Precursor

His atevi hearers were both amused and aghast. “Truly, nand’ paidhi?” Nojana asked diffidently.

“I do think it. I think they have to have an excuse. More, I think they have to have an excuse in order to persuade themselves they’re not doing something bad.”

“They wish to be bribed?”

“I think they do. I think I understand. They want, individually, to see us, to assess our behavior, our patience, our tolerance of them… in short, they’ve never seen atevi up close, they’re scared, but they’re letting themselves grow familiar. At any given wrong move, they could turn on us and draw weapons, but right now I think they’re edging toward believing we’re not that scary, that they might deal with us. In a certain way I think they’re trying to figure out whether Ramirez is, after all, right about dealing with us, and one must respect their courage and common sense in trying to make that assessment. I’m not sure they’vethought it all out. But I think there’s a real curiosity about the candy… about the planetary resources… and about us. In a certain sense, food is a very basic, very instinctive gift of goodwill. And they’re taking it. They’re approaching us. They’re supporting Ramirez.”

His security looked at him as if he and his entire species had run mad in the streets.

“They test whether they maintain man’chi to Ramirez?” Jago asked, always the cleverest of his staff at seeing through human behavior. “They test feelings?”

“Something very close to that” Bren said. “In this case there’s less intellectual about it than usual. This is far more instinctive… far more simple, in many regards. These people have been left no way to choose their leaders, but they arechoosing, I’m relatively sure of it. And every one of them is taking a chance.”

“Of harm?”

“Of harm to the entire ship. The power structure isn’t instinctive, not wholly; it’s pragmatic. And it’s functioned against their will. I believe a good many of the crew hope Ramirez will survive, but they have no confidence in his state of health; they act as if it’s a doomed cause, but not one they’ve utterly given up. Banichi didn’t say, but I think some of them are sheltering him, and I would not in the least be surprised to learn that Jase and Mercheson and various others related to them by kinship are in on it. Subterfuge and indirection, it well may be mediated by kinship. The captaincyseems to pass down by kinship instead of merit.”

“Who are Ramirez’ kin?” Jago asked, straight to the point. “Is it not Jase? Do I not recall Ramirez has no descendants?”

“Jase. Jase and Yolanda. Ramirez’s wife died long ago. Her network remains attached to him, one gathers. Jase tried to lay out the relationships for me. Until Kaplan and his cousins, I confess I didn’t understand all he might have been saying.”

Jase and his family chart, he began to think, might be more important to them than their map of the station and its workings.

“The crew has no weapons,” Algini said.

“None.” They had been over that with Jase, and as far as he had ever learned, it was the truth. The crew had no access to hand weapons. Those existed, but the officers had the keys, and the resistance to shooting one’s cousins and officers, one could only guess. “But wehave Ramirez, if we can keep him alive. I think there’s good reason not to bring him here. The crew has to believe he still has authority, not our authority: hisauthority. If he dies, any hope they have of a captain of his disposition dies with him. And the fourth captain, the one we’ve not met or dealt with, thatcaptain is our problem.”

“Tamun.”

“Just so. I rather think Ogun might stand with Ramirez if he had the chance. He may be doing so, for all I know. For all I know he’s barricaded in some safe place trying to keep himself alive.”

“Tamun must fall,” Jago said.

“But wemustn’t do it,” he said.

“Are they not pragmatists?”

“Emotional creatures, as well. We should not do it if we can possibly avoid it. The captains are reservoirs of an expertise in operating this ship that we can’t pull out of the archive: it’s the same business as the starship crew not being able to fly the shuttle. We can’t just take over the ship and hope to operate it. And without it, if the aliens are real, we have no defense. We haveto get Ramirez back in power, but at worst, we may have to make peace with Tamun, if only for the sake of what he knows.”

“This would not be an agreeable outcome,” Jago said.

“No,” he said, “it would not be. But we are limited in what we can do, besides try to maintain an alternative, and not frighten the crew. If we run out of candy, we pass out dried fruit and offer them shots of vodka, and promises, and we hope Banichi stays safe. He’s doing the right thing in trying to keep Ramirez alive and away from assassins: I think Jaseis advising him how important that is, and we need to support him. Take inventory of supplies we do have. We need to get decent food to Kroger’s rooms and advise themof the situation.”

“Do we trust her, Bren-ji?”

“Against the likelihood of a conflict in the crew and an unknown rising to authority?” There was one thing Mospheira detested even more than change and that was uncertainty. “There’s all the history of the Pilots’ Guild and the colonists in our favor. In this, I think quite likely they’ll work with us.”

That the shuttle had landed safely was the most welcome news.

There was not one damned letter from any of the committee heads, and while it was remotely possible that Tabini hadn’t written, it was by no means possible that felicitations from the mainland would not pour to Mogari-nai, and onto his staff, who likewise sent no word.

Infuriating. Troubling. Bren found multiple words for the situation.

From his brother there was not a word. None from his mother. Therewas a disturbing situation. If she’d mentioned the shuttle landing, that alone might have caused the captains to censor her letter—which she would hardly understand, when her son failed to write, when Toby was trying to hold his marriage together, and couldn’t take time out to go solve another crisis that was the cause of the difficulty in the first place.

Bren took his computer back to his desk and carefully, patiently, constructed a positive mood… an hour’s worth of construction, which led to a day’s constructive work in another set of missives for Tabini.

His last ones had gotten through. He was relatively sure Tabini had a clear notion that not everything was as well as the first letters indicated.

At the mid point of the night the outer door opened, and shut; and Bren rolled out of bed, looking for the gun.

His door shut. Immediately. He waited in the dark, shivering in the chill, listening with trepidation as the door opened and shut a second time.

The door of his quarters opened; and Jago stood in silhouette against the muted corridor light.

“A message” Jago said. “Nothing of concern, Bren-ji. Banichi says a hunt is going through the tu

“They’re hunting Ramirez.”

“They have begun a door-to-door search, claiming we have secreted some perso

“On that?” he asked. “Jago-ji, he can’t stay out there forever. If you’re communicating with him, tell him the hell with independence: bring Ramirez here. Let’s raise the wager. Let them take him from us, damn them!”

“I believe he would be willing,” Jago said. “The humans may be reluctant.”

More than likely, he thought, trying in vain to recover any urge toward sleep. More than likely there was considerable resistance in the crew, all the reasons he himself had already thought of, but what they were risking, keeping a wounded man on the run, was everything, everything humanity owned in this end of space.