Still, the worst the seedier report had to say was,
The aliens could be looking this way at this very moment. The starship under construction is dependent on politicians for every bolt and panel. The legislature can debate day to dark, but the real threat is clearly out there…
They could have said far worse. The thread of trust was stretched very, very thin—but common sense prevailed. He took two antacids and drafted the most important letter of his career.
Aiji-ma, I stand in receipt of your letter and am honored by your personal favor.
As always, I will strive for the benefit of your household and the aishidi’tat, and all allies. I will do my best, aiji-ma. All information at my disposal makes me sure that the other station is under Pilots’ Guild authority. On evidence of past behavior of this Guild, I am determined that this Guild should by no means contact strangers in our name, and I will do all needful things to settle the situation in a stable fashion.
He was certain that Tabini knew what was happening in the ship, as he was certain Ilisidi was far from idle in her apartments. But he reported, all the same.
—Jase-paidhi has been appointed one of two aijiin to go with the ship. If only because the other captain must sleep, I believe he will periodically have real authority over the ship’s dealings, although he lacks technical skills and would by no means intervene in ship operations. I also predict he will not defy Sabin-aiji’s will except in demonstrable need, but he is not without intellectual resources and resources of authority, and I know he will be a valuable ally.
Ogun-aiji will remain here, as you may by now be aware, and I strongly urge, aiji-ma, that the aishidi’tat press forward in alliance with him in the building of the second ship, and the training of atevi personnel to manage it, as the most extreme priority.
Tabini who had had only rudimentary knowledge of his own solar system when he first came to power now had to understand the machinations of a human power at a remote station.
And he had to command and use a starship… considering the personally unwelcome prospect of losing Phoenix.
I have certain safety concerns regarding Mercheson-paidhi, who I understand will stand in my place, by your express invitation. I ask she also be allowed use of my apartment and all the resources of my staff in that service. They will save her duplicating my efforts in setting up and maintaining lines of communication.
Further, I am aware of certain areas where there may have been direct contact initiated by Ramirez, aiii-ma, and I am alarmed by the possibilities inherent in conversation unexamined for ambiguities. Mercheson seems a person of great competency and good will toward yourself and the aishidi’tat, and will perform honestly, I believe, but she is still a relative novice, not thoroughly conversant in court protocols and not as alert to nuance as she herself would wish.
I ask, therefore, that you yourself mediate where she is concerned, aiji-ma, no matter how provoked. I ask that you deal gently with Mercheson’s inexpertise and that you impose calm on all dealings that may result from error. The sane and good actions of reasonable individuals may still be misinterpreted, but the good will between Ogun and the aishidi’tat is too valuable to let fall, as I know that you are earnest in your desire to preserve all parties from needless harm.
For that reason I believe both Mercheson and Ogun-aiji may be in immediate danger from various persons and agencies ill-disposed toward the treaty. I have taken Mercheson into my quarters and advised her to stay there. I am at present unable to surround Ogun-aiji, but am seeking ways to protect him. I ask that their safety be assured without diminishing their independent authority, so that they may maintain their utmost value to the treaty association.
For the rest, aiji-ma, I cannot predict what I may find regarding the alien threat nor can I do so until I see what the situation may be at the remote station. I hope for the best outcome and will bend every effort to achieve peace.
I have no doubt of the aiji-dowager and thank you for approving her participation in this extraordinary venture.
I look forward to our next meeting, baji-naji, aiji-ma. Remote as I may be, I shall turn my mind often to your generosity and your many good deeds toward me, and hope to bring you favorable news.
It wasn’t a particularly brilliant letter. Humanly, he couldn’t write to an atevi lord what he felt at depth. Professionally, he couldn’t instruct the aiji how to deal with Mercheson in a single letter. Politically, he dared not say half he wished he could say: it was only a letter—and it might go astray.
He sent it the rounds of the staff. They praised it. Banichi and Jago would not flatter him, if it wasn’t adequate.
