Chapter Eight

« ^ »

It wasn’t enough sleep before Gin came across the corridor. “I hate to wake you,” Gin said—the door opening had already roused Banichi and Jago, who had sorted themselves out and got up immediately. Bren found a harder time locating his wits, but he straightened the chair and set his feet on the floor.

“Sabin’s talking to the station,” Gin said. “They’re asking questions like what did we just do out there with the alien? What took us ten years getting here? Sabin’s stonewalling them. Says since they didn’t help out with the alien confrontation, she sees no reason to talk to them about what we said until she gets there.”

There might have been a better answer, but he couldn’t think of one yet. It certainly set the tone between ship and Guild. He was very much concerned about Sabin’s short fuse, and Jase’s, not inconsiderable, both of them running on no sleep whatsoever.

“I’m going,” he said, standing up, and, too incoherent to explain his wants, held out his hand for the earpiece. She gave it to him, and he stuck it in, immediately hearing the minor traffic of the consoles. “They haven’t changed shifts.”

“No. Overdue, but she’s keeping her own people on. I think she’s getting just a little punchy, if you want the brutal truth.”

“What’s our ETA?”

“Not sure. About an hour. We’re headed for the slope.”

A lot like skidding on ice. That was how he conceptualized maneuvering in space. Sometimes you were facing one way and going another, and if you got onto a gravity slope you slid very damned fast, accelerating without doing a thing. He could almost understand Sabin’s viewpoint: she hated planets, wasn’t fond of stars, didn’t at all mind the dark, empty deeps.

Reunion was situated high up on a gravity slope. Stations had to be. And a station was a scary place to navigate, so he gathered. High toehold above a deep plunge. Like wi’itikin coming in for a cliffside perch, a lot of tricky figuring best done by computer brains, humans not having the wi’itikin’s innate sense—or wings, if something went wrong.

He was fogged. He managed a thank you to Gin.

“Ignore them,” he heard Sabin say to someone. “I’m busy. They can rant all they like.”

Sounded like high time he got to the bridge. “Go rest,” he said to Gin, and headed out the office door with Banichi and Jago in close attendance. His face prickled. He wished he’d thought to bring his shaving kit topside. He’d foolishly believed the dowager’s sack lunch was excessive.

The bridge looked no different than when he’d left. Those at work took no special note of his return.

Jase, however, walked over to him as he stopped to survey the scene.

“How’s it been?” Bren asked.

“Station’s not pleased with us,” Jase said. “Senior captain’s not cooperating with them. They want us to do a hard grapple at nadir of the mast. We won’t. Fueling port’s zenith. That’s where we’re going.”

“They want us away from it. That’s not encouraging.”

“The fuss is,” Jase said. And held a little silence with a glance across the bridge at Sabin, who wasn’t looking at them. He gave a hand-sign, the sort that Banichi’s and Jago’s Guild exchanged on mission. It was a warning. “Angry,” he said in Ragi. “Overdue for rest. I lack the skill to bring us in, and I lack the rank to argue with the Guild. Which she is doing.”

That was good news. “I need your advice in what’s coming. I need you sane and rested. Is there any reason you can’t go off-duty and take an hour?”

“She won’t. I won’t.”

“What are we? Kids in a schoolyard, egging each other on? Take a break, Jase. If she won’t use common sense, at least you’ll be sane.”

Jase shook his head. “She’s pushing herself. She won’t trust me to handle the smallest things. And if I want her to pay attention to my advice over the next handful of hours, I can’t fold, now, can I?” They were old friends, and there was adamancy, but not anger, in the argument. “And matters are too critical right now to worry about my state of mind or the fact my back’s killing me. We’re dealing with the Guild. You want non-reason in high places? We’re dealing with it.”

“What do you read in them?”

“I’m not the expert.”

“In ship-culture, in Guild mentality—you very much are.” He changed to Ragi. “Your professional opinion, ship-paidhi.”

Rapid blinks—total change of mental wiring. Moment of mental blackout. Then, in Ragi: “Understandable. They disapprove Sabin-aiji’s defiance of their authority. They refuse talk until we get into dock.”

“Then?”

“Then—they and we will be in closer contact.”

“They intend to board.”

“A question whether Sabin will permit that, nadi-ji. But perhaps.”

It was not good. He began to read the psychology of it through an atevi lens, and pulled his mind away from thoughts of association, aishi and man’chi, the social entity and the emotion—which, after all this voyage, began to seem logical even on human terms. Two metal motes with humans inside wanted to come together. Like magnetism. Like man’chi. But once they met—

Human politics were inside those shells. Not just two metal shells. Two grenades gravitating toward each other.

“Do they trust her at all?” he asked—meaning Sabin.

“One doubts,” Jase said, and added, in ship-speak: “She’s just ordered an outside operations team to suit up immediately after we dock.”

“Boarding the station?” They’d have to turn out the whole crew to take something as large as that—and still might be outnumbered.

“To have our hands at the refueling port.”

“That’s not standard operating procedure, is it?” Of fueling stations in the vast cosmos, there were only two he knew. And one, Alpha, ran operations from a stationside control center.

“It’s not. I know that much. The captain’s preparing to have us do it ourselves, from outside. I don’t know what she’s going to say to them. Being Sabin, she may not say a thing. She may just do it.”

Aliens waiting in the wings and the captain outright preparing to commandeer a fuel supply from the people they’d come to rescue, who at the moment weren’t cooperating—at least their officials weren’t. He’d thought his heart had had all the panic it could stand in the last few hours. He discovered a brand new source.

“And we haven’t gotten word from them yet that there is fuel.” That was the prime question at issue, and Jase slowly shook his head.

“They’re not talking about that and we’re not asking. If they can’t fuel us, we have a choice to make.”

“If we run,” he said, “there’s every chance that ship out there can track us out to Gamma and hit us there. Isn’t there?”

“So I understand. Starring down a gun barrel while we scrape what we need together out of space isn’t attractive.”

“We can get the alien remains out of the station and negotiate. I don’t recommend running. We have a reasonable chance so long as we seem to be cooperating with that ship out there.”

“That’s your advice.”

“To keep all sides talking while we spend the next few years gathering fuel. Running’s only going to make matters worse. We’ll have none of the passengers we came here to get, we won’t have destroyed the Archive, and we still won’t have any fuel.”

“I’d tend to agree with you.”

“Most of all—most of all we have to get some sort of calm.”

“Calm.” Jase’s laugh held stress, not humor.

“Whatever situation has existed here for six years has been destabilized by our arrival. And we don’t know what’s gone on here. We have to ratchet down the stress on this situation. And she—” Meaning Sabin. “—has to be reasonable, right along with the Guild. First and foremost, we have to show good faith with that ship out there. That’s a priority, even ahead of the fuel, toward getting us out of here and keeping the Archive to ourselves, with all that means. Hang the fuel situation. We can solve that with Gin’s robots.”

“Over years.”

“Over years and I’d rather not. But that ship out there represents a more critical situation. We get locked into a push-pull with the Guild and we can lose sight of what’s going on at our backs.”

“We have guns.”

“We have guns, they have guns—we also have a potential chance to settle this mess before it comes home with us, Jase.”

“I agree with you,” Jase said, leaving hanging in the air the implication that the other captain was at issue. ”And I’m asking you, Bren, stay up here. Be cooperative with her, whatever it takes. The situation needs you and the dowager with your wits about you, and it needs us all with as much manuevering room as we can maintain with Sabin, if we’re going to have to negotiate our way out of this. She’s not a diplomat. You’ve given her information. Don’t assume she’ll use it diplomatically.“

“I’d better talk with her,” he said, “before we go much closer.”

“She’s several hours less rested.” Jase gave him that look. A plea for extreme caution.

“We have the chance now,” he said. “It’s only going to be less sleep if this goes on.”

Jase said nothing to that, and he walked on down the aisle, quietly intercepting Sabin, delicately as if he were picking up a live bomb. “Captain. A moment, if you can spare it.”

“We don’t have many moments, Mr. Cameron.”

“In private, captain, if you will. I have something to communicate.”

She grudgingly yielded, as far as the end of the console, where the general noise of fans overcame the small noise of low voices. She hadn’t cut off her communications pickup. But if one talked to her, as to him, discreet security personnel were inevitably involved.

“I take it,” she said, “we’re about to receive a personal confidence from the dowager.”

“A message from me, captain. A further offer—with the Guild. I am a negotiator, if the Guild turns recalcitrant. I’m offering, in all good will—so you know your hands aren’t empty. For a start—in spite of my distaste for secrets—I don’t advise spilling everything the aliens out there said, if there’s any likelihood they didn’t overhear it.”

“They’re asking. Likely they didn’t get it.”

“That’s to the good. Second point: never mind Gamma. Get in control of whatever alien material the station’s holding. That’s critical. We can solve a fuel problem. But if they’re not put off our trail, we’re in deep trouble.”

“Oh, I am so gratified to have that advice, Mr. Cameron.”

“Fuel be damned, captain.”

“I don’t recall you got a confirmation from that ship out there that we can leave if we jump to their orders.”

“I can’t swear to their customs, their attitude, or their morality. But I know ours. If there’s a way not to lead them back to Alpha, that’s a priority. It’s common sense, captain.”

