Defender

“Decision of our brother captain,” Ogun said. Meaning Ramirez, who was dead and not available for argument. And Ogun was frustrated. “So the ship has you, and it has the dowager, and her staff.”

“And it has mine, sir. I’ll have a staff with me.”

Ogun remained thin-lipped. Disapproving. “Sealed orders, Mr. Cameron. Mine to deal with. But by their terms, by what Ramirez set out, in this mission when it might come, the aiji chooses his perso

Certain of the captains might have wanted to do that. Jase would have surely said, in that meeting, that that would guarantee very serious trouble.

“We don’t know what situation we have at Reunion,” Ogun said. “We don’t know but that it’s gotten worse—we don’t know the aliens haven’t come back. We can’t communicate, not knowing who’s listening. We can’t guarantee they’ve got the fuel for us, out there. So we needed robot miners to refuel us out at Reunion in case the situation’s gotten far worse. And we couldn’t strip this station of robots, either. That’s solved.”

Gi

“We weren’t prepared to have the aiji’s grandmotheras his agent. We’d asked, in fact, for you, or for his officer in charge of station operations. The word was—apparently—” A shift of the eyes toward Yolanda and back. Had communications been flowing freely even after Ramirez’ death, through her, and not him? Probably, he thought in distress. “—the word was apparently that the aiji wanted family to represent him. We’re concerned. We’re extremely concerned about the choice that’s turned up. What’s your opinion of this choice, Mr. Cameron?”

“My opinion, sir, is that the aiji will do what he does. She has authority next to his. I understand that the travel itself isn’t that strenuous… I hope it isn’t.”

“There’s some strain. She’s brought the aiji’s son, as I gather.”

“Cajeiri. Yes, sir. In her care.” He dared not argue. It wasn’t his place to argue.

“Captain Graham judges her health up to it.”

“I’d defer to his judgement in that.”

“He also says you can deal with Gran ‘Sidi. That you’re an asset.”

Better than I’ve been here, evidently.

His own bitterness surprised him. And hurt feelings had no place. He jerked that reaction up short.

“I’ll do what I can, sir.”

“The fact is,” Ogun said, “we have an agreement for atevi and Mospheiran participation in the station andin the mission.”

“Mospheira has its representative on this mission?”

“Ms. Kroger.”

Kroger. The ride up. The miraculous appearance of the robots… the President’s personal intervention in the production schedule.

Dared one even think that Ramirez’s death was timed?

Or self-selected…

“Yes, sir,” Bren said.

“We have an agreement,” Ogun said, “to maintain the station, to continue ship construction and training—and to provide for local shelters. Bomb shelters, Mr. Cameron, on the planet. To provision them. To contribute advanced materials to be sure there’s something left here if the situation goes to hell.”

Bomb shelters. For the whole population?

He thought of the Bu-javid. Of the hallways of fragile porcelains and priceless work. Of the culture and civilization of two species. Thousands of years.

And Malguri’s stone walls, reared against mechieta-riding invaders. Would there be bomb shelters to save what was there? The wi’itikiin on their cliffs—those delicate nesters, their hatchlings—the blue seas and bluegreen hills? Where were shelters for that?

“The situation remains what it was,” Ogun said. “We don’t know how safe Reunion is, and we can’t risk communications to find out. Command considered an agreement to communicate in event of attack—or imminent destruction—but there was a general fear that if they did transmit, the enemy would know for certain to look for another site, and we don’t want them looking. That remains the decision. There’ll be no communication. If Phoenixgets into trouble—there’ll be no transmission. We’ll go there, get them to abandon the station and get out of there. That’s the mission. You’re along, Mr. Cameron, in case we encounter something other than the Guild. We take it you would be a resource.”

Aliens, that was. He hadn’t even polled his own nerves to know what he thought. He was numb—completely numb. “Yes, sir. Probably I would be.” Someoneat least would have the concept of thinking in another language, inside another, non-human skin.

“If it goes well, you’ll have an idle trip. We’ll depopulate the station, destroy any clue of the direction we’ve gone, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, of planet-bearing stars in the vicinity, there aren’t that many. Of life-bearing planets, this one. Only this one.” Ogun leaned back. “So if I were an alien looking for an origin-point for my enemy, I wouldn’t have that far to look. And we can assume their optics and their instruments are adequate for starflight, which means adequate to find this star, this planet, if they haven’t already done it. And this is our dilemma. If we go back there and pull back our observers, I doubt we conceal a damned thing. But we do send a signal. Don’t we, Mr. Cameron?”

“Yes.”

“What will we be saying?”

“The point is, sir, we know what we’ll be saying. But we don’t know what they’ll be hearing. We won’t know that until we encounter themand get a sample of their thinking.”

“Ideally we won’t encounter them. Ever.”

“I’d agree.”

Ogun considered that.

“If we’re lucky,” Sabin said, “they’ve gone off. If we go back there and stir things up again, we’re likely to provoke what we’re trying to avoid.”

“Also possible.”

“We’re not ready,” Sabin said. “Another hundred years at this star and we might be. But right now we’ve got two stations, one ship, and no defense. Bomb shelters won’t save us.”

“Nothing we’ve got will save us,” Ogun said, “if they take Reunion and come after us. Reunion is sitting out there as a provocation.”

“We don’t know what they think,” Sabin said. “We’re assuming.”

Sabin happened to be right. Not necessarily in her conclusion, but in her reasoning.

“We don’t know either way.” Bren contributed his unasked opinion. “They may be waiting for a signal we don’t know how to give. They may think they have peace. They may not know what peace is. They may not know what war is and may not know they may have provoked one. We don’t know. But we shouldn’t go into their territory looking for them.”

“Cameron’s said it,” Sabin said shortly. “My vote is to put a stop to this whole thing and stay the hell out. If Reunion falls, we still have a fifty-fifty chance they won’t come after us.”

He couldn’t swear to the math. But he agreed with the theory.

“We already have the crew’s vote,” Ogun said. “It’s settled.”

“It’s onlythe crew’s vote,” Sabin said. “And it’s not settled if we decide to the contrary.”

“Reunion is almost certainly repairing,” Ogun said, “and building. They’ll get noisier over time, and they’ll outgrow the situation as it is. They won’t stay hidden. And whatever they do, they remain ours, our fault, whether or not they make good choices and whether or not they can deal with the aliens out there.”

“Or if they build one ship, they can come here,” Jase said out of long silence. “And they can come here with resources, and ships, and orders we don’t want to take.”

There was a thought. More than a thought—a nightmare none of them had talked about.

“We don’t have to be idle here,” Sabin said. “We’re building ships of our own.”

“So what do we have?” Ogun asked. “A human war on the atevi’s doorstep?”

“We don’t need to be sticking our nose into Reunion before we’ve built enough here orthere to be able to defend ourselves against whatever that situation produces. I’m not saying don’t go. I’m saying don’t go yet. Ramirez’s brought atevi and the Mospheirans in on it all, trying to force the issue, complicating the situation, complicating decision-making on what’s ourbusiness, not the aiji’s, complicating the issues, giving us these damned observers, and all of a sudden I’m seeing a hellbent rush away from patience, away from prudence and headlong into a decision to rip authority away from Reunion and try to bring it all here, under ours.”