“Things aren’t what they used to be,” a voice said.
Kurt jumped, then spun around. Jake MacFarlane stood there, looking surprised at Kurt’s reaction. The pilot hadn’t been on Ark Royal for the first desperate battles against the aliens, but he’d joined the ship in time for Operation Nelson and the attack on Target One. He’d been a young puppy back then, someone who had trained alongside Prince Henry. Now, he was effectively a veteran pilot.
“They never were,” Kurt pointed out. He’d had the full training course. MacFarlane had had the Accelerated Training Course. The maggots in the simulators hadn’t even had that. But then, MacFarlane had clearly learned something. Or he would have died. “How are you enjoying your promotion?”
MacFarlane sighed. He’d been assigned to serve as a Squadron Commander, but it was very much a poisoned chalice. Almost all of his pilots were rank newcomers.
“I feel I should be sending them to their beds without supper,” MacFarlane said. “They’re kids.”
Kurt nodded. He’d had the same reaction.
And he knew that far too many of those kids were going to die.
“I was surprised, Admiral, at your reluctance to serve alcohol,” Ambassador Gasconne said. “It does tend to make diplomatic dinners go smoothly.”
“Unless someone gets drunk and forgets diplomacy,” Ambassador Tennant pointed out. “I was there when the Ambassador from Argentina got drunk and practically challenged the Ambassador from Brazil to a duel. Smoothing that over took a great deal of work.”
Ted shrugged. It had been nearly a year since he’d touched a drop of alcohol, but there were times when he felt the urge to take a drink howling at the back of his mind. Alcohol had comforted him when his ship had been nothing more than a floating museum piece, yet when he’d actually had to go on active service he’d forced himself to stop drinking. It hadn’t been easy.
And if Fitzwilliam hadn’t been there, he thought, I would have fallen back into a bottle and stayed there.
He looked around the table, smiling inwardly. The Ambassadors hadn’t seemed too put out by the food, but some of their aides were clearly doubtful. Ted had read their files, though; the Ambassadors were veterans of secret diplomacy, men who made deals well away from the media or the general public. They’d understand that it wasn’t all fine wines, fancy dinners and public relations. But they wouldn’t normally take their staff with them on such missions.
“The Navy is officially dry,” he said, simply. It wasn’t entirely true, yet he’d banned alcohol from the flotilla and made it stick. Someone probably had an illicit still somewhere — it was practically tradition - but as long as they were careful, Ted wouldn’t be forced to take notice of it. “We have to set a good example.”
“It could be worse,” Ambassador Melbourne said. He nodded towards the dishes on the table. “I had to attend a meeting in Arabia once, years ago. They tried to feed me something made of greasy fat with a tiny piece of meat and piles of steaming rice. I later discovered it was goat.”
Ted had to smile. The ship’s cooks had done their best, but there was a shortage of fresh food from Earth these days. Most of the meal had come from processed biomass grown in the ship’s hydroponic farms or recycled from the waste disposal systems. There were civilians who refused to eat anything recycled, all too aware of what it had been recycled from.
“We don’t have goat on the menu,” he said. “But we had to produce the meat in a vat.”
“Understandable,” Tennant said. “We can’t afford to eat now when people are desperately looking for food down below.”
Ted nodded. America had been badly hit by the tidal waves, but America simply had much more room to grow food and house refugees. Even so, it would be years before the country recovered, if it ever did. The latest reports suggested that applications for emigration, just like Britain, had skyrocketed over the last few days. Earth no longer felt safe and tranquil.
“But I should ask,” Fitzwilliam said. “What do you plan to offer the aliens?”
“It depends,” Melbourne said. The Ambassador shared glances with his compatriots. “Ideally, we want a return to the pre-war status quo, with a border demarcation and embassies that will prevent another war. Unfortunately, as we have no idea why they started the war, we may have to adapt to circumstances. At worst, we will have to cede the occupied worlds to them permanently in exchange for peace.”
“The Russians will love that,” Fitzwilliam pointed out. “Don’t you have a Russian representative on your staff?”
“Yes, Peter Golovanov,” Melbourne said. “But the Russians declined to send a formal Ambassador. Peter is… just an observer.”
Ted frowned. International diplomacy wasn’t something he had much experience with, apart from commanding a multinational fleet during Operation Nelson, but it seemed odd for the Russians to refuse to take part in any negotiations. Or had they assumed that the diplomats would be forced to cede the occupied worlds, including New Russia, and refused to take part on the theory that agreements wouldn’t be binding if Russia didn’t sign them? It wasn’t a question he could ask at such a gathering.
I’ll talk to the Ambassador privately, later, he thought.
Fitzwilliam changed the subject, hastily. “Doctor,” he said, “do you think we can actually communicate with the aliens?”
“We have devised ways to convert our voices into something they can hear,” Doctor Polly McDonald said. “But we have problems actually communicating with them. Some of the prisoners are more cooperative than others, yet we haven’t been able to get them to talk properly. I think their society is so different from ours that some of our concepts don’t make sense to them.”
She smiled, charmingly. “I have been able to discuss mathematical concepts with them,” she added. “They can do their sums, so we’re not dealing with a race of drones, but we just can’t get some of our ideas across to them. We may never be able to understand them completely.”
“Wonderful,” Melbourne said. “And to think I thought negotiating with religious fanatics was bad.”
Chapter Twelve
“I suppose it could be worse,” Fitzwilliam said.
Ted nodded in agreement as he sipped his tea. The flotilla was due to depart in two hours, but the final preparations had yet to be made. Between the diplomats, their aides and the researchers, Ted had had very little time to pay attention to the repair work. Fortunately, the Old Lady had a good commander and a brilliant engineer.
“Yeah,” Ted agreed. “But we’re still going to be in trouble if the aliens target the weakened parts of our hull.”
He shrugged. “Apart from that,” he said, “how do we stand?”
“We’ve kidnapped a few dozen yard dogs,” Fitzwilliam said. “I think one of them is planning to file charges when we return to the solar system.”
“I don’t blame him,” Ted said. Technically, the Royal Navy had the legal authority to pressgang whoever it needed to keep the ships running, but it had never been asserted before the war. The yard dogs would share the same fate as the naval officers, without any of the legal guarantees of protections and pensions for their families. “But as long as he does his duty here, we won’t worry about it.”