“This is not what I joined the Diplomatic Corps for.”
Hannah James gave her coms screen a dirty look and continued grumbling to herself. “I am a qualified communications technician. I’m supposed to be going to other planets, not picking through old flexnet messages.”
She exhaled, leaned back in her chair, and glared at the rest of her small, cramped work cube filled with high-tech communications equipment. Consoles flickered with lights, and bright screens surrounded her in the tight space, leaving hardly enough room to push her chair away from the desk.
With an inarticulate growl, she stood. At 5’9” she had a scant few inches of clearance in the cube. She stretched, extending her arms out sideways and rotating first her arms and then her waist. Her long, red, braided hair whipped around from side to side.
She bent over and put her nose to her ankle, stretching her legs with a deep ‘Ahhh’. Her braid hit the floor and snaked around her foot as she bent deeper, pressing her chest into her shin.
Foreign worlds and people―that’s what I signed up for.
“Not last year’s missives,” she mumbled into her ankle.
“Anyone in here?” a voice called from outside her cube.
Hannah cringed. “Great,” she muttered under her breath. “Exactly what I need. That imbecile from Level 2.” She straightened up as her cube door opened and a man peeked in.
“Hi, Ronald.” She made her greeting flat and noncommittal. On one and only date with Ronald, she learned everything about him was thin. Thin body, thin black hair, thin dreams and aspirations. She stood up straight, looking down her nose at him and working to maintain an official tone. “What can I do for you?”
“I came to ask if you’d like to―”
“Oh, I can’t,” she blurted, eager to cut him off. “I’m so busy.” She motioned to her work station.
His chin came up as he looked around her cube. “I see.”
His expression said he was sorely unconvinced, but Hannah didn’t care. She simply wanted him to leave.
“Sorry,” she offered over her shoulder as she turned her back on him.
Sitting with a thump, she held her breath. Behind her there was a rustle of movement, and the door finally closed. She whistled through pursed lips. “And people wonder why I want to go off-planet.”
With a final stretch, she settled back in to work.
The system Hannah monitored was Ambassador Gray’s database of messages to and from all planets with an Earth-2 embassy or consulate, including new additions the ambassador had not yet visited.
Hannah hummed as she entered the parameters of her next search. “Lurra,” she murmured. The ambassador was putting together a trip now to investigate the long-lost colony. “I wonder what secrets you hold.”
Hannah’s sorting system chirped. “What do we have here?” She sat up straight as she segregated the flagged communiqué.
From Ambassador Elizabete Urkiza, Lurra
To Ambassador Gray, Earthen Diaspora Alliance
Honorable Ambassador Gray,
As the newly appointed Ambassador of Lurra, I welcome you and the E2 delegation to our planet.
While your people and mine came from the same stock, much has changed since you last knew Lurra. With respect to our substantial biodiversity and cultural differences, we request you bring a predominately female staff.
We look forward to your arrival.
Travel safe.
Ambassador Urkiza
“Send to handheld,” Hannah said, ordering a copy. When it finished, she picked up her pad and hurried out the door, her heart hammering with excitement.
She walked briskly, passing by anyone in her way, ignoring the looks her coworkers shot her direction. She wanted out of here. What these people thought of her wasn’t important. What did matter was the message she carried.
This is my ticket to getting off-planet.
“Critical information for the ambassador,” she announced in Gray’s reception office. She waited calmly, even though adrenaline was flashing through her system.
Calm down, she chided herself. Present the message and get added to the mission.
An inner door opened and a dark-haired man, one of Ambassador Gray’s assistants, motioned to her. “Miss James,” he said. “Come in.”
As she entered, Ambassador Gray stood. “Hannah, where have you been hiding?” He walked out from behind his desk and gave her a warm hug. “I see your name on the work roster, but I never see you.”
She stepped back from his embrace and smiled. It was good to see him again. “I was assigned to monitor your flexnet messages. Unless you frequent the lower levels―”
“You should have come to me,” he said, frowning. “There must be something better for you to do. But what brings you here? You said you have critical information? Something you couldn’t simply forward to me, I take it.”
