Defender

  He had to think, was what Tabini expected of him. To keep the tempers on this ship in check he had to be neither-side and both-sides for at least this evening, examining everything, taking nothing for granted.

  He didn’t need a computer for that preparation. The tools he needed were inside himself: calm, and ice-cold, experienced analysis of motives.

  Those things, and complete, professional objectivity in his view of participants.

  There was a hard one. He didn’t like Sabin.

  And how was he going to keep everything restrained and reasonable at that table?

  He stowed his computer inside a locker where he knew it would be safe when down became down again. He had no intention of having a literal crash.

  Tabini hadn’t set him up on this mission with Ilisidi without the cachet to go with it. His staff answered the situation, and made him put on this coat and take up the authority.

  So that was what Jago and Narani and his whole staff had been saying when they scoured up starch and an iron? When only the best would do for Bren-paidhi?

  He was a reasonably smart mender-of-the-interface. It had only taken him a half an hour to figure it out.

  Near time to go down the hall and do his job.

  Near time for them to go down there and try to prevent the calamity that thus far was headed for them.

  His escort appeared in the door, Banichi and Jago in their court finery, shining silver and polished black leather. Their Guild remained efficient, while the lords rendered themselves incredibly baroque.

  “A moment, nadiin-ji,” Bren said, settling on one preliminary item. He was near a communications unit, in major points like the one he’d had on station, and he punched in the same authority he’d always contacted for people behind the ship-folk’s communications firewall. “C1?”

  “This is C1. Is this Mr. Cameron, on five?”

  “It is.” Clearly C1 had some indication where the call originated. “Contact Captain Graham. He has an appointment. Tell him call me regarding that.”

  There was a pause. It would be complete calamity, if Sabin decided at the last moment not to show, and to keep Jase incommunicado. More, if he was serving as diplomatic safety net, he had to avoid mistakes and missed appointments, and his heartbeat began a slow climb to panic as the silence on the other end stretched out longer than an ordinary transfer of communications.

  “Captain Graham is en route,” C1 reported, “and says he’ll see you in 5 B.”

  That was their sector. Thank God.

  “Thank you, C1.” He broke the connection and drifted gently toward his security.

  So things were on track, Sabin hadn’t thrown Jase in the brig yet, and the situation at least wouldn’t blow up before they even got started.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  « ^ »

  Cenedi had a security presence in the corridor, providing two men to open the door and admit them to the cabin designated as the dowager’s dining room. It was a matter of pride with a lordly household: on the world or here above, a lordly house managed its own doors, however strung out down a common corridor, and no one else touched said doors, or did so at their peril.

  It provided a homey, comfortable feeling, that formality, even if they were floating. Things were right, or at least more right than they had been a few hours ago.

  And Jase was coming. Thank God.

  The outer door shut. Cenedi met them inside, in a little alcove made by stretched fabric—very ingenious, Bren thought, separating the designated dining room. “Jase is on his way,” Bren said in passing, and reached out to anchor himself and not to bump into the curtain as he drifted in.

  There was a table; there were chairs. They were anchored quite firmly; and the dowager sat, or approximately sat, to welcome them, tucked into a chair and braced with pillows. She had that formidable cane in hand. By her, also tucked in with pillows, was Cajeiri, quite proper, considering; and beyond another fabric screen, the second doorway to the suite, which was, one was sure, the area from which dinner service would come.

  “Aiji-ma.” Bren launched himself from the wall with fair accuracy and grace, aiming himself toward what should be the seat next the dowager on her right. He grabbed it before he overshot, and the dowager graciously bade him to a seat.

  “There, there, will you care for a pillow, paidhi-aiji?”

  Staff had drifted in from that farther curtain, having pillows in hand.

  Pillows seemed a good idea, a clever way to wedge oneself in, and he accepted the amenity. The athletic young man immediately shot away toward the door—tracked by Cajeiri’s estimating, all-recording gaze, as every movement gained Cajeiri’s fascinated if erratic attention.

  “Jase is on his way, aiji-ma,” Bren said, tucking pillows snugly. “One hopes that Sabin-aiji is with him.”

