Jago was gone before dawn, and he was in bed when he waked, in bed with the smell of breakfast wafting through the hall.
Bindanda and Kandana were a little reluctant to meet his eye. Had he and Jago embarrassed the whole staff, Bren wondered, chagrined. He found nothing to say, and thought he should ask Jago… he truly, urgently should ask someone what the staff was saying. It could hardly be Banichi; he couldn’t envision that conversation. He knew he would blush. Jago might be the recipient of merciless amusement, and she was hardly the one to ask.
He thought perhaps he could speak to Tano… certainly to Tano, rather than staid, dignified Narani. He could manage to do that on the way to breakfast, which otherwise might be a very uncomfortable affair.
He had chosen less than formal wear for a day on which he had no schedule but deskwork: a sweater and a light pair of trousers with an outdoor jacket, about adequate for the chill of the air, after which he dismissed Bindanda and Kandana, opened up his computer, and went through the send-receive with Cl, and through the usual litany of questions, refusing to give up on Jase or Yolanda or on direct contact with the captains, three of whom he was anxious to hear from.
No message from Toby, none from his mother, nothing this time even from Tabini, who was probably considering the last one, or who simply had things to do other than give the paidhi daily reassurances. Two advertisements had slipped into the packet, one for bed linens and the other for fishing gear, and he scrutinized them briefly for any content from the Foreign Office, any hint that someone had sent him something clandestine. It was a north shore fishing gear manufacturer, one Toby used.
But it was simply one of those hiccups of the communications filter. His mailbox on the island received such things, and he had no staff left there to filter them.
A message from the head of the Transport Committee reported on progress in the new spaceport. They were better than their schedule.
He half-zipped his jacket and went out into the hallway in a routine hurry for breakfast.
And ran chest-high into a stranger.
He recoiled, immediate in everything his security had dinned into him, achieved distance and was a muscle-twitch from diving backward into the door before his vision realized chagrin and offered respect on the other side of the encounter.
Atevi presence on the station was entirely limited, and more, he knew this man: the name escaped him, as his heart pounded, but it was one of the stewards from the shuttle.
“Nand’ paidhi,” the man said with a second bow. “Your pardon. Nojana, of the aiji’s crew of Shai-shan.”
“Of course you are,” Bren exclaimed, taking a hasty breath. “How did you get here?”
He was no longer alone in the hallway. Almost as quickly as he had backed up, the noise of his move had attracted Tano and Algini and Jago out of the security station, and Bindanda from the dining room… which might say something about Bindanda’s Guild associations: Bren noted that in the aftermath of adrenaline.
“Banichi sent me, nand’ paidhi,” Nojana said. “He wished to confer with the captain.”
“Parijo. The shuttle captain.” There were entirely too many captains in the broth.
“Even so, nand’ paidhi.” Nojana, in fact, was not wearing a steward’s uniform, but the black of the Assassins’ Guild… security’s Guild, and by the height and breadth of the steward, it was Banichi’s body type, Banichi’s muscled arms and shoulders. This was not a man accustomed to passing out drinks and motion sickness pills, but it had not been so evident in his previous uniform.
“And is this your uniform, nadi?”
“No, nand’ paidhi, it is not.”
“And how long have you been here?”
“Since midnight, nandi.”
Bren cast a look at his own security, and, with a feeling of mild indignation, directly at Jago, whose arrival in his quarters, whose determined distraction had left not a shred of attention to the fact the seal-door had opened and closed last night.
Jago, to her credit, met his gaze with a satisfied lift of her chin and the ghost of a smile.
It did beat drugging his drink, he said to himself, and he had no suspicion whatever that Jago had been dishonest in love-making, only that she’d had a considerable ulterior motive.
And he would not call down his senior staff in front of a stranger, or in front of the servants. He simply composed himself, smiled, nodded acknowledgment of a successful operation, namely deceiving the paidhi, and getting Banichi outside without consulting him—and directed his inquiry to Nojana.
“And have you had breakfast, nadi, and will you join us?”
“I had tea at my arrival, nandi, and I thank the paidhi for the kindness of his offer, nothing since. I would be very honored.”
“Do join us, then,” he said, and surrendered Nojana to the guidance of Tano and Algini, with a single glance.
Jago he stayed with a lowering of his brows.
“How in hell?” he said in a half-whisper. “How did he get there? Did they come after him…” He could envision that the shuttle crew might have some sense of the station: this was not their first trip. “… or did he use the map?” Even with that, it was a risk, not least of running afoul of the ship-captains and the likes of Kaplan. He was thoroughly appalled. Chilled by the very thought… and yet if Banichi had done anything of the sort, he trusted it was well-thought. “Jago, I know what you did. I’m not angry. But what is he doing?”
“He wishes to be sure the shuttle is on schedule.”
“Have we established that?”
“Nojana says yes. There’s been no difficulty at all. Nominal in all respects. It might leave early, except for small details.”
“I’ve no need to have it leave early, or is there something going on I don’t know?”
“One wishes to be certain. Banichi has been concerned about the behavior of the captains.”
He was concerned, in that regard. But to go off across a trackless maze of corridors…
“What if he’d been stopped?”
“He would have been surveying for the station repairs, on his own initiative.”
As a lie it was a decent one. “And what if he’d just gotten lost? They’ve done alterations since the charts we have, Jago-ji! How did Nojana get here? You surely didn’t ask Kaplan.”
“No,” Jago said pleasantly, with a little shrug. “By no means Kaplan. They’ve not made signs, you think, so that the Mospheirans might lose their way.”
“So that we would lose our way. You’re saying you don’t.”
A second small shrug. “We walked from that area, Bren-ji.”
It was rare these days that an atevi-human difference utterly took him blindside. He drew in a breath, replayed that statement, and it came up meaning what he thought. “You mean you don’t lose count of the doorways.”
“Yes,” Jago said cheerfully, that disconcerting Ragi habit of agreeing with a negative. “Do you?”
When he thought about it, he thought he might have a fair notion how to reach Kroger’s section: he counted things he saw; he’d trained for years to do that, from flash-screens at University to desperate sessions in real negotiations, real confrontations. He’d learned to have that perception, and yes, he saw how a mind that just natively saw in that way might have a better record than he did. The captains’ precautions against invasion were simply useless against atevi memories for sets and structure. It was the same way atevi had taken one look at computer designs that had served humankind for centuries and critiqued their basic concept in terms of a wholly different way of looking at the universe.
“Amazing,” was all he could say. “Really amazing. He shouldn’t get himself in trouble, Jago-ji.”
He didn’t say a word about the diversion last night. He couldn’t say whether if Banichi had come proposing an excursion to see whether the shuttle was safe, he might not have said no. He was very careful with Banichi and Jago in particular… as he supposed they were with him, and he couldn’t deny that they had their reason, that he was a damned valuable commodity to have up here, and that in a certain sense it was folly to have him here.
But he couldn’t become paralyzed by the notion of his own worth, either; he had to do his job to be valuable, and that was the bottom line.
Banichi sent him Nojana, and he meant to get the most out of the transaction.
“This is worth the walk, nand’ paidhi.” Nojana enjoyed the food: one could hardly blame him. “Very much worth it, and I am honored.”
It wasn’t quite proper to ask an ateva his Guild if it wasn’t apparent or if the information weren’t offered, but Bren had his notions, looking at Nojana’s athletic build. Arms completely filled out the borrowed uniform. There was a little slack across the chest, but hardly so. The height might be a little more: the sleeves were not quite adequate.
And Nojana was a member of the Assassins’ Guild, members of his staff knew Nojana very well from before this: it was a small and very well-placed Guild, and generally supportive of the aiji, with rare and balanced exceptions. Into Guild politics the paidhi had no entry, and he thought it wise to seek none, as the aiji himself sought none.
He certainly had a healthy appetite.
“How long will you stay?” Bren asked, and reserved What in hell is Banichi up to? for a moment with his own staff.
“One isn’t sure, nand’ paidhi.”
That was a fairly broad answer, warning the habituated that the ateva in question was hedging, and if pressed, would hedge more creatively… being too polite to lie unless cornered.
One took the answer and shut up, and asked Jago later, pulling her within his room.
“I don’t know,” was Jago’s response.
“All right,” he said. “But I don’t know if I’m going down with the next flight. That’s within my judgment.”
“One worries,” Jago said. “Staff can manage this. Someone less valuable can manage this.”
“Less valuable to the aiji because such a person might do less. If I can secure a meeting with the captains, I should secure it. If I can hold Ramirez to agreements personally, even if there’s dissent, I should do it. If I can free Jase, I should free him. In the meantime, Jago-ji, I will prepare dispatches, if I have more than a few hours.”
“One has more than a few hours. I should say quite a few hours, nadi.”
“What is he doing?”
“One can’t say.”
“Well,” he said distressedly, “well, show Nojana what he has to know and I’ll prepare the dispatches. Give me at least an hour’s warning when he leaves.”
“I don’t know that I can do that,” Jago protested.
“I know you can work wonders,” he said. “I believe that you will. —And you’re not to risk yourself, Jago-ji! You’re not to leave this place unless I say so.”
“I can’t take such orders,” Jago said, but added quickly, “but I see no reason to go at the moment.”
“An hour’s warning,” he insisted, and went off, precaution against surprises, to give the same instruction to Nojana, that he had dispatches that had to go to Tabini, and that Nojana should carry them.
That meant putting his notes in order and some sort of coherency, and more, committing them to an ephemeral card, which he habitually carried since the bad old days of Jase’s descent and Deana Hanks’ attempt to land on the mainland. It had a button that simply, physically, with a caustic element, destroyed the media beyond reading, not something he liked using—he had a dire image of the thing going off while he was producing it; and his scenario for needing it involved a situation in which he might want to destroy his whole computer storage, but this was a good deal less dire, simply to hand Nojana the record and to instruct him to give it personally to the head of the aiji’s security.
“Only to him,” Bren said emphatically. “This tab, do you see, must remain intact unless you think there’s a danger of it falling into other hands. Once you tear it off, this record will be destroyed. If an unauthorized machine attempts to read it, the result will be bad for both.”
“One understands,” Nojana said fervently. “The record will reach the aiji’s guard.”
