Precursor

He scrubbed vigorously, happier than he’d been in years.

He expected a counter-offer tomorrow. He also expected notto get one. Possibly the captains were making an approach to Kroger’s party, and certainly the captains were informed the guests had been putting their heads together in private discussions. There would be anxiousness on that score.

The water went cold. Bitter, burning cold. Pitch darkness. Silence.

“Damn!” he shouted, for a moment lost, then galvanized by the sense of emergency. He exited the shower, in the utter dark, feeling his way.

And saw a faint light, a hand torch, in the hallway.

Atevi shadows moved out there. One light source came in, bearing a hand torch, spotting him in the light. He flung his arms up and the light diverted, bounced off the walls in more subdued fashion.

“The power seems to have failed,” Jago said.

“I’m all over lather,” he said, still shaken. “Things were going entirely too well, I fear. Nadi-ji, please inform the staff. Power here is life and death. I trust the fuel cylinders in the galley will hold a while for warmth, but I understand warmth can go very quickly. Be moderate with them. Gather the staff near the galley.”

“They should last a time,” Jago said. “So should our equipment.” Bindanda joined her, and moved in dismay to offer a robe.

He accepted it. “Warm water, if you please.” Outrageous demands were not outrageous if it meant giving the staff something to do, and he was covered in soap. “I’ll finish my bath.”

“Immediately, nandi.”

Immediately was not quite possible, and he had all too much time to listen to his staff bearing with the disaster, to attempt the communications panel, and to find it not working.

Warm water did arrive in reasonably short order, all the same, and Bindanda assisted him in rinsing off the soap, a hand torch posed like a candlestick on the counter.

“Very fine,” Bren said with chattering teeth, trying not to think of a general power failure.

A large shadow appeared against the dim glow of the hall. “Bren-ji?”

Banichi.

“Any news?” He expected none. “If power has gone down, there willbe the ship itself, trusting this isn’t the alien attack.”

“That would be very bad news,” Banichi said in that vast calm of his.

But in that moment a sound came from the vents. The fans started up, failed.

“Well,” Bren said. “They’re trying to fix it. The air is trying to come through.” He seized up the damp, still-soapy robe, with the notion of reaching Cl if there were moments of power, and Bindanda hastily snatched the robe away, substituting a dry coverlet. Bren gathered that about his shoulders and punched in Cl.

There was no answer.

“The lock is electronic,” Banichi said, “and we can access it, to the exterior of this section.”

“We aren’t completely sure there’s air on the other side of the door,” Bren said, wishing they might supply power to the panel; but that did no good if no one was listening. “Do we have radio, Banichi-ji?”

“We have,” Banichi said confidently. “We would rather not use it.”

“Understood,” Bren said. “Perfectly.” He was comforted to think that, in extremity, they might have a means to contact the ship or the shuttle itself, hoping for some word of what was going on outside their section.

The lights came on. Fans resumed moving air.

He and Banichi looked at one another with all ma

“Well,” he said to Banichi, “presumably it will go on working. Conserve, until we know what’s happening.”

“One will do so,” Banichi said. “In the meantime… we’ll attempt to learn.”

“Wait,” he said, and tried Cl again. “Cl. What’s going on? Do you hear me?”

“ The emergency is over,” Cl answered, not the main shift man, but a woman’s voice. “ There’s no need for alarm.”

“Does that happen often, Cl? What didhappen?”

“I believe a technical crew is attempting to rectify the problem, sir. It’s a minor difficulty. Out, sir.”

Cl punched out. Cl might have other problems on her hands. God knew what problems.

“It’s not an alien invasion,” he said to Banichi. “The central communications officer claims not to know the cause.”

Banichi might have understood that much.

“One wonders how general it was,” Banichi said. Jago had appeared, and there was some uncommon calling back and forth among the staff, confirming switches, in the hall.

“I’ve no idea,” Bren said. “Cl certainly knew about it.”

“One should rest, Bren-ji,” Jago said. “One of us is always on watch.”

He had no doubt. And he had no doubt of the rightness of the advice, no matter what was going on technically with the station.

There was not another alarm in the nighttime.

In the morning he was not utterly surprised to hear Cl say that Sabin had canceled their scheduled meeting; he was not utterly surprised to hear that there were no communications with Mogari-nai. The earthlink was down. Neither ship nor station was communicating with anyone.

“Is there still an emergency?” he asked. “Is the station intact?”

“ Perfectly intact, sir,” Cl answered, the regular, daytime Cl, which reassured him. “ Sorry. I don’t have the details. I have to shut down now.”

Disappointing, to say the least. He went to report the situation to his staff, that the day’s schedule had changed.

“I don’t know why,” he said to the staff. “We felt no impact, as if there were explosion, or a piece of debris, but I don’t know that we might, on so large a structure. I’ll work in, today. Simply do what needs doing.”

It was a slow day, in some regards, a frustrating, worrisome day, but power at least stayed rock-steady.

He made notes on the discussion with Kroger. He answered letters. He wrote letters… restrained himself from writing to Toby, and asked himself whether the link was going to be in operation.

There was a quiet supper. He had pronounced himself not particularly hungry, and perhaps a little overindulged from the day prior. “I get very little exercise here,” he said to Narani, “I don’t walk enough. Satisfy the staff, certainly. But I have no need for more than a bowl of soup.”

He was primarily concerned, after his day’s work, to have the earthlink function smoothly, and it seemed to.

But the messages were all from the mainland.

“Put me through to Jase Graham,” he said, the ritual he and Cl had established.

“Sir, he’s still in conference.”

“I thought he might be rather less busy with the station’s problems.”

“I’m told he’s still in meetings.”

“Yolanda Mercheson?”

“Still in meetings.”

“Captain Sabin.”

“Still in meetings, sir, I’m sorry.”

“Captain Ramirez.”

“Sir, all the captains are in meetings.”

One wondered if anything was getting done anywhere on the ship or the station. He wanted to be cheerful for his servants’ sake, but was glum at heart, surer and surer that Ramirez had not pulled off his majority, and that the meetings Jase and Yolanda were involved in likely involved sitting under guard, in isolation, and answering occasional questions from a deadlocked association of captains.

And that was the most optimistic view.

A shadow appeared by his bed, utterly silent—just loomed, utterly black, and his heart jumped in fright.

“Do you wish?” Jago’s lowest voice. “Nadi?”

“Bren-ji,” he corrected this slide toward formality. “Some aspects of this being a lord I don’t like. Sit down.” He made room for her on the narrow bed, realizing at the same time that she and he wouldn’t fit it, or at least, not comfortably.

He shifted to give her room, her arms came about him. Deeper thought and glum mood both went sliding away, in favor of a thoroughly comfortable association and the easy, gentle comfort of her embrace. He heaved a sigh, not obliged even to carry his weight, not with Jago, who supported him without any thought. Her breath stirred his hair, ran like a breath of summer over his shoulder, and for the next while, and right down to the edge of sleep, he didn’t think.