Octavia Girl

Chapter Twenty Three

Figments of Flirtation

“Let’s begin by reviewing all the Octavians you met at the council meeting the other night,” Sardius said, displaying a photo of Favel on the screen in Jenna’s bedroom.

Jenna lounged on a magenta velvet divan with one foot on the seat, one foot on the floor, and a stress ball in her hand. It was the same one she’d been throwing against the wall of the hospital when she first arrived in the Octavia system. She squashed it between her palms and then hucked it against the wall before catching it perfectly.

“You’re really going to do this? You’re going to start with Favel?” she asked with a snark in her voice.

“Yes, really. That way you’ll feel smart,” he said condescendingly.

“Shut up. Get to the next picture,” Jenna said crossly.

“As you wish, my lady,” Sardius said in a voice that was half mocking and half gracious.

Jenna rolled her eyes and looked at the next photo on the screen. It was of a red Octavian. Sardius was waiting for Jenna to say which council member it was, but the truth was that these octopuses could change their color, texture, and their very shape.

Jenna groaned.

“Don’t tell me you’re hung up already,” Sardius teased.

“I think that one was called Yardling, but there was another red one at the table called Rossi. They look so similar. How am I supposed to tell them apart?”

“Yardling weighs four kilograms more than Rossi. Does that help?”

Jenna nodded. “Yeah, it does help… if I see them side by side. How am I supposed to identify them if they just swim up to the palace on their lonesome?”

“Well,” Sardius began. “They wouldn’t be allowed to see you without making arrangements through me. I’ll always tell you who is entering your palace. It’s not like whoever can just wander in here even if they are part of the Octavian’s diplomatic council.”

“That’s a comfort,” Jenna said, still squashing her stress ball like Sardius wasn’t alleviating her stress in the least.

“If it is of any further help, Yardling tends to be more of a tomato red while Rossi is more of a cherry red.” Sardius flipped between the profile pictures of Yardling and Rossi.

“Yeah, except I’m concerned that they won’t always keep those colors. Octopuses have such changeable skin.”

“Please relax, Jenna. I’m here to walk you through this. If you can remember the names of the red ones, that’s enough for today. You’ll meet these delegates a lot in the future and when you’re there, you won’t even believe that there was a time when you struggled to tell them apart.”

“I hope so,” Jenna said as he pulled up the next picture.

It was a tiny gray one called Ulie.

Then a mottled one called Olina.

Then a yellow and white one that looked sick called Flourite.

Jenna knew the next one. It was a black one called Barker. He had been the one to vote against giving her the security clearance.

The last one was a weathered gray and green one called Mundo.

“That’s all eight,” Sardius declared. “The Octavian Council is the group you will meet with to discuss and draft treaties with when you’re finished crowning seven other diplomats. Are you clear on their role?”

Jenna said yes.

Sardius moved on. “Now that we’ve done that, let’s talk about where you are right now.”

“This palace?” Jenna asked.

“You need to know that it is a piece of a larger construct. There are eight floating palaces and when they are all joined together, they make an octagon with a hole in the middle. Your palace is called the Dahlia Palace. There is also the Sand Palace, the Stone Palace, the Sun Palace, the Salt Palace, the Waterfall Palace, the Lotus Palace, and the Rainmaker Palace.”

“Those should be easy to remember,” Jenna yawned.

“As you’ve been told, much more of Octavia Prime is ocean than on Earth,” Sardius continued. “We’ve been anchored above Favel’s mansion underwater, so he can offer you the support of the Octavian Council since he’s chair. You are the chair of the Adamis Council… at least you will be once you crown a few more diplomats.”

“Provided I don’t get killed by assassins,” Jenna said coldly.

“Just look at the map,” Sardius replied in a tone that was neither dismissive nor comforting.

Jenna did as she was told and looked at a map of Octavia Prime that Sardius had thoughtfully put on the screen in front of her. She studied it, noting the names of the cities on the land and the cities below the land. Jenna noticed that what was underwater was not marked in the same detailed fashion as what was on the land. “Is there another map that shows the underwater areas with more labels?”

