Defender

  “High-ranking,” Jase said. “Definitely. There’s been an advisement to customs for a wave-through. You’re right, Bren. I think you’re entirely right. The personnel rig is ready. Dockside has confirmed it. Engaged. They’re in.”

  Jase moved out along the safety line. Bren followed gingerly, with Jago and Banichi, and likewise Geigi and his company.

  They were most of the way there when the shuttle’s personnel hatch opened… a little in advance of the human workers reaching it.

  There—there indeed was Ilisidi, in warm furs. Trust the dowager to devise something stylish for the event.

  Elegant, she drifted in the hatch along with Cenedi’s formidable, protective presence.

  A smaller figure left the hatch past her right hand, too far— too fast—and drifted right off the platform.

  And off beyond the lines. Trying to swim, in space.

  A child.

  A boy.

  A protocol disaster.

  Bren held his breath as workers scrambled, on hand-jets.

  Ilisidi reached with her cane, and almost had the boy. But Tabini’s son and heir, someday lord of the aishidi’tat, indignantly kicked free and attempted his own salvation. He twisted and kicked in an attempt to reach the door of the shuttle, and banged the edge of the hatch with an unfortunate booted foot.

  He sailed off quite spectacularly out of reach—but not quickly enough to arrive anywhere useful anytime soon.

  It was chilling cold. The boy was suited only for the brief transit to the lift.

  Jase took a hand-jet from a worker and moved out among the rest, while the dowager, who cast an exasperated glance at the boy’s trajectory, glanced at Bren, maintained a grip on the line with the grip of her cane and lifted the other hand in a tolerant, benevolent welcome.

  “Well, well. Bren-paidhi. So my grandson told you after all.”

  “Not exactly, aiji-ma.” It was hard not to be distracted, with a desperate rescue proceeding above their heads, if there was an above in this steel cavern. But if there was one thing more hurtful to the situation, it was more notice. One only hoped it would not be on public reports. And what did one say, under the circumstance? Did you have a nice flight? “Welcome. Welcome from the staff and from the aijiin.”

  “Did you guess, then?”

  “I learned of the early shuttle launch, and who else of such overriding importance would divert a shuttle to visit us?”

  He managed to please her, in spite of the incident. An angry shout—the family temper—punctuated the icy air above them. No, Cajeiri had no wish to be hauled down ignominiously by human workers. No, clearly he wished to use one of the jets for himself, small chance there was of the workers or Jase allowing that.

  Was it possible Ilisidi winced?

  “Geigi-ji, too,” the dowager said, however. “So clever, the lot of you. I trust I’m in time for the ship.”

  “For the ship, aiji-ma?”

  “Do you think they may bring the boy to the lift in time for us, or shall I leave one of my companions?”

  Bren gave a desperate look up—or out, or whatever it might be—since propriety forbade the dowager gazing after this youthful error. By now Jase had the boy by an arm and was towing him down.

  “They have him, aiji-ma,” Bren said, quite familiar with the dowager’s iron notion of propriety. “Jase-ji.” He reached out a hand himself to steer Jase down, holding firmly to the safety line.

  The boy was near enough. Ilisidi reached out with the crook of her cane and snatched the aiji’s heir close, past her elbow, back into her chief of security Cenedi’s hands and Cenedi very smoothly attached Cajeiri’s gloved hand to the safety line. Jase braked, not showing off a bit, no, and stayed free-fall in escort of their party, workers hovering on the other side of the line—in event of other escapes, one surmised.

  Cajeiri meanwhile was shivering—being smaller, and chilling even after his burst of furious exertion, but no one shamed him by noticing.

  They reached the lift car.

  “That will become the floor,” Ilisidi said as they entered the car, and gave the proposed lift deck a stamp of that formidable cane. “Set your feet there, boy! Can you manage that? Thank you!”

  Cajeiri turned himself as the adults did and youthful feet went there, just so, with no mistakes this time. It must be Cajeiri’s earnest desire not to be noticed for hours and hours.

  Court etiquette forbade noticing the event. Security forbade their discussing business of other kinds, so conversation simply and inanely regarded the dowager’s flight, the launch weather, the weather in the far east of the Association, which was the dowager’s domain—and, in one of those strange drifts of converse, to the hatch of wi’itikiin in recent years.

