Tracker

“Things are better,” he said to them. He thought they really might be better. His mother wanted them to be and he wanted them to be, both at the same time.

That was a start, was it not? She had said he was like his father.

But now he could feel his great-grandmother staring at the back of his neck, saying, grim-faced and frowning: “Concentrate, boy. Concentrate. You have only one task now. Think on that.”

11

Supper. All the messages had long since gone. The courier Narani had sent out to meet with Toby was one of the chambermaids, who was both happy to have a few days at Najida and of course glad to carry an important message to nand’ Toby.

So that had gone by plane, hours ago—and Toby should have absorbed the message by now.

The other message, also by plane, would have gotten to Shawn. There was no way he and Shawn could discuss the problem securely. The Messengers collected data and they used it, and no aiji had ever been able to control that guild. And now the Messengers’ problem posed a serious, serious threat to the world.

Bindanda turned up after supper, when Bren was leaving the dining room, in a moment when no other staff were near—a stout man, their very excellent cook, and possessed of a number of less evident skills.

“One hears you are going up to the station, nandi. That you may need me to go with you. One would be honored if that were the case.”

“The kyo have come calling, Danda-ji. They will be here, shortly. That is the matter at hand.”

“Indeed,” Bindanda said with the lift of a brow and a very sober nod. “Then one is doubly resolved to go with you, nandi.”

“We are leaving in as much secrecy as we can manage.”

“I shall bring everything I need.”

He had to smile. “Your teacakes are an irreplaceable asset, Danda-ji. Official word remains that I am going to Najida to meet my brother, who has come into Najida’s harbor to repair his boat. That is the story for everyone outside this apartment.”

“Yes,” Bindanda said. Rock solid in every good sense, Bindanda was. In point of fact, he was covert Guild—not an uncommon double role in those heading the kitchens of great houses. Bindanda had been in Tatiseigi’s house, serving Tabini, and now served in his—surely a spy from Tatiseigi—or Tabini keeping an eye on Tatiseigi before Tatiseigi had lent Bindanda to him; but Bren had never been so indelicate as to ask anyone which, and if his aishid knew, they had never said.

The mission was shaping up to be for his household, himself, and four plain-clothes Guild in addition to his aishid, covert Guild who might not be up to date on weapons-practice, but who weren’t going to have the naпvetй of Najida-born servants, either. The arrangement would protect his household in a major way.

But he hoped that problems up there never escalated to that point.

· · ·

“We have a conclusive selection from the Guild,” Jago said that night, in the dark, when she came late to bed, “of the persons they will send up to the station.”

One feared the news he was about to receive might not be conducive to sleep. Bren waited as Jago settled into bed and laid her head on the pillow.

“The Guild has designated a unit of four. Guild-senior is Ruheso. Her partner is Deno. They are senior, long service in many difficult areas. Their partners are Hanidi and Sisui, two brothers-of-different-mothers, from the west coast, a little younger but they have been together for many years. They have no man’chi outside the Guild. They served well in great hardship during the Troubles, and Banichi knows Deno personally. His word is that the Guild is not sending fools up there. We can rely on them.”

“Then one is glad to hear. Reasonable people. I can sleep, then.”

“Do you want to sleep?” Jago asked, winding a strand of his hair around her finger.

“Not yet,” he said.

They did sleep, after a time, in each other’s arms.

The house didn’t rest. From time to time, the noise of someone awake somewhere intruded into the bedroom—waked Jago first, certainly, since she was awake whenever a sound waked Bren.

Night staff. Usually there were only the laundry staff awake—but laundry had been going on all day, and now packing was in progress. Staff had nearly emptied the closets this evening.

If there was anything he was going to need on the station that Narani might not think to pack, that would be his problem to think of—because earth to orbit was not like running downtown. They took everything they could possibly need: uncompressed clothing, unlike some of the loads the shuttles carried, was low mass. They brought foodstuffs, and a few gifts for staff; but those were no problem.

So there he was, lying beside Jago, staring at the dark ceiling of the bedroom in the stillness after a small sound from the foyer, thinking and thinking and worrying over details—like needing to advise Geigi about the team from Headquarters, which he had hoped not to be doing in the small hours of the morning. But if he wanted to talk to Geigi before Geigi went to bed, he had to get up early.

Then he heard the front door of the apartment open, and Jago stirred just slightly, enough for him to know she had heard it.

“It may be a courier,” he said.

Jago reached for something, and did not get up. He began to, and found his robe as Jago, in the dark, talked to someone in numbers.

“It is a courier,” she said. “From Najida.”

He belted the robe and heard Jago slide out of bed on the other side. He had no desire for sleep now. He felt the slight raw edge of nerves from an already restless night and he sincerely hoped nothing involving his brother or the mainland had gone wrong. He waited a moment for Jago to find her own robe; and before they could go out, he heard a gentle rap at the door.

Jago turned on the lights just as Jeladi opened the door. Lights were dimmed out in the hall, ordinary for nighttime. But the offering of a message bowl was certainly not ordinary, in the bedroom, and at this hour. It held one cylinder, which proved to have Najida’s blue band.

“Ramaso-nadi sent Sindi and Tocari with the message, nandi,” Jeladi said. “Ramaso told them nothing, except not to delay about it, and not to respect the hour.”

“Indeed. Hospitality of the house for them, Ladi-ji.” He was anxious to read the letter, too anxious to go to the office for its useful tools. He uncapped the cylinder, sat down on the edge of the bed in his nightrobe, and with a practiced snap of his wrist and a little tug, extracted the letter.

It was in Mosphei’, in Toby’s casual hand, which, they had joked, only a brother could read. There was no extensive message—just a few lines.

Called home about Aunt Margaret. Explained everything about Uncle T’s behavior. Papa says he absolutely agrees. He and I talked. He’s working on the problem.

Bravo, Toby. Bravo. And thank God.

So word had gotten to the Presidenta. To Shawn Tyers. And Shawn now knew what was going on up on the station and understood that getting rid of Tillington was now beyond urgent. It was a sudden flood of good news.

But could he go back to sleep after that?

Not likely.

“The message went through,” he translated for Jago. “The Presidenta has gotten my message about the kyo. He is either going to send someone to manage Tillington, or outright replace him, and I hope for the latter.” He felt superstitious even about saying it. “All good news, so far.”

· · ·

It was, a check of his watch proved, an hour before dawn. So, perched on a counter edge in the security station, he had tea and cakes with his aishid, where no protocols held and business was always allowable.

His aishid, having their own breakfasts, sat at their various consoles, chairs more or less facing him.

“I am confident,” he told them, “that we will be rid of Tillington as a problem as soon as a shuttle can get there. A few days with him, we can manage. One hopes.”

“The Presidenta will deal with him,” Algini said. “And will this effort weaken the Presidenta?”

Leave it to Algini to think that thought. “Possibly. The Presidenta has been keeping very quiet about the situation, but one does not believe Tillington will be silent once he gets back to Earth. He will find those to listen to his complaints. But we hope they will be few in number.”

“Heritage Party,” Banichi said. Human words rarely passed Banichi’s lips. But these two words they all knew.

“Indeed. I fear the Heritage Party will seek Tillington’s acquaintance very quickly once he does set foot on Mospheira. But I think the Presidenta can deal with them.”

There were still frowns. Man’chi was an emotional word. It ran in many directions, and there was a chemistry about it, the same as in humans’ associations: at times that word translated. But some human actions remained a complete mystery to them. He doubted even his closest associates really understood Mospheirans’ continuing anger toward the old colonial management. Despite everything the aishidi’tat had been through with the Assassins’ Guild, there had never been a time at which atevi had even conceptualized class warfare. It was all clan advantage.

Atevi, too, would logically appoint one of Shawn Tyers’ relatives or in-laws to direct the station—precisely because a relative would logically want Shawn to succeed in a job that would benefit the whole aishidi’tat. Mospheirans chose appointees with heritage and interests as separate from Shawn’s as possible. Both were absolutely sure they were assuring a stable, balanced government.

“Mospheirans,” he said, “do not see benefit in supporting the Heritage Party nowadays. In recent memory, the economy suffered from its activities. The fact that Mospheiran enterprise is now deeply entwined with atevi companies means Mospheirans now see their prosperity and atevi prosperity as linked, and they now assume atevi will be as quick as they are to support what they support. They’re as dangerously mistaken as they ever were, but at least they’re mistaken in a more peaceful direction.”

“So far,” Algini said.

“So far,” he said. “Indeed, so far. And while the interface between humans and atevi becomes more and more mistaken, it becomes less and less feared—and that is dangerous for exactly the same reasons it once was. One has no idea what Tillington thinks the situation with atevi is. I doubt he thinks about it much at all. He simply runs his half of the station as if the atevi half were not there at all. Computers do the translation for supply, now. The translation programs we developed during the shuttle-building went on expanding while we were off at Reunion. There is still is no paidhi up there. Effectively, there is not. Mercheson-paidhi has resigned, as we know. Tillington disdains Jase as an ally of Sabin-aiji. So Tillington relies entirely on the computers, and Tillington and Geigi do not speak.

“When we were absent, they managed the station. They secured their food supply, independent of the world. Geigi built his landers and refused to release the remaining shuttle. Mospheira began to build its own shuttle program. And perhaps Tillington began to settle his hopes on that. Geigi built landers to recover the aishidi’tat, and Tillington occupied his own workforce in building room to receive a small number of refugees, if any did return, and by building comforts and resources, as I have understood it, should the station have a long isolation. When we came back, bringing five thousand refugees, outnumbering the Mospheiran population on the station—whatever Tillington envisioned turned inside out. Sabin’s order put them off the ship and onto the station, and this greatly upset Tillington. It was an invasion of his authority, a collapse of all his efforts. All his building had to be turned to housing. His comfortable sufficiency instantly became shortage. And the refugees sharing the Mospheiran side of the station, crowding them, but not atevi—are not Mospheirans. They are descended from people who used to be lords of the station and give orders to the ship. I do find understanding for Tillington’s situation and his emotional state, if not for his actions. One does not well judge whether he has held this anger from the beginning of his service, but it seems now to have slipped all sensible restraint. He is trying to turn one ship-aiji against another. He has made accusations which atevi cannot tolerate. He is isolating the Reunioners, so that the Reunioners have only Braddock to turn to. In the present situation—he is a danger that has to be removed.”

“Are we to remove him?” Jago asked outright, and to his own disquiet, he found himself thinking it would be so simple.

But the consequences would not.

“Politically, for the Presidenta, for the Treaty, no, Jago-ji. I cannot do it. But there is a human finesse that we can apply. I had begun to apply it—and now there is no time for intricate maneuvering. The Presidenta will act. He has powers he can use in emergency; I have informed him, and it will very soon be clear to everybody—this is an emergency.”

“The kyo have not announced themselves,” Banichi said. “But can we be sure Ogun-aiji has not confided the information to this man?”

Bren drew in a breath. “We cannot be sure. But indications are still that no one up there knows except the ship-aijiin, and certain ship’s crew, but not necessarily all of them. I suspect that Phoenix’ technicians have been closely monitoring our backtrail over this last year, in exactly this concern, and while they may have become aware of that ship, one does not believe the station has anything like the ship’s capabilities in that regard.”

Tano asked: “Can the kyo have followed us? Could they have been there all this last year, nandi, silent—as it was at Reunion?”

“That is entirely possible. If it has been there, we have no idea what prompted it to move. But for whatever reason, I gather it is moving toward us on the same side of the sun, which the kyo know will lead to discovery. So one does assume the kyo will at some point announce themselves.” Bren took a sip of tea, as thought proceeded down that track to the inevitable conclusion. “Once it does, one may assume the station as well as the ship will hear it. And when that happens, there may be panic on the human side.”

“How much shall we tell the Guild observers?” Algini asked.

“At this point, tell them all we know, and caution them not to spread the news beyond Council, and to urge Council to keep it secret, as the aiji’s business. If the Guild still has leaks—best we find out now where those channels run.”

“One agrees,” Banichi said.

“The dowager’s plane is now in the air,” Tano reported. He had been watching that situation, minute by minute.

“Good,” Bren said. “One hopes her return will be taken as typical of her sudden decisions. And once we do make the public statement to the people, we shall simply report that what is impending up there is a state visit on the part of the kyo, to which we are responding at a high level—certainly historic, but nothing worthy of general panic. People will need some image of what is happening. Best we shape it in a peaceful way.” Last sip of tea. “But one must also expect the dowager will do as she pleases about releasing information.”

“Cenedi indicates,” Tano said, “that her public reason is a visit to Najida, the matter of the new windows.”

Leave it to Ilisidi, who cloaked her reasons inside reasons inside reasons, and let everyone guess.

Bren nodded. “Once she lands, and from then until we stand in the presence of the kyo, she will be in charge. But Cenedi will need to have advice from us about travel arrangements.”

“We are in contact,” Banichi said. “We will keep him advised.”

· · ·

Mani’s plane was landing. And mani would be arriving in the Bujavid very soon, but Cajeiri had no real hope of seeing her when she did. His father would say mani had no need to be bothered, and he could not go to mani’s apartment unasked.

So he simply continued quietly making his lists of things to pack, thinking of all the things he might need, what he would want to bring, because—nand’ Bren’s aishid had warned his today—warned his aishid directly, as if he were grown-up and important—that the public thought he was going with nand’ Bren to Najida for a few days, with mani.

About the new windows.

Which was only an excuse.

But it would explain to anybody why he needed court dress despite it being the country.

Nand’ Bren’s aishid had also warned his bodyguard that he should not attempt to send letters or messages to his associates on the station, either before or after they arrived. Everything had to be kept quiet, secret, and with as little fuss as possible, because there were troubles on the station between the Reunioners and the Mospheirans, and nand’ Bren did not want him or his associates up there to be involved.

Nand’ Bren’s aishid had relayed the question, too, how many seats he needed for his party, and he had thought hard and fast, then answered definitely that he was coming only with his aishid.

He very much wished he could take Eisi and Liedi. They should learn about space. And if he had them he could possibly be more on his own, and not depending on mani’s staff—but he also knew—he had heard from his associates—how very crowded people were, and how scarce things were, and he thought maybe an emergency was not the time to try to be independent of mani. His aishid knew nothing at all about living up there. And he did know.

But the station was different than the ship—so he had things to learn, too: he was sure of it.

He wished most of all that he could tell his associates he was coming—and most of all tell them that everything would be all right despite the kyo coming—

But they would not even know about the kyo yet.

And he could not promise them anything about grown-ups and politics. That, he could not control.

So he reviewed his little dictionary and remembered words.

And he so hoped Lord Geigi would have taken his associates into his section and protected them. Grown-ups sometimes forgot things like that when emergencies happened.

He had to trust that, this time, grown-ups were paying full attention.

12

“We trust all is well here,” was the dowager’s opening statement during breakfast service, on the windy balcony.

And, toward the end of table-talk, one single question that verged on business: “Have you taken Lord Tatiseigi into full confidence, nandi?”

Bren swallowed a bite of spicy toast. “We have talked, aiji-ma, but little about the nature of the emergency.”

“He will join us after breakfast,” Ilisidi said. She laid down her napkin, a signal that they could come in from the cold.

In fact, there was a to-do at the outer door just as the two of them were taking chairs in the warm sitting room, and in short order Lord Tatiseigi did enter the room, which entailed rising and bowing—not on the dowager’s part—and a new pot of tea.

It came down—past polite inquiries after business in the East, and the dowager’s inquiries on the legislation—to dismissing the servants for more serious talk. Cenedi and Nawari, the dowager’s two senior bodyguards, held the door. Banichi and Jago were with them, and now Tatiseigi’s guard, Easterners from Ilisidi’s own Malguri, were in the hall to conduct their own briefing on affairs in the north.

Lord Tatiseigi had to take over the legislative effort in their absence, and also had to stand ready to deal with any situation that spilled over from orbit, or any detail Tabini-aiji needed attended in the meanwhile.

But regarding the kyo themselves, Tatiseigi was informed with only the broadest details.

“Have these strangers spoken yet?” was Tatiseigi’s first question.

“Nand’ paidhi?” Ilisidi deferred the question to Bren.

“No, nandi,” Bren said, “they have not as yet, and we are not absolutely certain they know we have seen them. One thing we do know, nand’ Tatiseigi: we have experience of meeting strangers, and these visitors do not. In understanding strangers at close range—the kyo have only their brief experience of us. So what they will do and why they will do it we cannot predict.”

“Are these the people you dealt with?”

“We are not entirely certain. Another set of foreigners seems to live on the other side of their territory, remote from them, and seem currently to be at war with them, for what cause we have no information. If these other people are warlike and hostile, the kyo are, on the one hand, valuable as allies; but on the other—if the kyo have provoked a peaceful people, the kyo pose a problem. I cannot guess at this point which is the case, nandi. We are so very different from the kyo we do not know why they declared they would visit us. Likeliest in my own opinion, they have come to see whether we have told them the truth.”

“Perhaps they have come to see our defenses,” Tatiseigi said.

“Indeed I would not deny it, nandi. They would surely be interested to see how advanced we are, how strong we are—”

“And did we invite these people?” Tatiseigi asked disapprovingly, as if these were unbidden visitors at a dinner party.

“Precise exchange of intentions or purposes is likewise difficult, nandi,” Bren said.

“They had,” Ilisidi remarked dryly, “blown up part of Reunion Station.”

“Well, and now they come to ours?”

One hesitated to argue motivations with Lord Tatiseigi. It was rarely productive. But Ilisidi answered quietly, “As the paidhi-aiji notes, it is difficult to know their thoughts, their fears, or their customs. It is quite certain also they do not know ours, and if they are wise, they will be as cautious as we shall be. They stated, in the limited way we can understand their speech, that they would come one day. And now they have appeared.”

“One does propose,” Bren said, “that we withdraw Phoenix somewhat from the station. It might be provocative to do it just as they arrive. One thing we should by no means tell them, aiji-ma: that Phoenix is the only ship we have. The ship under construction indicates our ability to build. A hundred more ships could be out and about the heavens, for all they know. Ships do apparently leave a trail, and I do not know how long it persists, but surely there could be other ships or stations in our control, and we shall not tell them otherwise.”

“Which is to say,” Ilisidi remarked, “that we are in fact quite defenseless, but that we must behave as if we are not—since what they do not see cannot be demonstrated not to exist. So we shall let them deceive themselves, if they need to be deceived. The humans, Tati-ji, feared their library would fall into enemy hands, betraying our location and situation. Unfortunately, as one understands, the arrival of our ship to recover it blazoned our origin and our path through the heavens quite, quite adequately, which was the chief piece of information we wished to keep secret in the first place. Kyo territory is not, one understands, a deep mystery to the ship-folk or the Reunioners. Humans intruded where they ought not, apparently provoking and alarming the kyo, which may have occasioned their appearance at Reunion Station. The kyo, having received our assurances we shall respect their territory, are here now, surely, to look and see for themselves what we are—or perhaps simply to balance the human intrusion into their territory with an intrusion into ours. We do not know.”

