Articles Of The Federation Part 19

Chapter Fourteen.

ESPERANZA STARED AT HERSELF in the floor-length mirror in her bedroom and tried to recognize the person looking back at her.

"You look great." Xeldara Trask's face was on the viewer on her bedroom desk.

She couldn't really deny Xeldara's words. The general Palais protocol for state dinners required attendees to wear whatever was considered formal wear on their homeworlds. For Esperanza, as well as Fred, Ashante, several members of the speechwriting staff, and the president herself, that meant following the traditions of Cestus III-or, at least, Nan Bacco's interpretations of them. Her outfit, which hadn't been worn regularly on Cestus III since before the president was born, included a dark red high-necked jacket that was fastened all the way to the top-the top, in this case, being the ribbed neck of the jacket that went all the way up to her jawline, hugging her neck and impairing her ability to breathe. The main part of the jacket was made of velvet. At the bottom, the jacket flared outward to just below the pelvis. Under that, she wore dark blue conformer leggings that hewed to the shape of her legs down to the ankle. She also wore her hair loose, which marked the first occasion in ages when she was doing it where people could see it.

"n.o.body's dressed like this since the first time the Gorn attacked Cestus III a hundred years ago."

"So why are you dressed like that now?"

"The president likes old-fas.h.i.+oned dress clothes for reasons pa.s.sing understanding. At least mostly old-fas.h.i.+oned. From what I understand, this outfit is properly worn with heeled shoes, but I had to draw the line somewhere."

"Glad she's not insisting on that for everyone. I'm wearing a dress-wrap." Tiburonian custom called for a sarong-like outfit to be worn at formal occasions.

"Right now, I'd kill to be a Tiburonian. Or a Vulcan-they just have to wear nice big formless robes."

"You could've worn your Starfleet dress uniform. I'm sure the president would've understood."

Esperanza turned herself away from the peculiar reflection she was now casting and looked at her deputy. "There is no circ.u.mstance under which I will ever wear that white monstrosity in public again. I grinned and bore it while I was in Starfleet, but one of the joys of resigning my commission was that I could happily burn that thing."

"You burned your dress uniform?"

"Gleefully and with malice aforethought. I only wish I'd had marshmallows to roast over the flames."

"I know what those weaves smell like when they burn-the marshmallows would've tasted awful."

Shrugging, Esperanza said, "Good point. So everything's set, right?"

"For the ninth time, yes. We've run the entire menu by the Trinni/ek scientists, taken out anything they might not be able to process, and double-checked to make sure that they can eat what's left."

"And they approved- "

"Yes, Esperanza, they approved the itinerary. That hasn't changed since the last time you asked me three minutes ago, or when you asked me ten minutes ago, or when you asked me half an hour ago, or when you asked me nine times yesterday, or- "

"All right, all right," Esperanza said, "enough. I'm just concerned."

Ashante and Z4 had accompanied the president on her goodwill tour. While Myk had been left to handle whatever Palais business needed to be dealt with, Esperanza and Xeldara, with help from Councillor Ra'ch B'ullhy's office, had spent the month that the president had been gone working with Amba.s.sador Morrow and the Trinni/ek diplomats to make sure their trip to Earth went off without a hitch. Morrow had a great deal of experience with first contacts, though it was all as an aide-this was the first time he was flying one solo, as it were-and Ra'ch's homeworld of Damiano was relatively close to Trinni/ek.

Tonight was the opening festivity: a state dinner, the first of the Bacco administration. That would be followed over the next several days by meetings with members of the council, the cabinet, and the diplomatic corps, finally ending with a joint press conference and a farewell party on Luna.

Esperanza turned all the way around one final time. "I look like an idiot."

"You look fantastic. I confidently predict that half the men in the room will be trying to dance with you."

Whirling back on the viewer, Esperanza gave Xeldara a shocked look. "There's gonna be dancing?"

Xeldara seemed surprised at Esperanza's outrage. "Of course there's dancing. That was a specific request of Speaker Ytri/ol."

Frowning, Esperanza cast her mind back on the evening plans, which had changed eight thousand times over the course of the past four weeks. "You mean the fleer/ic? I thought that was a kind of food."

"No, fleer/ok is food, and we had to take it off the menu because it's poisonous to humans, Vulcans, Bajorans, Trills, and Betazoids, and it gives Tellarites a rash."

"See if we can get a case sent to Gleer." She sighed. "So fleer/ic is a dance?"

"Yeah, a very simple one."

"Wait a minute, I thought we got rid of that-no, wait, that was the food. Right. d.a.m.n."

"Don't like to dance, Esperanza?"

"Don't know-never tried, and I don't plan to start tonight." And if, for whatever reason, I do wind up making an a.s.s of myself, I can be grateful that I was smart enough to avoid the d.a.m.n heels. "All right, I'm gonna make sure the president's ready. See you there."

