Precursor (58 page)

I phoned Shawn and phoned your office on the mainland and told them to tell Tabini you hadn’t been in touch.

Barb is going to have another operation tomorrow.

This is the third, but this time they have the bleeding stopped, and this one is to take out some of the tubes and such. She says thank you for the flowers. You could at least send her a hello. It’s only polite.

He didn’t react with temper. He composed a polite, concerned reply, wrote to Tabini:

We have Jase in our keeping, aiji-ma. An opposing association surrounding the fourth captain has seized enough power to insist on his banishment to the planet but not sufficient power to do him harm. The senior of the four has been the target of an assassination attempt.

To Shawn Tyers he wrote, in Ragi, via his office:

As
best I can determine, the head of your operation here has valiantly resisted attempts to divide our interests. She persists through hardship, and we support her as best we can. I have not yet drawn her within our protection because having more than one vantage within the station affords us a certain operational flexibility. I urge you to consult with the mainland for more details
.

More than that, he dared not write. There was too much chance of having communication cut off again, if it was in fact going through… and he had no proof of that until someone answered him with direct evidence of having read his letters.

“Put me through to Kroger,” he asked Cl.

“
Kroger has given notice she is not receiving messages
,” Cl answered. “This is
a sleep period
.”

“Cl, put me through, or I go there.”

“
Let me consult
,” Cl answered him, and put him through, all the same.

That
was interesting, he thought as Kroger answered.

“Bren Cameron,” he identified himself. “We have Jase, we have Mercheson, we have the families, as best we can guess. Jase is moving slowly, but everyone seems in good health. Want to join us for supper?”

Jase roused himself out of bed, sore, upset, and in bad temper. At a certain point, Bren thought, one just let the anger slide off. He didn’t blame Jase.

“You’re not getting out of here,” he said to Jase in Ragi. As Jase stood, in a bathrobe, it was not imminent, but Jase was pushing himself to ignore the pain. “That’s exactly what they want you to do, and you’re not going to do it.”

“It doesn’t mean—” Jase began.

He finished it: “You’re out of the game, Jase. Figure it out.
Pride
be damned. Throwing yourself away and helping them find the man you don’t want them to find isn’t sensible. Shut up and sit down.”

Jase reached a chair and sat. “A moment, nadi.”

He gave Jase that moment, sat down, himself, and let Jase absorb the pain, and the facts of his situation, in peace. That Jase remembered Ragi, and the self-control of the aiji’s court, was a wonder in itself, considering the circumstances.

Perhaps indicative of the direction of his thoughts, Jase pushed his hair back, straight back, as he’d worn it until he’d done such a wretched job cutting it.

“You’ve become part of
this
mission,” Bren said.

“Clothes,” Jase said.

“We have yours being cleaned and pressed. Even that jacket.”

Jase managed a short, pain-clipped mirth. “Narani so wanted to do that.”

“Desperately.”

“You can borrow mine.”

“Can’t wear yours.”

“Funny, you don’t appear to have put on weight. I’d say, in fact, you’d have trouble filling them out at the moment.”

“I need
ship
clothes.”

“No, Jase point of fact, you don’t.”

“He’s out there; he has no help. I have to do something, Bren!”

“Don’t count that he has no help,” Bren said. It was Ramirez they were talking about, in this coded mode of no-proper-names. “Conspiracy is spreading through the crew. The shuttle’s due back imminently. I’m going to talk to our fellow delegates from the island, fifteen days to wait while they check out the shuttle… we have to get out of here. We have no more reasonable, rational choice. I can’t lose you. Do you hear? If everything’s lost, there’s
you
. That’s his legacy.”

“I’m not him!”

“No. You’re his project, his program, his hands, and his determination to have his way.
Don’t
give up.”

There were several moments’ more silence while Jase thought that over, and the court mask came over his face, despite the pain.

“The aiji’s favorites have a way of ending up in charge,” Bren said, beyond that. “And atevi are coming to this place. The ship has no choice.”

Jase
gazed
at him, absorbing that thought, that idea, that proposition.

“He will have won,” Bren said, “if you
don’t
do the things the captains are prompting you to do. I think the new senior may have great misgivings about all of this.
There’s
an ally, if you can convince him.”

“I have to think about this,” Jase said, and by midday he was limping about the place, talking intensely to Yolanda in private, and then to Banichi and Jago, filling them in, Banichi said, on every detail of the tunnels, where they had been, where they had been discovered, where they had run.

Bren came in on it, and sat and absorbed the information.

“The food has improved,” Kroger said, “but they’re delivering it. They’re being very cooperative; we walk about. There’s no quibble about that. They arrange for us to go as far as we want. One corridor they wouldn’t let us into. They said that was the end of the pressurized section. It may be.”

“You’re close to the boundary,” Jase said.

The dining hall was at capacity. Banichi and Jago took to having their meals with the security team and the staff, with Kate Shugart, who was here for her own turn at translation.

The Merchesons and the Grahams shared the table; it wasn’t until the after-dinner drink, alone with Ginny Kroger, that serious talk went on, quiet discussion of treaty and operational matters as if there were not a thing unusual going on.

“They don’t want us to leave,” Ginny said. “I have had that word. They’re hopeful not to deal with atevi for a month or so, and then maybe to have you back, but not Mr. Graham, I’m sorry to say. I think you might be in some danger.”

