Ilisidi’s mouth drew down in wicked satisfaction. “Return the compliment, paidhi.”
“Captain, she says you’re a right damn bastard, too.”
Sabin almost laughed, winced, and grabbed her head with a hand that shook like palsy. “God.”
“Hurts. I know. I’m sorry.”
“Damn your ‘sorry.’ Tell the dowager she can wander all over the deck and into the reaction chamber for all I care. What’s Graham up to, up there right now? Going through files?”
“I think he might be asking questions.”
“Of Jenrette.”
“Among other actions. I know for a fact, captain, that he’d shoot me before he’d take an action that endangered this ship. Let’s lay suspicions out in plain sight. He lived onworld with us for a number of years, he understands us, and his understanding of us has led him to do what he’s done. Frankly, he in no way anticipated what happened at the aiji’s table. He rather planned to invade the files by subterfuge and try to find out the truth without embarrassing you. And maybe just to ask Jenrette some direct questions… if you didn’t assassinate Jenrette.”
Blink.
“People have been assassinated in this affair,” Bren said. “Not least of our suspicions—Ramirez.”
Blink-blink. “Not unless you did it.”
“You suspected us? We suspected you.”
“Did you do it?”
“No. I investigated, and my staff investigated. No.”
“That’s constructive.” Pain made Sabin shield her eyes and breathe heavily for a moment. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Cameron. Let’s just assume this voyage is going to take place. Let’s assume we can even proceed on schedule. I’m not looking forward to acceleration until this headache stops, but we all have our inconveniences. Did you tell the dowager she’s a bitch?”
“Bastard, ma’am, and she called you one.”
“Good. We understand each other. How long does this headache last?”
“A few days. I hope less, with human-specific medication, all the facilities here…”
“Days.” Sabin winced.
“There are a few native antidotes… at least things that help. But I think the medical staff can do more for you than…”
“Hell. Tell Graham get this ragtag settled into cabins, secure the ship and get the pilot on advisement. Tell Graham I’ll see him when he’s got a moment and don’t push any buttons up there.”
“Captain Sabin.” He was, on the one hand, amazed. On the other—still suspicious. Years in Shejidan had all his nerves atwitch. And gave him the sure instinct to take what the captain offered and look it over very, very carefully. “I’ll certainly pass that message. But we waited all this time. Your comfort—”
“Is not an issue, Mr. Cameron.” Incredibly, she lifted her head and struggled up on an elbow. Bren put out his hands to catch her, knowing at gut level the giddy spin that effort created. But she stayed tremulously steady. “Get the hell out of here and tell Graham move the ship. Now, hear me?”
She sank back. A medic crowded in to check the tubes and the vitals.
“Aiji-ma,” Bren said, “she accepts explanations and orders the mission to proceed. She wishes us to go to quarters and leave Jase-aiji in charge of the ship’s operations.” He said it, and his Shejidan-experienced mind urged caution. “One might, however, provide atevi security.”
Ilisidi’s eyes sparkled. “Here, and with Jase-aiji.”
“One concurs.”
It was a peculiar difference dealing with humans, that one understood there was the possibility of an association with Sabin—and yet, among atevi, there would be an aiji ultimately in charge of that association. Where in all reason did they find someone to be in charge of this one, since neither Ilisidi nor Sabin admitted an overlord?
One had the thoroughly uncomfortable notion that the paidhiin glued it all together, and that Sabin didn’t forgive what Ilisidi had done, and Ilisidi didn’t forgive the insults at her table, and they had Cajeiri looking nervously from one participant to the other in an atevi child’s honest bewilderment. His instincts surely said this shouldn’t work and adults surely weren’t telling the truth.
But that was the whole problem with the atevi/human interface, and that was the problem with educating children of both species to get along without touching one another’s aggressive instincts. And that was the problem of a ship-culture that had a strong feeling of us and them and went armed to the teeth. Letting atevi under the ship’s armor was a hard, hard thing to do.