“Very good” Bren said. “There’ll be another if we have time. These are the essentials.”
“Does the paidhi have concerns for security here, or on the ground?” Nojana dared ask.
“Here, primarily. But take care, and ask for immediate escort once you land; I don’t fancy you’ll have to ask twice.” He said that and asked, sensing a man who might have secrets, “Do you have concerns about which my security should know?”
“I have informed them of essentials, nadi.”
“Inform us all,” he said. “I want to hear it directly, and ask questions.”
“Yes, nandi,” Nojana said, and over at least three cups of tea which Algini made himself, not asking the servant staff, and within the security post, Nojana informed them of what he knew.
“Certain of the crew have become familiar with us,” Nojana said, “and we do speak outside the bounds of our duty. We share food with them, some small extra sweets which they greatly favor, and we gain their goodwill. They mention their recreation and their associations, which we know, and which I can tell you.”
“Do so,” Jago said, and Narana did, mapping out all those individuals whose names or work they knew, and every name associated with them, and where they had complained or praised someone: Narana had a very good memory of such things, second nature to atevi… significant among humans, but not by patterns Narana might suspect.
“Very, very good,” Bren said, having a clear picture from that and from Jase, a tendency to form families of sorts, even lineages and households, all with the tradition of marriage, but without its frequent practice. “You know Jasi-ji. You met him.”
“Yes, nadi, I had that honor.”
“His mother is resident here, perhaps other associates. We’ve been unable to contact him: the captains have given orders to the contrary. If I send word, might you use one of your more innocent contacts to slip a message to her to contact us? I think it might come much more easily from the other direction. They’re routing all our communications through a single channel; we don’t seem to have general access to communications as I suspect others might.” An idea came to him, and he asked the question. “How do you reach the authorities?”
“Cl for communications and Ql for dock communications; but we know a few more numbers.”
“You’ve had no difficulty reaching them.”
“None that I know. I speak enough Mosphei’, nandi, that if a worker needs to reach us, I often receive the call, and if one might be late he calls, and on occasion we provide them small excuse, as if they were at work, but not so.”
“You mean they ask you to conceal their tardiness and absences.”
“They make up deficits quite willingly. We’ve never found it a detriment, nandi. Are we wrong?”
“Not at all,” Bren said. “By no means.” That the crew found occasion to play off on duty was within human pattern; that they made up the work was the pattern of a crew that understood the schedule and would meet it, all of which the atevi working with them had learned. And it might be unwise to use that route to reach Jase’s mother… yet. It might trigger suspicion of malevolent intent, the contact might be rejected at the other end, and there was not quite the urgent need to do it. “But which human would you ask to contact someone outside your area if you had to do it?”
“Kelly. A young woman.” Nojana had no hesitation. “She has a lover. She meets him at times. She knows Jase very well.”
“Has the subject arisen? We’ve been unable to establish contact with Jase; I’m somewhat worried, nadi. Has she expressed concern?”
“She has tried to tell me something regarding Jase, but the words elude me. She seems to express that Jase is associated with Ramirez-aiji.”
“He is. That much is true. Ramirez functions as his aiji, or his father.”
“Indeed. Kelly has said Jase-nandi is with Ramirez.”
Nojana had used the Mospheiran word.
“With means very many things. Ask if Jase is in danger.”
“I know this word. Shall I ask nadi Kelly?”
“If you can do so discreetly.”
“One will attempt discretion.”
“Report the result of that inquiry to Tabini-aiji when you take him the dispatch. I doubt it would be safe to send word to me, unless I make the flight… as my staff seems to believe I should. I remain doubtful.”
“I shall,” Nojana said. “Indeed I shall, nand’ paidhi.”
They conversed; Nojana slept and waked with the servants, another day, received more files, enjoyed meals with them.
“How long will he stay?” Bren asked Jago directly.
“Not long,” was Jago’s answer. “Tonight perhaps.”
“How did he know his way in the first place?” Bren wondered, because that thought had begun to nag him.
“Banichi sent him with that instruction” Jago said. “I’m very sure. And Banichi won’t have missed a thing.”
“What in hell do you do if you meet guards?”
“One will endeavor not to meet guards,” Jago said.
Some things there was just no disputing; and in some arguments there was simply nothing left to say. Banichi would come back. He believed that implicitly. Banichi would come back.
And true to his instruction, Nojana reported his intention to depart at midnight, enjoyed a cup of tea with him and the security staff, thanked the servants for their attentions, and stood ready to walk back down the corridors to take a lift to the core, with no more baggage than he’d arrived with… to the outward eye.
And could a human observer miss a tall shadow of an atevi in a pale yellow corridor, where there was no place to take cover?
Atevi hearing was good; but that good? He was doubtful. Banichi was armed, and needed no weapons against unarmed humans; but the very last thing he wanted was harm to the crew, even of a minor sort.
“I have all you’ve entrusted to me,” Nojana said, “nand’ paidhi.”
“I have no doubt,” Bren said. Nojana seemed to read his worry as a lack of confidence in him, and he had no wish to convey that at all. “I know Banichi has none.”
“Nandi,” Nojana said.
Then Tano quite deftly opened the door and let him out, one more time to trace his way through foreign corridors.
They expected Banichi to arrive sometime after midnight. “Wake me” he said to Jago, who shared the bed with him that night. He knew her hearing, and her light sleeping, that she would in no wise sleep through Banichi’s arrival.
“Don’t be angry,” she asked of him.
“I shan’t be,” he said, lying close beside her. When he thought about it, he knew he was disturbed, and wished Banichi had asked before he did such a thing; but anger was too strong a word. Banichi was rarely wrong, never wrong, that he could immediately recall.
“Has he ever made a mistake?” he asked her, and Jago gave a soft laugh.
“Oh, a few,” Jago said, Jago, who knew Banichi better, he suspected, than anyone in the world or off it. “There was the matter of a rooftop, in the south. There was the matter of believing a certain human would take orders.”
“A certain human has his own notions,” Bren said. “And one of them is not to have my staff wandering the halls and me not knowing.”
“In the aiji’s service,” Jago said, “we overrule the paidhi. And the aiji’s orders involve the paidhi’s safe return.”
“The aiji’s orders also involve the paidhi’s success in his mission.”
“Just so, but caution. Caution.”
“Caution doesn’t get the job done.” She distracted him. Jago was good at that. He outright lost track of his argument.
Besides, he intended it for Banichi, when Banichi got back, after midnight.
But he waked in the morning first aware that Jago was not beside him, that the lights in the corridor were bright, and that breakfast was in the offing, all at one heartbeat.
Two heartbeats later he was sure it was past midnight and past dawn and Jago hadn’t done as he’d asked her to.
Or things hadn’t happened as they ought to have happened.
He rolled out of bed and seized up a robe, raking his hair out of his face on the way to the central hall, across it to the security station where Tano and Algini and Jago perched at their console… aware of him from the moment he’d come out the door.
“Where’s Banichi?” he asked at once. “Did he get back?”
“No, nadi” Jago said, and it was clear she was worried. “We have no information.”
“Did he express any belief he might be late?”
“He said it was a possibility,” Jago said, “if he found no way to move discreetly.”
“Discreetly down a bare synthetic hallway,” Bren said in distress. “I’m worried, damn it.”
“I think it well possible that he delayed with the shuttle crew” Jago said. “If something came to their attention or something changed, he might wait to know. In all his instruction there was no indication he considered the schedule rigid.”
“So what did Nojana walk into? He went out there expecting an easy walk home.”
“Nojana is of our Guild,” Tano said, “and expects everything.”
“I have no doubt of him, then,” Bren said, “but all the same, Nadiin-ji, what is either of them to do if they meet some crewman going about his business?”
“Doors will malfunction,” Algini said.
“Doors will malfunction. I hope not to open onto vacuum, Nadiin!”
“One knows the route that was safe,” Tano said. “Banichi did consider the hazards, nandi, but he wishes very much to assure our line of retreat is open.”
“I agree with his purpose, but the risk…”
“Bren-ji,” Jago said, “something changed when the power failed. The patterns of activity that we monitor here have shifted, whether because part of this station is no longer usable, we have no idea.”
“How do you know these things?” He understood how they monitored activity in the Bu-javid, where they had the entire apartment wired, including some very lethal devices, but here in a structure where they had no other installations…
They had… one other installation.
Shai-shan itself.
And if in fact there was already an Assassins’ Guild presence on the station, at least a periodic one, with the comings and goings of the shuttle, then there might be equipment which came and went in Nojana’s baggage.
“We monitor sounds and activities,” Algini said. “Very faint ones. We know the pattern of the station from before; we know it now. The structure speaks to us. Now, and ever since the power outage, it speaks differently.”
Being paidhi-aiji, having mediated the transfer of human technology to the mainland, as well as being within very high atevi councils, he knew of atevi innovations that bore no resemblance to technology he knew on Mospheira, and no few of those innovations were in surveillance.
He had had a certain amount to do with the galley specifications: in this collection of monitors and panels and instruments his security had brought aboard… he knew very little, asked very little, mindful of his allegiance these days, and only hoped never to walk into one of the traps that guarded his sleep.
“Can you show me?” he asked.
“Yes,” Algini said.
It was not an encouraging image, knowing the little he did know regarding the station. It indicated a change since the power outage, at least, a change in where Algini estimated personnel were grouped, where they traveled. Everything pointed to a disruption of a region forcing detours.
“I’ve no idea what caused it,” Bren said. “I can’t ask Kaplan-nadi. It would give too much away. I refuse to ask Cl to be off talking to the captains if one of our people is lost.”
“Yet one can’t break pattern,” Tano said quietly. “Nandi, it would seem wisest to do as you always do.”
“Bedevil Cl and ask for Jase?” Bren muttered. “Do you see any shift of activity in the area of the shuttle?”
“Nothing out of previous pattern there,” Algini said, “except activity that would be consistent with fueling.”
“Very well done.” He was astonished by his security, astonished by what information they could provide him.
But none of it said why Banichi was late.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that I’d rather rely on the chance Banichi’s chosen this delay, and that anything I could do might bring adverse consequences. Do you think so, Nadiin-ji?”
“One believes so” Jago said, but he had the most uneasy notion that she might make a move after her partner—her father—without telling him in advance.