“So how shall we deal with these people?” Tatiseigi asked. “What shall we expect?”

“We are not close neighbors,” Bren said. “We scarcely threaten one another in terms of territory. There is no pressing need for conflict, which could prove expensive in every sense. Atevi understand that numbers rule the universe and readily accept that people may belong to many associations at once. The kyo seem to believe—and this is murky—that associations once made must be permanent.”

“Permanent,” Tatiseigi echoed, frowning.

“We do not understand what kyo mean by associations, or if the word is correct at all. This is one of many things we have yet to understand. The dictionary, such as we have developed it, has fewer than three hundred words.”

“Which is certainly better than we began,” the dowager said, “and a great deal to the credit of the paidhi and my great-grandson, who gathered words and wrote them down.”

“And the young gentleman and yourself, aiji-ma, who engaged them and calmed them.”

“Pish,” Ilisidi said. “We need more words, paidhi. We need precise words and more of them, aptly used, so we may be better able to deal with them.”

It was, indeed, what they had for resources.

Given that Phoenix was all but unarmed, words were all they had.

· · ·

Time was running. Next day was the fourth, their last whole day in Shejidan, the last day before they would take the train to the port, and the port crew understandably wanted their baggage early. Crates stood in the hall now, about to go downstairs to the train station. Staff hurried back and forth. A grocery order arrived, with a large supply of orangelle concentrate that didn’t so much as visit the kitchen before it went straight into a crate with other non-wardrobe items, including real flour, fine cooking oil, and granulated sugar.

Even during the meeting with the dowager, two crates had arrived in Bren’s apartment from next door: Cajeiri’s wardrobe crate and a smaller one belonging to his bodyguard. Staff had simply stacked them on baggage trucks and they stood there overshadowing the foyer.

“We are ready,” Narani said by late afternoon. “The baggage is ready to go, at your word, nandi. One believes the dowager’s staff is likewise ready.”

“We shall send ours the moment hers has cleared,” Bren said, “at your discretion, Rani-ji.”

So the crates began to disappear then, as many as they could fit in the lift at once, until the foyer stood empty. Exhausted staff ate sandwiches, and slept—finally, slept.

Bren’s own supper was a very informal affair—the junior cook, a lad from Najida, had presided over the kitchen amid Bindanda’s raids on the spice supplies. And brandy afterward was an uncharacteristically solitary affair. His aishid joined him for a conference, but, being on duty, would not take a drop.

“Go to bed, Bren-ji,” was Banichi’s advice. “You, above all, cannot become over-tired.”

It was good advice. His bodyguard would continue to work, in shifts. He took his bath and put himself to bed early.

He had talked to staff, and made final assignments. Supani and Koharu were distressed to know they were not going aloft. They protested their willingness to go on a later flight, if they turned out to be needed, and he had assured them both that would be a consideration.

But to be set in charge of a large household staff—next to the aiji’s own, that was no minor thing, either.

Their distress concerned him, however, at a time when he could not distract himself with worries or second-guess his decisions. The baggage had left for the train station. Staff was still moving about, excited and distressed at once.

To shut off distractions, he took the kyo dictionary to bed and thought and thought, recalling the circumstances and the locale and the expression behind the words he had written down himself, trying to get a clear focus on the syntax, difficult as it was. The language held nothing like the numerical content of the atevi language, and, like Mosphei’, was more than a little confusing regarding what was a noun versus what was a verb.

Verbs combined, and seemed hell to figure, in forms and nuance. They were dicey things, like nouns or states of being embedding outcomes, and a few infixes giving clues to desirable and undesirable values.

If they were even verbs. Or if that ancient concept was not misleading him.

Could one negotiate a treaty with only nouns?

Easier said than done.

Did the kyo even have a concept like treaty?

It was a state of being. So there was a possibility.

His eyes were tired. He was asking himself about abstract nouns while attempting to decide whether there was any internal clue to tell chair from sit—that was how basic it was. The phonics in which he had written words down were his own system, and he had had to invent symbols along the way. Consonants and vowels were similarly difficult to define. The language boomed and resonated. He had tried to note distinctions. A human throat could hardly manage some sounds. And what he might have missed—or said by accident—

He found his eyes closing repeatedly while he was trying to read, and he finally got up, went to the wall and turned the lights out, then crawled back into bed and burrowed into the covers.

There was an uncommon chill in the air, tonight. Or he was that tired, and Banichi was right: he was trying to do too much himself, wearing himself down before he was really needed.

Time was running. That was the scary thing. He dreamed about girders, and vast cold spaces, where one needed a coat. That was the station docking facility.

He dreamed about a white room, and knew he needed to meet someone there, and could not remember—

Thump.

No. Hollow thump. Rap on the door. He opened his eyes, alarmed, saw a seam of light, a figure entering the room.

“Nandi.” Jeladi’s voice. “One apologizes. There is a phone call from nand’ Jase.”

He came awake fast, slid off the bed, hardly stopped to snatch up his nightrobe from the end of the bed. Shejidan’s night was Jase’s watch, the period in which he was in charge of the ship’s functions, aboard or on the station. And staff was under orders not to delay any message from the station at any hour.

The office offered the closest plug for the phone. “Tea, please, Ladi-ji,” he told Jeladi, on his way out his bedroom door, and indeed, the office door was open, the light was on, and the phone already sat on his desk. He was shivering as he picked up the receiver.

“Jase?” he said, heart thumping. The floor was like ice. “Bren, here.”

“Bren. They’re talking. Signal is exactly the same as two years ago, simple beep and pulse of light, repeating every fifteen point three five eight minutes. Station picked it up right at the last of the Mospheiran shift and Tillington kept them on duty. Discretion in the Mospheiran section is now completely blown and it won’t be long before everybody knows. News leaked onto B deck inside five minutes, at least that there was a signal out there.”

He’d had about two heartbeats to think, first, that Jase was breaching security, calling him and discussing the kyo directly, and another heartbeat to think, Thank God, regarding the nature of the signal, and a third heartbeat to realize what time it was.

Damn the unlucky chance that it had come in Tillington’s watch.

They were now in an entirely different game.

The robe was not enough. And his feet were approaching frozen. He sat down at his desk, shivering. “Immense relief, here, really, at least that it’s the visitors we expect. But we’ve got to tell Lord Geigi officially and we’ve got to tell the Reunioners and reassure them. What’s the reaction up there right now?”

“Communications are buzzing all over, but Ogun called up second- and third-shift ship techs to duty—that’s the ones that were at Reunion with us. He’s shut down the station com system except for official announcements. Tillington’s also shut the section doors in all human sections to prevent section-to-section movement, but he can’t hold that condition forever.”

“Is Geigi aware?”

“Yes. Expect a call from him, when he can get it out.”

“When he can get it out?”

“Ogun’s locked down com. We’re not transmitting at all, except this one call, pending your clarification.”

Good. “Echo. Precisely what we did in the past. Observe their timing. Otherwise normal traffic. Just keep me posted.”

“Relaying that,” Jase said, and a moment later: “Also advising Geigi.”

“What’s his status?”

“It’s calm, over there. No lockdown. Up in ship-sector, the captains are all awake. Ogun’s ordered me to advise Geigi delay his going on-shift until we can get the humans calmed down. I did relay that. Sabin’s order was to call you. I told Geigi I’d report back, and that Sabin’s watching the situation with the Reunioners. As of five minutes ago Tillington was headed up to ship-sector for conference with Ogun. Sabin’s making an official announcement to the Reunioners just about now, what’s happened, the reason for the doors shutting, requesting calm, and everybody staying where they are.”

Understandable. Not optimum, but the situation up there wasn’t optimum.

“Atevi won’t riot. They will want to get information fairly soon, so stay in close communication with Geigi. They will expect the captains to have a plan and tell them about it. You can break the news to all concerned that we’re headed up there. You know the kyo pattern. We’re likely to have time. Calm and communication are the best route.”

“I’ll relay that to all concerned. I hear we are gaining some time. The kyo shed a little V at the same time as they started transmitting. They’re going to be arriving at least a day later. Maybe a lot more if they repeat the decel.”

That was another relief. The knowledge that Ogun had called the second and third shift Phoenix technicians on duty was a relief. They understood what had worked before. And the senior captains had authorized Jase to bring him into the loop. As had to be.

“With the kyo, we have to do everything the same as before. That’s official, from me. Phoenix has the records. But if anything happens that isn’t in the prior pattern, consult me before any response. Just repeat your prior response and stall with that.”

“Understood. I’ll relay that. I’ll be in touch when I know something more.”

“Right.” Damn it. “Tell Geigi call me if he needs me.”

“I will.” Contact clicked out.

The time? He had no idea. He had no clock in his office: a reminder of time was a nuisance when he was working.

Call Geigi? He needed to do that.

Call Ogun? Tell the senior captain what to do in his command?

He didn’t want to get into an argument with Ogun. Mistrust and infighting inside the Captains’ Council dated back at least to Ramirez—and likely from long before anyone now holding a captaincy.

Every Captain had his allies. Sabin and Jase had the paidhi-aiji, and Ogun, Ramirez’ closest ally, had—unfortunately—Tillington.

This was not going to be a happy divorce, upcoming, Ogun from Tillington. He’d known that before the kyo had entered the picture. Before Tillington had slammed doors shut as if the station were under attack.

Now that the kyo were involved, administrative changes that had had time to work out were coming on like snowballs rolling downhill. He couldn’t wait any longer to open discussions with Ogun. He had to deal with the man and tell him what was going on and about to go on, without letting the situation between Ogun and Sabin blow up.

And Tillington was in Ogun’s office for conference right now.

He feared he might have waited too long.

Jeladi arrived with a fresh pot of tea, quietly set it down and poured it. Jago arrived right behind Jeladi, in uniform, awake and on duty, and bearing his bath slippers.

He slipped his feet into them. They were numb. He accepted the cup of tea, and cradled it for warmth, while Jago and Jeladi waited for information his brain was rapidly sorting.

“Jase-aiji just called. The ship is signaling, nadiin-ji, transmitting as they did at Reunion, so it is the kyo; and the news is out, on the station. Ogun has taken command, and is conferencing with Tillington. Ogun has shut down all communication; I have asked it be opened, and authorized a response. Meanwhile the atevi section seems in good order, but Tillington has shut all the section doors, confining both the Reunioners and the Mospheirans wherever they happen to have been at the time. Sabin is advising the Reunioners what has happened. Tillington has likely made an announcement in the Mospheiran sections. I have authorized Jase to release information that we are coming up there. I cannot complain of the orders Ogun has given, though I am uneasy about Tillington. Advise the dowager’s staff, Ladi-ji, of all this. Jago-ji, advise the aiji’s bodyguard. There is no reason to wake him, but that will be at his staff’s discretion. It was well I caught a little sleep. Our day is starting early.”

There were solemn nods and, as quietly, both left.

He sat staring at nothing in particular, and the tea failed to warm him. Staff was already moving about the halls in greater numbers. Day staff was waking, not necessarily fully informed, but understanding the day was starting, and likely getting information from night staff.

The contact with their visitors was not going that badly. There had been far worse possibilities.

Now there was a manageable event, but it was acquiring a texture of small, troublesome details—one of which was that he had, pursuing the Tillington matter, been preferentially working with Sabin and Jase, who were not in the best relationship with Ogun.

Bet on it, bet on it, Ogun was getting Tillington’s opinions now. And Ogun wouldn’t be talking to the Reunioners, who had experienced this twice before. Or to Geigi, whose section was the only one not in turmoil. The Reunioners and Geigi were not Ogun’s usual contacts. The information flowed as it was accustomed to flow, and in this case, not from the best source.

He wrote a quick note to Tabini:

Aiji-ma, the incoming ship has signaled identically to the ship we dealt with at Reunion. This is very good news.

The signal has just been picked up by the humans on the space station and the news has spread unrestrained to all human sections of the station. I have asked Jase-aiji to relay information to Lord Geigi. Geigi and I discussed this scenario, among others, during his visit here. We have already laid out what to do and in what stages to do it. I have every confidence he is doing exactly that now, and if he encounters difficulty he will contact me with certain coded words. If anything disrupts communication with him, Jase-aiji will contact me. That, also, we have arranged. So I am confident in our arrangements.

Therefore one recommends that the lords of the aishidi’tat should now be given the news to let them prepare their own statements. One recommends this be announced as an impending state visit. We sincerely hope this is the truth.

To Ilisidi:

Aiji-ma, a signal from the foreign ship indicates these are the kyo, and one now has some reason to hope that the individuals we know are part of this mission.

Humans and atevi on the station are being informed of the situation. Transmission from the station has ceased, but I trust will resume soon. Humans on Mospheira will likely get the news as the sun rises if not before. Lord Geigi is implementing plans long since laid. I have advised the aiji your grandson that the lords of the aishidi’tat should be informed at this point. We are not officially releasing the information here on Earth that we are going up to the station, but the station is releasing that information.

The ship is also slowing slightly, giving us a day or two more, but our launch is firmly set and on schedule.

To his staff at Najida: to go by the Messengers’ Guild: Nadiin-ji, an urgent message is arriving simultaneously for my brother. Please wake Ramaso and nand’ Toby to receive it.

To Toby himself:

Toby, phone Mospheira immediately. At this point news will be breaking on the station and it will be making its way through channels by dawn, if it has not already arrived from station operations to Mospheira.

The kyo are signaling. We recognize the signal and it is optimistic. We regard this visit as a diplomatic contact. By all signs, it is the kyo we were dealing with.

Tell Shawn all other things apply.

Urgently.

God. One more day. One more day, and they would be on the shuttle headed up there. But now that the news was getting out, public disturbance might make it difficult to get safe transport to the port.

Call Ogun at this point— or keep operating through Jase, whose immediate superior was Sabin?

He didn’t personally trust Ogun. There was too much cloudy history there—too much of the very history the Heritage Party pointed up as reasons not to trust the administrators, too many things Ogun had done high-handedly, without consultation with Sabin, since Ramirez’ death.

And perhaps because of that clouded history—Ogun’s having been a part of former senior command—in his heart of hearts he didn’t personally rule out Ogun as the origin of Tillington’s unfortunate remark.

Sabin and Ogun didn’t agree on a wealth of matters—spectacularly, they didn’t agree. Sabin had organized the mission to Reunion without Ogun’s full agreement. Sabin had hoped to prevent exactly what had happened: another species getting their location.

It was no fault of Sabin’s that the mission had given the kyo their point of origin. The other species had very likely been sitting there when they arrived, thanks to moves Ramirez had made, as he suspected, leading the kyo to Reunion in the first place, when their decoy effort failed.

But tell that to a man who had had issues with Sabin for a long, long history of a divided Council. Ogun very possibly had been in command along with Ramirez when Phoenix had intruded directly into kyo space—

No way to know that now. Only Ogun knew what Ramirez had done. The other people closest to Ramirez were dead. The surviving crew that had been on duty, with a fragmentary picture of what had happened, might have loyalties to one captain or the other—but they had no whole understanding of what had happened or what decisions had been made and why.

At a certain point, in this current situation, the hell with it. So much unhappy history should be cut loose and let go, if they could just let go the distrust and the recriminations along with it.

And if he kept talking only to Sabin—at this critical juncture—he made himself part of the pattern. He could back Sabin all the way to marginalizing Ogun—or splitting the crew.

With Ogun—rested so much information.

And with Ogun—stood a good number of the ship’s crew and the Mospheirans on station, who trusted him—for one thing, as the man who’d kept the station functioning when the coup in the aishidi’tat had cut off supply and left them suddenly on their own.

No, the man had been on the wrong side of one historical situation. But on the right side of the other. Sooner or later he had to deal with Ogun, and with Ogun in charge of communications and with the risk of the station sending some wrong signal back to the kyo—later did not seem a good idea.

He picked up the phone, began the process to get another station contact, and hoped Jase had been able to get communications cleared.

He had.

And the voice was Mospheiran. “This is Station Central.”

“This is Bren Cameron, in the name of Tabini, aiji of the aishidi’tat. Get me Captain Jules Ogun. Not his office. Captain Ogun, personally, by whatever channels it takes. As long as it takes.”

“He’s in a—”

“I understand that. Unfortunately no one he can contact down here speaks Mosphei’ if he tries to call me back. And there’s an extreme emergency in progress. Can you give me a time at which he will be out of his meeting? Your physical safety is at stake.”

“Just a moment, sir. Please wait.”

Communications up there, in whatever Central was active at the hour, was accustomed to his contacts with Geigi, and occasionally with Jase. Probably somebody had to get somebody to authorize a contact that didn’t have a precedent, and very likely Ogun had given direct orders not to be disturbed during a series of meetings of his own choosing.

Communications took far more than a moment. Bren began sorting papers on his desk, and thinking. Hard. He had to engage Ogun fast and turn the conversation to the positive. Had to. He didn’t want to start with an argument.

Click.

The man did have curiosity, from past observation. And he was a bit touchy about criticism.

“This is Ogun.”

“Bren Cameron here, Captain. I know what you’ve done and so far everything you’ve done has been absolutely correct, to the letter. I’ve been following the situation. I have information. Have you a moment?”

“Go ahead.”

“You are now receiving a signal identical to previous communications with these people. This is a good sign. This is exactly the pattern of the last contact, which ended peacefully. You should be echoing their message back exactly at their interval.”

“Appreciated.” The tone was not appreciative. “And then what do we expect, Mr. Cameron?”

Not a happy man today, no.

“Keep repeating the initial message and interval identically, sir, no matter what they send, and notify me if they change it. I’m heading up there tomorrow with the same team that handled the last interaction with the kyo. We’ll be traveling express.”

There was dead silence from Ogun’s side, no encouragement at all.

“We are bringing up linguistic records from the meeting at Reunion and we will back you, sir. Speaking for the aiji, we place human safety, including yours, on an equal priority with our own. I would also respectfully suggest, sir, that you detach Phoenix from the station now and move out very, very slowly to a convenient distance. Doing it later might send the wrong signal.”

“Captains know where and when to position the ship, Mr. Cameron.”

“Your translator, Captain, in your service, knows what may be misinterpreted as a hostile move at a later stage of these negotiations. With all due respect, please separate Phoenix from dock now, to preserve all future options. The kyo do not know how many ships we have. They do not know where they might be.”

“No thanks to your efforts at Reunion!”

“We know the kyo are definitely armed sufficiently to take out the station. I do not serve any side in this, sir, except Tabini-aiji. The aiji has every interest in assisting you, and I am personally assigned to be a resource at your disposal, sir. I am willing to support you at any hour, at any time. If that signal changes in any detail before I get there, please keep me advised before you alter your own response.”

