The Ambassador's Reprieve (Triads in Blue Book 11) Read online

  The Ambassador’s Reprieve

  By

  Alyssa Hope

  Text copyright 2017

  Alyssa Hope

  All Rights Reserved

  Is it necessary to say that any resemblance between aliens (blue or otherwise) and any living people (real or otherwise) is purely coincidental?

  All beings engaged in sexual acts are over the legal age of consent in their own particular universes.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 1.

  He was tired to the bone, and when he thought about it, he had been too tired for far too long. It wasn’t a physical tired, though – indeed every step he took up the trail made him feel younger and more energetic. After too many years of nothing but work, he was finally having a holiday – a reprieve from the constant demands that were always being made on him and on his time. He wasn’t sure that anyone on the planet of Cerulea even knew his name or his job description. They just knew his title, and that he would always help them.

  “Ambassador, Ambassador, Ambassador …”

  He worked his way up the winding trail, feeling like he was running away from home. Behind him were the echoes of people calling out, all needing something from him, or thinking they did. Ahead of him, a week of peace and quiet and blessed solitude.

  In the early years he had found his appointment as the Cerulean Ambassador exciting, with the honor of being the first amongst his people to be given that title after his planet had come out of isolation and needed an ambassador to the rest of the universe. He had found joy in being able to deal calmly with interstellar emergencies, negotiate fair treaties, and keep the peace between his planet and the rest of the universe. And, always, he had found great joy in whatever part he had been able to play in rescuing those of the Lost Children they had found.

  That had been the impetus for everything they had done, of course. When they had discovered that some of their children had been stolen and sold off-planet as slaves, all the considerable resources of a rich and peaceful planet had become focused on finding them and bringing them safely back home again. Dealing with other peoples had become important then, and the office of Ambassador had been created.

  He was calm and patient by nature, notably so even in a people who prided themselves at being patient. He was also devious enough to enjoy plotting ways to win without violence or warfare. He had been a natural selection for the office, despite his relatively young age at the time, and he was good at it.

  Lately, though, he was just tired. With their new flagship, the Crusader, out in the stars searching for their Lost Children, more and more often he was finding that his role was simple. He had to explain to the governments of backward planets why his people had blown something up in the course of liberating their Lost Children – Children who had been stolen as slaves many years ago, and shouldn’t have been there to start with.

  He was finding it increasingly difficult not to be sarcastic in his explanations.

  “If you hadn’t been holding them illegally as slaves there wouldn’t have been a problem, would there?”

  But of course he couldn’t say that. He was the Ambassador. He was also, apparently, the one who fixed everything for everyone, on planet or off. This had been getting tiring, for a long time now.

  Now he was doing something unthinkable, or at least that was what the Councilperson who was his nominal superior in the office thought. He was taking a holiday. As a young one he had come up into these hills with the triad who had borne him, and his siblings, and they had camped in a cave and watched the stars at night, and hiked up and down the bubbling streams by day. He had happy memories of those times, and hoped to recreate some of them.

  He had no-one to camp with, but that was all right. There was no-one for him, ever, he knew this, but he could live with it. He was content by himself. He didn’t need anyone else making demands on him and his time every minute of every day. He had watched other triads, and admired how well they got along with each other, and the love they obviously had for each other, but it wasn’t for him.

  Now, finally, an overdue holiday! He wasn’t totally pleased that the slopes had become steeper in the years since he was a child, and the rocks harder, but that was the way things went. Late in the afternoon he reached his goal, sat down cross-legged in front of the cave he remembered, and let his mind run free.

  He sat and let himself relax, and drifted into a state of empty mind. Into that freedom of meditation, a small voice asked, ‘All day? Is he going to sit there all day?’

  ‘Shush. He can sit there if he wants to. He’ll leave when it gets cold.’

  ‘He has food. Maybe he’ll leave us his food?’

  ‘Maybe we can eat the bottom out of his pack and get his food that way.’

  ‘Shush!’

  ‘You shush!’

  There was the sound of several small bodies rolling around on the ground wrestling with each other, and he opened one eye to see what was happening. The small bodies froze in place.

  “Hello,” he said quietly.

  ‘Um, hello. He can see us, can’t he?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  “Yes, I can, and you are most attractive. I don’t remember you from when we were here before.”

  ‘Attractive?’ One of the little creatures sat up and preened. ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘We were here, but we don’t talk to just anyone. We only talk to … oww! You bit me!’ They rolled around squabbling some more. If they hadn’t been making so much noise he probably wouldn’t have seen them at all, he thought. Their furry coats were in soft shades of grey and brown which blended in with the rocks, and their bright little eyes were only visible when they were looking directly at him.

  When they were sitting still again he introduced himself. “I am Una. Do you have names, little ones?”

  They stared at him in puzzlement. Apparently not.

