Sabin had half-emptied the globe, and took a drink of vodka besides.
“And of course you went straight to your atevi friends with that theory.”
“Friends, captain, can’t apply with atevi. But I assure you they’d think of it for themselves once they familiarized themselves with the ship’s general practices, and it wouldn’t be good to have them think of it before we’d said, and it wouldn’t be good to spring a surprise on them after we’re out there.”
“So of course you spilled it on your watch.”
“My watch is my watch, captain, and when I’m on the bridge I do my job. This is the best thing to do.”
The captain took another long drink of soup, one of those imposed silences, in which she needn’t speak, needn’t answer. It took the globe down to a quarter.
We’re in it now, Bren thought. And if she’d honestly be persuaded to reason, on her own, and we’ve done this…
“Mr. Cameron,” Sabin said, utterly redirecting to him, on the other side of the table, “what do you think?”
“I think the presentation of those tapes would be a gesture of good will.” He should say something. He should.
“I think I made my position clear. You’re passengers. Not command personnel. Evidently you’ve received a briefing from my brother captain. But this is an internal matter of ship’s records, and no more is forthcoming. You can convey that to the aiji’s grandmother.”
Or maybe not.
Cajeiri had lost a drink globe, and reached suddenly to retrieve it. Bren’s nerves jumped. Jase’s surely did. They were the only ones who might understand both sides of the conversation—give or take, Banichi, Jago, and the chance of one of Ilisidi’s young men understanding; and he didn’t put it past her limits. His advisors knew at least sketchy details, and hadn’t intervened, hadn’t given him a signal—nothing.
“I can’t urge enough,” Bren said, “that we are a resource to the ship, a well-disposed one, and it would be a very, very bad decision to breach agreements that brought her into this mission. Is that what I understand you’re doing?”
“Mr. Cameron, the Mospheiran delegate will be boarding about now. And I’m sure she has her expertise—hers happening to be technical, with the robots, and if things don’t go well, and possibly if they do, her expertise will have its moment. And at that time, with the thanks of us all, she will do her job. Now that is a useful talent. Exactly what the dowager does besides observe isn’t exactly clear to anyone, but she will be free to observe to her heart’s content. I’m sure it’s a useful talent, but it’s not one I need underfoot right now.”
Absolute reversal of agreements, Bren thought in dismay. He saw Jase’s distressed frown, and knew if he did translate, all hell would break loose.
“Surveillance and security, captain, and command-level decision-making equal to the ship, equal to the island. As for Jase’s expertise, and mine, finesse with those who think they’re going to have things their way, to assure that we don’t miscalculate and make a mutually regrettable mistake. I urge you, I strenuously urge you to cooperate with your allies, captain.”
The air was chill, even yet. But a sweat had broken out on Sabin’s face.
“Well, you haven’t persuaded me, Mr. Cameron. And I don’t need your aliens underfoot. So you’re not that good, are you?”
“Captain,” Jase interposed.
“No, no, no,” Bren said. He’d been horrified a moment ago. Now, heart and soul, he stood back from himself, took a sip of his yellow globe, and told himself it wasn’t at all human to be content with what he knew. Or it might be. And that somewhere in Sabin’s mind there was a serious difficulty with their program. “The captain’s quite right. We aren’t able to persuade her that there’s a difference between aliens out there, or people defending their planet. So let me propose that you and the senior captain view the tape together, and determine what’s on it, and then let us reach a reasonable decision.”
“Mr. Cameron,” Sabin said, “let me break some news to you. You don’t control what happens on this ship.”
“A modest proposal,” Bren said. While the sweat increased.
“It’s cold in here,” Sabin said suddenly, distracted. “Is this the temperature your people prefer?”
“It doesn’t seem cold to me,” Bren said. “—Does it to you, Jase?”
Jase threw him a look. It became a stark, a comprehending look.“Face!” Bren said in Ragi. And Jase did what Jase, over years on the planet, had learned to do, and totally dismissed expression.
“Aiji-ma,” Jase protested. “Bren.”
“Aiji-ma,” Bren said evenly. “Jase-aiji expresses grave concern for this accident. As do we both. And most earnestly assume it isn’t lethal.”
