Defender

  And there was actually very good sense in sending the aiji’s best negotiator, and backing him with the aiji’s personal representative, to settle what a diplomat might be able to settle. If the ship-folk had a weakness in negotiation, it was their blindness to outsiders, their gut-deep certainty that the whole universe was like themselves. The ship had already had that illusion shaken, in dealing with atevi: they were a great deal wiser now than they had been when they came into the solar system.

  But they weren’t the only humans at issue. The station-folk at Reunion likely thought foreignness described the ship’s crew, and that diplomacy and negotiation described an administrative meeting.

  Not to mention—not even to mention the Pilots’ Guild, which had been a thorn in the side of every colonial decision since the accident that sent the ship off its original mission— notorious in every legend of colonial operations since.

  And he was supposed to deal with that situation?

  Was, on the other hand, Jase going to deal with it alone? Or worse—Yolanda?

  Ilisidi had said something. He sweated. One didn’t ever ask’s the dowager to repeat herself.

  But he had to.

  “Aiji-ma? I was thinking on the necessities.”

  “Taken care of, I say. Pay attention, nand’ paidhi!”

  Pay attention. Pay attention. It meant everything. Use your wits. Use your resources. Hear what I’m saying and use your imagination.

  “I rarely admit to confusion, aiji-ma.” He knew her, at least. “Forgive me. This is an immense surprise.”

  “Surprised you indeed?” Ilisidi was not displeased by that notion.

  “Yet your quarters are ready,” he said, “aiji-ma, for at least brief stay in comfort. Once I heard the shuttle had launched, I said to myself, well, I should be ready.”

  “Very well managed,” she deigned to say, when he knew he had failed other marks—critical ones. “One expects it of such clever men.”

  As Jago opened the section door, admitting their party to a lifferent, warmer light, and more humidity.

  And a corridor within their own security.

  “Ramirez is dead,” Ilisidi said sharply, stopping just within the zone, the door shutting on the instant. “And this was anticipated. Ramirez-aiji knew he would not live to arrive at the remote station, and therefore made certain decisions: unity of one, that the ship-fueling must happen. Infelicitous two and transitional three, that the powers of the earth must be reckoned with. Precarious four, that the aijiin of the world must be admitted to plans. Stable five, that he must prepare a very difficult matter for other hands to deal with after his death. Prepare for change, nandiin. Geigi-ji. And you—” This with a thrust of the formidable cane toward Bren. “Your message is long since received, paidhi-aiji. And anticipated.

  “That Ramirez would die,” the dowager continued, “anticipated. That he would refuse medical help, anticipated. That he would likely do so before his aim was achieved, again, anticipated.”

  “There was no assassination, then.”

  Cajeiri’s eyes were wide, his face starkly apprehensive as he looked from one to the other. But the dowager was accustomed to such familiarity from the paidhi-aiji.

  “An old man’s choice,” Ilisidi said. “Fully his choice. He knew it was likely. So he broached the matter with my grandson, if one can believe that part of the account.”

  Approached Tabini without him. Tabini had, years since, understood far more of Mosphei’ than he ever admitted. And Ramirez had found his opportunity.

  “Among essential matters,” Ilisidi said, “my grandson demanded the new ship be under construction. I’m told that parts and pieces of it exist up here.”

  “You passed them while docking, aiji-ma.”

  A tap of the cane against the decking. “Ramirez wanted the original ship fueled, and this my grandson allowed, knowing Ramirez meant his successor to take the ship and do what he should have done in the first place: remove all inhabitants from the other station. This is essential to do. In the meantime,” the dowager said further, sharply as the crack of a whip, “in the meantime, nadiin-ji, my indolent grandson proposes to accelerate production, stir the island’s recalcitrant inhabitants to consider their own survival, and simultaneously hope for common sense in the hasdrawad, a wonder I shall regret missing, if it transpires. Mercheson-paidhi will become paidhi-aiji, as pleases my grandson. She will substitute at court and on the station, she and Kate-paidhi and Ben-paidhi… students, but adequate students, and Mercheson-paidhi has seemed adequate in these transactions. —Geigi-ji, my grandson has specific requests of you. You’ve become essential.”

