Visitor

  4

  “Jase-aiji,” Banichi said as they walked the corridor of the residency, bound for their own door, “proposes to visit us. He is at the crossover now.”

  Jase was at the point where he had met Gin, less than an hour ago. Gin had gone up to ship-folk territory to talk to Ogun and now Jase had come down bent on talking to him. The two movements might not be unrelated. For a certain amount of time now, Ogun would be safely occupied listening to Gin, and Jase, closely allied to second-senior Captain Sabin, had left ship-folk territory and come down to the interface to find out whether it was a good time.

  “Tell him come,” Bren said, and that happened.

  Jase, being third-senior captain and the ship-paidhi, had a certain protected status—being the only way Senior Captain Ogun could translate what the atevi half of the station was doing. But on his last shift, Jase had taken high and wide action getting the children and their parents out of the quarantined Reunioner section—not consulting the senior captain, who had been off watch and presumably asleep. So Jase had presumably spent the last several hours debriefing on the action with a senior captain not entirely pleased to have the third-senior conducting a raid on an area of the station the senior captain’s orders had sealed.

  The fact that they had simultaneously extracted the former Reunioner stationmaster, Louis Baynes Braddock, before he could take possession of the children and their parents and make his own demands in negotiations with the kyo—that had solved a major problem for Senior Captain Jules Ogun.

  A very large problem, a problem that might have been avoided, had Ogun dealt with the lit fuse, otherwise known as Mikas Tillington, a long time ago.

  Ogun had been reasonably content in Tillington’s long stint as the human-side stationmaster: Tillington had taken care of business in which Ogun had little or no interest, while Ogun had technical emergencies on his hands. Ogun had trusted stationers to deal with stationers, and let Tillington take charge of the Reunioner refugees. Ogun hadn’t intervened when Tillington had slammed the section doors shut and isolated the Reunioners in their residences—it had happened with a fifteen-minute warning, but fifteen minutes could not take Ogun totally by surprise: no, Ogun had taken Tillington’s assessment of the Reunioners as risk, had let it happen, and to this hour Ogun wouldn’t necessarily admit that the second-senior and third-senior captains had been right about Tillington.

  Ogun might, in that light, not thank the third-senior captain for his unilateral move, bypassing any advisement and giving him no word of what was going on inside an area under seal.

  But Ogun was smart enough to know that Tillington had gone a step too far with Mospheira and Shejidan, and that relations with the earthly powers, human and atevi, that supplied the station, which in turn supplied his ship, mattered far more to him than did the convenience of Tillington’s cooperation.

  As of an hour ago, Ogun had Virginia Kroger arriving as human-side stationmaster, he had the atevi government aggressively claiming ownership of the kyo situation, he had the fourth-senior captain, whom he had appointed, sitting out on Phoenix, not in a position to do anything useful, and he had Captain Josefa Sabin, his least favorite co-captain, in a position to say I told you so.

  He really hoped Gin was pouring balm—or at least good sense—on the situation up there.

  And he hoped Jase was not bringing trouble down with him.

  Bren arrived in his own apartment foyer, shed his coat for a more comfortable one, and settled in for a brief bit of relaxation and checking of messages in his little sitting room, leaving the matter of informing the dowager to his bodyguard’s contact with her bodyguard, in the interest of finding out what Jase had to say.

  His apartment. His refuge. Not the place for grand state functions, this, but the extent to which Geigi had moved walls about, rearranging the human-designed linearity into the traditional relationship of rooms, rooms in an order that atevi found comfortable, with inner halls to let staff move about—that made it homelike, convenient, everything where it always was.

  He was glad. He fit here. He knew his station staff did. Except for the modern panel near the door, except the air ducts and the fact the more massive furniture was bolted to the wall, one could believe there was stone and wood involved.

  Tea arrived. More welcome, a plate of wafers. Distantly, half a cup and three wafers on, came the opening of the front door, and very quickly Jase turned up, a silent presence in the sitting room doorway.