And just as well, if they had current ability to move about, that they move into the most sensitive areas and make the point they could do so without harm.
“The dowager wishes you a speedy recovery,” Bren said to Sabin, saying nothing about the movement of atevi personnel. “She accepts.”
“The captain of this ship wishes her in hell,” Sabin said dourly, holding a hand over her eyes, and the chief translator foresaw a very, very difficult duty on this ship. “Get me communication with the bridge. Not you. Kaplan.”
Kaplan threw a glance at Bren. Bren tried simultaneously to say go ahead and to look as if he wasn’t anywhere in the loop.
“Good you’re here,” Bren said to Ginny with a touch on the arm. “Want to drop by my quarters when you’re settled? Bring yourself up to speed?”
“That’s in the atevi section.”
“Atevi, Mospheiran… we’re all deck five. It’s going to be close quarters. We’re going to need to secure for motion, imminently, I think. When it’s stopped—when we’re inertial again—” He struggled to revise his earthbound thinking. “Drop by for drinks. Or I’ll come to you. I’ll present you to the dowager.”
“Deal,” Ginny said, and turned and took her own escort out of the crowded compartment. The dowager signaled her intention to depart.
Sabin was talking to someone, presumably Jase, on her personal com, hand over her eyes, wincing.
It seemed time to depart. Bren joined the atevi contingent on the way out.
“One will remain on watch, nandi,” Jago said as they rubbed elbows in the doorway—feet on the deck, the whole world restored to ordinary.
Jago meant that she took this post, here, by the infirmary… logical choice. She would stand here claiming not to know a word of human language, in which she had a fair fluency.
There had been quiet words passed among atevi all the while he’d been talking to Jase and Sabin: bet that there’d been communications traffic and agents spread out through the ship, all of whom now formed an atevi network of presence. There always was, when an atevi lord moved into an area.
And Jase himself was an atevi interest. Absolutely he was under the dowager’s guard, seen or unseen.
“One agrees, Jago-ji.”
Banichi stayed with him. Jago stayed behind.
They reached the lift and rode it toward five-deck with the dowager’s entire party, and with Ginny Kroger and her crew. No one spoke. The dowager leaned on her cane with both hands, vastly content.
They reached fifth deck.
The door opened.
“Bren-nadi.” The intercom in the lift-car, right in his face, scared him.
“Jase-ji?”
“Will you mind coming up here?”
He drew a deep breath.
It wasn’t over.
The dowager meanwhile had left the car, with young Cajeiri. Ginny Kroger and her crew debarked. Cenedi held the door open.
“I’m requested to come to the bridge, aiji-ma,” Bren said.
“Escort him,” Ilisidi said, and Cenedi with a rapid gesture detached two men.
Two. Infelicity. Unless one counted Jase.
“Need help?” Ginny asked, from outside the doors.
“No. Questions from Jase, likely. I’ll give you a report. —Aiji-ma.” One owed last, parting courtesies to the highest rank present. “I’ll report.”
“Go,” Ilisidi said. The pair of men got in. Cenedi got out.
Th
e door shut.
“Do you know what this regards, Bren-ji?” Banichi asked him.
“One isn’t sure,” he said. His mind conjured a dozen scenarios, most disastrous—even the bridge being held at gunpoint by Sabin loyalists. “I don’t think it’s a trap, nadi-ji. I think it’s Jase.”
* * *
Chapter 18
« ^
There was indeed an atevi presence on the bridge when the lift let them out—two men, felicitous three, counting Jase, the object of their protection: a better counter, perhaps, could have predicted it, with their infelicitous four.
Exceedingly fortunate seven. One wasn’t inclined to count the number of humans on the bridge, technicians and operations chiefs, and security… but Bren did. They were outnumbered, if not outgunned.
Jase stood amid the rows of consoles, reserved, serene, among crew at work. And spared him a glance.
