5Since you really insist, here's a post! Previously: "I think I'm beginning to like you," Jinta smiled at her new friend as she did as he asked. Jinta settled down into her seat to watch the race. She hummed along with the musical score projected from her doll as she relaxed. Then the communicator hung on her wrist chimed. A single symbol blinked three times before fading away.
"Ah!" Jinta exclaimed as she studied the communicator at her wrist. She bowed at her waist. "Excuse me please! I will be back!"
"If you buy some food, bring me some!" Leroy mildly stated. "But then again, maybe I should go with you so you don't get lost."
"It will only be a moment," Jinta blurted out. In a swift, unconscious gesture, she flexed her wrist forward and hid the screen of her communicator by one hand.
"Alright then," Leroy spoke up with a touch of skepticism before turning his head back toward the racetrack where race cars and drivers were still preparing.
Jinta hurried away. She bought a corn dog at the stands, took three bites, then quickly threw away the remnants and the paper it had been wrapped in. She hurried down another line of box seats instead. The screen of her communicator flashed again, and this time a box seating number glowed upon its surface. Jinta matched the number on her communicator with the box seat before her, then strolled in. It was not the one she had left Leroy in.
"Hello," Jinta said with such a regal severity she might have been mistaken for Lafiel instead of Jinta for a moment. "I am here, Grand Craftsman. I apologize I was not able to meet you at the mansion as planned. Someone unexpected came along before we could meet."
"That is fine, your Excellency," the man dressed in plainclothes reinforced with steel bowed. A thick mat of gray hair was on his head except for a significant bald spot, as well a sizable but trimmed beard of equal gray. "I thought something like that might have happened, so I arranged to find you here in secret."
"How did you know I'd be at the races?" Jinta spoke calmly, but her fingers fret a drumroll along her Mrs. Sparkles doll.
"Friends as well as enemies keep track of your movements, Excellency," the man said as the din of the crowd continued to surround them like the rushing waves of a turbulent stream.
Jinta's eyes were no longer wide like the ocean as they had been with Lafin and Leroy mere minutes ago. Instead, her delighted, amused stare had narrowed into the guarded, calculating look of someone who has been offended many times. She tipped her head slightly as she studied the sturdy green canvas suit of the man before her, and its adornments of three medals- all shaped into spheres of gold that elongated into the noses of domesticated bears, for somehow, they along with humans, had made their way to the planet called Martine, a mere few centuries ago.
"Your Excellency," the man spoke in such a dull whisper that Jinta was compelled to slid onto the stadium bench beside him. She listened to his breath touch her ear, but kept her sight fixed firmly on the racetrack below.
"Your father, Count Earl Jinto Hyde, has honored his promise to not come within a light-year of the planet Martine throughout his life and upheld the treaty which led to the voluntary surrender of Martine as a territory. But he has not been forgotten. Neither have you, as you are heir apparent to become the reigning noble of our humble industrial planet. It is you, whom in a few short years, will represent us craftsmen and miners of Martine to your Sovereign Empire."
"That is so, Grand Craftsman," uttered Jinta in a whisper. "But what can I do for you? What plaintiff would you have me lay before the Empress?"
"This time, it is no mere simple business," the man said with a brief, disgusted snuff. Then he let out a weary sight and scratched his knee, as if there might be an old injury there that pained him. Then he shifted his weight.
"It is no request for tools. It is not a respite from an interest debt that we of the craftsman guilds are seeking. If you are to become our Countess, then you must do one thing- stay alive despite all those who oppose Martine's treaty with the Abh Empire. Here," the man uttered while handing Jinta a slender chip. "All that we know of some... stirrings. It is not enough that you stay away from Martine. And if you intend to return to Martine, someday, you will have all the more need of such knowledge."
"I am no stranger to assassination attempts," Jinta spoke with surprising offhandedness. "When I was a child, there was one notable attempt, and when I attended my first military and civility classes as required by law, there were several more attempts. And so I was pulled aside for special training in order to keep myself alive."