  Blue uniform—no bodyguards at the moment. Kaplan and Polano usually were somewhere about, but Jase walked in solo and simply slid bonelessly into the convenient chair.

  “The offer of asylum still stands,” Bren said, by way of opening, which got him a weak smile.

  “Not quite yet. If I weren’t apt to get another call from Ogun real soon, I’d take a brandy.”

  “What does the man want? We got Braddock out.”

  “I think deep down there’s considerable gratitude for that. Sabin said to me— ‘Welcome to the inner circle. Ogun hasn’t expressed himself this bluntly since Ramirez died.’”

  “Gin’s still up there, I take it.”

  “Gin’s arrival was a rescue.” Jase tilted his head back, edged upward in the chair with a deep sigh. “Sabin’s got ears up there. There’s not a detail Ogun didn’t ask. Three times. I think he’s convinced, but I think he’s looking for a way to space Braddock. I don’t think he wants him to stay in atevi custody. I think the aishidi’tat is going to get a request. He hates Braddock. Personally.”

  Interesting—in the light of what had made the late Senior Captain Ramirez desert Reunion and leave the station at the mercy of the kyo.

  Ogun had been second-senior when that had happened.

  And Ogun hated the Reunion stationmaster with a deep, abiding passion, while Sabin, who had had no share in that decision, had been mightily upset, and blamed Ramirez and Braddock with equal heat.

  Five thousand survivors? Ramirez, faced with a dice throw for the future of the human species in this end of space, had opted to run for their centuries-ago origin point and leave Braddock. And the whole surviving Reunion population.

  What had Ogun known and when did he know it? Had he agreed with Ramirez’ decision? If not, Ogun had had to live with the knowledge for ten years here at Alpha, knowing he’d had no choice but to go along.

  Ramirez had been senior captain. And then Ramirez had been dead and Ogun had had to deal with the situation Ramirez had left.

  Now, ten years later, a third-senior captain bypassed the protocols Ogun had followed, arrested the problem at the core of it all—and handed him to atevi authority.

  Not a situation inclined to induce warmth and love within the Captains’ Council.

  “Is he exercised at us?” Bren asked. “The atevi did initiate the action.”

  “Initiated it with ample cause. Even he admits that. —I think he’s actually happy,” Jase said, and took the cup of strong tea a servant set beside him. He added four lumps of sugar, and stirred. “Most calories I’ve had since yesterday.”

  “Have a wafer. There can be a sandwich, if you want it.”

  “Let this hit bottom, and I’ll consider it. —He’s happy to have Braddock in custody, but I don’t think he wants to let this go off entirely into atevi decision-making. I think he intends to try Braddock himself.”

  “You think he wants to open up all that history?”

  “I’d swear not. I’d think not. But he’s—are we secure here?”

  “Tano’s been over the place. Entirely.”

  “I think he wants the ship’s record cast in a certain way, and a trial might be how he does it. Better yet, a plea and a statement from Braddock. I think he suspects atevi might be too easy on him.”

  “Atevi have charges against him—his aiming at the children, among others—that wouldn’t go well for him under the aiji?
??s law. But I can understand what you’re saying. I can understand how Ogun might want the record clear.”

  “I think all of us want the record clear. He asked me directly how much authority you have, how much credit with either government down there, whether you can get the Mospheirans to take the Reunioners in, and he’s no little dubious that the Reunioners are going to go along with it.”

  “They can’t want to continue living as they have been for the last year.”

  “Ogun is convinced Braddock has support in wanting to build a station out at Maudit. That the Reunioners won’t accept being sent down, they won’t trust the offer and they won’t want to be put under the Mospheiran government. I have an idea that topic may have come up between him and Gin by now. He wants it. It puts a real major problem at the bottom of a gravity well. He just doesn’t think it’s going to work. He thinks there’ll be sabotage by the Reunioners, and that the Mospheirans won’t accept them down there any more than here.”

  “Then he should have shut Tillington up.”

  “He knows that now, but the damage is done. Now we need to fix it.”