Sabin’s mouth tightened. “Priority is options, Mr. Cameron. Yours is one on a list. Fuel, passengers, then their little errand.”

“Station’s not cooperating with you.”

“Tell the second captain keep his advice. I’ve heard it. Trust me that I’ve heard it.”

“Captain, it’s cooperation I’m offering. To convey your viewpoint to station. To get what you want.”

Sabin gave a short, grim laugh. “You say. You know the dowager’s a bastard. So am I. And so, in your sweet, stubborn way, are you, Mr. Cameron. Tell the second captain I’m fine, and I can deal with the Guild. Now go shut the hell up and leave me to my job.”

He’d walked into this trying to get ahead of the situation. Numb as he was and remote from full-tilt feeling, his brain uneasily advised him the paidhi was not truly functioning at his utmost, either. And he didn’t know what he’d accomplished. Sabin took advice without telling the advisor she was taking it. And one never knew what she’d do.

“What did she say?” Jase asked, in Ragi, when he drew back into range of him and Banichi and Jago.

“She is at least maintaining our secrets from the station,” Bren said in Ragi. “She refuses to accept the alien mission ahead of our own. And hopes, one believes, that there might be fuel. If the station had any time at all to prepare itself before this second incident, they ought to have thought, if Phoenix comes back, fuel is essential to our own safety. Therefore it would be very highest priority. Would it not be, Jase-aiji?”

“One certainly hopes,” Jase said. Meanwhile the image forward was a rotating, damaged station.

Sabin paused by C1 and gave an order. And spoke on general address.

“Sabin here. This is the situation: we have contact with the station and we’re on track for our high berth, contrary to their instructions. I’ve ordered a team to suit and connect the fuel probe from the outside. Communications with the station have been limited: considering we’re not alone here, that’s understandable. But due to numerous unanswered questions, these are my orders. We’ll refuel as a priority, and if station has other ideas, we’ll hear them afterward. You’ll have a ten minute break coming up as soon as I sign off. Do what you need to do and get back to a secure bunk. Second watch crew will maintain current assignment. Third watch will take station after docking.”

Damn, Bren thought. She wasn’t letting Jase’s crew take station. She was driving her own past a due change. Had driven herself for hours.

“We don’t know the situation on the station,” Sabin said. “And so long as we don’t know, we don’t let our guard down. Keep on alert. This isn’t a time for any celebration, and nobody will attempt to contact station communications. Evasive action remains a moment by moment possibility. I’m giving you a ten-minute break off strict precautions, but as you value your necks and the necks of those around you, don’t get sloppy.

“Ten minutes. Starting now. No excuses.”

“I need to translate that for my staff,” Bren said to Jase, and relayed the information in Ragi, above and below decks, that they might move about for a very few moments.

Banichi and Jago had stood by quietly the last while, translating occasionally on their own, always there. That was a relief to him, too, as if, while they were not by him, even by the width of the bridge while he was talking to Sabin, he had been somehow stretched thin. Now that they were close, all of him was there… curious notion for a Mospheiran lad to get into, but that was the way his nerves read it.

Bridge crew, half a dozen at a time, took the chance for a break, a mad rush for the available facilities. Those first absent returned, and gave immediate attention to business while partners made the same rush.

Sabin herself took a small break: “You’re in charge,” she told Jase in passing. “Don’t start a war. Evade if there’s a twitch out there. Nav knows.”

“Thank you, captain,” Jase said quietly. Jase changed none of her orders, did nothing but walk the aisles on Sabin’s routine. When Sabin got back, he simply made a small salute, continued his own patrol and said not a word.

She did approach, however, and talked with him somberly in low tones that failed to reach Bren’s ears. She’d trusted him, however briefly. Jase hadn’t failed her.

The dowager and Cajeiri, meanwhile, took advantage of the moment to come out, with Gin and the rest, and, unopposed, resumed their seats along the bulkhead. Cajeiri was wide-eyed and watching, the dowager grim, while Gin—Gin watched everything that moved. Neither captain seemed to note their arrival, but Bren waited, assured both captains had very well noted it, expecting that if Sabin had had any comment, Jase would soon wander by.

Jase did.

“When we go in,” Jase said with a little bow, “we’re going to maintain rotation. It’s a power drain, operating like that, and it means we don’t grapple—we tether. Senior captain’s ordering it to make life more comfortable here. The tether dock means more security for us. That’s a cold, uncomfortable passage that only takes two at a time. It’s a deliberate bottleneck. It doesn’t accommodate boarders.”

“She’s not letting crew off.”

“No. No way. Crew’s not going to get communication with the station.”

“Prudent.”

“Also significant—maintaining position on tether gives us the excuse to keep our systems hot.”

“So we can move at the drop of a hat.”

“If a hat should for some reason drop,” Jase said. “Yes.”

“But in that state—we can’t board passengers.”

“Not rapidly,” Jase said. “We can easily hard-dock from that position, for general boarding. But the thing that may be most important, soft-dock slows down the rush to the ship. She wants our fuel load. Her priorities. And it’s sensible. We don’t want to depopulate the station all in a panic.”

Any Mospheiran knew what had happened to the station at the atevi star, once the inhabitants had decided their futures lay elsewhere, on the planet. They’d deserted for the planet below, a trickle at first, then a cascading chain of desertions and station services going down, until the last few to leave the station had just mothballed it as far as they could and turned out the lights.

“God,” Jase said then, while input pinged and blipped at the consoles, “I hope this whole business goes fast.”

“Fishing trip’s still an offer,” Bren said, deliberate distraction—but that offer seemed to strike Jase as more unreadably alien than the communication out there in the dark. A different world, that of the atevi. A different mindset, that required a quick, deep breath. But it offered stability.

“If I survive this,” Jase said shakily, “I swear I’m going for Yolanda’s job. Frequent runs down to the planet. Court appearances. Estate on the coast. Right next to yours.”

“I’ll back you. Big yacht, while we’re at it. We’ll go take a close-up look at the Southern Sea.”

“I’ll settle for a rowboat,” Jase said in a low voice. “A sandy beach and a rowboat.”

While the numbers went on scrolling on the screens.

“Don’t let your guard down,” Jase said suddenly. “Keep ready for takehold.”

Chapter Nine

« ^ »

No touch. A gentle shock a little after the takehold ran out: alarming, to people who’d just given up their handholds. “That was the tether line,” Jase said, and Bren translated for the dowager and party.

They sat and stood, atevi and humans, on that division between corridor and bridge, meticulously out of the way, and watching.

Jase stood next to the lot of them, buffer, translator, reassurance.

“We have fired a tether line toward the station mast, nandi,” Jase said to the dowager in Ragi. “This is to stabilize connections for essential lines. The ship’s computers will keep us positioned relative to the station by small adjustments, which we will feel occasionally while docked, none of which should require a handhold. That tether line will keep the fueling probe and communications lines in good order, as well as carrying information within itself, now that it has contacted the reciprocal port on the station.”

“So we should hear from these persons,” Ilisidi said.

“More often and more clearly, nandi, and in communications protected from bureaucrats,” Jase answered.

“Eavesdroppers,” Bren corrected. The words were akin. Jase’s Ragi occasionally faltered, even yet.

“Eavesdroppers,” Jase said with a little nod, a slight blush. “Pardon, nandiin. The tether also provides a person-sized soft tube which permits one to come and go, rather like an ordinary boarding passage, but very cold, very much smaller, easier to retract or even break free in case of emergency. Sabin-aiji is preserving our freedom of movement. We expect a clear under standing with the station before we establish any more solid connection, nandi.“

Sabin meanwhile, not far distant, gave rapid orders establishing that connection, Bren heard that with the other ear.

“Tether line is established,” C1 informed the crew below-decks, in that operations monotone. “Links are functioning.”

Sabin appeared in a far better mood now than an hour ago. She looked to have aged ten years in the last few hours, but there was a spark in her eye now—more like a battle-glint, but a spark, all the same.

“Now we have a physical communications linkage,” Jase said, hands in jacket pockets.

Mechanical whine and thump. Airlock, Bren thought on the instant, with a jump of his heart. They hadn’t heard that in at least a year.

“Someone is going outside,” he muttered to Jase.

“Fuel access, belly port. We are not asking their permission, nandiin. We will see what our situation is. But this process of arranging the port connection may take hours.

“One might take the chance at this point to go back to greater comfort below,” Jase said.

“And when will the captains do so?” Ilisidi asked.

“Perhaps soon, nandi.” Jase looked wrung out, at the limits of his strength. “But we shall go to shift change soon. One anticipates that Sabin-aiji may declare it her night, and when that happens, I shall likely sit watch up here claiming I know absolutely nothing, should the station have questions. We may well start fueling under that circumstance, granted there is fuel. It may cause a certain distress, but Sabin-aiji will not be disposed to listen.”

“A diplomatic situation, then,” Ilisidi said.

“But a human one, aiji-ma,” Bren said quietly. “I should stay up here within reach, but there is clearly no reason for the aiji-dowager to miss breakfast.”

Clearly it tempted. Ilisidi rarely admitted fatigue, except for show. The harsh lines of her face were not, at this point, showing. “One might consider it, if this ship has ceased its moving about.”

“One may trust that, aiji-ma.”