After Xeldara signed off, Esperanza put a call through to the Chateau Thelian. Named after Thelianaresth th'Vorothishria, the early-twenty-fourth-century Andorian president who had had it built as his residence, the s.p.a.cious chateau in the Loire Valley had been the residence of every president since then. Esperanza herself lived in a small chalet that was located nearby. She knew that the chiefs of staff usually had comparatively modest accommodations, though Min Zife's COS, Koll Azernal, had taken up residence in the Chateau de Saint Brisson, which was as large as the presidential chateau. Given what she knew of Azernal, that somehow didn't surprise her. Esperanza preferred the more modest chalet. It's not like I spend any significant time here, anyhow-usually I'm here just long enough to not get enough sleep.

The president appeared on the viewer. Esperanza braced herself for the inevitable criticism, probably related to her footwear.

"Wow. You look like c.r.a.p."

"Good to see you too, ma'am," Esperanza smiled wryly.

President Bacco's outfit was similar to Esperanza's, but with three significant differences: Her jacket was ivory, which went nicely with her white hair; her leggings were black; and she looked fantastic. Esperanza sighed. She had gone for red and dark blue on the theory that they would work better with her olive skin, which they sort of did. The president's paler outfit, however, worked wonders with her own paler skin. She looked regal. All right, so she isn't a monarch, but if there's one occasion where it doesn't hurt for the president to look like one, it's a state dinner.

The president looked her over. "I'm impressed that you let your hair down. I was starting to think that ponytail was just a fake stick-on." She shook a finger at Esperanza. "You know what your problem is?"

Esperanza sighed. "No, ma'am, but I have every confidence in your ability to let me know what it is."

"Actually, using the singular was a mistake. You've got plenty of problems, plural, but we don't have time to go into all of them. On this particular occasion, your problem is the shoes. You're supposed to wear- "

"- high-heeled shoes with the outfit. I know, ma'am. However, it is my considered opinion-and I'm sure that the entire staff will back me up on this one-that it would be extremely embarra.s.sing and detrimental to our attempts to form a relations.h.i.+p with the Trinni/ek if, during the state dinner welcoming them, the chief of staff fell on her face because she couldn't stand upright in those torture devices."

"Oh come on, they're not that bad."

"Ma'am, if we'd given a s.h.i.+p full of those shoes to the Jem'Hadar, we'd have won the war in two months."

"It still ruins the whole ensemble. Like designing a mansion and then building it on a swamp."

"They do that all the time on Ferenginar, ma'am."

"This is who you want us to emulate?"

"I bet they don't make women wear painful shoes at state dinners on Ferenginar."

"Up until a few years ago, they didn't make women wear anything on Ferenginar."

"Good point."

"Anyhow, I'm ready to go. Been practicing my fleer/ic steps."

"Sorry I missed that, ma'am."

"Watch it, you, I'm a great dancer. You remember Annabella's wedding?"

"Mostly what I remember from that wedding is Alberto's father hitting on me."

The president laughed. "Yeah, Paolo's a pip."

"So's his wife," Esperanza said with a chuckle, remembering the wife in question dragging Paolo away by his beard.

Esperanza hesitated. At times like this, Nan Bacco wasn't the president, wasn't the most powerful person in the Federation-she was just Mom and Dad's eccentric old politician friend, Auntie Nan. Esperanza had always looked forward to her visits, filled as they had been with humor and stories and a genuine interest in what Esperanza had been concerned with, something small children rarely encountered among the adult population.

There were times when Esperanza missed that, so when they had the opportunity to be little Espy and Auntie Nan, even if only for a few moments, she treasured it.

But now the moment was past, and it was time to go to work. "We ready, ma'am?"

Nodding, the president said, "Yeah."

Signing off, Esperanza went downstairs to the transporter station located in the chalet's bas.e.m.e.nt. Touching the intercom to the Palais, she said, "Kirti, it's Esperanza. I'm ready to beam over."

Kirti Chandra, the Palais's head transporter operator, said, "They're still getting the president ready, so I'll take you now."

Esperanza nodded and stepped onto the small two-person platform. Traveling with a security detail, as the president did, always meant that using a transporter was a more complicated endeavor, so it didn't surprise Esperanza that she was ready first. Also, Esperanza benefited from her small chalet. It was a much longer walk from the bedroom to the transporter room in the s.p.a.cious Chateau Thelian.

Moments later, she was in the second-floor Palais transporter bay, which was empty of all save three of the president's security detail, Kirti at the controls, and Esperanza. Moments after that, President Bacco and two more security guards coalesced into existence on the platform. The guards were also dressed in formal wear. The two human men were in tuxedoes, the Vulcan woman wore a skintight suit embroidered with Vulcan script (not the formal wear Palais tradition would have preferred, Esperanza suspected, but the woman did need to be able to do her job, and a loose robe would not have accomplished that), and the Trill woman wore a sky-blue one-piece dress that was sleeveless with a slit up the side of the knee-length skirt, which Esperanza suspected was there more for freedom of leg movement than fas.h.i.+on. The final member was a Saurian of indeterminate s.e.x, who didn't wear clothes aside from a holster for a sidearm.

As the president and the security detail moved through the corridors toward the turbolift that would take them to the Roth Dining Room on the twelfth floor, Esperanza lingered behind as the comm in her ear beeped. Putting her hand to it, she said quietly, "Go ahead."

"Esperanza, it's Colton."