Still a lingering silence. But the contact persisted. Then:

“How are you at taking orders, Mr. Cameron?”

“I am excellent at it, sir, and I am equally excellent at my job. I have met these people—”

“People, is it?”

“People, sir. The gentleman I dealt with at Reunion is an imposing fellow named Prakuyo an Tep, very smart—a thinker, a very tough individual, and very civilized, who endured ten years of captivity without hating humans indiscriminately. I hope he is aboard that ship. I very much hope he is in a position of authority on that ship. Whatever the situation, sir, I am deeply devoted to the survival of our side of this encounter, and our side includes, as a very high priority, the safety of the ship. I am calling now to offer you my respects, sir, and I hope to work closely with you.”

Again a silence, which extended beyond time-lag.

“Mr. Cameron, you say you will take orders.”

“I assure you, sir, I take orders very well, but my job is to keep the opinions of various sides from intersecting badly. That is my expertise, and I will be as zealous in communicating your point of view or Prakuyo an Tep’s as I am in representing the aiji’s view: that is the job I have, sir. I am charged with bringing all these views to the table and finding some way for them to be compatible.”

“I’ll tell you what I want, right now, Mr. Cameron. I want these strangers out of here, and while you’re at it, I want some lasting solution to five thousand people who don’t like your people, and who happen to be led by the single damned bastard who created this mess.”

Interesting classification—regarding Braddock.

“I understand and agree in all points, sir. I suspect the kyo ship is here on a fact-finding mission, and I hope we can satisfy them and send them on their way. A year’s voyage to reach us is hardly the sort of thing that defines close neighbors.”

“I have things to discuss with you, Mr. Cameron.”

“I would be very glad to have that discussion, sir.”

“Going up with the shuttle tomorrow, is it? You were the delay.”

“Yes, sir. Tomorrow is as quickly as I could get the shuttle reconfigured. In the meantime, sir, the pattern of our communication with the kyo has previously been an opening of reciprocation. Phoenix has all the records of the last exchange, and it also has the personnel who handled the communications. I am extremely glad you have them for a resource. If you start receiving anything different than you are now receiving, I cannot stress enough, send it to me and don’t respond to their signal until I’ve seen it and we’ve had a chance to confer. The kyo will take a continual repetition of the identical pattern quite patiently. I would not like to enter an escalating series of reciprocal actions with them that could be misinterpreted. Their timescale does not seem to be ours.”

Small silence. “I follow your logic, Mr. Cameron.”

That was a relief. “I will be up there as soon as possible. Express, sir.”

“I’ll see you in my office when you get here.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll be there.”

Click.

Connection broke.

He looked across the room, aware now that Jago had come in.

“One could not follow enough of it,” Jago said, which was some encouragement to hope the Messengers’ spies couldn’t, either.

“I have now told Ogun-aiji we are coming. I neglected to mention the aiji-dowager or the young gentleman. Ogun-aiji and I at least reached a civilized understanding this time. But I am not confident I understand Ogun that much more than I understand Prakuyo an Tep. And I do not know his history. I wish I did.”

“How so?” Jago asked.

“Very possibly Ogun has seen the kyo world—or at least knows where it is. I have no access to the ship’s records. And I am not certain the information Ramirez-aiji concealed from everyone is extant or accessible in those records. There may be areas of the ship’s records that Sabin and Jase cannot reach. Ogun may know where the first meeting with the kyo was, and under what circumstances. He may not. And despite Tillington’s charge that this entire situation is Sabin’s fault—by all I can gather, Ramirez was the captain on duty when the ship entered into the kyo solar system. The ship was spotted by the kyo, and it left quickly, leaving, of course, a trail to say where it had come from, exactly the thing Tillington charged Sabin with doing at Reunion, in coming here. The ship took a circuitous course getting back to Reunion, presumably under Ramirez’ orders. When the ship did arrive back at Reunion, it found Reunion had already been hit, and that they were consequently without a secure base—with Braddock in charge, trying to invoke command over the ship. There were two ways to go, then: rebuild Reunion, with the constant threat of another strike—or come back here. Ramirez apparently wanted to abandon Reunion and bring the population here, but Reunion being under Braddock’s orders—Braddock refused to evacuate, and the ship just left, possibly by another indirect route. Ogun was second-in-command. He may have known what Ramirez knew regarding survivors on Reunion, and Ogun’s dealing with Braddock may go back to that time.”

“But would not Sabin know this?”

“If she was off-shift, decisions might have been taken that she had no idea were taken. Allegedly Ramirez gave Braddock the order to evacuate his people from Reunion, and Braddock refused him. Did he refuse? I think it likely is the truth. If the ship had come back here and found no human survivors, they would have lacked laborers and technicians to create any new human settlement. That argues that the ship really did urge Braddock to evacuate—that Braddock in fact did refuse, and that Ramirez-aiji left them stranded because his priority was to protect the ship and re-establish a base here. What he had done troubled him deeply. He revealed the truth about Reunion only when he was dying—but was it to force Ogun by popular sentiment, or was Ogun as surprised by the truth as everybody else? I am convinced that Sabin was indeed surprised by Ramirez’ confession. I do not know what she was doing while Ramirez was making some of these decisions, but I strongly suspect that she may have been barred from the bridge—and that her feud with Ogun and the division in command goes that far back. I have very many questions about Ogun, what he did, who his allies were—but most urgently I need to know what his state of mind is now, and how much the past affects his relationship with Sabin.”

He turned his chair, leaned back—looked directly at a face more familiar than his own. And not human. And beloved.

Strange how a few moments of using the language and thinking human thoughts shifted his whole world.

Jago shifted it all back into the order he much preferred.

“Tillington became Ogun’s ally during our voyage to Reunion, and Ogun will not be pleased,” he said, “when he learns I am requesting Tillington be replaced. But he will accept it, one hopes, before the kyo arrive.”

“Will he be reliable?”

Instantly: where is his man’chi? That was the math Jago lived with.

“One is not sure how Ogun regards me, despite his promise to hear my advice. But if he will hear me for a few moments I think he will realize I can be of far more help to him than Tillington can. Certainly I can be more help than Braddock can.”

Jago gave a silent, grim laugh. One knew what Jago thought logical, regarding Braddock’s fate, and the math made sense. Humans were, in Jago’s estimation, endangering everyone and everything in the world, all to avoid one quiet, well-deserved disposal.

“We Mospheirans are,” he said, “a little crazy. And I wish I knew for certain whether Ogun was complicit in what Ramirez did. It bears on how he makes his decisions now, and what he might want to hide from discovery—as if it could matter now, at least to me. I think, in simple terms, his man’chi is most of all to the ship. And at this crisis, I care very little what Ogun has done or not done in the past. Our problem is immediate, and my concern is a peaceful, constructive talk with that arriving ship and a negotiation that disengages us from all the kyo’s concerns.”

“Yet,” Jago said, “did the kyo not indicate that an association can never be broken?”

“They did,” he said. It was not a comforting thought. “But it can have a happier interpretation. And perhaps a closer association can be postponed.”

“One certainly hopes so,” Jago said.

13

It was ungodly early to be up and about. But lights were on, staff turned out, and the kitchen had swung into action this morning under Bindanda’s assistant, while Bindanda was going over his checklists.

Acknowledgements came in.

From Ilisidi: We shall keep the agreed schedule.

From Tabini: We have confirmed all orders you have issued. Our son will join you at the appointed time tomorrow.

And from the Guild, through Tano: The Guild unit will join us at the train station. They are advised about baggage and security requirements. They will carry only hand baggage. They will rely on Lord Geigi for supply, and he is preparing a residence for them near his own.

Matters he hadn’t personally overseen were being handled. Baggage had gone out last night. The Red Train was undergoing preparation to take them to the port before tomorrow dawn, and that preparation would be guarded, and closely supervised.

Now the nerves started. Breakfast sat uneasily on the stomach. And Bren found himself looking at familiar faces, familiar things in the apartment, telling himself he would be back, and all these people would be safe if he could just quit the dark train of thought that kept intruding and concentrate on business at hand. Staff knew what to do. His bodyguard did. They were in close communication now with Cenedi, Ilisidi’s Guild-senior; and with Tabini’s. They were giving orders to Cajeiri’s young bodyguard, and that unit was being overseen by Tabini’s bodyguard. Everything was happening as it ought to.

He sat down in his office to have one more cup of tea, review the dictionary one more time, seeking insights, and think through everything he had on his own list.

A very illicit little Guild communications unit was going with him. They were not telling the Guild observers about that item. His handgun, however, was staying on Earth. If he turned out to need a weapon, his bodyguard would provide it. They were amply armed, and understood far better than the unit from Headquarters what they could and couldn’t do in that fragile environment, and where they could and couldn’t do it.

Trust that the unit from Headquarters was going to be a quick study on such points, and that they would grasp the problems of using weapons on the station. It left them a wide array of things they could do—and shouldn’t have to.

And they would also be dealing with ship security, whose personal armament could blow the side off an earthly building.

He sat. He studied.

“The news is now broadcast to the public,” Jago arrived to inform him. “There is, on the part of some, alarm; and of course the rumor has begun to circulate that the kyo will land as humans did, though the report directly denied this will happen. Lord Machigi has sent an inquiry through staff to his Trade Ministry asking whether there is more to know on that matter. The dowager has responded that we had no means to predict the timing of this visit, but that there is no such landing contemplated, that the kyo are most probably here to confirm what we told them, and that we are going up there to conduct a diplomatic meeting.”

“Indeed,” he said.

So their close allies were asking reasonable questions and getting one small piece of truth more than the public was yet getting. The world was in acceptable order.

“I shall draft a similar letter to Dur and the Atageini.”

It was something to do. It was a function he normally had. It avoided thinking of more troublesome details.

And when he had done it, he wrote an advisement for his secretarial office: he customarily received direct communications from citizens, even atevi children, asking for explanations, and his secretarial office needed a list of prepared statements that could answer those questions.

It was now down to pure time-filling. He had done everything he could do. The baggage was out of their hands, the shuttle was loading and fueling, and everything was starting to roll downhill with a dreadful inevitability. All that was left was asking himself over and over if there was possibly anything he had forgotten, any item he was going to need, any instruction he had failed to give, or any letter he ought to have sent.

Topari. God. Topari.

He wrote, briefly: Please be assured, nandi, that everything we have discussed will go forward without interruption. The heavens have other residents, and one of these, as you will have heard, has come on a courtesy call which must be addressed in due form and with proper ceremony. We believe this will be a brief visit concluded with the departure of these visitors. But I have arranged for business to be conducted as usual in my brief absence.

I am confident of a good outcome. It should not in any wise delay the fulfillment of agreements between yourself and the aiji-dowager.

God, one earnestly hoped it worked out that way.

14

Morning.

Mother was upset, and trying not to show it. One was very grateful for that. Father was being official, and expected his son to stand straight and show well in front of staff and family. Most of all, Father expected his son to be brave.

Cajeiri kept his face calm, though indeed he found himself scared—just a little scared. He had a fluttery feeling in the stomach, as the whole staff and everybody turned out to bid him good-bye. Only his sister was missing from the event, and she had slept through all the coming and going in the halls this morning in perfect serenity.

Was it an omen?

He was no longer a little child. He did not hold with omens. Omens were the number-counters’ way of scaring clients into hiring them, that was what his father said. Aijiin had to be smart enough to know what superstitious people believed—and never scare people by seeming to disregard it—but they should never be scared by the numbers.

Still—

There was one courtesy not done.

“Please wait,” Cajeiri said, and dived past his mother and father back through the servants and the bodyguards, all the way back to his mother’s apartment, and opened the unlocked door without a knock.

His sister was asleep in her crib. He thought he might have his mother on his track at any moment. His mother’s maid came in, from the archway, but it was no surprise she should be here. He went to his sister, looked down at her, reached out and shook her tiny shoulder. “Sei-ji,” he said. “I shall be back before very long. Be good.”

He was making everybody wait.

But he felt as if now he had tied off all the loose ends. For superstitious luck. He went out into the hall, gathered up Jegari and Antaro, who had followed him, and hurried back through the crowd in the foyer.

He reached his parents, bowed for his father and again for his mother.

“Are you all right?” his father asked. Probably his parents thought he had had to go to the accommodation. Probably everybody thought it.

“I am quite well, honored Father,” he said. “I shall follow instructions. I shall be very sensible, and I shall try to send a message back, if there is a way.”

“Salute Lord Geigi,” his father said.

“I shall, honored Father. And I shall be safe. I really shall be.”

“Behave,” his mother said, which was all she had said. He knew she was upset, and that it was not anger, this time: it was her worry about him.

“I shall, Mother. I truly shall.”

“See you do.” She gave him a little bow, and that was a dismissal. So he drew a deep breath and turned. The major d’ opened the door for them, and Eisi and Liedi were standing right by the side of it, sad to be left behind, and wishing him and his aishid a good trip and a good return.

It was real. He was really going. And he was scared, as he walked out the door with just his bodyguard.

He was more scared, hearing that door shut behind him, the lonely echo ringing up and down the hall.

It was just himself and his bodyguard, now. He was fortunate nine, he stood nearly as tall as nand’ Bren, he was nearly as strong as nand’ Bren, and he was going to go help nand’ Bren and mani do something no one else could do. He had his dictionary: Antaro was carrying it for him, in a shoulder bag. He had memorized it all. But he had it with him, in case; and he had it to write down new words.

He was sure Prakuyo an Tep would remember him. He certainly had never forgotten Prakuyo an Tep.

He had, he thought, been far braver when he was younger.

But two years or so ago, he had had far less understanding of what could go wrong.

· · ·

The foyer was already crowded when the young gentleman signaled his arrival, and there was no more room there, now. So Bren gave the order. Koharu and Supani, acting in their new capacity, simply opened the door, and the foyer emptied into the hall for their good-byes: Bren, and his bodyguard, Narani and Jeladi, Bindanda and Asicho, and now Cajeiri and his four young bodyguards. There were good-byes and well-wishes, courtesies from those staying.

At the very last moment, Narani remembered the vacation schedules in his desk drawer. “Use those if we are delayed, nadiin-ji,” Narani said to Koharu and Supani.

“You shall not be, nadi!” Koharu said fervently. Koharu and Supani were not ordinarily superstitious. But they were quick to reverse the omen. “It will not be that long!”

“Nandi,” Bren said to Cajeiri, then; and to the rest—“Nadiin-ji. We shall go now.”

So they started off, fourteen in all, down the ornate hallway to the lifts.

“Your great-grandmother is already downstairs,” Bren said to Cajeiri. “Did you have a good breakfast?”

“I had toast,” Cajeiri confessed. “I brought fruit drops.”

“Well, well, there will be something on the train, too, one is certain.”

They barely fit into one car. Tano keyed them through as express, they packed themselves in, and the car started down and down the levels, familiar trip—familiar destination, if one thought of it only in bits.

Cajeiri gave a palpable shiver against Bren’s arm. It was chill in the car. And the boy was in light dress, for traveling, and comfort—wise of his valets and his parents, but just a little thin for this hour of the morning.

“All of us are anxious,” Bren said quietly. “Except your great-grandmother, of course. She never is.”

Cajeiri flashed a grin. “Of course not,” he said, and laughed.

Reassuring to the soul, that grin. He didn’t have an ordinary child in tow. He had a boy who’d absorbed his great-grandmother’s training and his father’s, and who had an increasingly Tabini-like head on his shoulders. The boy was old enough to be nervous. He had reason to be nervous.

But he was not likely to panic, either.

“You know the Guild is sending a new office up,” Bren said, by way of distraction. “Four observers are going with us, to make the arrangements.”

“A new Guild office, nandi?” Cajeiri asked. No, apparently he had not heard. And Bren explained.

“It has been agreed. The Guild has chosen four observers to understand the station. Banichi says they are good. And they will have a great deal to learn.”

The car dropped rapidly through the levels, then slowed to a stop, and let them out into the echoing vastness of the train station.

Beyond the concrete block of lifts, the Red Train waited. The passenger car door was open, a bright rectangle of gold light. Two of the dowager’s men, armed, waited at the foot of those steps.

They crossed the intervening space, met the dowager’s guards, and climbed up the steps of the Red Car.

Strangers were in the aisle, indeed, Guild, four of them, conversing with one man they knew very well, graying, Guild-uniformed, lean and tall: the dowager’s chief bodyguard, Cenedi.

“Nandiin,” Cenedi said with a little bow, and proceeded to introduce the four newcomers, themselves a bit grayed; two men, two women, and one of the women, Bren noted, lacking her right arm, the jacket sleeve folded and tucked.

“Ruheso, Deno, Hanidi, and Sisui, nandiin,” Cenedi said. “The Guild Council’s representatives.”

Nods defined them, and the order of introduction gave seniority. The one-armed woman was Ruheso, Guild-senior. Deno was her partner. Guild-second was Hanidi, younger, maybe, but not by much. Sisui was missing half an ear. Field work. A lot of it, Banichi had indicated, in some very hard places.

Cajeiri, without prompting, gave a little bow. “Nadiin.”

“Young aiji,” the immediate response was, from all four. Bren gave a bow of his own.

“Nadiin. We had not planned to have you arrive in a state of crisis, but we shall keep you briefed at all points, and answer questions where we can, in whatever detail we can. You are very welcome with us.”

“Nand’ paidhi.”

Another exchange of bows, and the appropriate title for the aiji’s representative in the field. It was his first meeting with the team, and he was relieved to detect no reserve of expressions, nothing but intense attention to his position, not his humanity.

That spoke volumes. Smart. Sensible, able to absorb new things and take advice.

“Please assume inclusion to all conferences, nadiin,” he said to the four, and escorted the young gentleman toward the back of the car, to that long red velvet bench seat under golden lamplight where Ilisidi sat waiting for them.

“Aiji-ma.”

“Paidhi.” Ilisidi held out a hand sparkling with ruby and topaz rings. “Great-grandson. Sit.”

They sat. Everyone had risen in respect, staff having distributed themselves in seats along the way. Now everyone settled, bodyguards taking the seats reserved near their lords.

The door thumped shut. The train began to move out at its usual sedate rate.

And the dowager’s staff, alone rising to tend the small galley, provided tea in fine porcelain cups, steaming and welcome for jangled nerves. Tea went from there to the bodyguards, to the observers, to all the staff, followed by small sweet cakes.

And the Red Train chuffed down the long winding track that would exit the Bujavid hill and take them across the city.

They were on their way.

15

It was strange, Cajeiri thought. Up in the Bujavid hallway, and going down in the lift, he had been so scared his teeth were almost chattering. Now he felt strangely eager to go. The train, headed for the spaceport, was a place he’d been very recently, and when he thought of that, and the parting from his associates, all the fear left him. His three associates had gone where he was going now, and they had made the trip safely. So would he.

