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C1 answered, a simple acknowledgment of the orders.
“Nand’ dowager,” Ogun said then—he had learned that phrase in the dowager’s last tenancy. But he gave only a passing glance to the boy—not in as much dismay as confusion, as Bren saw it. Ogun might have heard about the unfortunate incident at the dock, or not: he said nothing, simply bowed slightly, stiffly—never a shipboard or a Mospheiran grace—welcoming the aiji dowager to the station as if this was no surprise at all.
“Her discretion,” Ogun said, passing everything atevi to the dowager and to them, and about that moment Ilisidi’s cane came down smartly on the deck, the end of her patience.
“Translate,” she said.
“A welcome, nandi,” Jase said immediately.
“ She’sthe representative,” Ogun said.
Jase skirted an infelicitous mispronunciation rendering that. One forgave him: the dowager seemed to. She uttered a short, sharp hiss.
“Of course. Does anyone believe we sit in those wretched seats and come to such a frozen desolation in the heavens for our health? A chair. One assumes there will be a chair in a warm place. And supper. I insist on supper. When is the ship leaving?”
“The dowager says yes,” Jase rendered it for Ogun, “and wants to know when the ship is leaving.”
“Ma’am,” Ogun said, a courtesy, “nand’ dowager, we have to go through power-up.”
This arrived in the Ragi language as get it ru
“Get it ru
Not to break down. Weexpect not to break down.
Bren cast Jase a look and Jase seemed no more informed than he was. He cast one at Yolanda Mercheson, too.
“ ‘Sidi-ji,” Geigi said. “What is this? Are we informed?”
“Geigi,” Ilisidi said, and laid her hand on Geigi’s arm in a very intimate way. “Immediately. Your welcome is appreciated, Ogun-aiji—say so, girl! and be done. My bones ache. I want my chair!”
“Yes, aiji-ma,” Bren said—she was hisresponsibility, not Jase’s—and damned sure not Yolanda Mercheson’s, if he had a choice in it. “Captain, she’s anxious to be through the festivities and into a comfortable chair, and if there’s anything going on I don’t know, I hope I willknow in short order.” What’s this about the ship? was what he ached to ask, but court proprieties kept him from asking outright. “With your permission, sir.”
“The dowager proposes to be a passenger on this voyage,” Ogun said. “With her entourage. The schedule is under construction at the moment. We’ll notify her. We willinspect baggage: we have safety restrictions.”
“I daresay you should have Cenedi there if you do inspect baggage, sir.” He was accustomed to playing along as if he was utterly in the know, but this was the utmost, the most extravagant state of ignorance. A passenger on the ship, hell!
And Mercheson mediating when hewas present?
“Well, he’d better come along, then, soon as the baggage is offloaded,” Ogun said.
“Banichi, Cenedi will wish to supervise the inspection of baggage for safety. Jase, can you possibly attend that inspection?”
“I will,” Jase said. No better informed, Bren was convinced—no complicity in what Ogun clearly knew. The lot of them acted as if, of course, no surprise, no concern, they’d known from the start; but he improvised at high speed, and disposed someone who knew station regulations, someone who spoke Ragi and ship-language, to attend on security checks to prevent armed conflict.
Meanwhile he kept close with Ilisidi, intending to stay close until he understood at least the general outline of what was happening. Geigiwas as much in the dark as he was, he caught that from what outsiders might not perceive as an expression. Geigi himself was taken aback by this, and Geigiwas deeper than he was in Ilisidi’s confidence.
Mercheson and secrets and Tabini’s silence figured in what was going on—he was sure of that. This washis looked-for answer from Tabini, and it was a potent answer.
But, God, send Ilisidioff to the remote station for a look-around?
Have her travel alone?
She couldn’t speak to them. The ship’s crew couldn’t speak to her—except Jase. And Cajeirihad no place in a situation as fraught with danger as that. Was he supposed to babysit an atevi six-year-old?
What in helldid Tabini think he had set up? And with whom? With Ramirez, with Ogun’sknowledge?
“Dowager-ji,” he said, however, as blandly as if they were off to a garden walk, and showed Ilisidi and her party ahead down the corridor, leaving Ogun and Yolanda, Jase and Banichi behind—
Where Jase could find out something, Bren earnestly, desperately, hoped.
“On the ship, is it?” Bren asked, once they were clear of eavesdroppers.
“Sidi-ji,” Lord Geigi said at the same time, “this is a recklessventure.”
“Perhaps it is,” Ilisidi said. She had Geigi on the one hand and him on the other, Cajeiri safely in Cenedi’s hands at the moment. “But my grandson has taken this silly notion that nothing will do but that he know what happens in this far place, and he needs someone of sense, I suppose, to make a fair finding. A great inconvenience, I may say.”
“A very hard journey, Sidi-ji,” Geigi said.
And Bren: “This is no shuttle trip, aiji-ma. This is far, far more than that.”
“Pish.” Ilisidi struck her cane on the decking twice in a step. “And a shuttle trip is far, far more than the inconvenient and uncomfortable airplane I use between here and Malguri. Everything is degree, is it not?”
“The scale of this, aiji-ma,” Bren began. “If you please to—”
“Pish, I say. It has to be done. Don’t complain for me, Bren-ji. You’regoing.”
His heart went on quite normally two beats. Skipped one, as he believed he had heard what he had heard and the import of it came home. “Go with you? I’ve heard no such thing, aiji-ma.”
“You hear it now.”
“Yes, aiji-ma.” There was, with official orders, only one thing to say, and he said it, calmly, with dignity, though he found breathing difficult.
Go from star to star, into a situation—
—this delicate?
It made a certain terrible sense. But—
“May I inquire, aiji-ma—I do trust the aiji knows your intention.”
“And would you question my order, paidhi-ji?”
“Certainly I must, aiji-ma, to leave a post Tabini-aiji…”
“Ha!” The cane stamped the deck. “Constant as sunrise. My grandson knows, I say. And he sends you to see to matters. I’mto be in the party to provide the requisite authority.”
“Then I shall go,” he said meekly. Scarcity of air made his head light. His hands were still cold from the foray into the cold. Now his whole body lost ground, inward chilling. “If I can arrange this with Ogun-aiji, who governs the ship, aiji-ma.”
“All arranged,” Ilisidi said. “I have my baggage. I do suggest you pack quickly.”
All arranged!
He had to talk to Ogun. He had to talk to Jase. Jasewas a fair representative of atevi and planetary interests with the ship’s command. Jase’sskills as an insider, able to deal with the ship authorities, the station authorities, the Pilots’ Guild—that was indispensable. Jase natively had all the information, and the cachet as one of Taylor’s Children. In Ramirez’s intentions, he suspected—it was the other half of what Jase was born to do; and he couldn’t let decisions remove that asset from the mission.
Tabini had clearly made his own arrangements.
Tabinihad been dealing—with Ramirez—through Yolanda—behind his back.
He had a difficulty. He had a very great difficulty on his hands, if power was flowing into Yolanda’s hands.
He had the aiji’s heir and a parcel of very different culture being dealt with by a novice. As well send Kate Shugart to negotiate—with the best will in the world, but no resources. No experience.