  “Fourteen chicks,” the dowager said proudly, as they rode down past third level, “this spring. All living. Those on the higher cliffs we surmise do as well.”

  “One is glad to hear it, aiji-ma.” He truly was glad. It was amazing to him. Ilisidi came here turning their lives upside down even if they’d seen her coming, and told him chicks had hatched on the cliffs of Malguri, making what had been a cold, strange station feel the winds of the world. “One is extremely glad to know it.” What is this about the ship? he wanted to ask, but this was hardly the place for it, in a lift where station security often monitored.

  Cajeiri, likely, himself, destined for Malguri after this sojourn of Ilisidi’s on the station, kept meekly quiet, family temper having had its expression—family survival sense having come to the fore.

  Tatiseigi’s being the boy’s first lessons—what wonder the boy was grim, Bren thought to himself. No companions. No play.

  Now diplomatic missions, God help the boy.

  And what was this, In time for the ship?

  And why did his heart beat double-time, and why did he reckon suddenly Jase should have heard, and hadn’t, because Jase had been out of range.

  “This is Jase-aiji, one of the ship-aijiin, who has extended you considerable courtesy. This is the paidhi-aiji, whom you surely remember favorably. This is Lord Geigi, whom you have yet to meet formally.”

  “Ship-aiji,” Cajeiri said in meek tones. “Thank you. Paidhi-aiji, Lord Geigi. I’m gratified you came.”

  “One is equally gratified by your courtesy, aiji-ma,” Jase said smoothly, in the smooth tones of practice. That phrase he knew in his sleep.

  “Young aiji,” Geigi said.

  “See you deal well with these men,” Ilisidi said, and nudged Jase with the head of her cane. “Well done.”

  “Aiji-ma. Thank you for coming. We know it’s an arduous journey.”

  “Nonsense. But from a handsome young man, acceptable.”

  As their feet found the floor with increasing solidity and a slight rotational queasiness.

  “This isn’t right, grandmother-ji,” Cajeiri protested. “Are we safe?”

  “Safe? Safe? Do you see these gentlemen distressed?” Ilisidi asked, and stamped the deck with the ferrule of her cane. “Conditions to become ordinary to your generation—one is certain, and far too soon. But well that you notice. Well that you notice, all the same.”

  “Yes, grandmother-aiji.”

  “This generation,” Ilisidi said. “Will it be wiser, Geigi-ji?”

  “One has hope, nand’ dowager.”

  “Thus far, I doubt it. But I venture, hear? I do venture.”

  How did one query the dowager when she was in that mood? And where was there time for thoughtful conversation?

  And what was this, In time for the ship?

  The lift stopped, let them out in the ordinary station halls, but instead of customs and station security, standard procedure when a shuttle with passengers came into dock—Ogun met them.

  With Mercheson beside him.

  Yolanda Mercheson, who avoided eye contact, bowing to the dowager.

  “Dowager,” Ogun said in the Ragi language. “Welcome to the station.”

  “Aiji-ma,” Yolanda said. “We
understand your quarters are ready.”

  Ordinary workers, mostly Mospheiran, passed by on their various errands—and stopped to stare at a meeting of the paidhiin and atevi aristocrats, and one the widely famous Gran ’Sidi, with her silver-haired chief of security, Cenedi.

  And an atevi youngster.

  Movement in the hall outright stopped. People stood. A few bowed.

  Ogun took out his pocket com and spoke in his own language: “C1, clearance through the halls. Gran Sidi’s in residence. Advise the council. Intentions as yet unspecified.”

  C1 answered, a simple acknowledgment of the orders.

  “Nand’ dowager,” Ogun said then—he had learned that phrase in the dowager’s last tenancy. But he gave only a passing glance to the boy—not in as much dismay as confusion, as Bren saw it. Ogun might have heard about the unfortunate incident at the dock, or not: he said nothing, simply bowed slightly, stiffly—never a shipboard or a Mospheiran grace—welcoming the aiji dowager to the station as if this was no surprise at all.

  “Her discretion,” Ogun said, passing everything atevi to the dowager and to them, and about that moment Ilisidi’s cane came down smartly on the deck, the end of her patience.