“This bloodthirsty child will go disappointed that we shan’t raise banners and storm the station, I’m sure, but if matters have reached such a lengthy wait, I shall appreciate a more comfortable chair. And this boy needs his breakfast.“

“One understands a young gentleman’s endurance is very sorely tested. I don’t know what other young lad might have stood and sat for so long.”

“One makes no excuses,” Ilisidi said sharply—though the young lad in question, eye level with a human adult, looked exhausted. “A gentleman offers no exceptions, does he, rascal?”

“No, mani-ma.” It was a very faint voice. “But one would very much favor a glass of—”

Click. Softly, Ilisidi set her cane down in front of her feet.

“At convenience, mani-ma.”

Ilisidi’s hand lifted. A disturbance had just rippled across the bridge, Sabin and C1 in consultation, nearby stations diverting attention to that conversation. Technicians’ heads actually turned, however briefly.

Something unusual was going on.

“A moment, nandiin.” Jase excused himself toward the epicenter of the trouble.

“Excuse me, aiji-ma.” Bren took Sabin’s tolerance of Jase in the situation as a similar permission and went, himself, to stand and listen.

The team from Phoenix had reached the fueling port. Video from a helmet-cam showed a yellow and black band and a hand-lettered label stuck across an edge. It said… God? Lock rigged to explode.

“They’ve locked the fuel port,” Jase said under his breath. “With a sign out there for us to read.”

“Evidently there’s something to protect,” Bren muttered, “from us.”

“Get me station administration,” Sabin said in clipped tones, and C1 acknowledged the order.

A sense of unease welled up. Banichi and Jago hadn’t followed him into the sacred territory of the operations area, but he felt a Banichi sort of thought nagging at him. “Jase. If we plug into their systems to talk, can they possibly get into our systems?”

“Two-way,” Jase said. “I don’t know the safeguards. I assume we both have them.”

There had to be safeguards—had to be, if the captains hadn’t trusted the Guild. If the Guild had doubts about the captains. Or had they? “Captain,” he began to say to Sabin, but Sabin leaned forward on C1’s console and said, “Get me the station-master. Now. Asleep or awake, rout him out.”

A loyal ship turned up after a decade-long voyage, there was a lock on the fuel and the stationmaster wasn’t saying glad to see you as it docked? Granted station wasn’t glad they’d approached the alien ship out there—it ought to be happy they’d gotten away alive.

“Anybody bothered by this silence from station?” Bren asked under his breath.

Sabin shot their small disturbance a burning look, intermittent with attention to the console. On the screen, some sort of official emblem appeared, links of a chain, the word Reunion.

“Stationmaster’s answered,” C1 said quietly. “Station-master, stand by for the senior captain.”

“Stationmaster,” Sabin said abruptly. “Sabin here, senior captain. We’re tethered in good order. Speaking on direct. What’s your situation?”

C1 had the audio low, but audible.

And below that circle of links, the screen now held the old Pilots’ Guild emblem, a white star and a ship, superimposed with Pilots’ Guild Headquarters, Louis Baynes Braddock, Chairman.

Nothing inherently terrible about that image. But seeing it actually in use, not pressed in the pages of a history book, sent cold chills down a Mospheiran spine.

That image dissolved to the heavy-jowled face of a middle-aged man, white-haired and balding, in an officer’s uniform. Louis Baynes Braddock, Chairman.

“Stable at the moment, Captain Sabin,” Braddock answered. “Where is Captain Ramirez?”

“Attrition of age, sir. Of the original captains, Jules Ogun is alive and well, directing affairs at Alpha Station.” There was the shade of a lie, by way of introduction. “And I am senior in this situation. Second captain aboard is Jason Graham. No fourth captain has yet been appointed. We require fuel. I’d like to get that moving. What’s the situation?”

“We have a full load for you, Captain.”

Confirmation went through the bridge, palpable relief. Full load. Ready. They could do their job and leave. They could go home. But not a single face, not a single eye, shifted from absolute duty.

“That’s very good news, Mr. Braddock, very good news.” No flicker of emotion touched Sabin’s face, either, no rejoicing beyond that utterance, muscles set like wire springs. “And the watcher out there?”

“It never has interfered with us.” Not what the alien itself had indicated. “We tried to advise you. Your interference in that situation is very dangerous, captain. I can’t stress how dangerous.”

Two lies and unanswered questions by the bucketful. The news about the fuel load was good—but Braddock lied, and Bren held his breath.

“I can report in turn,” Sabin said, “that our Alpha base is secure, things there are in good order, and we’re fit for service once we’re fueled here—including dealing with any threat from that ship out there. Fueling should get underway immediately. I note your precautions with the fuel port. Can we get that open, priority one?”

“As soon as we’ve officially verified your credentials and reviewed your log records, Captain Sabin, we’ll be delighted to deliver the fuel.”

Not much fazed Sabin. There began, however, a sudden, steady twitch in her jaw. “Chairman Braddock, we’ve managed a peaceful contact with that observer out there. We seem to have a tacit approval for our approach, whether or not it’s collecting targets into one convenient package, or just watching to see what we do. We don’t know the extent of its comprehension. We’re not anxious to postpone refueling and setting this ship in operational order in favor of a round of by-the-book formalities, hell no, sir. Unlock that port.”

“Essential that we ascertain your recent whereabouts and your authority, captain.”

“You haven’t got damn else for a ship, sir, and I am the authority.”

“We’re sure we’ll be satisfied with your report, captain. But you’ll appreciate that, even considering you’re clearly in possession of Phoenix, there is a question of legitimacy of command. More to the point, there’s the authority of this Guild to review, inspect, and post to rank. Those formalities we take to be important. The log records are requisite. We require you transmit them.”

Sabin took her hand off the console shelf and stood upright. There was still not a flicker of expression on her face. But she paused a moment to gather composure and reason before she leaned near the pick-up again. “Stationmaster, do I correctly gather that you’re asking me to come to your offices to fill out forms and deal with red tape with my ship unfueled and a ship you can’t account for already having constrained us on our way in? And that you’re trying to assert Guild Council authority over Phoenix? I reject that, categorically. My second captain may be new, but I’m not, and I know what’s in order and what’s not. Hell if I’m putting our navigational records and the precise location of our remote base into your records when you can’t even guarantee the security of your own station.”

“Captain Sabin, we’re asking specifically that you observe Guild law and procedures which our office, our entire reason for being, requires us to follow. You’ll appreciate our safeguarding that fuel, to release it to appropriately constituted authority, operating in our interests and at our orders—”

“The hell? We are the ship. That’s the plain fact.”

“Our orders, I remind you, supercede yours, where it regards this station, and the fuel, captain, is on this station. For your convenience, and precisely to expedite this process, we have an inspection team and an escort ready to come up to the ship.”

“Escort.”

“To Guild headquarters, captain, where you can present your request to the Guild. This transfer of personnel would be far easier in hard dock. We have questions to ask about the encounter out there.”

“After refueling.”

“We understand your worry. But we have legitimate worries. We feel you’ve exacerbated the situation with your adventurism out there—adventurism which brought this situation on us. We are not disposed to be patient, captain, and we strongly suggest you hard dock and come in for consultation.”

“Until you can present solid information about our watcher out there, I’ll keep us soft-docked. I may change my mind once we’re sure you’re in control of the station.”

“I can assure you, captain, we’ve never ceased to be in control of this station.”

Their advantage was leaking away, utterance by utterance. “Captain,” Bren said, and recklessly if gently interposed his hand between Sabin and the console.

Sabin reached past that intervention and pushed a button on the console. Held it down, preventing transmission to the station, one hoped.

“A sudden bright idea, Mr. Cameron?”

“You’re senior entity. Demand the Guildmaster board and prove what’s to prove. And don’t let him off again once he’s here.”

“I’d enjoy that, but it doesn’t get that fuel lock released, Mr. Cameron, and I don’t want someone to panic and dump the load. Traditionally, captains have gone to station offices.”

“And if they hold you?”

“Then we’ll know something, won’t we?” She released the button and spoke to Braddock, at the console. “I use my own escort, sir, under my own command.”

Bren’s heart sank. Ignored. Absolutely ignored.

“I’ll expect a full explanation of the situation from your side,” Sabin said to Braddock. “As for your officers boarding this ship, inspect as you like, under Captain Graham’s supervision, but I’ve no intention of transmitting ship’s log containing base location into your station records in the presence of an unexplained foreign presence, and that’s the law on this deck. Personnel link is adequate for current business. Beyond that, I assure you Phoenix remains the senior entity in this organization: we are your founders, sir, and we don’t take orders.”

“We’re well aware of your unsuccessful maneuver to breach the fuel port.” Did one imagine a sudden, desolate chill in relations? “When we see the documents that confirm your authority to command, we’ll have more to say, Captain Sabin. Our personnel are on their way and expect entry.”

“I’ll expect your escort momentarily, Mr. Braddock. Let’s get this business done. Sabin out.”

C1 cut the connection. Sabin wasn’t happy. That needed no translation. She straightened, glowered straight at Bren, looked at Jase, at the lot of them. The tic was still pulsing away in her jaw. It wasn’t a good time to argue—but, Bren thought, feeling the deck had just dropped away under his feet, it was a very unfortunate time for Sabin to shove advice aside.