At the sound of Amba.s.sador Morrow's voice, Esperanza smiled. He's gonna love how I look in this outfit.

That brought her up short. Where the h.e.l.l did that come from? I mean, he's nice and all, and we've certainly been talking a lot the last month, but- She shoved the thought to the back of her head. "What is it, Colton?"

"I'm not sure-I'm with Speaker Ytri/ol and his party. We're approaching the Palais now, and..."

When Colton refused to finish his sentence, Esperanza, who was now about to enter the turbolift, said, "What is it?"

"They've been acting-weird."

"Define 'weird.' "

"Cranky, irritable-not at all themselves. They didn't come over to the Venture the entire time we escorted them here, except when we first made orbit and Captain Henderson had that small reception. But after we left their star system, they not only didn't come over, they barely ever returned messages. It may be nothing, but I'm concerned now that I'm with them."

"Let's hope it's just jitters," she said as she entered the lift, crowding into it with the president and her entire detail. "See you there."

The president looked at her. "Problem?"

"Nothing you need to worry about." I hope.

"Why is it that whenever you say that, I get nervous?"

Esperanza smiled. "You're a crazed, paranoid old woman?"

"Yeah, that's probably it. Hey, did you hear about the game yesterday? Yates won it in the bottom of the ninth."

"I thought Yates was an infielder."

"He is."

"Okay, then how could he win it? I thought the pitchers got wins and losses."

"I swear, Esperanza, one of these days, I will have you shot, don't think I won't. Yates. .h.i.t a home run in the bottom of the ninth with two on to win the game three to two. Sookdeo got the win, but Yates was the one who really won it. By the way, he hit it off Martinez."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Martinez isn't given to this sort of loss?"

The president glared at her. "Don't you ever pay attention when we watch games together?"

"Not if I can help it, ma'am."

"Hmp." The president looked ahead. "Shoulda worn the d.a.m.n heels."

"Yes, ma'am."

The turbolift doors opened to the twelfth floor. A redcarpeted hallway greeted them. Two more guards-who were, like the president's detail, in formal wear appropriate to their species-stood at either side of the large wooden doors, which parted with a hiss at her approach.

On the other side of the door, another guard, a Tessenite male named Sxottlan-who'd gotten this duty because of his ability to project his voice-bellowed, "The president of the United Federation of Planets!"

Esperanza looked out over the room. Taking up all of the twelfth floor, the Roth Dining Room had hundreds of tables, all made of actual wood recycled from old sailing s.h.i.+ps wrecked at sea on Earth, a project undertaken by the president for whom the room was named. A portrait of the man-a bald, smiling human-hung from the east wall. Throughout the room, people of hundreds of species inter-mingled, including most of the council, some of their staff, and a good portion of the presidential staff, as well as selected members of the press. Esperanza saw Regia Maldonado of FNS wearing a very nice, very practical outfit that actually conformed to modern trends. Some people have all the luck.

On the west wall was a raised platform with a fourteen-seat round table, at which the president traditionally sat during state dinners. The table would be half Trinni/ek and half Federation, comprising Esperanza, Colton, Xeldara, Xeldara's husband, Ashante, Fred, and the president. Aside from Esparanza, the president, and Colton, they were all present at the table; Colton would, of course, be arriving with the Trinni/ek.

Everyone in the room who wasn't already standing rose from their seats. The Federation anthem-a tune that Esperanza had to admit to never liking, possibly because she was subjected to it at the beginning of every baseball game the president made her sit through-played over speakers.

The president proceeded to the table, where Ashante, Fred, Xeldara, and her husband waited. Dammit, what the h.e.l.l is his name?

On the way, several people complimented Esperanza on how good she looked, including Councillor Enaren. Being telepaths, Betazoids rarely paid attention to how humanoids looked, as they were more concerned with more thoughtful matters, so the fact that Cort Enaren took note of her outfit made Esperanza feel a little better about having to wear the outdated clothing.

When she arrived at the table, the president waited until the anthem ended before speaking. "Everyone please have a seat."

Esperanza sat at the seat to the president's right. She herself remained standing.

"Thank you all for coming. I have to admit, I've been waiting for a decent excuse to have a state dinner, and I'm grateful to the Trinni/ek for providing me with one." Several people chuckled at that. "This room was named after President Hiram Roth. During his administration, a vicious probe attacked our planet, causing ma.s.sive floods and weather changes and power outages all across our world. The recovery from that attack was long and hard, and President Roth was right in the thick of it. In fact, he worked so hard that he got sick, refusing to take better care of himself because, as he put it, 'There's still work to do.' He died in 2288, on the very day that he won another term in a landslide. Unfortunately, much as we'd wish it otherwise, when doctors tell you to take it easy, they often know what they're talking about." More chuckles. "I've always been a great admirer of Roth, who lived by the tenets of a human leader who lived in the pre-unification times named Theodore Roosevelt, who said, 'Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.' Hiram Roth lived by those words, and, sadly, he died by them. A special election had to be called for one month after his death, one of only two such special elections in Federation history. That election gave us Ra-ghoratreii- the second one, of course, gave you me, thus giving me the opportunity to run off at the mouth right now."