Octavia Girl

Chapter Seventeen

I Vote With the Gray Matter in My Gut

Rossi, a cherry red Octavian, rose up in her glass and said, “Jenna will require this level of clearance at some point. Is there really any purpose in refusing to give it to her now? If we give it to her now, we have essentially satisfied her request for a new gift without expending any additional resources. When she’s interviewed by the media, she can continue to act as though she is perfectly happy with her gift of Lucy. I see no negatives.”

Rossi lowered herself into the water without making a single ripple.

“Would anyone else on the yea side like to speak?”

The other Octavians who had voted yea, including Favel, hit buttons on the table saying they passed.

“Barker, would you speak on the nay side?” Favel invited.

A black Octavian rose up in the water. “I’m not opposed to Jenna eventually receiving this security clearance. As Rossi said, and I agree with her, Jenna would require this level of security clearance eventually, but I feel that it is jumping the gun to allow it now. According to the audio reels collected, Sardius has not asked for this in an official way. He has told her he is not allowed to answer certain questions and cited the reason why as this security function. His language is only mildly alarming and he requires no formal censure. What worries me is the intent to increase Jenna’s intimacy with Sardius on the level of a third husband. If he’s already the voice inside her head, who else is she listening to? A diplomat is supposed to have a collection of ties. Giving someone as dangerous as Sardius unguarded access to our only diplomat seems too reckless to be imagined. Perhaps we could put this decision off until a few more diplomats have been crowned. Otherwise, I see no problem with giving her the security clearance without marking it as one of her gifts. As Rossi said, we would have to give her this level of security clearance anyway.”

He lowered himself into the water.

Jenna leaned over the table and Favel noticed her. “Is there something you’d like to say?”

“I think I might be willing to go along with that decision myself,” she said, thinking she might want the extra gift for something else in the future. “It would help me if you could explain why Sardius is so dangerous.”

Favel nodded, though reluctantly. “In order to avoid a security conflict, I can tell you a few things about him, as he is unable to tell you anything about his past or his current situation. However, as you can guess, I’ll be cherry-picking the information shared. Do you want our pruned version of the truth that can’t help but be a little skewed?”

Jenna nodded.

“As you have already guessed,” Favel began. “Sardius is not a microscopic octopus living in the pearl inside your ear. We use that lie to explain why it is possible for him to do what he does. I’m sure you’ve noticed inconsistencies in communication in outer space and how he doesn’t have them. It’s almost as if he’s with you all the time. Many people have lived their entire lives with personal assistants in their ears without questioning it as much as you have.”

“What’s the reality? If he’s not a tiny octopus, then what is he?”

“I can’t tell you. What I can tell you is that you can never meet him in person. He’s a prisoner. He’s the highest-level prisoner ever used as a personal assistant.”

“You’re saying he’s a criminal? Why are you using criminals as personal assistants?” Jenna demanded.

“In Sardius’ case, it’s because he’s a very intelligent criminal. He’s a revolutionary, a terrorist, a pirate, a mass murderer, an arsonist, and anything else you can think of. He has no limits to what he can do. Frankly, when you go over his credentials, you don’t know if he’s a criminal because if he was working as an army officer during the mayhem he’s created, he’d be considered a hero. Already you know what he’s like when you talk to him. He’s charming, trustworthy, resourceful, entertaining, and frankly… calming when things are going very badly. However, from our perspective, he feels problematic because we didn’t scout him. He applied to work for you. That’s why he’s being watched so carefully. No one is certain why he wanted to work for you so desperately. A lot of very reasonable explanations were offered, and he swore so convincingly that he would go to hell for you.” Favel paused. “I was convinced. Nonetheless, we didn’t give him to you before he was tried as a personal assistant for another diplomat. He worked for Arvantis for a bit, but Arvantis was afraid of him, and afraid of what trusting the wrong person could do.”

“And he died,” Jenna finished for Favel.

“Yes. When we went through all the footage and reels taken, we determined that it was not Sardius’ fault that happened. He tried his best to give good advice, to help, but Arvantis wouldn’t listen to him. Often he did the opposite thing just to spit in Sardius’ face. It was a shame. Let me make this last bit clear, as I think this is what Sardius would like you to know. His application was always to work for you. We gave him to someone else because you weren’t accepting the invitations issued on Earth. It was a good way for him to prove himself. He wouldn’t have stayed assigned to Arvantis after you joined us.”

“Why would he want to work for me? How did he even know about me?”

