Explorer

Sabin sealed her jacket, implied preparation for cold. For passage out of the ship and into the station mast.

“So congratulations: you’re in charge, Captain Graham. Remember we’re very immaculately Guild and we follow the regulations until we know what our options are. And that means you , sir—” A glance at Bren. “Get your tall, dark friends below-decks right now and keep them there. Aliens never left the atevi planet. Our own crew isn’t putting their heads above two-deck to tell these inspectors differently. The inspection team will fill out their little check list, skip the log check, as per my orders, and go back to report they didn’t get any more here than I gave the Guild chief on his request. That’s the way it should work, Captain Graham. That’s the way it’s going to work. So get gran, there, the hell below, right now.”

One definitely hesitated to translate that small speech for the dowager’s consumption. But it was time to translate, inserting proper courtesies.

“Aiji-ma,” Bren said to her, “officials of this human Guild are very soon coming aboard to inspect the ship’s credentials. Sabin-aiji suggests we go below immediately. Officials are arriving at any moment. We must not be seen.”

“We are here to rescue these ingrates, whose station is in grievously unrepaired condition, who appear to exist in armed standoff with an offended enemy they have no power to talk to, let alone reach, and this incompetent Guild wishes to us to dread their displeasure?”

“They do seem to have one thing: the fuel we desperately need, aiji-ma, which they have rigged so we ca

“She will go. Not Jase.”

“Not Jase, aiji-ma.”

Complete change of expression. In such an undemonstrative species, humans might not see it. But the dowager gave him a now sweet, sidelong look—golden eyes, dark skin with its fine tracery of lines—long, long years of calculation and autocracy.

“Well, well, we shall go below,” the dowager a

“Nandi,” Jase said, who had caught the nuances. And understood the threat of atevi taking matters in their own hands. “There will be no foreign intrusion onto five-deck. Your residence will remain sacrosanct. One swears this, nandi.”

“One certainly expects it.” A vigorous stamp of the cane. “Enough of this standing about? My bones ache. I want my own chair.”

“Well? Is she going?” Sabin asked.

“The dowager is going below,” Jase said.

“Very good,” Sabin said. “Mospheirans, too, the whole lot of you, off the bridge. Nothing left behind. And stay quiet down there, Mr. Cameron. We have enough troubles on our hands.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bren said, already determined he didn’t consider himself under that prohibition. He could change accents as easily as he changed clothes… and he had no intention of acquiescence in what the Guild and Sabin alone arranged.

Banichi and Jago were still with him. He overtook the dowager and Gi

The dowager was, at the moment, on remarkably compliant behavior. Cajeiri was, correctly sensing an armed grenade in his great-grandmother’s quiet demeanor. Gi

“Damn Guild,” was Jerry’s opinion, and at a sharp look from Gi

“Jerry,” Gi

Gran ’Sidi, as the stationers called her… Gran ’Sidi, the atevi force that swept into station affairs at critical moments and fixed things. And to this hour when Gran ’Sidi gave a look like that—silence fell among Mospheirans and ship-folk alike.

“Sabin has something in mind,” Bren said ever so softly. “Just don’t rock the boat yet. So to speak. We’ll have our moment.”

“Anything you need,” Gi

“Good,” Ilisidi said, acknowledging the communication—lordly acceptance. Ilisidi walked out, her staff with her, and Bren followed, not without a parting glance to Gi

Gi

Ilisidi’s guards opened the door to the atevi section. Ilisidi’s guards, Ilisidi’s servants, had all turned out along the corridor, loyal support, baji-naji, come what might from the strangers proposing to enter the ship on decks above.

The section door shut. Sealed. Ilisidi, walking with taps of her cane, issued her orders, quietly, matter of factly, while she moved among the staff. “An hour to rest, if we are so fortunate. Security will deal with necessary issues. For the nonce, we shall not contact these intruders or become apparent to them unless they reach our territory. Bren-nandi?”

“Aiji-ma?”

“You, personally, can manage the accent and ma

She didn’t miss a bet.

“Easily.”

They had reached the dowager’s study door. Ilisidi stopped there, hands on the head of her cane, poised. “Interesting. Apprise us of any news.”

“Yes, aiji-ma.”

A waggle of the topmost fingers. “Let Sabin-aiji make her attempt. Let her learn what she can of the situation and perhaps return to us. Let these officers of the Guild come aboard and lay hands where they wish on the other decks. But not on ours. All these things we may tolerate, briefly, for expediency’s sake. Otherwise—otherwise, Bren-nandi, see to it. Use whatever resources you need.”

“Yes, aiji-ma.”

And with that statement, and with a belated backward look from Cajeiri—a worried look, it was—Ilisidi turned aside and let Cenedi open the door to her quarters—into which she and all her company disappeared.

Her bones, Bren said to himself, did suffer with long standing. It was well past time she took a rest. But that mind didn’t rest. She was far too ca

He walked on from that point into his own territory, with Banichi and Jago… who assurely would not approve his plans. Who had defensive skills he could never manage.

But no amount of skill and stealth could disguise what they were.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said to them, “Sabin-aiji, who has met these station aijiin before, believes she can maintain her authority, discover useful information and gain their cooperation to refuel the ship. She has refused them free access to the ship’s history. They persisted and she still refused. She surely knows there is some risk to her freedom to act as she goes onto the station. Her authority there on the station is yet to establish, and one hopes she succeeds. But one still fails to trust her entirely. There is that.”

“A strong possibility, Bren-ji?” Baniichi asked.

“She can’t compel their obedience.” It might be superfluous to remind his staff what drove Sabin and the Pilots’ Guild were different instincts, having nothing to do with the grouping-drive that motivated atevi, but it was still worth laying out. “We are not dealing with man’chi between her and this Guild, nadiin-ji. Each side has both merit and force to persuade the other to take their direction. But only Sabin has a ship, and I confess I wish she were staying on the ship and simply demanding they come aboard. She could compel that. She could a