“Captain Graham.”

“I’ll be honored to go in your place,” Jase said quietly. “In that capacity, I might be more useful.”

“Protocols, second captain, protocols say you aren’t the one to go, sensible as it might otherwise be. Main security will go with me. With weapons.”

“Yes, captain,” Jase said quietly and Bren stepped to the background with a glance at Banichi and Jago.

“Inform the dowager and fifth deck, nadiin-ji. The fuel port is locked with an explosive device and a sign in human language. The station demands Sabin-aiji come report in person to establish her legitimacy before the Guild chairman will release the fuel. We believe this is subterfuge. Captain Sabin is arming her primary guard to go outside the ship, but she has admitted Guild officers inside our security, expecting Jase to finesse this.”

“Shall we assist?” Banichi asked, surely with a certain anticipation he hated to hold back.

“Not yet, Nichi-ji. Not yet.” The troubling truth was that Phoenix had relatively few security personnel on each shift—they weren’t a warship: they were a small town; and their advantage was they knew each other, but their glaring disadvantage was—they only knew each other. Sabin thought she knew the Guild better than the rest of them, and that might be true, but the move she made scared him—scared him in the extreme.

Ilisidi had moved forward, into the aisle, with Cajeiri, with Cenedi, and her gold stare fairly sizzled.

“We have understood. This is dangerous insolence in the absence of power, in this wrecked station. Say so to Sabin-aiji. Say that we shall lend force to her actions.”

He foresaw refusal. But he went closer to Sabin and rendered that: “The dowager calls the station dangerously insolent, says people sitting in a wrecked station have no real authority; she offers atevi assistance.”

“Unfortunately,” Sabin said between her teeth, “and the governing fact, we have no real fuel.”

“If you board, ma’am, they have you and the fuel,” Jase pointed out. “And without you, this ship has no way home.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Akers seems quite undamaged and serviceable.” That was the senior pilot. “Failing Mr. Akers, Ms. Carem and Mr. Keplinger. And they surely have your canny advice, Captain Graham.” It was the sort of petty sniping that consistently flew at Jase and his appointment. “It also has you, Mr. Cameron, and the dowager and her security, and Ms. Kroger, and if the station does an explosive vent on the fuel, I’m hopeful we have machinery as adequate to recover it as it is to mine in the first place.”

“With extreme difficulty, captain. With that ship lurking out there, that—”

“We can’t do anything about that ship, now, can we, Mr. Cameron, without that fuel, except run to a point where we’ll be definitively out of fuel and stuck, probably a place, as you so eloquently maintain, that our alien observer can find us with no trouble at all. Meanwhile we don’t know the situation on station, which I mean to find out. And when I do, I intend to enforce common sense with information and observations I don’t intend to pass through station’s communication system. I’ll be in touch. Failing that, Mr. Collins or Mr. Jenrette will be in touch.”

Jase frowned. “I’d ask you not take Mr. Jenrette, ma’am. He’s a resource I could—”

“Mr. Jenrette, I say, who knows the station intimately and who’s a resource for me.”

“His loyalty is suspect,” Bren said sharply.

“By you, sir. Confine your speculations to the aliens. And I don’t expect innovation aboard this ship, second captain. Wait for my orders. If things go massively wrong and you have to go to aggressive measures on your own, ask C1. If you have to take this ship out of dock, call on Mr. Akers and follow his advice meticulously. If at any time we get another flash from the observer out there—advise me before you start freelancing any communications back to it; and if you can’t advise me, advise station to advise me. Above all, have a clear idea what you’re going to do if it all goes wrong. We don’t want surviving records, second captain. We do not want that.“

“I understand you,” Jase said faintly. And they all did understand. It was self-destruction she meant. Terrible alternatives. Even Phoenix had a major stake back at the atevi planet—all there was left of humanity in this end of the universe was at risk if things went wrong here.

Sabin sealed her jacket, implied preparation for cold. For passage out of the ship and into the station mast.

“So congratulations: you’re in charge, Captain Graham. Remember we’re very immaculately Guild and we follow the regulations until we know what our options are. And that means you, sir—” A glance at Bren. “Get your tall, dark friends below-decks right now and keep them there. Aliens never left the atevi planet. Our own crew isn’t putting their heads above two-deck to tell these inspectors differently. The inspection team will fill out their little check list, skip the log check, as per my orders, and go back to report they didn’t get any more here than I gave the Guild chief on his request. That’s the way it should work, Captain Graham. That’s the way it’s going to work. So get gran, there, the hell below, right now.”

One definitely hesitated to translate that small speech for the dowager’s consumption. But it was time to translate, inserting proper courtesies.

“Aiji-ma,” Bren said to her, “officials of this human Guild are very soon coming aboard to inspect the ship’s credentials. Sabin-aiji suggests we go below immediately. Officials are arriving at any moment. We must not be seen.”

“We are here to rescue these ingrates, whose station is in grievously unrepaired condition, who appear to exist in armed standoff with an offended enemy they have no power to talk to, let alone reach, and this incompetent Guild wishes to us to dread their displeasure?”

“They do seem to have one thing: the fuel we desperately need, aiji-ma, which they have rigged so we cannot get at it. Sabin-aiji being requested to board the station, she will do it with armed escort of her choosing, and she is not pleased. One hopes she can carry her point.”

“She will go. Not Jase.”

“Not Jase, aiji-ma.”

Complete change of expression. In such an undemonstrative species, humans might not see it. But the dowager gave him a now sweet, sidelong look—golden eyes, dark skin with its fine tracery of lines—long, long years of calculation and autocracy.

“Well, well, we shall go below,” the dowager announced as if it were all her idea, and stamped the deck with her cane. “Now.”

“Nandi,” Jase said, who had caught the nuances. And understood the threat of atevi taking matters in their own hands. “There will be no foreign intrusion onto five-deck. Your residence will remain sacrosanct. One swears this, nandi.”

“One certainly expects it.” A vigorous stamp of the cane. “Enough of this standing about? My bones ache. I want my own chair.”

“Well? Is she going?” Sabin asked.

“The dowager is going below,” Jase said.

“Very good,” Sabin said. “Mospheirans, too, the whole lot of you, off the bridge. Nothing left behind. And stay quiet down there, Mr. Cameron. We have enough troubles on our hands.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bren said, already determined he didn’t consider himself under that prohibition. He could change accents as easily as he changed clothes… and he had no intention of acquiescence in what the Guild and Sabin alone arranged.

Banichi and Jago were still with him. He overtook the dowager and Ginny and their company at the lift, got in just before the door shut and, between Banichi and Jago, set his back against the wall, heaving a deep sigh. His inner vision was all a kaleidoscope of crew on the bridge, locked fuel port, station corridors—those urgent problems and the marching dots of their communication with the alien craft. Which had to be finessed. Somehow.

The dowager was, at the moment, on remarkably compliant behavior. Cajeiri was, correctly sensing an armed grenade in his great-grandmother’s quiet demeanor. Ginny very wisely took her cues.

“Damn Guild,” was Jerry’s opinion, and at a sharp look from Ginny: “Well, damn them, chief. We come all this way…”

“Jerry,” Ginny said, and Ilisidi paid the matter a quiet look.

Gran ’Sidi, as the stationers called her… Gran ’Sidi, the atevi force that swept into station affairs at critical moments and fixed things. And to this hour when Gran ’Sidi gave a look like that—silence fell among Mospheirans and ship-folk alike.

“Sabin has something in mind,” Bren said ever so softly. “Just don’t rock the boat yet. So to speak. We’ll have our moment.”

“Anything you need,” Ginny said, and with a meaningful glance at the atevi contingent. “Aiji.” She managed an atevi-style bow, a graceful escape out of difficult communications, as the lift reached five-deck and let them out.

“Good,” Ilisidi said, acknowledging the communication—lordly acceptance. Ilisidi walked out, her staff with her, and Bren followed, not without a parting glance to Ginny and her team, a simple shift of the eyes toward the overhead, an advisement where he meant to go.

Ginny understood. Ginny—who could pass for crew, herself. She returned a firm, got-the-information kind of nod.

Ilisidi’s guards opened the door to the atevi section. Ilisidi’s guards, Ilisidi’s servants, had all turned out along the corridor, loyal support, baji-naji, come what might from the strangers proposing to enter the ship on decks above.

The section door shut. Sealed. Ilisidi, walking with taps of her cane, issued her orders, quietly, matter of factly, while she moved among the staff. “An hour to rest, if we are so fortunate. Security will deal with necessary issues. For the nonce, we shall not contact these intruders or become apparent to them unless they reach our territory. Bren-nandi?”

“Aiji-ma?”

“You, personally, can manage the accent and manner of ordinary crew.”

She didn’t miss a bet.

“Easily.”

They had reached the dowager’s study door. Ilisidi stopped there, hands on the head of her cane, poised. “Interesting. Apprise us of any news.”

“Yes, aiji-ma.”

A waggle of the topmost fingers. “Let Sabin-aiji make her attempt. Let her learn what she can of the situation and perhaps return to us. Let these officers of the Guild come aboard and lay hands where they wish on the other decks. But not on ours. All these things we may tolerate, briefly, for expediency’s sake. Otherwise—otherwise, Bren-nandi, see to it. Use whatever resources you need.“

“Yes, aiji-ma.”