But that was the thought of a human heart. He reminded himself of a certain hillside, and mecheiti, and how angry they’d been when he ran the wrong direction, as if he’d suddenly, under fire, lost his wits.
He was the lord, and under fire they would rally to him instinctively, all but blindly, with that devotion with which humans would run for spouses and children and sacred objects. They would run through fire to reach him, and only the exertion of extreme discipline could deaden that instinct. If Banichi was not here, it was against that instinct for him. Banichi wanted to be here.
That was a terrible responsibility, to know that one’s protectors had no choice but to feel that, and that a word from him could move them to utter, fatal effort. It was that precariously poised, and so hard, so morally hard to say: let Banichi solve his own problems.
But in that interspecies cross-wiring it was the wisest thing.
“He’s moved during their night,” he murmured. “Is there a reason for this? I would have expected equal distribution of the shifts. It’s traditional.”
“There also is a curious pattern,” Algini said, “since before the outage, the traffic in the corridors was more or less evenly distributed in frequency, and now there seems a cluster of movement last night just after our second watch and their first, then a great falling off. This is a nightly occurrence, as if a group of people moved.”
“Is it likely the ship-folk have this sort of surveillance?”
“We have no information,” Tano said, “but Jasi-ji confided to us that he knew of very little surveillance in the corridors. We failed to press him on the matter: it was Banichi’s judgment we exceeded our authority to ask him.”
It was understandable that Tano had. Anything to do with security involved their Guild and interested their Guild, and Tano had doubtless passed that information to the head of Tabi-ni’s security, too. On one level, the human one, Bren found himself distressed that Tano had asked after such things secretly; on another, the atevi-acclimated one, he perfectly understood it was his security’s job to know everything that touched on the national business.
“Was Jase angry that you asked?” he asked, a human question, seeking the human degree of truth.
“No,” Tano said, who, of the security staff, was closest to Jase. “And he knew I would report it to the aiji’s staff. But one felt it was dangerous to ask too closely, to make Jasi-ji aware of the capacities of the equipment we prepared.”
“Yet we needed to know certain things,” Algini said, “to know how to design this console, and how to take best advantage, and what we needed defend against. And Jasi-ji knew some things, but others he was simply unaware of. One believes, nandi, that the ship itself has some internal surveillance to defend operations centers but that the general corridors of the station and the general corridors of the ship have very little. There are portable units, to be sure, but to a certain extent one suspects inbuilt security is bound to be outmoded and worked around far too rapidly; one would be continually delving into the walls to make changes. We do suspect the light installations in the corridors, as readily available power taps, but thus far, in this section, we turn up nothing.”
Algini spoke very little, except on his favorite topic, security technology. And what he said, and what his security had been finding out from Jase over the last several years, was far more extensive than he’d hoped.
“I suppose that encouraged Banichi to think he could take so long a walk,” Bren said.
“He has the means to operate these doors,” Jago admitted, “and might do so if spotted.”
“But it’s damned cold where the heat’s off,” Bren objected. “Damned cold! And there’s no guarantee of air flow.”
“We chill less readily,” Jago said. “Air is a problem.”
“Yes,” Bren said, hoping his staff would restrain its operations. “Air is a problem. And I don’t want you to go out there looking for him, and if they’ve caught him, I have some confidence I’ll hear about it. But please, Nadiin-ji, don’t surprise me like this!”
He met an absolute, impervious wall of respectful stares.
“You’ll do what you know to do” he said more quietly, in retreat, “but I beg you be careful.”
“One will be careful,” Jago said. “During certain hours there’s less movement in the corridors. One expects my partner will use his excellent sense and wait.”
“Concealed in some airless compartment!”
“He has some resources,” Jago said. “Don’t worry. It’s not your job to worry.”
He had to take himself to his own room and sit down with the computer, to lose himself in reports and letters. There was no other way to avoid thinking about Banichi and disasters.
There was still no word from Toby, there was nothing from his mother… a silence from the island, and nothing from Tabini, only a handful of committee letters acknowledging his previous letters, a dismal lot of mail, none of it informative, none of it engaging.
That his mother hadn’t written back was in pattern, too: when she was offended, she didn’t speak, didn’t reason, didn’t argue, didn’t give anyone a handle to seize that might be any use at all.
I hope you’re seeing your doctor, he wrote her, in a three-page missive. I hope Barb’s improving.
It wasn’t the most inspired of letters.
He wrote Toby, too. I know you’re not in any position to answer, and I don’t expect an answer. Just touching bases to let you know you’re my brother and I’m concerned. He started to write that he hadn’t heard from their mother, but that was the way he and Toby had gotten into the situation they were in: that he’d used Toby for eyes and ears where it regarded their mother, and a pair of feet and hands, too. And if Toby and Jill had a chance, it meant just shutting that channel down and not using it anymore, not even if it put their mother in danger. It was at least a self-chosen danger.
He sent-and-received, and the second round of mail was sparser than the first.
“Cl,” he said. “Can you put me through to Kroger?” He was down to wishing for another human voice, but Cl answered:
“Kroger is not receiving at the moment. There’s a communications problem in that area, sir. Sorry.”
A communications problem.
He signed off and went to report that to his security.
“It’s not on Banichi’s route, is it?” he asked.
“No,” Tano said. “It should not be.”
“Do you suppose,” Bren asked, “that there’s nothing wrong where Banichi is, that Nojana ran into trouble and just hasn’t gotten to him?”
“We have considered that possibility,” Algini said. “But we have emergency notification, a very noisy transmitter. We have not heard it.”
That was reassuring. Another small feature of his security that no one had told him.
“How many other surprises are there?” he asked.
“Not many,” Jago said. It was clear she wished there were more surprises available. She was worried, and by now he suspected the man’chi that held her to Banichi and that man’chi which held her on duty here, with him, were in painful conflict.
“Come with me,” he said to her, not wishing emotion to make his security’s decisions, and they sat in his room, and he offered her a drink, which she declined in favor of a cup of tea, on duty and remaining alert. They shared a small, out-of-appetite supper, served by a silent, commiserating staff.
It passed midnight of their clock.
And very quietly, with the opening of a door, someone entered the section.
Jago leaped up, and he did. By the time they reached the hall, the whole staff was converging from servants’ quarters, Tano and Algini coming out of their station.
Banichi looked quite unruffled, not a hair out of place.
But to a practiced eye, Banichi had a worried look.
“I fear Ramirez-aiji has fallen,” Banichi said first and foremost, and Bren took in a breath.
“Is anyone behind you?” Jago asked, before anything else.
“No,” Banichi said. “One regrets the delay, paidhi-ji.”
“Did Nojana reach safety?”
“Yes” Banichi said.
“Drinks in the security station,” Bren said quickly, breaching all custom, but he wanted all his security knowing the same thing and the same time, and he dared not have the instruments in that station unmonitored at this time of all times. “Tea, as well.” Half his security was on duty, and would decline alcohol.
Banichi, however, had earned a glass of something stronger. Fatigue rarely showed in Banichi’s bearing, but it did now.
Ramirez gone? Fallen? And not a damned word from Ogun or Sabin, God knew, none from Pratap Tamun.
One could babble questions. But direct questions rarely improved on Banichi’s sober, orderly report, if one’s nerves could bear it.
“The copilot, Parano, while I was there, heard the technicians talk about the power outage, but the copilot’s command of Mosphei’ has notable gaps. The technicians in his hearing asked each other whether they’d had any news of Ramirez, and went on to discuss whether they thought he was dead or alive or where he might be, at least as far as Parano could interpret the words. They discovered then that Parano-nadi was within earshot, changed expressions, and addressed him about business. This Parano reported to his captain, Casirnabri, and Casirnabri to me. Thereafter we spoke together, Parano, Casirnabri, and I, hence my information, directly from Parano. We attempted to overhear other things, during the regular course of work. The shuttle crew and the human workers maintain a good relationship… they do speak to one another in a very limited way, comparison of the translated checklists, translation from the key words list to settle what the topic is, all very slow, with hand signals they’ve devised among themselves, using number codes for operations. Casnadi thought they might have asked about Ramirez, if I wished: they do have confidence in the goodwill of this crew. But I asked them not to do so. I place great importance, Bren-ji, in assuring your safety.”
“We’ve been quite unbothered here,” Bren began to say, and to add that he by no means took that as absolute, but Banichi frowned.
“No. I mean to take you home, nand’ paidhi. Having you here is far too great a danger. We should proceed as if we know nothing, make our plans to depart, and have you out of the reach of political upheaval.”
“Ramirez is old. Parano might have misunderstood. The crew language is full of idiom.”
Now he saw every single face set against him. Here was rebellion.
“You will go,” Banichi said in that deep voice of his, “Bren-ji. I have the aiji’s authority on this. I request you comply.”
“My usefulness is my ability to negotiate and to settle terms.”
“Your usefulness is very little if you become like Jase, unavailable to the aiji. I went to the shuttle because I had apprehensions and wished to know whether there was, even at this hour, a safe retreat. I believe that there is, and I insist you take it.”
On the aiji’s authority.
“Banichi is right,” Jago said, “given all he says. You should go.”
He didn’t want it. He’d had his doubts about being up here, he’d wondered daily about his usefulness where the captains continually postponed their meetings, but the ground had changed on him, without warning. Now he had to rethink everything, every gesture made toward them, every intimation of cooperation, or noncooperation.
“I’m not sure I improve our position by my leaving,” he said. “We’ve not been threatened. They’ve simply withheld meetings. We don’t know the reason. If the senior captain is ill, or stepped down… we just don’t know.”
“And they mean we should not learn, nandi,” Tano said. “Have they offered any goodwill at all? Have they apologized or admitted?”
“They have not,” he agreed, and Jase’s situation flashed across his mind like summer lightning, the landscape revised in a stroke. “But if we leave, we leave Jase.”
“If they have both you and Jase,” Banichi said, “our negotiating position is not improved. If you stay here, they may attempt some move against our presence here. If our presence grows quieter, they may neglect that measure and leave us a stronghold.”
“If you miss the shuttle,” Jago said, “there’s no chance for a very long time.”
“It’s the eleventh,” he said. “The shuttle leaves on the fifteenth. We have four days.”