  “Translate,” she said.

  “A welcome, nandi,” Jase said immediately.

  “She’s the representative,” Ogun said.

  Jase skirted an infelicitous mispronunciation rendering that. One forgave him: the dowager seemed to. She uttered a short, sharp hiss.

  “Of course. Does anyone believe we sit in those wretched seats and come to such a frozen desolation in the heavens for our health? A chair. One assumes there will be a chair in a warm place. And supper. I insist on supper. When is the ship leaving?”

  “The dowager says yes,” Jase rendered it for Ogun, “and wants to know when the ship is leaving.”

  “Ma’am,” Ogun said, a courtesy, “nand’ dowager, we have to go through power-up.”

  This arrived in the Ragi language as get it running.

  “Get it running,” Ilisidi echoed the translation. “One hopes it runs, nadiin, with some reliability. We expect not to break down. Shall we move temporarily into our quarters?”

  Not to break down. We expect not to break down.

  Bren cast Jase a look and Jase seemed no more informed than he was. He cast one at Yolanda Mercheson, too.

  “ ’Sidi-ji,” Geigi said. “What is this? Are we informed?”

  “Geigi,” Ilisidi said, and laid her hand on Geigi’s arm in a very intimate way. “Immediately. Your welcome is appreciated, Ogun-aiji—say so, girl! and be done. My bones ache. I want my chair!”

  “Yes, aiji-ma,” Bren said—she was his responsibility, not Jase’s—and damned sure not Yolanda Mercheson’s, if he had a choice in it. “Captain, she’s anxious to be through the festivities and into a comfortable chair, and if there’s anything going on I don’t know, I hope I will know in short order.” What’s this about the ship? was what he ached to ask, but court proprieties kept him from asking outright. “With your permission, sir.”

  “The dowager proposes to be a passenger on this voyage,” Ogun said. “With her entourage. The schedule is under construction at the moment. We’ll notify her. We will inspect baggage: we have safety restrictions.”

  “I daresay you should have Cenedi there if you do inspect baggage, sir.” He was accustomed to playing along as if he was utterly in the know, but this was the utmost, the most extravagant state of ignorance. A passenger on the ship, hell!

  And Mercheson mediating when he was present?

  “Well, he’d better come along, then, soon as the baggage is offloaded,” Ogun said.

  “Banichi, Cenedi will wish to supervise the inspection of baggage for safety. Jase, can you possibly attend that inspection?”

  “I will,” Jase said. No better informed, Bren was convinced—no complicity in what Ogun clearly knew. The lot of them acted as if, of course, no surprise, no concern, they’d known from the start; but he improvised at high speed, and disposed someone who knew station regulations, someone who spoke Ragi and ship-language, to attend on security checks to prevent armed conflict.

  Meanwhile he kept close with Ilisidi, intending to stay close until he understood at least the general outline of what was happening. Geigi was as much in the dark as he was, he caught that from what outsiders might not perceive as an expression. Geigi himself was taken aback by this, and Geigi was deeper than he was in Ilisidi’s confidence.

  Mercheson and secrets and Tabini’s silence figured in what was going on—he was sure of that. This was his looked-for answer from Tabini, and it was a potent answer.

  But, God, send Ilisidi off to the remote station for a look-around?

  Have her travel alone?

  She couldn’t speak to them. The ship’s crew couldn’t speak to her—except Jase. And Cajeiri had no place in a situation as fraught with danger as that. Was he supposed to babysit an atevi six-year-old?

  What in hell did Tabini think he had set up? And with whom? With Ramirez, with Ogun’s knowledge?

  “Dowager-ji,” he said, however, as blandly as if they were off to a garden walk, and showed Ilisidi and her party ahead down the corridor, leaving Ogun and Yolanda, Jase and Banichi behind—

  Where Jase could find out something, Bren earnestly, desperately, hoped.

  “On the ship, is it?” Bren asked, once they were clear of eavesdroppers.

  “Sidi-ji,” Lord Geigi said at the same time, “this is a reckless venture.”

  “Perhaps it is,” Ilisidi said. She had Geigi on the one hand and him on the other, Cajeiri safely in Cenedi’s hands at the moment. “But my grandson has taken this silly notion that nothing will do but that he know what happens in this far place, and he needs someone of sense, I suppose, to make a fair finding. A great inconvenience, I may say.”

