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“We’ll consider that option. Meanwhile, gentlemen, we’re doing a take-hold.”
“It’s going to be evident when we brake, captain, won’t it, and maybe they’ll take it for a hostile act if the engines show activity…”
“We have to brake to dock, Mr. Cameron. They may want to critique our approach path, too, but in the meanwhile we hope station has an answer for us, what that noise source is. Advise gra
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and walked back to the dowager. “One should prepare, aiji-ma, for a maneuver of considerable strength and sudde
“Are we going to fight?” Cajeiri asked, rising.
“Hush, wretched boy.” Ilisidi leaned on her cane and rose stiffly, to take his advice. “Prudence should lead valor. Have you never heard that?”
“Gin,” Bren said. “Inside. We don’t know if there’s going to be emergency action, but they don’t want loose bodies flying about.”
“I’ll skip that experience,” Gi
They still had a view: the screen at the end of the safety compartment, on a padded wall, showed the bridge, and in a window overlaid on that image, the image from space—the station. They likewise had audio, Sabin’s low voice, and the flow through C1.
“What are they saying?” Cajeiri wanted to know.
“The captain is giving technical instructions, young sir,” Bren answered, setting his back against the padded wall, hoping at the same time that their whole mission didn’t come to a sudden end.
Siren sounded.
Then Sabin’s voice overrode the chatter, loud and clear, on general address: “ We’re begi
Lie. Damned lie . Bren drew a sharp breath, all but exploded out of the safety zone, out where, if they hit the brakes, he could go splat against the other bulkhead, or up on that nice big viewing screen, untidy objection quashed. But he stayed put. He didn’t go argue the point, on the bridge, in front of all the techs, that truth to the crew might be a good policy. It was reflex, was what it was. Given a situation, given a choice between truth and shading it—it was still the same choices.
One hoped to God Sabin’s current maneuver with the ship was the right one. Braking wasn’t exactly what Ramirez had done. Not quite. And could it look hostile?
“What have they said, paidhi-ji?” Ilisidi asked him.
“The ship-aiji claims this is all preparatory to docking. This may even be partially true, aiji-ma. But it is also maneuvering so as to confuse a possible enemy. Whom they refuse to contact. And one does not believe this silence is wise, either regarding the crew, or the watcher out there.”
The ship braked. Hard and fast, as he’d suspected. He braced himself. Held his breath.
The invisible hand lifted. Let them breathe.
“Shall one not advise the ship-aiji of this opinion, nandi?” Cenedi asked.
“I intend to, nadi-ji.” He was more and more set on arguing his point. Ramirez had been wrong. Silence had been wrong.
Another gentle nudge.
And silence continued from the speakers.
“Are we there yet?” Cajeiri asked. “Nandiin, are we—?”
Hard braking.
“ Mr. Cameron to the bridge .”
Sabin was calling him ?
He didn’t hesitate. He simply turned to the side against the padding and dived out into the open bridge, already pla
Safe. Free. If one believed it.
“Mr. Cameron,” Sabin said, and to someone elsewhere: “Put the transmission through to station fifteen.”
Station fifteen was the console nearest. That screen display changed and became a set of numbers and geometrical figures. It looked like navigational problems.
“We’re instructed to come ahead and hard dock at the masthead,” Sabin said. “Ordinary procedure. Guild authority says, quote, that there’s been an observer lurking out there for years doing very little. Unquote. It’s waked up on our approach, made its first active assay of the station in a long time. They’re receiving that output, too. Passive input and long-range optics would be just as efficient observation for its ordinary operations. It was sitting out there listening, it heard us pass, and heard station answer—and woke up. We’re not sure why whoever it is needed first to come alive and betray their presence if they don’t mean to talk. If it’s targeting, and if there’s something on its way, it’s likely going to have fired on the expected path toward docking. Which we’re behind. There’s no reason, either, why they wouldn’t just fire at the station if they were going to—take it all out. What’s your best observation of the situation, Mr. Cameron?”
Good question.
“How many pings?”
“Single.”
“Single output. Last time, three blinks. If it was the same entity.” He dealt with atevi so exclusively he began to think the numbers themselves had significance. And one couldn’t assume that. Daren’t assume it. “A, they’re a robot. B, they’re more interested in watching than in destroying. C—they’re wanting our attention and they want to see if we’re smart enough to have learned anything in ten years.”
Sabin nodded slowly. “Captain Graham would agree. Next question. A’s possible. Why B?”
“Why B? To see what kind of traffic this place gets… one ship, two, a hundred… and where those ships come from, and where they go.”
“The atevi planet,” Jase said in a low voice. “They’ll have that pegged, at least what vector we’ve come in from. Long range optics can do way too much once they start looking.”
“How long can have they been here?” Bren asked. “Were they here, for instance, when Phoenix did her last lookover and left toward Alpha? Is that possible?”
“Good question,” Sabin said. “I don’t know. If they were, they weren’t in our pickup. But I wasn’t on the bridge that day.”
“C, captain. C. Have we learned anything ? I advise we go toward them. Slowly. Go toward them.”
Sabin shot him a dark and frowning look, then turned her back and started away from him.
He wedged himself past a seat, past her, and firmly blocked her path. “On review of the log, captain, my conclusion. My best advice. Issue a signal. Approach them. It’s exactly what the Guild hasn’t tended to do. It may be the one thing you ought to do. Be forthcoming.”
Sabin turned, glanced from him to Jase. And around them, not a single tech had taken eyes from their work to see argument around the senior captain.
“I agree with him,” Jase said in a low voice.
“Then what?” Sabin asked. “Do we have a conclusion for this adventure? Perhaps we rush over there and stir up something we don’t know how to deal with.”
“Your predecessor stirred something up, got a signal, refused to respond, left on a diversionary track, and they didn’t take one of those manuevers kindly. Atevi say—and I asked them—that Ramirez gave a hostile appearance in his behavior, simply by remaining mute. Then by leaving and trying to deceive. So let’s at least do something else.”
Sabin looked at him. Poised, on the brink.
“So maybe they’re going to ignore us,” she said. “By station’s information, they’ve ignored the station for years.”
“Imitating Ramirez? Imitating his actions?”
“After blowing hell out of the station,” Sabin muttered.