Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) Read Online Free PDF

its warmth. “I just need someone to be near me.” She wanted her
mother, her father, one of her cousins, even her sister to hold onto right now.
Most of all, she wanted Rainer because he was here and he was always the one to
take her pain away, to listen to her ravings.
    A commotion in the hallway put
them both on alert.
    Rainer tugged his hand away and
looked at her. Not quite a look of pity, but it still stung. “I’ve been
here too long already,” he said. “If the Sovereign knew about this,
we’d both be dead. You won’t need me soon. He has other plans for you, ones
that don’t involve torture…or at least not like this.”
    Watching him leave, Sara couldn’t
even muster the strength to care what the Sovereign would do to her next.

SIX
    A faint blue ellipse decorated a
large circle of pavement outside the Embassy’s expansive halfmoon-shaped
complex. Rainer caught glimpses of the faded symbol within a mix of drably
dressed Embassy staff, flamboyant Socialites, and black-clad contractors.
Bodies crisscrossed in kaleidoscopic regularity to and from the ferries and
ship berths at Shiraz Dock here within the Hub.
    Tampa Quad’s largest urban center
used to be a different kind of hub. Rainer formed a vague image from stories his
family told of archivist ships constantly arriving and departing from the
system’s six moons, before Sovereign Archivist Simon Prollixer dropped the archivist
part of his title and managed to gain control from a council too willing to
give up its power. Now there was only the Sovereign.
    Like Sara, Rainer didn’t believe
Prollixer deserved his manufactured title.
    Thinking of her brought mixed
feelings, ones he pushed aside as he passed the defunct landing pads and
avoided the commonways used by most pedestrian traffic to the Hub. He never
entered via the grand main entrance with its sparkling chalcedony wall,
preferring to maneuver through the Hub’s underground tunnels. Head Contractor
had its privileges, including access to places most citizens couldn’t imagine.
    Though Prollixer originally
commissioned the tunnels’ construction for quick getaways at the onset of his
takeover, he now preferred to be as high profile as possible in order to bask
in the appreciation of his citizens. Maybe he forgot that not everyone
celebrated the regime change like he did.
    Contractors and fraggers
protested the loudest; Prollixer made sure to turn one against the other very
early. Those contractors who found working for the Embassy too restrictive left
the guild to become rogues for hire. At first, Prollixer denied marriage rights
to the rogues, but quickly changed policy after the guilders threatened to
mutiny as well. Once any group of Uppers was denied rights, others could easily
follow.
    The Sovereign might pay Embassy
contractors to be loyal, but no price was worth losing their family privileges.
It was too much like what had happened on the worldships when the diseases ran
unchecked and the quarantines were first enforced. A negative growth in
population left the citizenry in serious jeopardy of extinction.
    Without the archivists’ History
lessons, the Sovereign might have thrown the population into decline, or worse,
allowed the purer lines to become tainted. Reinforcing the need to marry within
one’s caste and with multiple partners ensured a thriving populace among the
six moon-planets. Of course interpretation of caste varied. Most took it
to mean any from the Upper Caste, but family circles consisting mostly of
Embassy contractors took the mandate to a new level, nearly becoming a
sub-class themselves. Most of them formed their family circles with other
contractors exclusively. Rainer’s family subscribed to this tradition, as was
evidenced by the lineages of his amours.
    Three figures rounded the corner
ahead. Few traveled the featureless white corridors with their overly bright
ceiling lights, so Rainer often used his transit time down here to disconnect
from everything, allow