  “One expects so,” Ilisidi said. Usually by now there was a drink service, if there were late arrivals; but just then, and to his relief, Cenedi opened the doors and admitted their two missing guests.

  A little delay at the door: Sabin hadn’t intended to leave her guard, but that matter was settled on a glance inside. Jase and Sabin both came drifting in, Jase assuring Sabin of the situation, that neither Cenedi nor Banichi and Jago would sit here.

  So bodyguards had their conviviality across the hall, or the corridor, or however they arranged it, in whatever area—a prime venue for exchanging informal intelligence and gossip, if it were associated houses, as it was not, in the captains’ case.

  But there would be no stint of food over there, to be sure.

  Jase indicated a seat of preference to Sabin, ceding that honor to his senior, when Ilisidi beckoned an invitation to them, and Sabin and Jase both sailed accurately into place, and into a chair.

  “A pillow?” Ilisidi inquired, the servant standing by to offer it, and Jase accepted.

  “Pillow,” Sabin muttered in mild disgust. Clearly this wasn’t the style of Sabin’s table, such as it might be, or however ship-folk managed under similar circumstances. But Sabin took it nonetheless, a nice, brocaded pillow, with fringe, and secured herself at the table.

  “Welcome, welcome,” Ilisidi said. “We appreciate that these are busy hours for the ship-aijiin.”

  Bren translated.

  “Damned busy,” Sabin said. Sabin had been scowling when she came through the door and hadn’t improved the expression since. Clearly her interview with Jase had been heated.

  “We held a conversation,” Jase said in Ragi, in the lowest possible whisper, “and the captain understands this is critically important, paidhi-aiji.”

  Passing information right across the table. In Ragi.

  “I have a statement,” Sabin said, jaw clenched. “At the appropriate time.”

  “A welcoming statement?” Bren asked.

  “Call it that. Ready?”

  “The ship-aiji wishes to make you welcome to the ship, aiji-ma,” Bren said.

  Ilisidi gave a modest wave of the hand.

  “You can tell the aiji’s grandmother that whatever arrangements Ramirez made were Ramirez’s arrangements. They’re not mine. I won’t renege on her being here, but I won’t tolerate your native types breaking our regulations or undertaking independent operations.”

  “Aiji-ma, the ship-aiji does not consider herself bound by Ramirez’s arrangements, and states strongly that while she will not disapprove your presence aboard, she does not favor it and wishes you not to initiate operations that may infringe regulations or startle ship’s officers.”

  “How elegant of her,” Ilisidi said and waggled fingers. “Say that whatever the custom on the ship, business at the table is not our custom. And since she has made a demand, broach the matter of that tape Jase wants.”

  “Aiji-ma.” This from Jase. “I beg you let me finesse that matter.”

  “You wish to translate, ship-aiji?” Ilisidi asked.

  “Jase,” Bren said, a caution, a strong caution—a plea on both knees, if there??
?d been an up or a down, for Jase to stay out of it, for the whole topic to wait.

  “Oh, serve the drinks, nadiin-ji,” Ilisidi said, losing interest in it all, and immediately a servant entered the room from behind the curtain, bearing a closed container. The servant flung the contents, startling them all with blue and red, yellow and orange and clear and amber globes that sailed all about the premises like so many moonlets on independent courses, to collide and carom and go on moving, sloshing liquid contents. Sabin stared in incredulity and looked alarmed, as if they’d loosed so many bombs. Cajeiri clapped his hands in glee.

  “Oh, mani, may we take them?”

  “The red or blue for you, young rascal of a grandson, indeed. Bren-ji, the clear or the yellow. Jase-ji, the yellow is your favorite. Let our guest suit herself.” She reached up and snared a fist-sized amber one on its way past, pulled out the recessed straw, and sipped.

  Bren reached obediently for a clear globe… the likes of which they had proposed to use on the shuttle, for emergencies. “Captain, the clear globes would be vodka. The yellow, vodka and juice. The others wouldn’t be safe for us.”

  Sabin picked a clear one, pulled her straw and drank. “Inventive.”