“We can do nothing in these days,” Banichi said. “And, Bren-ji, your security very strongly advises you not to make it clear to this Guild that you know something’s amiss. We know humans do very odd things, but embarrassing them would seem provocative. We cannot predict this situation or their behavior, but reversal of expectations does not seem to please humans more than it pleases atevi.”
“You’re quite correct.”
“Then a surprise would not be a good thing.”
“No” he agreed. “It would not, Banichi-ji. Thank you. Thank you for taking precautions.”
“We cannot take precautions enough,” Banichi said, “to secure your safety for the next few nights. We hope the shuttle will leave on schedule. Preparations are on time. There’s been no cessation of work there. I met no evidence of monitoring in the corridors, beyond what Kaplan carries on his person. I found nothing of the sort in the diagrams, and indeed, there seems none now. But there remains the possibility that they merely observed the movement and did nothing.”
“Likely enough there never was surveillance,” Bren said, “except in administrative areas. These areas were residential, and people would have resented it bitterly, as an intrusion, not as safety. The lack of signs seems their chief precaution. They couldn’t navigate the halls without a map. They don’t think it’s possible. They don’t imagine it. So there’s nothing to watch against.”
“A blind spot,” Algini said.
“A blind spot,” Bren agreed. “Humans aren’t the only species to have made such mistakes. I don’t wish to tell them, not at this point.”
“One has no wish to tell them,” Banichi said. “But were I stopped, I would have been Nojana. One doubts they would know the difference.”
“There are advanced technical means,” Bren said, “even granted they don’t recognize individuals that accurately. We mustn’t risk it again, Banichi-ji. I thank you very much for doing it, but I ask restraint. I understand your concern.” He saw his security poised to object to his objection, and held up a hand. “I will hear you. But give me today until the fifteenth to come to some resolution with the captains—not saying a word of what we know.”
“Until the fourteenth,” Banichi said. “The mission may stay. You, Bren-ji, with no baggage at all, will simply go to the shuttle early, and board, and Jago and I will go with you. The rest will stay.”
There was no question Banichi had just come to this conclusion, that he had had no time since walking through the door to consult with the rest of the team, but there was no schism in the company, that was very certain. Banichi declared his plan and the others said not a word.
It was, beyond that, a plan that made sense, not to advise the captains in advance, to be just a little ahead of any move the captains might make to restrain him from leaving. It left the majority of the staff, left Tano and Algini in charge of the mission, the servants to support them, and someone here in case Jase found a chance to reach them.
But another thought struck him with numbing force. If they left, God, if he left, Kroger could only think the worst. If the human delegation had no warning of what Banichi suspected and it proved true, then he could by no means afford to leave them behind… Kroger left on a limb and feeling betrayed was beyond dangerous. They had had several centuries of bitter division, had just patched things into a workable agreement, and dared not leave Kroger alone with whatever mischief was shaping up on the station.
Particularly… another dark thought… since if something had gone wrong among the captains, the division might be a factional one as well as a personal power grab.
“We have to advise the Mospheirans,” Bren said. “For diplomatic reasons, for courtesy if nothing more. If they think we’ve double-crossed them, they’ll deal with the other side. They’ll conclude they can’t trust us. They have to have the same chance to get out of here. They have to know we’re on their side.”
“One can hardly speak securely on the intercom with them,” Banichi said.
“One can’t” he agreed, trying to think what to do.
“It’s not that far,” Banichi said. “I can walk there, too, and talk to Ben.”
“You’ve had a drink. You’re not on duty. No!”
“I might have another. If I’m walking the halls, I am doubtless an inebriate having strayed from duty, and will say I require Kaplan to guide me home. Humans understand inebriation. I recall your machimi. They consider it quite amusing.”
“Not when you’re damned guilty and in the wrong corridor. We’re not supposed to be able to open these doors.”
“One would certainly have to admit to that.”
“And there’s the problem of making the Mospheirans believe you when you get there.”
“Give me a token for them. Is this not machimi?”
“One will be prostrate with nerves the whole damned time,” Bren muttered, seeing less and less chance of dealing with a situation run amok. “One has not the least idea what Kroger may do. The woman distrusts me very easily. We simply can’t—”
“A banner is traditional.”
“Not among humans. Rings. Letters.” It was preposterous. “It’s a damned comedy, is what it is.” Banichi wasn’t one to propose lunacy. He had the feeling of being maneuvered, backed toward an ultimatum.
“We can hardly do this by intercom,” Banichi said, silken-smooth and one drink down.
“I can simply invite them to dinner and tell them face-to-face. No more wandering about the halls. By no means.”
Banichi sighed. “One did look forward to it.”
And not for the simple pleasure of risking his neck, Bren was suddenly sure; if Banichi had ever been serious, Banichi had his own reasons for wanting to undertake that walk. But the more likely answer was Banichi simply nudging him to come up with a plan. “Damn the whole idea! No. I’ll invite them back. Narani will arrange something. An entertainment.”
“Machimi,” Jago said.
He looked at her, looked at Banichi, saw conspiracy and an adamant intent.
More—a third sinking thought—there was always the remotest chance, while he was trying to shore up Kroger’s doubts of him, that Kroger did know, and hadn’t leveled with him regarding Ramirez and some scheme on the part of Sabin and those who dealt far more with the Mospheirans.
That was an utterly unwelcome thought. He was bounced out of bed past midnight, forced to think of abandoning everything he’d been doing here, informed that every agreement they’d hammered out was in jeopardy if not completely abrogated, and he found himself maneuvered into asking Kroger here to be read the conditions of a retreat.
And what would Kroger say? Wait for us, we’re leaving? Or, You go ahead, dear allies, and we’ll arrange things.
“I don’t think, given the food here, we’ll have any difficulty getting them to come,” he said to Banichi, “granted only I get a message through. But, dammit, Kroger can mess things up. And she may have a mind to do it.”
“Has there been difficulty with communications?” Banichi asked.
“Nothing worthwhile came through Mogari-nai,” Bren said, recalling that fact in present context, too. “They keep having outages, malfunctions, which might discourage anyone from sending critical messages, such as must not be half-received, or meddled with. I did tend to believe them about the outages. Now I don’t. It may well be an excuse to cut us off from communication. I haven’t gotten anything worthwhile from the aiji; I don’t know that he’s gotten my transmissions: I’ve had no acknowlegments. And that, Nadiin-ji, is a critical point: if we can’t be sure our messages are going through, indeed… if they’re lying to us, we can’t do our jobs here. But if we give up our foothold here, we can’t be assured of getting it back, either. If we can’t rely on Kroger, if something’s going through in secret, only to Mospheira, we have a grievous problem.”
“One would agree to that,” Banichi said, and solemnly accepted his second drink, having won everything he had come to get. “But the paidhi will not be the presence to test their intentions.”
“Who can? There’s a reason Tabini sent me. There’s a reason I’m sitting here and not uncle Tatiseigi, Banichi-ji, and I can’t contravene that simple fact. If I don’t do this job, yes, you’re right, there’s no one else who can do it, but the simple fact is, if I don’t do this job, indeed, there’s no one else who can do it!”
The glass stopped on the way to Banichi’s lips. Banichi set it down and regarded him solemnly.
“A dilemma, is it not?”
“One I can’t solve.”
“One we daren’t lose,” Banichi said. “This I have from the aiji, that you must return safely. Do what you can. Take what advantage these days offer. Go down, and if things seem in order, come back in thirty days on the next flight.”
“And if things go wrong, I’ve left my staff in a hell of a position.”
“We simply lock the doors,” Tano said, “and hold out.”
“Against people who control the light and heat, Tano-ji!”
“Do you consider it likely we would be killed?” Tano asked. “It would be very foolish of them if they wish anything from the aiji.”
And Kroger had flatly said what he already knew, himself, that very few Mospheirans were willing to enter work for the ship under the old terms. Robotics, that missing part of the equation, might be Kroger’s specialty, but to design and build those machines in space, where they must be built, still required risks in an environment which had proven a killer before now.
He had to talk to them. That was a given. He had to get a notion how Kroger might react once she did know, and once she did know he knew that Ramirez had met with some sort of difficulty. Jase was another concern, one he knew hadn’t left his staff’s minds, but one which none of them could afford to pursue.
Damn, this was inconvenient. And what had happened to Ramirez, and where was Jase, and why, if Jase had a mother aboard, was there absolutely no contact?
He didn’t like the shape of it. Clearly, Banichi hadn’t liked it, and had seen in the outage something that might not be an accident.
That hadn’t been an accident, he was now certain. Something that had happened along with some struggle on the station, perhaps even a schism in the crew, or something designed to put the fear in them and justify both Sabin’s reluctance to meet with him—God knew whether she was secretly meeting with Kroger—and the communications problems that cut him off from advice and information from the planet.
He had to work around it. Had to get something through to advise the planet there was something not right up here.
Mother, he wrote, in language he was very sure station spies could read, I’m sorry to have been out of touch. They’ve been experiencing communications difficulties here. I love you. Be assured of that. I hope things are working out for everyone. I wish I’d brought my camera up here. One thing I do miss beyond all else is pictures of home. You know that one of you in the red suit? I think of that, and the snow, up on Mt. Adams. Sunset and snow. Fire and ice. You
Did you find a cufflink? I think I left it in my room.
I hope Barb is better. Tell her I think of her and wish her a speedy recovery.
Your son, Bren
There was no red suit. His mother never wore that color, swore it was her worst; that was why they had agreed on it as an emergency notice. Red suit: emergency; contact Shawn;watch yourself. It was the only code he had now that might get through the security blackout… if the authorities chose to let him go on receiving small messages, while they knew Tabini’s signature and blacked those out. If they were at all wary, they wouldn’t let it through. If they’d ever noticed Banichi’s trip to the shuttle, they wouldn’t let it through.
Trust me, he wished the captains still in power. Believe me.
God, he hoped no one had spotted Banichi’s move.
“Cl,” he said, “we’d like Kaplan to escort the Mospheiran delegation here, if I can arrange a dinner meeting at 1800 hours.” He held his breath. “Will that be a problem?”
Cl answered somewhat abstractedly, “Kaplan, sir. Shouldn’t be.”
“I don’t suppose Jase can join us.” It was part of the long-established pattern. He never let it up.