And even if he had business to do up there, and very important business, being what he was, he would surely get a chance to see them before he came back down again.

Even if they were holding meetings on into the evenings, there had to be suppers and some hours of rest.

And there had to be a little time for them to pay courtesies before they came back to Earth. It seemed only fair.

His arriving there would likely surprise them, unless nand’ Geigi had already told them he was coming. He envisioned a fine dinner, with crystal and porcelain, and flowers—well, probably not flowers—but a proper dinner, with everyone in court clothes.

Well, except probably the parents, supposing Lord Geigi had invited them.

But that would be a problem. Lord Geigi might trust his three associates, on his word, to tell them what was going on—but not the parents.

No, Lord Geigi would leave that to Jase to explain.

And Jase-aiji probably would not tell them. Jase-aiji would not trust the parents either. He rather well had that feeling.

He hoped his associates had gotten a chance to come visit Lord Geigi. Even if the mail had had a problem.

But a lot had been going on. Tillington had messed everything up. And very probably Tillington was the problem with the mail.

He was personally upset with Tillington-aiji, in that suspicion. But there were far more important reasons nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji were upset with Tillington, and that forecast there was going to be trouble, at least for a while.

He could not imagine Tillington clearly, who he was, how he looked. He kept imagining an atevi lord, specifically Lord Aseida, who had made all sorts of trouble, but Tillington would not look like that, would not dress like that, and probably—a good thing—would not have a bodyguard to make trouble.

He hoped nand’ Bren would just tell Tillington to be quiet and go pack, that was what.

Then they could meet with Prakuyo an Tep, and find out why the kyo were here, and then he could get to have the dinner party he imagined, well, maybe without any parents. Maybe with mani and nand’ Bren and Lord Geigi and Jase-aiji.

And maybe he could even get a few days, just to walk around the station with his associates and see what there was to see.

His last trip through the station, they had been running. Literally, in places, which was remarkable, with mani. It had all been a jumble of halls and the docking area and the yellow tubes and then the shuttle, and with everybody hurrying so that somehow their enemies on the ground would not expect them.

He remembered flying in the shuttle just over a year ago, and landing on Earth—he knew for a fact that he had ridden the shuttle up to the station in the first place, but all the memory he had of that was a vague recollection of things floating about the cabin, and mani telling him to get back into his seat.

He had been a lot younger then.

Now, while the joints in the track clicked past, nand’ Bren and mani and he all sat having tea, and the four strangers from the Guild stood back by the rear door talking with Nawari and Banichi and Algini. And despite the kyo arriving and all the troubles with Tillington, it was just business, back there. None of them were afraid. They were sharing details of where they were going and how things stood. Occasionally they even laughed.

But for once he was sure he knew a lot more about their problem than the four who had joined them—because he knew where he was going, and what he was going to do, and who he was going to meet, and why it was dangerous.

“You have not asked where you will stay when we are on the station,” mani said, distracting him onto a very different track.

“No, mani.” He remembered how it had been on the ship. In his head, he had confused his memory of the ship with the station, himself with one little room behind mani’s several rooms connected together, with all the odd doors. He realized now he could hardly remember the station apartment.

“One thought—one expects one will stay with you, mani.”

“Indeed. And there have been changes in the apartment. There is now a real guest quarters, which is, one is informed, simply an adjacent set of rooms with a door connecting. It lacks a sitting room, but has an arrangement for your aishid and servants. One understands you did not bring your valets, in favor of the Guild delegation.”

“Indeed, mani. But Jeladi and Lucasi can keep my clothes in order.”

“They may pass items for attention to my staff,” mani said, in that tone that said that was how things would be. “Ask my staff for anything you need. Your aishid has no experience up there. They must ask Cenedi for a thorough briefing. Regarding this outside door, it is to remain locked, and all callers should go through our main door. Do we adequately agree that this is no place for misbehaviors and rule-breaking?”

“Mani, yes. One understands.”

“You will promise us. Station politics is highly unstable at the moment, and there is danger. I shall expect you to keep that in mind.”

“Mani, I do promise.”

“Excellent,” mani said, in that tone that made it law.

So that was where he would stay. It was all right. He would stay where he was told. He would do everything right. He would deserve favors. That was his plan, to get things he wanted. And he watched the tea service go around again. There was no convenient way to go sit with his bodyguard. One did not fidget in great-grandmother’s presence.

And present company was not just people they knew. The Guild observers were observing, one supposed, things to report to the Guild and his father—such as how his father’s heir behaved.

He sat and sipped tea while nand’ Bren and mani invited the Guild representatives over, and told them things about the kyo and about station politics—which was worth hearing. Nand’ Bren warned the representatives about things that were no surprise at all: that extreme options were not open to the ship-aijiin, and that Lord Geigi could not use them without authorization, and authorization could only come from Father.

Nand’ Bren also warned them about Stationmaster Tillington and said that once Tillington was replaced, then the ship-aijiin could get rid of Braddock. That was an interesting plan.

If they could get rid of Braddock, then maybe there was much less likelihood of shipping the Reunioners out to Maudit. He was definitely in favor of getting rid of Braddock.

Things he had heard only in bits and pieces began to make sense. He sat there saying nothing, not moving a muscle except to drink his tea, and to accept another cup.

He had brought his kyo dictionary. He had brought his Mosphei’ dictionary. And he had brought his Ragi dictionary, because he had thought that was going to be useful, too.

He was right. He was not even at the spaceport yet and he was gathering a basketful just of Ragi words to look up.

· · ·

The Guild observers made complete sense: a senior unit who had been in the field, serving in the southwest, in a Tajidi Township clan, until Ruheso’s injury. They had served in and out of Guild Headquarters between Ruheso’s injury and the coup, as investigators—a variety of police work unique to the Guild, where a Filing of Intent and a counter-Filing both involved charges of illegal activity, or where an appeal to Tabini-aiji for justice raised issues that needed sorting out in a certain district.

A number of years ago, Bren thought, he might not have quite appreciated what this unit was, and what their job was, but they were indeed no fools. They asked questions, they sifted statements, and asked other questions. They were far more outgoing than most Guild, and, battle-scarred as they were, they smiled a great deal—which was, one was sure, part of their skill. They encouraged trust, and confidences, and probably read very well between the lines.

Interesting, Bren thought. His aishid and the dowager’s had both urged a little caution with them. Yet on one level he did know exactly what they were doing: he knew the techniques himself.

Banichi said quietly, when they were close to the spaceport, and when everybody was moving about collecting luggage, “They are hearing, Bren-ji. They are impressed.”

That was good to hear. But this battle-scarred unit had only met one human in their lives and never had to cope with them en masse. Where they were going was a very different place than they had ever planned.

· · ·

The same bus waited at the station, with the same security personnel, and a similar exchange of codes—but this time there was no baggage truck. All that had already gone aboard. There was just the hand luggage. Bren allowed Jago to take the computer as they walked across the platform to the bus, and she would stow it—the one thing he would keep by him. His bodyguard had their single bag apiece, and Narani and the others had each a very small personal kit. Cajeiri’s four—had a bit more, but they would manage.

There was the long dusty drive up to the gate, and through, then the smooth, slow movement up to the yellow hazard line. Their shuttle waited out on the runway, in a cluster of service vehicles.

This time they walked between the painted lines and boarded by the personnel lift, which raised up and let them out into a pale modern interior. The baji-naji symbol of the space program was blazoned on every seat back and on the bulkhead door. The flight deck lay just beyond that thick bulkhead connection.

It might have been any modern airliner, except for the complete lack of windows, except for that unusual bulkhead door.

There were active screens at every seat, and what they showed as they settled in was the preparation going on around the shuttle, the movement of trucks and personnel.

They secured their luggage, such as it was. Ilisidi beckoned Cajeiri to sit by her, with Cenedi and the rest of the bodyguard and staff directly behind.

Bren and company took seats opposite, and the Guild observers sat behind them. Behind them, domestic staff settled in, most of them veterans of previous flights, able to instruct the novices.

The seat backs had a written admonition to use the provided tethers and clip to the rails when moving fore or aft. The interior was far more refined these days, the rules more defined, polished by experience over the years, and he knew the incidents where some of the rules had originated. Moving workers up to the station, the problems had echoed to his desk in the early years.

A different set of priorities was on their horizon. A different set of worries and problems. There was no longer a need for security from assassination, not here, not now, not until the shuttle let them out in what was definitely another world—and even then, the problems Tillington posed were of a different sort.

So just as well to shut the door on Earth for a while. The rest of the planet, in learning that they had visitors coming, would get a further bit of news—that the dowager, the heir, and the paidhi-aiji were all going up to deal with these expected visitors, further developments to follow. And that meant that the station necessarily would find it out. They’d advised Geigi the news was going to break on Earth. Tillington, where the news had already broken, would be aware an atevi shuttle was coming express. Presumably he would learn the Mospheiran shuttle was launching uncommonly close behind it, which in Tillington’s mind would immediately suggest both were related to the emergency, and that there was going to be a conflict of scheduling at the station’s single personnel dock . . . among other complications.

The orderly conduct of the Mospheiran side, and coordinating the unprecedented situation of an atevi shuttle and a Mospheiran shuttle en route that close together was the last reliance they hoped to place on Tillington.

Tillington should naturally conclude under the circumstances that the Mospheiran shuttle was bringing some sort of Presidential response, to which he would have to answer.

Maybe Tillington would conclude in his own head that he should get things in good administrative order and not roil the waters.

They settled in, disposed items where they had to be for safety as well as convenience. The special routing would shave a good twelve hours off their flight—but there would still be a very long time spent in these seats, a long time under acceleration and an equally long and generally uncomfortable braking at the end, after the body had been some time in weightlessness. He didn’t sleep on the shuttle, excepting catnaps, and he was particularly concerned for the dowager.

Cajeiri was out of his seat: that was predictable. But he was leaning on the seat back, constructively pointing out things in the safety instructions for his young aishid—it being their first trip into space—and being very restrained. Cajeiri and his bodyguard had all been very quiet, very by-the-book from the time they’d left the Bujavid.

Exemplary level of attention in the youngsters, all through the train ride. The shuttle was preparing for launch and they were still being very quiet.

It was more than an excess of good behavior. Distractingly more. The dowager’s presence could account for it. But Bren thought not. Likely the dowager herself thought not.

This extremely adult behavior? This complete lack of fidgeting?

There’s something he wants more than he wants anything on Earth, something recently given to him, and taken away, and now threatened by the kyo, up there.

This is Tabini’s son. The dowager’s great-grandson. With the stubborn will of both.

He’s more than a kid. But he is a kid.

He won’t disobey his great-grandmother. He probably won’t disobey me.

But if something untoward happens—

I know which way he’ll want to jump.

But man’chi overrides.

He is atevi. He’s definitely become that, since he was last off the planet.

The speaker came live.

“This is an express flight,” word came from the captain. “We will enter prolonged acceleration once we reach switchover, so it will be some time until we become weightless, but you will experience a gradual feeling that the shuttle is becoming vertical, and the center aisle will become a long fall for the duration. Keep your seatbelts fastened, and for the safety of others, do not attempt to retrieve items from storage. A period of free fall will follow when you can safely move about. I shall advise you again before our prolonged braking and maneuvering to dock. Whenever you are in your seat, it is a good idea to have the seatbelt fastened. Remember that the aisle will be, for anyone above the last three rows of seats, a very serious fall, endangering others below. Whenever you are moving about in free fall, please clip to the line that runs fore and aft on what is now the ceiling. Please use the clip at your seat to secure any object that you are actively using and please put such objects away securely when not in use.

“Please attend any personal needs before takeoff, or wait for the inertial portion of our flight. If you have any emergency during acceleration, please push the button at your seat to advise us.”

Bren read the information card. Even last year, they’d upgraded the flight protocols to include the express routing, and, to his slight surprise at the time, they hadn’t needed him to do it.

The thought of instructions written by computer was a little scary. But they read fairly well, considering.

Computers likewise laid out their course—but one trusted the course plot was a little better than their grammar.

Warning sounded.

Deep breath. He watched the screen as the service vehicles pulled away.

They began to roll a startlingly short time later, gathered speed as the view began to be sky and a very low horizon. Airborne.

No weather, no obstacles now. They went on climbing, and Bren sat and watched the display as the power began to press them back in their seats and changed the orientation of down.

The engine-switchover when it came was sleek and smooth, and they went on climbing. The view in the screens had been blue, then more than night—deeper, and colder, because they weren’t on Earth any longer.

No phone calls were likely. Nobody would come knocking on the door with a problem.

And there was nothing to do but sit and imagine what was out there in that darkness, and wonder what they wanted, and to try to rehearse, in his own head, what he could say to Tillington to get the man to take dismissal quietly.

What could develop next.

What he could do about Braddock.

He had a recorder with him, a wonderfully tiny device, that stored all the records they had made of kyo speech, of their conversational sessions, such as they were. He put the earpiece in, started it going, put his mind to work, tired as he was, hoping that it might calm his nerves enough. He didn’t want to rely on the pills for sleep. He needed mental acuity.

The kyo voice—a human couldn’t reach that pitch. Possibly atevi couldn’t. There were distinctions hard to hear.

And it wasn’t calming. It was a case of trying to resurrect the thoughts he’d had then, the tissue of supposition and guesswork that he’d framed around the language. Long hours on the voyage after, he’d made his records, tried to construct the grammar, the logic, get sense of a language unlike any he’d worked with. He had his computer, up in storage. There was that.

There was so damned much to do that he hadn’t even been able to touch, with the need to handle logistics, trying to think of every little thing they might need.

He had had no time to handle the most essential thing—which was in the recording, in the notes he’d taken. He could reconstruct it in his head, but he wanted confidence the reconstruction was accurate. He counted on the time the flight would take, to peel away the two years between himself and that time.

God, there were so damned few words. How did he turn a vocabulary of nouns into an exchange about reasons, necessities, safety for everybody involved?

Jago, in the seat next to him, touched his arm.

He blinked, drew his mind back from the place he’d been.

Jago said, “Bren-ji. Crew advises there is a transmission from Mospheira, wishing your attention. They believe it may be the Presidenta, or some message from him.”

They were no longer in the purview of the Messengers’ Guild, now: station shuttle ops and Mospheiran ground services would be handling communications. But given the hour . . .

Tillington’s staff would be handling Central at this hour, and while they didn’t control ops, which for an atevi shuttle would all be Geigi’s people, they were on duty and able to eavesdrop on any communication that flowed in Mosphei’.

He took the handset with some trepidation, hoping Shawn’s office was aware of that fact.

“This is Bren Cameron. Advising you this is not a secure transmission.”

“Bren. Shawn. Looking for an official word from your office, in your old capacity, if you will, no need for secrecy at this point. News of the ship has been released here on the island. Understand the same on the mainland. There’s some general distress about this arrival here, and some confusion. Is there anything we haven’t heard?”

Shawn wasn’t informing him about Tillington. The call was purely a call for the record, now that, as Shawn said, the news had broken. The public needed information.

But in your old capacity? Shawn hadn’t invoked him as a Mospheiran government official since he’d come back from Reunion. And he hadn’t served as a Mospheiran official in the last three years.

Maybe it was a comfort to Mospheira to think they had him on duty on their behalf. It was all right with him if that was the case.

And they needed a speech. All right. He could do that, ex temp. He had his wits in good enough order for that.

“As far as I know, Mr. President, there’s nothing much to tell beyond the early reports. We’ve gotten a patterned signal, identical to what we had at Reunion, and we’re responding the same.

“We think it’s a very good bet, given that exact signal, that that incoming ship carries the individuals we dealt with in deep space. We parted on good terms.

“These people come from a very, very great distance, at considerable effort. It seems to be only one ship, very likely a combination of diplomatic mission and scientific inquiry.

“We’re going up as the original contact team, the persons who last dealt with these people. The mission includes the aiji-dowager, myself, and the aiji’s nine-year-old son, so you can see the aiji has considerable confidence that this will be a peaceful meeting.

“We expect to start the conversation with them exactly where we left off.

“We have the help and support of the Phoenix captains and we’re quite confident that this will go as amicably as the last meeting did.

“And should anyone ask the obvious question, there’s no reason at all to expect that these people will want to land on our planet. Their normal gravity is a little off from ours: it’s not likely they’d be at all comfortable on Earth for an hour, let alone a longer stay.”

God, he so wanted to ask Shawn where things stood with the Tillington situation. But he wasn’t going to trade that information in this conversation.

“That’s my answer, Mr. President. My best estimate. I hope everything is going well there. We’re having a good flight, preparing for our mission. I’m reviewing our language study on the way. We expect them to come to the station, possibly to wish to meet ship to ship. In either case, we can manage.”

“All’s well here,” Shawn said. “We’re keeping our regular launch schedule, right down your track, so we hope you will be able to clear dock for us up there.”

Right down your track. Express. And only two days behind them. Shawn hadn’t said Presidential envoy, but pressing the shuttle dock facilities that tight—that was no freight run, either. He understood. Anybody who understood space operations would understand.

Tillington, whether he was listening now, or whether he got the word from ops, would understand it, very clearly, that the President was sending something.

“The technical lads are muttering about sequencing and docking room up there, but they’ll cope. No problems that we foresee.”

“Thank you, Mr. President. We’ll urge that our shuttle be moved out of the way as soon as possible. We don’t have that much to unload.”

He hoped for Kate Shugart. God, he hoped for Kate Shugart to be Shawn’s appointee.

But he still couldn’t ask that question and Shawn wasn’t advising him before advising Tillington—if Shawn decided to advise Tillington.

That gave them two days on the station deck with the kyo incoming, both halves of the station aware of the kyo, Tillington in charge and the china all balanced in tall stacks, as the atevi proverb had it.

“Have a safe trip,” Shawn said.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” he said, and the contact shut down, leaving him with the unsettling realization he had just gotten his official Mospheiran title back.

His connection to the University and the State Department apparently was renewed along with it.

So he was going to have to speak for Shawn, too, without quite speaking for Shawn, until the Mospheiran shuttle got there with whatever news it brought.

Springing a replacement as a total surprise, two days after their arrival—that was going to be a dicey moment.

But a hell of a lot worse if Tillington decided to resist removal.

Have a safe trip.

Good luck, was what Shawn could well have wished him.

His brain had been full of surmises about kyo grammar and sentence structure.

Now he had to map a meeting with Tillington. In case.

And a meeting with Ogun, to explain it all.

Jago, sitting beside him, gave him a questioning look. The exchange with Shawn had been via the earpiece. Atevi hearing could pick up the voice despite the ambient noise of the shuttle under power, and Jago understood more of the language than the University on Mospheira would like. But Jago would not pick up all the verbal code behind the words.