“The tapes,” Ilisidi said. The dreaded cane had been at rest. Now she banged it hard against a table leg. “The tapes, nadiin-ji.”
Sabin attempted to leave her place, to drift free, not quite in control of her limbs. Cajeiri froze in place, young creature in a thicket, as Jase sailed free of his chair to overtake Sabin, to seize her in his arms.
Bren pushed free as well.
“I’ve been poisoned,” Sabin said. “Damn you!”
“Not lethal,” Bren said to Jase in Ragi. He wasn’t that utterly confident, but he said, in ship-speak. “I fear it’s a reaction to something you ate, captain. The sauces. The sauces can be particularly chancy.” Sabin was passing into shivering tremors, angry and incoherent in the chattering of her jaw. “Not generally fatal. It happened to me, once.” On purpose. At the dowager’s table. For just such reasons. “I’m very sorry.”
Sabin reached for her communications unit, but her fingers had trouble with the button.
Jase took it, about to use it himself, but Bren shot out a hand onto Jase’s and prevented that.
“You’re in charge,” he said to Jase in Ragi. “Not likely fatal, nadi, believe me. But you and I and our security are all going up there, to attend her to sickbay.”
“We can’t have done this!”
“Insulting the dowager at her own table? You can’t have done that, either—which I assure you is far more dangerous to the peace than the soup. Disabling the opposition is a moderate response, a limited demonstration, in this case.”
“Demonstration, hell! Not likely fatal. You don’t know that. She’s not young. She could die.”
“Then stop talking and let’s get her up there to the medics.”
“Your agents going all over the ship—” Jase tried for composure, and Sabin had by now fallen into a tremulous semi-consciousness. “Damn you,” Jase said hoarsely. “Damn you, Bren. I trusted you.”
“You can trust me,” Bren said. “Move. Fluids are going to be a very good idea, very soon now.”
They were floating mostly above the dining-table. Ilisidi had drifted up, dislodging a stray drink-globe, formidable cane in hand. Cajeiri followed, very, very cautiously, eyes completely wide.
Somehow, meanwhile, Cenedi had arrived from the serving-room, the back way—Cenedi, and then Banichi, together: a number usually unfortunate, but it was a pacifying unity here, with lords at loggerheads.
Perhaps even a human returned to ship-loyalties could feel that shift in the odds.
“She isn’t Tamun,” Jase said. “She pulled back from the coup.”
“That’s all very well. You changed the agreements, you wanted us confined to quarters, you started imposing conditions on the atevi representation on this mission, conditions I’m not sure would be quite as extreme on our still-to-board human delegates—”
“That’s your suspicion, Bren.”
“I’m afraid it is. But the odds have shifted. You know what’s at stake. She’s not dead. She’s in reach of medical care you’re keeping her from, nadi, and I’d suggest we get moving right now, no conditions, no maneuvers on your side. Let’s see she stays alive, nadi, before we have the association blow up in our faces.”
“All right,” Jase said in ship-speak. “
All right.”
“One recommends fluids,” the dowager said, “a great deal of fluids, very soon. A blanket, for wrapping. Quickly now.”
Servants moved.
“We shall visit our guest,” Ilisidi declared. “We are of course distressed.”
“Let’s go,” Bren said. “Your security’s outside. Calm them. I’ll go with you. We won’t let this break wide open, Jase.”
“You’re not taking this ship.” This, in ship-speak.
“I earnestly hope not.” And in Ragi: “We’re sitting here at dock, we haven’t gone anywhere, and I’m not letting you pull this ship out of dock with the dowager and Tabini’s son aboard until we have some kind of cooperation and until the dowager is satisfied. Atevi act for their own interests, and it’s their planet, their sunlight you’ve been borrowing. If you want admission, Jase Graham, negotiate, because the way Sabin-aiji’s gone at it is shaping up to a disaster.”