  They went into a huddle, and seemed to be engaged in intense deliberation. They finally came back to sit in front of him, but then there was some noise in the rocks above the cave, and his little friends disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  They must, he realized, be the rock rabbits that inhabited the hill country, fast and skittish little creatures that most people never saw. He didn’t remember anyone telling him that they could speak, though. Most peculiar!

  There was more noise on the trail, a lot of it, and then one of his own people appeared, glaring at him. Why glare at him?

  “Who are you? Were you talking to someone?”

  Una just stared at him. This person didn’t seem to be totally normal, and he began to wish he’d brought a communicator after all. At least he had his emergency beacon. The person was an off-shade of blue, and his eyes were wild, and he smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a long time.

  “I am Una, and I am fine, thank you, how are you?”

  “Were you talking to someone?”

  “I was reciting Haiku”, Una lied firmly, “an ancient form of poetry from the human earth, that consists of ...”

  “Yes, yes. Fine.” The strange one sniffed. Actually sniffed at him, as though he was trying to read his hormone state!

  “Are you bonded?”

  This was the height of rudeness, but Una was so used to always being polite to strange and rude people that he answered anyway.

  “No, I’m not, thank you.”

  The strange one sniffed again and then departed back the
way he’d come.

  Una sat still for a long time after the strange one left, not wanting to move and have him return with more rude questions.

  One of the rock rabbits, ricas they were properly called, he remembered now, slipped out of hiding and sat beside him.

  ‘Bad person. Not right.’

  “No,” he agreed, and then he broke off a piece of one of his camping bars, all grain and honey, and handed it to the rica. It hummed happily and disappeared with a flick of its stubby tail.

  Una wondered who else would intrude into his week of solitude. If they were all as cute as the ricas it would be alright, but the other one was disturbing. He had a feeling he’d seen him before, but he couldn’t remember where.

  He laid down kindle and branches for a fire that night, even though it wasn’t really that cold, and built it as far back as he could in the mouth of the cave so it almost blocked the entrance. He was, perhaps, getting a little bit paranoid, but who knew what else would be running around these seemingly peaceful hills at night? He had warm bedding, and lots of food for himself and the ricas, but no weapons or communication devices. Was there danger here? Maybe he was just getting old.

  After some consideration, he broke one of the food bars up into ten pieces and laid them out by the edge of the rocks. He was disturbing these little ones, and it was only right that he should pay a toll of some kind for it. He turned to look back and all the pieces were gone, and two ricas were sitting up on their haunches staring at him. If they’d had hips their hands would have been on them. He broke off two more pieces and delivered those, and they chirped, took them, and disappeared.

  They were, he thought, smarter than most people he knew, as long as they didn’t get addicted to the honey. And then he realized where he knew the strange person from. Surely that was Kasu, whose family had become addicted to drugs and because of that been responsible for the abduction and sale of the Cerulean children they were now looking for? Kasu had also tried to kill the beloved of the Crusader’s Captain, thinking to take that one’s place in the Captain’s triad. Kasu was now supposed to be under house arrest with the rest of his extended family, though, so what was he doing up here?

  Why was he wandering the hills sniffing people? Had he escaped, and was he thinking to steal someone else’s bonded mate? Una shivered. The drugs had changed something in that family’s biochemistry and none of them could make a bond or bear young anymore, but was Kasu crazy enough to think he could steal part of an existing triad? This would definitely require reporting once he was back in civilization, but Una was alone in these hills at this time of year – he had checked with the stewards before setting out - and no-one else was in danger, so Kasu would merely be a nuisance to watch out for.

  He went back to his meditation, watching the sun go down and the stars come out, and found peace.

  Chapter 2.

  The chill woke him up in the morning, and his fire had died down. He tucked his head back under the blankets and stayed that way until the sun was up, but finally got energetic enough to roll out of bed and get dressed. A beautiful morning rewarded him, and the fresh air filled his lungs and energized him. This was exactly what he had needed.

  He left some pieces of a grain bar for his little friends and set out to explore the country he hadn’t seen since he was a child. He made his way up and over the hill, and realized that there was a whole series of hills and valleys beyond. The world had expanded since he was little. There was smoke rising from a small fire across the valley in front of him, and he felt oddly drawn to it. It couldn’t be Kasu, it was too far for that one to have travelled since they’d parted company yesterday.

  Who was here that the land stewards didn’t even know about them? Illegal hunters? He felt a wave of protectiveness towards his little rica friends, but it didn’t seem likely that anyone would travel that far inside the park to hunt ricas.

  ‘Hiding,’ a little voice beside him offered, and he almost fell off the rock ledge he was sitting on.

  “From what?” he wondered.

  ‘Lost,’ the little voice said, and then there was a flick of a brown tail and it was gone.

  He reached out to whoever it was mentally, and made a brief connection even across the width of the valley before there was a sense of panic and then nothing. He was left sitting there alone with a strange yearning to find out who was at that campfire, lost. He had a bond to that one, he could feel it. Was there someone for him after all? And why were they hiding, and from whom? Surely not from him?

