The first sight that most people arriving at Närväryn Annânya Airport were met with was the colossal neoclassical statue ‘Mother-Right’. Standing 277 feet high and weighing 1385 tons, the statue was constructed of bluish-green copper sheets, hammered into shape by hand and assembled over a framework of seven gigantic steel supports. She represented a woman cutting off a man’s head with a sword, as in the story of Judith and Holofernes.
A patriotic mayor of Närväryn had draped a red-and-white bicolour Elderflower Revolution sash over the colossus. Upon the pedestal were the soggy remnants of at least a dozen gigantic wreaths, piled at the foot of the statue.
There were more flags, enormous and long ones, of the type designed for use on windows, pillars, balconies and walls, hanging from the buildings at Närväryn Annânya Airport.
Närväryn Annânya Airport was the largest and busiest of Närväryn’s three commercial airports. It operated on two sets of parallel runways that intersected midfield at a ninety degree angle, a runway configuration designed and built in the fifties.
On runway 89R, the members of the welcoming party had to raise their voices to be heard above the usual ambience of Närväryn Annânya Airport, which was made all the more noisy by the distant scream of a pair of canard-delta-wing Silverflyte Type 224 Block DLV ‘Angel’s Feather’ multirole fighters, the high-pitched whining of a Xirniumair Myrta-Glorifloure W.154 trijet taxiing slowly behind the far side of the International Terminal, and the rhythmic chopping of a sharklike, hunchbacked Myrta-Glorifloure Type 71 ‘Lone Goose Call’ helicopter gunship wheeling cautiously nearby.
Several dozen persons and a fleet of large, creamily powerful Silverflyte S-type staff cars, swathed in gold-braided flags and parliamentary insignia, waited on the ceramic sealed tarmac of runway 89R, which was specially engineered to resist the excessive heat and pressure of the Myrta-Glorifloure W.2003/IIB rocket airliners. Officialdom and the governing elite bore all of the emblems and insignia of the wealthy bourgeoisie. Frock coats and homburgs, tartan plaid shawls and whangee cane umbrellas, fawn gloves, monocles, and silk-grenadine neckties. Greatcoated, high-peak-capped and jack-leather-booted officers of the Armies of the Associations and the Commissariat loitered nearby, as did the Elderflower Revolutionary Republican Party armbanded representatives-on-mission from the Committee of Public Safety.
An honour guard was provided by the soldiers and horses of the II Battalion CCCLIII Grenadier Guards Regiment and military policemen and women of D Company XCVII Gendarmerie Regiment. They were handsome in full ceremonial uniform with parade epaulettes, aiguillettes and sash, dress tunic with hussar chest braid and upright collar, white suede gloves and gaiters, and bayonetted rifle or sword.
A massive passenger jet bearing the seal of the Royal Caldan Air Force descended onto the runway. On the upper deck of the prime minister’s Dunnavant 733, the RCAF’s principle VIP transport plane, Prime Minister Lola Foster braced herself behind the desk in her onboard office. There were two other women in the room, both strapped to a small couch against the wall. Claire Ossoff, a plump, diminutive woman with short, dark curls, was the prime minister’s personal assistant. Jennifer Burrell, an athletic woman in a functional grey suit, her security officer. The prime minister’s plane was a modified Dunnavant 733, a business jet modified for military and government use and assigned to No. 17 Squadron Royal Caldan Air Force, the RCAF’s VIP transport squadron. It was a medium-range twinjet narrow-body airliner and the well-appointed office and bedroom suite was as comfortable as could be wished for, but one still needed to be strapped in to land. As the plane finally came to a stop, Foster rose and slid the elegant jacket of her dark blue skirt suit over her white blouse, letting Ossoff adjust it for her before she stepped down. Getting used to that kind of intimate personal help was one of the hardest thing about high political office.
For Alvin Franklin and Joanne Coetzee, the prime minister’s principal aids, it was not quite so luxurious, although they had no cause to complain. The forward passenger cabin was still as comfortable as one would find on most private jets. Franklin was Principal Advisor to the Prime Minister, her ranking political appointee ever since Foster had abolished the office of Chief of Staff as part of her ‘restoration of Cabinet Government’. Civil servants and even Cabinet ministers had been told to regard instructions from Oliver Welton’s infamous Chief of Staff, Neil McGrory, as if they came from the prime minister, a policy which had caused a great deal of scandal and resentment. While Flynn and Stuart had been content to merely dial back the powers of the office, Foster had insisted on abolishing it, assigning its policy functions to a Principal Adviser and restoring its administrative responsibilities to the Secretary of Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, both career civil servants. Coetzee was said Principal Private Secretary. The two of them staffed the prime minister almost everywhere. Now they both sat across from one another and stared out at the giant statue. ‘I never understood how Judith became such an iconic story among the Xirniumites,’ Franklin said almost nervously. There was something primal and fierce about the huge monument that put him on edge.
‘It’s not Judith. It’s just a similar story,’ Coetzee said patiently, feeling none of the same emotion. Both of them rose to join the prime minister’s small party as she descended from the cabin and stepped onto the runway to greet the Xirniumites.
Eléanor Sabelina zy Nelyâmnar, the Prime Minister of the Eternal Republic, took Lola Foster by both arms and kissed her first on the left cheek and then on the right. Foster smiled as she returned the kisses, leaning towards her Xirniumite counterpart.
‘Welcome, Madam, to Närväryn the Beautiful,’ said Eléanor Sabelina (using a style that in Middle Närvärynese was so common it was almost rote), ‘and the Bright Republic.’ Her English was well practiced but drawling and unfamiliarly inflected. ‘I am so happy to know you at last.’ She shook hands with the woman’s principal advisor and private secretary. Only Xirniumites had tolerance for patiently kissing every single person they greeted, and Eléanor Sabelina was good enough to spare as many of her guests from that ordeal as respectability allowed. ‘Mister Franklin. Ms Coetzee.’ The Prime Minister had taken the effort to consult the main delegates’ photographs earlier. Xirniumites had never been as enthusiastic as their southern neighbours about the practice of announcing visitors.
The Prime Minister was in this winter at the height of her powers, her figure tall, angular and narrow, hair iron-grey, manner wilful and complacent as a tabby-cat. Everything about her, from white gloves to gigantic bottle-glass spectacles, suggested the mellowness of maturity.
‘I do not think you’ve met Isidore Naubêreth, our minister for foreign affairs,’ the Prime Minister said, in a tone which was almost apologetic. Some introductions were unavoidable. ‘This is Sir Alphege Xyryännä, cabinet secretary,’ she continued, omitting his GCVR, KCEE and MSRO, ‘Lady Érnestine z’Eldâryn, the ministry of foreign affairs’ permanent secretary,’ KCVR and OQC, naturally, ‘Annunzyata Argvàrya, my principal private secretary, and Alphege Varànya.’
‘Believe it or not, Prime Minister,’ the pink-lidded, thin featured man explained to the Caldan, as though the fault at least partially lay with him, ‘it used to be a popular name in Xirnium.’ Alphege’s English was excellent and all but accentless.
‘Alphege is the assistant private secretary. So many secretaries. We have a lot of typewriters in the Government.’
It was an old joke, but even still, everyone laughed politely. The Caldans laughed along with their hosts although Franklin gave Coetzee a look as if wondering whether or not the Xirniumites really did use actual typewriters.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you all,’ Foster said as she finished shaking hands with the Xirniumite party. ‘Thank you for your kind welcome. I’ve always wanted to visit the Eternal Republic.’
Eléanor Sabelina smiled and did not contradict her.