The servant had come back with a wrap, a wonderfully hand-worked piece, no common woven sheet; and very tenderly that young man helped Jase wrap the shivering captain in its tightly confining embrace—far easier on the captain, far more comforting than a hand-grip. “Get the light out of her eyes,” Bren said, tucking a fold across Sabin’s brow. His own gut recalled the misery, and he had every sympathy for what Sabin was about to endure. “Captain. We’re getting you upstairs. Do you hear me? Hang on. This was surely an accident, an unfortunate accident.”
With Jase he moved Sabin toward the door. Jago was outside. So were Kaplan and Pressman, and so was Collins, Sabin’s man, with his team.
“The captain’s reacted to something at dinner,” Jase said. “Mr. Kaplan, alert the infirmary.”
The dowager followed, with Cajeiri trailing close, the very image of the concerned host, servants adding a cloak to the dowager’s formal attire.
“You’ll stay here,” Collins said to them, as if Jase were one of the passengers.
That, Bren thought, was a tactical mistake.
“Mister,” Jase said, “they’re going where I say they’re going. That’s up to the infirmary, where we can pass information to the medics.”
“Cenedi-ji,” Ilisidi said. “Have the area secure.”
They moved. Cenedi and four men attended the dowager and Cajeiri. “Banichi-ji,” Bren said, intent on going with them, and Banichi and Jago opted to leave security to Cenedi’s men.
That added up to nine atevi, seven of them very large indeed—a boy and the dowager, and a handful of worried human security, with Jase and Sabin—Sabin being still conscious, but quite, quite beyond coherent expression.
They reached the lift together. “Second deck, Mr. Kaplan,” Jase said, and Kaplan punched it in, Sabin’s security crowded in with them so that there was very little space left at all.
The lift shot up, opened its door onto pervisible walls and a waiting escort in blue and white, medics who received the captain in greatest haste and concern and wanted to eject them all back into the lift in the process.
“The dowager expresses great concern for the captain’s welfare and will attend,” Bren said. “Such incidents happen with native diet—rare, but they do happen. Her staff has a pharmacopeia of remedies.”
“We have our own expertise,” the chief medic said. “Captain.”
“The dowager does know what was administered,” Jase said, with no trace of irony or anger about it. “Mr. Cameron can translate. —What will you recommend, nand’ dowager?”
“A purgative,” Ilisidi said. “A strong purgative. The body will continue to throw it off in every possible way, and administration of fluids will be very helpful.”
Bren translated. “Purge the system. Get her to a small, dark room. I’ve suffered a similar situation. Fluids will help the headache. I assure you there will be headache. Severe headache.”
For the next several days. He didn’t mention that. Sabin would want to kill them by degrees. And wouldn’t want to see bright lights or raise her head above horizontal—however that worked in zero-g.
“This is Captain Graham.” Jase’s voice came over the general address, and from Jase, in stereo, via C1’s offices, Bren had no doubt. “Captain Sabin has had a food reaction, and is recovering in sickbay, full recovery expected. We’re close to shift-change. It’s become my watch, and first-shift may stand down as relief arrives. Second-shift, report to duty immediately.”
Sabin began to try to speak when she heard that, and was, predictably, suffering nausea. Medics, atevi security and human, moved to assist. In zero-g, it was not a happy situation.
“Atevi personnel will move about freely during crew and passenger boarding,” Jase continued on the intercom. “Report any question to me via C1.”
A hovering grandmother, a vitally important child with security attendant, a handworked and expensive cloth—none of these were the ship’s image of a coup, Bren hoped. It would hardly be the image of such an event in Shejidan, if one didn’t intimately know the chief participant.
They’d rescued the precious throw and substituted infirmary disposables. And Sabin was both semi-conscious and miserable.
“We shall stay personally and assure ourselves that the captain is well, nadiin-ji,” Ilisidi said. “We have antidotes, which I have ordered be at hand during any dinner.”
“Aiji-ma, in case there should be any fatal outcome, one would hardly wish to have supplied a drug—”
“Translate!” Ilisidi said. Bren translated, and subsequently accepted a vial from one of Ilisidi’s young men.
“This may be of use,” Bren added, passing it to a medical officer, hoping to very heaven it might not be a fatal dose. “To be taken by mouth.” He knew this one. “The dowager’s medic provides it, out of years of experience with such accidents. It should be minor, except the headache. These are complex substances. I advise taking this remedy.”
