“Seriously, Sam?” Herrigan flopped down in one of the chairs in his cousin’s office and started to put his feet up on the desk.

Sam caught one ankle on his way around the desk and shoved Herrigan’s feet back towards the floor. “What’s the matter, Harry?”

Herrigan threw a glance at the doorway, which by longstanding Trench tradition had no door in the spirit of not dealing behind closed doors, in the direction of Randal’s office just down the hall. “Kind of feel like there might be better things to be doing with our time. Like maybe keeping an eye on the first ever foreign delegation to our colony?”

“That’s just it. This isn’t a colony, it’s a prison.” Sam’s legs claimed the space where Herrigan’s had been headed a second ago. “Think about it. How to run this place internally has been a point of contention since the inmates started running the asylum. We can’t take ourselves seriously enough to run a coherent government, how can we expect Australia to take us any more seriously knowing that?”

“If they can’t take us seriously that’s the Aussie’s problem, not ours.” Herrigan kept his voice pitched so hopefully he couldn’t be heard down the hall. More than a dozen years on subs had taught him to control his voice in a controlled space so he was sure he couldn’t be overheard normally but he still wasn’t sure what to expect of the delegation. The crew’s consensus from time spent in New Darwin was that the surface was ten to twenty years ahead in terms of miniaturized infotech, he was willing to bet the delegation had listening and recording devices the trenchmen hadn’t even spotted yet. “Anyways, so far as I know the whole colony doesn’t have to negotiate with them. Just one Ward. Preferably ours.”

Sam raised his eyes towards the ceiling in silent supplication. Herrigan wasn’t sure if it was for patience or his quick and accidental death. Or maybe the patience to wait for the accident. “Did it ever occur to you that they could just blow us up instead?”

“They wouldn’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” Herrigan favored his cousin with a dangerously toothy grin. “Sam, did you ever realize that Erin McClain was an Alcatraz native?”

“Yes…” Sam waved for him to get to the point.

Herrigan leaned forward, his grin dissolving into impatience. “Sam. Have you forgotten that twenty years ago we still used scrap metal to shore up barely functional underwater mines that only met our building needs on a good day? Without Erin McClain we wouldn’t be able to grow ceramics out of seawater. Or if we could they probably wouldn’t be up to resisting pressure at this depth.”

“I get it, Harry, everyone’s heard of Erin McClain. She’s a celebrity down here, saved us from-” The pieces clicked into place with an almost audible snap. “Australia doesn’t know how to make magnetically aligned ceramics.”

“To be precise, no surface nation knows how to make magnetically aligned ceramics.” Sam leaned back in his chair like a cat that got the cream. “McClain building techniques are ten times as strong and four times as cheap as concrete equivalents, and a lot lighter to boot. Even if McClain Tech chooses to build stuff here and ship it to the surface instead of selling the tech to firms on the surface they’ll make a mint, new construction on the surface will get a lot cheaper and no one will want their supplies to the new wonder bricks cut off.”

“McClain ceramics don’t come in bricks. You know that, right?”

“My point is, if we show them what we have to offer reasonable people will see that cooperation is a better way to get it than violence.” Herrigan jerked a thumb in the direction of Harold’s office and the delegation. “As far as we can tell, they’re reasonable people.”

Sam laughed. “Reasonable people don’t round up the folks who disagree with them and toss them on the bottom of the ocean.”

“The good old U.S. of A. did that, not Australia, and they don’t even exist anymore. Place is broken into two countries now and they’re too busy with each other to bother with us.” Herrigan climbed to his feet and started towards the door, pausing to look over his shoulder. “Relax, Sam. Oscar and I hashed this over a lot and the crew put it to a vote, if we didn’t have confidence in this we would have left them on the surface.”

Sam let him get all the way to the door before he said, “That won’t hold up for long, Harry.”

The other man paused in the doorway and turned back. “Beg pardon?”

“That’s a really good song and dance routine you just ran now.” Sam mimed applause. “It might even fly with most people. But try it with a Chief, especially one from another Ward, and they’ll know you’re blowing smoke. That’s an issue but not the biggest one. You went up, Harry. We don’t have many laws down here, compared to the societies that we left behind at least. But not contacting the surface until the Chief Executives say it’s okay? That’s a big one. Someone’s going to call you on it, Herrigan. Not me, probably not Randal. But sooner or later, someone will. Be ready.”

——-

Lauren stepped out of the Chief Executive’s office feeling more than a little exhausted. On top of a new place and a new culture there were a bunch of new security and secrecy protocols in place. Randal wasn’t sure what people would make of outsiders suddenly showing up in their very insular community so he wanted to take things slow. Ambassador Sudbury was okay with that, and Lauren thought she probably would be too. But before she decided she just wanted a break from it all.

Once upon a time she’d thought there was a lot of fuss in being assistant harbormaster.  Now she was sure it wasn’t anything compared to being a diplomat.

She headed aimlessly down the hall out into the reception area for the office suite where Randal and the other leaders of Third Ward had their offices. To her surprise, she found Herrigan leaning against the receptionist’s desk, staring pensively into the distance. “So that’s where you got to.”

Herrigan glanced up. “Yeah, I’m still here. Sam just had a few things he wanted to has out with me.”

She leaned on the desk space beside him, glad that the secretary had been called into Randal’s office so they wouldn’t be interfering with her job. “Randal did mention you were a ‘Deputy Justice’ and would be our escort in town.”

He pinched the brightly colored fabric of his jacket sleeve. “I wear the yellow for a reason, it’s true. But before any of that gets started I need a drink.” He shot her a grin. “Want to come along and absorb some local culture?”

“Sure.” She answered his grin with one of her own. “Sounds like a great way to kick things off.”