  “A very hard journey, Sidi-ji,” Geigi said.

  And Bren: “This is no shuttle trip, aiji-ma. This is far, far more than that.”

  “Pish.” Ilisidi struck her cane on the decking twice in a step. “And a shuttle trip is far, far more than the inconvenient and uncomfortable airplane I use between here and Malguri. Everything is degree, is it not?”

  “The scale of this, aiji-ma,” Bren began. “If you please to—”

  “Pish, I say. It has to be done. Don’t complain for me, Bren-ji. You’re going.”

  His heart went on quite normally two beats. Skipped one, as he believed he had heard what he had heard and the import of it came home. “Go with you? I’ve heard no such thing, aiji-ma.”

  “You hear it now.”

  “Yes, aiji-ma.” There was, with official orders, only one thing to say, and he said it, calmly, with dignity, though he found breathing difficult.

  Go from star to star, into a situation—

  —this delicate?

  It made a certain terrible sense. But—

  “May I inquire, aiji-ma—I do trust the aiji knows your intention.”

  “And would you question my order, paidhi-ji?”

  “Certainly I must, aiji-ma, to leave a post Tabini-aiji…”

  “Ha!” The cane stamped the deck. “Constant as sunrise. My grandson knows, I say. And he sends you to see to matters. I’m to be in the party to provide the requisite authority.”

  “Then I shall go,” he said meekly. Scarcity of air made his head light. His hands were still cold from the foray into the cold. Now his whole body lost ground, inward chilling. “If I can arrange this with Ogun-aiji, who governs the ship, aiji-ma.”

  “All arranged,” Ilisidi said. “I have my baggage. I do suggest you pack quickly.”

  All arranged!

  He had to talk to Ogun. He had to talk to Jase. Jase was a fair representative of atevi and planetary interests with the ship’s command. Jase’s skills as an insider, able to deal with the ship authorities, the station authorities, the Pilots’ Guild—that was indispensable. Jase natively had all the information, and the cachet
as one of Taylor’s Children. In Ramirez’s intentions, he suspected—it was the other half of what Jase was born to do; and he couldn’t let decisions remove that asset from the mission.

  Tabini had clearly made his own arrangements.

  Tabini had been dealing—with Ramirez—through Yolanda—behind his back.

  He had a difficulty. He had a very great difficulty on his hands, if power was flowing into Yolanda’s hands.

  He had the aiji’s heir and a parcel of very different culture being dealt with by a novice. As well send Kate Shugart to negotiate—with the best will in the world, but no resources. No experience.

  “And I?” Geigi said. “And I, ’Sidi-ji?”

  “My pillar of resolution,” Ilisidi said, “the wellspring of my confidence. I shall see you privately. We have matters to discuss.”

  Geigi should meet with her. But he heard no word about the paidhi-aiji being privy to such a meeting—and in the rapidity with which events were moving, and in the dowager’s agenda Bren doubted there was a chink left for an objection, or any change in plans.

  At the last moment she might say—of course. Of course come with me. That had to happen. Surely.

  Jago was taking it all in: no need to brief her. He was relatively sure Banichi had heard, and he was certain beyond a doubt that Tano and Algini had picked it up through Jago’s equipment. They would be taking their orders through what he’d already said. They would be considering resources and making plans much as if they had overheard a casual order to run down to the planet for tea with the aiji. If he didn’t get a further briefing from the dowager, or if he did, the one thing certain was that planning was already in progress among his staff.

  But, God, what was Tabini thinking?

  Send an elderly lady to deal with the Guild?

  And what was Cajeiri doing here?

  A transfer to Geigi’s custody, it might be, leaving him on the station, a place of relative safety from assassination, where the boy might gain, instead of the antiquity of Malguri, the modernity of the cutting edge. That made a certain sense.

  But to ask Ilisidi, at her age, to make this kind of flight—

  He tried to calm himself—telling himself that the flight, however distant, was an ordinary operation of the ship, that the time it took, while measured in years, was measured in a year or so, not a decade, not a lifetime. Jase had traveled farther in his life. The ship was meant to do such things, and do them safely. It was routine for the ship.