Her forearms throbbed as she picked up the Governor’s letter. The prospect of having to comb through Fainreshlin’s invisible branches to get at the fruits she wanted to pluck led her to indulge in a moment of daydreaming – about a future where everything she had been building would come together, and the Anthar Kai would wield the power of near-instantaneous communication, ready to deploy a pliable workforce at a moment’s notice from the High Commissary.

She set the data pad in the recess in her desk with the camera facing towards her, and dabbed the sweat from her cranial bumps. Once the interaction commenced it was treated like a regular conversation, and any expression, pause, or aside was dutifully recorded and sent back with the response. Once she was confident that she resembled her portrait that hung with the other High Commissaries in the cavernous lobby of the tower, she turned on the recording.

Fainreshlin’s somewhat melted face appeared on screen and did a half-turn to face the camera as if he was caught doing something far more important than having this conversation.

“High Commissary, always a pleasure.”

“It’s been a long time, Governor,” she replied, knowing that the observation would hit just the right nerve.

“I trust things are keeping you busy, High Commissary.”

“Toiling under a hundred suns, as always, Governor.”

“I’m sure you must have heard the news by now. I admit it had come to us as quite as a shock. The Governor’s seat out of Chiartries has administered this corner of Thorian space for six hundred years. Under the Treaty of Krevali, we were assigned the former Iastret colonies in this region, and it was our understanding that this would include Krevali if ever the protection order over it was lifted or otherwise handled. To have our latest conquest now go to general Senate rule is unprecedented, and an insult to the Anthar Kai’s status and central role in the Empire. I trust that everything is being done at your disposal to rectify the situation.”

Kalirit kept her face flat even as she cycled through all the things she could have been doing instead of enduring this unnecessary history lesson.

“The Senate’s actions are as much a consternation to us as they are to you. But I think it’s important for all of us to remember that we all ultimately serve at the leisure of the Presidium, and they’re the stewards of what’s good for the Empire as a whole. Vice Commissary Seshathirlin is putting all his not insubstantial experience into resolving matters to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“I would like to know what is being done on our behalf to resolve this crisis.” Kalirit bet that he had assumed she would come out cagey and therefore would have devoted most of his planned responses to badgering her for information, which meant that the reason for this somewhat repetitive response was because he couldn’t imagine that she could be straight with him from the start.

“An audience with the Presidium is a desired outcome. But as I’m sure you understand with the crisis coalescing around turbulent Krevali, the Presidium’s time is in short supply, and our options with respect to that are quite limited.”

“For centuries since this governorship has been established it was understood that the moment the Krevali become a space-faring race they would be ushered into civilization by the Anthar Kai and their territory would be subsumed to the governorship.”

“The governorship would not be in a bad position to have access to the ample resources of Krevali,” Kalirit responded, making an effort to not herself get lost in the negatives and superlative adjectives of her tangled sentences. “On our end, productivity is not at all at a standstill. Preparations are underway to ensure that we’re not caught administratively flatfooted when we discover that Krevali has been brought into the fold and the situation is not unsalvageable, with the resources coming into your disposal.”

“I demand to know what is going to be done.”

“Discounting the significant efforts of Vice Commissary Seshathirlin, and the great burdens placed on my support personnel to resolve the potential rectification of this oversight, in absolute terms, nothing has been approved at the moment.”

Fainreshlin paused, his brow twitching every few seconds as the recording looped while the algorithm tried to process Kalirit’s response. Finally, the Governor spoke, “I will kindly remind you that our voting block was quite instrumental in extending your term as High Commissary and it would be in your best interest to ensure our vote does not change.”

It may have nearly fried her brain, but it worked – the major problem with dialogue trees was that through vagaries of language, you could trespass into branches without legitimately prompting them. Few attempted to do so with the same vigour as Kalirit, because success made the other look like a fool, but failure would have made you an even bigger one. Governor Fainreshlin must have really been feeling the heat if he was willing to so openly threaten the High Commissary of the Anthar Kai, but even if his estimation of his influence over his supposed voting block and its sway was erroneous, having his cards laid bare on the table ought to serve to subdue him.

With a faint smile, she responded, “I could exert my finest efforts to pretend that a conversation of this nature had never occurred, I’m sure that would suit you well.”

“That would be a start. But we expect an appearance by you in front of the Presidium to be most influential.”

“Of course, that is an option that can be considered. I could appear personally in front of the Presidium and inform them that there are some sovereignty concerns in the Chiartries governorship , that I’m sure could be resolved with an increased military presence and a reconsideration of the appointments at the highest levels of the governorship. They would be happy to hear it and I would be happy to deliver it.”

Fainreshlin’s face returned to the twitching loop, as Kalirit kept the rising emotion from her face. Did she push it too far walking into a rebuke, or would the recording spit out a response that would all but legitimize this conversation? Her anxiety had begun to morph into regret, a feeling that was a rare visitor in Kalirit’s mind, when Fainreshlin’s recording responded, “I am glad we are in agreement.”

