The tower that held the seat of the Galactic Trade Company stood like a jagged finger stabbing toward the sky. Its architect had built the structure out of steel and black stone with brooding windows that looked out over the stark landscape.
In the uppermost peak stood a female Jerz, her hands clasped behind her back in a loose military stance as she gazed across the starscape. Her hair was pale for her species, her face stunningly beautiful by Earth or Jerz standards, and the slight smile that touched her lips lit also her piercing blue eyes. There was nothing in her appearance, expression, or manner to tell you that this was the most hated and feared female in the spiral galaxy. Even her voice seemed only pleasant and friendly as she addressed the alien in front of her.
“Did you find them?”
“Not yet, madam.” The obsequious creature that knelt before her was in fact not present at all. A hologram, projected from three discreet lenses in far corners of the room, made their conversation possible over the vast distance between the spy’s hidey-hole and where she stood in GTC Headquarters.
“Keep looking.” Her voice was cheerfully optimistic. “I’m sure you will not let me down.”
Her spy shivered and stammered, “Y-yes, madam.”
“And when you do,” she added just as cheerily, “let me know immediately and I will crush them like the little bugs they are.”
That her tone of voice did not alter once from her gaiety was more than unnerving to her poor subordinate, who stammered out an inaudible reply, bowed still lower, and faded from view.
Cle-zea smiled a little and turned once more to take in the view of the desolate landscape over which the night sky hung blacker and deeper than any ever seen on Earth, for the atmosphere was thin here. She always felt a touch of hidden satisfaction in the knowledge that one step outside her fortified tower would mean a slow and icy death for any creature attempting it. GTC Headquarters was not placed here for nothing. The major galactic trade routes passed right by this large moon upon which her throne sat. That it was desolate did not mean it was out of the way. Rather, no one else had been permitted by GTC to build anything here—both to protect the Tower itself and to ensure the panorama seen from its windows was as stark and awful as the hearts of the CEOs that had ruled it.
She stood at the window, gazing out for half an hour more, and then turned to take her tea which was sitting on a side table nearby. She chose a loose-leaf variety from the row of tins and dumped a small spoonful to brew in a clear glass pot over a small circular heating element. There were a number of worlds in the spiral galaxy that grew tea-like plants with varying flavors and medicinal or recreational properties. Of all those, Cle-zea preferred the actual tea plant on Earth, prepared in the English method—an attribute of her personality that would have been redeeming if all the others were not so horrible.
She reached for a crumpet from the dish on the sideboard, removed the lid of a fruit preserve jar beside it, dipped in the small silver knife, and said to the room, “Earth president, please.”
There came the sound of a chime and a bell, after which the window to her left blackened and was revealed to be a screen upon which alien lettering scrolled by. Whatever the message, it seemed to satisfy the CEO for she nodded, her mouth full at that moment with jellied fruit and crumbs. The nod must have sufficed, however, for the room brightened slightly with the projection of another hologram, this time displaying Anubis—GTC Representative to the Sol System.
“Madam CEO.” He bowed deeply, his long canine ears flopping forward like a beagle.
“It has been nearly a dozen cycles but still no sign of the Earth ambassador,” she scolded him gently, her eyes bright with humor. “Are you certain they meant to come here and petition for membership?”
“Fairly thurtain, madam,” Anubis lisped. He shuffled his feet under his long white linen skirt in a nervous manner. “They went to great lengths to escape with the proposed contract in hand,” he told her. “I cannot imagine what other use they could have put it to if not to bring it to you.”
“And their stop at Jeropul seems to have hardly delayed them,” Cle-zea pondered. “The only question is, where did they go from there, and why have they still not appeared to press their suit?”
“You wanted to thpeak to the Earth president, madam?” Anubis asked, subtly changing the subject since he had no answer for her except his own wondering along a similar vein.
“Yes.” She nodded, allowing him to pull her back to the purpose of her call. “Where is Bilderbus?”
“I am not on Earth, currently.” He bowed in a slightly apologetic manner. “But I will initiate a call to him immediately.”
As Cle-zea tapped her fingers idly on the blade of her marmalade knife, Anubis busied himself contacting Earth. Within moments, the portly figure of Mr. Bilderbus appeared. The two holograms stood side by side, although light years stood between the two men.
“You know your species far better than I,” Cle-zea said without preamble. “Tell me, Earthling, where would this young pup have gone? She is not here with this contract, and I need her!”
Bilderbus cleared his throat, prepared to dissemble.
“Perhaps I can answer that better than my ostensible leader,” a voice said from behind the Earth president. The holographic program, not designed to project two persons at the same time, flicked for an instant between the two bodies standing in its target area, and Cle-zea spotted Timothy Rocksquatter as he stepped heavily into view.
Bilderbus eagerly relinquished his position to the other man with a submissive bow of his head. The hologram immediately shifted and the High Priest of Jesters stood before her in all his massive grotesqueness.
The light years that separated Rocksquatter and Cle-zea seemed to shrink to nothing as the two met eyes for the first time. Knowing there was an invisible government enthroned behind the Earth president, who controlled his movements and words like a fat spider manipulating the motions of a caught fly at the end of his string web had amused Cle-zea, but she had never yet had opportunity to meet any of the Rocksquatter family. Until now. Their gaze met and held—a twin pair of eyes and the genius twisted minds behind them recognizing like for like, fed only by the black clinker each called a heart.
“Where do you think our sweet Lissa has gone?” Cle-zea’s voice was kind and pitying for the small girl. She lowered her eyes demurely.
Timothy’s thick mouth twisted in amusement at her convincing act. “I’m afraid the child is lost in space, and indeed, her mother seems to have disappeared with her.”
“What an unfortunate circumstance. And Earth just on the cusp of becoming full members, too.” She appeared to think for a moment, chewing ponderingly on the end of a lock of hair. “I know! Since Earth’s representative cannot speak for herself, the GTC ambassador, as witness to the contract that was ratified in such a quaint manner by the peoples of Earth, Anubis will take over the final details of making Earth’s contract fully legal.” She smiled sweetly at Anubis, whose eyes gleamed in anticipation.
“I would thertainly be glad to aid the newly discovered Earth to navigate the twists and turnth of the GTC legal arena.” Anubis bowed low to his CEO.
“That settles it!” she cried. “And if dear Lissa does appear …”
“You have agents who can deal with such an eventuality,” Rocksquatter finished.
“They are already searching.”