Precursor (31 page)

“Delighted,” Bren said. Remote from them, he heard the seal-door open, heard footsteps in the hall, and heard a small disturbance of voices speaking Ragi.

Then Kaplan, saying, “Just hold right here. Here, you understand?
Stop!
”

“Stop here,” he heard Feldman say, in unfortunately impolite terms, but he trusted his staff took it in high good humor.

In a moment more Bindanda arrived carrying a tea tray with a small service, as Jago and Banichi took up station in the doorway.

“One assures the paidhi there is no alkaloid in it,” Bindanda said, and graciously bowed.

“Danda-ji, thank you very much.” Bren leaned back as the others of the mission leaned back from the table to allow the tea to be served… not the entire pot, to be sure: Bindanda was a little baffled by the lack of a serving table, but Jago offered her help, holding the tray, so that tea arrived on the table with ceremony.

“Your health,” Bren said, lifting his small, very fragile, very antique cup, which its creator had surely never dreamed would circle the earth. He sipped. Relaxed. “Very much better.”

«
^
»

It was one round of tea, a reasonable discussion, and a lengthy one, before a lengthy walk back, Banichi and Jago doubtless having learned a great deal of what was going on simply by listening, Bindanda mostly unenlightened, but having had ample chance to exchange pleasantries with Kate and Ben.

Bindanda had left the valuable tea set as a gift to the Mospheirans, properly to serve the tea, of course, and left empty-handed, doubtless confused and baffled by humans, considering the traditional manners of the ancient house that lent him, but mostly looking introspective… and surely to deliver an interesting report when once he found his feet on solid earth.

The meeting had ended much more reasonably than it had begun. They had all achieved civility, and the archive’s release as a goodwill gesture had become, instead of a flashpoint, a positive matter. They were very excited about that prospect… a little resentful that they hadn’t achieved it, but Kroger, the scientist who wanted her hands on that archive, and who now knew it was supposed to be available on the wall panel, was at least smiling and encouraged when they’d parted.

He had omitted to say, however, that the manner of it was not entirely Ramirez’ idea. And he hoped it never came out to the contrary.

Kaplan escorted them back, saw them safely into their section.

And—once the section door was shut, having Kaplan out and his party in with him, safe and secure in the foyer of their own small, comfort-adjusted section—Bren heaved a deep breath, undid buttons and surrendered his coat to Narani.

Supper was cooking… one couldn’t detect it before it was served, in the apartment back at Shejidan. Noble houses took great care not to have that homey, cottagelike state of affairs. But it smelled good; it smelled of home, tables, and comfort, and he was very glad, having had tea for lunch.

But otherwise a profitable day. A very agreeable day.

“Brief Tano and Algini, Nadiin-ji,” he said to Banichi and Jago. And to Narani, who handed the coat to Kandana: “We believe we’ve made progress.” He was cold, even chilled, as he went back into the depth of his room. He considered asking for a light coat, but he was too anxious to know what might have come through, and what might have come of the transmission of the archive… midnight, Cl had said. And he’d collapsed last night; had the meeting this morning…

He set up the computer again, breathing on his fingers between strokes, requested Mogari-nai of Cl, and after some small delay for authorization, got it, downlink, uplink, all in a burst.

A message had arrived from Tabini: it read:
One expects further word and commends the paidhi on his achievement. Large files have leached Mogari-nai
.

It was short, but went on to give dry notice of committee meeting outcomes, and a general minutes of the hasdrawad’s oversight committee on the second shuttle, a positive report. He was interested, but he set it aside.

Of all things, God help him, an
advertisement
had made its way to Mogari-nai. He didn’t delete it. He wanted to know how it had threaded its way into his account.

A message from Toby:
I’m in the capital. Delayed again. Rotten weather
.

A message from Mogari-nai:
We are receiving an immense download of information from the ship which is directed toward the Mospheiran President and to the aiji. Under prior agreements we are retransmitting without question or examination. We are scheduling the information, however, in packets, to allow normal flow of commerce
.

That was it. God, that was it. That was the total load, the fabled archive, and Ramirez had kept his word.

At least he
hoped
to God it was the archive and not some diabolically designed set of files designed to seize control of the communications system. The planet wasn’t as vulnerable to computer attack as the ship or the station; and the mainland far less so than the island. To send anything that massive that was less than honest would not be the action of an authority ever wanting cooperation or productivity from the mainland.

It had to be going through. Disseminated.

“Cl, do I have access now to all those files you transmitted to Mogari-nai?”

“
Mogari-nai?
” The rendition of the name as he’d pronounced it was almost unrecognizable. “
Yes, sir, captain’s cleared it to your E10, as of… 0200 hours
.”

Last night he’d slept, early, exhausted, completely. He’d found only scattered files this morning, and hadn’t penetrated the communication system. “I’ll need precise instructions, Cl. This isn’t familiar equipment.”

“Easy-do, sir, just punch E10, that’s the E and the 10 and then just S for scan and V for view, M for menu.”

The whole literature of mankind? The missing technical files? The accumulated station records? Design for a starship? Press M for menu?

“I don’t suppose Jase Graham would be available at this hour. He’d be very helpful with this.”

A hesitation. “
Jase Graham isn’t available right now, sir
.”

Continuing debrief, several days of it. He was disheartened about that.

But in Ramirez’s place, he’d certainly do the same… wouldn’t allow Jase contact with people whose veracity he was testing. He only hoped Jase was getting sleep and meals in the process. It would have been a perfect cap to the day if he could sit down to a supper with Jase.

But, God, the archives!

“Message for him,” he told Cl. “Same message: say I called; tell him call me; I’d like to see him. No emergency, rather friendly reasons. A little help with this panel.”