“The aiji will send whatever representative he pleases,” Bren said in Ragi, with a clear notion it might well be Jase. Tabini could be contrary as hell when he felt pushed. That statement was to keep Jase on an even keel. But he smiled and shrugged. “They’d be fools to lay a hand on him,” he said in Mosphei’, all but certain there weren’t listeners, but almost hoping there were. “The aiji can be damned stubborn when someone pushes the right button, and this would be one. Same with tomorrow. We’re receiving cargo, I’m very sure, and we plan to be there when the shuttle docks. Tom may well be on it. Want to join us and lay claim to what’s yours?”

Ginny thought that one over. She was anxious about it, that was sure.

“Can we do that?”

They didn’t have Kaplan this evening. They had the old man for a guide. They hadn’t seen Kaplan, Andresson, Johnson, or any of their former visitors, and Bren didn’t take it for coincidence that these people should all be unavailable.

“I’m not going to have their security going over our cargo,” Bren said. “And I’m expecting a crate of candy. And you’re hoping for Tom. We have a vested interest.”

“I can guide you,” Jase said, the very last guide he wanted.

“You have to stay here, nadi-ji,” Bren said in Ragi. “Those were the conditions.”

It didn’t make Jase happy, not in the least, but years in the Ragi court had reshaped some of Jase’s headlong rush at things, redirected that hot temper, once intellect was in the ascendant.

“As long as Yolanda and I are not along,” Jase said, “I imagine you’ll have an easier time of it.”

«
^
»

C1,” Bren said. “Progress on the shuttle?”

“
Approaching dock
,” Cl reported. “
Nominal
.”

He received such advisements, reckoned they had another hour or so of fussing about and fine adjustments before the hatch opened.

There was time for a hot shower before the event, to warm up against the cold.

“If the aiji has sent a reply,” he said to his security, “I don’t wish to see it disappear during any dispute over baggage. We shall escort Nojana back, and perhaps regain Kandana.”

If not, he was certain, Nojana must stay with them until they could arrange an exchange. But that was Banichi’s domain.

He took his hot shower, put on warm silk beneath his court finery, earnestly hoping Kandana had thought to bring gloves as well as fruit candies, and prepared as carefully and in the same ceremony as if he had been going to a court reception.

“Cl,” he said, “please send Kaplan.” He always asked for Kaplan, and had not yet gotten him. “We intend to meet Mr. Lund at docking.”

“
I’ll have to consult about that
,” Cl said.

Bren smiled at the faceless wall panel, having no intention in the world of waiting for Cl to consult and take an hour about delivering them an escort.

He adjusted the lace at his cuffs, last detail. “Jase,” he said, “you’re in charge.”

Jase knew procedures, and having had his own education in the aiji’s court, clearly understood that they would not voluntarily drag him past station security’s noses.

“You be damned careful!” Jase said. “I can’t get you out of their hands.”

“I shall be careful, nadi.” His mind was already searching down the corridors, trying to remember what Banichi had remembered effortlessly. “If anything should go wrong, stay in the section.”

“Yes,” Jase said, that flat, Ragi
yes
. In spite of the others present, he had slipped back into the mode, and even his bearing had stiffened. Court precautions. Security consciousness, in every breath and attitude. “Just be safe.”

“I very much intend to. If our escort does show up, don’t open the door. Talk only via Cl. Get Kroger in here.”

“Understood,” Jase said. It was preparation against extreme disaster.

But they had advised Cl exactly what they were doing, so there would be no startlement. There was no question of them seizing the shuttle. They owned it, and it was going nowhere without service and refueling. It was simply an excursion, one with several purposes.

“One thanks the paidhi for his very kind hospitality,” Nojana said as their small party gathered for the venture.

“My gratitude,” Bren said, “for resourcefulness as well. I count you and your partner welcome guests at any time.”

Welcome one, welcome the other of such a partnership. That was obligatory in an invitation, and he offered not the formal assurance, but an informal one. Nojana might be excused without prejudice from any Filing against him in the Guild he was sure Nojana belonged to; and likewise Banichi might decline any proceedings against Nojana’s principals: but since the principal in question was very likely the aiji, such contracts were very unlikely.

It provided a human a warm feeling, at least… to an ateva perhaps a widening of his horizons. Both were good emotions.

They were not, Bren decided, badly situated. Things
were
settling out; there
was
a way off the station, or would be. The Pilots’ Guild would settle its internal affairs with or without Ramirez. How that happened might be Jase’s agonized concern, but it simply could not be his, and Jase had become pragmatic enough to know that. Say that Jase himself might become a focus for crew dissent… and they would deal with that, but Banichi had persuaded him that getting out of here at the moment was a good idea, and assuring their line of retreat was a good idea.

Getting his hands directly on the aiji’s reply was a good idea, even if that reply had nothing of great substance. Not receiving it would be an incident, and he had no desire to leave the station in the midst of an incident, issues unresolved.

“So,” he said. “Banichi?”

Banichi opened the door for them, an immediate left turn, now, since they had appropriated everything up to the main corridor.

And they walked briskly on their way toward the lifts. How Banichi had done it once, how Nojana had done it… he had no idea, though it might have involved, likewise, walking straight down the middle of the hall, tall and dark and imposing enough to scare hell out of crew.

This time they did meet two walking toward them, crew who stopped dead in their tracks and stared.

“Hello there,” Bren said cheerfully, and waved.

“Yes, sir,” one said quietly, wide-eyed, as they walked by, and not a word else.

They reached the lift.

Was it a surprise that someone came running down the hall?

His security took a mildly defensive posture, hands near guns, as suddenly, breathlessly, a woman with Kaplan’s sort of gear came pelting from a side corridor.