  Bren nodded slowly. “There will be problems, no question, especially if Mospheira expects gratitude and cooperation and the Braddock people don’t see they owe it. But relocation to the planet is the only viable option. Maudit isn’t going to happen without a huge commitment of resources from the planet, and neither government is the least bit interested in supporting it. Mospheirans won’t share power up here and Braddock’s people will insist they run the station, as long as one of them remains up here. Landing’s the only choice that makes it absolutely essential they go through screening to get back up, like all the Mospheirans up here.”

  “Even if we claim guilt by association and pack the noisiest Braddock supporters down first, landing is a choice I don’t think the Reunioners can even envision. They can’t imagine dirt under their feet or a sky over them. You know Artur came back with a pocketful of pebbles. He was fascinated by rock you can touch. These people have no concept.”

  “There is no perfect answer when a group of people simply can’t have the situation they used to have. But that’s Gin’s problem. It must be. As of now, I won’t have a brain cell to spare for the Reunioners as a whole until we’ve met the kyo and dealt with them, something that might take years. Gin’s got a plan for the relocation—a good plan—but it’s not in my control. Only those four kids and their families are.”

  Jase nodded. “I’ll relay that. I know Sabin will understand. If anything gets in your way—advise me, regardless of the hour. I’ll try to handle it.”

  Jase didn’t mention Riggins in any planning. Nobody did. The fourth captain, Riggins, did what Ogun told him, and right now it was to keep their one starship, Phoenix, slightly apart from the station, capable of moving to save itself, but not capable of protecting them if things went massively wrong.

  If things went absolutely, massively wrong—Riggins and the ship’s caretaker crew might be all there was left of Mospheira and the world they knew, and then, only if they ran. If the damage the kyo had done to Reunion was any indication, such weapons as they had were primitive compared to the kyo’s.

  “Appreciated,” Bren said.

  “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “Not as much as I’d like. I’m going to become a little less available for a while—trust Gin to manage the problems, trust you to deal with the captains—and take the opportunity to write a few letters, now I can trust they won’t be detoured into Tillington’s hands.”

  “The man tried to exit his apartment this morning,” Jase said. “Our people stopped that. No knowing where he thought he was going. Maybe to meet Gin.”

  “He really wouldn’t have liked the reception,” Bren said. “Thanks for the catch.” And on a sudden realization: “Gin’s going to be shipping out some of his personal staff as well. I don’t know who’s on her list, but it may create some security issues. Again—I don’t know, and I’m not in a position to ask. But if you could track that—”

  “I’ll ask Gin. If people have to be moved into a restricted area, ship security can assist with that. Get them clear off the station until the shuttle’s ready.”

  “I’d appreciate it.” Asking Mospheiran security to deal with their own former high-level officials—had problems. There were problems, too, in using ship security to handle a Mospheiran problem, but in a station with dangerously accessible controls, physical safety trumped political considerations.

  “I’ll take that sandwich,” Jase said after a moment. “If it’s still offered.”

  It seemed like a good idea. Meals had become a matter of opportunity, the last two days. Or three. One took what one could, when one could.

  At very best, one hoped for a snack, and then a session in the office, catching up on correspondence, and reporting to people who needed a report. Possibly a walk across the hall, to the dowager’s residency.

  That was days overdue, too.

  • • •

  “Aiji-ma.” It was an offered session in the dowager’s sitting room, and one had had altogether too much sugared tea. And a half a sandwich. That was all he’d managed, before the invitation from Ilisidi had arrived.

  “We sent the young gentleman to Lord Geigi’s to gather information on the needs of these guests. We have heard. We have given orders. We trust staff can provide.”

  “Indeed, aiji-ma. Clothing, food, all such. I have assured them their personal belongings will remain under lock—I arranged that with Lord Geigi. Gin-nandi has spoken to Ogun-aiji—we hope in a good exchange, taking place now or just concluded. I proposed to the Presidenta a need to bring the Reunioners down to Mospheiran territory, and he was most receptive, but logistics remained a problem. Fortunately, Gin has arrived with a possible means of freeing shuttle seats for passage to Earth with far less expense and delay than seemed likely.”