  “ ’Sidi,” Geigi protested. “Stay? I should stay, while you go?” Geigi was not happy.

  “Do invite me in, nadi-ji.” The dowager made a slight gesture toward Geigi’s apartment, nearest.

  “Of course, aiji-ji.” Geigi motioned toward the doors, which his security hastened to open.

  “Good day to you, paidhi-ji.”

  She left. She simply walked in. He was not invited. Cenedi, sending the boy inside, shut the doors himself, shutting Ilsidi’s security inside with Geigi and his security, shutting them out in the process.

  There was nowhere to look but at Jago.

  “I am completely chagrined,” Jago said. “We were outmaneuvered, Bren-ji.”

  “I think we were all outmaneuvered,” he said. “Yolanda set this up. It must be. Ramirez’s agent.”

  “At his instigation, paidhi-ji. We can’t penetrate the aiji’s closed communications.”

  “Nor would I ask it, Jago-ji.” They were still outside their own quarters. “We should go home.”

  “Yes,” Jago said, and they walked down the corridor to the end, where Narani welcomed them, without any intimation of having heard.

  “Rani-ji,” Bren said, “I think we shall be taking a trip.”

  “I have heard so, nandi, at least, so Tano-ji just said.”

  That fast.

  “Pack for me.” He made a quick estimation. “For Banichi, Jago, and staff for us. Tano and Algini will manage here, as if we were simply on the planet. But we will need attendance.”

  “And provisions, nandi?”

  “Assuredly.” Years. Years, and the exigencies of atevi diet. They more than favored alkaloids: they needed a certain amount for good health. “We hope the dowager, who is going with us, has taken some note of our needs, Rani-ji, but we will need a very great amount of provision—I don’t know what we’re to do.” He tried not to allow distress into his voice, or his planning. “I suppose we can draw on station stores.” The number of workers aboard meant a backup supply of goods. “Furnishings. There are so many things, Rani-ji.”

  “For the ship,” Narani said.

  “You didn’t know.”

  “Not until Tano’s information, nandi, but we shall manage, never worry.”

  Never worry. A slight giddiness possessed him as he slipped aside into the security station with Jago. Tano and Algini were at their posts. Surely Banichi was completely aware.

  “We’ve been surprised,” Jago said immediately, in a low, reasonable voice. “We need to move quickly. Tano, Algini, you will maintain here. The dowager is surely prepared, but we’ll want our own gear.”

  “Yes,” Algini said, and entered something on his console— which might, for what Bren knew, communicate with the kitchen, or Geigi’s staff, or station supply.

  Tano was sending, too. He was surrounded by staff with immediate objectives: secure, pack, provide. What they needed to know was the numbers. Who was going? Who was staying? How many, how long?

  “Can Banichi talk to Jase?” he asked and, assured that Banichi could: “Ask him, in Ragi, nadi-ji, how long the trip, and how great the space allowable for us and for the dowager—and if he isn’t now aware of the dowager’s intentions to go on this voyage, make him aware, without setting objections in motion. Ogun seems to know the dowager’s intentions, but we don’t know how much he knows.”
>
  “Yes,” Jago said, and proceeded to speak to Banichi in a rapid Guild jargon that Bren only partially followed, and that only because he knew the content.

  There was a pause, in which Banichi perhaps spoke to Jase, or tracked him down.

  All arranged, Ilisidi had said.

  Ground… so to speak… was rapidly sliding out from under his feet.

  But Jago had a message for him. “Jase says Ogun-aiji has called an executive meeting and Jase urgently wishes your attendance, Bren-ji.”

  One wondered if Ogun had contacted Ilisidi—or if Yolanda was not now the primary contact in the information flow he had always managed solo, and if certain things Ramirez had arranged were flowing one to the next, under a dead man’s hand.