“The automated system filtered this one out.” She passed the pad to him. “It’s a good thing I found it before mission launch.”
Gray took the pad and read, frowning and then nodding. With a few flicks of his fingers, he forwarded the message to several other departments.
The assistant still stood just inside the office, at the door. Gray spoke to him without looking up from the pad. “They’re asking for women―a predominately female staff, as the Lurran ambassador puts it.”
“Their culture, sir―” Hannah began.
“Yes, barbaric, isn’t it?” he answered. “I do have to wonder how Earth-2 would have evolved given the same circumstances. Still, all those swords―”
“All societies evolve around their most valuable commodity,” Hannah said. “Fuel, food, water―”
“Or women,” Gray finished.
“Or women,” Hannah agreed. She inhaled deeply—it was now or never. “Sir, I’d like to go with you to Lurra. You did promise me travel and adventure when I signed on.”
She held her breath, suddenly regretting that inhalation.
The ambassador was an old friend of her father’s, she reminded herself. She could remember Charles Gray at her childhood birthday parties, talking with her father on the sidelines.
Surely that would help her cause.
“The Lurrans are primitive,” Gray said. “The men carry swords long enough to cut you in two. I don’t know what your father would say to me for taking you to that kind of planet.”
“My father always encouraged me to seek adventure,” Hannah reminded him. “And he would expect you to recognize I’m a grown woman trained for a specific job. He would expect—as do I—nothing more or less than a fair opportunity.”
“Think she can handle herself, Matt?” Gray asked the assistant.
“She looks quite capable, Mr. Ambassador.” A glance over her shoulder showed Hannah the barest hint of a smile, along with a twinkle in the other man’s eye.
Gray exhaled. “I hope I don’t regret this. But as the Lurran ambassador has requested, we’ll swap out as many of the men as we can for women. That now makes you, Hannah, a cultural attaché—just like Matthew here.” He grinned. “Pack your bag. You’re going to Lurra, the lost colony.”
He turned to Matt. “I’ll need you to pull the rosters for this mission and the one to Caliban’s Hope in six months. We’ll need to swap out some personnel.”
He raised one eyebrow as he glanced at Hannah. “And thank you for bringing this to my attention.”
The dismissal was clear—but not meant to be unkind, Hannah was sure. The ambassador looked more distracted than irritated.
As she tiptoed out and pulled the door closed behind her, she heard him say, “Better order in dinner. We’re going to be here all night again, I fear.”
* * *
Hannah spent the brief days she had before mission launch studying up on Lurran history and culture. There was little to choose from—communication with Lurra stopped centuries ago.
In the gym, she tackled a heavy bag, pummeling it with punches while her friend Cheryl steadied it.
“Women,” Hannah said, double punching the bag. Slam, slam. “Women run the planet.”
“But there aren’t as many women as there are men, right? Isn’t that why they have those”—Cheryl glanced around the gym, found it all but empty, and lowered her voice to a whisper, anyway—“orgy marriages?”
Hannah laughed, the sound coming out on a harsh breath. “From what I can tell, they’re more like…” She quit talking as she moved in and assaulted the bag with a flurry of punches. Slam, slam, slam.
“Like three separate marriages in one,” she continued, dancing back. “They’re not all together at the same time. I think.” Hannah shook out her arms, keeping her body in motion, bouncing on toes and bent knees. “Women are precious, treated with respect.”
“Just three men?” Cheryl asked, sounding almost disappointed. “After the Kearse Expedition found the planet again, all the flexnews channels made it sound like the whole place was one giant free-for-all.”
One more trio of punches—three, like the Lurran marriages, Hannah thought.
“I’m sure. Women marry three men at once,” she panted, adding a kick to the bag. She stopped and wiped the sweat from her face.
“Huh,” Cheryl snorted. “I wonder what that’s like.”
Hannah stepped back from the bag and smiled. “Guess I’m going to find out.”
Cheryl’s eyes widened.
“Not like that,” Hannah protested, and the two women dissolved into laughter.
“My turn,” Cheryl said, handing the bag off to Hannah to steady. “I’m going to need to work off some of this tension.”
Their peals of laughter echoed through the gym.