  “Sabin-aiji applauds the ingenuity of the service, aiji-ma.” This, as the staff loosed another volley of planetoids, these white and yellow, which drifted more slowly through their midst.

  One trusted the appetizer was safe. It was pureed, to fit through the straw, in internal sacs that collapsed, and sweet, and sour, and could be enjoyed in alternation, while one parked one’s drink—if not in orbit—at least in convenient proximity.

  “Delicious,” Bren said. “My compliments to the cook.” Sabin had made a cautious trial, but Jase took to his with evident pleasure.

  “Curious,” Sabin said dubiously.

  “Sabin-aiji views this as novel, aiji-ma.”

  “We are pleased,” Ilisidi said, the full-blown royal we, when one was far more modest. Modesty was rarely Ilisidi’s bent. “One hopes that our table will be the aiji’s frequent recourse. Do you favor the eggs, then, Jase-ji?”

  God, the minefield of royal we, self-deprecating one, and that damned familiar Jase-ji.

  Do you hear it, Jase? Do you understand how to answer? She tests your fluency.

  “Nand’ dowager,” Jase said with a little—a very little—nod of his head, “a great delicacy in space. I have so missed them.”

  Bang. Right back, dead on. Authoritative, lordly, dignified I, not we, not one, either—with no insult about it.

  Bren let go a pent breath.

  Sabin had, meanwhile, emptied her globe and reached for another.

  “What are these?” Sabin asked, forcing a total, appalled shift of viewpoint.

  Embryonic lizards hardly seemed a good answer for a ship-bound palate. “An organic delicacy, captain.”

  “Different,” Sabin said.

  “Translate, paidhiin-ji,” Ilisidi requested of them.

  “Sabin-aiji remarks on a novel taste,” Bren said. And added: “Ship-folk are quite restricted in palate, aiji-ma. She is experimenting with new things, not unfavorably.”

  A servant had to retrieve Cajeiri’s drink, and sailed it past him. Cajeiri dislodged an appetizer reaching for it, and accidentally fired the drink off at a tangent trying to recover the nudged globe.

  “Gently, gently, young man,” Ilisidi said. “Haste only startles what you wish to catch. Stalk your desires. Don’t snatch.”

  The servant had secured the escaped drink, and put it into Cajeiri’s hand.

  “Yes, mani,” Cajeiri said.

  “Learn, rascal!”

  “I do, mani.”

  “This is an exchange regarding the accident,” Bren murmured by way of translation. “The aiji’s son is, of course, inexperienced in zero-g.”

  “Still no place for a teenager,” Sabin muttered, and Bren masked startlement. Now that he realized it, the ship had never seemed to connect this child to Damiri’s fairly recent pregnancy, and on evidence of size, Sabin clearly had not a clue that the boy was six, not sixteen.

  “My definitive statement, among others,” Sabin said glumly. “But collective decision prevailed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Far too late to change that misperception, or to renegotiate personnel. They dared not let the captain find it out at this juncture.

  “I trust,” Sabin said, “there’s a watch on this boy.”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “Let me add another statement to the first: no atevi wandering about outside this section without contacting the bridge for permission, until further notice, and this young fellow stays on this deck, period, under any circumstances.”

  “Captain, I’ll happily relay that at the appropriate moment.”

  “Now, sir.”

  He tried to think whether to lie, or whether to proceed; but lying—had its own problems soon to appear. And things could only escalate. Ilisidi, at least, was calm. “Aiji-ma,” he said, “with personal apologies from the translator, the captain considers this urgent. She wishes us not to leave this section without direct contact with her, for a period of time that seems to be impermanent, one gathers until she’s more certain of us, and wishes you not to allow the heir to leave this section under any circumstances.”

  “This ship-aiji is very persistently rude, is she not? I never detected this in you, Jase-aiji. It can’t be custom.”

  “Aiji-ma,” Jase said, “this aiji is reputed for direct statement and attention to agriculture.”

  “Business,” Bren interposed, and Jase blushed.

  “To business,” Jase said. “Forgive me, aiji-ma.”