“No, sir, Jase Graham is still committed to meetings.”
“What about Captain Sabin? Any chance of resuming that appointment? We could perfectly well set a place for the captain, if she wishes.”
“I’ll relay that, sir,” Cl said, and a few minutes later replied, “The captains are all in meetings, sir. She did relay regrets and asks for the 18th.”
The day of the shuttle launch, ship-calendar. It was an outright question.
“Tell her I’d be delighted. We’ll arrange a special dinner.”
Sabin wasn’t the only one who could miss an appointment. He had no hesitation in that small lie, and was only minimally tempted to believe Sabin was oblivious to that date.
Was he leaving? Would he be aboard? Sabin very much wanted to know that, in her relayed question.
And dared he tell the truth to Kroger in time to let Kroger get aboard?
Certainly it would not be prudent to tell Kroger everything he knew.
I propose to go down to the planet for a few days,” Bren said, over the main course, and after a rambling appetizer conversation that had taken them from skiing on Mt. Adams to the better bars on the north shore. “I’m disappointed in the degree of cooperation we’ve gotten. Either we meet with the captains, or we don’t. I suppose that I’m coming back on the next flight, but I might not. We’ve got to fly that test cargo sooner or later.”
That occasioned raised brows. It was the same arrangement as last time, Kroger and Lund at the formal table, Kaplan and Ben with Tano to keep them distracted, and to get out of them whatever information Tano could obtain.
“You’re breaking off negotiations?” Kroger asked. “Or retiring to consult.”
“Retiring to consult. I fully plan to be back. It’s quite open, as to whether we return on this shuttle rotation or not. I have administrative duties back on the mainland… and a family crisis on the island.” He used that fact shamelessly to convey personal reasons which ought not to make a difference, but which reasonably could. “I think a month’s stand down to let the captains think and analyze might not be a bad thing.”
Kroger had not quite ceased eating, but the utensils moved more slowly for a moment. “We came prepared to stay longer.”
“My staff will remain here to work. If the cuisine on the station is as bad as I hear, you’re perfectly welcome to dine here while I’m gone. My staff will by no means be sorry to have guests to exercise their talents. And Ben and Kate of course can practice their skills.”
There was a small moment of silence, and the utensils came to a slow stop as Kroger tried to consider the possibilities…
even the chance, perhaps, that the staff might know enough Mosphei’ to be a problem to them.
And the reality, too, it might be, that atevi were here to stay.
“The aiji could waive the cost of a ticket down and back,” Bren said, “if you wished to come down and make your own representations to him.”
“I haven’t that authority,” Kroger said, clearly disturbed. “You have to talk to the State Department for that.”
Interesting choice of words. Very interesting, to an ear attuned to language. The insiders to the various departments tended, though not infallibly, to shorten that down to State… you have to talk to State. You have to talk to Science. It gave Kroger credibility as an outsider, that expression, someone chosen for a mission, but not an insider, not ordinarily a negotiator: a robotics expert, chosen to come up here and see what the state of the machinery or the science might be.
Because that would govern how willing human beings might be to undertake the work.
The mind went zipping from point to point in mid-smile. “I will seek someone to do that,” he said. “I think we ought to firm up the agreements we have.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Lund said. Lund had stopped eating, and paid thorough attention. “I, on the other hand, wouldn’t mind the trip. I’ve been curious about the mainland. And I might have something to say to the aiji, if I can get you to translate.”
Kroger’s brows knit, but she didn’t say a word in objection.
Interesting power structure in this Mospheiran committee. One could discount Lund, but he was Commerce, and he did have, Bren suspected off and on, a certain authority in his own realm: trade, commerce, and business representations.
And indeed, it made a certain sense, as he’d set the matter forth to them. It was a good solution to the dilemma of how much to tell the Mospheirans about what could become a dicey situation, particularly for his own delegation.
At least he wouldn’t have failed to advise them he was leaving. He could get his hands on Lund, figure him out within the context of Tabini’s court, get on his good side.
“I’d advise you don’t need to dismantle the mission,” Bren said. “Just pack a bag, clothes, that sort of thing. The aiji can arrange flights to the island if you like, strongly supposing you’ll need to consult while you’re down there. The shuttle goes up again in a month, and you’re guaranteed space.”
“Two days,” Kroger mused, the very short interval for preparation. “I don’t know, Tom.”
“You can always make it a last-minute decision,” Bren said. “Unfortunately the shuttle goes down unloaded. Which is a situation we should fix. It’s terribly expensive to do that.”
“Get some manufacturing going up here,” Tom said. “There’s an archive full of things we could be manufacturing; there are dozens of abandoned facilities up at the core, in microgravity. Medicines, for God’s sake. Metals. Ceramics.”
“First we need to get enough atevi crew up here working to establish these areas as safe,” Bren said. “I plan to bring a few technical people myself on the next trip up.” Not to mention increased security, but a few atevi manufacturing experts, who understood the machines that built the vehicles and stamped and pressed and drilled. Robots. That new word, for a class of machines that had never been perceived to verge on intelligence.
The ones Kroger proposed were far more independent, capable of decision-making, and required, he suspected, more computer science than Science had ever admitted existed.
And it must, by what he suspected. Science hadn’t told State, not at his level, but it must; and now atevi had to become privy to that knowledge as well, in computers, an area where atevi innovations had scared hell out of human planners… the one area of human endeavor besides security technology where atevi had simply taken the information provided, gone off on their own and come back with major new developments.
Humans had become very nervous about atevi and computers.
“Might we arrange the same?” Kroger asked. “Free passage?”
“I think I can arrange a suspension of the charges,” Bren said. “On a one-time basis. This is to the benefit of both.”
“Two days,” Kroger lamented a second time. “Damned short notice.”
“Busy month,” Bren said, “on the ground. But every trip, the shuttle should bring a few people. We can arrange to carry a certain number free of charge, where they’re filling up space.”
“You can do that,” Kroger said.
“At least for the present mission,” Bren said, and took a fork to his dinner, very much relieved to have settled the human mission problem, still asking himself whether he ought to level with Kroger, and finally took the plunge. “We’ve received indications that there might be some disturbance within the local administration. That Ramirez might have a health problem. That the delays might be due to that.”
“Are you serious?” Kroger asked, aghast.
“That’s another reason for our timing in going down right now.” He was very glad to see that she was surprised. “I think they’re trying to sort something out; I don’t think we’re going to get damned much done until they do, and I think it’s a good interval to go consult.”
Clearly Kroger was dismayed. “That puts things in a different light.”
“Not much. A delay.” He chose the light to have on it, a bland one. “Captains will come and go. That matters very little to us. They settle their affairs, we settle ours.”
“How do you know this?”
“We have our ways,” he said. “It’s an interpretation of what we see, not an observed fact, but I’d bet on it.”
“You mean you’re guessing.”
“I mean observations lead us to this conclusion,” he said, deliberately obscure. “That’s different from a guess. How much credence you put in it… that’s a matter of judgment, but I take it very seriously, seriously enough that if the captains are taking a great many pains to keep us from finding out, indeed, I’m not going to upset them by telling them what I guess. I’m simply going to take the pressure off them, allow them to solve what is their business, and give myself time to solve some of the other problems that are piling up on my desk at home. I just think this is going to be a hiatus in constructive work, after which we can get back to business.”
It was a fairly complex lie in the center, with truth in the operational sense in that it wasn’t quite a lie, in that it was honestly his best attempt to signal Kroger without spilling everything: excuse me, Ms. Kroger, but we may be in the center of a local war; best keep a low profile… at the very least, don’t stand up and wave for attention.
Certainly she paid him strong attention. She had gray, cold eyes, one of her most disconcerting attributes, and all that concentration was on him.
“Are you saying there’s danger, Bren?”
“There’s danger inherent in our situation, but less if we mind our own business, which one can do simply by staying in one’s quarters and waiting for them to sort it out. I just have too damned much business down on the planet, and there are constructive things I can do by relaying this to the aiji in person. It’s far easier to persuade him, frankly, where there’s give and take and where I don’t have to worry about some faction getting wind of it. Tabini-aiji and I can do more over tea in one hour than in forty pages of reports on his desk. Much as we do here. If you feel uneasy and want to go, I think we can contrive an excuse, but if you’re comfortable with remaining here and dealing with my staff, we could certainly use the on-station presence.”
The ice in the stare melted somewhat, and Kroger rested her chin on a crooked finger. “There’s more to this than you’re saying.”
“I haven’t been able to get hold of Jase Graham since we got here. I’m worried about him and have been, and, frankly, yes, there could be danger of some sort. But if they want anything from the planet and I think they do—they’d be fools to do anything to us. We aren’t members of their crew. Jase, unfortunately, is, and I think they’re asking him very close questions about us, or preventing him spilling to us what’s going on inside their power structure. That’s my honest thought on the matter. It’s possible the captain most favorable to us is dead. But we can’t do anything about that. We don’t corner them and they don’t corner us. I don’t say we have to like them or agree with them, but for the mission’s sake we ultimately have to work with them, and to work with them we have to trust them just as far as we’re sure is in their interest. That’s why we don’t mention this to them. They’ve constructed a fiction for us to believe, and it’s our job to take our cues and not bother them, and do our job at the same time in a way that lets us go on working with them.”
“Maintain the fiction.”
“That’s the job. For at least a month, until we get the shuttle up again, at which time we can arrange you to give me a verbal signal, say, a message to Tom, here, that you think it’s profitable for us both to come ahead, or we can work with you in charge up here and us on the ground. The main thing is that we have to maintain our agreement and reduce the number of parties here. There’s too much chance of a divide and conquer move, and if they do it to us, they’ll behave just as long as it takes to get all the advantage they get, then dig in their heels and become a majority with the other half of us. Let’s not let them work that strategy. It’s not in our interest. Not in yours.”
Kroger considered it. The eyes windowed a factory of thoughts. The mouth gave not a thing away.
“Interesting,” she said after a moment.
“He has a point,” Lund said. “We can deal.”
“Good,” he said, feeling as if insects were crawling on every inch of his skin. He’d not put his apprehensions into words before, but laying them out, even in slightly deceptive fashion, focused the threat, even to such an extent that he considered advising Tom to move early, as he was doing, to reach the shuttle.