She queried him in the mere arch of a brow.

“The Presidenta asked me official questions, only so he can relay my answer to the news services, regarding the visitors. The real news is that the shuttle from Mospheira is running only two days behind us. I believe he is sending someone to replace Tillington. He also addressed me as paidhi representing Mospheira.”

“Has there ever been another paidhi?”

“No.” One couldn’t count Yolanda Mercheson. “None in the last three years.”

Jago gave a tip of her head, less surprised than he was, he was sure.

And a lot more confident.

“I hope for Kate Shugart,” he said. “I hope there has not been politics in the appointment, but likely there was. The ability of Mospheirans to imagine conspiracies is exceeded only in the Transportation Committee of the aishidi’tat. And I have no time to become involved in a discussion. Being paidhi for the humans—means I am charged with securing cooperation.”

“From Ogun-aiji.”

“From Ogun-aiji to start with. I think it will be politic to meet with him directly on arriving—before meeting Sabin-aiji, unless she comes to meet us first, and I do not believe she will. Ogun being seniormost of the captains, he is due respect.”

Jago listened: one saw the analysis flicker through her eyes. “One assumes that Jase-aiji has an association with Sabin—and with you. Which is stronger? Will approach to Ogun weaken Jase-nandi, regarding Sabin?”

“One does not think so. One hopes not. For any repercussions—I have to trust Jase.” The route past Ogun’s expectations of treachery was forming in his brain as he talked—where Ogun’s loyalties lay now, and where they had been when Ramirez had been alive, and the mess Ogun had had to deal with when Sabin and Jase had taken the ship out to Reunion.

Why had Ogun let her take the ship?

Possibly because he couldn’t stop her without armed force.

Perhaps because Sabin had threatened to take the truth to the crew.

She never had. But there might be facts known among the Reunioners, kept vivid by their resentments for being left—when Phoenix, under Ramirez in those days, had run, and left them to face the kyo.

That information, coming out from the Reunioners and apt to reach the Mospheirans and the ship’s crew, might be one reason Ogun was upset.

Grant that Ogun hadn’t been the one to make the decision to leave Reunion. He’d been second to Ramirez. Ogun might have compromised his conscience to make what he had thought at the time was the only choice.

He’d been rather well forced, also, so long as Ramirez was alive, to oppose Sabin, who was not well in accord with Ramirez. Where had Sabin been during the kyo encounter? He had no idea, nor did, apparently, Jase, which said something.

But all that was old history. That was something interior to the ship and maybe something he would never know.

But what was steering the current problem was Ogun’s support for Tillington. It was understandable. When Sabin had set out to settle what had become of Reunion, Ogun had had to work with the man, half-fearing, perhaps, that Sabin might not come back, and half-fearing that she would come back with information that would ruin him.

He’d had Tillington, with whom he could communicate. But no paidhi to communicate with Geigi—they’d had to route matters through the University linguistics department, through translators who read the language, but could not speak it. They’d done their best. He’d supported Geigi, so far as requesting supplies for atevi projects—not demanding them; and Geigi had responded positively, for the most part. They’d limped through a very bad time, while the Mospheirans were trying to build their own shuttle, and Shawn had been quietly supporting Geigi and backing atevi trying to bring down Murini’s regime.

Then Sabin had come back, bringing a man Ogun held accountable for the whole situation. Louis Baynes Braddock, Chief of the ancient Pilots’ Guild—who had wanted Phoenix to take on the kyo. Braddock, stationmaster over Reunion, had arrived with five thousand survivors, and no supplies.

More, Jase Graham arrived home with Sabin, perfectly fluent in communication with Lord Geigi, and when Tabini-aiji took back the aishidi’tat, and everything began flowing that hadn’t flowed during the hard years of their absence, effortless. Shuttles flew. Supply arrived. If it had all been good change, Sabin might have won the Mospheirans’ good will despite the gift she’d brought.

But all the new construction, all the gains the station had made in the Mospheiran section, had to be diced up to house the Reunioners—lifelong stationers, who had skills, and wanted jobs, which the Mospheirans weren’t going to surrender.

He’d known it was difficult. He’d not known how difficult.

And insofar as Tillington had made himself the champion of Mospheirans seeking to hold on to their station—Tillington would have support. Insofar as Tillington supported Ogun and made Ogun feel he had allies—Tillington would have Ogun’s support.

Insofar as Tillington wanted to play on the old, old resentments of the colonials against the governors, claiming conspiracy—Tillington could wake something deep in Mospheiran roots that had not slept that long, that had waked now and again in Mospheiran relations with the aishidi’tat, that was certainly ready to wake, when Mospheirans identified modern Reunioners with the hated colonial administrators and the ancient Pilots’ Guild.

He had to move in ahead of that situation, get Ogun to listen, create a place for Ogun in the arrangement they had to have with the human side of things, and not let a war break out between the Mospheirans and the Reunioners.

Or have a mutiny within the ship’s crew.

With the kyo inbound.

Represent Mospheira?

God.

He had to think.

16

Debarkation was what the crew called it. It was a new word in Cajeiri’s notebook—or it would be when he had a pen.

Debarkation involved a lot of preparation he never remembered before.

But the last trip he had made to the station, he had had no idea what the shuttle was doing, except when it behaved like a plane. He had had no idea what was up in the front of the shuttle except a lot of dials and lights, and he had not paid a great deal of attention.

Now he did understand. He was much more grown up on this trip. He was a person and not a baby. He had spent hours and hours with his notebook, in the seat next to nand’ Bren, and they had compared their notes, and spoken back and forth in kyo. Bren had asked him his opinion on meanings, and he had answered and nand’ Bren had taken him seriously and even made notes. He was very proud of that. And mani had given him a nod, after, as if she approved. He held that in his mind and worked it over and over when he read his notes.

An ap wo su pargha. Please sit down. An ap wo hi ga sha. Please open the door . . .

He remembered words he had written down but had no idea what they meant, but nand’ Bren had guesses.

That was how they had spent their time. And Veijico and Lucasi had told them stories about mountain winters. And Antaro and Jegari had told them about hunting in Taiben. He told them about crossing the straits on nand’ Toby’s boat, when he had first seen that much water. And how he and mani and nand’ Bren had ridden in a train car with fish.

Then he and his bodyguard had gotten to hook up and go forward into the crew compartment, with all the readouts and computers, and the copilot had explained how they would dock with the station when they got there, and even demonstrated some of the interesting-looking instruments.

That had been yesterday. He wished he could be up there during the whole last hour, just to watch, but he had things to gather up and mani’s orders to listen to, and they did have the television to show them what was going on, slow as it was.

Most of all he was beginning to be very ready just to be out of the cramped space of the shuttle seat, where one had to stay, once they started braking, and that was sitting still for a long, long time.

Braking had stopped, they were floating again, and he had hoped they would be allowed to get up, at least at their places, but the crew came on the address system and warned them all they had to keep the safety belts on and that there could be bumps.

It was an awfully long time.

And they had not been able to see anything but a wall for quite a while, on the displays. There was one blinking light. Just one.

Suddenly there was word from the crew to take hold.

He took hold of the seat arms. He already had his seatbelt fastened.

There were a lot of bangs and thumps as the shuttle made connections, and he expected those. He even thought he knew what they were, because the crew had told him.

The view in all the screens still just looked blank, but that, he understood, was because the cameras were aimed at the surface of the mast where they docked, and they had just latched on—at a relative stop. The crew had explained relative stop, too: meaning they were still going faster than anything on Earth, but they and the station were going very fast together.

And now the station’s docking machinery had them, and hugged them close. The thumping and whining going on was the connections being made for air and power.

Finally came a very big noise, which he had been warned would be the passenger debarkation tunnel locking on.

The most exciting thing in their arrival so far was seeing Phoenix from the outside. He had never seen the ship, even after traveling inside. And now he could show his aishid what he had been talking about forever. The ship was as beautiful as he imagined, complicated, huge, all white where it was white and absolute dark where there was any shadow.

Crew said that Phoenix ordinarily stayed up at the top of the mast, so people could come and go from it. Quite a few of the crew lived aboard, but now, they said, the ship had moved off a little—to give the kyo room, when they came in.

So the crew said.

But something his aishid had heard from the seniors said the ship moved out because it was just smart to have options when the kyo came in; and that sounded a lot more like the truth.

Debarkation was the next step, meaning to get up and leave. And the signal came.

They unbuckled and clipped on their safety lines, and put on their heavy clothes and gloves and masks for the actual crossing. In free fall and with the safety lines, it was not easy, and mani just wrapped herself in an immense velvet cloak that she had brought from Malguri.

Then it was time to leave. Two of the crew came back to guide them.

Mani went first, well, except for Cenedi.

“Thank you, nadiin,” mani said, in leaving, and gave the crew a little packet, which Cajeiri knew was a bundle of event cards, already signed and ribboned with red and black; and Cenedi gave them another set with a white ribbon, which came from nand’ Bren. Families collected those, generation to generation; and in their comings and goings on the shuttle, they had not had the chance to give cards before this, but they took care to do it now, and the crew, all in masks and gloves and heavy coats, too, bowed in the odd way one had to bow in free fall.

The strange thought came to him that the really unique card to have would be from the kyo themselves: that was one he would like to have—but the kyo would not be passing out any such when they came in, he was quite sure.

Still if he did get any keepsake, he would be sure to give it to his father. He decided that would be a good idea.

Maybe one for his mother.

Maybe one for Sei. That would be politic.

The hatch opened. The air that leaked in from the opening of that door was colder than anything one could even remember. It was so cold the outgoing gust from their shuttle made a sparkle of crystals against the ceiling lights. They had to move quickly now because of that cold, clip onto the safety line that was in the ceiling of the tube, go for a little ways, and then once they were entering the exit, transfer to another rail, all of which one had to do calmly and quietly, with one’s hands freezing, because getting in a hurry and dropping the line could make matters worse.

He was the one of his little group who knew how to do it: he was the one who had no hesitation about this part. He was very proud of that. In the lead except for Banichi and Jago, and the two crewmen going out ahead of all of them, he clipped onto the little unit on the line that went out to the tube, and pushed the button himself, the way crew had told him he should do. It yanked him immediately out the door.

And at that point the station swallowed them up, a ribbed yellow gullet with cold that bit deep and fast, between the heaters that operated at intervals. Cajeiri ducked his chin to keep the warmth inside his coat and hurried along, already panting a little, because it was so cold. Mani and Cenedi and Nawari went right behind him, and nand’ Bren and everybody else came right behind that, he was sure. Frost crystals sparkled in on the yellow ribs between the lights and the heaters.

At the end of the tube was the big dark cave of the mast itself, which was so big that lights could not touch the other side of it—and everybody had to stop, unhook from the first unit to another clip on another line, which snatched them along into a blue tube, and then just nothing—nothing, no tube, just the line. The crewmen ahead all whirled away into the gloom, and all one could see was the small light on each clip where it attached to the line, like lonely little stars.

Then they vanished. The mask limited his vision, and for a moment he saw was no light but the glow from the connection that was pulling them along. But it was all right. He was moving too.

Then there was a bright light, and shadows of people in suits: the lift shone bright in all that darkness—whether they were up or down or sideways he had no sense at all. He just wanted the machine to hurry, hurry, get them all where there was something but darkness.

That light came at a steady pace, surrounded them, drew them in, and people waited there, station crew, he thought, in bulky suits, who unclipped them and steered them like so many floating balloons into the lift car, which now, yes, he did remember. He was sure it was Nawari who gathered him in next to him and kept him from floating away; and near Nawari he saw mani, bundled tightly in her cloak, and Cenedi, who never left her. More and more of mani’s young men arrived in the lift.

Then he saw nand’ Bren, the other person smaller than his aishid, and once they were in, last of all, the crewman pushed buttons and extended safety bars. Those rods separated them into sections and sorted out where down was going to be—he remembered that part, too, all in a flash, that one would not want to be facing wrong when the lift moved.

The big lift car was filled shoulder to shoulder.

The door shut.

And, thump! the car began to move.

The floor came up to meet his feet. And there was a down again. Tall bodies in front of him cut off the view. The frost was melting fast around the heating outlets. Some people started taking their masks off, which made him think it was probably all right. He pulled his off, and breathed in air still icy cold and so dry it made him cough. He was by no means encouraged to take off his heavy coat. But a hot wind was blowing hard from the vent, and the lift went on clanking and moving, pressing their feet hard to the floor.

“Keep the gloves on,” he heard someone say, and he did. He could see Cenedi from here. He saw Banichi, who was taller than most everybody, up near the doors, and that was where nand’ Bren would be standing.

He began to shiver, and he kept blinking fast because of the cold, but the hot air kept flooding in, and eased breathing. They were all heavier: it was like taking off in a jet standing up: the lift was moving that fast.

But that feeling let up so they almost floated, and then a warning began to sound and a loud voice said hold on to the bar, just before the whole lift thumped, and jolted awfully, sideways.

Cajeiri could see nothing on eye level except the back of a Guild jacket, which he thought was Algini’s.

But their weight was just what it ought to be.

Then the motion had slowed so it just felt like any lift anywhere, well, mostly, except the walls were still cold, even where the hot air blasted out and melted the frost so fast it evaporated. The air became less dry. Breathing was easier.

Then they slowed, stopped, so he had to take hold of the bar. He was a little worried about mani. But Cenedi was there. Nawari was. They would hold her.

He remembered. But some things were different. They had changed the lifts. It had used to be much scarier. Or he was that much bigger.

He definitely remembered getting to the shuttle by the lifts.

But not getting from it the first time, before the voyage.

He had been very little. And someone had held him close.

He began to remember the corridors inside the station. He remembered the texture of the decking, and the way the walls curved. All sorts of details came back to him. Human faces, all of them together in the dark.

And the apartment and his room there.

But that had been on the ship. Textures and smells and sights that had gotten away from him. He remembered. He went on remembering, pieces sliding into place.

Tunnels. And mani’s pretty draperies. And nand’ Bren’s plants. There had been one plant. In space, it had just kept growing. And making more stems, that made more plants, all white and green, Great-uncle’s colors. It was like a dream. But it had really done that. He had not imagined it.

Everything jumbled up in his mind. Memories exploded through his head, so fast. Where things were—routes they had taken—but those were on the ship.

The halls they had run through, to get down to Earth before their enemies knew.

The places he had been before they had gone on the ship. Everything was confused.

He was never lost.

Except now.

He had been young. Now he was fortunate nine, and remembered three worlds—four, if one counted the kyo ship. Memory. Dreams. Sometime nightmares, on the world and up in space.

He was back where most of his real memories began. And he felt an unaccustomed fear, because before his memories, before his first flight, where his parents had been—so much of it was just blank.

He had never known there was so much gap. But the gap had happened here. In this place. Here was where he had forgotten things.

Where he had forgotten his parents, and most of all, his mother.

· · ·

The readout panel had said aishidi’tat at the beginning, in Ragi characters—which, Bren thought, should warn any human he’d stepped into the wrong lift if he didn’t want to go to the atevi section . . . where he was extremely relieved to be headed, given the troubling fact Central direction had been in Mosphei’ for the rest of the flight. Central had picked up the kyo signal, Central had gotten word from the ship—and Central had not budged since, no ordinary switchover to atevi control, no communication to speak of, except the steady direction from operations, which was under atevi control while an atevi shuttle was inbound.

Operations—and, early on, and again before they committed to dock—he had talked to Jase.

Who periodically assured them, in Ragi, that there was no change in the kyo situation, and that they should proceed as planned. It was Jase, definitely. They had exchanged their code words, and Jase hadn’t given him the one that meant trouble.

What is going on with the station communications? he had asked Jase in the second of those two conversations, and Jase’s answer had been simply, The man refuses to leave.

Well, they had a problem. And they were about to have another, since the Mospheiran shuttle was entering the picture, with a need for their spot at the mast much sooner than they had ever asked of the technical crews.

But viewing that they had Tillington sitting in Central, he left that communication to ground control and Tillington.

“Everything is prepared,” had been the end of Jase’s communication just before dock. “You can skip customs. Your lift will be routed to station nearest the residency. Lord Geigi will meet you.”

One hoped. He had quietly advised Ilisidi.

“We have the option to remain at the mast, docked,” he had said, regarding whether they should board the station or wait for atevi direction, “but this will become increasingly uncomfortable for us. We shall do better, one thinks, to go ahead.”

“Of course we shall go ahead,” was the dowager’s answer. “Shall we be inconvenienced? We shall expect Lord Geigi has things in better order.”

So.

They had, among the few things they did carry, the black bags that remained in Guild hands. They had the atevi crew’s communications with atevi ops should they have to call on any outside assistance—and they had the crew riding with them in the lift, inputting their destination.

Not to mention half the station in atevi hands and half the ship captains disposed to their side of an argument, if it came to that.

There were only Mospheiran numbers at the first of their journey, during the long trip up to the horizontal shift. At that point the lift moved sideways, like a train, and there began to be Ragi numbers, then Ragi names on the board: the Fortunate, the Auspicious, the Happy, the Healthy, the Wise and Creditable, and within them, East and West, North and South—such things flickered past in mad succession. Those were sections. They were in Ragi territory.

Until, amid the Celestial, in the North, the lift slowed and stopped, sanely, as tamely as a train coming into the station.

The separating bars retreated smoothly. The door opened.

And Lord Geigi himself, with his bodyguard and several station staff, was there to meet them—a very welcome sight, that round, smiling face, a vast relief.

Jase, however, was not there.

Bren took off his mask as others did, slipped the fastenings on the insulated coat and let it slide, stiff as it was with cold, glistening with melted frost. Beside him Ilisidi emerged from the insulated cloak looking as if she made this sort of trip daily. She leaned on her cane, not a hair out of place, and Cenedi took the thick garment over his arm. Tano took Bren’s coat, and, as they exited, dropped it on the floor.

The sign on the wall said, in Ragi: Please deposit your cold suits and masks carefully so as not to obstruct the doors. Station staff will return them.

“Welcome, twice welcome,” Geigi said, with a little bow, with open arms. “Aiji-ma, young aiji, nand’ Bren. Welcome.”

“Our Geigi,” Ilisidi said, “is always a pleasant sight.” Thump went her cane on the decking. “We trust all is in reasonable order.”

“In reasonable order indeed, aiji-ma. Your staff is ready to welcome you. Our people are ready to welcome you.”

“And others?” Ilisidi asked sharply.

Geigi bowed slightly. “One regrets to say—there has been some little alarm on the Mospheiran side, which has caused Tillington-aiji to set himself in place, and to refuse to turn Central to us on schedule. We trust this can be remedied.”

“What alarm?” Ilisidi asked. “Have we frightened them?”