And with that statement, and with a belated backward look from Cajeiri—a worried look, it was—Ilisidi turned aside and let Cenedi open the door to her quarters—into which she and all her company disappeared.

Her bones, Bren said to himself, did suffer with long standing. It was well past time she took a rest. But that mind didn’t rest. She was far too canny in human affairs to attempt to deal with what her human associates could far better manage. She deputed, and she sent. But she did not, one was sure, go off alert.

He walked on from that point into his own territory, with Banichi and Jago… who assurely would not approve his plans. Who had defensive skills he could never manage.

But no amount of skill and stealth could disguise what they were.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said to them, “Sabin-aiji, who has met these station aijiin before, believes she can maintain her authority, discover useful information and gain their cooperation to refuel the ship. She has refused them free access to the ship’s history. They persisted and she still refused. She surely knows there is some risk to her freedom to act as she goes onto the station. Her authority there on the station is yet to establish, and one hopes she succeeds. But one still fails to trust her entirely. There is that.”

“A strong possibility, Bren-ji?” Baniichi asked.

“She can’t compel their obedience.” It might be superfluous to remind his staff what drove Sabin and the Pilots’ Guild were different instincts, having nothing to do with the grouping-drive that motivated atevi, but it was still worth laying out. “We are not dealing with man’chi between her and this Guild, nadiin-ji. Each side has both merit and force to persuade the other to take their direction. But only Sabin has a ship, and I confess I wish she were staying on the ship and simply demanding they come aboard. She could compel that. She could announce her intent to the station population and create insurrection, but she refuses, and takes a security force to the heart of their establishment—perhaps for reasons of her own, perhaps that some sense like man’chi forbids she take the station apart in disorder. I fear they may ambush her—I fear Jenrette, for that matter. But she knows that from the beginning. I have speculations—even the speculation that she is Guild and means to spill everything she bids us conceal, laying plans to take the ship once she gets aboard.”

“Do we count this likely?”

“She has the ship already. She could easily invite the Guild in and turn the ship over to them without risking herself aboard the station. As likely that she means to walk in and simply shoot the Guild-aiji dead at his desk. I don’t know what she intends. She has taken Jenrette as one of her guards. I don’t know why. Perhaps because she is Guild, as I suspect he is—perhaps because she simply wishes to get him off the ship so he can’t sabotage anything. She does not trust Jase to run the ship.”

“Do you so trust him, Bren-ji?” Jago asked.

“In matters of security, yes. And he has staff that can move the ship at need. We have not linked the ship within safe access of general population. A rush of population into the mast would put us in a position where we would have to open our doors or see them die of cold; and the presence of so many would increase mass that we dare not leave dock without refueling. On the other hand, if the station administration itself refuses to vacate the station, this would be a great difficulty. Sabin did reiterate to Jase the mission to destroy all the information the station holds. The computers that hold that information, on the station, are deep, and defended by the Guild. The alternatives remain—very bad alternatives. One hardly wishes to think about the possibility of blowing up the station with all those people aboard. One refuses to contemplate it.”

“And what shall we first do to prevent this?” Jago asked. “Send you up undefended, Bren-ji, among officials of these strange aijiin? We protest. We very strongly protest this plan.”

“Let us assist, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “We can move within the access tunnels. We can remove these troublesome individuals one by one.”

He had no doubt, even given the likelihood of advanced communications and weapons. “I don’t fear for my life or my freedom aboard, not with Jase in charge. I do fear the mood of the crew. We must not spread fear about—least of all any notion that five-deck intends to seize their ship and take over command. The good will of the crew is very important. And I, nadiin-ji, I am going back up there to protect Jase’s authority. I have indeed learned a few things in your company. Prudence, among other things. Use of the communications equipment.”

“Which they may detect, Bren-ji,” Jago said sharply. “There are very many finesses to these matters.”

“One will gratefully take whatever instruction you can give, nadiin-ji,” he said. “I think it remotely possible that after a conference, and after reaffirming her ties to the station, Sabin-aiji may aim at getting the truth out of the Guild leadership, about the alien situation, and that would be helpful. But she remains at risk. She has refused my services and declared she is taking over the situation with the Guild herself, with armed force. One dares not fold one’s hands and wait.”

“One protects against threats as they come, Bren-ji.” Ban-ichi’s professional observation was low-key, consistently calm. And calming, too. Bren drew that sense into himself, belief that, against everything else unstable, he had a reasonable chance. He would not be utterly alone.

Not alone now. In their own territory in the corridor, Asicho still dutifully sat the security station, never taking her attention from the situation, while Narani and Bindanda and Jeladi had all turned out to welcome them, to open the door to his personal quarters.

“No time for rest, Rani-ji,” he said on the way through the door. “We have a situation, a successful docking on the one hand, but a very troublesome local authority. Sabin-aiji has gone ashore with ship security, ostensibly to try to deal with them, but rejecting advice. I shall need island clothes, Rani-ji, immediately without fuss, before some situation shuts down the lift system.”

“Nandi.” Narani asked no questions. The clothes would appear, with his staff’s fastest cooperation. Doubtless, too, the dowager and Cenedi were entering on much the same endeavor, down the hall, explaining to staff and laying plans of their own, which he hoped didn’t involve armed incursion into the maintenance passages.

But if the Pilots’ Guild should believe it could make a move on Jase and control the ship, he was very sure the dowager would move very quickly—benignly toward the crew, so be it, but all the same, no question but that Ilisidi would take all security, all decisions, all mission direction into her own hands. Ilisidi, absent Sabin, now saw no one to stop her, no one with whom to negotiate territories directly—and what came next was as basic as gravity, as fundamental as the history of the atevi associations: a power vacuum did not last, among atevi, not ten minutes. Atevi wars most often happened by accident, when signals were not quite clear and contenders for a vacancy jammed up in a figurative doorway.

Which meant signals were already flying, humans all oblivious to the fact. Unless Jase took a strong enough stand to stand Ilisidi off in Sabin’s name—it would happen. And that meant there was a very dangerous imbalance of powers developing, if he didn’t get himself up there and plant himself in a position to maintain that balance between Ilisidi, the Guild, and ship’s authority.

And what would the Guild do if the ship they relied on as their heritage, their only lifeline to the universe, their protection and refuge, suddenly turned out to be in alien hands?

And what would Phoenix crew do, if atevi, threatening all those traditions, moved suddenly against the Guild—which the crew increasingly didn’t like?

Those last two in particular were questions he hoped not to have to answer before the hour was out.

He was exhausted despite his few hours of sleep. He wanted nothing right now more than a bed to fall into.

But he did a quick change into a blue sweater and a pair of matching blue pants little distinguishable from the crew’s ordinary fatigues.

The hair—well, that was a problem. He thought even of cutting it off, though common crew had varying lengths—well, all shorter than his. But he had it in a simple pigtail, like Banichi’s or Jago’s, and made up his mind to brazen it out.

“A jacket, nandi?” Bindanda suggested. That had, he discovered, a pocket com. He shrugged it on over the pigtail and fended off Jeladi’s well-meaning attempt to extricate his hair.

Just as Narani offered him a small-for-atevi pistol, an assassin’s undercover weapon.

His own gun. After all these years—staff still had it oiled and ready.

“If necessary, nandi,” the old man said. “If one should in any wise need it on floors above.”

He hesitated. Thought no, of course not. Jase was in charge up there. He himself wasn’t a particularly good shot, nothing like his bodyguard. He was possibly more danger to their side with it than without it, relying on his wits.

And then he thought, dare I not? Dare I not go that far, if need be? If he had to take cover and got to the service accesses—what more argument, then? What far more drastic situation could develop up there, with Guild investigators coming aboard?

He took the pistol. Of course it was loaded—grandfatherly Narani, Assassins’ Guild himself, was certainly not shy of such things—and went out to the security station, where Banichi and Jago doublechecked a wire antenna imbedded in his collar.

“Be quite wary of transmission near these individuals that are coming aboard, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “They may have means of noticing.”

“I have the gun,” he said, as if Banichi and Jago, in adjusting the connections, had possibly missed it. “I don’t at all think I shall at all need it, nadiin-ji, but one supposes better to have it and never need it.”

“Do use caution firing near conduits and pressure seals,” Jago said solemnly, and Banichi added:

“But do so if needful. Safety systems are generally adequate and quick. Look for a door you may shut if this fails.”

When had his security tested that theory?

“Keep the communications open,” Jago said from his left. ”In the general activity all over the ship, a steady signal will be less notable than an intermittent one. Speak Mosphei’. That, too, will be less evident. We will take this ship, Bren-ji, at any moment your safety or liberty seems in question.“

“One will be very grateful at that point,” Bren said in a low voice. “But one fervently hopes no such event will happen, nadiin-ji.” Exhaustion had given way to a wobbly buzz of adventure. He was armed, wired, and on his own for the first time in—God, was it almost ten years?

He thought he could still manage on his own.

Chapter Ten

« ^ »

A quick call on Ginny—that came first. And the simple act of getting into that section proved two reassuring points: that Jase had taken care of business and that their section doors were indeed not locked to their personal codes.