By then he’d made several assaults on familial letters—and erased them in despair.
And there was no word from Jase, none from the aiji-dowager.
Yolanda waked, having overslept her watch for two hours, and emerged, ribboned and braided, in court dress appropriate years ago—walked about as quietly as she could, but he called her in.
“Jase is out of contact,” he said. “Have you any means to call him?”
“I can go after him,” she said.
“I want you safe, Landa-ji. Can you call him? Can you call Polano, or Pressman, or anybody?”
“I know someone who can get to Pressman,” she said.
“Go try,” he said, not even caring what channels communication ran to at this point. “Tell him to call me.”
“Yes,” she said, and went out to the foyer, to their communications in the security station.
She clearly had some resources of her own. Inside fifteen minutes she came in with a portable communications unit, and contact.
“Jase,” he said.
“Bren.”
“You all right?”
“No problems. I was downtimed in the tank. Trying to absorb some of the schedule detail. It’s all right, Bren. Are you all right?”
“Going crazy here. I’m needing details of our accommodations. This came as a surprise to me.”
“No one’s contacted you.”
“I think it’s assumed I’m working through the dowager. This isn’t the case. I’ll be taking Banichi and Jago and four staff, felicitous seven, thank you, plus our foodstuffs, our furnishings, our belongings. What’s our limitations?”
“Nothing. None. You’ll be on deck five—they were going for four, and I explained there was no atevi going on deck four—”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll have five virtually to yourselves. It’s operational, the plumbing works, the lights all work, and there’s nothing on maintenance. That’s room enough to swallow everything you’ve got in the two residencies. You could take the whole staff if you chose that…”
“I’m leaving an establishment for Ms. Mercheson, who’s taking over duties here—who I think you know is here. Her service is at Tabini’s request. It’s not negotiable. She’s detached from crew, to the paidhi’s office. Is that going to be a problem?”
“No. That’s accepted.”
“I’d like to see you to go over some of this. Can we set a time?”
“Today?” Jase made the offer, the essential is-it-critical?
“When’s convenient?” He made the matching counter. Criticality’s your call.
“First off shift after undock. My breakfast. Your dinner.”
“Date.”
“You got a flood of mail, I noticed.” That meant: Is there anything wrong I need to know?
“Yes, yes: the news broke. I’m up to my ears in it.” It was all Mosphei’ and ship-language, nothing hidden, and everything hidden: they passed information the way they’d learned to do in the Bujavid, where every wall had ears, and most of all he took reassurance from Jase’s tone, and the simple fact that Jase was personally in touch. He knew about the tank. Jase had an immense amount to absorb; and he was utterly, terribly vulnerable when he did it. He wondered that Jase could find the courage, at the moment. “I’ll take care of it. As things stand, I’ll be packed in f
airly short order; I understand the dowager is packed—”
“Her gear is already boarded, along with some few personnel.”
“We’d better really get moving, then.”
“First watch tomorrow is soon enough. If you wait until fourth, you’ll be mixed in with crew boarding. Senior captain’s expressed a preference to have all non-crew on before the board-call goes out. We’re leaving people. There’ll be partings. We want to give them room.”
We. Jase had finally included himself among the captains, mentally. “Understood. We’ll make it. No problem. We’re packed fairly light, considering. If you need to contact me, don’t worry about the hour. —And if you just want to stop by before that for a sandwich, we do compare more than favorably with the crew lounge.”
Jase seemed to be amused: at least he skipped a beat, and since Jase’s sense of humor usually vanished under stress, that response was reassuring. “I’m sure. Take care. See you after undock—maybe before, but that’ll be on business.”
“See you,” he said, and gave the unit back to Yolanda. “He can’t get loose. But he seems all right.”
Yolanda had stayed and listened, with never a sign that he ought to extend the questioning.
