Explorer

Hope that, meanwhile, station hadn’t taken a rash potshot at the advancing ship. One recalled that slagged station surface. A, one didn’t want to destroy an alien craft and have that to explain to the next ship that came asking, and, B, one didn’t want to damage that alien craft and have them retaliate at everything in their gunsights. Which meant getting present decision-makers away from the fire button in station Central, and hoping nothing they did put i

He had an argument coming with Banichi and Jago, and he hated to dispute them—but assuredly he would. He was going with them. He had to. Couldn’t see them forced to shoot it out with scared, mostly i

He entered the atevi section. “The dowager, nandi, is still with the foreigner,” Ilisidi’s guard at that post advised him.

“Thank you, nadi,” he answered, hardly pausing, all the while trying to figure how, in addition to other troubles, he was going to explain the situation to Prakuyo… or if he should explain, at all. Leave matters as they were, he thought on his way to the security post. Explain nothing. Hope that all explanation in Prakuyo’s case became extremely simple: The station is cooperating. We have fuel. We shall take you to your ship. Let us leave now. Goodbye. Good luck .

God, if only it could be that easy.

He reached the security post. Asicho shared the boards with one of Ilisidi’s men. Banichi and Jago were there waiting for him. With their fighting gear and their black bag. That fast.

“We have understood,” Banichi said, “Bren-ji.”

“Gin-aiji will send Barnhart,” Jago said. “We are ready. The aiji-dowager will see to matters here. Staff will attend our guest.”

A negotiator braced for argument hardly knew what to do at that point.

“I have to change coats,” he said.

A quick change, down to the skin, and back to station-style clothes. He was wearing out his wardrobe in a day.

He added the gas-mask, a rolled collar about his neck. Back came his gun, too: “One hopes not to need it, nandi.”

“One heartily agrees, Rani-ji.” He had the precious key in hand, and transferred it carefully to a zippered pocket, to be doubly sure. He made a fast check of the handheld unit Jase had lent him and saw the slow-moving dialogue of yes-no, black-white, off-on images proceeding, while communication with the station—God only knew. He had his pocket com. He didn’t want to attempt using the unfamiliar handheld for voice communication. “Bren Cameron, for Captain Graham,” he said to C1, and immediately had Jase on.

“Change of coats and we’re ready to move,” he reported to Jase. “Our plan is set. Banichi and Jago will brief me on the map in a few minutes. How is Gin?”

“ Says she’s prepping the suit. We want to do this about simultaneously. You’re going to have to hold up and wait for her. ”

“That’s all right. I’m not eager for this. Our guest, by the way, is enjoying dessert. He can out-consume Banichi. They hadn’t fed him enough. Or the right things.”

“ Ship cuisine benefited greatly from Bindanda’s influence ,” Jase said quietly, and said something aside from the com, then: “ If things get dicey, I’m thinking of putting our guest on com, let him talk to that ship. Good idea or bad ?”

“Could be a good idea. We don’t know what he might promise them or encourage them to do, that’s the situation. Not a good idea they move into line of the station’s guns. He speaks a few words, Jase. Not many, but at least a few. Maybe you could get him to follow a diagram, maybe you could show him where the guns are and let him explain the situation.”

“ God knows what they’d understand the situation is between us and station ,” Jase said. “ I’d like to control communications better than that. We don’t know but what he’d say come in and get me .”

“You’re probably right,” Bren said. “Listen, I’ll handle it when I get back. See you.” Gallows bravado, as he clicked off. It was increasingly dawning on him that this was the craziest thing he’d ever done—fueled by the optimism of a little dive into the lightly watched perimeter of the station, where, in a uniform society, nobody was expecting a security breach. Now they were expecting it—well, they’d be expecting it by the time they noticed their doors weren’t locking. This was the high stakes move. The very high stakes. Control of the whole station. Most important, stopping the station from taking a shot at that ship.

And, along with that, right at the top of their list: blowing the Archive. Preventing the whole cultural works of the human species from becoming a prize of war.

“Our guest is enjoying another dessert,” Narani informed him, “and greatly appreciates the fruit pie.”

“Excellent. One has great confidence in the staff. And in your resourcefulness, Rani-ji.” The whole rest of the staff was hovering about the dining hall, being sure nothing untoward happened—their collective strength surely enough to subdue their guest and rescue the dowager and Cajeiri, if needed.

Fruit pie hardly sounded like discontent or dispute, except the sugar high of all those tea cakes.

He patted the gun and the key a second time, then gave a little bow. “One hopes to be home for breakfast.”

“Nandi,” Narani said with a little bow of his own, and let him out the door, down to security where Banichi and Jago were in preparations, giving last-moment information. Barnhart was there, hands in coat pockets, heavy cold-boots on his feet, gas mask tucked down at his collar—certainly not the sort of gear one wore in one’s office.

“Thanks for coming,” Bren said, and held out a hand, Mospheiran-style handshake. “We’re on a rush move here. I trust you know about the ship moving in. I appreciate the backup.”

“No question,” Barnhart said.

They were ready.

Chapter 18

The lift had begun to work overtime, cars rigidly locked on their task, shuttling back and around from the forward airlock to the decks above—specifically to three- and four-deck, where common crew by now must have spread out in sections to assign cabins and see that station-born residents obeyed stowage, that they understood the movement rules, the alarms, and the plumbing and the area restrictions—crew that made themselves living rulebooks, because human beings under stress didn’t reliably absorb labels and lists. The ship had laid out and rehearsed all the plans during their voyage. They’d held weekly drills, such that Bren had a very clear i

Their clerk might have run to his office, called his wife and said, simply, Pack; the ship will take us to Alpha, and a wife might have called a mother who called a father, who called his second daughter at work, and that daughter called her husband, who called his sister and her teen-aged kids: human relations went like that, and if people really believed his promise that the brochures were a boarding pass—then God save them, he thought. They were naive, they were i

This time there might be shooting. There was likely to be.