Chapter Text
Alex watched Ambassador Guerin’s scarred hand as it tapped his pen on the conference room table, the sound clear through the recycled spaceport air. Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap.
He wanted to still it, wrap his hands around it; he wanted to climb over the table into his lap. He wanted to choke the man out for accepting his prime minister’s request he co-teach this security studies seminar with him for intergalactic diplomats without calling him first him when they hadn’t seen each other for 15 years. Alex wanted a fucking break.
Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap.
6 students, a mix of Earthlings and Oasians, all meeting at neutral territory on the geostationary moon of Onor. 6 days of all day seminars. No way out now. Should have just turned traitor at the beginning.
“Shall we begin?” Ambassador Guerin asked the glass seminar table.
Ambassador Manes nodded once, sharply, and stood. “Of course.”
He looked around the table. “In this class, we will cover what it took to bring our worlds to war and what it took to bring them to peace again. We’re lens agnostic here, so whether your background is DOD or DEI we’ll welcome your perspectives.”
“We’ll assign you two readings a day, without coordinating, but building on the main theme of the prior conversation. As you’ve probably gathered, we have a shared history but divergent interpretations of it. Expect complexity. Expect clashes. Expect to see diplomacy practiced in front of you.”
Alex looked over at Ambassador Guerin. “Am I missing anything?”
Michael shook his head, curls shot with gray but still as soft-looking as ever. “I think you about covered it, Ambassador. Want me to start off with the first discussion question?”
“Please,” Alex said, sitting down and surreptitiously adjusting his pants. Of all the complications he’d envisioned when he accepted Kyle’s invitation to co-teach with “a member of the Oasian military” in his last year at this post, inappropriate erections were not one he’d considered.
If the secret service wouldn’t shoot me before I got within 30 feet of him, I’d fucking kill Kyle.
But Alex served at the pleasure and today that meant he co-teach this fucking class with fucking Michael Guerin on a day’s notice, so here he was and here he would be for 6 hours a day for the next six days while his charge d’affairs handled all of his usual responsibilities planetside.
“Alright,” Michael clapped, bringing everyone’s attention back to him. “Turn to the student beside you and tell them the story of your name; get to know each other. At the end of 5 minutes, they’ll introduce you.”
All the young diplomats found pairs easily and began chatting amiably. It was something Alex had always loved about his profession, how pleasant most of them were to be around in social moments. Whether the polite attention was the truest expression of their inner lives or not had really faded in importance for him after the war; the reality that he could sit and get coffee with one of his peers without drama had become a perk he wasn’t sure he could live without.
Alex glanced down at the face book his staff had hastily prepared. There was Ahmed, a tall, dark-eyed young Iranian diplomat without prior offworld experience; Jun, a consular officer from the Philippines who'd just finished her rotation on Caldera with brightly colored fingernails; Xerie, an Oasian aiming for an Earthside posting who kept their pink hair cut close to their head; Yon, an older Oasian who styled themselves like a 1950s pinstripe diplomat from the movies; Orson, an Oasian with striking green eyes and a hard mouth; and Joseph, a Sierra Leonean diplomat who'd just finished his first tour of an intergalactic multilateral agency, something like the UN in space.
Michael was bent over his tablet, finger typing aggressively.
Had he known it would be me co-teaching? Or was he just told “another ambassador has already volunteered from the other side” like Kyle had vaguely texted him at breakfast yesterday? Is this some kind of fucked up, second chance romance setup from Kyle and Isobel?
While Kyle had worked his way from the Roswell General hospital board to city council to the county, to the U.S. House of Representatives, to HHS Secretary and finally president, Isobel had been brought into the cabinet at 17 and been floating around Oasian high politics every since. She was their equivalent of prime minister, after trying on a number of other portfolios over the decades. This was Alex’s third ambassadorship and Isobel’s was by far the most reasonable head of state he’d dealt with.
It probably helps she saw your goth phase, kind of a trauma bonding experience.
“Alright, who would like to begin?”
The students introduced each other professionally and well, and Michael set them to each writing 10 questions they had for each instructor.
“We’ll review them tonight and base tomorrow’s major themes on what we see.”
While the students were quietly writing, Michael stood, edging his way around the tightly packed rolling chairs to reach Alex’s side of the table.
Fuck, he smells the same, Alex thought weakly.
“I was thinking of showing them the documentary on the final peace treaty over lunch. Any objections?”
