Explorer

Jase stared at him. Outright stared. Maybe took an internal moment to translate that twice. But Jase had been in Shejidan, and knew the atevi court, and the use of daggers and plots. The paidhi-aiji was steeped in that culture. And at a pinch, could more than think in Ragi.

“The full range of alternatives,” Bren said, again in Ragi. And in Mosphei’: “A question. Merely a question.”

“Too much unknown,” Jase said in Ragi. And in ship-speak: “And I’m human, and I’m holding a bomb, in this record. And I respect Sabin. I do respect her. I didn’t start this voyage that way, but I do.”

“Granted. Not incompatible considerations.”

Maybe Jase needed a dose of Ragi. Maybe he added, not subtracted, possibilities and solutions. But it remained an uncomfortable situation.

“You respected Ramirez,” Bren reminded him, in Ragi.

“And by all you say, nadi, who knows? Maybe he was about to execute the plan you used to think he had. He released the Archive to the planet. He wasn’t that worried about contamination. Or he’d reconciled himself to us. Maybe he really did refuel the ship as a defense. He pla

Worth considering, at least. Jase steepled his hands, thinking, and thinking. “He deployed me, and Yolanda.”

“Yet put you back in space, but not her.”

“It’s a damned circle, Bren. Everything runs in a circle.”

“He wasn’t getting any younger. The Tamun blow-up took his health. He didn’t plan, perhaps, to be overheard in what he told you.”

“About the Great Lie? Betraying the Guild?”

“I’m betting, though,” Bren said, “that at least by then, the other captains knew what had happened back at Reunion. It would have been irresponsible of him to know there was a Guild authority surviving out here in that critical situation, and not to tell those who’d succeed him. He was dying and told you the biggest secret aboard to make you equal to them. And maybe he wanted to know, for one thing, how you’d take it. And whether you forgave him.”

“Emotional answers. Not logical ones.”

“The man was dying. At that point, maybe emotional answers mattered.”

“Wanting me to make the decision? Me, but not Yolanda? Damn it all!”

“And Ogun. And Sabin. It would be their decision, too, when he was out of the picture.”

“I’d be the deciding vote. Damn him!”

“If they split. As they didn’t.”

“Most days I forgive him. I suppose I forgive him. I suppose we’re doing the right thing in coming out here. And if we show up and the Guild does what’s ultimately sensible, and boards the ship, and take orders, so many things will become moot. But by all I know about what’s happened in the past—I don’t think that’s highly likely.”

“I never thought it was all that likely, where the Guild is concerned. If they’d wanted to leave Reunion, they’d have left, wouldn’t they? But they’ve had nine years now to get worse off—or better. If they’re stronger and more recalcitrant, we may have decisions to make.”

“Sabin’s going to decide those issues. That’s the fact I can’t change.”

“Crew may decide,” Bren said. “And you have that tape.”

“I’ll confess,” Jase said, “I’ve had it for the last month.”

“Not surprising you’d think about it before showing it to me.”

“I’m out of time for thinking. I had to show it to you. We’re coming up on the last move.”

Last move.

“Before Reunion.”

“This next one I really think will put us there.”

A small i

“Space is lumpy,” Jase said.

“All that. But I still don’t like to hear I guess from the navigators.”

“Or from your partner in this mess?”

“Some things you can’t figure with a computer. Jase, we’ll make it. We do what we’ll do when we get there. It’s all we can do at the moment, but we just plot alternate positions, if it doesn’t work. Same as I suppose your navigators do. Which is why I think you called me here.”

Jase gave a wry, one-sided smile. Started the tape moving again. On the screen, the exploration reached a corner.

“The fact is,” Jase said, “the one reconciling fact, in all the Old Man pla

Then the record ended. Stopped.

“That’s it?”Bren asked.

“That’s it,” Jase said. “That’s all we have. It’s absolutely not regulation that the tape stops like that. It’s very much against regulations. And maybe Sabin knows what happened next and maybe she doesn’t, but certainly, based on that tape, you and I don’t. And that’s the other reason I wanted to talk to you. You’re the diplomat. My outrageous instinct says have the inevitable confrontation with Sabin about this tape right now, before we get to Reunion Station. Tell her what I know, what I suspect, all the structure of tissue and moonbeams. If it’s going to blow up, let it blow and let’s talk about the ship’s great secret, and Ramirez’s crazy ideas, and settle it before we have another crisis on us. Let me add a fact to keep between you and me. We’ve run with a little excess of fuel, ship’s rule. Enough fuel reserve to get out to a place we know if things aren’t optimum or if the Guild tries to take us. If Sabin’s disposed to do it—she can get us away from Reunion. The name of the place is Gamma. And you’re right—I can order that, if Sabin is in some way incapacitated. There are resources there. It would take us years, but we’d get home that way. On the other course, if we do go into Reunion, and dock, and open the hatch—by then we’re dealing with somebody else, with Sabin involved, with people she’ll know and I won’t—who are going to outright outnumber us. Not to mention the crew may be in a very foul mood, once the truth starts coming out. As it still may. If they start talking to remote cousins and the stray mourned-for-dead uncle, all sorts of truth is going to come out, this time.”

“You’re the number two captain,” Bren reiterated. “You decide what to do. You always had the authority to go after that log record. A little more questionable extension of authority, I suppose, that you show it to me. More, to show it to the crew. But by Ramirez’s decision and Ogun’s concurring vote, you are the number two captain. So I’d think you do have that authority to break this secret wide open—if you choose. It’s your watch. Isn’t it?”

“Clearly my watch. And the burning question still remains—what else do we do with it?”