“News of the kyo, aiji-ma. There has been some continued concern.”

“Well, well, they are behaving irrationally.” Second thump of the cane, dismissing the matter. “Shall we go, then?”

“Have we heard from Jase?” Bren asked his aishid under his breath.

“No,” Jago said, close by him.

“Indeed,” Geigi said, answering the dowager. “And are these the Guild observers, aiji-ma?”

“Nandi,” Ruheso said, in the sorting-out. The car had since closed and left, but there were still people to arrive, more of the dowager’s young men, and the staff, who would have taken shelter in the baggage discharge area, to supervise and identify baggage and bring up the contents of the carrels.

“We have an apartment ready,” Geigi said. “Near my own. Be welcome!” Geigi, with a gesture, indicated a door beyond, where they should all move.

“Geigi-ji,” Bren said quietly. “I have promised to talk to Ogun. What is going on?”

Geigi dropped the official mask on the instant, and lowered his voice as staff opened the door. “Tillington-aiji, Bren-ji. Jase-aiji intended to be here, but neither he nor Sabin has left Central since the news broke. Tillington will not permit the handoff to us, and Jase and Sabin will not leave him unattended while he maintains his hold on Central.”

Ilisidi had stopped to hear, and her brow quirked, the dangerous one. “What is this problem?”

“Aiji-ma,” Geigi said. “The station is calm. There is no disorder. The ship imposed restrictions on all movement in the first hour after the signal arrived. But—”

“But,” Ilisidi said, impatient, while noise in the system forecast another car en route.

“Tillington-aiji is now overtired and refusing to reason. I have asked Jase-aiji to relay my request to stand aside, and my assurances I would keep him informed, but he will not hear either captain, and Ogun-aiji has issued no order.”

“Indeed,” Ilisidi said frostily.

“One is aware this cannot continue. I have ordered our technicians and our security to stand ready to assume posts, in our own center, but without the active station switching control over to our boards, we are in a difficult situation, and it seems of no profit to overtire our personnel by having them stay. Since your arrival was imminent, aiji-ma, one decided to wait. So, we believe, Ogun-aiji is also waiting. He has made no official statement to us. We believe he is at odds with Jase-aiji, and will not speak through him; and Mercheson-paidhi does not speak to us.”

“So,” Ilisidi said. “Force and threats sit in the heart of operations, with Ogun-aiji’s tacit approval.”

“I urgently need to talk to Ogun, aiji-ma,” Bren said. “Before anything else. I promised this. I have some hope I can deal with him.”

“You should know, paidhi,” Geigi said, “that Tillington locked all the great doors in the first hour. He opened them again for the Mospheiran areas, but not the Reunioner sections. Ogun-aiji has ordered ship security to the great doors and order is preserved there, but,” Geigi drew a breath. “The supposition seems to be that the Reunioners will be in a state of panic, because of the kyo presence, and will take violent action.”

“I shall talk to Ogun,” Bren said. “I shall try at least to get Central control passed.”

Ilisidi set her jaw and gave him a direct, cold stare, or what might have passed for one. There was one muscle, one little angle of the eyelid that said, Yes.

“Go,” she said.

He’d wanted to change coats, contact his staff—wait for his staffers who were still in transit. He was chilled through, still shivering, but whether from the residual chill or the news from Geigi, he was no longer certain.

They had the Mospheiran shuttle on the way. An upset, irrational director in charge of Mospheiran Central was one thing—they might wait and let Shawn’s representative sort it out. But the doors still shut? Guards?

Jase and Sabin, keeping uninterrupted watch in human Central, with the kyo approaching?

Damn. No. The standoff couldn’t go on. Endurance was going to play out. Emotions were going to come more and more to the fore.

He didn’t get to change coats.

He didn’t get to stop to consult with Jase and Sabin, in Mospheiran Central, or try to reason with Tillington.

No. Ogun was the one who had to do something.

· · ·

Clearly there was trouble, and Cajeiri had not guessed it on the way. Everybody had been tense back on the shuttle, but that was, he had thought, because they had procedures to remember, and business, and scary cold to confront. And in the lift everybody had been bundled up, showing nothing.

But when they had met Lord Geigi, then he had begun to read something else, and then he heard about the doors, and Tillington.

Then, with hardly a word, nand’ Bren collected half of Lord Geigi’s bodyguard, and his own, and two of mani’s, and called another lift.

Nand’ Bren had made three trips to the cockpit, in the hours before they docked, and the grown-ups had been talking quietly, and frowning a lot, but that was not unusual, and one had supposed it all regarded their docking and their meeting people, and maybe some things about Tillington.

The car arrived. Nand’ Bren headed off to talk to Ogun-aiji, and Cajeiri watched the door shut, feeling his stomach upset.

Are my associates safe? he wanted to ask. But he had promised not to ask about them.

Are we safe? He wanted to ask that, too. But that lift door had hardly shut before the lift beside it opened. Mani’s staff, mostly, and a few of nand’ Bren’s came out, shedding cold suits as they had to do, happy at first, delighted to be arriving—they all had been at first.

But they caught that something serious had happened—they caught it very quickly. Nand’ Bren’s staff looked about, a little worried, a little confused.

Mani herself told them that nand’ Bren had gone off to settle a small emergency. That was what she called it. But mani always understated when she was mad.

And she was. Cajeiri had no doubt of that. Lord Geigi was all seriousness now, and the arriving staff went about shedding their coats into the pile on the floor, looking worried and attentive to business.

If nand’ Bren needed help, they would hear it. He was sure of that.

And over to the side, more confused than anybody, even staff, he saw the four Guild observers, not expressive at all, just watching, full of questions they had no way to answer, and with no one specially telling them.

Those were dangerous people, he thought, if there should be trouble. They might be older, and one with only one arm, but they were dangerous people. In those black bags the Guild carried were weapons. They had not taken them out, and nand’ Bren’s escort had just taken their sidearms and left the Guild baggage to mani’s bodyguard, but Cajeiri began to be just a little scared Cenedi might open up those bags, and so might the Observers. If the Guild decided they were under threat, if mani were in danger, the Guild could very quickly become its own law.

They had only just arrived. And the kyo had not even shown up. And already grown-ups in charge were being fools.

“The paidhi-aiji will do his job,” mani said then, with a sharp thump of her cane. “We are all here. We are all secure. Our remaining baggage will arrive in due order. We could well do now with tea in a proper cup, and a chair that does not insist upon safety belts.”

“Indeed, aiji-ma,” Lord Geigi said, and guided them away from the lift, and toward a set of doors, which opened at a touch of his hand. A hallway with four doors was beyond, a short hall, and another door.

So mani wanted them to go on as if nothing had happened.

Ship security had their own terrible weapons, if it came to shooting. Cajeiri had never seen the white guns fired, but he had stood on the driveway of Lord Tatiseigi’s estate and seen ash coming down from fires they had created.

“Remember the way, Taro-ji,” he muttered to Antaro the moment the doors closed at their backs. “Map the corridors we use getting to the apartment, in case we have to get back here on our own.”

He was good at mapping places, himself. He had learned to remember his way in the dark and cold of the ship-tunnels; and if things went very badly, they could very well need to know their way back to the lifts.

But if that happened—there was still no place for them to go without a shuttle, was there? And none of them could operate a shuttle—even if it had gone through all the refueling and sat ready to move.

They could not get off the station without the pilots, who would be finding their way up to a special residency, too.

They had no way off. And he urgently wanted to understand what was going on.

Another door opened, and the place beyond was huge, upcurving as long hallways had to be, with people going and coming. It was a corridor of offices and even what looked like shops and restaurants, wide as a city street. There were hundreds of people. A scary lot of people. But all atevi.

Their people. Who stopped still, and moved to the sides of the corridor and bowed politely.

Word evidently spread; suddenly there were even more people coming out into the corridor, emerging from places that were, he thought, shops, just like a street in Shejidan, except for the ridged decking instead of paving.

Regular people, he thought. People who ran the station, who lived here.

Not dangerous people.

People such as he saw from his father’s balcony. People who moved, very small and far below, in the street at the foot of the Bujavid hill. One of his earliest, strangest memories of all was his father holding him on the rail of that balcony, with all the city at his feet, and the streets and the city below the hill.

And he had stood at that rail again this year, years older, wondering, just wondering what it would be like to go down there and walk on a public street.

Geigi had surely had a private way to take them to their residence.

But Geigi had taken them out where people were, where people lived, people who seemed respectful, if excited, and glad to see mani and Lord Geigi.

And maybe, he thought, glad to see him. Because he was, like mani, official. Things had been scary, and still were, and Lord Geigi was doing a demonstration, letting people see that they were here, taking care of them. He saw mani glancing from side to side as she walked, nodding politely to people who bowed, just as if it were a court appearance, and these were lords invited to the festivity.

So he did what mani did, and put on a pleasant face, no matter that strange people were very close to him. His aishid stayed right next to him, absolutely on alert; he felt it. But it was scary and exciting at once—and he felt these people’s attention, felt it as if their anxiousness were propping him up and weighing him down at the same time.

All these people trusted they were going to fix things. That was what he was feeling. Their being here was like a promise they were making.

And for the first time the people on the station were not just numbers he heard about. They were these people. They became real to him. And he and mani became real to them.

He only hoped he looked more confident than he felt at the moment.

· · ·

Consternation spread, the moment they got off the lift, one human in sensible brown atevi traveling dress and a dark tidal wave of Guild headed straight down the middle of a station corridor. But ship’s crew, who owned this area, clearly knew exactly who they were. At least half the ship’s crew had seen such sights before, and security at various points evidently had a standing Don’t Interfere order. Doors opened for them, passing the traveling disturbance from one area’s concern and letting it into another.

Bren walked at top speed, not out of breath, but keeping pace, moving along the up-horizoned corridor with all the strange perspective that played tricks with earthborn eyes. Lord Geigi’s two men were in the lead to guide them, but in point of fact Bren himself recognized a hall he had walked before, the administrative section, where Phoenix captains held absolute sway, apart from the other occupants of the space station—and apart from the ship itself.

He didn’t personally remember the guards on duty at the end of the executive corridor, but then, the one part of the ship’s crew he didn’t know by sight—was Ogun’s.

“Sir,” the response was, at those doors, before he said a thing. And as the door opened. “The guns—”

“We won’t use them,” Bren said, and walked past.

“Sir!” he heard behind him, and he raised his voice without looking back. “Appointment with the captain! Don’t delay us! My guards don’t speak ship!”

It was the last short office-lined corridor to the number one office at the end. A secretary had a desk to the left of those double doors, a young man talking to someone on com as they approached.

The word came back, apparently, before they arrived. The doors opened. But—

“They stay here, sir.”

“Two with me,” Bren said curtly, and walked on in, Banichi and Jago accompanying him.

Ogun pushed back from his desk and scowled as Bren stopped midway from the door, and as Banichi and Jago took up a position behind him and to either corner of the room.

Dead stop, then. One didn’t breathe hard. One didn’t give any indication of disturbance.

Ogun, a middle-aged man with intense dark eyes and a complete lack of hair—even the eyebrows—took his own position, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped on his middle, giving no sign of disturbance either. And none of welcome.

“Captain Ogun,” Bren said. “Thank you. I’m glad to say the aiji-dowager and the heir-designate are here with me, all in good order. We’ve brought you what resources we have. Tabini-aiji and the President of Mospheira will wish me to convey their offer of cooperation as well.”

“Sit down,” Ogun said.

No bow was due that reception, just an unhurried nod of acquiescence. Bren took one of the two chairs, arranging his coat and cuffs, with all courtly grace. I’ll sit. Let’s talk. But I’m not your subordinate. Sir.

If it were a Ragi lord, there would have been a good quarter hour of tea. Ogun just stared, grim-faced, for a moment. “You’ve talked with Geigi.”

“I have, sir. I understand Stationmaster Tillington is upset and there is a small situation in progress. I hope we can get past that.”

“You come up here high and wide, apparently with a program and your own intentions. Let me make something clear, Mr. Cameron, if there’s been any doubt at all. I don’t give a damn for your groundbound politics. And you don’t decide things up here.”

“Let me make clear my position, also, Senior Captain. There’s a problem approaching this station, probably intending to dock. I’m the best resource you’ve got, I’ve met the kyo before, I’m here to arrange a peaceful contact with this incoming ship, and I assure you, I equally don’t give a damn about issues that divide you on this station. I don’t have a side, except insofar as I want everybody to come out of this alive and happy. If we can get past our internal problems and arrange tight control over what signals we send out to that ship, we’ll all be safer.”

“You say you don’t give a damn. Unfortunately you are terrestrial politics, personified.”

“The Central schedule is disrupted. I take it the issue is Stationmaster Tillington.”

“The issue is five thousand unscheduled problems you dumped on my deck, Mr. Cameron! The issue is potential riot and sabotage, which has now gone critical, thanks to the kyo you stirred up. You’re here to damp it down? Fine. Now explain how you’re going to deal with that ship.”

“First off, Senior Captain, I strongly suspect the kyo are here to reconnoiter. I think they want to know what we are, how extensive our holdings are, and how many ships we have. But I don’t think I want to tell them that.”

Ogun let go a slow breath.

“So?”

“We know there’s another species out there besides kyo. The kyo may be looking for evidence of our dealing with their enemies. They may also want to verify that we haven’t been lying in what we have communicated to them. We have very little in common, physically. We don’t share the same comfort zone. Trade is certainly inconvenient over such a distance. Maintaining a presence here—I hope is equally inconvenient for them. I think they’re here just to look.”

“You’re betting on it. You’re betting a lot, Mr. Cameron.”

“The extent to which I bet will change as I get information, Senior Captain, and I will be reporting to you as I get it. I’ll be hoping for all the help I can get.”

“You brought the aiji’s kid up here.”

“The contact we made was through that kid. And through the dowager.”

“As a woman?”

“As an elder. We think. As we think the boy’s youth was also a positive. We honestly don’t know the age or gender of anyone we dealt with. We guess. But we don’t know. It’s that basic. We want to re-create what understanding we had, take up the conversation where we left it, with the very same persons we were talking to, granted the person we met is on that ship. We hope he is. We were trying to gain an understanding of each other—despite the fact most of the kyo words we know are things like tables and chairs, food and drink. But that’s my skill, sir. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m trained to do. You on this ship have never made close contact with another species. Neither, as I gather, have the kyo. Atevi and Mospheirans have. Our relationship is the equation I think that ship is here to solve. It puzzles them. It seemed to interest them. And we don’t want to present them the spectacle of quarrels in our midst.”

He left a small silence, then, and Ogun sat staring at him, but with an occasional redirection in the stare, a thought hurtling meteor-like through a mind itself quite, quite foreign to atevi or Mospheirans.

“They’re transmitting,” Ogun said, tight-jawed. “They’re repeating a series of beeps. Whatever that means. We answer the same. They haven’t changed. What’s your opinion?”

“That they have no desire to startle us, perhaps. That they’re inviting a changed response from us. Or intending to give one themselves as they get closer. In short, I don’t know. We’ve had no experience to tell us, except that this was exactly what they did the last time, and we’re doing what we did the last time.”

“You think you can talk to them, in some meaningful degree.”

“I’m certainly prepared to try, sir. We were able to meet face to face with what may have been significant higher-ups aboard their ship. The presence of persons of older and younger age among us, notably the aiji-dowager and the aiji’s son, did seem to impress them. They may have taken it as proof of a peaceful intent.” He wasn’t sure he was getting through to Ogun in the least. The jaw stayed set. He tried something less conservative, involving more guesswork. “They blew hell out of Reunion, but they didn’t destroy it. I think they sat there silent and at distance and waited. They appear to have watched Phoenix come in when Ramirez was Senior Captain, then watched it leave without removing the population. They then went on sitting there, evidently, for ten more years, knowing what direction you’d gone and probably which star was your likeliest destination.”

Ogun’s jaw clenched and a muscle jumped. That was all.

“Possibly they’ve also been sitting out in the fringes of this solar system for some time,” Bren said, “watching us the way they watched at Reunion. I understand we could miss that sort of presence, if they weren’t actively transmitting.” And right into the heart of the old feud. “And regarding that, I have a question, sir, that could be important to know. When the kyo spooked Phoenix out of their space, back under Ramirez’ command, did you come into their space directly from Reunion, and did you go directly to Reunion after you were spotted?”

The jaw worked a moment. Ogun knew exactly what he was asking. And it was extremely sensitive territory. “Not directly. We tried misleading them on our exit, which is how they got to Reunion ahead of us. Unfortunately our back-trail hadn’t faded. The back-trail was, yes, what they followed instead of us.”

“So they’re not communicating faster than they can fly.”

“Nobody can do that,” Ogun said.

“Did you pick up any attempt to communicate the first time you met?”

“No. They showed, and it was Ramirez’ decision to move. Fast.”

That mattered. Phoenix popped up in kyo space, didn’t talk, ran without trying to talk. Just spooked out.

“It helps to know, sir. So we don’t know what sort of ship they took you for. We have no knowledge what sort of species they’re at war with, either. Or whether they’ve ever talked to them.”

“Meaning?”

“They crippled Reunion. They went straight there instead of following you, and crippled it. And waited. Whether another ship followed you wherever you went in your retreat—whether there’s always been just one kyo ship—there’s no indication. That ship attacked Reunion, and it’s my suspicion they sat just watching Reunion try to recover, waiting for a ship to show up. And when you did come in to Reunion, you found it damaged, you found survivors, and, apparently after an exchange with Stationmaster Braddock, Braddock refused to abandon the station and Ramirez left them in their situation. Am I right? Ramirez kept that communication secret, had only his aide in on it, and didn’t tell the captains who were off-duty. Did he spot that watcher? Did he spook out and run because of it?”

Silence for a moment. A muscle jumped in Ogun’s jaw.

“That’s a damned interesting theory, Mr. Cameron. Not correct in all points, but interesting.”

Ogun. The man who’d posed heated objection to Sabin taking a mission back to Reunion to recover the human library—objecting that Reunion would have no living survivors.

Sabin had gone back after the library. And Ogun’s reason for anger at her was, according to reports, her coming straight back here to Earth once she’d encountered the kyo.

But was it the real reason?

Was there guilt involved in that anger? A secret that had eaten Ogun alive and poisoned relations among the captains for more than a decade, now?

“The kyo sat there for ten years, sir, just waiting for that situation to play out. But at some point they went inside the station, perhaps to explore the architecture, perhaps to capture someone for interrogation. The Reunioners snatched a member of their investigating team, and the kyo immediately backed off. Still with no communication. No further interference. And finally we came back. When we did, they signaled us. We responded. They let us contact the Reunioners. They let us remove them. We retrieved their crew member, we talked with him, we returned him to his people, and through him, we were able to meet and talk with them. We may have talked with kyo fairly high up in authority. But the point is—they tested the situation. They waited. They have patience in ten-year packages. So, no, I don’t want to rush the communications. And if you do know anything bearing on what I’ve just outlined, sir, without prejudice, without judgment, without any opinion of the rightness or wrongness of what happened—I just want to know. I need information. Correct information.”