“You like that thing?” Alex said, startled.
Michael had a bit of hair just brushing the tip of his ear. He whispered: “It’s the same lies as everything else that came out in the past 15 years, might as well set a foundation down.”
The students were beginning to shift on their seats, but there was still 2 minutes on the clock.
Michael edged even closer, the sleeve of his flowing white cultural dress grazing Alex’s tweed jacket.
“Hey,” Michael said. “Want to get dinner today? Go over though their responses, strategize? I know you didn’t get a real heads up about this whole thing.” Alex could hear the shy smile in his voice.
Alex’s throat was parched as a Roswell summer. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he choked out. Michael froze, then leaned back.
“We can go over it by email.”
He maneuvered back to his seat, the conference table a smooth, reflective barrier in between them both.
Alex could breathe again.
—
After the zooming drone footage of massive translucent iridescent spaceships lifting away from Monument Valley faded to black and the credits were rolling with a still-credible acoustic interpretation of _Welcome to the Black Parade_ Michael slowly brought the lights back up. Alex blinked, pupils adjusting and heart still pounding from all the compounded lies they’d managed to pack into that 120 minute film. It had included those famous shots – him and Michael, standing shoulder-to-shoulder on Telemundo, his throat black with bruises, Michael's hand in a cast; him and Michael, meeting with Presidents and negotiating; the final shot of them, on opposite sides of the treaty table, unable to look each other in the eye. The students would know those photos as well as pictures of the twin towers or Mission Accomplished banner; he tried to avoid them at all costs. He’d been speaking the party line, living it, for 15 years, but could count on one hand the number of times he’d had to lie while knowing someone who knew the full truth was listening. Judging.
“Alright,” Michael said, clapping his hands. “Questions.”
Hands shot up.
“Jun?”
“Ambassador Guerin, please let me know if this is too sensitive a topic —“
Alex tensed but Michael's smile was easy, welcoming; damned faker.
“— but did you ever return?”
“To Roswell?”
“To Earth.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t set foot on Earth since June 2008.”
“Do you miss it?”
Michael's eyes flicked almost imperceptibly towards Alex, then down to his hands again. “That’s a hard one, Jun. I’m honored to be able to do my part to bring our two worlds together, but the chile relleno in the cafeteria here sucks, you know what I mean?”
The class chuckled politely.
Xerie raised their hand. Michael called on them but he locked eyes with Alex, forehead creasing a bit in concentration. “Did you really face down the entire fleet alone?”
Alex tasted bile. “No. Don’t believe everything we show you, sometimes the point of an assignment is to introduce you to a dominant narrative, not necessarily the truth.”
Ahmed raised his hand. “Ambassador Manes, what in your opinion ended the war?”
A wedding and a funeral.
“Some good, old fashioned diplomacy. Their diplomats met with ours, defined the conflict and acceptable terms, and negotiated until they were in the same ballpark. Nothing shocking, just the thing that ends all wars.”
There was a titter around the room.
Jun raised her hand, pink nail polish flashing in the overhead lights. “Ambassador Guerin, you were raised on Earth right?”
“For a given value of ‘raised,’ yes.”
Alex wanted to hold his hand, to see if Oasian technology had returned to him any of the mobility that had been stolen from him that day in the shed.
The young woman was continuing: “What surprised you most about Oasian culture?”
“The sex,” Michael said, then blanched. “Ah, I mean, they mostly reproduced asexually, so they don’t have much of it.”
“You’ve been celibate?” Alex whispered before he could stop himself. Every eye turned to him, Michael’s as wide as quarters. If I shoot myself to escape this room would that be considered a diplomatic incident worthy of making the President’s Daily Brief? Alex wondered deliriously before hurriedly saying, “Culturally, I was unaware of celibacy as a standard practice. Sounds like I should have a word with my briefer.”
“It’s an option,” Michael said with false lightness. “If the class is interested in Oasian culture —“ there were vigorous head nods around the room. “—Alright, perhaps we can have a session where we dive into that.”
“And Calderan culture?” Orson asked, eyes intent on Michael’s. If Alex hadn’t once known that body better than he had his own, the way Michael turned to ice at the name of his people’s source world and culture would not have been obvious. As it was, Alex faced an overwhelming need to intervene.
“We’ll see if we have time, it’s not a primary focus of this seminar —“ Alex hurriedly started.
