Defender

Cenedi had had staff aboard for hours, going over every minute detail of their accommodations, checking for bugs as well as inconveniences, one could be sure.

And Ilisidi’s security had a camera live. As they passed the door, Bren caught the shine of an uncapped lens clipped to a uniformed, leather shoulder.

And what was thatfor? Bren asked himself in dismay. The lens certainly wasn’t uncommon, but he was sure the lens had been capped during their trip up the lifts, possibly protectively so, during the intense cold—he had no idea of its limitations. He was sure he’d have noticed otherwise.

But if they’d uncapped it, bet that lens was live and they were transmitting. Was that for security review, privately, something relayed ahead to their staff, in the new quarters?

Something sent farther away, back through the hull, to lord Geigi? He wasn’t sure they could do that. Surely not. So there was a security set-up already active within their section—someone receiving.

He was not unhappy to know they had record of the route and the button-pushes that brought them here.

But for all he knew, Cenedi’s men were making a video record for quite different reasons, a record perhaps to go out to Geigi, then to Tabini, who would be interested, to say the least.

Or—knowing Tabini—was it to go out to every household that owned a television?

Confirmation for the dowager’s political allies that she was well and alive and in charge of her own armed security, on this ship, in this mission?

Atevi couldn’t like the structure they saw—though atevi had gotten used to the concept of twos on the station. Everything in the corridors—doors, and window panels in offices, was configured by ship-culture, convenient sets of two, pairs, that anathema to the ‘counters, more than vexation to the atevi sense of design: an arrangement of space that hit the atevi nervous system with the same painful reaction nails on a chalkboard caused for humans, and worse, he understood, if one were standing in it, experiencing it in three dimensions.

But some enterprising soul had painted two pastel stripes wandering the corridor, two, branching into five, then felicitous seven, right across the green tile.

Someone had arranged a spray of brightly colored plastic balls—seven—on strands of wire, from wall to wall, like planets and moons against the mud brown of the wall paneling.

The effect was less than elegant… the sort of thing that turned up in crew lounges. But seven. It was a valiant attempt at kabiu.

And colored paint. Where had paintturned up in their baggage? It had been at a low priority in station-building, wasn’t manufactured on-station even yet: it had to be freighted up.

Had Jase had that stripe done? Had the dowager’s staff prepared for the spartan environment? Atevi couldn’thave done something as garish as the orange planets.

Staff drifted out from the offices, the dowager’s, welcome sight on both sides, and the staff who’d brought their baggage turned up from further on.

“Thank you,” Bren said to their escort, with a little bow as automatic as breathing and quite impossible in null-G. “We’ll be very comfortable here.”

“I’m to show you temperature and emergency controls, sir.”

Therewas a potentially explosive foul-up. “I’m sure you’ve shown the staff,” Bren said, drifting slightly askew—difficult to maintain formality at odd angles—“and deputized themto show security perso

Trust them, that the ship would not explode from thisdeck.

“Then is there any need of me further?” their escort asked.

“With thanks, sir,—one trusts Captain Graham is here.”

“He’s in the section, sir. He’s on his way.”

The door behind them opened at that very moment. He heard it, and when he turned, drifting, to look back, Jase wasthere.

Thank God.

“We’re just fine, then. We’ll all be fine. Thank you, yes, that’s all we need.”

“There will be nowalking about,” Ilisidi was telling Cajeiri quite firmly, in this place where, at the moment, walkingwas a euphemism, “no leaving your quarters without security escort, nadi.”

“But this is all like a house, mani-ji. Surely—”

“Nothing is sure here!” This under her breath, with a hard jerk at Cajeiri’s hand. “Hear me!” Bren tried not to notice the preface, as Ilisidi, disgusted, turned a sweetly benevolent glance toward him, and toward Jase, as Jase sailed to their side, and stopped.

Jase, in a blue uniform jacket, with the Phoenixinsignia, the closest to captain’s estate he’d yet come. The emblem looked like one of the wi’itikiin, the flying creatures of Malguri cliffs, rising from solar fires—atevi, having heard the legend, thought it very well-omened.

The i

“Jase-aiji. How kind of you to come.”

“Aiji-ma,” Jase said quietly, distantly to Bren’s ears.

The offices inside were all lit up, with atevi staff unpacking their own equipment.

And the stripes braiding their way down the corridor, past the windowed offices immediately in view, branched out to two side corridors in the section.

He’d approved the arrangement the dowager’s staff had provided: numerous staff sleeping rooms, back near the kitchens, and two bedchambers, two office/studies, for himself and for the dowager. They used a vast amount of room—they’d added staff, and only scantly advised the ship, which had, for all he knew, discounted the advisement: certainly there’d been no high-level reaction. Of room there was no shortage, so instructions said, and their baggage requirements remained negligible to the scale of things.

“I hope everything’s in order,” Jase said. “I hope you’ll be as comfortable as we can provide, aiji-ma.”

“Acceptable, ship-aiji.” This, from the mistress of ancient Malguri, the dowager who slept on bare ground and still outrode two humans. “But association and man’chi. How stands that?”

“Firm,” Jase said. The reassuring answer. “Still within the aiji’s man’chi. And my ship’s.” One could have two man’chiin: the whole aishidi’tatwas a web work, and two and three and four associations at once was a benefit, not a detriment.

“Accept this,” Cenedi said, and handed Jase one of the pocket coms, “to keep us in close touch. The dowager relies on you especially, nandi, in this voyage. She will call on you whenever she has a personal question. She wishes to have this clear.”

Jase bowed his head—the rigorous instruction of the court made that act the simplest, most basic reflex. “I’ll endeavor to answer the dowager’s questions.”

“So what will the schedule be, if you please?” Ilisidi asked.

“If the dowager please—” Court expression for a brief stall, a gathering of words. “We’re transient.”

“Moment to moment,” Bren muttered, on autopilot.

“Moment to moment.” Jase scarcely blushed, seized on the apt word, and the omen fell unremarked. “Reliant on the numbers, aiji-ma, as crew boards. We have to have a precise calculation of mass. We’ll leave dock and calculate, we hope, in about four hours. Crew boarding has begun. It can be very fast.”

“Very good. And we will then walk decently on the deck.”

“As soon as we’re underway, aiji-ma.”

“Is this where we stay, mani?” Cajeiri asked, sounding disappointed. “It looks like a warehouse.”

“This is manifestly where we stay,” Ilisidi said sharply, “and one will be grateful, great-grandson, that the facility will soon be operative and that the lights require no lengthy and laborious fire source, notthe case everywhere in the world, as you will one day learn to your astonishment, I warn you. Apologize!”