Defender

“Rather well like a yacht, aiji-ma, if things go well, as they ought, but for safety’s sake, one shouldn’t be about, or setting tables.”

“And when will there be supper?” Ilisidi asked.

“The schedule, aiji-ma,” Jase said on a deep breath, “calls for crew to board and settle into quarters, then check equipment and turn on the engines, as you say. And then for about an hour, a little less, as we release we will be like the shuttle during station undocking—possible for us to move about, but strongly discouraged, for the same safety concerns. By the end of that period we will have set our bow toward our destination, aiji-ma, and then there will be two hours in which it will not be safe to move about. That will cease, crew will move about and assure that everything is working as it should, and persons in charge of navigation will be taking finer measurements and assuring that we are on course. There will be another two hours during which we must be secure in our places, and then it will be possible to move about again, for about six hours—by then we will be quite far out from the station.”

“Pish. Infelicitous two, two, and untrustworthy six, chancy ten. Clearly we are not at that point beyond return.”

“No, aiji-ma.”

“And one might demandto be taken back to the safety of the station.”

“Aiji-ma, if one has any doubts—” Jase was clearly appalled., “It’s no small thing to turn this ship around.”

“If we say this ship must turn around, it must.”

“It’s possible… theoretically possible. But I’m not sure Sabin would agree to it.”

Ilisidi waggled thin, elegant fingers. “This is a major point, is it not, Bren-ji, whether we can deal with Sabin-aiji, and whether reasonable requests will be heard. We have no desire to travel with unreliable persons. We will see this ship-aiji. We will estimate the reliability and good will of this person and invite her to our table. Or this agreement is abrogated. Do we agree, paidhiin-ji?”

Dared one say no? Dared one ever say no? And what was this agreement is abrogated?

Whatagreement? Bren wanted to ask.

“We shall see her in person,” Ilisidi declared. “Now.”

“Aiji-ma, crew will be boarding,” Jase said. “Sabin will be busy.”

“Busy?” Ilisidi snapped, and a whack of the cane at the ladders sent echoes through nerve and bone. “We will see her, I say. If she is busy, as you say, we shall do her the honor of visiting her. This very moment!”

“Bren,” Jase said, turning an appalled appeal in his direction.

“The dowager will see the captain,” Bren said in ship-speak.

“And if she gets up there and Sabin won’t see her—”

Where had the whole situation mutated so thoroughly—from missing records to a confrontation over precedences and authority? One thing was a given: that Ilisidi didn’ttake well to no, in any language.

“We’re diplomats, aren’t we?” Bren said, with great misgivings. Jase might be a dozen things, but he was one of a few paidhiin that had ever existed, and some things there wasn’t any resigning. Ever. “That part’s ourjob.”

Chapter 16

The lift had room enough, Banichi having to bend his head a little; but there they were: Ilisidi, Cenedi and three of his men, with Banichi and Jago—and attendant hardware—two humans and seven atevi, fortunate nine, in fleeting contact with the floor of the lift.

Bren hadn’t even been to his cabin yet. He hadn’t changed his coat. He’d passed a message to Narani to advise him of a supper invitation, for his household’s sake.

The lift stopped: instantly, they floated. So did stomachs. But the door opened smoothly, with a hiss of hydraulic seals. Jase had passed a message to his staff, too; and Kaplan, Polano and Pressman were right there to meet them, on what the lift buttons indicated as A deck, in a short corridor.

“Sir,” Kaplan said. “Ma’am. Mr. Cameron.” That was a damned rapid sort through the protocols: the eyes were near frantic, trying to take in this upheaval of natural order in the universe, but Kaplan asked no questions.

“Captain Sabin’s on the bridge?” Jase asked.

“I don’t know, sir. The bridge, her office, I don’t know.”

“Adjacent,” Jase said in a low voice, and drew a deep, audible breath. “Stay with me, Mr. Kaplan. The dowager’s asked to see the senior captain.—Aiji-ma, Bren-ji, kindly come and kindly don’t touch weapons.”

Kaplan, who didn’t understand the latter slightly pidgin statement, looked as if he wanted to do something or stop someone and didn’t know where to start. Polano and Pressman looked no happier as Jase shoved off his handhold and sailed down the null-g course to a wall-switch.

Bren followed Jase, desperately trusting atevi to stay with them—Banichi and Jago, and the dowager and her party. If anything went amiss up here, with armed atevi security, armed humans—

The switch opened the door. Bren expected another corridor, and offices: every other door led to the like.

This one opened on a wide technical zone: consoles, displays, flashing lights and readouts, and a number of busy technicians, some of whom looked their way in shock.

More did. Work stopped. Computers didn’t.

It was that area that Phoenixnever opened to visitors—that area Phoenixhad never permitted to be photographed, even if Mospheira and Shejidan both had plans of such a place: the configuration, they’d always said, the precise configuration was as secret and classified as the interior of Tabini’s apartments, the inside of the Presidential residence on Mospheira.

And here they were in the control center, heart of the computers, nexus for communications. The bridge itself was that open space just beyond the array of consoles that, in effect, ran everything above the planet’s surface.

They were in it now. Up to their necks.

And that was Captain Sabin in the brightly lighted bridge section, under a light that sheened her gray hair like a spotlight. Officers and technicians floated at fair random, this way and that, oriented to their work or their convenience. But Sabin, not the tallest, not even the fanciest-dressed—she was in a long-sleeved black tee—was unmistakable.

“There is the ship-aiji,” Ilisidi said with satisfaction, pointing with the ferrule of her cane. “We’ll talk.”

With all the profound courtesy that implied, of who had come to whom.

And Sabin had seen them.

“No weapons!” Bren said immediately, and repeated it in ship-speak, loud and clear, with the gut-deep fright of a slip on ice. “The aiji-dowager has honored the ship’s captains by coming to them, in their residence, and comes here in courteous deference to rulers in their own domain. This is a high honor paid the ship’s command on this auspicious occasion.”

Sabin’s pitch, now. Please God, Bren thought. He’d cued her. Let Sabin once in her life moderate her response.

There was a four-beat silence. Everything froze.

Then Sabin lashed out with a booted foot and sailed toward them like a missile: techs hugged panels and got out of the way as Sabin flew from bright light to dim, from command to operations—and stopped, suddenly, with a reach to a handhold: a crisp, expert halt and a strength astonishing in a thin-limbed old woman.

“This is the bridge,” Sabin said. “This is restricted.” From Sabin that was utmost restraint. “Captain Graham.” Thatwas utmost restraint, too. Say one thing for Sabin: she didn’t light into a brother captain in front of crew. But the anger was palpable. “I’m not going to speak to Mr. Cameron. I can’t speak to the dowager. Kindly straighten this out.”

“You’re not speaking to me,” Bren said and shot right ahead: “Through me, you’re speaking to the dowager, captain. She’s delighted to be aboard and pays you the signal honor of coming to youin your premises rather than requiring you to come to her in audience… thereforeshe came to present her compliments, making you a head of state, captain, and a very favored person.”