“But I did just get back from a 5 year posting as Oasian ambassador to Caldera, so I can contribute a bit to the discussion,” Michael completed the thought smoothly. Alex could kick himself. He’s a grown-ass ambassador and doesn’t need saving from awkward questions. Pull it together, Alex.
“And you, Ambassador Manes, what surprised you most about Oasian culture? This is your second posting here, did I get that right?”
Second, seventh, who’s counting?
“I hate to be a cliche but probably the hibernation cycles. The entire culture going into a deep, impenetrable sleep for half their year takes some getting used to.”
“Not everyone,” Michael said. “They always need some people to stand guard.”
“The sentries, yes.”
“Not just the sentries,” Michael said, voice low, strained. “Some people just can’t sleep.”
Are you one of them? Have you been alone for half the year of the last 15 —
“We have time for one more question before the next activity,” Michael said smoothly. “Yes, Glen?”
“Why June 2008?”
And Alex was tossed back into the frying pan, every nerve singing with anxiety about how Michael would answer this, if he’d blow up 15 years of lying on a whim.
Michael was looking at Alex intently, but dropped his gaze once Alex tried to meet his eyes. “We’ll get there,” Michael said. “Now, please take the next 15-30 minutes to write up what you are hoping to take home from these seminars. Then we’ll move on to the first of six simulations.”
Alex barely controlled his face. “We look forward to seeing what themes you are interested in having explored here.”
“Yes,” Michael said to his hands.
—
The simulation went well, each attendee was well-briefed and tightly organized. Clearly they’d had more than a day with the syllabus; Alex was going to double kill Kyle and then get the electric chair, probably. Watching them play-act Presidents Obama and Calderón, and Louise and Theo, plus Ban Ki-Moon and a General from Caldera who kept giving different names to different people should have been bizarre. But he’d gone over the Track I diplomacy timeline so many times in so many classes and lectures before, it was like seeing Hamlet staged; here comes the betrayal; now the bit with the ghost, I wonder how literally they’ll take it this time; ah yes, the threats; do they really think Polonius is the hero, that he was sincere?
Watching them playact, Alex would have bet cash money that several of the unattached members of the cohort would fall into summer camp relationships before the week was out. But in a way that was an ideal outcome. With the itinerant lifestyle of professional diplomats, having different relationships in every port is a feature, not a bug.
The afternoon slid by until it was time to leave, the lights subtly shifting to give their monkey brains a chance to prepare. Alex hovered, seeking cover in the quiet questions of an Oasian public diplomacy officer who wanted to know everything about everything US diplomacy. Michael tried to hover at the door, catching Alex’s eye as his gaze slipped away again and again and again until he finally huffed and gave up, striding down the corridor.
“I had an awkward question,” the Oasian diplomat said. “May I ask it?”
“You’re welcome to ask,” Alex said, grin coming easier. This kind of cultural exchange he knew as well as the sound of Maria’s breathing or the taste of Arturo’s milkshakes.
“You mentioned celibacy. Were you briefed in some way about Oasian biology prior to your posting?”
Did I write the manual from personal experience?
“We mostly focus on politics, culture, policy issues, instruments of planetary power. The usual stuff for our field,” the young man nodded. “But there’s a short briefing on biology, yes. Our diplomats know most Oasians — and Calderans for that matter — have the equipment to carry kids as most humans, are roughly but not exclusively sexually dimorphous, generally have fairly similar plumbing to most humans, but could also just do it on their own. It makes for creative family structures,” he finished, “which means we need to understand them for things like visa interviews and formal invitations. I’d look like a real asshole if I invited someone’s birth giver,” he said, using the Oasian word, “but not their aeriemom or trademother or quietfriend.”
One of the conventions he’d hashed out when he wrote the first Oasian-English dictionary was making feminine the default gender neutral. It made some people big mad on Earth but Mimi had laughed when he’d told her and that was more than good enough for him.
“Every culture has its inner of the inner of the inner though,” Alex said carefully. “There is so much we don’t know about Oasis. That I don’t know. It’s been my study my whole life, but deep down in the dark ways beneath the surface, there are worlds and rules and knowings and precepts, particularly around love and partnership and marriage and commitment and power I have no knowledge about, don’t even know how to ask.” He gave a smile. “So it goes, learning a new culture.”
“That is fascinating, thank you for telling me.”
