Do Your Homework, Get Some Rings; Don't Do Your Homework, Get Wrung Out

One pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09, from which the remaining images are zoomed

Capt. Almira Jackson, fiancee to Acting Ambassador Benjamin Banneker my uncle, had a golden, ringing laugh, and the sight of a colony of Wrhingaahling at work was causing that laugh to ring out even as they made their seemingly endless rings from the gold and brass in the Sultruvium sands.

This laughter had to do with what had happened in a briefing the day before!

“My darling is a whole admiral,” she said, “but folks think they are just going to talk him around – I stay in popcorn and am driving up the stock of butter on the Ventanan frontier!”

My uncle, an admiral but made acting ambassador owing to a mishap in the planetary state department for the Ventanan frontier, had worked with all three sentient species of Sultruviam to hammer out an agreement – and it was all done, at least in draft, and out to both sides and all interest holders for review. All captains on active duty on the Ventanan frontier also were invited to be in attendance for those portions that involved how the fleet was going to work with trade and travel routes in and around the Sultruvi System, so Capt Jackson and I teleconferenced in.

The human commercial interests moving into the Ventanan frontier had deeply mixed feelings about the draft agreement, and somebody felt they had to have their say.

“This is why the trained diplomats ought to have done this, Admiral – science is good and the environment is fine, but here you have this planet all happy that they are going to get an agreement that gives us practically nothing – with all these protections and provisions the Sultruviamin are getting, what are we getting out of this as the commercial interests? Everybody isn't out here for sixty years of show and tell!”

“Now, anybody who would say that to an admiral in a room also full of fleet officers clearly isn't in his right mind – must have had some bad stuff in his drink last night,” Capt. Jackson said.

“Look, you gotta let me check if we're on mute first!” I said before breaking out laughing. “I mean, sitting here with you I've already double-checked and triple-checked, but still!”

Those officers in the room indeed all bristled, and things could have gone bad, but my uncle lifted his hand with all his aged dignity and stilled it.

“At ease,” he ordered, and it was done.

Then he addressed his interlocutor in his perfect dignified calm.

“Sir, what you are getting out of it is going to depend on the level of homework you do, since you clearly have not read through even the trade portion of the agreement. In the half hour I am going to give now to the questions of your colleagues, go on and read up, and if you still have a question at the end of the half hour, I'll answer it.”

Capt. Jackson fell out laughing as I shook my head. The person that thought he was going to have the upper hand sat down, the color of a tomato … and he slunk out at minute 29, thinking he would avoid further humiliation ... but that would be delayed two days, but not denied!

What he had not read, Capt. Jackson and I knew about: the existing planetary trade partners with the Sultruviamin were making a fortune out of the planet's abundant and well-sifted sands … glass-making with their true silica deposits, metallurgy with their abundance metallic sands.

Present on Sultruviam as they had been for centuries were the Wrhingaalhing, whose thing was making gold and brass ringlets in exchange for receiving the toxic perchlorate sands the Guardians of the Sultruviam atmosphere took up and then settled out of the atmosphere far from areas inhabited by the humanoid Sultruviamin. These goldsmiths were very small creatures, but their leading "head ring" was visible …

… and everywhere there was a gold coil, there were several hundred members of the colony at work about to drop a finished coil or ring out of the sky.

This particular colony liked the sound of Capt. Jackson's laughter, and improvised an entire “bouquet” of rings to give her!

Fortunately – because gold is heavy – they remembered not to drop it right on her, but just in front of her.

“See, this is why – I'm slow, but not stupid,” my uncle said with a laugh. “I knew the minute you were out of retirement, all these other beings would be making their bid because of that big, beautiful laugh, Almira!”

“Good thing I'm already engaged,” she said, “and that you're not stupid!”

She kept on laughing and the shower of gold rings continued … none of which she kept, because fleet officers under these circumstances could not, but today Aunt Almira has a whole collection of jewelry her husband purchased from the native gold works of the Sultruviamin sands.

Meanwhile, that commercial magnate who had insulted my uncle found that he had bigger problems than Uncle Benjamin – Uncle Benjamin was the wrong admiral to be worried about. Admiral Chenggis Chulalaangkorn had been present by remote feed also, and not only showed up two days later in person but ordered the magnate brought back. Since said magnate had said what he said in public, so also did Adm. Chulalaangkorn, his hard bass voice booming.

“Let me clear this up for the record, sir; that foolishness you did two days ago will be the first and last time you insult an admiral of this fleet serving in the capacity his rank allows him in an emergency. You don't have a business out here unless we protect it. You don't have a business out here unless our diplomacy makes a way for you have it. You don't get to be out here at all unless the consortium permits it, and since you didn't bother to even read the trade agreement, you're a risk to the process we're doing here – and speaking of permits!”

The permit was brought in on a tablet and handed to Adm. Chulalaangkorn – who had it put up on the screen, and read right down to the paragraph that said, “Notwithstanding all of the aforegoing, if at any time the relevant ruling parties of the consortium on the Ventanan frontier (governors, military governors, full fleet admirals, etc.) find that the party of the first part is operating in a manner that is a clear and present danger to the furtherance of consortium major interests on said frontier, said permit can be unilaterally revoked by the appropriate consortium representative of the position and ranks named and associated with the same.”

Chenggis Chulalaangkorn was a full fleet admiral, and thus also interim military governor for the consortium on the Ventanan frontier until appropriate star bases were set up.

“Since clearly you don't do your homework,” that admiral thundered, “and since you can't manage your permit, you clearly can't be trusted to manage anything else – and, sir, believe me: I read up and I do my homework.”

Tablet after tablet after tablet after tablet of infractions – they were all brought in and put on the table in front of the offending magnate until we could not even see him behind the stacks.

“I didn't have to have your company's 1,457 infractions pulled up,” Adm. Chulalaangkorn growled, “along with every warning you have already gotten and ignored, but I value obliterating men like you in full.”

Into the chilled silence that left, the admiral gave one order – “Computer: recognize!”

“Admiral Chenggis Chulalaangkorn, full fleet admiral, interim military governor for the Ventanan Exploratory Region.”

“The permit for Firthcome Enterprises to operate in the Ventanan Exploratory Region, including any and all relevant clearances for its executive staff, is hereby revoked upon my command, pursuant to all 1,457 unaddressed infractions of the permit added to the record, and the flagrant interference in diplomatic affairs regarding the public humiliation of the lead diplomat negotiating Sultruviam's entrance into the consortium, Admiral Benjamin Banneker. Acknowledge!”

There was a moment's delay because the whole record had to be filed to a bunch of computers all the way back to Earth. The high command and the planetary state department would review it in theory, but nobody ever bothered to reverse Adm. Chulalaangkorn's decisions, because he was so thorough in justifying them.

“Acknowledged, Admiral.”

The stacks of tablets were then removed, and two big, burly security officers appeared to loom over the stunned magnate.

“Get him out of here,” Adm. Chulalaangkorn ordered, “and make sure to scan for, collect, and deactivate all access devices he has.”

You could have heard a pin drop in that room after that for however long Adm. Chulalaangkorn wanted it to be heard before he addressed my uncle.

“Thank you for the time needed to clear all that up in today's briefing and review, Acting Ambassador Banneker,” he said, with a smile. “I cede the floor to you to continue your agenda for today.”

“Thank you, Adm. Chulalaangkorn,” my uncle said, as calm and unbothered as ever.

“I'm going to start popping some popcorn just as soon as this briefing is over!” Capt. Jackson said to me as we again sat viewing remotely.

“Remember, you gotta let me check to see if we're on mute first!” I said.