It had been the Anthar Kai’s historic duty and the very reason for its existence. When the nascent Thorian colonies started producing anything of worth, a centralized system needed to ensure that both colonists and the homeworld had benefitted from the relationship, and so the Presidium, with the assistance of wealthy investors on the homeworld, established the Anthar Kai, to ensure that both the needs and the wants of the growing Empire were met. For thousands of years as new worlds were added to the Empire, the Anthar Kai was there to pacify and integrate the native populations, to set up supply lines, and graft the new living space like an additional body part with its own unique function onto a vast living organism. Yet as a culmination of an unspoken rift that had begun during the Last Gasp, when Anthar Kai military support was rejected, the newest species to be integrated into the Thorian Empire would not have the benefit of the millennia of experience accumulated within the corporation. And the senior leadership of the Anthar Kai would only learn of the insulting decision through news dispatches with no advance warning from the Presidium.

The day the news had reached them, Eitherorik arrived at Kalirit’s office unannounced and blew by Gaingat, who refused to give Eitherorik the satisfaction of groveling and telling him that the High Commissary was ever so busy. Instead, he allowed the door to the office to slide open and for Eitherorik to make a few confident strides before he shook a data pad in front of him and asked, “Have you heard about this?”

Eitherorik’s frame seemed to be custom-made for barging in. He was tall, even for a Thorian, with wide shoulders that tapered into a slim build. He kept his hair short, which only accentuated a thin but prominent nose that seemed to form a kind of keel that could penetrate into any room. Wherever he may have picked up the habit of invading places with his presence, Kalirit took it upon herself to break it. She took her time to finish writing the sentence that she was in the middle of and slowly looked up at Eitherorik. “And have you heard about waiting to be let in?”

He assumed, and then hoped, that it was a joke, but Kalirit continued to stare up from her work in silence. “High Commissary, this is important.”

Kalirit did not budge. Eitherorik waited another few moments and then crossed the rest of her office to put the data pad on the desk under her nose. Her eyes didn’t move while he declared, “The Presidium are laughing at us.”

A thousand responses bubbled up in Kalirit’s throat but she forced them down like bile, instead gesturing with her eyes towards the door. Eitherorik lingered in the most menacing way someone could linger in the presence of someone who was separated from them by the desk of the highest office of the corporation. Finally, but without ever letting his indignant expression falter, he headed in the direction of the door. Just as he was about to cross the threshold, Kalirit cleared her throat, and reminded him that he had forgotten something. The walk back to her desk to retrieve the data pad and then again to the door couldn’t have been over soon enough for Eitherorik and lasted not long enough for Kalirit. With the door now shut firmly behind him, Eitherorik asked to be let in. Kalirit took a breath, and started writing another sentence which again she took her time finishing after she had permitted him to return.

Before Eitherorik could open his mouth, she said, “I’m assuming this is about the administration of Krevali.”

“I don’t understand how you’re not more outraged.” Eitherorik slipped the data pad back into his pocket.

“Right, and in order to express that outrage, whose office should I be barging into all huffed up like a varishim lizard in mating season?”

Eitherorik chewed on whatever was left of his pride and responded, “Seshathirlin’s?”