“No. This is all the Octavians have provided us with,” Sardius said with a yawn. “Their society isn’t like yours. It’s not like they put everything down on a grid with addresses and have everyone’s name in the phone book. They don’t track their citizens that way. One day, an Octavian’s address is a hole in the rock, and the next, they’re freeloading off one of their relatives in a colony, the day after that, they’re in space. There aren’t that many Octavians who have their own home the way Favel does. He’s a big shot among them, but the reason he has a home like that is for the same reason you have this palace–for political convenience.”

“Okay,” Jenna said, dismissing her concerns.

“The next group of people we need to talk about is the Adamis Alliance,” Sardius continued. “They’re humans. They’re a bunch of different races of humans who banded together. Historically, they weren’t going to, but once they realized that a) Octavians had solved a lot of their space travel issues with technology that kicked the crap out of what they’d managed to put together, b) they had a lot more to fear from the Octavians outpacing them than they did from other factions of humanity, c) they were gravely outnumbered by the Octavians who aren’t as fussy about racial differences… stuff like that. The Adamis realized that if they didn’t unite in some way or another, they were going to end up like some of the other bits of intelligent life in the universe… marginalized and obscure. Adamis pride simply cannot allow that. They figured out how to do something for the Octavians that they couldn’t do for themselves.”

“Right, healthcare,” Jenna interjected.

“Good. You’ve been listening,” Sardius praised.

Jenna felt a little proud of herself. She didn’t have time to realize that it was like congratulating a child on remembering where they’d visited a few weeks ago, as she had originally awoken in a hospital. Instead, she just felt a happy little glow, like she was getting the hang of things.

“Now memorize all of this.” Sardius pulled up a huge diagram of the Adamis Alliance. It showed its structure and all the offshoots. It was, honest to goodness, thousands of times more complex than if every piece of information about Earth’s politics were suddenly displayed at once with layers and layers of diagrams exactly like the one on the top. Jenna didn’t know how many layers there were.

“I’ll kill you,” she said bluntly. “Can’t you break this down? Obviously, I’m not going to be able to memorize that, and nor should I. What’s the important part?”

“Fine,” Sardius said, pulling the diagram apart to focus on one department. “The group you need to be the most aware of is their military. The Adamis Alliance Military Conglomerate–The AAMC for short.”

“So, the Adamis have a military,” Jenna said, looking at the names and the divisions and she was honest enough with herself to know that she wasn’t going to remember a word of it. “Who do they fight?”

Sardius was slow to answer. “Ah… Sometimes, they put down rebellions. Sometimes, they fight civil wars. Sometimes, they fight with the Octavians over mining disputes. Sometimes, they fight with smaller races. There’s a lot. You only have to be concerned over their fighting with Octavians, which I think is mostly being put on hold, but who knows how long they can stay on hold.”

“Are these the guys Vash was talking about when he mentioned dancing with his shirt off?”

“I believe so.”

Jenna huffed a breath out. “This is one of those moments where you’re not allowed to tell me what you really think, isn’t it?”

“Indeed, it is, Madam Diplomat,” he said, sounding falsely positive.

Jenna felt annoyed. Who was recording him? Was it the Adamis, who didn't want their military condemned for warmongering? Was it the Octavians, who didn’t want Jenna to have any idea of her people’s military might? The only clear thing was that she wasn’t going to get any significant information from Sardius that night.

“Is there anything else we need to go over before we begin trimming down seventy thousand applications for potential diplomats?”

Sardius snorted. “Seventy thousand should be pretty easy to weed through, right?”

Jenna laughed and leaned back on her pillowy divan. “I’m not nervous.”

“Why not?”

She stretched out her arms and made a heart symbol with her fingers. She looked through it, at the camera beyond like the heart was a spyglass. “Because I couldn’t find a single man I liked out of four billion on Earth, and the algorithm they ran for me only found eleven men in the whole universe. I think my pickiness will cut things down to size pretty quick.”

“You make it sound like dismissing people is a virtue,” he said flatly.

“You may not think so today,” Jenna replied with a grin. “But after tomorrow, you might think differently.” She blew him a kiss.