  Damn Yolanda. He hadn’t had to wonder about Tabini’s intentions for years; but for years, apparently, he definitely should have wondered. Ogun might not be in favor of Ilisidi’s arrival. Sabin surely wouldn’t be. And both of them trying to handle that situation through Yolanda—assuming, perhaps, that they could argue with the aiji-dowager and the aiji once publicly committed.

  Assumption, assumption, assumption—fastest way to lose a contest one assumed didn’t reasonably exist… and this wasn’t personal pride. It was global safety. Species survival.

  The alliance could blow up before Phoenix ever cleared the dock. The aishidi’tat, if thwarted, could bring matters to confrontation, with all the station’s supply at issue.

  “We’ll go,” he said to Jago. “Banichi should meet us there.”

  The game had changed beyond recognition. He had to gather up the overthrown pieces off the floor and get some order in his universe.

  Fast.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  Banichi waited to join them in the executive zone, in that stretch of station corridor where Phoenix’s officers maintained executive offices. The captains’ active presence was in plain evidence—the number of aides and security outside those offices, along the lighted row of potted plants—a number including Kaplan, Polano, and Jenrette, at the end of the corridor.

  Banichi, who’d followed it all by remote, didn’t say a thing as they met. Only a look passed between him and Jago.

  Our Bren’s gotten us into the worst mess yet, Bren imagined that glance to say.

  Had Banichi and Jago volunteered to be going where Tabini proposed to send them?

  Could sane planet-dwelling folk even contemplate what they were now supposed to do?

  The discontinuity of previous and future reality was so great it just made no sense to a reasonable brain, Bren thought to himself. He himself didn’t yet feel the total shock—hadn’t had time to feel much of anything but the pressure of a requisite series of urgent actions.

  And he hadn’t formed a position—in effect, since Tabini had spoken through other agencies, he found he didn’t have one, except that of a subordinate taking orders. And he wasn’t used to blind compliance. It didn’t feel right.

  “Mr. Cameron.” Jenrette opened a door and let them in, all three. The aiji and the captains had hammered out the inseparability of a lord and his bodyguard in less pressured times, and no one questioned, now, that Banichi and Jago should enter with him.

  Jase and Ogun and Sabin occupied three of the four seats at the end table—Ogun’s dark face as glum and sorrowful as it had been during the funeral, Sabin’s thin countenance set in the habit of perpetual disapproval. Yolanda was there, whether as staff or as interviewee. And Jase—

  Jase didn’t look happy at all—not happy to know that all he’d trained for was shifting, that was the first thing: Bren translated that from his own gut-feeling. Not happy to be dealing officially with Yolanda, either, Bren imagined—Yolanda was looking mostly at a handheld unit and not looking at anyone.

  The other two captains, Ogun and Sabin, couldn’t be happy about anything that had happened lately: not Ramirez’s death, not the duty that had just landed on their shoulders; not with the information that had suddenly hit the station corridors.

  And had Sabin even been in on the post-Tamun plans until Ramirez dropped dead and Ogun had to tell her? There was no way for an outsider to know exactly what had transpired between those two, or what the state of affairs might be. It didn’t look warm or friendly, and Jase’s expression gave him no warnings.

  “Mr. Cameron,” Ogun said. “I trust the dowager’s informed you of the situation, and the reason for her presence here. We’re not wholly content with it, but the aiji in Shejidan had an agreement with Captain Ramirez that’s come into play. It was bound to, once certain information reached the aiji—shall I spell out the terms of it?”

  Necessary to switch to ship-language. Necessary to switch to human thinking, to the captains’ thinking, in particular, which might figure that he held special information they needed.

  That might be true, if the aiji or the aiji-dowager were including him in their conferences. Perhaps he ought to say at the outset that they weren’t including him. Perhaps he ought to admit that he was in the dark.

  Pride trammeled up his tongue. And tangled up his thinking, which said, don’t state any change to be the truth until you know it’s true.

  “What the aiji intended me to know,” he said, “I knew. Apparently he wished me kept in the dark, captain, so I wouldn’t make decisions outside my arena of responsibility. It’s useful for you to know that, but it wouldn’t be correct to extrapolate while things are in flux. The dowager says I’m going with you.”