  He was patient, he reminded himself, and good at solving mysteries. With the potential of a beloved at stake, or even just a lost traveler to find, he’d solve this one. The fire was extinguished even as he watched, and the smoke trailed off to nothing.

  His feeling of optimism was also extinguished when he got back to his cave in the afternoon and discovered that everything of his had been turned over and destroyed. The bedding was ripped apart and the pack-sack had been dumped out and cut open.

  He stared at it in dismay, and a familiar little voice beside him said, ‘Not us.’

  “I know, little one. It was the bad one. He is troubled, not right in the head. Be careful around him, please?” He had a sudden worrying thought. “You know what traps look like? What metal smells like?”

  “Plum trees bloom in spring”, he continued,

  “Cleaning the smoke from the air

  Purify the world.

  No, wait, is that right?”

  Kasu appeared out of nowhere, sneering at him as he looked at the mess in the cave. “Crazy poems. Someone doesn’t like your poems, I guess, huh?”

  Una just shook his head. “I suppose I’ll have to head home now. So much for the camping trip. Oh well, I hope you have better luck, and the wardens catch whoever did this. They said they’d be up this way soon, and they’re quite set against vandalism …”

  For the first time he noticed the traps hanging from Kasu’s belt, and had to tamp down his anger and disgust. He put together what he could of his things, and placed the pieces of broken grain bar off by the rocks. When Kasu was safely out of sight, he whispered to the little ones, “Be careful, and stay away from metal, little ones – pass the word to all of your kind, please. Don’t touch metal, not even with a nose - it’s dangerous! I’ll be back to look for the lost one, and bring someone to take care of the bad one.”

  He’d be back, and better prepared.

  Downhill was faster than uphill, especially when he was angry and motivated, but it was still after dark by the time he got home, and all the government offices were closed. A good sleep in his own bed left him ready to do battle in the morning. He was angry about having his holiday disrupted, but even more so over his fear that Kasu might be trapping the little ricas.

  The last person he expected to see when he went into town to find the proper authority to help him with this was his good friend Oki, Captain of the Crusader.

  ‘Oki! Is the Crusader home? So good to see you in person – it’s been years!’

  Oki smiled widely, and hugged him.

  ‘Retired Captain, my friend. We have too many children now! They need to run on the grass of their home land, and play in the sun.’

  Una pushed down some unexpected jealousy, and tried to get a glimpse around behind the bulk of Oki, because that couldn’t be one of his children hiding there? Surely an adult, if a very shy one.

  Oki laughed and did a quick sidestep, but the person behind him did a sidestep, too. All Una could see was a glimpse of beautiful soft blue skin. He and the mysterious being went around Oki like planets around a sun until Oki finally stopped the game by taking a gentle grasp of the one behind him and bringing him up in front of Una. Una gasped in delight.

  ‘I thought so,’ Oki said, obviously pleased with himself. ‘Una, this is Cori.’

  Cori was not so pleased. He was, in fact, obviously terrified. He dropped to the ground on his knees, with his head down and his hands protecting it. Una looked at Ok
i, who shrugged and stared off into the distance.

  Someone yelled “Ambassador …” from across the road, and Oki yelled back, “Not now. Solve it yourself.” There was a muttering and then receding footsteps, which was fine with Una. Why hadn’t he ever thought of yelling at people to go away?

  Not sure how else to respond to Cori’s fear, he dropped to his own knees, and lowered his head until it was right in front of that of his beloved. Because this was one of his beloveds, he’d known that right away. He stroked what he could of the beautiful blue head in front of him, and murmured, ‘Beloved.’

  There was silence and stillness for a moment, then he caught a glimpse of the most lovely black eyes he had ever seen. His beloved made eye contact for a second, and then the eyes disappeared again. This was, Una thought hysterically, rather like dealing with the ricas. Maybe?

  ‘Beautiful, so beautiful, my beloved.’

  The eyes reappeared.

  ‘I am Una, beloved. I am your beloved. Do you know what that means?’

  The slender blue one gasped. He knew how to mindtalk, even if he was terribly shy as well as terrified. ‘Beloved? I am your beloved? You are mine?! I do have someone after all?’

  Una stood up and pulled Cori gently to his feet without letting go of him. The little one seemed skittish, and might run if he had an opportunity. Una didn’t want to take that chance. He wrapped his arms around his beloved and held him close, purring gently.

  The little one was shaking, still obviously nervous. ‘Captain Oki, his people, rescued me from this horrible place, and said I would be coming home, but why do your arms feel like home, and how did he know?’

  ‘Oki’s very smart’, Una said, ‘that’s why he has so many children.’

  He wasn’t sure what the correlation was, and Cori didn’t seem to be either, but he relaxed a bit, and his head rested on Una’s shoulder, and he buried his face in Una’s neck. He hung on with near desperation, and Una looked at Oki curiously.