"Then you should understand that these are especially difficult times of unrest on Martine. If you have read all the recent papers, you will know." The man with deeply grooved age lines beside his large nose gave her stared at her cheek, as it was the only portion of her face pointed toward him.
"Yes. Officials of the Empire have gathered reports also," Jinta said, looking especially pained as her twin braids of brown hair swayed by either side of her Abh ears. "An underground resistance movement against the Empire has been gathering there. The Federationists have been proselytizing many. And so resentment of the Empire grows. So it is an unlikely time that even those in full support of the Empire will endorse a visit to Martine from myself. If that is what you fear, then you have my word that I have no immediate plans to go to Martine despite my curiosity for my father's old planet.
"No, my lady," the gray-haired man said, massaging one of his gnarled hands with agitation before resting it back against his knee. "I asked to meet with you to give you that data. A revolution may be brewing that will send the whole planet into unrest."
"Ah! And then the Empire will blockade Martine from its sord and forbid any or mined or material made on Martine from being transferred to other planets in order to starve the insurgents to submission."
"That is what we fear, Countess," the craftsman spoke gravely, rubbing his hand again. "Some make this a question of loyalty to Martine, but for others, it is about loyalty to one's lively hood. For old craftsmen and miners like myself, we know nothing of this life but our trades. To have that taken away from us is worse than war itself."
"I understand," Jinta nodded. "And I will study the data you have given me, sir, and do all that I can to prevent an uprising. If one occurs, I will entreat for the factories of Martine to not be shut down."
"It is good for me to hear such words from you," the man uttered. "And such an action would be wise. Some of the younger persons even among craftsmen are sympathetic to a revolution."
"But why haven't you chosen to speak to my father, the Count Earl Jinto Hyde, instead of me?" Jinta inquired. "He is the current reigning noble and his much more accustomed to such diplomatic challenges."
"He is, as I am, growing old, child of the Abh," the old Grand Craftsman stared as he stared towards Jinta with bleary old eyes. "He will not be able to participate in the problems of our planet much longer, and besides, there is a chance that there will be a fresh start for Martine with you. Perhaps time and your old actions will ensure that you are not hated as he was."
"Or I will be hated more by the Federationists, as the one who opposes them," Jinta spoke, biting back a bitter grin. "But that is the duty for which I was born. To rule Martine and oversee its binds to the Abh Empire, by whatever means necessary."
"A serious task, my lady," her visitor said as he leveraged himself to his feet. "I hope you will succeed in keeping Martine a safe and prosperous planet, perhaps in years long after I am gone. But most of all, please honor the good tradesmen who have always done their utmost best to supply all of humanity and Abh-kind with the resources they need."
"It will not be forgotten," Jinta pledged in all severity.
Jinta's visitor stomped his way out of the seating booth. The crowd, which had muttered and chattered before now roared with a gutteral shout as they cheered or booed the spectacle they had all paid to see. Jinta cast a backwards glance at the racetrack from the booth. Racecars, one of whom she knew would belong to Lafin, spun around the track in a second lap. But feeling uneasy, Jinta trotted three swift steps forward, nearly overbalancing and brushing against the backside of her slow, much-aged ally. As she craned her head around his stooped shoulder, a gleam flashed out and a glimmer like steel caught in the mirror of her eye. More rapid than any might have guessed possible, Jinta hooked her left leg around those of the retreating man before her and pulled him backwards as she threw her own shoulders as far in reverse as possible. Jinta's reward for this was a painful thud against the poured stone of the stadium. But a bruised shoulder was a small price to pay as the sound of four dulled bullets struck a wall. Teeth gritted, Jinta rolled over the scraped skin of her shoulder to free herself of the craftsman spouting terror and confusion. As rapidly as she was able to, she stood. Hands on her hips, she tugged two pistols of Abh-manufacture from what had seemed two rear pockets to her skirt. A devasting blue energy formed in the barrels of both the derringers. Jinta slanted one of the lasers toward the entrance to the viewing booth and crouched against a wall. This was yet another assassination attempt, although it was impossible for Jinta to tell if its target was her or the Head of the Craftsguild. Still, the old man's warning words had stirred her. Was it really the Federationists? To be continued...