He surprised one of Gin’s men in the corridor. Tony, it was. Tony Calhoun, robotics.

“Mr. Cameron, sir.”

“Doors are set, autolock from the outside, protection against our station examiners prowling about, but codes still work on the pads. For God’s sake, don’t anyone walk out and forget your hand codes. Is Gin available?”

“Yes, sir. To you.” Tony thumped the door in question. Twice. Three times.

Gin answered the door in two towels. “Need help?”

“Just a heads-up. I’m up there to back Jase, if he needs it. You’re down here to back me, if you’ll do that—my staff’s monitoring. If they need a simple look-see topside, one of your people can go up, too, right?… Banichi may want to take action, but I’m sure he’ll appreciate an intermediate if he can get one. Meanwhile my staff may need a backup translator. Can you do it?”

“Best I can,” Gin said, holding fast to the primary towel. “Anything they need. Anything you need. Go. Get to it.”

The airlock started its cycle, distant thump. Someone was coming aboard or going out. They involuntarily looked up. Looked at each other.

“See you,” Bren said, and went back the half dozen steps down the hall and out to the lift, hoping that system still responded to his code, and hoping it picked up no other passengers.

It moved. He punched in, not the bridge, but up to crew level.

Deserted. Crew was still awaiting the next shift-change and nobody had gotten clearance to enter the corridors, not for food, not for any reason.

Secrets, they didn’t have on this voyage, not between captains and crew. But the lockdown had to chafe, and it couldn’t any longer be a question of crew safety, not with the ship linked to station.

Not a good situation. Not productive of good feelings aboard, granted there’d been one mutiny on this ship as was. And Jase hadn’t released them. Jase assuredly didn’t want common crew available for any Guild inspectors to interrogate. He could imagine the first question.

So where were you for the last nine years?

And the second.

What aliens?

Second cycling of the airlock. Bren found his heart beating faster, his footsteps a very lonely sound on two-deck.

Sabin was leaving with her guard, very, very likely, and not taking all the Guild intruders out with her. They couldn’t be so lucky as a quick formality and a release of prohibitions. The Guild inspectors were aboard now, he’d bet on it, as he’d bet that Sabin no longer was aboard and that the ship’s security had gone with her, leaving the techs, Jase, and that portion of the crew that routinely maintained, cleaned, serviced and did other things that didn’t involve armed resistence. They were, to all the Guild knew, stripped of defenses.

Sabin, however, wasn’t the only captain with a temper. Jase’s had been screwed down tight for the better part of a year—but it existed. Guild investigators, up there, were going to pounce on any excuse, question any anomaly; and if they found anything they were going to have their noses further and further into business.

While a captain who didn’t know the systems had to maintain his authority.

A decade ago, when Phoenix had come in here, had ordinary stationers rushed to board and take ship toward their best hope, the colony they’d left at Alpha? No. No more than common crew rushed into the corridors to do as they pleased. Spacers lived under tight discipline, and didn’t do as Mospheirans would do, didn’t go out on holiday when they’d had enough, didn’t quit their jobs or change their residence. They obeyed… except one notable time when the fourth captain, absent information, had raised a mutiny.

Guild leadership wanted Ramirez to take the ship out and reestablish contact with their long-abandoned colony. But fourth captain Pratap Tamun had taken a look at the situation of cooperation between Ramirez and the atevi world and raised a rebellion that, even in failure, had seeded uneasy questions throughout Phoenix crew.

Lonely sound of his own footsteps. Closed, obedient doors. Ask no questions, learn no lies.

And what else had Ramirez’s orders been when the Guild sent him on to Alpha?

And what did Sabin really understand about that last meeting between Ramirez and his Guild? And what did she intend to do, taking an armed force as her escort… some twenty men and women, her regular four, and Mr. Jenrette?

Among other points, Ramirez’s orders wouldn’t have Phoenix assume second place to the planet’s native governments, that was sure.

Not to take second place to the colonials supposedly running the station, also very sure.

To take over the colony that Reunion believed would be running the station, was his own suspicion of Ramirez’s intentions—the likely mission directive from Reunion: gain control of it, run it, report back.

Those orders hadn’t proven practical, when there’d turned out not to be a functional station or a capable human presence in Alpha system. Ramirez had had to improvise. Ramirez had rapidly discovered the only ones who could give him what he wanted were atevi, and Ramirez, one increasingly suspected, had been predisposed to think answers might come from non-humans: Ramirez had chased that assumption like a religious revelation once he found a negotiating partner in Tabini-aiji, and found his beliefs answering him. By one step and another, Ramirez had gone far, far astray from Guild intent: the mutiny had gone down to defeat, Ramirez had died in the last stages of his dream.

So what could Sabin do now but lie to the Guild one more time and swear that Ogun was back there running Alpha Station’s colony, everything just as the Guild here hoped?

She could of course immediately turncoat to Ogun and all of them and tell the Guild the truth, aiming the superior numbers and possibly superior firepower of the station at an invasion and retaking of the ship… from which she had stripped all trained resistence.

That was his own worst fear, the one that made these corridors seem very, very spooky and foreign to him. His colonist ancestors had taken their orders from these corridors. His colonist ancestors, when they were stationers, had obeyed, and obeyed, and obeyed. Everything had gone the Guild’s way for hundreds of years.

Now he was here, without escort, lonely, loud steps in this lower corridor; and he very surely wasn’t what Reunion envisioned Alpha to be. The ship’s common crew had mutated, too, learning to love fruit drinks and food that didn’t grow in a tank.

But now they confronted authorities so old in human affairs that even a colonist’s nerves still twitched when the Guild gave its orders and laid down its ultimatims. They scared him. He didn’t know why they should: he hadn’t planned they should when they left Alpha, but here at the other end of the telescope, Guild obduracy was real. Here it turned up from the very first contact with station authorities. That absolute habit of command.

And Sabin pent up all four shifts of her own crew rather than trust them to meet the Guild’s authority face to face. Jase himself hadn’t given the order to release the lockdown.

Get fueled. Get sufficient lies laid down to pave the gangway. Get them aboard and then tell the truth. It wasn’t the way he’d like to proceed.

It wasn’t the way Jase would like to proceed: he believed that the way he believed in sunrises back home.

But he had no answers, no brilliant way to handle the situation that might not end up triggering a crisis—and right now he feared Jase was very busy up there.

He needed to think, and the brain wasn’t providing answers. Blank walls and empty corridors drank in ideas and gave him nothing back but echoes. No resources, no cleverness.

Was the Guild going to give up their command even of a wrecked station in exchange for no power at all, and settle down there in the ’tween-decks as ordinary passengers? Not outstandingly likely. They’d want to run Alpha when they got there. They’d assume they ran the ship, while they were aboard.

A damn sight easier to believe in the Guild’s common sense in the home system, where common sense and common decision-making usually reached rational, public-serving decisions—and where the government didn’t mean a secretive lot of old men and women bent on hanging onto a centuries-old set of ship’s rules that didn’t even relate to a ship any longer.

Insanity was what they’d met.

The Guild might even have some delusion they could now take on that alien ship out there, because Phoenix had its few guns for limited defense. Take Phoenix over, tell the pilots, who’d never fired a shot in anger, to go out there and start shooting at aliens who’d already seen Guild decision-making?

Not likely.

If the Guild had any remains of alien crew locked up in cold storage, they might be able to finesse it into their hands—claiming what? Curiosity?

That wasn’t going to be easy. Not a bit of it.

But they had an unknown limit of alien patience involved. Whatever had blown the station ten years ago argued for alien weapons. He believed in them.

And while Phoenix had been nine years making one careful set of plans that involved pulling the Guild off this station—bet that the Guild had spent the last nine years thinking of something entirely contrary.

Steps and echoes. He was up here—down here—from relative points of view—trying to shed the atevi mindset, trying to think as a human unacquainted with planets had to think, up on the bridge—

Oh my God. The planet. Up on the bridge.

That picture on Jase’s office wall. The boat. The fish.

There were no atevi in the photo, just a sea and a hint of a headland beyond. But the evidence of that picture said Jase had been on a planet, which indicated a very great deal had changed from the situation Phoenix had expected when it came calling at the station. More, it led to questions directed at Jase, and questions led to questions, if Jase didn’t think to shove that picture in a desk drawer before he let the Guild’s inspectors into the most logical place on the ship for them to want to visit: the sitting captain’s office.

Clatter of light metal. A cart.

A door working.

Food service cart. He knew that sound.

Galley was operating.

“I’m walking down to the galley,” he muttered to his listening staff, and he turned down a side corridor and did that… first acid test of his anonymity. Try his crew-act on cook and his staff. Test the waters.

Maybe borrow that food cart—a viable excuse to move about the ship during a common-crew lockdown.

He’d walked considerably aft through the deserted corridors. And down a jog and beyond wide, plain doors… one had to know it was the galley, as one had to know various other unmarked areas of the ship… he heard ordinary human activity, comforting, common. Men and women were hard at work as he walked in on the galley, cooks and aides filling the local air with savory smells of herbs and cooking, rattling pans, creating the meal the crew, lockdown or not, was going to receive.

He dodged a massive tray of unbaked rolls in the hands of a man who gave him only a busy, passing glance.

