Explorer

“Has this rebel Guild changed its mind, then?” Cajeiri asked.

“No, young sir, and one doubts their sanity.” Bren answered, and saw Cenedi seize the inquisitive heir by the shoulder, diverting him firmly to the background.

“But, Cenedi-ji,” the heir said.

“Hush!” Cenedi said, and the heir hushed, as they collectively approached Ilisidi’s outside study door, the direct way in.

Cenedi opened that door, signal honor to an exhausted, chill-prone human. He was deeply grateful not to have to brave the burning cold of the back corridor.

Inside he met, still, a comparative chill, dimly lit. It had that comforting faint petroleum scent of old atevi residences, and overlain on the ship’s geometries, all the curved lines and ornate textures of very old power.

And the dowager, sitting in her chair, reading by that dim light, quietly, slowly laid her book in her lap as the returning diplomat made his wobble-kneed small bow. She met him with a smile. “You play the servant very well, I’m told. Clever, clever fellow.”

Alarms rang. One had to be on alert with her. Always. “My mother insisted on ma

Eyes half-lidded. “And what will the station say now that we are less ma

She was asking—without asking—shall we attack?

“Oh, likely the station will threaten the fuel, which, if it exists, we doubt they will destroy, this being their greatest asset, aiji-ma. It will have taken years of effort to gain, would take more to replace, and even in the affairs of the Guild, common folk do have an opinion—not a very important one, rarely unified. But it counts, and the Guild leadership occasionally has to fear it. The Guild should fear popular opinion on this ship, for a begi

“And what has Jase-aiji told this Guild?”

“That Sabin-aiji can certainly counter his orders and release these agents once she stands on this deck and reclaims her authority from the aiji-junior. That until she does, the ship will not cooperate.”

Ilisidi smiled and nodded benignly as any comfortably set grandmother. “And what will the foreigner-ship do, in the meanwhile, while we remain mired in controversy?”

“That still remains a worry, aiji-ma. No greater and no less a worry than before we restrained these intemperate agents. But their patience must grow less by the hour.”

“And now Sabin-aiji has imprudently gotten herself in a difficulty, does one conclude?” Again, implied, a power vacuum.

“Likely, however, she is alive.”

“Would this Guild use forceful interrogation?”

“They might use drugs on her subordinates. That might be, but one believes they would make her very angry.”

Ilisidi’s amber eyes caught the light, shimmered palest gold, twin moons. “She has lived on the borders of our association. She has dealt with the aishidi’tat . She well understands how any admission of our presence would lead to more questions and far greater suspicion. I have already sent word to Jase-aiji, suggesting that the next attempt to board will not likely be a paltry effort of inept spies. We have seen their subtlety.” A waggle of fingers, suggesting that subtlety was not great. “One expects some stronger effort, and one counts armed assault a possibility, since subtlety failed. With this ship, the Guild, which has languished here for years under threat, has mobility. It might attack that ship out there. When will that ship attack us, do you think?”

He was too tired to think. The brain was attempting configurations of thought just too complex to chase right now. “Instinct, aiji-ma, says it’s not likely. They wait. They have waited for six years, it seems, and one thinks they will go on waiting so long as we keep from alarming them.”

“The station taking the ship would surely alarm them.”

“It would. I’m sure it would—if they detected that.”

“And this Guild. They might have made us feel welcome and easy in this meeting and then attacked. On the contrary, they have offended Sabin-aiji and now Jase-aiji. They have offended this crew. So you say.”

“So it seems, aiji-ma.”

A wave of an arthritic hand. “They are fools.”

“They have been fools for centuries, aiji-ma. But armed and powerful fools.”

“This authority is fearful of us? Or have they some distaste for subterfuge?”

“One believes they are fearful for their authority, aiji-ma, and know that man’chi will divert from them toward us once truths begin to come out.”

“Ought we then to provide these truths?”

“ We would frighten the population, aiji-ma, until we can provide ourselves as an avenue of escape.” He was so tired he was falling on his face, yearning for nothing more than his own mattress, and the dowager, characteristically, gave him nightmares. “And we still hesitate to encumber the ship by taking a great number aboard. We have to let Jase attempt to deal with this.”

“So we spend all effort on this Guild squabble. And this Guild had rather squabble than deal with this foreign ship—after offending it by firing at it, as seems the case. This is hardly reasonable behavior. Have they a reason for confidence we as yet fail to know?”

The world swung around him. The walls did. He found no solid ground.

Dots… marched on a screen. An alien craft. An incursion. An expedition. His mind was trying to form a conclusion.

“Aiji-ma, I don’t know. I have no answers.”

“But will find out. Will find out very soon.”

“I must, aiji-ma.” he said, “but now, aiji-ma, I plead exhaustion, and trust myself and my staff to your resourcefulness, aiji-ma, confident in that, always.”

Dots and light and dark. Flow of events.

The dowager said: “Sabin appointed Tamun.”

Sometimes Ilisidi turned corners and forgot to inform those engaged in arguments with her. But this leap of logic jerked him sideways. Tamun occurred to her.

Tamun, a junior captain, had mutinied against Ramirez, senior captain, when Phoenix had come to the atevi world.

Why, an ateva would ask? What had changed in Tamun’s mind? What was the agenda on which he operated?

That was the cliff on which Ilisidi set him to perch for whatever sleep he could get.

Sabin, not within Ilisidi’s man’chi, remained a question—in Ilisidi’s mind, surely. In his, too. In Jase’s. In no few reasoning individuals’ minds, the more since her communications had gone silent—hers and the majority of the ship’s trained security perso

Had Tamun mutinied over the station mission tape? Over information Ramirez withheld from crew? Had Tamun been outraged crew? Or a Guild agent in the path of command?

“I haven’t forgotten,” he murmured. “I never have forgotten.”

Ilisidi lifted that thin, age-wrought hand. “One would never suppose that what was true when Ramirez left this place is still true here. All things change. Persons fall from power. Persons rise. Agendas change.” A second time Ilisidi waggled her fingers. “An old woman has little to do but think in her isolation, understand. These may be idle fancies. One amuses oneself. But weary as you are, you surely pay little attention to us. Go. Sleep. Rest.”

“Aiji-ma.” He bowed. His wits had taken one final battering. But he thought. Crazed as he was, he found his brain working.

Dicey. Very dicey, he said to himself, tired enough and bemused enough to walk into walls. He took his leave, found the door switch and exited back to the cruel, cold glare of the corridor lights, to alienly human corridors where Cenedi waited, along with Banichi and Jago.