“It should be safe.” Jase said at his shoulder, and in Ragi. ‘Stay here, Bren-ji, and keep matters quiet. Don’t have it look worse than it is. I’m going to the bridge.”
“There will be time to discuss,” Ilisidi said, silk and steel, with a tender smile, “ship-aiji.”
Jase didn’t say a thing. Ship-aiji. She’d just made him that, in very fact.
Ogun hadn’t necessarily wanted Jase here. Now he was. Now he was in charge, with power to abort or delay the mission. Ogun hadn’t necessarily wanted Sabin in charge of the mission, either—hadn’t liked her, and possibly hadn’t trusted her associations, to put it in Ragi.
Possibly far too many of his thoughts came in Ragi these days; but he believed in what he saw. He believed that, all evidence accounted, Sabin was a potential asset, only a potential one, and that things trembled on the brink of very bad mistakes.
He saw Jase board the lift, taking Sabin’s men out with him, leaving Kaplan.
Very bad mistakes. Which couldn’t be allowed to happen. He intended to go inside the treatment room, but Ilisidi and her escort came, and they crowded into the room to the evident distress of the medics.
“There’s limited room here,” the chief medic said angrily. “Sir, if you’ll persuade them outside…”
“This is ’Sidi-ji.” The crew knew the dowager, knew her manner—and respected her. “I doubt I can. We’re here to see the antidote given. She feels personally responsible, and it’s a matter of honor.”
“We’ve no intention of giving the captain another unidentified alien substance…”
“You’re the aliens, sir, by way of precise accuracy, and I do urge the dowager has a far more exact knowledge of native chemistry. This is a medication I’ve had, and if I didn’t think it would ease the symptoms I’d never urge it. —Captain? You’re offered an antidote. I’ll vouch for it, on my personal honor. I’ve had such an incident myself.”
Sabin was just conscious enough, and she’d had it on far more alcohol and a far better cushion of previous dishes: the one might accelerate, the other cushion the effects of the substance, and for all his
assurances to the doctors, Ilisidi hadn’t had that extended an experience at poisoning humans.
“At this point,” Sabin said, teeth chattering, eyes clenched rapidly after one second’s attempt to look him in the eye, “at this point, hell, it can’t be worse.”
It could.
“Captain,” the doctor said.
“I said it can’t be worse!” Shouting was not a good idea. Not at all a good idea.
“Just let her drink it,” Bren said. “Hang onto it as long as possible, captain.” Sabin’s heaving stomach knew exactly what he meant.
“Give it,” Sabin said.
Clearly the medics weren’t in favor of native medicines. But one uncapped the vial and offered it, stoppered with a gloved thumb.
Sabin sucked the black liquid down between shivers.
“I don’t know whether it would help or hurt to get gravity aboard,” Bren said. “At least dim the lights in here.”
“Listen to him!” Sabin said. “He’s the only one who knows anything!”
The headache had hit. It was probably a good thing. They were pumping fluids in via a tube.
The attendance of atevi had taken position not just in the corner, but stacked rather as if seated in a theater, a black and brocade wall of watchers, Banichi and Jago among the foremost, Cajeiri’s solemn young eyes staring amazedly at the goings-on.
Things settled. Sabin drifted with her eyes shut, medics monitoring, making notations, conferring in low voices among themselves. Bren watched, having learned in his mother’s crises and in a precarious lifetime somewhat to interpret what he heard, which at least indicated to him that vital signs were solid. Sabin’s pulse was racing—he remembered that effect— but not badly so. It went right along with the headache, which by Sabin’s determined, jaw-clenched quiet was indeed what Sabin was feeling.
“Poisoned,” Sabin said during one of her moments of lucidity. “Damn, I knew it.”
“Yet you came to dinner,” Bren said, from his vantage near the troubled medics. “You were willing to risk it. And it may have happened completely inadvertently.” He much doubted that. “The dowager is here, captain. She is concerned for your welfare, and at this moment you might ask her for high favors, to make amends. She is, I’m sure, very willing to make amends… to make peace.”