Free Nomad by William Alexander Page A

shoes. “You’ll learn how to slip speedily into a sleep or a trance,” she assured him. “Some ambassadors can even visit the Embassy while still awake and going about their business. They must seem distracted and daydreamy, though, splitting their focus between two places at once. I never learned that trick. But the trance is easier. Most of it is just breathing slowly. I’d teach you the basics now, but I’m too tired. The tree in the academy is much better at it. Learn from him. I go there sometimes to practice and help tutor the tiny ambassador hopefuls.”
    â€œOkay,” Gabe said. “I’ll ask Kaen tomorrow abouttrances and trees.” He fished around in his well-stocked emergency backpack for a toothbrush. “Is there a bathroom around here?”
    â€œDown the hall on the left,” she said. “Don’t use water for washing up. There’s a basin of disinfectant sand. Rub your hands with that. Be warned: Lots of species use that room, and none have very strong notions of privacy.”
    He expected Nadia to have claimed her own nook by the time he got back, but he found her still sitting in the chair.
    â€œHow’s Earth?” she asked.
    â€œStill there,” he said. “Warmer since you left.”
    â€œWhat part are you from? United States? You sound like it, but translation does weird things to accents.”
    â€œUnited States,” he confirmed. “Right smack in the middle of the continent.”
    â€œWell, I’m glad we haven’t nuked each other. I don’t suppose your country built any lunar cities while I was gone.”
    Gabe shook his head, and then remembered to say, “No,” out loud.
    â€œSo NASA just walked around, took some souvenir rocks, snapped a few tourist pictures, and never went back?”
    â€œBasically, yes,” said Gabe. “I’m not happy about that either.”
    â€œAt least you didn’t nuke the moon,” Nadia said.
    â€œWhat?!”
    Kaen rolled over, but she kept on snoring.
    Gabe lowered his voice. “Why would we ever do that?”
    â€œJust to prove that you could,” Nadia said. “It was a pissing contest. The U.S. didn’t know how to respond after we reached orbit first. You had to do something , and you decided to go walking on the moon. Good choice. I loved walking on the moon. But you almost detonated a nuclear warhead on the lunar surface instead, just to intimidate us with the sight.”
    â€œAre you sure?” Gabe asked. “How do you know?”
    â€œIt was an open secret,” Nadia told him. “Or at least it was around my dinner table. Classified-but-not-really.” She yawned again. “You should get to sleep. Kaen will be waiting. Say hello to Protocol for me when you get there. I miss him. Even though he’s such a stuffy stickler for rules and procedures.”
    â€œI will,” Gabe promised. He climbed into one of the lower nooks and tried to sleep, exhausted but also aware that he lay inside a pyramid, in Night and under Day, on a flying saucer, hiding in an asteroid, 266 million miles from Earth.
    â€œBreathe slow,” Nadia told him from across the room. She remained in her chair. In that moment she looked like she really might be half a century old.

9
    â€œGreetings, Ambassador Gabriel Sandro Fuentes.”
    The voice came from every direction inside the welcoming chamber. Gabe watched his entangled sense of self take shape in the mirrored door.
    â€œGreetings, Protocol.”
    â€œI trust that your earlier conflicts have been adequately resolved.” It wasn’t a question, but it was something very close. Protocol tried not to express curiosity. He was the place itself. He made communication possible, and considered it improper to pry or otherwise intrude into the actual content of galactic communication. But Protocol did sometimes strain against the strict parameters of his