Precursor

And what would Kroger say? Wait for us, we’re leaving? Or, You go ahead, dear allies, and we’ll arrange things.

“I don’t think, given the food here, we’ll have any difficulty getting them to come,” he said to Banichi, “granted only I get a message through. But, dammit, Kroger can mess things up. And she may have a mind to do it.”

“Has there been difficulty with communications?” Banichi asked.

“Nothing worthwhile came through Mogari-nai,” Bren said, recalling that fact in present context, too. “They keep having outages, malfunctions, which might discourage anyone from sending critical messages, such as must not be half-received, or meddled with. I did tend to believe them about the outages. Now I don’t. It may well be an excuse to cut us off from communication. I haven’t gotten anything worthwhile from the aiji; I don’t know that he’s gotten my transmissions: I’ve had no acknowledgments. And that, Nadiin-ji, is a critical point: if we can’t be sure our messages are going through, indeed… if they’re lying to us, we can’t do our jobs here. But if we give up our foothold here, we can’t be assured of getting it back, either. If we can’trely on Kroger, if something’s going through in secret, only to Mospheira, we have a grievous problem.”

“One would agree to that,” Banichi said, and solemnly accepted his second drink, having won everything he had come to get. “But the paidhi will not be the presence to test their intentions.”

“Who can? There’s a reason Tabini sent me. There’s a reason I’m sitting here and not uncle Tatiseigi, Banichi-ji, and I can’t contravene that simple fact. If I don’t do this job, yes, you’re right, there’s no one else who can do it, but the simple fact is, if I don’t do this job, indeed, there’s no one else who can do it!”

The glass stopped on the way to Banichi’s lips. Banichi set it down and regarded him solemnly.

“A dilemma, is it not?”

“One I can’t solve.”

“One we daren’t lose,” Banichi said. “This I have from the aiji, that you must return safely. Do what you can. Take what advantage these days offer. Go down, and if things seem in order, come back in thirty days on the next flight.”

“And if things go wrong, I’ve left my staff in a hell of a position.”

“We simply lock the doors,” Tano said, “and hold out.”

“Against people who control the light and heat, Tano-ji!”

“Do you consider it likely we would be killed?” Tano asked. “It would be very foolish of them if they wish anything from the aiji.”

And Kroger had flatly said what he already knew, himself, that very few Mospheirans were willing to enter work for the ship under the old terms. Robotics, that missing part of the equation, might be Kroger’s specialty, but to design and build those machines in space, where they must be built, still required risks in an environment which had proven a killer before now.

He had to talk to them. That was a given. He had to get a notion how Kroger might react once she did know, and once she did know he knew that Ramirez had met with some sort of difficulty. Jase was another concern, one he knew hadn’t left his staff’s minds, but one which none of them could afford to pursue.

Damn, this was inconvenient. And what hadhappened to Ramirez, and where wasJase, and why, if Jase had a mother aboard, was there absolutely no contact?

He didn’t like the shape of it. Clearly, Banichi hadn’t liked it, and had seen in the outage something that might not be an accident.

That hadn’t been an accident, he was now certain. Something that had happened along with some struggle on the station, perhaps even a schism in the crew, or something designed to put the fear in them and justify both Sabin’s reluctance to meet with him—God knew whether she was secretly meeting with Kroger—and the communications problems that cut him off from advice and information from the planet.

He had to work around it. Had to get somethingthrough to advise the planet there was something not right up here.

Mother, he wrote, in language he was very sure station spies could read, I’m sorry to have been out of touch. They’ve been experiencing communications difficulties here. I love you. Be assured of that. I hope things are working out for everyone. I wish I’d brought my camera up here. One thing I do miss beyond all else is pictures of home. You know that one of you in the red suit? I think of that, and the snow, up on Mt. Adams. Sunset and snow. Fire and ice. You

Did you find a cufflink? I think I left it in my room.

I hope Barb is better. Tell her I think of her and wish her a speedy recovery.

Your son, Bren

There was no red suit. His mother never wore that color, swore it was her worst; that was why they had agreed on it as an emergency notice. Red suit: emergency; contact Shawn; watch yourself. It was the only code he had now that might get through the security blackout… if the authorities chose to let him go on receiving small messages, while they knew Tabini’s signature and blacked those out. If they were at all wary, they wouldn’t let it through. If they’d ever noticed Banichi’s trip to the shuttle, they wouldn’t let it through.

Trust me, he wished the captains still in power. Believe me.

God, he hoped no one had spotted Banichi’s move.

“Cl,” he said, “we’d like Kaplan to escort the Mospheiran delegation here, if I can arrange a di

Cl answered somewhat abstractedly, “ Kaplan, sir. Shouldn’t be.”

“I don’t suppose Jase can join us.” It was part of the long-established pattern. He never let it up.

“No, sir, Jase Graham is still committed to meetings.”

“What about Captain Sabin? Any chance of resuming that appointment? We could perfectly well set a place for the captain, if she wishes.”

“ I’ll relay that, sir,” Cl said, and a few minutes later replied, “ The captains are all in meetings, sir. She did relay regrets and asks for the 18 th.”

The day of the shuttle launch, ship-calendar. It was an outright question.

“Tell her I’d be delighted. We’ll arrange a special di

Sabin wasn’t the only one who could miss an appointment. He had no hesitation in that small lie, and was only minimally tempted to believe Sabin was oblivious to that date.

Was he leaving? Would he be aboard? Sabin very much wanted to know that, in her relayed question.

And dared he tell the truth to Kroger in time to let Kroger get aboard?

Certainly it would not be prudent to tell Kroger everything he knew.

Chapter 20

“I propose to go down to the planet for a few days,” Bren said, over the main course, and after a rambling appetizer conversation that had taken them from skiing on Mt. Adams to the better bars on the north shore. “I’m disappointed in the degree of cooperation we’ve gotten. Either we meet with the captains, or we don’t. I suppose that I’m coming back on the next flight, but I might not. We’ve got to fly that test cargo sooner or later.”

That occasioned raised brows. It was the same arrangement as last time, Kroger and Lund at the formal table, Kaplan and Ben with Tano to keep them distracted, and to get out of them whatever information Tano could obtain.

“You’re breaking off negotiations?” Kroger asked. “Or retiring to consult.”

“Retiring to consult. I fully plan to be back. It’s quite open, as to whether we return on this shuttle rotation or not. I have administrative duties back on the mainland… and a family crisis on the island.” He used that fact shamelessly to convey personal reasons which ought not to make a difference, but which reasonably could. “I think a month’s stand down to let the captains think and analyzemight not be a bad thing.”