“He seems fine,” she said. He trusted her instincts, at least on that issue. And his exchange with Jase—the sort they’d learned to make in Shejidan—was like old times, all the old signals, crisp on the uptake and easy in delivery. Jase was fine, at least as regarded his freedom and his safety now.
Jase was attempting to gain an expertise he’d hitherto dodged and defied. In no wise could he bring himself up to speed with this late start, but he could learn what was going on, what was routine and what wasn’t—if schedules meant the technical minutiae of ship-function, the things that should happen from undock to the moment they exited the solar system.
Jase wasn’t idle. He’d never thought it, but he began to understand what Jase seemed to be undertaking, finally—not wholly surrendering to Ramirez’s plan for him, no, he knew Jase’s stubborn self-will. Jase hadn’t given in. But Jase was far too clever to choose ignorance, either. Information came available to him, and Jase grabbed it while his feet were still—so to speak—on station decking, and before his range of choices diminished. Yolanda worried about his state of mind, and maybe a friend ought to worry about him battering himself against his own ignorance—but it was Jase: it was pure Jase, this headlong attack at a problem he could single out for his own.
Worry later, he thought. Right now Jase was doing things that made thorough sense to his longtime partner—if not the healthiest choice for a man who needed real sleep. There wasn’t much of that going on in his own apartment, either.
By supper, his staff adamantly, with a flourish, presented his favorite dishes, clearly determined that the paidhi should have a regular, sit-down meal and an hour-long hiatus in his problems.
After supper, better still, Narani reported their own packing complete, ready for boarding at any moment, while the ship-status showed 42% complete. The departure wasn’t moving on schedule, he was sure, and he hoped for a reprieve—any reprieve, from any source. Tabini saying, no, he didn’t have to go—that would do… though it wouldn’t happen, and it shouldn’t happen. There were worse things than going. Staying, while someone who’d make a mistake went in his place—that was worse.
He stayed up re-drafting letters until he knew he made no sense, and accidentally failed to store the right copies, three of them in a batch.
That was how things were going. He’d had two brandies, and sat staring at one of the pictures he’d chosen to take, thinking of camping on Mospheira’s north shore, and Toby’s yacht at anchor just off the cove.
Fire, fire on water, that night they’d fought off Deana Hanks’ hopes of a war, around the beached wreck of a boat.
They’d had some successes… the side of reason and interspecies sanity. They weren’t out of hope. They’d won the big ones.
But to this hour he’d utterly, wholly, failed his family. He didn’t have time left to do the things he needed to do, there wasn’t a relationship he had on the island that he hadn’t offended, and as things stood now, Barb had heard the news and learned he was on his way out of the solar system. He’d failed to send the letters he still had to send; he’d lost the draft, and his mother and his brother had to get the news the hard way.
So he had to get the letters written—again—not as good as they’d been before he lost the drafts, but the best he could.
On two brandies—he tried.
Dear Barb,
I have to thank you for your loyalty to my family, particularly in the last few years.
I can choose the right words for the job I do, but I never said the right things at the right time between us— maybe because I didn’t listen that well, maybe because I had too much of my attention elsewhere, and presumed too far… all of which is behind us at this point. We still rely on each other in ways in ways I have no right to ask—but knowing you’re where you are, where I can’t be, leaves me deeply in your debt. I hope, but have no right to ask, that you’ll shed some of the good advice you’ve given me on my brother and my mother.
I count on you, without a right or a claim, and I can only pile the debt higher. With more good memories than bad
—Bren.
He didn’t send, not immediately. He slipped it into an electronic folder to send when departure was imminent. The words finally came to him. The dam was broken.
Toby, by the time you read this you’ll know the situation, where I am and why I can’t be there. I can’t ask you to explain this one to Mother. I just want you to know I couldn’t have a better brother.
For your kids, for you and Jill… for all of you, I have to do this.
For all the rest of it,—
It was like writing a will. It might well be one. And he couldn’t dwell on the situation, or grieve over it—the job didn’t budget time for that.. It never had.