There were two days in which to make that decision, with Banichi’s help, among others. Protecting their retreat had become a priority, one in which, if he had a regret, it was overwhelming worry for Jase. If he was right, his leaving might actually gain Jase more freedom.
There was certainly nothing else he could do to help him, except gain more power than he had now.
They spoke of details, in the security of the dining room, monitored down to the last tick and wave pattern from next door; they concluded their meal in a quiet exchange of promises and well-wishes and he escorted them to the hall and outside.
Ben and Tano had set up a table there, and Kaplan was seated with them when the door whisked open. Kaplan scrambled up, snatching his helmet and putting it on, very official. God knew what view their monitoring security had with the thing on the table, as it had been angled… or whether anyone was currently watching. It had been in a position to keep watch on the door.
“No need to be stiff-backed, Kaplan.”
“No, sir.” Kaplan had something in his mouth. Had pockets stuffed.
“Enjoy the candy?”
“Very much, sir.”
“I like the orange ones, myself.”
“I haven’t had the orange ones. Just the red.”
“Nadi-ji,” Bren said, turning to Narani, “kindly find this young man a variety of the sweets, including damighindi ones, if you will.”
Of all people on the station, he wanted to keep Kaplan well-disposed, for one thing because they might owe the young man an apology, one of these days; for another, because Kaplan’s was the finger on the trigger, most locally, most likely, and he wanted Kaplan to have just that instant of remorse and regret that would give his own security a chance. They would have no remorse, but they wouldn’t kill the young man, either, if there was a chance to avoid it: such were their standing orders.
He’d had time for Banichi’s warning to sink in, with all its implications. He knew to what extent he was valuable, and knew that in the same way he’d resisted coming here, Tabini had dreaded sending him: Tabini had given Banichi and Jago direct orders, and here they were.
He’d told Kroger as much as he dared say. The rest… the rest depended on getting to the shuttle and getting it safely away. The captains had declined to stay abreast of their plans.
They shouldn’t be surprised if those plans shifted around their own, and shifted in a major way.
Narani came back with a brimming double handful, which Kaplan took and stuffed into any pocket that had any room at all. The man blushed with embarrassment, thanked them, and filled every pocket to the top, until cellophane was clearly visible.
“Have to eat a few,” Bren said cheerfully. “Obviously, or you’ll shed them on your way.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
He wondered if Kaplan was sleeping at all on so strong a sugar intake. Jase had found it quite stimulating, in more ways than one, and addictive. Spread them around, he wished Kaplan without saying a word. Let the rest of the crew share.
They had to include a few crates of sweets and fruit juice on the next shuttle flight.
Chapter 21
Another day, and the next, his last day, and not a word from his mother. Not a word from Toby. Cl claimed intermittent troubles, and said that Mogari-nai might have gotten the notion they weren’t transmitting, they’d had so many equipment failures.
“I don’t believe it,” Bren said to Jago. “The message I have from Tabini-aiji is the most bland thing possible. Felicitations, in the plural for a population.”
“It’s faked,” Jago said quietly. “They have text from the aiji’s messages to them.”
“But don’t know one plural from another,” Bren said. “Damned right it’s faked.”
“An indignity,” Jago said.
“Hardly one we can take exception to at the moment.” It was a death sentence, on the planet, inside the aishidi’tat. “One just has to be patient. They have no idea the seriousness of the act. Tolerance, tolerance.”
“One is tolerant,” Jago said, with a grim and determined look. “But where is Jase, Bren-ji? Is this tolerance?”
“Good question,” he said. And then had a horrid thought, considering Banichi’s foray to the shuttle dock. “One I absolutely forbid you to try to solve, Jago-ji. You and Banichi, and Tano, and Algini. You stay here.”
“We take no chances with your safety, Bren-ji,” Jago assured him. “One wishes the paidhi simply pack those very few essentials, and we will go early, without Kaplan-nadi.”
“I am packed,” he said, “whenever I fold up the computer case and have it in my hand.”
“You will not wish to leave it here, under Tano’s guard.”
“Much as I trust him, I daren’t tempt trouble on him. They might attempt him, if they thought that prize was here; they’re less likely to attack me, no matter how I affront them.”
“Nevertheless,” Jago said, and went to a drawer in his sparsely furnished room and took out a small packet of cloth. She brought it to him, and began to unroll it, and by its size and shape he had a sinking feeling what it was.
“Jago-ji, it’s hardly that great a threat…”
“Nevertheless,” she repeated, and gave him the gun which had followed him, in his baggage, from one place to the other throughout his career with them. “Put this in the computer case.”
“I shall,” he said. “Or have it somewhere about me. I understand completely. I have no wish to endanger you and Banichi by having no defense, but I say again that my rank and their needs are my best defense.”
“Nevertheless,” she said for the third time.
“I agree,” he said, and put it into the case’s outer pocket, hoping the shape didn’t show too much. “There. Trust that I’ll use good sense.” A thought occurred to him. “Trust that I have no more compunction shooting at humans than I do shooting at atevi.”
“Which is to say, far too much compunction,” Jago said. “But we agree with you that we wish a peaceful passage, and a completely uneventful flight.”
“I’ll be missing supper with the captain,” he said.
“Is the paidhi concerned about that?”
“It’s not the same as declining supper with the aiji. She knew when she asked me. She won’t be that surprised. She won’t take it personally, at least. There’s very little personal in it. That’s the problem.”
“In what way is it a problem?” she asked.
“If it were personal, she and I would have been talking before now. But we aren’t, and it isn’t, and I don’t think she plans to keep that appointment any more than the last. It was only a means to ask me if I was going to leave. That she didn’t choose to ask me directly what should have been a plain question indicates something to me about the minds of the captains, that everything, no matter how simple, is complicated and clandestine; that, as Jase told me, no one ever states a plain intention unless it’s an order, and the captains don’t give one another orders.”
“Do they do this setting the course of the ship?”
He laughed. “I don’t think it goes that far.”
“Then one of them can make decisions.”
One had to think about that, one had to think very carefully on that point. If the rumor was so, Ramirez had ceased to be that person.
“Whenever you and Banichi think good,” he said, “I’m ready to leave.”
A presence hovered at the door, in the tail of his eye. He gave it a full look, and saw Narani, with, of all things, the silver message tray from the hall table.
That was the very last thing he had ever thought to see in use. He thought it must be some parting courtesy from the staff, a wish for his safe flight, a promise of their performance of duty.
“ ’Rani-ji,” he said, summoning him forward, and Narani offered the silver tray.
“From a woman,” Narani said.
From outside? A written message, rolled up, atevi-style?
He opened it with trepidation.
It said, in bad courtly Ragi,
This message risks our lives, but we need your help, we need it extremely despairingly. If hostile person finds us we all die. Your lordship must not trust any of the leaders in charge of the boat. If you can make unlocked your doorway in the night I have attempted to visit, with all trepidations regarding security.
“It’s Jase,” he said, his voice hushed, even in this secure place. “It’s his handwriting.” The written language of court documents challenged even educated atevi, but Jase had rendered a gallant effort. “Not a damned melon in the document.”
Jase had his problems with homonyms. But no one else on the station could have written it in just that degree of semi-competency.
“Narani-ji,” he said, handing the document to Jago to read for herself. “Was it Kate?”
“No, nandi,” Narani said. “A woman of years, if I can judge, and very anxious to be away.”
Jase’s mother was on the station. Friends. Cousins. God knew who it had been; their own hall surveillance might give him the image, but in that sense it made no difference who had gotten it to them. The fact was, it was from Jase, and the only scarier knowledge was, if it had been Jase’s mother, she might be in some danger.
“He intends to try to join us,” Jago said. “Tonight. Is there any means they might forge this document, Bren-ji? Is it at all possible?”
“Not as far as I know. Even a computer… even the most advanced computer… there are the impresses of the pen on the other side, and the paper… the ship has no paper, Jago-ji. It’s not something they manufacture. Jase when he came had never written on paper, only on a slate. Never used a pen, only a pointed stick of a thing.”
“One recalls so,” Jago said, and added, “Jase did take a notebook with him.”
“You inspected his packing?”
“He had few clothes, things which I know the ship to lack: sweets, a thick notebook, a packet of pens, a bottle of perfume. He went through no personal scan.” Jago looked entirely uncomfortable, rare for her. “This may have been very remiss of us. But no more did we search you, nandi.”
Weapons were in one sense the thing his security noticed most—on the person of an outsider; in another sense, they were so ordinary as to be transparent, if an ally had them in plain sight.
“God,” Bren said quietly, then answered his own question, even considering Jase exercising his dislike of his captains. “No, he wouldn’t. He would not, Jago-ji. Never in the world would he destabilize our situation up here. He can’t have. They keep saying he’s in a meeting.”
“Which you say is a lie.”
“I know it is. But I think they believe he can’t contact us, and that means under their watch or under their control. If he brought something through and they searched his baggage, as he surely knew they might—but he can’t have lived under your guidance for three years and have done something so rash.”
“One would hope at least he would not be caught” Jago said fervently. “He does most clearly have the notebook.”
“And a hell of a sense of timing! God! What do I do with this?”
“What is wise to do, nandi?” Jago asked. “What must be done, for this mission?”
It was surely a Guild question, her Guild’s question: the dispassionate, the thoroughly professional question. What is wise to do?
Fail an appointment with Jase? Leave him vulnerable?
Or interfere in the inner workings of the Pilots’ Guild, which was an endlessly proliferating problem?
It was a problem they were bound to meet, in long years of working with the Pilots’ Guild. Tabini considered Jase his own, now. He did. There was no question of support for Jase’s position on their side, no question what he wanted to do.
His arrangements at present didn’t leave a station without representatives from the planet. It wasn’t an inert, changeless situation, rather one in which Jase, if he was somehow involved in Ramirez’ troubles, could become involved, changing everything.
Creating God-knew-what while he was back on the planet, unable to investigate what was happening.
“If he wants off this station, we’re the only ticket,” he said to Jago. “He knows the shuttle’s going. He’s taken the chance and made his break for our side.”
“Man’chi,” Jago said, though she well knew she was dealing with humans who felt it erratically, that overwhelming drive to reach one’s own side, one’s own aiji, in a crisis.