“Yes, sir. I can contact the captain, sir, if you need a technician.”

Emphatically not, not with Banichi’s rig across the hall.

“I think I can solve it myself, Cl, thank you.” It wasn’t an unknown principle. M for menu was a good start. “Thank you very much.”

He punched out on the contact, went across the hall to the security post where Banichi and Jago were conversing with

Tano and Algini. “The missing archive. E10, the M key…” His security knew the Mospheiran alphabet, read it with some fluency by now. “Have a look at it, such as you have time to do.”

“Yes,” Tano said with a wondering look. “Yes, nadi.”

He wanted to see it for himself; but he couldn’t distract himself with it, couldn’t slide aside from present business in a meander through human archives, if that was the treasure he had won. He had done what he could. Toby by now must have gotten through; Jase couldn’t reach him. Mercheson if she had authority and access to communications might call him, but he rather thought she was engaged in exactly the same business as Jase: talking to her captains.

The cold by now had gotten to his muscles, a thorough chill as he walked out, back across to his apartment. His teeth were all but chattering as he passed Narani, told him he’d shower before supper.

Kandana and Bindanda showed up before he could do more than shed the shirt. They gathered up boots and clothing, offered a bathrobe to lie about his shoulders for the four-pace walk to the shower… proprieties, proprieties.

He turned sideways to enter, shedding the robe, closed the cabinet door, activated the jets at the temperature he’d last set, and shivered convulsively as cold water in the pipes came out first.

He’d been utterly unprepared except by the life he’d lived.

He’d guessed. He’d estimated. Solo, he’d pulled up his best recollections and his ideas to cover one damned serious, selfish mistake on the plane to the mainland, when he’d antagonized Kroger.

He’d made another mistake over the last several months, not foreseeing what Tabini was up to, not anticipating how Tabini would react when Jase did go up.

And he’d just now promised two parties an elaborate, jury-rigged structure of hopes, all with a manic focus, memorizing details, freezing concepts in his mind, trying to patch his mistakes with the authority he’d been handed…

He’d assumed more and more and more details could be true… and now the whole structure of his plans evaporated, flew apart, deserted him so that for an instant he didn’t know what he’d done or proposed or agreed to, whether it was well-thought or whether Tabini had a lunatic dealing his foreign policy. Millions of lives and two species’ futures were at stake, and for the duration of his arguments with both Ramirez
and
Kroger, God help the world, he’d
enjoyed
the dealing. He’d proceeded on an adrenaline rush the same as a downhill race, just coping with what came up moment by moment.

He began to shake all over, suddenly doubted everything he knew, everything he’d done. He desperately wanted Jase with him to consult, he desperately wanted to talk to Tabini at this juncture. Most of all he wanted to know what he’d done and what he’d agreed to, because he couldn’t for a second remember a damned thing of how it fit with reality.

He slipped down to the bottom of the shower, tucked up while the water finished its cycle. Long after the hiss of the jets had cut off and long after he’d informed his body, he wasn’t truly cold, intermittent tremors rolled through his limbs like waves of the earthly sea.

Who am I to decide?

Most of all, what have I become, to
like
this? To gamble with the whole world’s future?

Tabini. Tabini. Tabini, who’s the only power
fit
to rule the world.

His own species calls him ruthless.

What do they call me?

I can’t let
any
side dominate the other, for its own sake; but, God, God, God! where in
hell
have I appointed myself to impose conditions on the world, the ship, the station?

“Bren-ji?” he heard Jago say, through the door, and, sitting there, trying to control the shivers, he wondered how long his servants and his staff had fretted before one of them appointed herself to say something.

But the next step was his staff dismantling the door; and that would never do, never in the world do, at all.

Who was he to do what he’d done? He was the man in the middle, that was who he was, the one officer two nations had appointed to stand between them. He was appointed to do exactly what he’d done. He’d reacted strongly when Kroger, who didn’t know what she was doing, had challenged him in his own territory, and he’d jerked her about in hopes of her realizing there were dangers. He hoped it had done some good.

More, Ramirez had leaped to agree with him… and it wasn’t as if they hadn’t been talking for three years, as if they didn’t know what, essentially, they faced in the way of costs and necessities. Jase knew, he knew, Ramirez knew, and Shawn Tyers and the President of Mospheira knew that the station had to operate and the present situation had to keep some sort of balance, or the world went to hell and took
Phoenix
and two or three species with it, granted these far-space aliens had a future at stake, too.

He’d spoken for the balance.

He’d stolen some of what the Mospheirans wanted, control over the station. He’d given the Mospheirans what Tabini could have gotten for himself but which would have proved a poison pill: control over
business
on the station, as the humans in question expected to exchange goods and services. They’d sell hot dogs in any season, and atevi would shudder and look the other way as they’d learned to do, contenting themselves with ship building and station building.

He’d committed the atevi economy to another long push, but the social structure hadn’t taken damage from the last one, in building the shuttles… the provinces had thrived, in fact. The complaint of certain associations had been not enough public projects to go around.

The station and the ship was the
answer
to what followed the explosion of the economy in the shuttle project. In a far lower-consumption society than Mospeira’s, what did he
do
besides go to neon light and fast food like Mospheira’s north shore, in order to keep the atevi economy moving at its breakneck, profitable pace?

Easy. He built a starship.

He
gave
it to the Pilots’ Guild, true; but if you took any vehicle and compressed it to a cube… you had a lot of scrap worth so much the kilo. It was the labor and the shaping that had value; most of all, it was the learning that had value. They paid the raw materials and the labor and gained the knowledge and the technical skill with no R&D, sure designs, incremental learning of new theory…