“But you’re asking me to lie,” Menefry pointed out to his crewmates. Again.
“No, not outright lie,” Saxon assured him. “Just shade the truth. A bit. Mislead them.”
Menefry shook his head. He, Saxon, and Basil all sat in the desert conference room, the one that Menefry had taken as his second office. No one else was really comfortable in this room, while it provided a soothing atmosphere for the Khanvassa. He’d even put a statue of the Goddess in the corner, the one in the pose of Sage Counsel, wrapped with a fuchsia colored gauze that Kim had approved of.
All of the team had been recording messages to be sent out to various guards on the stations that were connected to the hypergates in the systems where the queens had stations.
Basil had managed to delay the payment from the Cartel to one such system. All it had taken was a single transposed set of numbers in an account.
Then, all the complaints about the lack of payment had been magnified, with Judit managing to convince more than one news station to play up the news. It was particularly juicy, given that just the day before, half the existing board of directors of the Cartel had been forcefully ejected.
Not from an airlock, unfortunately. But it did mean that the corporation was in some turmoil.
Though Basil had only worked zir magic on one bank, it seems that a second had the same issue that day, so the complaints about lack of payment were abruptly multiplied.
It was the last thing that the Cartel needed.
And it primed all those good workers to be paranoid.
Now, it was up to Judit and the rest of them to prompt those workers into action.
However…
“My word has always been my honor,” Menefry explained. Again.
“I know that there are Khanvassa who don’t tell the truth,” Saxon said, trying to reason with him.
Menefry sighed. “Yes. And no. Perhaps they justify it by only lying to foreigners, and never to their own people. Or maybe they just shade the truth.”
“That’s all we’re asking you to do,” Basil said. Zie pushed forward the scripts that zie had written. “All you have to do is follow along.”
Menefry shook his head. While Basil had tried to do zir best, there was a reason why Saxon had recorded the messages for the Yu’udir, Kim had done one for the Bantel, and even Judit had done some for Humans. Saxon’s had been full of contract law, Kim’s had been over-the-top cheery, even for her, Judit’s had started with a dirty joke, and Basil’s had been all about the nerdy details of the gate.
Menefry’s, well, it had to be something even more different for the other Khanvassa.
“Look, you can try it out on us first,” Saxon said.
Menefry couldn’t help but click his mandibles in frustration at that. “No. I need to talk with some other Khanvassa. Convince them first. Then use that as a script.”
Saxon looked at Basil, who tilted zir head from side to side. “We’ll use a mostly automated station, at first,” zir said. “One that’s pretty far out from everything, that only has a maintenance crew, not a permanent one.”
“That sounds perfect for a trial run,” Menefry said.
He could do this.
It just had to be done his way.
* * *
Menefry sang out his greeting, a brief prayer to the Goddess, wishing luck and benevolence on all who heard his voice.
“Yeah, whatdaya want?” came the reply after a moment.
There was no visual, so Menefry couldn’t see the individual he spoke with.
He could practically hear the eyeroll on the other side, though.
Perhaps the individual—Jidimadi was his name—was not as educated as Menefry had originally believed.
“Greetings fellow traveler on the Path of Goodness,” Menefry said, still going with the original script he’d prepared.
It was within reason to assume that all beings were on the Path of Goodness, set there by the Goddess. The individual path for someone had to be determined by them, with help from the priests or prayer.
Silence greeted him, instead of the expected greetings.
Hmmm.
“I come to you at this difficult time within the Universal Trading Cartel, to ask for your forbearance,” Menefry said. “As in the tale of the Goddess praying for tolerance, so we, at Universal, are now asking the same.”
“What are you talking about, priest?” Jidimadi asked, sounding exasperated.
“Now, you may have heard certain rumors about pay being suspended or even canceled, even for work already done,” Menefry said.
“What, you mean like what happened at the Jodpur system? Everyone there got stiffed. Lost more than a month’s wages,” Jidimadi said.
Menefry sent a questioning look at Basil, bringing up one of his secondary hands to emphasize his confusion.
Basil merely tilted zir head back and forth.
Seemed that zie hadn’t heard of it either.
Was the rumor mill taking on a life of its own? As Judit had predicted?
“No, no, I’m not saying that,” Menefry reassured the person. “You will be paid. Eventually. I’m sure of it.”
“I got bills to pay,” Jidimadi warned. “When?”
“I’m not saying that you’re not going to be paid. Just that there’s a slight chance that it might, perhaps, maybe will be delayed,” Menefry said.
There. Every word was the truth. There was no reason why Jidimadi wouldn’t be paid. Basil hadn’t done anything to the banking system in this region.
All that Menefry wanted to do was to put the fear of losing wages into the worker’s heart.
“Mealy-mouthed priest,” Jidimadi muttered. “Look, can you say for certain that I’ll be paid?”
“Of course! Of course!” Menefry said. “I’m just…not certain when. It might be on time. It might…not.”
“Fine,” Jidimadi said.
“Look, there isn’t anything you need to worry about. The Goddess will set your feet on the right path. You don’t need to shut down the station at all. Just wait and all will be resolved,” Menefry said all in a rush. He added another short prayer, about the Goddess counseling patience.
“Yeah, right,” Jidimadi replied. He sang back a verse about the Goddess expecting everyone to do their part.
“Exactly,” Menefry said. “Thank you so much for understanding. And all of this will be taken care of as soon as possible.”
“I’ll just be sitting here waiting,” Jidimadi said. “In my shutdown station.”
He killed the line before Menefry could say anything else.
Menefry turned to smile beneficently at the other two. He sang out another line of prayer before he pressed all of his palms together and bowed his head.
Yes, the role of the muddled priest come to spread calm was the exact part he needed to play as the news of possible late payments made its way across all the systems.
Hopefully, all the queens would be ready to play their part in the next phase of the game.