I wish you the life you need and deserve.
Maybe after this there’ll be time for me to pay you back at least a fraction of the favors I owe you. My fondest memory, the best human memory I have, is the sight of you at the rail of the old Molly yacht, sailing in to save our skins. That, and you and the kids on the beach. I didn’t get a family, except yours. I wish I’d been a better brother.
I wish everybody my best.
At very least—forgive me the bad bits and be sure I’m thinking of you often.
He knew he ought to edit it. He knew there were two brandies on all that correspondence.
Dammit, what more could he say or do?
His staff was still at work—Jago, who had slept no more than he had; Banichi who, also, a certain number of years ago, had not cared whether the sun circled the earth or the earth circled the sun—it was, Banichi had said, immaterial to his job.
He supposed in a certain sense it still was immaterial to Banichi.
He tried to achieve that calmness of soul.
He took a deep breath and transmitted.
* * *
Chapter 15
« ^ »
The ship, by morning, miraculously stood at 92%, which argued that elapsed-time had nothing to do with whatever the ship was doing.
With that, too, came a page of loading instructions for all the in-quarters equipment, instructions which—after the initial computer scan did the very rough translation—contained only minor glitches to send the staff into fits of laughter. Don’t have sex with inappropriate equipment was the absolute favorite, which looked immediately to become a salacious proverb in the household. Always be playful with officers ran a close second.
It was a profound relief to laugh—if the paidhi hadn’t a dire presentiment of a situation that might be all too frequent in Yolanda’s tenure—which perversely brought hysterical tears to his eyes. He wiped them, and tried to steady his nerves, especially when Yolanda exited her quarters to find out what the laughter was about.
&
nbsp; Handed the document in question, she looked at it. “Playful,” she said, frowning critically.
Good for her. She’d caught that one.
And blushed at the other. “Oh, dear.”
There was hope, Bren thought, and went off to the study to quiet his nerves. But there one of the servants gave him the routine message list.
Nothing from the planet. A vast, deep silence from that quarter.
Blocked again? It might well be. Tabini wouldn’t want a smoothly-running operation distracted.
The fact that he had family in trouble—that didn’t register, on an international scale. It didn’t possibly register. He tried not to feel anything, not worry, not anger, not frustration: leave it to Toby, leave it to Toby, leave it to Barb.
Assuming his letters had gotten to them.
And still rely on them—because they were who they were, and they didn’t need his advice, and it was only for their comfort that he wrote, not because they had to have a word from him. Wasn’t that the point? Wasn’t that what he had to rely on, ultimately?
He met briefly with the staff that would stay behind, Tano and Algini momentarily surrendering their posts to Jago. Narani attended to answer questions. The rest, those staying, were the youngest faces, including most of the female staff, the youngest over all—and given Yolanda within their care, Narani’s choice of the oldest of the women as chief of household seemed apt enough.
“Staff will come up from the world to assist at your request,” Bren told them. “If you request. In all points except courtesy to Mercheson-paidhi, you will still remain my staff, nadiin-ji, with senior authority over the premises, and I leave you a letter with my seal to make clear that you have that authority. You’ll watch over my property and the integrity of security here, under Tano and Algini, who will be the ultimate authority in that regard, reporting where they deem fit. Please be circumspect in your actions, stay generally to the section, and consult with security in technical matters. You will act for Narani, and you will stand firm here. Only the aiji’s own directives can override my orders. Not Lord Geigi’s will nor anyone else’s—not Ogun’s, not even the aiji-dowager’s staff— will take the place of my orders, and you will not consult other households except through Tano and Algini, who may use their discretion whether to take an order from those sources. Do you agree? Staff will obey senior security in matters remotely regarding security. Mercheson-paidhi will have reasonable authority in the house, but you may refuse an order long enough to consult with Tano and Algini as to that order’s safety.”