Defender

He rarely saw those two look worried. Even Algini gave him a look when he said that.

“I have every confidence,” he said.

The ship stood at 98%. They had an advisement for all non-crew to board.

Whatever went on in the offices, on the island, on the continent, even in the apartment, stopped being his problem.

God hope the house of cards he and Tabini had built lasted long enough to provide a pattern for the girders of a whole new world.

God hope he got home sometime close to schedule.

Could he ever have dreamed he’d be making this trip, a decade ago?

Ogun had trained crew, a newly-refurbished station, brand new factories and the plans for a starship… if the people he left couldn’t manage with those assets, he didn’t know what more he personally could do for them.

He had already dispatched Bindanda and Asicho to board ahead of them, with his written authorization, which he trusted ship security had honored, and now sent two of the servant staff with another authorization, with two motorized trolleys all loaded with their baggage—those just far enough ahead of them to make it through the lifts and checkpoints and not impede their progress. The dowager’s baggage was somewhat ahead of theirs, so staff advised him, also with authorized staff. Boarding for the rest of them—was down to the last minutes.

He and Banichi and Jago said their goodbyes to Tano and Algini in the security station, and again at the door—that was hardest.

One didn’t hug atevi, not as a rule. He broke that rule, for his own soul’s sake, and embarrassed them.

“It’s the human custom,” he said. “Indulge me, nadiin-ji, for my comfort, and take good care of yourselves. I value you very, very extremely.”

“We are most extremely honored,” Tano said, “paidhi-ji.”

“Bren-ji,” Algini said, and carefully, uncharacteristically, hugged him. Then Tano did. Bren all but lost his composure, and might have if, when he walked away, he hadn’t been in company with Banichi and Jago and Narani and the chosen servant staff.

They had increased their estimate of those going. More had found an excuse this morning— I wish very much to see this place, was one, and: My father would never forgive me if I left the paidhi-aijivied with I wish to leave my mother’s name in this far place.

Ship authorities had said they had room enough for a few extra. For the whole apartment, if they wished. So the list grew a little, and Narani recalculated the numbers and ordered more compartments opened, which one authorized, a simple message to the ship—no fuss, no extraordinary effort.

Could a human or an atevi wish better staff around him?

And walking down that corridor, realizing how close they were to boarding and how close he was to letting loose the reins of the unruly political beast he’d ridden breakneck for his whole adult career… he experienced a certain momentary euphoria.

“Baji-naji,” he said to Banichi and Jago in that giddy feeling. “Baji-naji, nadiin-ji, if it doesn’t work now, if Mercheson-paidhi can’t make it work, and if Geigi can’t, on what we’ve built—” He said it to convince himself, after his dark night of doubt. “—I don’t know what more I can do.”

“Bindanda has successfully boarded,” Banichi reported to him. “He reports the quarters are heated and lighted and he has set himself to stand guard at the entry, to establish a perimeter, pending arrival of the baggage carts.”

“Jase-aiji has communicated with Tano,” Jago added—electronically co

It all felt completely unreal of a sudden, as giddily impossible as it had seemed possible a second ago. He was a kid from Mospheira. He was a maker of dictionaries in a little office in the Bu-javid.

What in hell was he doing in the execution of an order like this one?

He had no business exiting the solar system. He felt the whole concept as a barrier, a magical line that, if he crossed it, would simply evaporate him, a creature that would burst like a bubble in the featureless deep of space.

Yet Jase had exited and entered several solar systems in his life. The ship did it as routine. Magic didn’t apply. He had no business being scared of the process, or supposing that disaster would swallow them up without a trace or a report. Hadn’t Jase had to have faith in boats, getting out on the sea for the first time, and figuring out that the sea was deep, and that he was balanced on a rocking surface high up—relative to the sea bottom. It didn’t matter that a body falling into the water floated and didn’t plummet straight to the bottom—it hadn’t convinced Jase’s gut. And knowing that this ship had done this again and again successfully—in atevi reckoning, were those not good numbers?

As the shuttles had good numbers?

Hell with that. He’d gotten more timid about airplanes, since flying the shuttle.

He’d begun to hold onto the armrests of airplanes, trying to pull the plane into the sky. Stupid behavior. Anxious, animal behavior. He told himself again and again what made airplanes stay in the sky… the way he’d used to tell Jase, who trulydidn’t like zipping along near a planet’s surface… and didn’t starships work on perfectly rational principles he just didn’t happen to understand as well as he understood airfoils?

In the station’s informational system, Banichi now reported, the ship had reached a mysterious 99% and holding.

“The dowager has decided to accompany us in boarding,” Banichi said further. “Her party will overtake us at the lift.”

So. So. A deep breath. Time to wait for protocols. He stalled his small party at the lift door.

In due time, at the dowager’s pace, with her staff and with Lord Geigi and his men for escort, Ilisidi and Cajeiri arrived and joined them at the perso

Terrified, Bren thought with sympathy for the boy.

Sent from Tatiseigi’s ungentle care to Ilisidi’s and Cenedi’s, and now exiled to travel to the ends of creation in a human-run ship. Was ever a boy faced with more upheaval in his few years?

He was very glad Lord Geigi had come to see them off… considerable inconvenience, all the bundling-up for the cold core, a disturbance in the schedule of a man who got only a little more sleep than he had, Bren was very sure. Still, the man’chi was very tight, very sure, and it would have been sad had Geigi not stirred himself out to walk with them.

Hug Geigi? Not quite.

“Paidhi-ji,” Ilisidi said with a polite nod, the intimate address, acknowledging her traveling companion.

“Aiji-ma.” He bowed at the honor. “Nandi.” For Geigi, with human affection.

Banichi had called the lift, at the dowager’s approach. It arrived at precisely the grand moment.

“Young man.” Ilisidi offered her arm to her great-grandson, and the boy took it ceremoniously, escorting his great-grandmother with the grace of the lord he was born to be. They boarded. Cenedi and his men, and the dowager’s servants—small distinction between the two duties—held back. Geigi made a subtle wave of his hand, cuing himto move: thatwas the way it was, a difficult matter of protocols, and Bren moved, heart racing, thoughts suddenly a jumble of remembrance that, no, he was not demoted, and that Geigi, to whom he was accustomed to defer, gave place to him in the perso

As if he were higher rank.

Because he was leaving, perhaps, and numbered in the dowager’s party, not, silly thought, that the paidhi-aiji, if he even retained the title, in any way outranked the lord of the station. Empty honors, Tabini had paid him. The paidhi wasn’t any lord of the heavens, and hadn’t any claim to Geigi’s man’chi.