“And you,” Alex asked curiously, “do you have briefings on Earthling biology as well?”
“Ah,” the young man said, “we have memory transfer sessions, carefully edited of course to remove personal details,”
Alex had been horrified the first time someone with a new face had greeted him warmly in a meeting at Foggy Bottom with the prior Oasian ambassador’s memories of their negotiations, but he’d been 22 and terrified in his Brooks Brothers suit, so a lot had horrified him in that year. By now, he was used to it.
“I see,” Alex said. “That makes sense.”
“Do you know if memory transfers will be a part of this seminar?”
“That will be really up to Ambassador Guerin,” Alex said with a self-effacing smile. “He’s the one with the best control over his memories. Me, I can barely see the present for the past some days. I’d make a poor memorygiver.”
“I don’t know about that,” the young diplomat said gently.
“I do,” said Alex.
—
The moon was really a one town rock, a big hab bubble in glass and steel, sitting on the edge of the light and the dark sides of the moon, using the heat and light differential to generate the power it needed for everything from email to this particularly lovely bubble bath Alex was taking.
He’d left class and immediately plugged back into his embassy from his steel and laminate quarters with their oddly curving walls. He felt like a slacker when he saw his entire, massively overfull inbox; but then he remembered he was the boss and dashed off an email to his admin to help him get back on top of his correspondence.
That was the low side. On the high security clearance side, he checked his dedicated device: daily briefing, top themes from the Oasian psych-casts, updates on the statuses of Oasian prisoners on Earth and Earthling prisoners on Oasis, plus all of the same from their mother planet, Caldera. There was another ambassador to the Calderans now, but they had a habit of getting involved in their sort-of colony’s adventures so it paid to stay in the loop. Plus I owe my life to their nosiness, so I might as well stay well informed.
Speaking of his body’s survival, it had entirely calmed down long before class was out. About damned time, I’m not 17 anymore.
He dipped himself back under the water, heat still tingling strangely on his stump, even 18 months after the attack.
The moon of 82 G. Eridani d followed the same eccentric orbit that had led Michael’s people to develop such intense hibernation cycles and tech. 50 years sleeping in a pod was nothing compared with living on a planet that turned into an ice ball every other Earth year.
His door chimed and Alex called out to the in-bathroom speaker, “Yes?”
The synth voice replied: Ambassador Manes, you have a voice note from Ambassador Guerin.
“Go on.”
“Hey, Alex, Ambassador Manes, ah, would you like to, ah, meet me in ten forward for a drink? Or at my quarters, the computer says we’re only 4 doors apart. We’ve got seminar tomorrow and I’d like a chance to work out any kinks, ah, address any stiffness between us, I mean, talk. Talk. Can we just talk? Please?”
Alex slid back underwater, the sound of Michael’s warm stutters riding through his body like caffeine.
Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea.
No matter what Kyle or Isobel’s intentions, they’d been apart for 15 years. Just because they were trapped here for a week together did not mean that had to meaningfully change.
The synth voice chimed again. “I have a written communication from Ambassador Guerin. Would you like me to read it to you?”
Alex had swapped the voice of the synth from the default woman to a man with just a tinge of a New Mexico accent. He’d picked it his first visit to this moon, once he’d settled into this posting, and that preference followed him across linked systems. So sue him if it was closer to Guerin’s voice than his own at this point; he hadn’t programmed it.
“Please do.”
Dear Ambassador Manes,
It would be my honor to invite you to a casual meal tonight in the shared dining facilities or my cabin, per your preferences. I believe we are making a good teaching team but would like to establish our shared goals and converse on our styles. I have already reviewed and synthesized the student feedback we received and am ready to brief you on it at your leisure.
With great respect,
Ambassador Michael Guerin
Oasis and Caldera
“Computer, please send the following as a text message,” Alex forced himself to start.
Dear Ambassador Guerin,
I deeply appreciate your kind offer. However, I am indisposed this evening. I would be happy to review your synthesis myself before our next meeting. I’ve assigned the students the Caulfield closure memo, which I believe will mesh nicely with your intended assignments.
Thank you again for your courtesy outreach and practiced approach to our briefly shared teaching load.
Very respectfully,
Ambassador Manes
—
Toweled off and under the thin, crinkly sheets of his bunk, Alex pulled a projection of the reading Michael had up on the ceiling. He saw the header, gritted his teeth, and began to read.