“Something like that,” he said. “But he’s not helpless against it. He knows what he’s asking us to risk. He knows I can’t act for my own welfare, or his, when it jeopardizes the whole damned planet. He can’t ask that. I won’t give that to my own mother, Jago! How can I give it to him?”
“Is he asking that?” Jago asked sensibly, and he had to draw a less panicked breath.
“No. He doesn’t know we’re going, and he doesn’t know we’re going early, but he knows the way you work. He doesn’t even know we can get that door open, but he suspects you can do it. This is not a confident expedition, Jago-ji. He’s desperate. I think he’s completely desperate. But, damn! Damn it all!”
“I should tell Banichi.”
“We should tell Banichi,” he agreed. “We should establish some sort of watch in the corridor. I don’t know what they can spot on their security boards, but I wouldn’t have that door unlocked longer than need be.”
“We know when something moves out there,” Jago said. “Have no fear of that, Bren-ji. But when he comes, we may go to the shuttle in a great hurry. One should be ready.”
One should be ready. One sat ready, waiting, for hours, talking companionably with Tano and Algini, who would be in charge here, with Narani and the others, who would be dealing with Kroger once they left.
They should be moving now. They should have reached the shuttle by now. It was technically night, and past midnight, that less active hour on the station. The computer was packed, he had his coat on, Banichi and Jago had their coats on.
They waited, having brought chairs into the corridor, just outside the security post, so that he could talk simultaneously to Tano and Algini and the staff, and he declined a cup of tea when the hours dragged on. There was a chance of long waits at the other end of their journey tonight, a chance of having to wait out of view, and he wanted not to have his eyes floating while waiting. He had tucked a few of Kaplan’s sweets in his pockets: the slightly sour ones helped relieve a dry mouth, and dry and ice cold was the condition of the air in the core. He had good gloves in his pocket.
And they waited for a visitation.
All at once Tano and Algini paid sharp attention to their boards and passed a signal to Banichi.
Banichi rose; they all rose as Banichi attached a small device above the switch, and opened the door.
Jase was there, Jase in that wretched fishing jacket, Jase pale, sweating and out of breath, and with a hell of a bruise on his cheek.
Bren welcomed him, flung arms about him, making his security very anxious, considering the circumstances, but Jase hugged him hard as Banichi shut the door.
“Where have you been?” Bren asked, first question, at arm’s length and searching a familiar face for answers. “What in hell’s going on?”
“They shot Ramirez. He’s alive. Bren, I need your help!”
The one thing he wanted to avoid was entanglement inside the Pilots’ Guild. Anything but that.
And Jase delivered it on his doorstep.
“Who hit you?”
“Getting Ramirez away,” Jase said, still out of breath— scared: that was logical, but completely done in, into the bargain. “Been hiding. Had to trust. Had to prevent you going.”
He’d spoken in his own language, had had nothing else to deal in but his childhood language for the last ten days, and probably couldn’t think in Ragi at the moment, but it was important the staff understand all the nuances. “Ragi,” Bren said, in that language. “This is the aiji’s territory. We aren’t giving it up, nadi-ji. You’re safe here.”
“Not safe,” Jase said on a shaky breath, holding to his sleeves. “Bren, Bren, —I can’t think. No words. Drink of water.”
“He asks for water, Rani-ji. —Where have you been?”
“Hiding. Cold. No food. No water. Ramirez, we gave to him—but not much left.”
“Get in here and sit down.” Bren steered him to the nearest door, to the security station, and a chair by Tano, who offered a guiding hand. “Where have you been?” Bren pursued him. “Jase, make sense. Is anyone after you? Is the whole station in this condition? What’s going on?”
“Don’t think anyone’s followed. Becky, my mother, few people, got us food and water, not much. It freezes, there. Blankets. I didn’t know—didn’t know whether he’d make it; tried to get here once. Couldn’t. Becky’s with him. With Ramirez. Crew doesn’t know. They don’t want it known.”
“We can deal with that,” Bren said.
“They’re smart. They’ll get ahead of us. They’ll lie.”
“Who’ll lie?”
“Tamun. Tamun and his crew. I can’t stay here. I’ve got to get back to him. Bren, have you got medicines? We don’t have any medicines. Containers for water.”
“You can’t go back through the corridors loaded like a mecheita at market, nadi. If they’re after you, you can’t take a damned picnic lunch.”
“I know. I know. What I can put in my jacket. I can’t leave him. Can’t stay here.”
“We’re supposed to be leaving on this shuttle, tomorrow!”
“I thought you might.” He reached out for the water Narani offered him, and had a sip, and a second. “Oh, that’s good.”
“I have the aiji’s business to do! You know I can’t divert myself on personal privilege!”
“I know you won’t,” Jase said hoarsely, rolling a look at him, and taking a third, a long, reckless gulp.
“God, you’ve handed me a mess!”
“I got him away!” Jase fired back at him. “I have him alive!”
“Banichi-ji,” Bren said, “we have a rather serious problem.”
“One gathers enough of this to believe so,” Banichi said.
“What do you want us to do?” Bren asked of Jase.
“I don’t know. If I knew I’d do it. Bren. Bren!” Jase made a strong bid for his attention as Bren looked momentarily toward Banichi. “Bren, they’ve given out among the crew that Ramirez was shot when I tried to take him hostage. That’s the story. That’s what they’re saying. It’s an atevi plot to have their way, and I’m in on it.”
“Can Ramirez refute it?”
“He won’t last ten minutes in their hands.”
“Then bring him here.”
“We can’t. We aren’t where we can get through the halls carrying him. We’re in a service corridor, where they were working, where they haven’t powered up yet, but there’s a few…” Jase drew a breath. “This didn’t take everybody by surprise. They’re not working there now, but those who were, they know how to set up, and they did, and they warned me Ramirez was in danger, but I didn’t know how much. And now we’re there, and there’s not damn much heat and there’s no water because it won’t flow through the pipes, but there’s air pressure, because it’s an air lock, and we can get it.”
“You’re living in an air lock?”
“A work area airlock. It’s large. There’s six of us.” Jase’s teeth began to chatter and he fought to control it. “I knew it would be hard, Bren. I didn’t know it would be like this. I
thought I could reason with Ramirez. I thought he could control the rest. I didn’t know they’d go this far.”
“We have made every arrangement,” Banichi said, “to remove Bren from the station, Jasi-ji. In all high regard for you, the aiji’s interests are best served if Bren is removed from this venue as soon as possible.”
“I can’t go,” Bren said. “I can’t go now.” Very clearly his security was ready to hit him over the head and carry him to the shuttle, no idle threat, and he could not permit that. “We are involved. I didn’t want this, but Jase is here, and whatever we do next, it can’t be to leave him stranded.”
“We can take him with us,” Banichi said, “we can hold him here within this section and defy the captains to remove him. There are alternatives.”
“The situation aboard is in flux” Bren said. ”Baji-naji. If we take Jase away, Ramirez’ interests will fall entirely or the station will enter a period of factional warfare that the aishidi’tat can ill afford.”
“Nor can the aishidi’tat afford to lose you, nadi. You cannot run this risk.”
“I’m valueless if I sit idle, Banichi.”
“This is not a fifteen-day decision,” Banichi said. “It’s thirty days. Twice that, that the shuttle will remain on the ground.”
“Then it can return with additional security,” Bren said. “How likely, Jasi-ji, is Ramirez to survive his injuries?”
“With medicines, he may,” Jase said. “Fever is setting in. We daren’t take him anywhere. I have to get back to him, Banichi.” He had recovered some of his fluency in Ragi. “It’s not only man’chi, which I do feel, but logic. Without this man, my people will fall under Tamun’s control and use only the Mospheirans, and destabilize them by doing so, and destabilize the aishidi’tat, perhaps, too, if things go badly.”
“He’s right,” Bren said. “If Tamun deals with the likes of Gaylord Hanks, we’re in trouble. The Mospheirans are back under the hand of the Guild, they’re in civil war over that, and we in the aishidi’tat are in for a very rough ride being the only source of earth-to-orbit transport, with weapons orbiting over our heads, Nadiin-ji. Remember the ship is heavily armed. Under ill-disposed leadership, it might issue threats against the aishidi’tat, completely ignorant of the realities on the planet, completely foolish, completely unable to make peace after it has made a war greater than the War of the Landing. Bad as the situation is, Banichi-ji, I can be in no better position than I am now. We have Jase. We have a warning. The crew hasn’t fallen all the way into Tamun’s hands. There remains something we can do.”
“There remains something the paidhi can do on the ground, too,” Banichi said, “in safety. One can cut them off from labor and supplies and sit and wait. That is the more prudent course, nand’ paidhi. We can rescue Jase, who can attest the truth of what happened, which they must deal with if they wish supply. The Mospheirans cannot build a shuttle. They have no materials. Above all else we must remove the shuttle from their reach until we have some resolution. We cannot allow them to have it.”
Banichi’s argument was a telling one, victory the slow way, starving the Guild of labor and supplies, possibly entailing the fall of the rebel captains.
“Yet if they know we have boarded with Jase and that we’re taking that shuttle down to the mainland, not to return,” Bren said, “they may move against us, and we may end with a damaged shuttle or a shuttle held by force.”
“We have the other shuttles, not yet complete, but approaching it.”
“And no destination for them without the station, and without the ship,” Jase said. “Nadiin-ji, I can’t leave Ramirez to die. I have to go back to him, now. He has to have the medicines. That’s the answer to all of this. He can’t die. I agree we have to get him here. We have to get him help. But right now, he needs help where he is, and every moment I stay here, the condition in the corridors could change.”
“Thirty days’ wait,” Jago said. “Thirty days and an unpredictable situation.”
“What situation? We’ve never received this information,” Bren said in a tone of mock indignation. “We’ve had no visitor. We know nothing. They’re cutting us off from Tabini’s messages and no knowing what else, but we know nothing of that; we’re completely ignorant and suppose Tabini simply has nothing to say. We carry on for thirty days, and wait for our messages to get down with the crew.”
“We might trade one steward for one servant,” Banichi said. “Nojana would be an asset. The shuttle can spare him.”
“Dangerous,” Bren said.
