Explorer

“Nadi-ji.” A little bow. He trusted word was already passing, from them to Asicho, from Asicho to both staffs. Information flowed, swirled about them, a constant bath of attention and preparation.

And he walked calmly toward that other door, bent on testing the waters before he committed their more fragile elements. He rang for admission, as if their guest had any control over his own door, before Banichi reached out to the button and unceremoniously opened it.

Their guest, dressed in Bindanda’s blue bathrobe, met them on his feet, apprehensive, to judge by the rapid pace of the nostril slits. The room smelled of hot pavement.

“Good afternoon,” Bren said in Mosphei’, showing empty hands and making a small bow—aversion of the gaze was a fairly reasonable, though not universal, indication of quiet intent. He laid a hand on his own chest, avoiding a rude stare in this formal meeting, experimenting shyly with eye contact. A glance seemed accepted, maybe expected, though met with a stony stare in a face that held little emotion.

“Bren. Bren is my name.” A flourish of a lace-cuffed hand toward his staff. “Banichi. Jago.” An expectant, hopeful flourish toward their guest.

Who simply turned his back.

Well. There was a communicative gesture.

“Be respectful,” Banichi said in a low voice, in Ragi; but Bren made a quiet, forbidding gesture.

“Have patience, nadiin-ji. His treatment by humans was hardly courteous. It’s a very small defiance. Perhaps even a respectful dispute, in his own terms. Let me see.” He walked over to the corner of the room, gaining at least a view of their guest’s profile, a precarious proximity, though he had Banichi and Jago looming at his left.

“We would like to take you to your ship,” he said quietly, soothingly, to that averted shoulder. “We wish to take the occupants of the station onto this ship and leave this station. We are here to help, not hurt.”

It was a lengthy speech, in Ragi, certainly pure babble to alien ears. But it won a direct gaze, sidelong and, dared one think, perhaps reckoning that that was not the language, and therefore not the culture, he had met before.

“We hope you will be comfortable aboard until we can arrange your return to your ship,” Bren said in a low, talking-to-children tone, still in Ragi. “Narani, the senior director of my staff, has disarranged himself to provide you this comfort, giving you his own bed. Do treat his cabin with respect. He’s a very fine gentleman, and offers you the use of objects which he greatly values.”

A profile, now. A mouth like a vise, a brow that lowered over large eyes to shadow them—not actually an unpleasant face, once one tried earnestly to see the symmetry of it. But Jago had warned him there were very good teeth, and he could see for himself the huge hands, a grasp which had challenged even Banichi’s strength.

“We talked to your ship,” Bren said, this time in ship-speak. He kept the vocabulary small and repetitive and the syntax very basic. “They showed us pictures, how station took you. Your ship says bring you back. We say yes. We leave this station. We take all the people out of this station and go. We want peace with you and this ship.”

Now the full face, as their guest turned to face him—a scowl, was it, or a friendly face in sullen repose? And did turning toward him and meeting his eyes express courteous attention, or defiant insult?

Massive hand went to massive chest. “Prakuyo.”

“Prakuyo.—Bren.” He made a bow: one didn’t hold out an intrusive hand, not with atevi, at first meeting, and not to any foreigner, in his opinion, without knowing the other party’s concept of body space and invasion. On the contrary, he kept his hands to himself and dropped his eyes for a moment, primate respect, before looking up. “Do you understand, Prakuyo? We take you to your ship.”

The jaw remained clenched.

But the eyes darted aside in alarm as a disturbance reached the open door.

A very junior disturbance, as might be, who brought up short and wide-eyed, and who for a moment distracted him, distracted their guest— not , however, Banichi, as Jago alone gave a measured look at the doorway.

One hardly needed guess Cajeiri had escaped the dowager’s party.

“This is the foreigner,” Cajeiri surmised.

“Young lord,” Bren said, now that his pulse rate had slowed, “kindly go back to Cenedi. Immediately.”

“He’s as large as we are,” Cajeiri said, marveling. The heir, highly overstimulated by the situation and long bored, was being a seven-year-old brat.

“Go,” Jago said, just that, and the boy ducked back out of sight.

“Pardon. He’s a child,” Bren said calmly, as their guest continued to gaze at the vacant doorway—as if, next, fairies and unicorns could manifest. Interesting, Bren thought. Even encouraging. “This room is in our ship. We live here. This is not a prison.”

Prakuyo, if that was his name, turned a burning look his way.

“Do you understand?” Bren asked him. “Six years on the station—I think you might have learned good morning, hello, goodbye .”

“Damn dumb shit,” Prakuyo muttered, in a voice that sounded like rocks hitting together.

Had he just heard that? Damn dumb shit .

Yes, he had heard that. So much for good morning, good afternoon and other station attempts to establish communication.

“ Thank you,” Bren said all the same, and made a bow. “Go home . Does that make sense?”

“Madison.” It wasn’t a particularly happy tone.

“Do you want Madison?” Bren asked. That was the person who’d been in charge in that prison. He laid a hand on his own chest. “Bren, not Madison. I don’t know Madison. I make the law here. Do you want Madison?”

“Madison.” Prakuyo hit fist into palm, not a good indicator for Madison.

“Bren,” he said, laying a hand on his chest. “Thank you.” Another bow. And the paidhi-aiji, in a sense of timing that had served well enough among atevi, made a wide decision—that even a small advance in communication had to be rewarded, that body language and cooperation indicated they dared run the risk of a boy not being where he was supposed to turn up. He recklessly indicated the door and trusted his staff together could flatten their guest, if they had to. “Come, Prakuyo. Walk with me. Outside.”

That upset their guest’s sense of the universe. Nostrils worked hard. Need for more oxygen was a basic biological preface to high action, one could take that for a fair guess, but it could also accompany decision. Bren walked easily, cheerfully, to the door, bowed his courtly best and made a clear gesture of invitation outward—spying, in the process, a clear corridor.

Their guest advanced to the door. And ventured out. Bren showed him the way down the corridor, walking with him, Banichi and Jago a little behind.

“We live in these rooms,” Bren said, gesturing left and right, prattling on mostly to keep the tone easy as they walked. “My companions are atevi. I’m human. Not station-human. I live on this ship. What are you, Prakuyo?”

He got no answer to that attempt, not the dimmest hint of understanding. Prakuyo lumbered slowly forward, with heavy swings of his head and shifts of dark, large eyes, taking in every detail of a corridor Narani had done his best to render kabiu and harmonious. Certainly it had to be better to alien eyes than the sterile prison section: a little table, a few hangings… one hanging, to be sure, harmonizing the troublesome dent.

“Come in,” Bren said, showing their guest through the door into their dining hall.

Again, not ship-bland. Atevi-scale chairs sat around a large table. A tapestry ru