Explorer

And the faces. And the voices. Bren-ji , they’d call him. And they’d all understand when he wanted to go barefoot at low tide.

But they were there. He was here. Lord Geigi was ru

“I’ll take a sunset on the beach,” Gi

“Oh, we’re editing.”

“Privilege of being out here in hell’s armpit. There’ll be this nice little bar, white fence, blooming vine—chi’tapas petals on a sea breeze, while I’m at it, so sickening-sweet you could just choke. Sunset, just one of those orange ones.”

“Touch of pink,” he said.

“Clouds and sails. Lights of the boats on the water, right at twilight.”

“I’ll go with that.” He liked that image. It wasn’t really maudlin. Gi

“ You’re riding in,” Gi

“Most dangerous place to be.” Mechieti had fighting-tusks, short ones, and didn’t mind stepping on a pedestrian or knocking him flat, at very least. When the herd went, the individuals went, the dreadful fact of an atevi cavalry charge—unstoppable as an avalanche; forget steering. “But there’s roast something or another for supper—”

“Oh, stop. I’m going to die. Roast, with gravy.”

“Brown gravy.”

“Hot bread. Fruit preserves and real butter.”

“Egg pudding. With chi’tapas.”

Sigh.

“We’ll get back,” Gi

“Date.”

“Jago’s not possessive?” Slow wink from a woman as apt as Ilisidi to be his grandmother.

“Totally practical. Well, mostly.” It was good to exchange human-scale jibes and threats. He’d come very much to appreciate this woman’s steady, slow-fuse humor in recent years. “All this talk of food. God. Want to drop in for di

“Deal. Absolutely. Your cook—your food stores—I don’t know what you do to it, but it sure beats reconstituted egg souffles and catsup.”

“Don’t say catsup near Bindanda’s egg dishes. He’ll file Intent.”

“Anything for an invitation. Can Banichi and Jago be there? I’ll practice my Ragi.”

“Delighted. You might have ’Sidi-ji as a fellow guest; and we might end up there, instead, but I swear you’ll get di

“Either will be glorious. Believe me.”

A di

It posed a pleasant end to a day that overlooked a sheer drop. He hated the ship moving. He hated that whole phase of their travel.

He hated worse the anticipation this time. He needed company, he found. He pitied Jase. He wished he could find the means to get him back—if only for an hour.

But hereafter Jase belonged to the ship. Had to. That was the way things had worked out… at least for the duration.

Chapter 4

In the end it was his cook in collaboration with the dowager’s, and a table set in mid-corridor—anathema to ship safety officers—and both staffs and the lords of heaven and earth at table. Pizza seemed the appropriate offering, a succession of pizzas, with salad from the ship’s own store, and atevi lowland pickles, and the dowager and her staff delighting in salty highland cheese on toast. The aiji’s heir adored pizza, and was on very best behavior. A new hanging adorned the hall, which had had all its numerology adjusted for the occasion. Cajeiri’s reputation was safe.

There was adult talk, translated, and a fair offering of liquors, and a warm glow to end a rare evening.

“An excellent company,” Ilisidi pronounced it.

“One applauds the cooks,” Cajeiri piped up—an applause usually rendered at the main course, but it was still polite and very good behavior, and entirely due.

Bren offered his parting toast. “One thanks the staffs that lighten this voyage—for their cleverness, their hard work, their unfailing invention and good will.”

“Indeed,” Ilisidi seconded his offering.

“I also thank all persons,” Gi

That called for reciprocal appreciations, before they went to their separate sections and their several apartments.

Over all, Bren said to himself, it was like the voyage itself—an astonishing event, a mix of people on best behavior and divorced from those things of the world that usually meant diplomats working overtime to take care of the agitated small interests. An event that would take a month to set up—they managed impromptu. They had very little to divide them, at least on this deck.

Pizza, that food of sociality and good humor, had been the very thing.

A social triumph.

The dowager had genteely remarked on the change in the hangings, without remarking on the dent. Cajeiri had surely realized she knew, or he was not her great-grandchild.

Gi

And, as Cajeiri had very aptly pointed out, the joint efforts of the two staffs had turned out a success. In a long and difficult service aboard, there had to be some moments to cheer, and this was one.

We should have done this before, he thought, and wished Jase had been able to come down. That would have made the evening perfect.

But Jase had had—one hoped—a night’s sleep by now, if Jase dared sleep. It was near the end of Sabin’s watch.

One day, one very long day, at the end of which, guests all departed to their separate venues, Bren could sit in his dressing-gown and review his notes, by a wall on which two potted plants had run riot. Gifts from home, those were. They’d seemed to grow with more vigor during ship-moves. Humans didn’t like the state they entered, but the plants thrived, given water and food and light enough.

He read until he found his eyes fuzzing, then took to bed. Jago came to bed shortly after and they made love… well… at least that was what Mospheirans called it.

Atevi didn’t. Jago didn’t. He didn’t care and she didn’t. There was no safer companion, no one who’d defend him with more zeal, no bedfellow as comfortable in a long and difficult night. She came to distract him and herself, and it worked. He did sleep.

And waked, and finding Jago asleep, he slept again, thinking muzzily of station corridors and of the petal sails of his ancestors, dropping down and down through the clouds of a scantly known world, onto atevi struggling to master the steam locomotive.

God, who’d have thought, then, where they’d all be, now?

“ Stand by ,” a voice said at oh-god in the morning. “ Ship-move in one hour .”

Now? They weren’t waiting until watch-end? It was Jase’s watch. The ship didn’t move on Jase’s watch. But the robot maintained night lighting. It had to be.