Defender

“ Dismissed.”

There was utter silence. Ogun turned and walked off into the shadows. No one moved for a moment, and then crew began to murmur and to stir and to file out the doors.

Not our choice. Not our choice. Not our choice. Bren found his heart beating double time. Banichi and Jago wanted him to move. Lord Geigi was moving. But he felt his legs all but paralyzed.

Not our choice.

Damn!

He moved. He overtook Geigi, outside the door. “One can render what was said, nandi,” Bren murmured, head ducked, voice down. “In essence, there’s a hint there’s a higher authority on Reunion Station that ordered Ramirez to keep quiet. There is more. Shall we meet?”

“Immediately,” Geigi said. This most inquisitive, agile-minded of lords had seen enough to have the picture. “Will my offices suffice?”

Geigi wasn’t the only one disturbed. There was Paulson. There was Kroger. He edged past Banichi to reach Gi

“Gi

“Damned right.”

“You and Paulson? About an hour? Geigi’soffices?” It gave him and Geigi time for discussion.

But it wasn’t only them he wanted. He dived down the hall, Banichi and Jago taking full strides to catch up. He’d hoped to catch all the captains. As it was, Jase saw him coming and waited for him in the crossway of the corridor, all the while the outflow of mourners passed them on either hand.

“I didn’t know,” Jase said, first off. “I had no idea until the Old Man told me.”

“I believe that,” Bren said. “I’m meeting with Geigi. Do we get an official presence? It would be useful, Jase-ji. It would be damned useful.”

“I’m notone of the captains. I’m a fill-in. I’ve always been a fill-in, you know that. I don’t know if I can get Ogun—”

“You tell me this. Why did Ramirez tell you the truth? Why were youon his list to inform? And did Ogun and Sabin know?”

“Ogun knew,” Jase said, telling him volumes about relations between the captains.

But the point might finally, accidentally, have hit.

“Jase. Ramirez is dead. He didn’t letyou resign. At the last, he told you because he wanted you where you are. Can’t you figure it?”

“I can’t make a decision for them!”

“You’d better,” he said, and Jase looked desperate. “That’s what you’re finally for, Jase. It wasn’t just a translator Ramirez wanted. You werepaidhi. That wasn’t it. That didn’t satisfy him. He named you a captain, and navigation and administration damned sure weren’t your talents. He knew that. But he wanted someone on the captains’ council who could promote understanding. So will you do it? Will you come? Use your voice, negotiate with Ogun, finally wieldwhat Ramirez handed you? Dammit, Jase, you’re the swing vote when they deadlock. And Sabin backed Tamun. I’m betting they deadlock. Will you come?”

“ Yes,” Jase said, and on half a breath—“ Yes. I’ll come.”

They all met around the conference table, behind three closed doors and under the watchful eye of Geigi’s internal security in the reception area outside. Their own security stood around them, a row against the walls. Jenrette was there with his partner Colby, Jenrette and Colby just having seen their captain to rest. They came now in the service of the most dubious captain to hold the office, but come they did, dutifully and soberly: Ramirez’s men, representing that policy. Polano, Kaplan and Pressman were there, officially displaced by Jenrette and his partner, but still in attendance on Jase—one assumed, at Jase’s orders, maybe because Jase wanted them under his protection after Kaplan’s speech in the assembly. Jase had learned his politics not only on the ship, but in Shejidan, and Jase knew the value of a supporting man’chi, even among humans.

Impressive contingent. From no power, all of a sudden Jase came in with a solid, determined presence.

So did the aiji’s wing—tall, dark, and armed. While Paulson and Kroger arrived with no more than Paulson’s secretary, a nervous man in a suit, who set a recorder on the desk and ducked back. Paulson was evident and touchingly anxious about his record-keeping. Everyone else, depend on it, was wired as well as armed.

Small use that was going to be in a mostly atevi meeting. But there was a keyboard, and Bren took it for himself, being a fast typist and the only one completely fluent. There was a single screen, above a low cabinet.

“You first,” Bren said in Ragi, and tested the keyboard. “Jase-ji, if you don’t mind. You have the answers the rest of us want. I’ll be translating, one language to the other, back and forth.” The alphabets weren’t at all the same, but the keyboard had a fast switch. He waited to see which language Jase would use.

“Nandiin-ji.” Jase looked into infinity for an instant, then locked onto the here and now. It was Ragi. Bren toggled the Mospheiran symbol-set and typed. “I honored Ramirez-aiji. I continue to honor that man’chi. Ogun and Sabin may vote me out at this hour—and, nandiin-ji, let them. But Ramirez is gone, and I have to do now as I see fit. And I’ll give you what I know, respecting the treaty Ramirez made with the aiji in Shejidan.”

I honored Captain Ramirez, Bren typed concurrently in Mosphei’. I continue to honor him. Ogun and Sabin may vote me out of my post at any time, and I will not contest that. But Ramirez being gone, I have now to do as I see fit. I’ll tell you what I know, honoring the treaty Ramirez made with the aiji.

Therewas the Jase he’d known on the mainland. Thank God.

“And the other captains?” Bren asked.

“Ogun-aiji will stay by agreements,” Jase said, “and I vote with Ogun, generally. In that light, I don’t think they will appoint a fourth until Ogun and Sabin can resolve their differences, because I can prevent it, if I vote with one or the other.”

“And these differences, nand’ Jase?” Geigi asked.

Jase considered. Bren tried hard to think, typing between species-separate languages. Hindbrain was completely occupied, and the rest of the brain just listened, hoping for peace in the room and no repercussions outside, down the line.

“Differences in style,” was Jase’s answer. There it was: stone wall. Jase didn’tdiscuss internal ship politics. That was probably wise, Bren thought. And stopped typing to gather a thought, a necessary question of his own.

“What agreements, nandi?” he asked Jase in Ragi. “And what prevented Ramirez-aiji from removing station perso

“I don’t know,” Jase said, and said it in ship-speak. Toggle-flip. Mental shift, to another world, another entire logic-set. And likely, at the core of his being, Jase hadn’t wholly noticed he’d switched. He was thinking shipnow, and spoke its language.

Bren knew that kind of transaction, at gut level, he knew.

“Ogun knows that answer if anyone does,” Jase said further. “I don’t.”

“Are those remaining on Reunion… Guild?” Bren asked bluntly.

“It may be,” Jase said faintly.

Pilots’ Guild. Bad word with the Mospheirans. Very bad word. Kroger’s face and Paulson’s said it.

“It’s likeliest that’s who’s in charge,” Jase said. “Some portion of the old Guild, at least. Someone or some group of it. Ogun says he isn’t sure what passed between Ramirez and station leadership. If he does know anything beyond that, I’m not sure Sabin does. Which is reasonable. She came to her post during the voyage.”

“And Tamun didn’t know.”

“Logically, no. Tamun would have used the information in a heartbeat, if he’d known. He’d have torn the crew apart.”

“One believes so,” Bren said in Ragi. It was the strongest argument that Sabin hadn’t known—Tamun having been her protégé. He saw a frown on Geigi’s face—perplexity displayed for Jase as an intimate, the dispassionate atevi mask momentarily dropped… perhaps on that very point. “Let me add, too, in explanation for Lord Geigi,” Bren interjected, “that Gin-ji and nand’ Paulson have a bitter history and an ancestral anger with this Guild, because of past deeds.”