drop out of sight right away. The Spo felt justified killing as many politicians as they felt necessary to establish a new order, so he’d conveniently gone to South America for a few years. He’d nearly died in a fire storm in Sao Paolo, but he had a talent for survival, and he’d escaped again.

He’d been waiting and waiting for Earth to lose their trial. Then the Rik would come flooding in, and he’d be in a perfect position to be – oh, maybe the Deputy Director of Earth. He’d earned it.

But no. Instead Sam had ruined everything. He’d uncovered the Rik plot, with the help of that unspeakable abomination of a computer called Akemi, and he’d turned the trial. He’d exposed the Rik and impressed the Galactic Council.

In two hours, he undid twenty years of Fontley’s life.

Then he’d had the gall to make a treaty with the Rik. True, a treaty that would keep the Rik from being annihilated out of hand, but also one that made them debtors to Earth for years. It was an act of such arrogant condescension that it made Fontley sick.

What was worse, it adversely affected Fontley’s own chances of survival, and that was unforgiveable. He’d been outraged at the end of the trial, but Fontley had quickly realized that his best hope, and a substantial hope at that, lay in completely submerging himself into human culture. As one of the few former Senators still alive, he had every chance of making an excellent future for himself in human politics. He was the stuff a good politician was made from. Literally.

However, that all depended on a ragged and paranoid humanity never finding out that he had been Rik. Sam’s treaty was a direct threat to that. The more tame Rik running loose on Earth, the more chance of Fontley’s exposure.

He was completely willing to cut the Rik loose in exchange for his own survival. In fact, he would be less than human if he did not consider his own needs first – and he was absolutely determined to be human.

The sabotage had caused him a unique problem.

On the one hand, it offered the chance of driving a breach between the humans and the Rik, which he wanted. It also assisted the political persona he had developed, that of a confident and reasonable xenophobe. The people of Earth were already conditioned to hate aliens (thanks to the Spo), and as a confident representative of that mindset – people flocked to support him.

On the other hand, the actual investigation of the explosion was bound to involve encounters with many Rik, and he had wrangled as best he could to avoid that. Alas for his failure.

The one bright note in this whole mess was the presence of Faal of Merith II. He was a Merith of renown who had a well-known and passionate dislike of the Rik. Senator Fontley planned to cultivate that relationship for all it was worth. First, because it would be completely unlike a Rik to cultivate a Merith relationship. Second, Faal was a member of the Galactic Council. If he was convinced of the Senator’s bona fides, he would be a powerful ally. Third, Sam disliked him.

It was perhaps part of Fontley’s irrational human nature, but he could not forbear hating Sam. Fontley could justify his hatred however, in that Sam offered one of the most pernicious threats to Fontley’s political career. Sam was immensely popular and known around the world. In another few years, Sam could be an unstoppable political foe.

In fact, Fontley had been pondering whether this stay on Selta might not be the perfect time to be rid of Sam for good. It would be madness to attempt his assassination out of hand, but if it could be made to fit in with the Rik sabotage investigation… Fontley left that thought reluctantly. It was a pleasant idea, but he really must focus on the upcoming meeting.