Precursor (14 page)

“But I will see you before daylight,” he said, and caught Jase’s eye as he left.

Jase went to the door with him, to the outer hall.

“Very much need to talk with you,” Bren said. “Never mind what they think.”

«
^
»

A diplomatic, an official action, this first venture into space. To Mospheiran humans, that meant a balanced array of powerful men and women, human interests that could wangle a spot on the team all represented by someone—hence the circle of rooms around a central meeting point—no one more important than the next. Well, give or take the two Shawn Tyers had put in, Bren thought, walking the hall toward his own quarters… gathering up Algini and Tano in the process: trust that his security was never that far from him. They met him, walked with him, overshadowing him, in the black leather and silver of their Guild… good men, both.

And surely Mospheiran dignitaries, given the chance to take more than two translators along, would like to have their secretaries, their whole array of support, including NSA and the appurtenances of Mospheiran dignity.

But those seats on the shuttle were not free of cost, and on the whole, they’d rather be assured that
if
their competition was going, they were going, too.

So they had four seats.

But to atevi, the fortunate gods forbid there should be a laying out of the interregional issues of the Western Association in front of strangers, a diplomatic mission meant the highest representative of the court appropriate to the task, with his supportive community.

And servants were more immediately essential than secretaries, although the four he had could double in that capacity. And security: no atevi lord was ever without security, day or night.

Algini keyed open the door for him into the atevi side of the space center, and Narani met him, closely followed by the others, with deep, respectful, surely anxious bows.

“Nand’ paidhi,” Narani said. “We had orders.”

“One knows, Rani-ji. You’ve done a wonder, I’m very sure. Thank you all.”

Reception foyer, a dining hall, a sitting room, several bedchambers for the lord and his security, who were never far from him. A bath, what atevi genteelly called the accommodation, a cloakroom, a security post, a reading room, a kitchen—all that was minimal.

And when he and Jase had designed the place, in company with atevi architects, the requisite bedchambers and recreational facilities for, they had decided, a minimal four servants, since the servants had to attend the security personnel as well, and assure the security personnel had their minds utterly free to do their duties. Even if for some reason the aiji had sent a tradesman or craftsman… neither craftsfolk nor trades came as isolate individuals. The carpenter would have his apprentices, not to mention family and servants; the plumber would bring his own equipment, his apprentices, and if not servants and security, at very least some remote younger relative of a relative who made tea for the customers… how could one respectably do otherwise and answer obligations to the relatives? If the Mospheirans had a set of independent luxury rooms opening out onto a common room where varying interests could meet, the atevi answer was a single household, inward-turned, a hierarchy with a master or mistress at the top.

“Jase is coming,” he said to Banichi and Jago when he passed the small security station.

“Shall we include Jasi-ji?” Narani asked, following him.

“He won’t stay, I much doubt it,” Bren said. “But he will come. We’ll have vodka, Rani-ji, in the sitting room. Might there be a fire?”

“Immediately, nandi.”

Jase being under other orders, it wasn’t proper, he suspected, to include Jase in his personal arrangements, not for the sake of a few hours. If he undermined Jase’s status as an independent representative of his ship, and if the captains took exception, that could prove a distraction. Only if Jase asked. Then they should, and he’d deal with the difficulties.

He didn’t want a fracture in his understandings with Jase— above all else, he didn’t.

And sure enough, Jase arrived not a minute later, in his jersey and that wretched jacket.

The servants fussed and made despairing motions toward taking the jacket, but Jase complained of chill.

Bren said not a word, only showed him to the sitting room and offered him a chair by a just-lit fire.

Narani himself brought them ice, glasses, a crystal flask of Mospheiran vodka, set it on the side table and poured in that practiced efficiency that never seemed rushed, that seemed to urge the same deliberate slowing of pace on the whole household. Narani served them, received Jase’s quiet thanks, and ebbed silently out the door, shutting it as he went.

“Cheers,” Jase said, in his own dialect, lifted his glass and took a sip.

Bren took a sip of his own, second for the evening; but it was an uncommon evening.

A damned uncommon evening.

“I am sorry, Jase. I was utterly blind to this one; to the last, I didn’t see it.”

“I have no trouble believing it.”

“You didn’t say you’d had supper with Ilisidi.”

A blink. “I did.”

“I know you did. So did I.
Why
did she come?”

“I’ve not a clue,” Jase said.

“Do you think she knew what was up?”

“I’m not surprised at anything where she’s concerned. Or Tabini.” Jase added: “I’d like to have stayed. Selfishly speaking. Is this, honestly, not cleared with the Pilots’ Guild?”

“Of course it isn’t. Does Tabini clear any damn thing?”

“No,” Jase said. “Of course he doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t want the Guild to build its entire impression of atevi from you or from Yolanda, either.”

“It wouldn’t be an accurate impression.”

“More accurate than the Mospheiran delegation would give them, I’ll tell you. I don’t trust Ginny Kroger.”

“She’s angry at you,” Jase said.

Bren shook his head. “Angry doesn’t matter with her. I’m afraid she’s a type, and unless she changes her attitude about me, which she came in with, I don’t like the idea of her shaping policy.”

“You have to admit you’ve pushed them.”

“
I
know that. I don’t think it matters a damn to Kroger’s opinion. She’s set on her own way. Until she believes she’s not on Mospheira, she won’t modify her opinion; and I’m afraid she’s going to discover it after she’s gotten into negotiations.”

Jase didn’t say anything for a moment, then: “How long are you up there?”

“Two weeks. Just until the shuttle goes down.”

“If the shuttle’s on schedule.”