“You know you have been on our watchlist since you were crowned as a baby. Getting personal assistants for Adamis diplomats is not easy. Information about you would have been available to him as soon as he applied to work for the program, though the information would have been vague. It would have been nothing more than your name. After working for Arvantis, he would have had more information on you. Arvantis was supposed to go to Earth to collect you himself, but he put that aspect of his work in the hands of some of his connections with the Adamis Alliance and we did not go to scout you personally before he passed away.” Favel paused. “As for Sardius, he was completely aware of the efforts to recruit you, even before we took over. On his application, he wrote that you were, and I quote ‘the sort of woman who should never be left alone… and you were in so much danger, he wouldn’t leave you alone.’ Sardius wanted to protect you. However, I should tell you that after listening to Barker’s argument, I agree that giving Sardius full access to say whatever he wants to you might be an invitation for him to pour poison in your ear. I appreciate that you’re feeling all alone after what happened with Armen and Lucy. I wish there was something specific we could do to replace Armen and give you what you should have had.”

Jenna leaned back in her chair and kept a pensive look on her face, though that was not an accurate depiction of her emotions at all. She had got them to give her almost everything she desired during the meeting. More than anything, she had wanted them to unroll the lie they had told her about Sardius’ situation. She was happy she hadn’t believed the microscopic octopus story. Favel had not told her that Sardius was a man, but Jenna didn’t need him to. Aside from Sardius verbally assuring her that he was indeed a tiny octopus, nothing else in his speech indicated that was true. The Octavians just didn’t understand the subtler points of human communication.

Sardius was a man. Maybe not a man exactly the way she was used to on Earth, but a man as far as she was concerned. He had hinted at it himself when he spoke about the compatibility test and its flaws. He hadn’t been one of the men included in the test as a possibility. He had suggested that he could have been a twelfth candidate if he had been included.

She decided this was the best way to hold leverage over the council and dove into it. “You’re saying you’d prefer it if I didn’t take Sardius to be my third husband and you’d rather I dated in order to find someone to partner up with who represents any other faction, but there are no other men according to your compatibility test.”

“Jenna, we have over seventy thousand people who have applied to be crowned as diplomats, maybe you could screen for a third husband at the same time,” Favel recommended, sounding as though the words were hard for him to say.

Jenna held back a smirk. “You haven’t convinced me. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to ask you who I can have as my third husband. You know what I think? I think you married me to Armen so that you could have an extra person on your side. The position of a third husband is not supposed to be a politically driven one and if you got me to have a third husband who was someone entirely of your choosing when I first got here, you would have my ear more than anyone else. Who’s trying to put poison in whose ear?”

The council looked bothered and the water they sat in bubbled so hard, it looked like it was boiling.

“That’s not the case at all,” Favel said with what appeared to be an easy chuckle. His water didn’t bubble. “We simply wanted you to feel as though this place could be your home. Having the support of a husband was naturally a part of that. We tried to find someone who would please you.”

“There was no need to find a husband for me in the first place. Romance in this situation is distasteful,” Jenna said scathingly. “You provided me with someone with an intense amount of practical military experience, Sardius, and I appreciate it. I plan to take no partner at all. Sardius is all that I need. And I would like him to be able to speak to me frankly instead of some unseen person screening my conversations with my PA. It feels like a disgusting breach of my privacy for him or me to be recorded. This is what I want, and I’m not budging.”

Jenna couldn’t tell by their reactions to that assertion if she was successful or not. There were rapid glances exchanges among the council members, more bubbling, water splashing, and a siphon or two blowing water across the table. Favel’s eyes had taken on unusual corners.

“Jenna,” Sardius’ voice came low in her ear. “You are scaring the hell out of them. Ease up.”

She blew out a little air, trying to mimic the council members blowing water as best she could. “In any case, I will do as you request. I’ll hold off on begging for that security clearance until I have crowned three new diplomats. Will that do?”

Favel thanked her for being so reasonable and Jenna opened a bag of potato chips as an offering to the council members. None of them ate one. They just rubbed the suction cups of their tentacles against them.

“Are these supposed to be salty?” a little spotted one giggled. She lived in salt water. To her, the chips were bland.

Jenna smiled and shrugged. “They’re salty for my people.”

“And you liked this gift?” the spotted octopus asked.

Jenna shrugged again. “Not really. I’m not really allowed to eat these, but I liked the chips better than I liked Lucy.”