Small silence. “Was Sabin part of this meeting with the kyo?”

“The participants in the conference with the kyo, sir, were myself, the aiji-dowager, and the young aiji—both of whom have come with me to reprise the contact we had going.”

Ogun’s jaw worked. He said nothing.

“We have a moderately good record with them, sir: we respected their territorial claim, we retrieved their crewman, returned him to them. We were allowed to take the Reunioners off, we left the area, and there were no shots exchanged. I suspect they may have some key concepts in common with atevi—maybe more so than they have with humans. And I will use that, if applicable.”

Eyebrows lifted, carefully. A question.

“Association, sir. Aishi. For one thing, since it was the atevi the kyo contacted, it’s become the atevi language that gives us our bridge to understanding kyo. For another, the word association is one abstract concept they seemed to reach for. I think it is an emotional word with them. If I can assign emotion to people who can wait ten years. I don’t know.”

“People.” That concept seemed itself challenging—to Ogun’s thinking. And not in a welcome way.

“Whatever they are, they seem to be motivated to ask questions instead of shooting at us. I have no clue what their concepts are of nations or politics, I don’t know how their decisions are made. But as long as we are talking instead of resorting to weapons or laying claim to each other’s property, we can figure how to maneuver with them.”

“Where do you propose to meet them?”

“Likely they’ll come much closer. I’m personally prepared to meet them on their deck or on the station, and the aiji-dowager and the boy will be with me—hoping we do know who we’re dealing with. It’s far more dangerous to let our fear feed theirs or to hang back and let their imaginations and ours work. We need your support, on all fronts.”

Long silence.

“You come in here to take over from Tillington. You’re prepared to do that.”

That explained a bit.

“Is that his official assessment of my mission?”

“That’s his concern. He says you’ve gone atevi.”

“In point of fact, a paidhi works both sides of a situation. My job is to ‘go atevi’—or human—alternately. And completely. My last conversation with Tabini-aiji was the day before launch and my last conversation with the President was a call en route, so I’m up to date with their wishes, which are to do what I can to communicate with the kyo and prevent any misunderstanding. But as regards Stationmaster Tillington’s fears about me—that’s not my mission. The President is sending a special envoy to assume command during the emergency, to manage the Mospheiran workforce, and likewise to assure that Mr. Braddock doesn’t cause problems, now or in the future.”

“So we get one more side in this mess? One more finger on the buttons up here is no damned help, Mr. Cameron.”

“The Presidential envoy will consult with you, sir, and your approval will rule all matters with the ship and weigh heavily with the envoy. Presidential authority, however, will end the discussion between Mr. Tillington and Mr. Braddock.”

“And if the Reunioners don’t give a damn about your President?”

“The President is seeking to cooperate with you personally, sir, in finding a resolution to the Reunioner problem after the kyo have departed the system. So will Tabini-aiji. The President does not back Tillington’s proposal. Mospheira doesn’t need a separate human population with separate interests. Atevi object to that, and to their presence here. The composition of the station population is half Mospheiran and half atevi, by treaty, in cooperation with the ship. Creating a separate station under Mr. Braddock’s authority? No, sir. That’s definitely not acceptable.”

Ogun shoved his chair further back and canted it. “So we’re completely reversing position.”

“The President never approved the plan. If Stationmaster Tillington represented that it had the President’s approval, this is not the case. The President is also distancing himself from a statement Stationmaster Tillington made, and which, if the aiji-dowager needs to become aware of it, will bring extremely unpleasant consequences with the aijinate.”

“Is that a threat, Mr. Cameron?”

“No, sir, a warning. You may not be aware, sir—I assume you are not. Mr. Tillington suggested, before witnesses, that the meeting of the aiji’s son with the human children was politically motivated, and Captain Sabin’s doing. I assure you that does not translate into the atevi language in any fashion which could exempt the aiji-dowager from his accusation. She would be within her rights to File Intent on the man.”

“Is that this mass of security arriving with you?”

“This is the aiji-dowager’s usual escort. I haven’t officially informed her about the statement, but there is no guarantee she is not privately aware of the incident. If she should choose to be informed—there would have to be diplomatic consequences, and this is the worst possible time to have that happen. The President does know about it. And for this and other matters of policy and failure to consult, his envoy will replace Stationmaster Tillington, I hope gracefully and privately, without any reference to the aiji’s son, so we can get on with the business at hand and never mention it happened.”

He saw Ogun draw a breath to retort, scowling, and he kept going. “You will have, on those terms, sir, the full support of the President, and the envoy will stay on the station until a permanent appointment can be made. I can say with fair assurance that it will be someone you can work with.”

Silence. Again. Ogun wasn’t pleased to be challenged. He wasn’t pleased to be handed a solution to his mess. He wasn’t pleased at being handed anything he hadn’t chosen . . . including, clearly, the presence of a Presidential envoy.

He had a card.

And maybe it was time to play it.

“You also have, Captain, at the direction of Tabini-aiji and President Tyers, my support, which I am glad to give. I voyaged with Captain Sabin and Captain Graham, so I do communicate well with them, but that is nowhere comparable to my obligation to a populated planet which is my home, sir, as the ship is yours. I have every interest in keeping this station and the ship and all its options safe, and to do that, I need to do what I’m damned good at, sir. But to do that, I need humans on this station not to be conducting a civil war at my back. You are the authority above other authorities up here, so I’m backing you, as I hope you will back me.”

“You are an arrogant bastard, Mr. Cameron.”

“One entirely at your service, sir, and in that interest, let’s create an understanding—and I have discussed this with President Tyers. You want the Reunioners taken out of your way. You wish they, and their politics, had never exited Reunion. And you wish Braddock would take a walk in space. We’re not far apart in that opinion. There’s no way to deal with that situation until we handle the kyo, and we can’t let Braddock use the kyo’s presence as a launch of his second career. If we manage things right, the kyo will come in, they’ll dock, we’ll speak to them, and with the Presidential envoy in charge of the Mospheiran half of the station, things there will stay perfectly quiet while we do it. If we don’t manage to talk to the kyo, the very best outcome we may get is a permanent kyo observation station sitting out there destabilizing our politics and limiting our options for a very long time to come. The President doesn’t want that, the aiji doesn’t want that, and I don’t think you want that. Tillington is making himself an obstacle to our dealing. His replacement will not. And we will move the Reunioner population down to the planet, where it will not be a further issue.”

Ogun blinked. Just that. “Whose word backs that, Mr. Cameron? And how do they get down there? Parachute, like your ancestors?”

“The Mospheiran shuttle program is getting into production, sir. And they will have help from the aiji, who is equally in favor of seeing this issue resolved. It is a viable option. It’s the only viable option, which became an option thanks to your medical folk. One could assume you had some such in mind, when the young aiji’s visitors were able to thrive down there.”

Ogun’s notion? Or was it Sabin who had pushed the meds? Or Jase himself? Someone had, whether for practical hope—or politics.

Ogun stared at him, mouth just a little less clamped. “So who is this envoy, Mr. Cameron?”

“At this point, sir, I haven’t been informed. Communication has been severely limited, so long as Mr. Tillington has been sitting in a position to intercept messages between myself and the President, and so long as communications on the planet are subject to eavesdropping by various agencies. The President may have considered alternatives I know nothing about, but I have a strong hope the appointment will be somebody who’s been here before, who knows the station and its systems.”

That was a very short list.

And Ogun drew in a deep breath. “Mr. Cameron, I hear both good and bad about you. I hear you do get results. So let me give you one very clear warning about dealing with us. Don’t you try to play politics with the captains, even if you think it might benefit you.”

“I have no such intentions. If I can do anything to prevent any problem among the captains, or if you feel I’m not seeing something I should see, inform me, and I’ll do all I can to work with the Council as a whole, because it’s in all our interests.”

“So are you going to break the news to Tillington?”

“Would you prefer to, sir?”

“Not my job,” Ogun said with a wave of his hand. “Your Presidential envoy comes up here—fine. He keeps order and follows regulations. You say you can deal with the kyo. All right. I’ve got no other offers on my desk. You say you can fix the Reunioner situation so we never see it again. Good. I’ll remember that. Right now—go settle in, and don’t disturb what’s not rattling. No changes in orders as they stand. Understood?”

He supposed that was a victory of sorts. Ogun pushed him. He could say, You don’t order me. Or even: Be damned to you: you’re not irreplaceable, either. It was very possible that Ogun had partnered with Ramirez in his decisions. Possibly Ogun had helped bring about the situation they had now, and possibly he’d deliberately kept Sabin in the dark.

But this was also the man who’d managed the station during two years of hell and continued to hold it during the last troubled year of unplanned residents and short supply.

So he contented himself with a quiet, respectful nod. “Absolutely. I’ll work with you, sir. In all respects. Right now I’ll be going to my apartment, dealing with my staff. If any problems come up, if you need a translator—at any hour—you know where to find me.”

· · ·

The residential area was restricted, beyond a guarded door, with, on the other side, all that area of shops and apartments, tiers of them, balconies and shops above the shops, Lord Geigi said.

But past that door and up a level, they had come to this short hall, less wide, far less high, just a little nook above all that huge space.

And suddenly Cajeiri had remembered this specific place. The rest had changed. But not here. Not that much. There was nand’ Bren’s apartment, just as he recalled. There was nand’ Geigi’s. And there was mani’s, in that short hall, and farther down, three other doors that could be storage or passage accesses or most anything. He remembered.

Three years ago he had thought this hall was huge. It was not quite as big as the halls of the Bujavid. And the hall was not as wide nor its ceiling nearly as high as the big area with shops. But it was, more than anything they had seen below, atevi, kabiu, and had a feeling of comfort.

They had hardly been there a moment before the area door opened, and the second part of their company caught up, having come a different way, just ahead of a mass of baggage on carts. Everything was confusion for a moment. Mani’s apartment opened up, pouring out staff excited to welcome them. People he did not at all remember said he had grown so much—

That was true. But it was still strange.

But, sadly, when nand’ Bren’s door opened and the staff came out, they had no one to welcome, except Narani-nadi and Bindanda and Asicho, who stood by giving orders and helping them identify and move the luggage. “They will come,” Narani-nadi said. “They will be here soon.”

But that only made him think all too vividly about the trouble they could be in, and the necessity to keep a calm face and to pretend, like mani, like Lord Geigi and everybody else, that there was absolutely nothing wrong, and that there was no trouble anywhere.

“We shall have tea,” mani said now, after formalities, and invited Lord Geigi, who had just been introducing the Guild observers to the four of his staff who would show them to their apartment, down the hall.

It was certain mani and Lord Geigi would get down to serious talk, after tea. There were so many questions, so very many scary ones—and he was not sure whether he would be invited to hear the news, or whether he would be shut out. He was not even sure whether he wanted to hear—but in his heart, he wanted to.

And once the outer door had shut, and they were in mani’s apartment, he found he was indeed included in that invitation to tea, and very quickly then sitting in a chair in a triangular arrangement, mani, and him, and Lord Geigi. He was served his cup of tea, much nicer than what they had had on the shuttle, where the air made their noses sore, and dulled tastes. He sipped his cup carefully, at mani’s pace, wondering all the while how nand’ Bren was doing, and what information Cenedi was getting from the man who had gone with nand’ Bren, and if they were going to hear anything at all.

But if information from nand’ Bren had not been coming, Cajeiri told himself, Cenedi would not be standing so quietly at mani’s shoulder.

So he hoped nand’ Bren was safe and that everything was all right. And he hoped the same for his associates, off across the station, with the locked doors that still made him mad even to think about.

He wondered if they had heard he was here, and wondered whether, just possibly, once everything calmed down and nand’ Bren came back safely, Lord Geigi might answer a private question and tell him what might have happened to his mail.

There was nothing but idle talk, with tea. Talk about production schedules, about weather on the coast. He sat and sipped tea while baggage carts rumbled in the depths of the hall and staff back there began to sort things out. Clothes would be going into closets and belongings would be set where they should be. They were settling in—and it was still uncertain what was going on over on the human side of things, or up where nand’ Bren was.

Jase-aiji was watching Tillington. That was a good thing. Jase-aiji and Sabin-aiji, who was almost as fierce as Great-grandmother. Tillington would feel her staring at his back, whatever he did.

And his aishid, standing with the senior Guild outside the door, would be asking questions he could not ask. They would be talking to Lord Geigi’s bodyguard, right along with mani’s young men, and mani’s men would be asking questions his aishid did not know enough to ask, finding out things, so his aishid could tell him what was happening without his breaking promises.

Clearly some people, including Tillington-aiji, were not being smart. People were acting as if only their way mattered, while people as dangerous as the kyo were arriving.

Reunioners knew firsthand what the kyo could do. And he knew. And all the fuss among themselves was just stupid. But no one was interested in hearing a boy say so.

The kyo will come someday, he had said to his associates two years ago, when he was much younger, when they were all sitting together in the dark of the ship-tunnels, and he had told them about meeting the kyo face to face. But we will know what to do when that happens.

Nand’ Bren will know what to do.

He still believed that. He truly did.

Cenedi went out to the foyer and came in again, gave a little nod to mani and another to Lord Geigi, and a little one to him, too.

“Nand’ Bren is returning,” Cenedi said. “He has gained Ogun-aiji’s agreement on some matters of import, but they have not yet resolved the situation in Central.”

“At least there is progress,” mani said.

But it was not agreement on everything that was going on, and people were still being stupid.

Maybe tomorrow nand’ Bren would work the rest of it out.

But Cenedi said, too, “Nand’ Bren pleads he is quite tired, and wishes leave to deal with his staff.”

That was a disappointment. He wished he could go across the hall.

But likely nand’ Bren said that because he wanted to think.

“As he should,” mani said with a wave of her hand. “Advise him so.”

17

There was at least, Bren thought, the hope of a quiet transition—granted Ogun didn’t, the moment the door was shut, call Tillington in for conference and create a worse mess.

Bren personally hoped for better from Ogun. He hoped they had made headway on more than one front. And a double-cross didn’t make sense, given what was truly in Ogun’s own best interests—unless there was an emotional side to the question, and there was certainly emotion in Ogun’s dislike of Sabin.

But one didn’t get to be Senior Captain by being a fool. And in playing the one piece of advantage he’d had, the disposition of the Reunioners, he’d given Ogun a path that led in a better direction for everybody, Ogun included. If Ogun saw it.

Or believed it. There’d been a long history of deception, all along the ship’s course.

He couldn’t undo that. He had to keep on Ogun’s good side. He also had to stick by his own allies, including Sabin, and he had to do it without making trouble for Jase in the process. Sabin was all the fallback they had, if Ogun turned unreliable.

He’d been unspeakably glad to put the ship-folk’s stationside administrative section behind him.

He was gladder still to be in the lift headed back to atevi territory, and when he and his escort passed the door into the aishidi’tat’s executive residency, it was as if he’d finally found breathable air.

The corridor was quiet and deserted as he and his escort entered. His own door was across the hall from the dowager’s apartment doors, down the hall from Geigi’s. Cenedi’s man, with a parting courtesy, went across to Ilisidi’s door, and the fact that Geigi’s men, also leaving him, likewise went over to the dowager’s door, said that there must be a meeting still going on.

But he had too much going on at the moment, and to his advisory message, the dowager had relayed a gracious encouragement to go settle in and rest.

Which was a great relief. Right now he wanted no more input, nothing that would require a defense or even an explanation of what he had just done—because there was no answer until Ogun did whatever he decided to do, and he had so many pieces and particles suspended in his head. He needed to take notes. He needed to remember just how the argument had flowed, and everything, every nuance, every hint of Ogun’s guarded expression.

He reached his own door with only his aishid, and without them so much as pushing the button, it opened.

The spicy smell of pizza wafted out. Narani and Jeladi were there to meet him, with Kandana and Sabiso, with Asicho and Maruno, and people he had not seen in far too long. It was celebration. It was his staff. His people.

“Nandi! Nand’ Bren!”

Faces beamed with happiness. There were more people in the hall, Bindanda, the whole staff turned out.

He found a smile, an expansive gesture of thanks, least he could do. There had been conspiracy about this welcome, one was quite certain: pizza could not have happened on station commons. There were a few faces sensibly a little worried—seeking some hint of the situation in his demeanor, but he could not spread fear in his own staff, either. He gathered up his energy and broadened the smile, and found their happiness pouring strength into him. Granted one did not seize on Kandana and Sabiso and the rest and hug them bodily, his gesture won smiles all around, happiness from one side of the little foyer to the other, and back into the hall.

“Nandi!” Kandana said. “Welcome! Three times welcome! Are things well?”

“They are indeed improved,” he said, shedding the traveling coat, itself a vast relief. He was offered another, a soft, favorite coat he had not seen literally in years, and such was the stress of recent weeks, the coat still fit. That was a surprise. All around him, familiar faces beamed warmth and welcome. He found himself energized, surrounded by people who, far from ordinary atevi reserve, touched his arm or his shoulder as family might, in sheer happiness to see him.

Pizza meant informality. People snatched a little piece and a glass of something compatible, and milled about in, for a courtly atevi party, a riotous good time.

“Welcome, nandi!” Sabiso bade him, handing him a glass. “Welcome! We are so relieved!”

“We were worried there might be a problem,” another voice declared. “But now we can deal with these strangers!”

“Our lord will bring the human folk to sense!”

Their lord sincerely hoped so—and didn’t miss the fact the human situation found mention right along with the oncoming kyo ship.

He had no answer to give them. Not yet. He wished he could be in two places, here and across the hall, hearing what Geigi and Ilisidi were saying. But his aishid was in contact. Likely Ilisidi was getting more information than she gave, and if what she was getting from Lord Geigi was the atevi situation, that seemed in fair order. If what she was getting was Tillington’s history—please God without Tillington’s statement—he knew enough.

Best course, he decided, was right where he was, meet staff, draw breath, have a little supper, and honestly get some sleep in a proper bed, not the situation aboard the shuttle. He couldn’t ignore these people now. He’d had to leave them when he’d come down to the world. He still couldn’t help them get home, with shuttle space restricted as it was.

“So many welcome faces!” he said so everyone could hear, and weary as he was, felt a sudden dampness about the eyes, hoping it would not get worse. “And such a welcome! Nadiin-ji, thank you, thank you all! You have been so patient, so much more than I could have reasonably asked, under every circumstance.”

“Bren-nandi!” came the response, all of them crowded close. And from Kandana: “Welcome, nandi! Indeed, we know you will bring order out of this!”