“We have to get them word, at any event,” Banichi said. “If they see nothing of us, the shuttle will have a mechanical hold, some small problem, until they do hear.”
How could he not foresee Banichi would have some such arrangement? He was appalled. “So we must contact them… and we have Kroger to deal with, too. We can’t let them blithely proceed while we change our plans. They’ll be outraged.”
“One has one’s tasks to do,” Banichi said.
Bren cast him an unhappy look.
“First I must find where Jase is lodged,” Banichi said, “and safeguard his return. Then Kroger. But Kandana can go to the shuttle, and exchange very easily with Nojana. If Nojana arrives, we shall know the message reached them.”
“Be careful,” Bren said.
“I mean to be,” Banichi said. “Shall we find the medications, Bren-ji?”
“Do,” Bren said, and laid a hand on Jase’s shoulder. “If the place you’re hiding has you in this condition, it can’t be helping Ramirez. We have to get him here, into warmth, and care.”
“He won’t,” Jase said, down to the honest truth. “He won’t agree. I tried to persuade him. He’s off his head, maybe, but I don’t think so. While he’s on his own, he’s still in command. He hasn’t appealed to anyone else, any outsider. He’ll order the crew when he’s strong enough.”
“What’s the damage?” Bren asked. “What help has he got? What care?”
“There’s a medic with us,” Jase said. “Or he might have died. We’ve gotten supplies in. We’ve got a blanket for him. We’re just kind of short.”
“He needs warmth,” Bren translated. “Jase, think in Ragi.”
Jase made an obvious, physical effort. “I’m trying,” he said in that language. “I’m just tired. Questions. A lot of questions. No sleep. Hiding. I’m not thinking at my best.”
“One of my sweaters,” Bren said. “I know we brought a couple. Whatever we can fit you up with. Is cold all you’re contending with?”
“Cold, dark, there’s just not much…” Jase looked for a moment as if he’d fall on his face, and Bren brought him up with a hand on his shoulder.
“The hell you’re fit to go back!”
“Have to,” Jase said. “Not a choice.”
“Banichi, if you can assess the conditions, determine whether we have anything that might assist.”
“We have an emergency supply, condensates, warming cylinders, oxygen, water.”
“We don’t have liquid water,” Jase said, “but we take ice. All of that, all of that would help.”
“Easily done,” Banichi said. “We should move soon. Jasi-ji is right. This is a period of little activity in the corridors; it will increase in another half hour. Jago will go to Kroger, Kandana to Nojana, and I will find where Jase is hiding.”
“Can Kandana do it? Will he know his way?”
“There, quite well, I’m sure,” Banichi said. “And Nojana needs no instruction.”
“Then do it,” Bren said. At certain times a prudent, reasonable man simply had to trust his security was right and dismiss the alarms clenching up his own stomach as far less important, not deserving of panic.
He was afraid, nonetheless. He was altogether afraid, and it was as hard to send Banichi and Jago out on their risky ventures as it was to send Jase off to his hiding place.
“You tell them,” he said last to Jase, “that if they harm you, the aiji will take a very hard line with them, and that the aiji has a firm alliance with Mospheira, no matter what they think; tell them you’re highly regarded in the Mospheiran government as well, and if they harm a hair on your head they’ll have no cooperation.”
“I never was as convincing as you,” Jase said, in a laugh a little short of desperate.
“If they harm you,” Bren said, “in any way, I’ll file Intent. I’m not joking. I’ll take them down, personally, under the legitimate provisions of atevi law.”
Jase had started to laugh, obedient good will, but then he seemed to understand that it was indeed serious. Jase understood Banichi’s Guild very well, by all his experience on the planet.
“I’m not worth that,” Jase said.
“If they deal badly with one of their own, who wishes them nothing but good” Bren said, “then damn them to hell, and we’ll govern, the aiji will govern this whole solar system, by atevi law. The aiji will tolerate all sorts of provocations, but you think about it, Jase. Chaos is the absolute enemy of the aishidi’tat, and he won’t have it, he won’t have the abuse of his own associates up here. I told you that you have power. Use it!” He took Jase by both arms and lightened his grip on the left as Jase winced. “You get back here, hear me? Make it unnecessary for me to do anything so rash. I set that on your shoulders, because if anything happens to you, I’ll take this place apart. Hear me?”
“I do,” Jase said. “I’ll be careful.”
“Fishing trip,” Bren said. “Promise.”
“Deal,” Jase said. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to go now.”
“Get out of here,” Bren said. “Banichi.”
“I am with nand’ Jase,” Banichi said. “Jago-ji, instruct Kandana.”
“Yes,” Jago said, and on that, Banichi hurried Jase out the supposedly locked door, with no fuss or delay at all.
“It’s not supposed to do that,” Bren said, feeling that things were not at all going according to his preferences. Half an hour ago he’d thought he was bound down to the planet where he could present Tabini apologetically with a negotiation gone to hell and ask his brother whether he’d been able to find his wife and children.
That was not the state of affairs he had. He had just been coopted into the very thing he least wanted, and the very thing that might give Tabini what he demanded, if they could keep Ramirez alive… if he could get his security team back alive, and Jase back alive.
Someone was in deadly earnest, some eruption of factional violence within the crew, and he could only look to their defenses and hope his security had foreseen the control of heat, light, and air being in hostile hands up here.
He could not permit the situation to degenerate. He had his meeting scheduled with Sabin, sure as he was she would break the appointment. He had Ramirez within reach, and the means, perhaps, perhaps, to get word to the crew—if he could get to the one almost-friendly officer in C1…
He sat down with his computer and drafted an announcement:
Captain Ramirez, having suffered an attempt on his life, has taken shelter…
Sometimes one could see things more clearly in draft. And if that message went out, the immediate counter-rumor would be that outsiders had done it; if Ramirez died, they would be left with that accusation hanging over them.
But if Ramirez died, Jase would be the scapegoat, Jase who had ties to the foreign power, Jase who could no longer be trusted.
He saw the net drawing about them. He saw absolute chaos developing in the prospect of Kroger going down and him staying and his crew running about the corridors in various small teams.
He really wanted an antacid.
He wrote: A dissident faction on the Guild Council has attacked and wounded Captain Ramirez. He appeals for support among the crew. The crew must demand the return of Ramirez and the support of his agreements…
Who? he asked himself in despair. Who would support those programs?
And he remembered Ogun’s face, Ogun’s handshake, the fact that Ramirez had chosen Ogun to sit with him, the whole changing body language of that meeting that indicated to him that Ogun, too, had reached a like decision.
He cleared that draft and wrote, a third time:
Captain Ogun, Captain Ramirez needs your help. Jase Graham saved his life from an attack from someone who wanted the agreements nullified. I think you know better than I who that would be. We will stand by you and Ramirez and the agreements, and we have rejected the chance to go down to the planet. During this crisis, we offer whatever support you may need, including secure quarters.
He opted not to rouse help from Cl just yet. But he wrote:
Aiji-ma, things are going as optimally as in any machimi of homecoming.
And in Mosphei’, to his mother:
Please let me know how things are going.
He wanted to write: I’ve not been sure my messages are reaching you, but he dared not give so strong a hint that he suspected the majority of his messages were going straight into a black hole, and that the ones he had been getting were old messages recycled.
Instead he wrote: I’ve had a great deal of time to think how very much the family has arranged its affairs and its expectations around me, and I think this has always been a strain on everyone. Trust that I’m well, Mum, and that I’m happy where I am. My brother’s grown up into a remarkable man, and I hope you see that and give those great kids of his a hug for me. We’re both your successes. I just turned out a little different, that’s all, and I’m very content with that difference and with the choices I’ve made. I’ll never stop loving you and Toby, and no matter where I am, I’ll always be with you in mind and heart.
It was one of his better letters. He hoped it survived to get to her.
He wrote to a few of the councillors as well, the usual assurances that he remembered them. He did. He wrote to his staff, bidding them take privilege as they could and rest, since more work seemed imminent.
He hoped that would be the case.
He waited until near stationside dawn, and was still waiting when Nojana turned up, quietly.
“Nadi,” Narani said, “Nojana has arrived safely. What place shall I assign him?”
“Kandana’s, for now,” Bren said, and heaved a breath of relief, hoping now that the shuttle made schedule. “Thank him. I’ll speak to him after breakfast.”
In a very little more, Jago slipped into the section.
“How did they take it?” Bren asked her first of all. “How was it out there?”
Jago gave a delicate shrug. “Banichi isn’t back yet?”
“Not yet.”
“There was a close pass of their security,” Jago said. “I heard them, and feared they might come my way. I took a lift up, then down again when I hoped they had gone.”
Hearing. There was an atevi advantage he generally forgot to reckon.
“I hope Banichi hurries,” he said. “The Mospheirans weren’t pleased, I’ll imagine.”
“Not pleased. Tom-nadi is still going down, to fly to Mospheira to report; he hopes to come back on the next shuttle. Gin-nadi is remaining. She thanks you for your advisement and wishes to meet with you.”
“You told her about Ramirez.”
“Yes, nadi.” Jago was very clear on that. “I told Kate-nadi to be sure the message was accurate, and asked Kate-nadi not to speak the news aloud, but to write it for her very small and to beg her not to speak this information aloud even among themselves. I indicated also we believe they are monitored. She replied by writing, and I memorized it and destroyed the note: namely this.” Jago took a breath. “ ’The hardliners have taken control. They want to deal only with us, using only Mos-pheiran help, no atevi in orbit. They want to fill out the crew by training Mospheirans. I’ve told them we can’t produce the resources and can’t manufacture what they need. They talk about surmounting that problem. The ship is armed, but I don’t know what they can do. I believe we are potentially in trouble.’ That is word for word her answer. Tom-nadi is going down to warn the President.”
“It’s not good news.”
“Do they think to start another war?” Jago asked him. “Does this reference to weapons mean weapons turned against the mainland?”
“I don’t discount the possibility. I rather think they mean that they can get the Mospheirans up here. That means getting their hands on a shuttle and being able to fly it.”
“The shuttle has no accessible autopilot,” Jago reminded him.
The autopilot required a complex code which atevi pilots would not surrender. “I’ll feel better when I know it’s away clear,” Bren said, and thought to himself, And when Banichi’s back.