Destroyer

Engines kicked.

God, God, God, he hated descent.

Chapter 5

Tires squealed. Bren thought about that unapproved twenty feet of runway and clung, white-knuckled, to the armrest, Jago beside him. He did not grip her arm. He refused to. They’d made it over the mountains. They couldn’t crack up now.

Big reverse thrust. Was that pla

“The short runway,” he breathed, feeling their speed considerably slowed, seeing, on the monitor above the baji-naji emblem, that unlikeliest of sights, the skyline of Jackson beyond the end of the runway.

That skyline. His family. Obligations unsatisfied. Old enemies. The Heritage Party. Gaylord Hanks. Deana.

His mother. His brother, Toby. He hadn’t transmitted the letters. He had them both on his computer.

They reached a stop, still on the runway, but he couldn’t see pavement. He dared draw a whole breath.

“We have arrived,” the pilot said from the cockpit. “Nand’ paidhi, we have need of translation.”

They needed him. Someone needed him. The pilots spoke Mosphei’ enough for routine problems, and had gotten down by means of computers talking to computers, but he immediately had a critical job to do, and he ought to be in the cockpit, if he could get his shaking knees to bear his weight. It felt as if he’d eaten a very heavy meal, or suddenly gained twenty pounds—he probably had gained twenty pounds, being back on Earth. He saw that flat horizon on the screen, and it looked strange to him, after two years. Every horizon was going to go the other way to his eye, possibly disturbing his balance. That, he suddenly realized, was what had felt so strange about the Jackson skyline. It wasn’t a picture on his computer screen. It was real. His body knew it was.

He levered himself out of the seat, walked—walked down the aisle toward the baji-naji emblem, past his fellow passengers gathering their personal items, passed through the cockpit door.

Lofty windshields showed the whole flat earth in front of the shuttle’s nose. He shied from the sight, took an offered com plug from the copilot, stuck it in his ear—it both received, off the bones of his skull, and transmitted, and he heard the accents of his own homeland talking to them, advising them of routine details, the approach of a tow truck, the query whether they’d need any special assistance. They would have to sit still in a period of routine cool-down. Hazmat perso

He relayed. He answered. The shivers attacked him and slowly dissipated in the scurry of various agencies assisting and trying to get the Jackson main runway clear of their presence, because while they sat cooling down, planes were in a holding pattern over Bretano and Sutherland, maybe not even knowing the reason they’d been held up.

He settled down to wait with the crew, translated arrangements for the tow, and balanced on an armrest as the tow moved them off the runway onto a taxiway. Then there were arrangements for the ladder to move in, and advisement a bus would pick them up.

But Mospheiran military security cut in with their own arrangements, and an advisement that the President was waiting for them.

Shawn? Bren found his heart beating harder—anticipation, now, anticipation of a meeting he hadn’t had in years with a man he’d used to deal with, oh, three and four times a day when they’d both been in the State Department.

“I do understand,” he said to them. “Please understand I have the aiji-dowager with me, with her own security, and her grandchild of eight years, never mind he’s as tall as I am, who’s very tired and very stressed and should be given allowances. I’ll inform them as I’m informing you, weapons will be in evidence on both sides, but peaceful intent is understood and expected, in all good will. Please don’t anyone encroach on the dowager’s space, and particularly understand you are dealing with a young boy, no matter how tall he is, and with very protective security. Our security likewise will maintain watch over our baggage. Expect this.”

A hesitation. A slight hesitation.

A new voice. “This is Colonel Brown. We understand your situation. We’re instructed to accommodate atevi customs in all particulars. Come on out as soon as ground ops gives you clearance.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The shuttle ticked and popped and boomed, cooling down. Beside him, the crew were busy checking readouts, making changes on the touch-screens and with the switches, setting everything, presumably, for the shuttle to be shut down and held. It would have to sit, under guard, and it had to remain accessible by the crew, a point he raised with Mospheiran security. It was their only way back to space until they could ascertain what might have happened to the other shuttles grounded on the mainland, with the very survival of equipment, maintenance staff and crew far from certain.

“No problem, sir,” the answer came back. “That’s understood.”

No problem, no problem, no problem. Shawn had given orders and obstacles fell down as soon as they came up. He felt he could draw a breath.

And pay courtesy where it was due.

“Excellent job, nadiin,” he said to the crew. “Thank you. One requests you will come with us wherever they assign us, share quarters with us, and maintain yourselves ready to return to space, as soon as we can clear up the difficulties. The Presidenta’s own men will put a constant watch on the shuttle. You need not worry. I say so in utmost confidence.”

There were respectful nods, quiet acceptance. “One request, nand’ paidhi,” the pilot said, “if it were possible to send regards to our households on the mainland when you cross over.”

“One would be extremely pleased to convey such sentiments,” Bren said fervently. These several young men had been stuck in orbit, away from their own parents, wives, associations, since the trouble had stranded them, while the aishidi’tat underwent a violent upheaval, and, as the only shuttle crew likely current in operations, they would be handed the first mission back to the station once conditions permitted it, a shuttle prepped, what was just as scary, by inexperienced Mospheiran ground crews, unless they were fortunate enough to smuggle atevi maintenance over here. “With my personal regards and I am very sure, with the aiji’s, we will look to your households. One absolutely understands your situation, and I convey the extreme respects of all of us. We will by no means forget you.”

“Nandi.” There were bows, expressions of gratitude, that kurdi word, all around, and he left the cockpit with the sure determination to do something for these men—work some miracle to reward their devotion, their professionalism, their man’chi to the program.

“The Presidenta himself has come to meet us,” Bren reported to the dowager, who, amid the debarcation preparations of her staff, pursed her lips and looked satisfied as well as—dared one surmise what she would never admit—absolutely exhausted?

“Excellent,” she declared. Cajeiri, standing at his seat beside her, looked to be both frayed at the edges and brimming with questions, all of which were desperate, but he asked not a one of them, except, “Shall we go out soon, nand’ Bren?”

“As soon as the hull cools, young sir. We have two constraints: the need to be across the straits quickly, so that our enemies have little time to organize a reception, and the need to gather as much information as possible from sources on Mospheira, who have come here to meet us.” Not only Cajeiri, but the dowager was listening. Ilisidi was patient only because it was her question as much as Cajeiri’s. “One hopes the Presidenta will provide informational files we can take with us. But we must accept the Presidenta’s kind hospitality for the night, to recover our equilibrium on the earth. Walking is not as easy to deal with, as long as we have been in space.”