Precursor

That Tamun might have access to those switches was not something he wanted to contemplate.

The car thumped, gathering speed. They were packed so tightly the eventual shifts of attitude did little to dislodge anyone, only that their whole mass increasingly acquired buoyancy.

Please God they got there, Bren thought, thinking of Tamun, and buttons. He watched the flashing lights change on the panel, counting. It was so crowded he couldn’t move his arm to draw the gun in his pocket, so crowded he fell into breathing in unison with Jago, whose deep breaths otherwise pressed at wrong times.

Three levels to go.

Two. They had no more gravity.

The car drifted to a stop, everyone floating as the door opened to a cold so intense it gave the illusion of vacuum.

Pellets hit and sparked around them, atevi spilled out of the car left and right, shoving to get clear and sailing off in the lack of gravity. Bren fended for himself, shoved off Tano, who was behind him, and flew free, trying to do what Jago had done and catch the edge of the door to stop herself and reach cover.

He tried. But a hit convulsed his leg with shock and prevented his grip on the door edge. A coruscation of impacts flared and crackled on the metal surfaces near him.

A human voice, Jase’s, shouted, “Ramirez! Ramirez is alive! Tamun’s done!”

He tumbled, instinct telling him doubling up would relieve the pain, intellect telling him it was a way to get killed. He tried for a handhold as he drifted by a pipe.

“Bren-ji!” A hand snagged him, pulled him toward safety.

A second electrical shock blew him aside: he tumbled high above the lift exit handlines, grabbed the icy cold surface of a hose with a bare hand and swung to a stop, or at least a change of view.

He saw Jago drifting loose trying to reach him in this illusion of dizzying height. And he saw a human in concealment with a gun, aiming up at her.

He fired without thinking, jolted himself loose from his grip and hit another solid surface hard. He rebounded, flying free from that, and tumbled, trying to get a view of Jago. He couldn’t see the man he’d fired at. He couldn’t hear anything but the fading echoes of fire.

He caught an elbow about a pipe, this time high above the shuttle exit. He couldn’t see Jago, but he saw that hatch open. He saw a number of atevi exiting on the handlines, all armed, all prepared for trouble, all capable of creating it.

“Lord Geigi!” he called out, twice, and on the second shout, a man paused on the line and looked up, or its apparent equivalent.

“Bren-ji!” Jago called him from somewhere distant. He knew he’d made a target of himself, shouting out; he knew his security disapproved.

“He’s up there!” he heard Jase shout.

It had become altogether embarrassing. His whole company was looking for him. He pocketed the gun, fearful of losing it, the final shame; and tried to hand his way along the pipe to whatever route down he could find. It was as if he hung in scaffolding three and four stories above the docking area, in a cavernous, cold place crossed with conduits and free-drifting hoses, where the physics of gunfire had sent him… predictable for anyone who thought twice. He didn’t know whether the shooting was over; he didn’t know whether those trying to retrieve him were placing themselves in danger.

He had no communications except shouting, and he had made enough racket. He began using the tail of his coat to insulate his hands from his grip on the pipes, and finally his rattled brain informed him that, yes, physics had gotten him up here and physics could get him down far faster than hand-over-handing down frozen pipes. He screwed up his courage, ignored the perspective and simply shoved off, flying free, down and down until he could tumble toward a low-impact landing.

He had come in reach of Jago’s outstretched hand… she snagged him by the sleeve and drew him aside to a safe, warm side. Banichi was there, waiting. Cenedi, too. He was thoroughly embarrassed.

“We shall have to give you a Guild license,” Banichi said. “It was Tamun you shot.”

“Did I shoot him?” He was appalled, utterly dismayed, his personal impartiality in disputes somehow affected. “Is he dead?”

“No,” Jago said, to his very odd relief, “but Jasi-ji has arrestedhim. I believe this is the correct word.”

They hovered, a small floating knot of what, after the far cold reaches of the girders, seemed friendly warmth. Jase was coming over to them, drifting along a handline, amid many more atevi than there had been.

Conspicuous among them, a very stout ateva in a thick winter seaman’s coat sailed along far too fast for safety, free of the handline.

“Lord Geigi,” Bren said. He was shivering too badly to effect the needed rescue, but Cenedi interposed a hand and brought the lord of the seacoast to a gentle halt.

“This is remarkable, Nadiin,” Lord Geigi said, his gold eyes shining, and an uncommon flush to his ebon face. “This is quite remarkable. Have we won? And what are we fighting about?”

“One trusts so,” Bren began to say, and then saw three of the human workers drifting toward him.

With them came a human also in the garish orange of the dock workers, a man with a dark, completely familiar face, a man who was armed, Bren very much suspected; but there was no brandishing of threat, no hesitation in approaching them: this was a man who considered the place his.

“Captain Ogun,” Bren hailed the newcomer, and there was a quiet, tense meeting, Ogun with him.

“Captain Ogun,” Jase said. “Captain Ramirez has set me in the fourth seat. His authority. I’m taking third, until he’s back on line to say otherwise. Tamun’s under guard. Dresh will be, when he comes out.”

Ogun never changed expression. “You have the codes?”

“Since I was with the old man in the tu

“Good sense,” Ogun said, as if words were gold, and scarce. “Tamun is out. Dresh is out. You have that third seat. You’ll have it until the Council meets. Then we’ll discuss it.”

“I’ll step down at that time,” Jase said. “Damned fast. I’ve no desire to sit on Council, let alone hold a chair.”

“First qualification of the job,” Ogun said. “Is Tamun alive?”

“Alive,” Jase said. “He’s become a Council problem.”

“A hellof a council problem,” Ogun said, and touched a metal collar beneath the gaudy orange suit. “Sabe. We’ve caught Tamun. Jase is third man, Ramirez’s appointment. And mine. We’ve got more atevi aboard, another important one, looks to be. They were waiting… to see what we’d do, apparently. Yes. We gave them a hell of a show, didn’t we? Now we’ve got to find beds for the lot. Sabe, pull all crew onto the ship. Council is going to meet. We need to patch what’s ripped. We need it very badly.”

Sabin must have answered him then.

“Done. You’re clear,” Ogun said, looking out into the vacant recesses of the dock. “Hold where you are. There’s no need for you to come out until this is absolutely stable.”

Then he diverted that flat stare to Bren. “Well, Mr. Cameron.”

“Well, sir. I’m very glad you escaped. I feared you hadn’t. They hit us on the way out of your office.”

“Frank?”

“Could use a hospital. He’s with Dr. Kroger.”

Ogun stared at him a moment with a wry, misgiving expression. “Agreements stand. You’ll have what resources you need. Turn over all prisoners, all casualties to us. Systems you’ve damaged, Mr. Cameron, ultimately, you fix.”

“Those within our reach,” Bren said. “Fortunately not as long a tab as might have been.” His hands were beyond feeling. The leg still hurt and had cramped from the shock, his heart still tending to skip and flutter. He wanted nothing so much as to find a place with air, warmth, and the simple, blessed illusion of gravity and things staying put.