Explorer

Therein the paidhi had no usefulness at all, having only the most rudimentary notion how to get into an electronic lock or how to defeat security closure on a section door… the paidhi only hoped to lie down in his own quarters, draw a few slow breaths, and perhaps to catch one of those hours of sleep he’d lost.

Prospect of a rash intrusion onto station and the presence of station agents aboard, however inclined to change their views—that didn’t make for restful thoughts. Banichi could sleep anywhere, on cue. He didn’t have that skill.

And what if he dropped a stitch, and they ran into a trap?

What if they were killed attempting this, and the ship had to do without him, and explain matters to that alien craft—explain they’d tried, and explain to an angry and mistrustful set of strangers enough plausible excuses to gain the ship’s release?

Sleep evaporated. He got up, found paper and pen in his desk, and began sketching, in their dot-pattern code, an explanation of their mission. Of—grim thought—mission failure. Of request for a meeting with ship’s perso

More dot-patterns: the ship taking on passengers. The ship mining the area for fuel. The ship leaving the system. The ship conducting talks with the alien craft. The ship engaging in trade—a closeness they never sought, but might have to have.

Trying to imagine all the contingencies Jase might have to deal with, trying to reach across space and time to gather every stray possibility, was a curious enterprise. He tried to think of things. He tried to create a basic vocabulary of interactions: communicating the difference between coming and going to a foreigner who shared one’s planet was hard enough. Communicating that useful distinction to a species that might only have a single word for movement or that might have a dozen more specific words—or, God help them, communicate in something other than nouns and verbs—was no walk on the beach. Go and come, give and get, infelicitous pairs of concepts that had distressed atevi at first glance, for no reason at all to human senses, and disturbing all sense of balance in atevi nerves. Fingernails on a blackboard, continual and unintended in all early efforts.

But civilized entities—if one had a right to expect any behavior out of a species that had gotten off its own planet—ought to have some concept that the universe was wide, that differences were likely, and that shooting as a first response would ultimately lead one to ruin.

Human and atevi together, he said in his dots. Human and atevi making agreements, taking this voyage, rescuing people from station. Human and atevi together meeting alien species in peace.

He tried.

He wrote a note to Tabini: Aiji-ma, I am undertaking a mission aboard the station which involves risk, but which I have persuaded my bodyguard is necessary. Should this account cease, I have misjudged my abilities and apologize .

To his brother: Toby, the station has an alien prisoner we’ve got to pry out of there, and since the captain took all the security with her, atevi security is going to have to do this job, and they can’t do it without someone to translate instructions. I’m the one that can do that. Jase would probably volunteer, but he’s got to get this ship home, so there we are. If this letter ends here, it didn’t work as well as I hoped. Love you, brother .

To his staff, a paper note: Thank you for the comfort you have provided. Should this mission fail, take all my effects to Jase, and then pursue your own man’chi .

To Jase. Who would know where to bestow various letters, Give the dowager a copy of everything, and a translation where appropriate. If you get this, my last idea was a bad one. What more can I say? You’re my other brother. I’d say something to embarrass us both, but I’m hoping like everything I get to erase this bit .

He sent the dot-code up to Kaplan, by Jeladi and one of Gin’s engineers, with instructions not to wake Jase, if Jase had gotten to sleep.

Then he undressed to sleep, that most elusive of chances, feeling the sheets against his skin, watching through slit eyes the living green curtain of Sandra Johnson’s plants—it always amazed him, how the plants grew during their transits, as if they were mad to live, mad to survive. Or took some benefit from what reduced the wits of mobile creatures. He watched the air from the duct stir the streamers and the leaves, artificial wind in a steel world. Fluid moved in their veins and simple light and nutrients let their cells divide. A wondrous invention of planets.

So were they.

So was that other packet of life that met out here, this far from other living cells. And they wanted to shoot one another? Unacceptable. Entirely unacceptable. The lord of the heavens refused to take that answer.

In that light, the whole universe seemed surreal, beyond easy belief, relative to those gently moving fronds. One reality wasn’t the other, and one found it distractingly easy to slip into that green world. Here, a stubborn set of human beings, and maybe some alien hard-heads as well, had made a botch of what should have been a simple situation—oh, hello. Anyone home?

Your estate? Do excuse me. I didn’t realize I’d crossed your boundary. And: Are you a neighbor or a traveler? Do step in for tea.

Well, the dowager had done that, and half-killed him. But he never believed that was an accident, and the dowager knew, and he knew, and on that basis they got along in ways that astonished the dowager’s enemies, and his. God, he loved her.

Life itself. Dared one think that in this void where life was rare, life was bond enough, that a couple of reasonable entities might say they’d had their encounter, they both understood the limits, and could get along?

He actually slept. He realized that when he waked and felt Jago stir—he’d never felt her arrival. He’d slept so hard that getting his wits about him again required a few breaths, then a search for bits and pieces of the plan they’d made and what he had to do.

He had to call up and find out Jase’s situation, and whether Jase approved. That was at the head of the list. But he hesitated to move, knowing he’d wake Jago at his stealthy best. So he lay there and rehearsed plans until she stirred.

“Good morning,” he said—no endearments to confuse the issue. Jago would only brush them off with: We have business, Bren-ji.

So they did. And a light was blinking on the message center. He dragged his dressing-robe about him and punched the button for a recorded message.

“ Bren .” Jase’s voice. “ I understand your reasoning. All of you — if you need anything — ask. I’ve sent down the text for the fliers. I’ve sent down a key. My key. Note — I’ve searched the premises and can’t turn up Sabin’s or Ramirez’s, and I did it with my key. So either I don’t know where to look or Ramirez’s key is with Sabin or with Ogun. I’m approving Gin’s move and yours, and moving our own perso