Explorer

He caught Banichi’s eye, and Jago’s, and they extracted themselves from shelter, with relief, he was sure. He left, with them in attendance and within easier reach of information at the moment—atevi presence re-expanded onto the bridge.

He found Jase where he had been, next the take-hold just outside their shelter.

“The dowager declines. Gin declines. I used the word ‘days.’ They’ve formed an alliance.”

Jase didn’t look at him. Jase’s eyes, like Sabin’s, roved continually over the aisles, where techs sat waiting for response. “We have what facilities we have up here,” Jase murmured. “We can’t change them. But if she grows weary, offer my office, my cabin, my bed, for that matter.”

“One will do so, nadi-ji, with thanks.”

“For yourself as well. I want you rested, paidhi-aiji.”

“One understands that as well.”

Jase reached to his ear and handed him the communications unit, warm from his skin. “Use that. I want you current with our information flow.”

“One concurs.” He positioned it in his own ear, begi

“I am now in direct touch with ship’s communications,” Bren muttered to Banichi and Jago. “Make clear to the dowager Jase’s offer of his own cabin, which would afford more comfort and security. Tell Cenedi first: he may have more luck in argument.”

“A very good idea,” Banichi said, with a side glance at Jago—their information had simultaneously gone to Cenedi and to five-deck. And one hoped the dowager would hear reason.

A desk, a chair and a bed within easy walk of the bridge, it turned out, was an acceptable idea. There was not only Jase’s cabin and Jase’s office, but Ramirez’s and Ogun’s, unoccupied, ample room; ample means by which experience could be available and out from under foot, and the dowager was not opposed.

The station, meanwhile, answered an earlier time-lagged query. “ The spook’s been out there for years. It may be robotic. We instruct you, ignore it .”

“What grounds to believe it’s robotic?” Sabin fired back. “Be advised we are taking measures for contact.”

That was all the communication that could flow in that exchange. There followed, from the station, a few further queries. “ What kept you ?” was one particularly significant, along with: “ Who’s in command at Alpha ?”

“Fuel load wasn’t ready,” was Sabin’s immaculately honest answer, along with, “Local control, local politics, but negotiable.” That could cover anything, including armed conflict. “What changes here? What’s our fuel situation?”

There was the prime question.

Meanwhile galley served more tea and sandwiches, and Narani and the dowager’s staff sent up delicacies for the dowager and for humans on the bridge—weary bridge crew, crew who’d stayed far longer than their own shift, while below, crew chafed to be out of confinement in quarters. Officers of the next shift sent wary inquiries, briefing themselves, a busy, busy flow of conversation on several cha

The dowager took possession of Jase’s quarters. Bren meanwhile stuck close to the bridge, eating a sandwich while wandering between the atevi settled into the executive corridor and the human crew in constant activity on the bridge.

Jase had suggested, not for the first time, that they might take advantage of the moment now go to shift change. Bren’s own knees began to protest he’d stood long enough; and he had no doubt Sabin’s older bones had to be aching far worse than his as she kept up that slow, mostly silent patrol, occasionally commenting into the communications flow.

Waiting, he was sure, for some answer, from some quarter, not likely to rest until it did come, and now the reply-clock was thirty-two minutes into negative territory.

Bridge crew took intermittent rests, a few at each console moving about on break, or, by turns, head pillowed on arms, resting weary eyes, waiting, waiting, waiting.

“ Request you proceed with approach, captain. Explanation after you dock. ”

It wasn’t the positive fuel answer they wanted. It wasn’t, we have everything in order, proceed toward the fueling port .

“They may not anticipate the alien craft can understand our conversation,” Bren murmured—wishing that were so, wishing that the Guild had miraculously turned cooperative—or that the alien out there did understand a common language. There was no proof of either. “One might distrust this request to dock first.”

“ C1, repeat the last query .” That was Sabin’s answer, cold and calm, as if they hadn’t just waited the lengthy time for the last inadequate answer, as if she weren’t, like all of them, aching to have basic questions settled and to know for certain they had fuel. But: do it again , was the response, in essence. Do it again until we get an answer we like .

And meanwhile, be it admitted, they weren’t doing what station wanted.

Bren felt his own knees protesting. And he walked, and paced, trying to think of all possible angles, and finally went back to Jase’s office and sat down in a chair opposite Banichi and Jago’s seat on the floor.

“Station has failed to answer Sabin-aiji’s simple question regarding available fuel, nadiin-ji. She has therefore reiterated her question. This give and take of answers will take, at least, another two hours.”

His bodyguard absorbed that information, respectfully so, noting clearly that Sabin-aiji had not backed down, and showed no sign of it.

“If it should be a lengthy time, then you should nap, Bren-ji,” Jago advised him. “It seems we are not yet useful.”

It was reasonable advice. He had been observing every micro-tick of information flow, fearful of missing some critical interaction, but found no further advice to give… He didn’t like the reticence on the station’s side. If the alien didn’t understand, Sabin was right: they could transmit nursery rhymes and targeting coordinates with no difference in that ship’s behavior—and if it did understand—then they had a very different problem, at once an easier one, but one in which the station would participate, and in which, in the fuel, it might hold a key bargaining item. Most of all he didn’t like the picture he had: a third party, themselves, arriving in the middle of a long standoff, an arrival recognizably allied to the station, talking with it while signaling the alien presence out there. It looked all too much like a schoolyard squabble, politics on that primitive a level, and the imbalance of power since their unexpected arrival here could tip things over the edge.

It would do it faster if they made a wrong move. Two powers had to be refiguring the odds at the moment, and he hoped the apparently bullied party, the station, didn’t suddenly decide to shove things into a crisis with some demand for action, the rationality of which they couldn’t assess at a distance.

“ Shift change ,” C1 a

Belowdecks had waited long enough.

“ Sabin speaking ,” came a smooth, routine murmur following that. “ Situation remains much the same. We have not received adequate answers from station. We have not received a response from the alien presence. As you move through the ship, bear in mind the location of nearest takeholds. We will specifically notify crew of any change in the level of alert .”