“Fifty-fifty so far.” That was the shuttle’s on-time departure percentage. So far, the shuttle had had no serious mechanical problems, no disaster. “Crossing fingers. I’m not against staying longer. I’d
like
to get you back down when I go. If you
want
me to do that.”

“I want to be able to go back and forth.—I want them not to blow up when they find out they’ve got unscheduled guests.”

“You think they will.”

“I know they will.” A small laugh, not amused. “They’ll survive it. They’ll be glad, on one level. But I get to explain Banichi to Ramirez.”

“Think the quarters are ready?”

“I damned well doubt they are. Nothing gets prioritized until it’s an emergency. There’s just not enough personnel.”

“We can fix that. If you can get us Ramirez’s seal on this.”

Ramirez: senior captain, the one who’d managed all the atevi contact, the one Jase called something akin to a father, if fatherhood was a signature on an authorization. Of the four captains, it was Ramirez who’d had the vision of a trade empire uniting this station with their outpost at a distant star, and Ramirez who’d had all his plans fall in ashes with the alien attack.

It was Ramirez who’d brought
Phoenix
home to the station at this star, hoping for a thriving station, and help.

And the planner in all this grand design for how humanity in this lost end of space should reunite and support the ship, was likewise Ramirez.

“You’re going to be our most valuable resource,” Bren said soberly.

“Don’t count on me for any say.”

“I know. I understand you’re in a difficult position.
And
in a certain amount of power, if you’ll use it.”

Jason’s shoulders drew in as if, even with the jacket, he felt a chill. “Symbolic. Ramirez’s project. We were that; we were supposed to inspire the crew… back when this contact was supposed to bring the whole circle together. But as far as power beyond Ramirez’s good opinion, I don’t have it. With Tamur…” That was another of the captains. “I certainly don’t have it.”

“Why did they call you back?”

Jase’s eyes lifted, direct, worried.

“
Why
did they call you back?” Bren repeated the question. “We didn’t expect it. Might Yolanda have said something?”

“She might have, inadvertently. Maybe they just think it’s time.—Maybe it
is
time.”

“Tabini thinks so.” Bren drew a breath, took the plunge. “Tabini wants the station.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“I’m not surprised you’re not surprised. That’s the condition. Mospheira running the station? They can’t site a public park without a chain of committees. If this alien threat materializes, someone’s got to make decisions as fast as the captains do. Mospheira won’t do it. They know one thing: the history that drove them onto the planet. Freedom is down here. The faction that wants to be up there—isn’t the best of Mospheira. In my own biased opinion, the captains can’t deal with them either. There’s too
much
history in common, too many old issues.”

“Tabini and the captains sharing power?” Jase said, his lips hardly moving. “That’s not easy, either.”

“It has to work.”

Jase and he had talked about the eventuality before, even the complexity of Mospheira’s quest after space, a quest Bren himself had furthered until the anti-atevi Heritage Party had seized the government, diverted the program to their own issue… until criminal elements had applied force to scientists and idealists, scared some, killed some, converted some. It had been a narrow thing three years ago, when reasonable people, greater in number on Mospheira, had pitched the scoundrels out and discovered the game they were up to. Knowledge of a threat outside the atmosphere hadn’t, however, convinced reasonable people they should go back to space when
Phoenix
, that old bugbear of Mospheiran legend, had just returned asking for laborers and foretelling wars in space.

The average Mospheiran wanted to go on having his job and his beachside vacations, raising his kids, believing that if there was a war in space, it wasn’t a threat to the planet… and that linchpin of Mospheiran faith: if they didn’t contact any aliens, aliens would be more likely to leave them alone.

It was even possible that Mospheirans were right. The question was whether the aliens in question would recognize the difference between Mospheirans and
Phoenix
crew, when
Phoenix
came here for help. Some bet their lives that the aliens would be wise, and discriminate.

Bren didn’t. Tabini didn’t bet atevi would remain immune from retaliation, either. Nonchalance was a position from which, if wrong, there was very little chance of recovery.

“You know where I stand with Mospheira,” Bren said. “We
know
each other. That’s three years of good faith any other negotiators would have to do over, and—we’ve talked about this before—I’m not sure
anybody
is going to understand Mospheirans
or
atevi who hasn’t met us in our own environment.”

“No more than you’ll understand us without being in ours,” Jase said. “Ramirez comes closest.”

“On the planet, among atevi, Tabini comes closest.”

Jase shook his head. “No. Among atevi,
you
come closest. Down to the last, down to the last, I think I hoped there’d be a personal miracle. Selfish hope. It’s a dream, on this planet. You can dream there are no aliens. You can dream you can go on forever, going about your routine, having your pleasant times… that’s what the Mospheirans do, isn’t it?”

“And atevi,” Bren said. “Atevi aren’t immune to it.”

“Living a fantasy is not what they created me to do. What Ramirez
did
create me for… was to make this leap; contact; understand… report. Ramirez was the only one who understood the possibility there
would
be Mospheirans. He thought the people we’d left behind us might have changed; the other captains didn’t think so.” A second sip, steadier. “He’d planned we’d meet a tamer situation, a safe, functioning station; that we’d present you a present: a star station and a starship to reach it, and we’d build another ship; and another; and weave this grand web that gave us all access.” Jase shook his head. “Which the alien attack demolished. We ran home. Here. And when we found what
did
exist, then the other captains looked at me with my language study as something other than Ramirez’s personal lunacy.”

He knew this part. He sensed Jase was going somewhere new with it. The other captains? Josefa Sabin was the second shift captain in the twenty-four-hour rotation; then Jules Ogun, and the fourth, different than they’d started with, since that man had died last year, was Pratap Tamun.