  “Are you?” Ogun’s tone was flat, but Bren judged that might have been a surprise to them.

  “Decision of the aiji. I’m forced to abide by it, sir.”

  “Decision of our brother captain,” Ogun said. Meaning Ramirez, who was dead and not available for argument. And Ogun was frustrated. “So the ship has you, and it has the dowager, and her staff.”

  “And it has mine, sir. I’ll have a staff with me.”

  Ogun remained thin-lipped. Disapproving. “Sealed orders, Mr. Cameron. Mine to deal with. But by their terms, by what Ramirez set out, in this mission when it might come, the aiji chooses his personnel and his risks.” Dared one think that the captains might have sneaked Phoenix out of dock without fulfilling Ramirez’s pledge to include atevi?

  Certain of the captains might have wanted to do that. Jase would have surely said, in that meeting, that that would guarantee very serious trouble.

  “We don’t know what situation we have at Reunion,” Ogun said. “We don’t know but that it’s gotten worse—we don’t know the aliens haven’t come back. We can’t communicate, not knowing who’s listening. We can’t guarantee they’ve got the fuel for us, out there. So we needed robot miners to refuel us out at Reunion in case the situation’s gotten far worse. And we couldn’t strip this station of robots, either. That’s solved.”

  Ginny’s robots.

  “We weren’t prepared to have the aiji’s grandmother as his agent. We’d asked, in fact, for you, or for his officer in charge of station operations. The word was—apparently—” A shift of the eyes toward Yolanda and back. Had communications been flowing freely even after Ramirez’ death, through her, and not him? Probably, he thought in distress. “—the word was apparently that the aiji wanted family to represent him. We’re concerned. We’re extremely concerned about the choice that’s turned up. What’s your opinion of this choice, Mr. Cameron?”

  “My opinion, sir, is that the aiji will do what he does. She has authority next to his. I understand that the travel itself isn’t that strenuous… I hope it isn’t.”

  “There’s some strain. She’s brought the aiji’s son, as I gather.”

  “Cajeiri. Yes, sir. In her care.” He dared not argue. It wasn’t his place to argue.

  “Captain Graham judges her health up to it.”

  “I’d defer to his judgement in that.”

  “He also says you can deal with Gran ’Sidi. That you’re an asset.”

  Better than I?
??ve been here, evidently.

  His own bitterness surprised him. And hurt feelings had no place. He jerked that reaction up short.

  “I’ll do what I can, sir.”

  “The fact is,” Ogun said, “we have an agreement for atevi and Mospheiran participation in the station and in the mission.”

  “Mospheira has its representative on this mission?”

  “Ms. Kroger.”

  Kroger. The ride up. The miraculous appearance of the robots… the President’s personal intervention in the production schedule.

  Dared one even think that Ramirez’s death was timed?

  Or self-selected…

  “Yes, sir,” Bren said.

  “We have an agreement,” Ogun said, “to maintain the station, to continue ship construction and training—and to provide for local shelters. Bomb shelters, Mr. Cameron, on the planet. To provision them. To contribute advanced materials to be sure there’s something left here if the situation goes to hell.”

  Bomb shelters. For the whole population?

  He thought of the Bujavid. Of the hallways of fragile porcelains and priceless work. Of the culture and civilization of two species. Thousands of years.

  And Malguri’s stone walls, reared against mecheita-riding invaders. Would there be bomb shelters to save what was there? The wi’itikiin on their cliffs—those delicate nesters, their hatchlings—the blue seas and bluegreen hills? Where were shelters for that?

  “The situation remains what it was,” Ogun said. “We don’t know how safe Reunion is, and we can’t risk communications to find out. Command considered an agreement to communicate in event of attack—or imminent destruction—but there was a general fear that if they did transmit, the enemy would know for certain to look for another site, and we don’t want them looking. That remains the decision. There’ll be no communication. If Phoenix gets into trouble—there’ll be no transmission. We’ll go there, get them to abandon the station and get out of there. That’s the mission. You’re along, Mr. Cameron, in case we encounter something other than the Guild. We take it you would be a resource.”