There was, of course, tea. The household was a little short of wine and brandy, supplied from the world below, but there were certainly spirits to be had—vodka distilled from what, one dared not ask. He hesitated at taking any alcohol, still fearing a summons.

But none came.

And there were, aromatic as the pizza, fresh teacakes. The orangelle flavoring was a special treat up here, and they had brought a lot of it.

There was news, the new windows at Najida, the children’s visit—he met and talked with every individual of his little staff. He answered questions about relatives, and the Bujavid staff, name by name, where they were, how they were.

But tea and sugar could only carry him so far, with, finally, a small glass of vodka. Exhaustion was setting in, and he went to what served as his sitting room and simply collapsed into a chair for a moment of peace and silence.

Strange how one conversation with Ogun could have sapped that much energy. But it had. And he was very glad the dowager had spared him a formal report tonight, because nothing he had tried to do was concluded, and nothing was certain.

Finish the vodka. Have one more cup of herbal tea. Go to bed. That was his plan.

“Go off duty,” he told his aishid, who had come in with him, standing, after all this. “I hope things will be quiet for at least a few hours, but they will assuredly not stay that way. The shuttle from Mospheira is coming in two days behind us, and I am hopeful now we shall at least have Ogun’s silence while we manage a transition with Tillington. I shall talk with the man tomorrow and see if I can persuade him to stand down. Well done. Rest. Please.”

“Bren-ji,” Banichi said with a nod; and here in the heart of a loyal staff, they left for their own quarters—likely not to sleep yet, but to trade condensed information with Cenedi and with Geigi’s staff, and then, he sincerely hoped, they would take their own overdue rest.

He picked up the requested cup of tea, and was about, with two extra sips, to go get some sleep himself.

The door opened. Jago came back in, having hardly had time to go all the way down the hall, and with a look like business.

“Bren-ji. Jase-aiji is on the phone.”

Phone meant another sort of instrument, on the station. This one arrived in Jago’s hand, a device like one of the Guild units, and a glance told him what button to push, not needing to leave his chair or plug anything in. “This is Bren,” he said, while Jago waited.

“Hear you just talked with the senior captain.”

He’d come home, exhausted. Gotten distracted. No, he hadn’t called Jase. Or talked to Sabin. Or even thought about it.

Never take your allies for granted. Big mistake. Especially with Sabin.

“Good conversation, actually,” he said. “I think we agreed on most points. I hope you haven’t heard anything to the contrary.”

“No. Actually not. Everything is quiet here. I was thinking about dropping by your place on my way off-shift.”

God, he couldn’t. The minute he’d met the glass of spirits, his brain had started turning to homogenized mush, the more so now that he’d sat down alone in quiet. He’d not reported to Sabin. She probably wanted information, and asked Jase to get it.

But running from Ogun right back to Sabin . . .

No, he shouldn’t have done that. He was dropping stitches even thinking he should have gone to her. He’d done the right thing going straight to Ogun. Sabin would know that. Absolutely she would. And he’d done right, to come straight home.

Jase, on the other hand, could be signaling him about another problem. They could cover the visit with the party winding down in the dining room.

“Sure,” he found himself saying. “We’re sort of settling down for the night here. But you’re very welcome. Hope things have gone all right.”

“Peaceful regarding the visitors. No change in the signal. They’re signaling us, probably automated, at a fixed interval. We repeat it at that interval. We’re not changing anything until—”

Jase broke off. Something was happening where he was.

“Just a minute,” Jase said. “Stay with me.”

Adrenaline kicked up. Bren waited. It was all he could do.

Maybe it wasn’t an emergency. Maybe it was somebody just trying to ask Jase a simple question. Casual interruption.

If only it was that.

The silence went on. And on.

Maybe Jase had completely forgotten about him. Maybe Sabin was saying something.

Maybe some technical thing had developed a problem.

Maybe he should just end the call. Let Jase call him back when he had time.

He kept hearing voices. Strange sounds. Jase was carrying the com unit with him as he dealt with several people. He heard bits and pieces of instruction and query. Then:

“Bren.”

“I’m here.”

“Transmission just changed. Velocity hasn’t. Course hasn’t. The transmission has gone to audio, but I think it’s a recording. I’ll patch you in.”

Pop. Static. He heard then a rumbling sort of voice he hadn’t heard in two years—and the world below them never had.

“Bren. Ilisidi. Cajeiri. Bren. Ilisidi. Cajeiri. Bren. Ilisidi. Cajeiri.” And silence.

Three repeats. Like the pattern signal.

Click. “What do we answer?” Jase asked.

There was some sort of disturbance near Jase. He heard a voice. An angry one. Then Jase again:

“Stationmaster Tillington is demanding I get off the com. Captain Sabin is telling him to stand by for your answer and do nothing himself. The stationmaster wants their signal echoed as is.”

“No. In point of fact, we need to answer this one.”

“Go ahead. I’ll capture. We’ll play it as you direct.”

Call Prakuyo’s name? They had no guarantee Prakuyo was on that ship, and no guarantee what Prakuyo’s status was, whether currently in good favor or not.

“Bren. Ilisidi. Cajeiri. Sit. Talk.”

He had said it in kyo.

“Got it,” Jase said to someone. “Recorded. Transmit that three times in close sequence, on same interval as their transmission.”

He heard an immediate loud argument from someone near the com.

“You have the order,” he heard Jase say then, angrily. “Transmit that in the pattern as ordered.”

“Damn you.” He heard that, too, and guessed it was Tillington.

“I’ll talk to Tillington,” he said.

“He’s all yours,” Jase said, and evidently passed the com. He heard a click. Then:

“Cameron, damn your arrogance, you come on board here and start giving orders—”

“Mr. Tillington?” he asked, dead calm. An adrenaline surge did wonders for exhaustion.

“Mr. Cameron, you do not countermand an order from Central.”

“Mr. Tillington—”

“That’s Stationmaster Tillington.”

“Stationmaster Tillington, I have dealt with these people. I established the protocols in the first—”

“You have no authority here!”

“I’m here at the request of the President and the State Department.”

“You don’t represent a damned thing, Cameron! You have no authority! Your commission expired when you left your job unfilled and the continent in a mess.”

“Mr. Tillington, it would be in your best interest at this point to come to my office.”

“You don’t have an office!”

“Effectively, I do, but I was about to say, despite the hour, I would also come to yours. The kyo may be responding to the shuttle arrival. Very likely they are observing—”

“You’re not in command of this station and you do not give orders in Central!”

“Stationmaster Tillington, we need to hold a discreet and private conversation. We can do it in the morning, but in the meanwhile, that transmission needs to go out.”

“You have no authority to be anywhere, and you damned sure don’t have it to give orders to my staff!”

“You may say that, Mr. Tillington, but I do have the authority, I hold a commission from two governments as well as the approval of the Senior Captain, and I sincerely hope you are the only one hearing this. For your personal good, Mr. Tillington, and in the interest of handling the question of my authority quietly and with dignity, please come and discuss the situation with me in private.”

“I don’t go to that side of the line.”

“Mr. Tillington, Stationmaster Tillington, contact with the kyo is a matter requiring experience and expertise. I have dealt with these people before. I have every confidence I can bring this meeting to a safe conclusion, given—”

“They’re here because of the Reunioners, because Sabin, here, failed to take out the damn Reunioner records, and she’s standing here trying to run my staff! Call her to your damned office!”

“Mr. Tillington, you are wrong. And there’s no sense carrying on this discussion long-distance. Return the com to Captain Graham, and I strongly urge you take his suggestions at this point. I’ve given you a response that should hold the status quo with the visitors for the next few hours, granted they follow pattern, and I am extremely tired. I would ask we let tempers cool and take up the technicalities of my status here tomorrow. Can we set a time and place to meet, sir?”

“You hide over on the atevi side. Fine! You operate from there. You keep the hell off the human side of the station! You don’t belong here, you’re not wanted, and you’re not needed here! The hell with you!”

There was some little disturbance in Tillington’s background. Bren didn’t break the contact—figuring that Tillington’s shouting would have informed Jase they were getting nowhere. He hoped that Jase would take over the com.

But the connection broke. Possibly Tillington had indeed thumbed it off.

He clicked off, from his end. He waited.

And waited, figuring that whatever had happened, Jase would manage it better without him calling into the middle of it. He laid the com on the table to wait, and took a sip of cooling tea, noting that Jago had come back into the room during the final exchange, and that she was standing attendance by the tea service, beside the servant.

Jago gave him a lifted brow. Likely her hearing had picked up the louder bits.

The com vibrated, and he picked it up and pressed the button. “Bren here.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cameron.”

Not Jase. Sabin herself. Second-senior captain.

“Captain Sabin. A pleasure. I regret the circumstances. I fear I didn’t do well with Mr. Tillington.”

“His choice. Your transmission is going out as requested. Tillington’s left Central. Senior Captain is aware.”

Ogun knew Tillington had left. Tillington had held on to the station controls very possibly as Ogun’s ally. And now he left in high temper. Gone to Ogun? Maybe.

“I’m a little concerned that he’s upset.” Understatement, but everything they said was passing through the system, accessible by techs in that room. He could order Tillington’s arrest if he thought it necessary. He had every confidence Shawn would back him if he did that.

But at possible political cost to Shawn, and maybe exacerbating the situation Tillington had stirred up on the Mospheiran side of the station.

So Ogun had pulled the rug from under Tillington.

And Ogun had been in contact with Sabin. Had at least gotten her advisement.

Sabin was probably running on high adrenaline herself, and there was some chance she was a little upset that her supposed ally in the aishidi’tat had put a conference with Ogun at the top of his agenda. But he didn’t think so. She was canny and practical, in a major way.

“I’m relieved,” he said. “I just had a very productive discussion with Captain Ogun on the kyo situation. I think we can work this problem out very quickly with Mr. Tillington. I’d like to meet with you directly at your convenience; and I need to talk to Mr. Tillington in a calmer frame of mind. Has the kyo ship had time to respond?”

“They’re about three hours lagged. Just had a repeat of their new transmission, identical to the last. Interval identical. They won’t have gotten our transmission yet. We’ll be keeping the same schedule, with your message.”

“Possible their message is related to the shuttle docking?”

“Not timed to it, but very possibly they observed the shuttle approach.”

“Well, we’re here, we’re available to you at any hour. It’s my sense they’re going to continue their own speed for a while. And that they’re going to repeat that statement of theirs at the same interval for a while.”

“It’s my sense that they’re observing, mapping, and taking notes as they come.” Sabin’s voice was grim. “It would be odd if not. But we don’t know how long they’ve been out there.”

“I agree with you, Captain. I’m going to go off call for a few hours and get some necessary sleep to get my head clear. But I remain available for any other change in that transmission, any trouble or change from any source. Are communications to Central secure?”

“Not that secure, unfortunately.”

“I understand.” From whom it was not that secure remained a question—whether it was one of Tillington’s techs still on duty, or Ogun himself that Sabin was worried about. “I’m going to ask Lord Geigi to bring his shift on now and possibly stay on extended watch, the Mospheiran crew having been on, I understand, a very extended session. Let them get some sleep. Will that be acceptable, to give you and the human staff some rest?”

“Acceptable and very welcome at this point, Mr. Cameron. We will order a shift of control to the atevi stationmaster as soon as we have his signal, and the head of staff will implement that shift, or we’ll work down the list until someone will. We only ask to be notified of any change in the kyo transmission.”

“Absolutely, Captain.”

“Sabin out.”

The contact clicked out.

Geigi would be in control of operations from now on until Tillington was replaced.

That was an immense relief.

But had he done an entirely good job? He didn’t think so. He’d just sent a very upset Tillington off to his Mospheiran allies to complain, granted that was all Tillington did. He entertained a somewhat uncharitable wish that Tillington would call down to Shawn’s office tonight to lodge a complaint. Or protest to Sabin.

Neither, however, would lead to a good solution. It would be far better to have Tillington accept the change that was coming, and he hadn’t set that up at all smoothly. One could only hope that Tillington and Jase had been inside the office with the door shut, and not out on the floor when Tillington had lost his temper.

Maybe the stress had just piled up. Maybe Tillington was reaching a point where he would welcome being relieved of duty, maybe given at least a sideways promotion on Earth—

But he was beginning to believe he shouldn’t recommend the man for any such consideration. An official who saw an alien warship bearing down on his station, locked his fellow stationmaster out of controls shift after shift—

Tillington wasn’t the first to wish him in hell, but he had certainly been passionate about it. Maybe Tillington had been following Ogun’s orders—or guiding them. Walking out like this—Tillington had been camping out in Central shift after shift after shift, sleep-deprived and not at his most rational in the first place. He might have reached his physical limit. He might have gotten an order from Ogun.

Morning might bring more sober reflection. He hoped so.

But at the moment—that shuttle bringing Tillington’s replacement couldn’t get here fast enough.

And whatever was done at Tillington’s orders or by Tillington’s people right now—he wanted someone keeping an eye on station systems.

The original dual setup of Central had been a remote redundancy in case of disaster, two Centrals each on a different power unit, and at a considerable remove. They’d used that, finding it a way to share control between atevi and humans.

And mad as it had seemed during negotiations for the initial setup, the system had not only worked, it had continued working during the coup, when the station had had to fend for itself—when the station had had no functional translator. In the system as it had developed, as he understood it, humans and atevi “talked” personally through the input keyboards and the displays. Nearing shift change, human Central would begin passing off working situations to atevi Central: the automations all went over at the flip of a digital switch, but the transfer of active problems required an atevi worker who didn’t speak the human worker’s language first to shadow what was going on and understand what had been done—or vice versa—

Those procedures Geigi said worked amazingly well.

And sharing the same job, seeing the same problems over and over, workers who had never met, and who could not speak to each other outside their keyboards, worked together day after day on a kind of interlingual shorthand that had spread somewhat uniformly through both sets of techs, tagging familiar problems with their own set of descriptive icons. Neither side would understand the other’s discussion of the problem—but both sides always knew exactly what was going on.

Not infrequently, though illicitly, so Geigi had explained, pairs of techs shared pictures of family and spouses. The relationships weren’t the same, across that line; but sets of techs had become people to each other, across that barrier.

And would those techs, right now, running on nerves and with their chief officer in an emotional state—be glad to make the turnover to their atevi partners and go home to rest? They were divided into two shifts, so they had some relief, but even so, it was sleep and work, sleep and work, with no break, under a man undergoing a meltdown . . . a man whose insistence was that atevi were siding with the Reunioners, in a plot with the two captains who were standing watch in Central, with the kyo bearing down on them. The techs had to be at their own breaking point.

“Jago-ji, advise Geigi to be ready to make the shift in Central just as soon as he can get his team there, and treat the other side very gently. Workers there are exhausted. Tillington has just walked out and left his staff upset and without direction. Tell Geigi that the kyo have begun transmitting our names now—that part is good news—I have responded, in a repeating transmission, at an identical interval, and he must wake me and also report to the Captains if there is any change in what I have left in operation. One cannot assume it is definitely Prakuyo an Tep we are dealing with, but the kyo are asking to see me, the dowager, and the young gentleman. Tell Geigi workers may be advised that this message from the kyo is a favorable change.”

“Yes,” Jago said, and left. Every detail he had enumerated would be handled, and handled quickly. He could rely on that.

But the problem inside Mospheiran Central remained far from resolved.

The servant still stood by. Bren sat there a moment, still holding the com: tired or not, there was no way he was going to sleep until he had word things were on an even keel and the switchover was complete. He looked at the servant, made a slight move of his hand, and in very short order another cup of tea arrived on the side table.

“Thank you, nadi-ji,” he said to the servant.

“Nandi,” the servant said, all earnestness. Staff knew. Staff knew enough to make them worry right along with him.

And he was supposed to solve it.

He felt that expectant look. He felt it and asked himself what in hell he could do.

The com in his hand buzzed.

“Bren?”

It was Jase.

“I’m here.”

“Just reporting in. Sabin’s finally going off-shift. I’m going to stay here in Central to supervise the handoff to Geigi’s crew and to officially dismiss the shift. I want to talk to Geigi for a moment after we hand over. By the time I get through here, I imagine you’ll be wanting to be in bed, too, right?”

“I do think I’ll make a lot more sense in the morning, but if you want to drop by tonight, I can manage.”

“No sense wearing yourself out. Things are under control. I’ll see you in the morning. If anything goes amiss, I’ll call you.”

“I’m going to need to talk to Tillington tomorrow, after he’s had a chance to calm down. I’ll try to resolve that situation. At least calm it down.”

“Good luck with that operation. —And thanks, Bren. Thanks. Good night. Get some rest.”

“You too,” he said.

The com clicked off. He laid it down on the side table, beside the teacup.

What he was going to say to Tillington tomorrow to calm things down he wasn’t sure—and it probably wasn’t going to improve with you’re being replaced. Tillington already wished he’d take a walk in space. Maybe Ogun wished the same, though he thought he might have made a dent in that attitude.

One could hope the technician pairs in the two halves of Central would communicate a calm switchover despite the outbursts and tension from Tillington.

And that Jase, physically standing in Mospheiran Central, would advise the human techs exactly what Geigi would tell his own workers, that they were making progress with the kyo and that they all needed to keep things low and quiet.

Could he read anything at all into the timing of the change of communication from the kyo?

It did suggest the kyo ship might be aware that a shuttle had docked.

Meanwhile the kyo ship would also be reading space itself, looking for trails of ships departing or arriving. The kyo would be seeing only two local ships, Phoenix, that they had seen before, and the other ship under construction, with its hull not quite complete. Everything they owned was laid out, impossible to conceal.

Were there other stations? That was the one thing the kyo might not be able to know by observation. Unless they had been there a while.

It was among those things he was determined not to tell them—just in case.

· · ·

Baggage in Great-grandmother’s apartment had given up all the things they had brought from home. There had been soft bumps and thumps, doors opening and closing, all the while they had tea and cakes in mani’s sitting room, but now Lord Geigi had gone home, and had an apartment ready for the strangers from the Guild, too, so they were settling in, and would not be staying in mani’s residence.

And nand’ Bren had come back, and Guild had told Guild certain things were settled with Ogun-aiji. So at least everything was settling into place.

Cajeiri was glad of that, and glad to be able to go to his own room, his own little suite, and shed his coat again and sit in a soft chair. He was feeling frayed at the edges—that was nand’ Bren’s expression, and it fit.

Maybe, he thought, everything would settle now and everybody would use good sense.

And he was very willing to rest. So was his aishid, who were all stripping down and taking advantage of the shower in the servants’ hall behind their quarters. That was very well. There was a large bath, too, and the idea sounded very pleasant but he was just too tired. He thought he would take a turn in the shower, too. He had not really had one of this sort since the ship: it was all fog, and strange, and pleasant to breathe.