“All quiet?” Bren asked in ship-speak, precisely because there were eavesdroppers.
“Quiet here,” Jase said. “How is Captain Sabin?”
“Strong-minded.”
Jase quirked an eyebrow.
“In favor of the mission,” Bren amended that. “Anxious to see it underway.”
“We have section chiefs going through the corridors now, final check on stowage.”
“It’s the pilot that does this, isn’t it? All the technicals. I’ll assume things will work.”
“They’ll work,” Jase said. And shot him a less cheerful look. “Clear operations with me or with Captain Sabin. No installations we don’t know about. And where I don’t know the risks, I’ll have one of the technical staff pass on it.”
“Understood. We remember how humans got to this star in the first place. We’ve no desire to foul up navigation.”
“You understand. I want to be sure your staff does. I want to be sure the dowager understands us.”
“I’ll attend to that.”
“Do. —Banichi-ji.”
“Nandi.”
“There’s hazard in moving about the corridors. Understand that, nadi-ji.”
“One understands, nandi.”
“There may be hard feelings. And suspicion, nadi. Very deep suspicion.”
“There’s something about being that sick, among strangers,” Bren said in Ragi, “that makes one re-evaluate the world.”
“I don’t count on it,” Jase said bluntly. And in ship-speak: “Mr. Hammond, take over while I make sure our guests reach five-deck.”
Not the deepest cover they could imagine, but Jase put a hand on Bren’s back and walked him to the lift, his bodyguard ittending.
Jase punched five, inside. The doors shut between them and the bridge. The lift started into motion.
“Tell me this one,” Jase said. “Did you know?”
“I didn’t. I honestly didn’t. I don’t think it was sure until it went difficult at the table.”
“Dammit, Bren.”
“Dammit, indeed. But she and the dowager exchanged frank words. Very frank words. There may be communication.”
“We’re going out there in the deep dark with no agreement. With everything in flux.”
“Not wholly our doing. This limiting the dowager to fifth deck. This niggling away at the agreements started long before the dowager even came up to the station.” The lift reached bottom. The door opened. They couldn’t delay in conversation without provoking human suspicions. “You know Ramirez expanded agreements: you know he expanded them and you know he pushed, and you know the danger in that. He pushed Tabini into haste, and when he died, damned right we had an emergency. We had a council of captains without a useful clue attempting to change pace on the course we’d been following breakneck for years, all on human promises—”
“It doesn’t give you leave—”
“Not excluding Sabin all along being outvoted by the Ramirez-Ogun combination and Ramirez putting you in. That’s going to be with us. No, I don’t trust her, Jase-nadi. I don’t see a woman who’s open to strangeness, not now, not yet. I see a woman who shouldn’t be in charge of foreign contact, and yet that’s where she’s ended, and you and I know we’re in trouble.”
“This is our household,” Jase said in a shaken voice. “Do you get that, Bren? I’m willing to take an office I don’t want and try to make things work in non-technicals, in the things I can do. And hereafter—I may speak the language, but man’chi is to the ship.”
“You know how to sit in a two-species meeting and get out of it with a civilized agreement. That’s the point, Jase. That’s the very point.”
“We can’t have another incident like this.”
“I expect the dowager will invite Sabin back to dinner.”
“I expect Sabin will invite the dowager first.”
That, in fact, seemed very likely. “We’re going to have our hands full, Jase-paidhi.”
“I’ll get that tape,” Jase said, and reached for the lift control panel. “Out. Takehold’s going in effect in short order. I’ve got to drop by and talk to Sabin.”
“Luck,” he said, and got out, with his escort. Cenedi had a man on watch by the lift—a precaution. “Understand—no more restriction of our movements.”
“None,” Jase said. “Not on my watch.”
The door shut. The lift departed.
Bren cast a glance to the borrowed escort. “They stand ready to move the ship, nadiin. I send you to the dowager, with thanks. —Banichi.”
