Explorer

“Will they not think of this?” Jago had asked during their pla

They would do something sooner or later, which made the bearer of that key say, quietly, to his companions: “Nadiin-ji, Jase’s key is in my right pocket.” In case he were lying on the floor unconscious or worse.

“One hears, Bren-ji,” Jago said quietly.

Gin simultaneously would make a feint at the fuel port. And Jase’s security meant simultaneously, and for real, to secure the perso

“We’re ready any time, sir,” the pilot said.

“They report themselves ready, nadiin,” he said. Null-g was uncharacteristically making him sick. Or it was raw fear unsettling his stomach.

“Go,” Banichi said in Mosphei’. Just that. Go. Banichi was de facto ru

“Go,” Bren confirmed for the pilot. While Oh, my God , was the whiteout thought that streamed through his head as switches flipped, lights blinked and grapples thumped loose. He hated shooting. He hated being shot at ever so much worse.

Oh, my God . As he seized a grip on the webbing and the light inside the pod went inauspicious red.

They didn’t have a view, but they now had a definite floor—which, after a gentle shove and a deafening rumble like a train on a track, shifted again abruptly. A rail had indeed guided their release. Now they launched free, under full power.

He hadn’t taken firm enough hold. He fought to keep his handhold on the bar, felt his gloved fingers losing his grip; but a strong atevi arm encircled his waist and held him. The floor rotated, began to be back there , the aft bulkhead, such as it was; but his guardian held him fast.

He wasn’t heroic. He was a maker of dictionaries. And he shivered in a cold far more than he’d bargained for. He daren’t muster coherent conversation during this transit in which, baji-naji, his bodyguard had to have other things than inane chatter on their minds—their objective, and getting inside. Getting to that point was all up to Jase’s two men, now, the skill to home this thing in on a moving station and the luck not to get them shot at or smash them to bits on some ante

Gin swore there was a way in. Gin swore this pod could limpet itself to any kind of hatch and establish a secure seal—a seal which still had to be there when they got back from their mission with whatever prize they’d managed to lay hands on. The pod had to be there, or it was going to be embarrassing getting back to the ship—Excuse me, sir, can you point out a corridor which will lead us to the core? We seem to have lost our way…

“It’s working very well, Bren-ji,” Jago said: it was Jago holding him.

“One has every confidence.” His teeth chattered from the cold. They didn’t have suits. They couldn’t use their equipment from suits and suits, even on humans, would say to anyone they met, invader , which wouldn’t help at all. So they took their risk of vacuum, and glided in their pressurized bubble, weightless now, emitting only that pod signal, down into the heart of the damaged station’s ring, and across. It seemed to take forever.

“Barnhart-nadi,” Banichi said.

“Yes.” Passable Ragi, that yes .

“Bren-nandi, say to Barnhart that if we come under fire, he will keep always to your left.”

“Yes,” Bren said, and relayed that vitally important instruction, which effort temporarily kept his teeth from chattering. If Barnhart was to his left, he noted, that put him to Jago’s left—never on his security’s right hand. Not in this.

Not since a certain hillside in Malguri’s district, in the faraway east. Not since the day he’d learned what it was to get afoul of his own security. If he strayed out of order, his security would kill themselves trying to get to him. Their atevi instincts would send them toward him. All pla

But the initial foray was his. All his.

The pod underwent an unpla

But whatever they had had to miss, they had missed. It was Jase’s crew flying this thing. And somewhere—somewhere behind them—above them, relative to station—Jase was not idle. Jase would be talking to Guild authorities, pretending to negotiate the release of Becker and his men, keeping Guild officials as busy as he could. Meanwhile Gin did something involving a far smaller miner craft—while ship’s crew attempted a simple descent to the mast, hard-suited and armed to the teeth in case station had thought it was going to take over that tube and control access to the ship.

It was more than guns that batch would have, however. It would be another batch of brochures, which were by now from Jase’s office to that team’s hands.

The brochures had said, among other things his eye had glossed past, in one desperate glance: Reunion Station is disbanded by order of Captains’ Council .

All station citizens, administrative elements, and crew: boarding is imminent for Alpha Colony, where we have a longstanding, peaceful arrangement with natives of that planet. Expect mutual protection in an atmosphere of cooperation and economic prosperity.

Atevi were in there, buried it in the fine print.

Baggage limit: 20 kilos per adult, 4 kilos per child, dimensions of standard duffle, exceptions granted for uncommon cause. Baggage must be yielded to security on arrival. Weapons must be declared and placed in ship’s armory…

It went on into more specifics for evacuation of medical facilities, for children and elderly, and the use of the safety cable in the tube.

It offered people from deep space and curved metal horizons a sunset on the beach and a ski resort, and one had to recall how Jase, first landing, had had trouble looking at a flat horizon, and nearly lost his supper in a fast-moving vehicle. Among other details, the Council of Captains was locally down to one captain, if Sabin didn’t turn up, and Alpha Colony hadn’t existed for centuries as Alpha Colony, but it was the sort of thing the Reunioners would expect to hear.

The pod underwent more readjustments, then a sudden shove from the engines that taxed even Jago’s strength to hold him. Bren clenched his teeth, trying not to think anything was wrong, trying to think of the brochure, not the arm cutting off his wind.

It went on, and on. What are they doing up front ? he wanted to ask, if he had any air. Are we in trouble ? But he’d long since learned not to chatter at people doing what they had to do, especially if it was going wrong. He clenched his teeth, breathed shallowly, and tried to keep his wits about him.

If somehow some armament didn’t like the firesafe signal the pod emitted, and wanted to blow them to little agitated atoms…

Toby , he’d write, if he had the chance, you won’t believe where I’m going. You won’t believe what we’re doing. What we’re hoping to do. We’re absolutely crazy. There might have been a better plan than this …