Then the man came to a dead stop and gave him a second glance, astonished.

A year aboard—and he knew the staff, knew the faces. They knew him by sight. Not at first glance, however. That was good.

And without an exact plan—he suddenly found at least a store of raw material. He waved cheerfully to the man with the tray and, spotting the chief cook over by the ovens, walked casually toward him.

“Hello, chief.”

“Mr. Cameron.” Natural surprise. Hint of deep concern. “What’s going on up there?”

“Well, we’ve got a little problem,” he said. People around him strained to hear, a little less clatter in their immediate vicinity, quickly diminishing to deathly hush. He didn’t altogether lower his voice, deciding that galley crew just slightly overhearing the truth was to the good—gossip never needed encouragement to walk about.

So he began the old downhill skid of intrigue. He wasn’t Bren Cameron, fresh off the island and blind to the world. He was, he reminded himself, paidhi-aiji—the aiji’s own interpreter, skilled at communication, skilled at diplomacy between two species—and used to the canniest finaglers and underhanded connivers in Shejidan. “Everything so far is fine, except station has locked the fuel down tight and wants Sabin in their offices and their inspectors on our deck, as if the senior captain had to account to them.” That wasn’t phrased to sit well with a proud and independent crew, not at all. “So do you think I could get a basket of sandwiches to take up to the bridge as an excuse to be up there, to find out what’s going on?”

The chief cook, Walker, his name was, listened, frowning. “What do you think’s going on, sir? What in hell do they want, excuse my french, sir?”

“They want us to say yessir and take their orders, and I don’t think the captains are on their program. I don’t officially speak for Captain Graham—but I’ll take it on my own head to go up there and find out if he has orders he doesn’t want to put out on general address. If you could kind of deliver a small snack around the decks and at the same time pass some critical information to crew in lockdown, it might be a good thing—tell the crew back the captain, tell them don’t mention atevi or the planet at all if these Guild people ask, no matter what. If they’ve got any pictures that might give that information, get them out of sight. And don’t do anything these people could use for an excuse for whatever else they want to do. Senior captain’s taken all our security with her, trying to make a point to the Guild on station. Captain Graham’s kind of empty-handed up there, worried about them taking over the ship.”

A low murmur among the onlookers.

“Taking over the ship,” he repeated. “Which is what we’re going to resist very strongly, ladies and gentlemen. Captain Graham is worried: Captain Sabin is risking her neck trying to finesse this, and Captain Graham’s attitude is, if they even try to claim her appointment as senior captain of this ship isn’t official without their stamp of approval, gentlemen, there’s going to be some serious argument from this ship. Captain Graham’s worried those investigators may make matters difficult up on the bridge. And I want some excuse to go up there and look around and make absolutely sure the bridge crew’s not being held at gunpoint right now.“

Quiet had spread all through the galley. Not a bowl rattled.

“So what’s to do, sir?” Walker asked.

“Back Captain Graham. Be ready, if there’s trouble; if there’s some kind of incursion down here, squash it. Spread the word. We’ve got that alien craft lurking way out there, watching everything that’s going on, expecting us to straighten out this mess and so far being civilized about our going in here to get the answers out of the station administration. I know the aliens are waiting. I talked to them, so far as talk went, and right now they’re being more cooperative than the station authority—who’s got an explosive lock rigged to keep us from the fuel we need, did that word get down here? And a sign on it telling us in our own language it’ll blow up in our faces. I don’t think the aliens could read that sign. Guild won’t say a thing about that ship, and now they’re making demands as if Sabin was to blame for their station having a hole in it. The Guild is holding the fuel against the senior captain’s agreement to walk into their offices and present her papers, as if they had the say over this ship, which she doesn’t agree they have.”

“No, sir,” one man said, and a dozen others echoed.

“But there we are,” Bren said. “We don’t know why the innocent people we came here to rescue aren’t rushing to get aboard and get out of here. Or why they didn’t just board, the last time this ship docked. We believe there’s people on that station that might like to board. But they’re not showing up, and the only communication we’ve got is a sign telling us hands off the fuel. That’s why the order hasn’t come to walk about. I want to get up there to lend Captain Graham some help, and I figure there’s less suspicion about galley bringing food in—so can you figure how to make me look like I’m on galley business?”

“Bridge wants more sandwiches,” Walker growled, with a look around, and personnel moved, fast.

Then Walker asked him outright: “What’s gran down there thinking about this situation? The atevi backing you?”

“Backing your captains, while Captain Graham’s taking every measure not to let any outside inspector near five-deck. We don’t want to explain the whole last nine years of our alliance to a Guild that’s in a standoff with an alien ship and not leveling with us. We don’t want them scared. Gran ’Sidi perfectly well understands the need to finesse this operation. Right now you’re likely the only group that’s free to move. You can carry messages, receive information, get it back here, carry signals, carry plans, if it goes that far. I can’t stress enough how important it is we keep the peace down here, keep your freedom to move, and just stay ready to back the captains.”

“Damn right,” Walker said, and, an assistant turning up in the aisle with the requisite basket atop a loaded drink-tray, Walker took the goods and handed the exceedingly heavy arrangement to him. “Anything you need, sir. And anything your people down on five-deck need, if you’re having to stay locked down. Same to the bridge.”

“I’ll pass that on,” Bren said earnestly, restraining the habitual bow. “Thank you, chief. Thank you all.”

He walked out, one more member of cook’s staff on a mission involving sandwiches, drinks, and now the bridge. He didn’t know a thing, didn’t have an ulterior motive, didn’t have a badge or an ID. No one on the ship ever had a badge, the same way they didn’t put up directional signs. They were all family. Outsiders, once the spotlight was on, stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.

But he didn’t look that foreign, by the galley worker’s initial reaction. And everything he’d just said in ship-speak, he was sure Jago followed well enough, at least the gist and intent of it, especially since he was sure Ginny had made it to the security station by now, to provide help with the nuances.

He carried his load down the main corridor back to the lift, not, at the moment, worrying about Guild agents inside the ship. He was just an ordinary fellow, that was all, a crewman whose greatest fear was getting his food orders mixed up.

He maneuvered his tray inside the lift, knuckled the requisite buttons, held his tray steady and kept his face serene.

One deep breath before the door opened. He walked out beyond that short partition that screened the lift area from the bridge.

A gray-armored man stepped out from the other side of that partition and leveled a rifle at him.

Well, well, that was different. He had no trouble at all looking discomfited, while his eye took in an immediate and tolerably complete snapshot of the situation—Jase angry and alarmed, the bridge crew sitting idle stations on a ship that wasn’t moving, while four gray-armored men, one gray-haired, gray uniform, likely a technician, leaned over the number one console, the beseiged tech leaning inconveniently far over, but not yielding his seat.

“Sandwiches, cap’n. The chief thought you’d need ’em.” Bren used his best and broadest ship-accent, simply ignored the armed threat and blundered on, presenting the tray to Jase, who waved him on—no exchange of glances, nothing but a set jaw and a situation in which an intruder from belowdecks was oh-very-welcome to walk around, the captain saying nothing about it at all.

Anxious eyes fixed on him at various places, techs recognizing him and doing a masterful job of not showing it. Hostile Guild stares assessed him as a nuisance, a fool on a job mostly below their radar, and passed him.

“Dunno what we got,” Bren said to the first bridge tech, looking at the sliced side of sandwiches, while Jase resumed his argument with the Guild agents. He let the woman take a pick of fillings, then wandered over to the Guild investigator. “You’re from the station.” Brilliant observation. “I’ll bet you’re glad to see us.”

“Cameron.” Harsh admonition from Jase. A clear warning. “Do your job.”

“Yessir.” He turned a charitable face to the Guild investigator. “Want a sandwich, sir? I got a few extras here.”

“No,” the intruder said.

“I’ll take one,” the beseiged chief tech said, the one with the Guild man leaning over his shoulder.

Bren let him take a pick while the argument went on, Jase with the Guild. “In absence of the senior captain’s direct order, no.”

Bren started down the row, handing out drinks and sandwiches, his back to the problem. Worried eyes met his, one after the other, warning, desperately asking.

“Cook’s compliments,” Bren said, hoping to God nobody recklessly tried a whispered message. He was used to acute atevi hearing—and the electronics that routinely amplified it. There was ample evidence of electronics on the intruders, doubtless amplification, and he strongly suspected some sort of link back to Guild headquarters, but maybe not as good a link as they might want, given two hulls and the technical facts of their connection. He didn’t need to pass specific messages. His very presence with a tray of sandwiches said cook knew, so crew below knew and atevi and Mospheirans knew. He was no threat—but atevi had a reputation for stealth and silent interventions. Don’t panic, his being here said. We’re aware. Gran ’Sidi is aware. The captain has armed, skilled support.

Jase’s ongoing debate with the Guild—he couldn’t hear it all, but it seemed the Guild inspectors demanded to see the log and Jase kept saying no, the senior captain had ordered to the contrary, the senior captain had to authorize that, and the senior captain wasn’t here, so hell would have icicles before any non-crew touched a board.

“Not until she’s on this deck and she changes the order,” Jase said. Perfect imitation of a subordinate with one bone to chew and absolutely no imagination of doing anything to the contrary. The Guildsmen, in their turn, wanted to call their headquarters and get that direct contact with Sabin.

