Defender

“Are you going? Or are you staying here?”

A small pause. “ I want to stay. It would make some sense. You and I can work together. But on this one, I’m not sure whether Ogun will vote with me, either. I’m not sure he wants someone here who cooperates that easily with you and Tabini. I know Sabin wouldn’t like my being left as liaison. But I’m damn little use in operations. I’m putting our conversation into the log, by the way.”

If Jase was speaking his own dialect, overhearing was always a possibility, and he hadn’t said anything he wouldn’t say in captain’s council.

“That’s fine.”

“ I’ll be talking to Ogun and Sabin, if I can, trying to argue them into leaving me here. Here, I’m useful. It’s the best outcome I can think of.”

“It shows good faith to Tabini, for one other cogent argument.”

“ That’s a point. I’ll use it. I’ve got to go, Bren.”

“Thanks. Thanks for the advisement.”

Thanks for the advisement.

Was he surprised? Not that surprised.

Breakfast was all but on the table. He’d upset Bindanda if he let it go cold. He saw the maidservant hesitating just beyond the door, an earnest young face, too good sense to interrupt the paidhi in a phone call: she advised him simply by her waiting presence.

“Yes, nadi-ji,” he said. He was cold. “My indoor coat, if you please.”

She hurried to the foyer closet and brought it back. He slipped it on, unrumpled, morning ritual, calming to jangled nerves. One day and the next. Routine. The cosmic carpet was about to go out from under them, but they observed the amenities. And he’d gotten about two hours’ sleep.

Banichi and Jago had likewise turned up for breakfast, black-uniformed, informal and comfortable—armed. They always were. And they probably hadn’t slept either.

“We may have to send a courier down to Shejidan,” Bren said. “Can we hurry the shuttle? Immediate launch? There’s reason to ask.”

“One will learn, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “Tano?” Banichi had his earpiece in, and listened, and gave a little inclination of his head. “Tano will inquire during breakfast.”

“The ship’s going,” he said to Banichi and Jago. “They’re holding a vote of the crew, but I have a notion it’s going to pick up and go. One has to ask still how much of a presence they’re going to leave here. We need technical people to continue with the ship-building and train atevi perso

“Nothing,” Banichi said. “No answer at all. Which is unprecedented, Bren-ji.”

So was all of it. Currents were moving. Big ones. “If Tabini won’t answer our messages, then we have somehow to rattle his doors. If we do it in error, if we disturb what’s afoot—well, that’s a risk. The aiji knows us, that we’re apt to try something. And I think now we have to take that risk.”

“One understands,” Banichi murmured. The two of them took their seats at table, fortunate three. Silver dishes were arranged. Servants stood by to serve, and began with tasty cold jellies in the shape of the traditional eggs. Bindanda had been very clever, and the quasi-eggs were very spicy, and good.

“Excellent,” they agreed, and complimented Bindanda’s handiwork as the next course proved to be a vegetable and nut pate surrounding stuffed mushrooms with small split-nut fins. Bindanda put the station’s synthetic cheese loaf far in the shade.

Could one even think politics over such a breakfast?

Bren did, and he was sure Banichi and Jago did.

Nor were they quite out of touch with Tano and Algini, having their quasi-fish in the informality of the security station.

Banichi murmured, quietly, urgently, at a hiatus in the serving, “A shuttle has just launched. This would be the freight shuttle.”

His heart beat fast. “ Early, isn’t it?”

“A little early,” Jago said.

“A courier to us?” It made a certain sense, when he was trying desperately to decide who of his staff to send down to Tabini.

It was about damned time, was what.

“One has no information,” Banichi said. “Possible that we’ll hear before docking.”

“Possible that there’s a security force aboard?” Bren had his voice down, trying to preserve propriety, but a shuttle: that was a two-edged prospect. “I wish very much that Tabini would consult, nadiin-ji.”

Understatement, twice over. Tabini had tacitly demanded one simple thing of Ramirez in return for his support of the ship: control of the station. The ship maintained an iron hand over perso

And everyone had tacitly agreed not to challenge each other, under Ramirez’s command.

Now Ramirez was gone, taking all his secrets with him. And now they had their heaviest-lift shuttle arriving, nearly on routine, but just a worrisome little bit early—while the ship-crew was voting to pull the only starship out of the agreement and go off on a mission to stick their fingers into the most sensitive situation possible.

It took a degree of control to appreciate the next course, and to make small talk with his staff and the kitchen.

And at the time when they often set about their day’s business, Banichi and Jago had another revelation from the security station.

“They’re reporting only routine.”

He had a very strong feeling, all the same. He hated like hell to be taken off his guard.

“Do you know, I think we should arrange to meet the shuttle when it docks, nadiin-ji. I think perhaps we should prepare the third residency, in hopes of putting the aiji’s official answer in a somewhat better mood. If we’re wrong, we can always power the apartment down again. Tell the station and the ship we’re doing some maintenance in there.”

“A very good idea,” Banichi said.

It took a long time to warm up an apartment once it was mothballed—not quite the chill of space, but certainly the walls grew cold and difficult to warm.

“One assumes, at least,” Bren said cautiously, as they entered the study, “that Tabini has taken my advisement and Geigi’s utterly seriously. If it turns out to be several hundred of the Guild, I trust they’ll take care with the porcelains.” Heavy lift as well as antiquity made the decor in the adjacent apartment extravagantly expensive. “But it occurs to me, nadiin-ji, that the dowageris available to him, if it weren’t for Cajeiri.”

Ilisidi had been on the station, understood the station, had met with the living captains, and knew Ramirez face to face.

More, she had authority. Vast authority.

And it was very, very possible, if Tabini had to choose someone for a quick personal assessment of the situation—outranking both the paidhi and lord Geigi—Ilisidi would be a very astute observer. Very powerful. Surrounded by close, armed security.