Explorer

“Yes,” Banichi said, which took one crisis off the paidhi’s mind.

“One will be grateful if you take it as a first priority,” he said, as the lift reached five-deck and the door opened. “Barnhart. Owe you a drink.”

“I’ll collect,” Barnhart said, and went off his direction, toward the Mospheiran domain, Bren and his bloodstained band went straight on, to request entry—which came before they could so much as signal: thank Asicho for that.

“Nandi.” Respects, from Ilisidi’s guards.

He acknowledged the courtesy and kept walking briskly, intending to deliver most of his company to the dowager’s staff, to the dowager’s staff medic, intending to have that bath, too, before he thought about the problems of the alien ship.

A brief stop at the security station, where Asicho, one of Gin’s men and one of Ilisidi’s all sat duty: “Nadiin-ji, we are all back aboard, mission accomplished.” They would have heard everything he said to Jase. “We shall want the doctor as soon as possible. Kindly tell the staff not to divert itself from care of our guest.”

“Yes,” Asicho said; and he kept walking, trying to hammer his wits into an utterly different mode of operation.

He hoped not to be noticed as he passed the dining hall. He wanted no explanations until he was clean again, and until he and the rest of his staff could shed the firearms and the bag of explosives and such.

But as he passed, he saw the dining hall ominously dimmed, and heard—

Heard vigorous applause, and muted cheers, and lively music.

He slipped in the door, appalled to find a ring of atevi, including the dowager’s security, and his staff, Cajeiri—that was no surprise—and their guest—and the dowager herself. On the screen, in black and white, a cartoon mouse eluded a cartoon cat.

A fishbowl tottered, sloshed, and Cajeiri shouted a warning, pointing out the obvious danger to cartoon protagonists, as cat and mouse darted this way and that in an elemental antagonism i

Now… with their lives hanging in the balance…

A chair went over. Draperies went down. To the dowager’s evident misgiving and Cajeiri’s and Prakuyo’s collective delight.

But by now staff had seen him or heard him, prompting uneasy glances back.

Staff stood up. The dowager looked at him expectantly. And Narani brought up the lights.

Solemn faces, concern. Prakuyo stood up. So did Cajeiri. Only the dowager stayed seated, hands clasped on her staff.

Bren gave a solemn bow. “Nand’ dowager, nandi—” A bow for Prakuyo. None for boys. “Success aboard the station. We are now bringing the people aboard. The security staff is intact, except a minor injury. Prakuyo-nadi—” Change of languages, and a second bow. “Your ship speaks to us. It is coming.”

“Ship. Prakuyo ship. Coming.” Anxiety was evident, in every line of Prakuyo’s stance.

A bow. Agreement. “Yes.” A hand-motion. “Coming to us. I go wash.”

“Wash, yes.” Perhaps it was a mad notion. But Prakuyo bowed, apparently in complete agreement with such a crazed proposition. Or he smelled that bad.

He bowed a third time, shaky in the knees. “Dowager-ji, one is grateful for your staff and your assistance.” On which, at a little nod from Ilisidi, he walked out into the corridor, wondering if the knees were going to hold out as far as his own quarters.

He was pursued, however: Narani and Bindanda arrived on his heels, and saw him into his quarters, and began at once fussing with his jacket, and the shirt, and the boots, and the sweaty pigtail.

He shed the rest and showered, a quick, steam-filled warmth that began to warm him from the outside in, that soaked his hair, and took the stench of gas out of his nose, and soothed a throat he’d been too numb to realize was sore. He coughed, and blew water, and came out before the dry-cycle had had half enough time, but Bindanda met him with a towel, and rubbed life into him, and threw a robe about him—

He had communication. Thanks to the other residents of five-deck, he seemed to have Prakuyo’s good will—an understanding, at least, of benevolent intent.

He didn’t take for granted that would override cultural or biological imperatives or save their collective necks from political policy.

And the dawn of reasonable worry told him that hot water had brought the brain online.

One more change of clothing, as freshly pressed as any morning in Shejidan, court casual, as he thought of it—not good enough for high meetings, but perfectly adequate for bureaucrats and offices.

It brought shoulders back and head up, or one cut one’s throat on the lace.

“How is Banichi, Rani-ji?” That worry was with him, too, and he was sure word had flowed through the staff, what they had done, who was where, what was going on outside: he was sure, despite the scene he had met in the dining hall, that no one on five-deck but Cajeiri and Prakuyo had done anything but follow every word Asicho could gather.

“He is with the dowager’s physician at the moment, nandi. So is Jago.”

“Is she hurt?”

“A minor injury, nandi. So with two of the dowager’s bodyguard. But none life-threatening.”

Damn, he thought, with a heavy heartbeat and a sting behind the eyes. Damn ! that, he hadn’t seen. They’d fooled him all the way back to the ship. And he couldn’t take them all off duty and stand over them until they mended.

He pinched the bridge of his nose until the stinging stopped and tried to get his wits about him—back to work, back to work, fast. They weren’t safe. They wouldn’t be safe until they’d put Prakuyo where he belonged and this solar system behind them.

And meanwhile the sound one expected when traveling about the ship had never stopped, the lift system whining and opening and closing doors, cycling cars back and forth, back and forth, with the wholesale energy of a factory.

Four-deck was coming to life as if there had never been a glitch in their plans. Crew, variously occupied through the voyage, was in high gear, settling in newcomers, instructing them not to leave objects loose, not to take a leaky tap for granted, and how to read the various sirens and bells that advised crew about the ship’s behavior.

As if they had their fuel and were ready to leave.

He thanked his staff and went back to the dining hall, where the lights were up; where—strangely or not—he heard the whirr of small wheels before he darkened the door.

Not all Cajeiri’s cars had met an untimely end.

His security sat at one side of the room with their guest, the dowager sat at the other with Cenedi and one of his men, and Cajeiri—Cajeiri entertained the company with his toy.

Prakuyo, however, paced the room, a lumbering slow pace, but a pace… anxious. Knowing there was news.

“Prakuyo-ji,” Bren said with a little bow. The car stopped.

“Well?” Ilisidi asked him. “Are we making progress?”

Bren bowed. “Indeed, nand’ dowager. We are. Fuel is on the horizon. Gin-nadi is investigating that.”

“One prefers it in this ship,” Ilisidi said sharply, and waved her hand. “This person has been inconvenienced. So have we all, by this Braddock-aiji .”

“Gone, aiji-ma. At least in retreat. And far less of an inconvenience.”

“Jenrette is dead.”

“Yes, aiji-ma.” A second bow, to Prakuyo, who waited anxiously. “Prakuyo-nadi. One is very glad to see you at your ease.”

The Ragi might have been ancient Greek. But Prakuyo rocked forward, a sort of a bow of his own, carefully imitated. “Bren-ji.”

“One is amazed,” Bren said, not without a glance at the dowager, who sat smugly in possession of all news on five-deck.

“The children’s language,” the dowager said, rising, leaning on her cane, “seems particularly useful, lacking numerical precision. And he is very quick.”

“ Association ,” Prakuyo said energetically in Ragi, and indicated Cajeiri and the dowager and Cenedi, and him. “Association. Associates. Associates. You, you, you.”