  “We are interested,” Ilisidi said, and he explained Gin’s notion of one-way landers:

  “The landers themselves can be salvaged, aiji-ma, and a failure or two with those will not involve loss of life. We have always concentrated on fragile loads going up to the station, but grouping our cargoes differently, and using the petal sails as we can . . . we can provide many more seats in much less time, at much less cost.”

  Ilisidi thought on the question, eyes flickering. “Indeed. And shall we provide transport? And a landing for these loads flung recklessly down from on high?”

  “Where safe, aiji-ma, and any human passengers on atevi shuttles would be flown to Mospheira immediately on landing . . . with the assistance of the aishidi’tat. No large mass of people at once. Easily carried on one of the smallest jets.”

  “And where would these people be settled, and under whose guidance?”

  “By my will, aiji-ma, a scattered resettlement. Widely scattered, inconvenient for association, but with fair treatment and workable prospects.”

  There were analogous situations with atevi, the necessity for a disgraced clan to be broken up, divided, absorbed by rivals. That was the resettlement he used. And it was fully apt.

  “We leave such details to the Presidenta,” Ilisidi said. “What will these people think when they know their future, and when will they know?”

  “One cannot say. I have cautioned Gin-nandi to wait until we have dealt with our visitors, at least until we’ve determined their intentions, but whether she will regard it, or whether circumstance will force her to tell them, one cannot know. Mospheirans and Reunioners are not quite the same in their thinking; and one foresees difficulties. Will there come a day when there is no difference? Or will five thousand Reunioners change Mospheiran thinking? I do not know. I do not know how that will develop. But sending them apart—that was never a good answer.”

  “There will be politics.” Ilisidi gave a wave of her hand. “There is always politics. Let i
t be as it may. It will flow about these children. Let it not flow onto the mainland. The parents, particularly, should be cautioned.”

  “One will convey that, aiji-ma.”

  “We understand you have cautioned them.”

  “Strictly and firmly, aiji-ma.”

  “And Irene-nadi’s mother?”

  “One does not yet know, aiji-ma.”

  “The child will be wiser than the mother, we strongly suspect. We can keep the girl for a time. But when she goes down with the others, what part will her mother have with her?”

  “Aiji-ma, that remains to be seen. We do not know what our choices may be.”

  “The child may not reside in our household permanently.”

  “Yes,” he said, with no question about it. “I shall take the matter in hand, aiji-ma. There will be a solution.”

  A second wave of the hand. “You will not distract yourself with this child, paidhi. Nor with the vexations of the parents.”

  “No, aiji-ma.” He was very glad not to discuss that matter. “I shall not distract myself even with a thought of them.”

  “So,” Ilisidi said. “Go find us a solution for these foreign visitors. Advise them we shall speak to them. Arrange it so we shall speak to them inside the station, if you can. The ship poses inconveniences. But we shall bear them if we must. Their ship poses still more. We prefer to avoid that.”

  “Yes, aiji-ma.”

  “What is this agreement? You are most valuable when you argue, paidhi! Do not say yes to me!”

  “I shall most strenuously object when you are wrong, aiji-ma. You have been infallibly right at least this last hour.”

  “Ha.” Ilisidi set down her teacup. Click. “We are soon to find that out. Dismiss your other concerns, paidhi. We are extremely glad you were able to welcome Gin-nandi. We should wish to invite her to our table. And we are certain Lord Geigi would wish the same, but we are entirely disarranged by other guests not of our planning. The Mospheirans will be in some turmoil at her arrival: she will need to speak with them. The Reunioners are already in turmoil and they may need reassurance. But all these things must proceed without us. Certain things must remain in suspension, perhaps briefly, perhaps for an extended time, on the whim of our foreign visitors, and we are approaching the point at which we will not be able to deal with distractions. Is there any matter, paidhi, which perhaps should not remain in suspension?”