  A waggle of fingers. Ilisidi had emptied three of the white globes—empty ones sailed off to be captured and whisked out of sight—and she sent the third away.

  “We are not mentioning to the captain that Cajeiri is six,” Bren said. “She believes sixteen.”

  “Sixteen?” Cajeiri crowed, delighted.

  “Hush, rascal,” Ilisidi said.

  “It’s a convenient misunderstanding,” Bren said, “saving argument. And there would be argument about his presence otherwise, in a dangerous place. Human custom is against it.”

  “Do you hear?” Ilisidi said. “You must pretend ten more years, young scoundrel, to satisfy the ship-aiji’s expectations of your wisdom, your sense, and your self-restraint.”

  “I think the ship-aiji will suspect me,” Cajeiri said sadly, and the Ragi-speakers could not but laugh a little.

  “There’s a problem?” Sabin asked.

  “The boy regrets his youth,” Bren said. “And amuses his elders. I should urge you, now, captain, in the very strongest terms, to delay further business discussion. We’re now approaching the heart of the meal, which atevi hold entirely sacred. Particularly should there be a meat course, which may, under these circumstances, be soup… be most respectful of it.”

  “I don’t eat meat,” Sabin said.

  Sabin was pushing. Hard. Deliberately. And the translator limself was losing patience.

  “One will relay that, captain. —Aiji-ma, the ship-aiji reminds us of the customs of ship-dwellers, and requests all others enjoy the offering of the season, but she is unaccustomed, and requests exception.”

  “One has indeed remembered this intelligence,” Ilisidi said lightly. “Advise our guest that the sole white globe will be an offering for her taste.” This, as servants glided forth and very deftly, very respectfully, placed globes before each of them— four light gold, veined with steam between the plastic and the globe walls; and one white globe, with cold condensation, which the servant placed before Sabin.

  One… white globe.

  Oh, my God, Bren thought, just this least, small apprehension.

  “Aiji-ma,” he said, and received a short, swift gesture in reply.

  Should he defy that warning? Should he do something? Could he betray Jase, among other considerations?

  And should he open his mouth and h
ave security opposed to security and the whole mission aborted and the whole ship-human/planetary association come crashing around their ears—with Tabini’s son and grandmother up here in the very heart of the ship?

  He could keep his mouth shut, and trust Ilisidi to respect his honor, and play by the rules of the culture he’d devoted his life to preserving and advancing in good season—or he could assure a war.

  He looked straight at Ilisidi, who looked straight at him, not smugly, but in sober intent.

  “Not bad,” Sabin said, sampling the offering.

  Sabin, whose bodyguard, outside, in the company of his own, likely included Jenrette.

  “Jase-ji,” Bren said, resolved to tell Jase, knowing after all else he had been through with Jase, that frankness was the only safety. “One should be prepared. The ship-aiji has challenged the dowager. There will undoubtedly be adverse results.”

  “Aiji-ma,” Jase said, not, Bren thought guiltily—not having twigged to the source of the hazard. “One wishes, however inexpertly, to advance the cause of my senior, who is not a wicked woman, and who is accustomed to give orders for the sanity of the ship…”

  Safety of the ship, but it was within reason: Bren forebore a distracting correction.

  “If she has offended you, aiji-ma,” Jase said, “it was not intent to do so. Great respect for your authority has brought her at a very busy time.”

  “We accept that. Let her give us the tape. Ask her.”

  “Captain,” Jase said, on a deep, deep breath. “There would have been a tape record—covering the entry of personnel onto Reunion.”

  “What’s that to do with anything?”

  “The aiji would like to see that tape. It would be in the log. Wouldn’t it?”

  “What’s in the log or not is our business. When did this come up?”

  And is Sabin wearing a wire? Bren asked himself, calmly taking a sip of an excellent cream soup. And is it feeding to someone with at least rudimentary knowledge of Ragi?

  And are we in deep water already?

  God, what ought I to do?

  “It occurred to me,” Jase said, leaving Yolanda innocently out of it, “that if we had security aboard, electronics would have recorded that excursion aboard the station.”