Free The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1 by R.M. Meluch

drink first.”
    Augustus, his voice a low murmur across the room, like the waves’ rush, footnoted in English, (“The implication being: if you choose not to drink, you are enemies.”)
    Farragut lifted his glass in a toast, Earth fashion. “To your health.” And drank.
    In deathly silence, the Arrans glared at him. The Archon’s smile vanished.
    The cold, sparkling drink went down tastelessly. Something wrong here.
    Augustus again, in English: (“The crashing you don’t hear is the sound of a giant brick dropping.”)
    (“What did I do?”) John hissed.
    (“You ‘you’d’ the Archon as an equal.”)
    (“I meant to.”)
    (“He doesn’t like it.”)
    Farragut lifted his brows in a kind of shrug.
    The Archon declared coldly, “I am not accustomed to being talked to so!” Then, suddenly amicable again, declared, “From you, I shall take it.”
    Donner had changed his own choice of you . He upgraded Farragut to an equal. The Archon’s glass lifted in imitation. “To your health.” Donner drank, and the room exhaled.
    The empty glasses went away so unobtrusively John Farragut did not notice them going. The Archon’s servants were well practiced at being unnoticeable.
    Donner introduced no one and asked no names of Captain Farragut’s delegation. There was only Donner and Captain Farragut. Everyone else in the room was furniture.
    Ill-mannered furniture. Two of the xenos were whispering together, taking great interest in the floor—a mosaic of precious and semiprecious stones set in lead. Cracks in it and in the marble pillars suggested an unquiet earth. The xenos were discussing seismology; the Archon only saw them eyeing the jewels.
    “You came prospecting!” Donner accused Farragut.
    “I don’t know how you boys do things on Arra, but where I come from you don’t call your guests thieves,” said Farragut. This encounter was being recorded. Farragut imagined LEN diplomats having seizures at this point in the replay.
    “Then you are not claiming my world?” Donner asked, somewhat mollified.
    “Of course not. You got here first.”
    The whites flared in the Archon’s dark eyes. The room stirred.
    (“The discreet approach, hm, John?”)
    (“I was just imitating the Archon. He’s blunt.”)
    (“Dictators can dish it out, but they don’t usually take it well.”)
    And the Archon had had quite enough of the English backchat. He raised his voice, “This is the same as whispering! Thou shalt not whisper in my presence! When you speak, speak to me!”
    “I need advice on how to speak to you,” Farragut explained. “I’m new at this language. No disrespect intended. (And, oh shit, Augustus, what did I say now? He’s glaring at me.)”
    (“You used the imperial ‘I.’ ”)
    But the Archon resumed a magnanimous air and allowed, “You speak my language better than I speak yours.”
    “Thank you.”
    Augustus: (“He’s not as pissed as he pretends. We’re on camera. A lot of this posturing is for show.”)
    The Archon stalked across the vast expanse of jeweled floor to give Augustus a hard look up and down. At five foot seven, the Archon looked absolutely diminutive before the six-foot-eight Roman. Donner asked dubiously, “This is a female?”
    Colonel Steele smirked.
    (“It’s the height, shrimp,”) Augustus shot back in English to six-foot Steele, who had never been called “shrimp” in his life. (“Look at the women.”)
    Farragut answered the Archon, “He is not female. He is tall.”
    “Where are you from?” the Archon demanded.
    “My planet is called Earth. Augustus’ planet is called Palatine, but his people came originally from Earth.”
    The duality surprised Donner. “Where is Earth? Where is Palatine?”
    “A long way from here.”
    “Outside?” Donner circled the air with a forefinger. He had human hands, four fingers per hand, opposable thumbs. “Outside my Myriad?”
    “Outside the globular cluster, yes.”
    “Where? How far?”
    (“Okay, somebody give me a