After the first hour of the Special Joint Committee’s session, Ainsley could sense Fludenoc finally begin to relax. The Gha even managed to lean back into the huge chair which had been specially provided for him toward the back of the chamber.
“Feeling better?” he whispered.
The Gha exhaled vigorously. “Yes. This is much more-” He groped for words.
“United?” asked Ainsley, cocking a whimsical eyebrow. “Coherent? Rational? Organized?”
“Yes. All those.”
Ainsley turned in his seat, facing forward. Behind the long table which fronted the chamber sat the fifteen most powerful legislators of the human race. The Special Joint Committee had been formed with no regard for hallowed seniority or any of the other arcane rituals which the Confederation’s governing body seemed to have adopted, over the past century, from every quirk of every single legislative body ever created by the inventive human mind.
This committee was dealing with the fate of humanity-and a number of other species, for that matter. Those men and women with real power and influence had made sure they were sitting at that table. Hallowed rituals be damned.
Not that all rituals and ceremony have been discarded, thought Ainsley, smiling wryly.
He was particularly amused by the veil worn by the Muslim Federation’s representative-who had spent thirty years ramming the world’s stiffest sexual discrimination laws down her countrymen’s throats; and the splendiferous traditional ostrich-plume headdress worn by the South African representative-who was seven-eighths Boer in his actual descent, and looked every inch the blond-haired part; and the conservative grey suit worn by the representative from North America’s United States and Provinces, suitable for the soberest Church-going occasions-who was a vociferous atheist and the author of four scholarly books on the historical iniquities of mixing Church and State.
The Chairperson of the Special Joint Committee rose to announce the next speaker, and Ainsley’s smile turned into a veritable grin.
And here she is, my favorite. Speaking of preposterous rituals and ceremonies.
The representative from the Great Realm of the Chinese People, Chairperson of the Special Joint Committee-all four feet, nine inches of her-clasped her hands demurely and bobbed her head in modest recognition of her fellow legislators.
Everybody’s favorite humble little woman.
“If the representative from the European Union will finally shut his trap,” she said, in a voice like steel Mai the Merciless.
“-maybe we can get down to the serious business.”
Silence fell instantly over the chamber.
“We call her the Dragon Lady,” whispered Ainsley.
“She good,” hissed Fludenoc approvingly. “What is ‘dragon’?”
“Watch,” replied the historian.
Two hours later, Fludenoc was almost at ease. Watching Mai the Merciless hack her bloody way through every puffed-up dignitary who had managed to force himself or herself onto the Committee’s agenda had produced that effect.
“She very good,” the Gha whispered. “Could eat one of those stupid carnivores we ride in a single meal.”
“-and what other asinine proposition does the august Secretary wish us to consider?” the Chairperson was demanding.
The Secretary from the International Trade Commission hunched his shoulders. “I must protest your use of ridicule, Madame Chairperson,” he whined. “We in the Trade Commission do not feel that our concerns are either picayune or asinine! The project which is being proposed, even if it is successful-which, by the way, we believe to be very unlikely-will inevitably have the result, among others, of our planet being subjected to a wave of immigration by-by-”
The Chairperson finished his sentence. The tone of her voice was icy: “By coolies.”
The Trade Commission’s Secretary hunched lower. “I would not choose that particular-”
“That is precisely the term you would choose,” snapped Mai the Merciless, “if you had the balls.”
Ainsley had to fight not to laugh, watching the wincing faces of several of the legislators. From the ripple in her veil, he thought the Muslim Federation’s representative was undergoing the same struggle.
“What are ‘balls’?” asked Fludenoc.
“Later,” he whispered. “It is a term which is considered very politically incorrect.”
“What is ‘politically incorrect’?”
“Something which people who don’t have to deal with real oppression worry about,” replied the historian. Ainsley spent the next few minutes gleefully watching the world’s most powerful woman finish her political castration of the world’s most influential regulator of trade.
After the Secretary slunk away from the witness table, the Chairperson rose to introduce the next speaker.
“Before I do so, however, I wish to make an announcement.” She held up several sheets of paper. “The Central Committee of the Great Realm of the Chinese People adopted a resolution this morning. The text was just transmitted to me, along with the request that I read the resolution into the records of this Committee’s session.”
A small groan went up. The Chairperson smiled, ever so slightly, and dropped the sheets onto the podium.
“However, I will not do so, inasmuch as the resolution is very long and repetitive. There is one single human characteristic, if no other, which recognizes neither border, breed, nor birth. That is the long-windedness of legislators.”
The chamber was swept by a laugh. But the laughter was brief. The Chairperson’s smile vanished soon enough, replaced by a steely glare.
“But I will report the gist of the resolution. The Chinese people of the world have made their decision. The so-called galactic civilization of the Guilds and the Federation is nothing but a consortium of imperialist bandits and thieves. All other species, beyond those favored as so-called ‘Doges,’ are relegated to the status of coolies.”
Her voice was low, hissing: “It is not to be tolerated. It will not be tolerated. The Great Realm strongly urges the World Confederation to adopt whole-heartedly the proposal put forward by our Gha fellow-toilers. Failing that, the Great Realm will do it alone.”
Ainsley sucked in his breath. “Well,” he muttered, “there’s an old-fashioned ultimatum for you.”
“What does this mean?” asked Fludenoc.
Ainsley rose from his seat. “What it means, my fine froggy friend, is that you and I don’t have to spend the rest of the afternoon watching the proceedings. It’s what they call a done deal.”
As they walked quietly out of the chamber, Ainsley heard the Chairperson saying:
“-to Commodore Craig Trumbull, for his unflinching courage in the face of barbaric tyranny, the Great Realm awards the Star of China. To all of the men and women of his flotilla who are not Chinese, in addition to he himself, honorary citizenship in the Great Realm. To the crew of the heroic Quinctius Flaminius, which obliterated the running dogs of the brutal Doge-”
When the door closed behind them, Fludenoc asked: “What is a ‘done deal’?”
“It’s what happens when a bunch of arrogant, stupid galactics not only poke a stick at the martial pride of North Americans, but also manage to stir up the bitterest memories of the human race’s biggest nation.”
He walked down the steps of the Confederation Parliament with a very light stride, for a man his age. Almost gaily. “I’ll explain it more fully later. Right now, I’m hungry.”
“Ice cream?” asked Fludenoc eagerly.
“Not a chance,” came the historian’s reply. “Today, we’re having Chinese food.”