Banichi walked with him. The escort walked behind.
“Jago should come back down, to ride through this with us,” Bren said. Maybe it wasn’t wise, but things were about to change on a large scale. They were about to do something his gut insisted was dangerous—even if it was only getting up to speed, to clear the vicinity of the only world he’d known—and he wanted all the people he cherished safe and taken care of.
“I’ll pass that order,” Banichi said.
“Sabin should be safe. Her own people will see to her.”
“One hopes, Bren-ji.”
They walked down the curve of the corridor, past the dowager’s guarded door—two men there; and that place absorbed their escort.
They reached that area of hall that was the paidhi’s establishment—his own quarters. Doors were all shut.
Banichi spoke to Narani on his personal communications, and the door very quickly whisked open on a room vastly changed since the explosion of baggage.
There was order. There was his bed, freed of baggage, lid own, sparklingly modern.
It wasn’t Mospheira, it wasn’t Shejidan: it was modern, it was stark, spartan, and scary. He almost wished for the clutter, he very much wished for the halls of the Bujavid, those halls where every carpet was hand-worked, antique, convolute in design; where draperies had one pattern and half a dozen vases of carefully selected flowers had another.
But there, right above his desk, in strong light, hung three globes—like Ilisidi’s banquet globes, transparent, and containing green leaves—growing leaves, he discovered, and then recognized them. Fortunate three. Living plants.
Bindanda had had a hand in this, he was quite sure. Had he not given Bindanda Sandra Johnson’s cuttings to establish?
And here they were, green, growing, an oasis, Bindanda’s little secret. He’d entirely forgotten. Some sort of medium, a hole to let the vines trail out—there being only a leaf-tip at the moment.
He’d never suspected Tatiseigi’s spy of such kind sentiment. “Bindanda offers these,” Narani said. “They’re just rooted. Would you care for tea before the ship moves, paidhi-ji?”
There were atevi established here. Of course, silly thought, be very sure there was tea, it was hot, and it could just be delivered before the warning siren.
He sat in the reclining chair, sipped his tea in a disposable cup while staff hurried about.
Jago appeared, right with the siren, on her way through to the quarters she shared with Banichi.
“Don’t take such chances, Jago-j
i!” he begged her. “Kindly be earlier.”
“One hears, nadi.” Jago wasn’t inclined to argue.
And would do exactly as she had to do, he was quite sure.
“How does Sabin fare?” he asked.
“Asleep, one believes, nadi.”
A verbal warning, over the intercom: Jase’s voice. “Acceleration in one minute. Count has begun. Take hold.”
“Go,” he said to Jago. “Quickly.”
He was belted in. Staff had gone to safe positions. He drank the last of the tea, wadded up the cup and held on to it… a physics experiment, he thought, once they were underway. Or he’d just hold it until there was an all-clear.
His heart beat faster and faster.
The first movement was a great deal like the lift’s acceleration, in the core. The illusion of gravity grew stronger and stronger, until the chair seemed horizontal.
He stared at the far wall that was, for the duration, the ceiling, scared, and with no useful place to spend a Mospheiran’s long-cultivated fear of flying.
For no reason and out of nowhere in particular, he thought of his mother’s apartment, and a lost cufflink, and the last visit before things changed in the family for good and all—
It was the last holiday they’d been together. He remembered that cufflink going down the heating register, in a room his mother constantly kept ready for him.
For the black sheep of the family.
He remembered breakfast in his mother’s apartment… and didn’t know whether she was still alive—a human attachment simply lost in the works of nations and captains. He’d had his one chance to go home, and hadn’t even made a phone call.
He couldn’t blame anyone else for that choice.
The ship went on accelerating
No way to call out Wait?
No way now…
In point of fact… fear reached a level and stayed there, and fell behind.
The ship traveled, and, different than a flight here, or there, separating him from a situation—Phoenix was leaving the station, leaving the whole world behind.