Defender

That fast.

“Pack for me.” He made a quick estimation. “For Banichi, Jago, and staff for us. Tano and Algini will manage here, as if we were simply on the planet. But we will need attendance.”

“And provisions, nandi?”

“Assuredly.” Years. Years, and the exigencies of atevi diet. They more than favored alkaloids: they needed a certain amount for good health. “We hope the dowager, who is going with us, has taken some note of our needs, Rani-ji, but we will need a very great amount of provision—I don’t know what we’re to do.” He tried not to allow distress into his voice, or his pla

“For the ship,” Narani said.

“You didn’tknow.”

“Not until Tano’s information, nandi, but we shall manage, never worry.”

Never worry. A slight giddiness possessed him as he slipped aside into the security station with Jago. Tano and Algini were at their posts. Surely Banichi was completely aware.

“We’ve been surprised,” Jago said immediately, in a low, reasonable voice. “We need to move quickly. Tano, Algini, you will maintain here. The dowager is surely prepared, but we’ll want our own gear.”

“Yes,” Algini said, and entered something on his console—which might, for what Bren knew, communicate with the kitchen, or Geigi’s staff, or station supply.

Tano was sending, too. He was surrounded by staff with immediate objectives: secure, pack, provide. What they needed to know was the numbers. Who was going? Who was staying? How many, how long?

“Can Banichi talk to Jase?” he asked and, assured that Banichi could: “Ask him, in Ragi, nadi-ji, how long the trip, and how great the space allowable for us and for the dowager—and if he isn’t now aware of the dowager’s intentions to go on this voyage, make him aware, without setting objections in motion. Ogun seems to know the dowager’s intentions, but we don’t know how much he knows.”

“Yes,” Jago said, and proceeded to speak to Banichi in a rapid Guild jargon that Bren only partially followed, and that only because he knew the content.

There was a pause, in which Banichi perhaps spoke to Jase, or tracked him down.

All arranged, Ilisidi had said.

Ground… so to speak… was rapidly sliding out from under his feet.

But Jago had a message for him. “Jase says Ogun-aiji has called an executive meeting and Jase urgently wishes your attendance, Bren-ji.”

One wondered if Ogun had contacted Ilisidi—or if Yolanda was not now the primary contact in the information flow he had always managed solo, and if certain things Ramirez had arranged were flowing one to the next, under a dead man’s hand.

Damn Yolanda. He hadn’t had to wonder about Tabini’s intentions for years; but for years, apparently, he definitely shouldhave wondered. Ogun might not be in favor of Ilisidi’s arrival. Sabin surely wouldn’t be. And both of them trying to handle that situation through Yolanda— assuming, perhaps, that they could argue with the aiji-dowager and the aiji once publicly committed.

Assumption, assumption, assumption—fastest way to lose a contest one assumeddidn’t reasonably exist… and this wasn’t personal pride. It was global safety. Species survival.

The alliance could blow up before Phoenixever cleared the dock. The aishidi’tat, if thwarted, could bring matters to confrontation, with all the station’s supply at issue.

“We’ll go,” he said to Jago. “Banichi should meet us there.”

The game had changed beyond recognition. He had to gather up the overthrown pieces off the floor and get some order in his universe.

Fast.

Chapter 11

Banichi waited to join them in the executive zone, in that stretch of station corridor where Phoenix’s officers maintained executive offices. The captains’ active presence was in plain evidence—the number of aides and security outside those offices, along the lighted row of potted plants—a number including Kaplan, Polano, and Jenrette, at the end of the corridor.

Banichi, who’d followed it all by remote, didn’t say a thing as they met. Only a look passed between him and Jago.

Our Bren’s gotten us into the worst mess yet, Bren imagined that glance to say.

Had Banichi and Jago volunteered to be going where Tabini proposed to send them?

Could sane planet-dwelling folk even contemplate what they were now supposed to do?

The discontinuity of previous and future reality was so great it just made no sense to a reasonable brain, Bren thought to himself. He himself didn’t yet feel the total shock—hadn’t had time to feel much of anything but the pressure of a requisite series of urgent actions.

And he hadn’t formed a position—in effect, since Tabini had spoken through other agencies, he found he didn’t have one, except that of a subordinate taking orders. And he wasn’t used to blind compliance. It didn’t feel right.

“Mr. Cameron.” Jenrette opened a door and let them in, all three. The aiji and the captains had hammered out the inseparability of a lord and his bodyguard in less pressured times, and no one questioned, now, that Banichi and Jago should enter with him.

Jase and Ogun and Sabin occupied three of the four seats at the end table—Ogun’s dark face as glum and sorrowful as it had been during the funeral, Sabin’s thin countenance set in the habit of perpetual disapproval. Yolanda was there, whether as staff or as interviewee. And Jase—

Jase didn’t look happy at all—not happy to know that all he’d trained for was shifting, that was the first thing: Bren translated that from his own gut-feeling. Not happy to be dealing officially with Yolanda, either, Bren imagined—Yolanda was looking mostly at a handheld unit and not looking at anyone.

The other two captains, Ogun and Sabin, couldn’t be happy about anything that had happened lately: not Ramirez’s death, not the duty that had just landed on their shoulders; not with the information that had suddenly hit the station corridors.

And had Sabin even been in on the post-Tamun plans until Ramirez dropped dead and Ogun had to tell her? There was no way for an outsider to know exactly what had transpired between those two, or what the state of affairs might be. It didn’t look warm or friendly, and Jase’s expression gave him no warnings.

“Mr. Cameron,” Ogun said. “I trust the dowager’s informed you of the situation, and the reason for her presence here. We’re not wholly content with it, but the aiji in Shejidan had an agreement with Captain Ramirez that’s come into play. It was bound to, once certain information reached the aiji—shall I spell out the terms of it?”

Necessary to switch to ship-language. Necessary to switch to human thinking, to the captains’ thinking, in particular, which might figure that heheld special information theyneeded.

That might be true, if the aiji or the aiji-dowager were including him in their conferences. Perhaps he ought to say at the outset that they weren’t including him. Perhaps he ought to admit that he was in the dark.

Pride trammeled up his tongue. And tangled up his thinking, which said, don’t state any change to be the truth until you know it’strue.

“What the aiji intended me to know,” he said, “I knew. Apparently he wished me kept in the dark, captain, so I wouldn’t make decisions outside my arena of responsibility. It’s useful for you to know that, but it wouldn’t be correct to extrapolate while things are in flux. The dowager says I’m going with you.”

“Are you?” Ogun’s tone was flat, but Bren judged that might have been a surprise to them.

“Decision of the aiji. I’m forced to abide by it, sir.”