Explorer

Jase was here. He murmured a response and walked ahead, Kaplan and Polano attending. Jase was here to meet him, maybe for a conference without a great number of witnesses.

Chapter 12

Jase waited, beyond the immediate area, short of sleep and ru

Jase, however, had settled a strong veneer of civilization clamped atop his temper these days—most times.

“What is this?” In ship-speak, and referring, by the glance, to the picnic basket.

“Breakfast,” Bren said. “A good breakfast, nadi, to put anyone in a better mood. Want to join me?”

Jase stared at him bleakly. Then the expression slowly changed, as thought penetrated past the anger.

“Not one of the dowager’s dishes, one hopes, nadi. We need these people able to talk.”

“No, no, perfectly acceptable and human-compatible. Word of honor. What’s going on?”

“Oh, besides the hourly calls from Guild Headquarters informing us they’re not happy, medical says we have a bug.”

“A bug.” Bren set the basket down a moment, dug in his pocket and produced the hard fruit candies, remembering that Kaplan and Polano were very fond of them. He gave them each one, under Jase’s burning gaze. And offered one to Jase. Calm down, he was saying. Have a candy. Communicate.

It got him another of Jase’s stares. A decade ago, when they’d shared quarters, a cavalier confrontation with Jase’s temper would have gotten a three-day silence. But in stony silence Jase took one. Studiously considered the wrapper. “An internal bug. I said not to go after it yet.” He changed to Ragi. “One is a

“An internal bug. A location device?”

“Communications.” Jase tapped his head, behind the ear. “Clever piece of work. Chemo charging. Never goes dead, well, not until the body quits. Medical does thinks it can’t transmit far without the electronics in the armor. Possibly it’s recording. Maybe saving stuff to transmit at opportunity.”

“Lovely. All of them?”

“Team leader,” Jase said. “Becker.” Jase had partially unwrapped the candy. Then, changing his mind, he replaced the wrapper and pocketed the sweet. “They’ll be nervous about eating anything. Manmade bugs. All sorts of nastiness is possible. No telling what they’ve dug out of the Archive.”

It hadn’t been a technology the ship had used… among family. One could perceive, at least, the emotional outrage, the absolute outrage of a ship that was family. That had set family aboard this station at its founding.

“Bad.”

“That’s not the whole issue, Bren. If we get Sabin back—if we get any of that team back—”

Definitely bad.

“We can find them,” Jase said, “the way we found this one. It’s not a worry, per se, with Becker, but just so you know.”

“I’ve got the picture,” Bren said, and picked up his basket. “Has anyone informed Becker?”

“No. Oh, and the other news? We’ve spotted what we think are gun emplacements, down by the fuel port.”

“It’s not unreasonable they’d defend the fuel supply.”

“From us?”

“Banichi’s saying… we could take this station.”

Startled laughter. “He’s serious.”

“He’s always serious. I haven’t said yes.”

Jase drew a deep breath.

“If we don’t move soon,” Bren said, “the likelihood mounts that something will go wrong involving that outlying ship. I want to know how stationers will react to foreigners. These people. Becker, Esan and the rest. Have we got to give them back?”

“As far as I’m concerned, they’re boarded for the voyage. Tell them anything you like. Do anything you like. They’re in your hands. Oh, and the key they threatened us with? Bluffing. It wasn’t a builder’s key. Potent, but ours still outranks what they’d give to a mid-level agent.”

“Interesting.” It was. And the little bow, when they switched to Ragi, was automatic as breathing. “One urges you rest, Jasi-ji. You entrust this to me— trust it to me.”

“One will most earnestly try,” Jase said wearily, shoulders sagging. “Baji-naji.”

Given the random flex in the universe. And Jase gave a little wave of the hand and left him in charge, Kaplan attempting to follow his captain out toward the lift.

Jase sent Kaplan back, however. So there they were. He had Jase’s guards at the moment. Jase, if things stayed stable an hour, might have a little time to draw breath.

“Where are they?”

“This way, sir,” Kaplan said, and led the way.

On a ship hundreds of years inbred and all to some degree related, there wasn’t a proper security confinement. The ship had improvised. They had their four outsider problems confined in a med-tech’s cabin with an oversized plastic grid bolted on for a door and the inside door to the bath locked open—no privacy, no amenities, no sliding door. A few plain plastic chairs provided ease for the crewmen sitting in charge, and the section doors at either end of this stretch of corridor were shut.

Bren walked to the plastic-grid doorway. There was a bunk, seating for two glum men, two others on the floor—chairs not being provided either. The men looked at him, not happy, but not outright belligerent.

“Brought up breakfast,” Bren said cheerfully, and then recalled Esan knew him as one of the cook’s aides. “Cook’s compliments.”

“We’re not touching it.” That from the gray-haired senior, Becker, that would be. The one with the bug.

“Oh, that’d be too bad,” Bren said, and set the basket down and took the lid off one of the fragrant sauces. Which reminded his own stomach he’d been on long hours and little food. “But if you won’t eat it, guess we can. Kaplan. Polano. Join me?”

Kaplan and Polano took him up on it without a word. They leaned near, took small plastic plates out of the picnic basket, and started unpacking food and passing shares to the crewman guards as well.

“Offer still stands,” Bren said, past a first sip of fruit drink. “There’s quite a bit here.”

“Hell,” Becker said, sounding less certain. Bet that Guild enforcers ate as well as any tech on the station. But none of these station-bound folk would have met the smells that wafted up from the packets.

“Want some?” Bren shoved the box over against the grid. “You can pick which.”

Becker moved. The others bought the offer and they all came over and scrounged, hands through the largish grid squares, for likely packets. Plates, however, didn’t fit through the grid, and some of Bindanda’s neat packets took a beating. Their detainees were hungry. They tasted the sauces on fingertips, licked it off, tried small spoonfuls of it, clearly finding the flavors strong and provocative.

“Captain says don’t worry about bugs,” Bren said after they’d had a few bites. “The ship is family. It doesn’t use such things. I suppose it’s different on the station.”

No answer. The finger-tasting had paused, dead still in the cell for a moment, then resumed, with baleful looks.

“Medical said one of you has an imbedded bug,” Bren volunteered. “They wondered if you knew.”

No answer.

“Somebody named Becker,” Bren said, in his best effort at ship-accent. “What I heard.”

The senior stopped eating and looked as if the food suddenly didn’t agree as well. The others stopped in growing uncertainty.

“Just what I heard,” Bren reiterated with a shrug. “Don’t know for a fact, but they said it’s up here.” He touched behind his ear. “I can assure you with transmission jammed, it’s not going to do anything. Medics were thinking about taking it out, but that’s sort of like brain surgery, so I guess they thought not.”