Precursor

“I shall,” he said. “Or have it somewhere about me. I understand completely. I have no wish to endanger you and Banichi by having no defense, but I say again that my rank and their needs are my best defense.”

“Nevertheless,” she said for the third time.

“I agree,” he said, and put it into the case’s outer pocket, hoping the shape didn’t show too much. “There. Trust that I’ll use good sense.” A thought occurred to him. “Trust that I have no more compunction shooting at humans than I do shooting at atevi.”

“Which is to say, far too much compunction,” Jago said. “But we agree with you that we wish a peaceful passage, and a completely uneventful flight.”

“I’ll be missing supper with the captain,” he said.

“Is the paidhi concerned about that?”

“It’s not the same as declining supper with the aiji. She knew when she asked me. She won’t be that surprised. She won’t take it personally, at least. There’s very little personal in it. That’s the problem.”

“In what way is it a problem?” she asked.

“If it were personal, she and I would have been talking before now. But we aren’t, and it isn’t, and I don’t think she plans to keep that appointment any more than the last. It was only a means to ask me if I was going to leave. That she didn’t choose to ask me directly what should have been a plain question indicates something to me about the minds of the captains, that everything, no matter how simple, is complicated and clandestine; that, as Jase told me, no one ever states a plain intention unless it’s an order, and the captains don’t give one another orders.”

“Do they do this setting the course of the ship?”

He laughed. “I don’t think it goes that far.”

“Then one of them can make decisions.”

One had to think about that, one had to think very carefully on that point. If the rumor was so, Ramirez had ceased to be that person.

“Whenever you and Banichi think good,” he said, “I’m ready to leave.”

A presence hovered at the door, in the tail of his eye. He gave it a full look, and saw Narani, with, of all things, the silver message tray from the hall table.

That was the very last thing he had ever thought to see in use. He thought it must be some parting courtesy from the staff, a wish for his safe flight, a promise of their performance of duty.

“ ‘Rani-ji,” he said, summoning him forward, and Narani offered the silver tray.

“From a woman,” Narani said.

From outside? A written message, rolled up, atevi-style?

He opened it with trepidation.

It said, in bad courtly Ragi,

This message risks our lives, but we need your help, we need it extremely despairingly. If hostile person finds us we all die. Your lordship must not trust any of the leaders in charge of the boat. If you can make unlocked your doorway in the night I have attempted to visit, with all trepidations regarding security.

“It’s Jase,” he said, his voice hushed, even in this secure place. “It’s his handwriting.” The written language of court documents challenged even educated atevi, but Jase had rendered a gallant effort. “Not a damned melon in the document.”

Jase had his problems with homonyms. But no one else on the station couldhave written it in just that degree of semi-competency.

“Narani-ji,” he said, handing the document to Jago to read for herself. “Was it Kate?”

“No, nandi,” Narani said. “A woman of years, if I can judge, and very anxious to be away.”

Jase’s mother was on the station. Friends. Cousins. God knew who it had been; their own hall surveillance might give him the image, but in that sense it made no difference who had gotten it to them. The fact was, it wasfrom Jase, and the only scarier knowledge was, if it had been Jase’s mother, shemight be in some danger.

“He intends to try to join us,” Jago said. “Tonight. Is there any means they might forge this document, Bren-ji? Is it at all possible?”

“Not as far as I know. Even a computer… even the most advanced computer… there are the impresses of the pen on the other side, and the paper… the ship hasno paper, Jago-ji. It’s not something they manufacture. Jase when he came had never written on paper, only on a slate. Never used a pen, only a pointed stick of a thing.”

“One recalls so,” Jago said, and added, “Jase did take a notebook with him.”

“You inspected his packing?”

“He had few clothes, things which I know the ship to lack: sweets, a thick notebook, a packet of pens, a bottle of perfume. He went through no personal scan.” Jago looked entirely uncomfortable, rare for her. “This may have been very remiss of us. But no more did we search you, nandi.”

Weapons were in one sense the thing his security noticed most—on the person of an outsider; in another sense, they were so ordinary as to be transparent, if an ally had them in plain sight.

“God,” Bren said quietly, then answered his own question, even considering Jase exercising his dislike of his captains. “No, he wouldn’t. He would not, Jago-ji. Never in the world would he destabilize our situation up here. He can’t have. They keep saying he’s in a meeting.”

“Which you say is a lie.”

“I know it is. But I think they believe he can’t contact us, and that means under their watch or under their control. If he brought something through and they searched his baggage, as he surely knew they might—but he can’t have lived under your guidance for three years and have done something so rash.”

“One would hope at least he would not be caught” Jago said fervently. “He does most clearly have the notebook.”

“And a hellof a sense of timing! God! What do I do with this?”

“What is wise to do, nandi?” Jago asked. “What must be done, for this mission?”

It was surely a Guild question, herGuild’s question: the dispassionate, the thoroughly professional question. What is wise to do?

Fail an appointment with Jase? Leave him vulnerable?

Or interfere in the i

It was a problem they were bound to meet, in long years of working with the Pilots’ Guild. Tabini considered Jase his own, now. Hedid. There was no question of support for Jase’s position on their side, no question what he wantedto do.

His arrangements at present didn’t leave a station without representatives from the planet. It wasn’t an inert, changeless situation, rather one in which Jase, if he was somehow involved in Ramirez’ troubles, could become involved, changing everything.

Creating God-knew-what while he was back on the planet, unable to investigate what was happening.

“If he wants off this station, we’re the only ticket,” he said to Jago. “He knows the shuttle’s going. He’s taken the chance and made his break for our side.”

“Man’chi,” Jago said, though she well knew she was dealing with humans who felt it erratically, that overwhelming drive to reach one’s own side, one’s own aiji, in a crisis.

“Something like that,” he said. “But he’s not helpless against it. He knows what he’s asking us to risk. He knows I can’t act for my own welfare, or his, when it jeopardizes the whole damned planet. He can’t ask that. I won’t give that to my own mother, Jago! How can I give it to him?”

“Is he asking that?” Jago asked sensibly, and he had to draw a less panicked breath.

“No. He doesn’t know we’re going, and he doesn’t know we’re going early, but he knows the way you work. He doesn’t even know we can get that door open, but he suspects you can do it. This is not a confident expedition, Jago-ji. He’s desperate. I think he’s completely desperate. But, damn! Damn it all!”

“I should tell Banichi.”

“We should tell Banichi,” he agreed. “We should establish some sort of watch in the corridor. I don’t know what they can spot on their security boards, but I wouldn’t have that door unlocked longer than need be.”