Precursor

“Well, come along, come along. Feldman, my regrets.”

“Yes, sir,” Ben said confusedly.

At least Kroger hadn’t robbed the bar party of both translators. And she’d left security behind.

They set off back past the sentries. Another walk, a short one, and there was, indeed, a small bar, the most ordinary thing in the world to the Mospheirans, one he himself hadn’t thought of untilhe’d walked in among his own species, and one of the most astonishing places in the world for Banichi and Jago, surely. It was dim, it smelled faintly of alcohol, a television was playing an old movie on the wall unit, and every eye turned toward them.

“This is a place,” Bren said in Ragi, “where humans meet to consume alcohol, talk, and play games. Hostilities are discouraged despite the loosening of rules, or because of them. It substitutes for the sitting room. Here you may sit and talk while drinking. Talk with the young paidhi while I talk with Lund and Kroger, find out what she knows, advise her honestly of our concerns, advise her how to communicate this discreetly to her superiors. It is permissible and encouraged to lean on the counter where drinks are served while one talks.”

“One will try,” Banichi said.

“Shugart,” Bren said, “go practice your translation with them, using no names.”

“No names.” The word was difficult in Ragi.

“Lund,” Bren said, flinging an arm about the delegate from Commerce. “What will you have? More to the point, what have they got, Kaplan? Vodka, more than likely.”

“There’s vodka,” Kaplan said. “There’s vodka and there’s flavored vodka.”

“I’m not surprised,” Bren said. “Is there anything you can’tmake into vodka?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Kaplan said. The eyepiece glowed in the dim lighting. Unhappily, so did atevi eyes, as gold as Kaplan’s eyepiece was red. The phenomenon drew nervous stares around the room… from the single bartender, the five gathered at a table. The stares tried not to be obvious, and weren’t wholly friendly.

“Anyone here know Jase Graham?” Bren asked aloud. If there was anyone who didn’t, they didn’t say so, but neither did the others leap up to say they did. “Friend of mine. Missing onboard.”

“He’s in the captains’ debriefing, sir,” Kaplan said under his breath.

“I know you say that. Here. Sit down.”

“I can’t…”

“Can’t sit? You look perfectly capable to me.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaplan said, “but I can’t drink.”

“You can have a soft drink; I’ll assume there’s something of the sort here.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaplan said. They sat. The bartender came over as if he were approaching hostile lunatics. “Fizzwater,” Kaplan said.

“What flavors does the vodka come in?”

“There’s lemon and there’s pepper.”

“I think I’d play it safe,” Kroger said, “and ask for plain. With ice.”

“Sounds like good advice,” Bren said. “Plain.” Lemon was a flavor; historically it had been a fruit, but there was no such aboard Phoenix;and peppers, while some grew on Mospheira, were mostly native. It was a matter of curiosity, but not when one courted information, not new flavors.

The drink orders went in. Banichi and Jago talked in Ragi with the wide-eyed young translator. The drinks arrived, indifferently served, and their guard had a fizzwater while they knocked down untrustworthy vodka.

“Kaplan’s been touring us about,” he said in his thickest Mosphei’ accent. “We’d really wanted to do this with Jase, who can’t be found. I did get a call through to the mainland and sent one off to Mospheira; Tabini-aiji is quite pleased; I hope the President will be.”

“We’ve put in a call,” Kroger admitted, continually looking at her glass and her fingers, as if there were high counsel there. “We’re going to work up some figures. We’ve been at it, actually.”

“So have I,” Bren said, and they proceeded to talk detailed business while Kaplan sipped his fizzwater and the vodka worked on their nervous systems. Kroger relaxed a degree; Lund grew positively cheerful; whether either took the warning about Jase’s disappearance Bren remained uncertain, but he hoped Banichi and Jago were getting past the language barrier. He heard nervous laughter from Shugart, saw her duck her head in utter embarrassment, and saw Banichi and Jago both laughing, which was encouraging.

The whole bar relaxed, with that. The conversation between Banichi and Jago and Kate Shugart began to involve the bartender, evidently regarding the television. First the bartender changed the cha

And after two drinks, numbers exchanged, opinions exchanged in some quiet amity, and definitely more relaxed than he had been, Bren called an end to the visit. “Well,” he said, “better go get back to quarters, see if there’s a hangover in this stuff.”

“Doesn’t seem too bad,” Lund said, who’d had three.

“Best we go, though,” Kroger agreed.

“But we should give an official hello,” Bren said. Perhaps it was the vodka, but his motives were sheer public relations, since things were going so well at the bar. He went over to the other table and had Kaplan introduce him and introduce the others, including Banichi and Jago, who never yet had spoken a word of Mosphei’, and who met the five crewmen with uncharacteristic smiles.

“Very glad to meet you,” Bren said, and went through the most of the routine a second time with the bartender, whose name was Jeff, and who, yes, had shown them the workings of the entertainment system.

“Can they see in the dark?” Jeff wanted to know, further, on what Bren estimated was the chatoyance of atevi eyes.

“A little better than we can at twilight,” he said, knowing as a human how people who saw in the dark played off human fears… and then remembering this Jeff would have no visceral concept of twilight. Dusk and dawn were no better. “Like in here,” he amended that. “Not sure about the color range, well as we know each other; don’t think it’s ever been tested scientifically. But it’s not that much different.”

“Huh,” Jeff said thoughtfully, and Bren gave the polite formulas and gathered his party out the door into the corridor, Lund tending to stray a bit. They were cheerful, the lot of them, even Kroger looking flushed.

“Well, probably time we got back to our various sections,” Bren said. “Why don’t you drop by tomorrow? We can give you something a little aside from the cafeteria fare. I have to let my staff know in advance, but no great difficulty to set a few extra places.”

“I don’t know,” Kroger said.

“Anything but the food up here,” Lund said, and then cast a look at Kaplan. “With apologies.”

“Everything my staff brought accommodates human taste,” Bren said. “Kaplan, can you bring them for supper tomorrow, say, oh, local eighteen hundred? You’re welcome, yourself. Plan to eat with us.”

“I can’t, sir, not on duty.”

“Your duty is a bother.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaplan said. “But I have to do it.”

“All the same. You can have a cup of tea and a wafer or two. The universe won’t end.”

“Eighteen hundred,” Kroger said.

“Granted we survive the hangover,” Bren said. “Lead on, Kaplan. Show us the way.”

Chapter 16

“One does apologize, Nadiin-ji, for curious behavior,” Bren said when they met the staff, he and Banichi and Jago with Tano and Algini as interested bystanders from the security room door.

“It was a curious place,” Banichi said.

“Indeed,” Jago agreed. “But we were able to advise Kate-ji of the situation.”

“I heard laughter.”

“She said she was an endangered fish and again, that we were three amorous old men.”

Bren had to smile, though the vodka had not improved the dry-air headache. He’d tried inhaling water that morning, tried a headache remedy during their stay in the bar, and still felt far too dry, which the vodka he’d consumed had not improved. “Relations with Kroger and Lund are definitely better, though I don’t think we’re communicating much better than you are with Kate Shugart. There’s far too much apprehension around us all, far too much fear of strangers. I don’t know whether the crew is more worried about you or about the Mospheirans. I think they’re begi