Alien Diplomacy

rooms or, rather, our palatial suite of rooms tons bigger than the house I’d grown up in. Though the Embassy was one of the A-C showcases, where they most easily pretended they were “just folks,” I still wasn’t fully comfortable in it. However, having a huge nursery connected to the master bedroom was a big plus that came with living in a place large enough to house a small country.
    I was glad of the space when I realized we didn’t just have Christopher and Amy with Jamie, but a whole lot of others as well. “What’s going on?” I asked Christopher. “You two couldn’t handle one three-month-old baby for a couple of hours and had to call in all of Alpha and Airborne to assist?”
    Christopher was Jeff’s cousin, though he was smaller and shorter, with straight, lighter brown hair, green eyes, and more wiry than buff and brawny, albeit with the family rock-hard abs.
    He also had glaring down to an art form and was hitting us with Patented Glare #2. This one was rarely used and indicated severe stress. “You’re late,” he snapped. “Jamie’s been crying for fifteen minutes straight. Nothing we did worked. I was about to call your mother.”
    “I still pump enough milk to qualify as a dairy cow. You’re suddenly incapable of giving her a bottle?” I asked as I reached for my squalling offspring.
    “She wouldn’t take it,” Amy said. “I think she knew you were late.”
    Jamie quieted the moment she was in my arms. “Awww, Mommy’s little Jamie-Kat likes her routine, doesn’t she?” I cooed. I took another look around while I kissed her head. I’d seen right the first time—all of Alpha and Airborne teams were lounging around my living room, as were White and his replacement, our new Pontifex, Paul Gower, who doubled as another of Jeff’s cousins and Reader’s mate. “Seriously, a crying baby isn’t exactly ‘call the cavalry’ worthy. What’s going on?”
    Jeff sighed. “Assassination threats, however, are something we all pay attention to, baby.”
    “Oh.” The realization that they’d been having the big powwow while I was being tortured during and after the Washington Wife class sauntered up and waved at me. “I’ll, um, just take care of the baby then, while you all figure out how to save the world.” I rushed into our bedroom as fast as I could. Crying in front of everyone didn’t seem like my best plan.
    As I stepped into the room, I heard purring, and Jamie heaved a big sigh. There were a number of luxurious cat trees that I called Poof Condos in our bedroom, filled to capacity with Poofs.
    Due to our marriage, we’d gotten a starter set of six Poofs. They were androgynous and could mate with each other, supposedly only when a Royal Wedding was imminent. Right after Jamie was born, and also right after a set of power-mad lunatics had tried to kill us all, we’d had a major Poof explosion. No one knew why, beyond Christopher and Amy hooking up, but we had a lot of Poofs. No one minded. Poofs for all was my viewpoint, and more Poofs for me was my other viewpoint.
    We had all the spare, unnamed Poofs living with us—I called it the Privilege of Royalty whenever Jeff couldn’t hear me, and my right as the co-head diplomat when he could. Jamie had her own Poof. She wasn’t exactly speaking at three months of age, so I had no idea how she might have named it to claim it as hers, but this one Poof in particular liked to be near her, so we let it. It did the Poof “there one moment and here the next” thing and snuggled up against her tummy, purring. She wrapped her little hand in its fur and gurgled happily.
    Jeff came in behind me, and the purring increased. “Why wasn’t Jamie’s Poof with her?” I asked as I headed into the nursery. It seemed a safer question than “what were you all talking about before I got here and ruined the summit meeting.”
    “No idea. Baby, you’re upset for nothing.”
    Right. Empath. Two years in, you’d think I’d remember that he always knew what I was feeling. “I know. I’m not the head of Airborne anymore.”
    Jeff took Jamie while I settled myself into the lounger in her room and got ready to feed her. He shook his head as he checked her diaper. “No, you’re not. I’m not the head of the Field anymore, either, and Christopher’s no longer the head of Imageering.” He shot me a look I knew was suggesting I think instead of sulk.
    I gave it a shot. It was me, and I thought best aloud. Fortunately, Jeff was used