Swallowing a sigh of relief, Kalirit could feel the throbbing recede from her forearms. Even if Fainreshlin thought that this was all put together to embarrass him, part of him would wonder how just how serious her threat was, which should keep him too preoccupied to make any lasting damage while the interstellar navies of a half-dozen species congealed around his territory.

“Do you have any other concerns, Governor?” Kalirit asked.

“There is also the troubling matter of the Creeper incident we had in one of our major ports last month. One of our docking facilities was reporting an unusually high incidence of absenteeism, and when the security forces were sent to investigate the delinquents, a raid on one of their homes uncovered a den of Creeper users. I’d heard scattered reports of an increase in the use of this drug, but to have it land on my shores is unacceptable. We cannot afford losses of efficiency at a time like this. The Shoaman Kai has cleaned up this particular den, but I’m assuming that Eitherorik has a handle on rooting out the smugglers and dealers.”

“Are we sure it was the same drug? I hear some Hatvan opiates have a similar effect.”

“Creeper is no joke, High Commissary, and this incident shouldn’t be attributed to mere laziness. Perhaps on Varakan you’ve become so comfortable that you can afford lapses in work ethic, but not so here in the Chiartries system.”

“I understand your concerns Governor, but we believe the issue has been blown out of proportion. As you’ve said, the reports are scattered and we have no reason to think that it’s as widespread as some would like to believe. Eitherorik has informed me that the Shoaman Kai had recently intercepted a small shipment of Creeper on Kheim. If this is the scale they’re working on, we needn’t concern ourselves too much.”

“It may be a small problem for you, but I don’t believe there’s any small problem that can’t get big.” He was right, Kalirit thought, but she imagined that he was not talking about himself at that moment.

“If I could remind you, Governor, that just last decade we had a brief Hydraflax epidemic, and it was handled swiftly. Our labourers work hard, and sometimes they seek release through avenues that are ill-advised. I sincerely hope that whatever instructions were handed down from your office to the local branch of the Shoaman Kai with respect to how to deal with this problem had taken that into account.”

The recording was about to enter into another head-scratching loop, but Kalirit spared Fainreshlin the pain of standing there mute. “We now have the intercepted shipment from Kheim, and I expect that this will lead us to the source of the problem in due course.”

“It is the least we expect.”

“And we always exceed expectations. Until next time, Governor.”

“Good luck, High Commissary.” The recording flickered out and Kalirit plucked the data pad out of its recess to toss it into the outgoing communication pile on her desk. Even Fainreshlin’s breathing seemed so loud that it made it difficult for Kalirit to hear her own thoughts, but now in the silence of her office she played through the conversation again.

She hadn’t expected the narcotic to arrive on Chiartries quite so soon. Up until a year ago, few had even heard of the ancient parasite eggs known as Creeper, as their supply was confined to reclusive death cults and the ultra-rich. But a synthesized version of the slightly luminescent amber spheres had now made it from its first recorded sighting on Vesh Mav all the way to Chiartries, almost a quarter-span of the Empire. Still, its alleged range seemed to be confined to the periphery of the Anthar Kai, and so even the very mention of it was unlikely to reach the core worlds for a while. It would sooner seep across their borders into the Mraboran Protectorate or even the Hatvan Empire. Kalirit thought it could be interesting to watch how they handled a full-blown epidemic, but having Creeper spread too quickly wouldn’t do anyone any favours. Curiously, despite this far-flung range, Eitherorik reported only one seized shipment, so either the Shoaman Kai hadn’t been doing its job well or, for whatever reason that was probably obvious to the younger generation, he was underreporting.

She leaned over her desk and ran her fingers along the engraved crown of broad leaves above an agitated ocean, the emblem of the Anthar Kai, the “the mother’s mouth”, built to feed and clothe a fledgling empire, now a gaping maw that threatened to swallow her whole, that had grown beyond the comprehension of all her predecessors, all those who were blinded to its power because they never could see the whole picture at once. Men like Fainreshlin relied on it, derived their entire being from it, but at the end of the day they merely suckled at its teat and weren’t able to offer anything in return or to properly leverage their position. For those like the Governor, status and a morsel of power was the pinnacle of their ambition.

She looked at her empty inbox. Every dispatch that required her immediate attention had been dealt with, but the one she was most impatient to receive was conspicuously absent. The in-person audience with the Presidium was turning into a sure thing, and Kalirit was not looking forward to losing her grasp on the certainty that came out of being stationary; where communications times could be calculated to the day and where there was no risk of crossing paths with a message sent from the very destination she was headed to.

She reflected ruefully how she had settled into sedentary work, a far cry from forty years prior when she restlessly hopped to each corner of the Anthar Kai holdings as she ignored the call of the stasis pods. Now she felt as though she’d grown into these walls and the prospect of separation sent arrows of discomfort from her forearms to her shoulders.

The Presidium was the only entity for whom such sacrifice was expected of her. The last glowing orb of power that still sat out of her reach. What her predecessors lacked was a vision of potential, and that any hierarchy, no matter its age, was malleable, and she could prove it. If it meant groveling at their feet a while longer, then so be it.