“Won’t matter,” Jase said, obdurate. “Won’t matter. Until she’s on this deck, no matter what she says to the contrary, I have my orders. Nothing she says is going to mean a thing to me until she’s back here and she can say so on our deck.”

For the first time a certain method appeared in Sabin’s madness: you asked, I went, now you want it different. Sorry. You’ve blown your cover and I won’t do a thing until I’ve got answers.

One hoped to God nobody had tried to apply force to Sabin and her security team. One hoped she reached the Guild offices, took her stand and explained to the Guild why they had to turn over all alien remains and materials in their custody and pack their suitcases for a long trip.

Meanwhile there seemed to have been no word from her. Jase stood his ground, heard all the arguments, nodded sagely—and went repeatedly back to a simple shake of the head and a repetition that he wasn’t going beyond Sabin’s orders.

Bren coasted past, dumbly made a second attempt to hand the captain a sandwich and a drink in mid-argument.

“Cameron,” Jase said in warning. “Just stow it.”

“Yessir,” he said, as if he’d understood some silent, peeved order, and wandered off to the administrative corridor, the Guild agents’ suspicious eyes on his back. One of them was going to follow. Not good.

He took his tray and basket into Jase’s office, whisked the damning picture off the shelf and under the basket atop the tray, then set down Jase’s sandwich and drink just as the shadow appeared in the doorway.

And came inside.

“Can’t leave you in here, sir.” Bren made his voice perfectly polite, a little nervous as he tucked his empty tray close. With a free hand, he waved the agent toward the door. “I got to go, sir, if you please. Can’t leave anybody in the captain’s office. Regulations.”

The agent edged out, scowling, casting a look over his shoulder. Bren walked out and happened to lock the door in the process.

He had one drink container left. He blithely offered it to the agent—and let that cold answering stare go all the way to the back of his eyes. His only personal problem was getting back with the tray and reporting to cook. He didn’t know what the captain was doing. He didn’t know what the problem was up here. It wasn’t his job. The galley was. Captains and officers solved the big problems. It was all way over his head.

The agent collected the drink. Bren just wanted to get back to the galley. Didn’t want to lose the tray. No-damn-sir, didn’t want to look any angry officer in the eye.

The hand dropped. Bren went on his way. And reaching the bridge, interrupted the captain in mid-argument. Again. “Beg pardon, sir, cook’s asking when’s shift change?”

“Just set it up,” Jase said. That wasn’t chance wording. “These gentlemen will be touring belowdecks very briefly—tell ops down there they have their own key.”

Damn, Bren thought. Their own key. The captains notoriously had keys, builders’ keys, that let them into anything. If they had that, nothing was defended except the bridge, where human bodies sat obdurately between the Guild men and the boards.

He carefully kept the stupid look. “Yessir.” He hugged his tray to him and headed toward the exit. Past the last agent.

Whose rifle dropped to bar his way.

“What’s this with guns?” he asked, quick as thinking—let Banichi and Jago know he was in trouble. Indignantly: “What’s this with guns, captain?”

“You don’t interfere with my crew,” Jase said, strode over and shoved the rifle up, hard. “You may be almighty Guild enforcement, mister, but you don’t interfere with crew carrying out my orders.”

“This is the way it’s going to be,” the senior agent said from the heart of the bridge. “We stay aboard and we supervise. We supervise until your captain gives us access, and maybe we supervise some more. That’s our order from our deck, and that’s that, captain, so get used to it.”

The standoff continued. Bren edged toward the lift, remembered to cast a questioning look at Jase as the source of all law, and got his silent order. Go. Do something.

They were between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They couldn’t afford a shoot-up on the bridge, they still hadn’t had fueling questions answered—and Sabin was on the Guild’s deck and vulnerable, if not already under interrogation. Not good, not good, not good. He could call his staff in, but he wasn’t ready to blow the situation wide open.

“Cameron,” Jase said. “Get below. Advise gran.”

“Who’s this gran?” the Guild senior wanted to know.

“Senior officer,” Jase said. “In charge of logistics for the colony level. I take it your briefing included that detail.”

It didn’t. The Guild men looked perplexed, hadn’t a clue that the ship was here to take their residents off the station, and Jase didn’t explain what the ‘colony level logistics’ had to do with anything, either, whether it was full of colonials or not.

But a suspicious man could guess whatever the station had ordered or asked of Ramirez—strike evacuation of the station as part of the plan, at least as far as these lower-level officers knew.

“Well, that colony level’s the mission, gentlemen.” Best Sabin imitation he’d ever heard Jase launch. “It’s been the mission since our last call here, and I suggest you bear it in mind as you tour the facilities. Maybe your command hadn’t any inclination to tell your office what the exact arrangement was, but we’re expecting their help in operations, we’re expecting a certain contingent from your station to board in good order and with their equipment, and if general administration is trying at this point to wilt and change the mission, let me remind you that you’ve got an alien ship out there that’s curious what we’re doing. I’m well sure it has a limited patience, and if you want to prove obstructionist to our taking on a fuel load to deal with it, I have to ask whether your administration is on the up and up with you, with the station population, or with our captains.”

God. Jase had learned something in the court at Shejidan. It was the best impromptu flight of imagination and half truths since Ilisidi’s launch-day banquet.

It certainly seemed to catch the mission leader aback. At least a doubt or two flickered across that square face. Bren, on the other hand, reminded himself not to look remotely sharp, only being part of the furnishings, same as the cabinetry. He had his gun in his pocket, an open com they hadn’t detected, or didn’t think was out of the ordinary for crew, and a listening post down below which he had every confidence was processing all this and laying contingency plans to get control of the ship, if need be. He didn’t have a word to say. No, not a thought in his head but awe of authority and a certain confusion about the situation.

“Cameron,” Jase said.

“Sir.”

“Conduct this officer down to the lower decks. Let him inspect on crew and colony level. Let him satisfy himself of whatever questions he has.”

“Yes, sir.” Eager and very glad to escape—that part was no act. He asked the agent who’d stopped him: “You want to come with me, sir?”

There was a look passed among the Guild enforcers. The rifle was still a question, not quite put back to safety. A second look.

“Stay in touch,” the senior officer said, and the man moved a step and touched the lift button.

The lift car was waiting right on their level. The door opened immediately. Bren got in, hands occupied with his trays, and freed a finger for the button, heart crashing against his ribs. He had weapons: a straight-edged tray as well as the gun in his pocket, but the best two were his brain and the awareness of his own staff and Ginny’s. There were service accesses. His staff might move, and he wasn’t ready to have that happen. Jase wasn’t—or he’d surely have included five-deck in the proposed tour.

The door shut. The Guild agent bulked close to Banichi’s width, given the body armor, the weapons, the equipment.

Not quite as mentally quick, however. “Thought we were going down one,” the agent said.

“Cap’n said tour you around the colony deck, sir. Figured you’d want to see that, where we got all the special rigging.”

The agent wasn’t eager to admit he and his hadn’t a clue what rigging and what arrangements were, and it clearly wasn’t uncommon for Guild levels to keep truths from each other. If there was anything but a top level officer at the other end of the agent’s electronics, figure that that authority would still have to wonder if there were higher-up secrets to which their agents were inadvertently being exposed—he gave himself about thirty minutes of administrative confusion before someone conceivably asked far enough up the chain and got an order to take action.

But the desire to see all they could see might well keep this fellow tame and following—that left three on the bridge, not four, and just that quarter less force gave Jase more breathing room up there.

The lift door opened on a bone-cold, very dimly lit corridor.

“What is this?”

“Colony level, sir.” He was glad of the coat. Breath frosted. Rime formed on the edge of the door. “Just starting the warm-up.”

“For what?”

“Dunno, sir. Best I know, there’s guys you’re sending, and here’s space for ’em, and we’re going to save the day, I suppose, where we’re going. We got the stores—you want to tour the stores, sir?”

“I’ll take your word for it.” The agent, breath hissing between his teeth, reached for the lift controls.

Bren hit the order for two-deck. Fast and first. First number entered was the number, unless the user used an override, and the agent didn’t appear to have the key.

“What’s on three?” The car moved.

“More crew quarters, sir.” He still had the tray and the basket—and Jase’s picture—clutched against him.

“You’re not damn bright, are you?”

“No, sir,” Bren said cheerfully, as the lift doors opened on two.

The agent looked disgusted. But this level was lighted, it was warm. The agent walked out and Bren walked to his right, tray clutched tight against him.

“This nearest and straight ahead is medical, sir. Just this way is crew area.” Straight to the right, side corridor, a fair walk, two more corridors. Bangs and thumps came from the distance, cook’s operation. Bren felt his heart thumping while his brain sorted the corridors, the charts, the not-quite-perfect knowledge of what was where among all these unmarked doors.

There was, for one thing, warm-storage here, for items various departments needed often and didn’t want frozen. There were cleaning closets. He earnestly wished he dared shove the man into one and lock the door.

That firepower, however, might be adequate to blast right back through a door, and most of these doors were crew quarters. He wasn’t expert in firearms. He wasn’t sure. He wished he could contrive to ask Banichi and Jago that surreptious question, but he didn’t know how to describe the rifle.

So he walked, opened random section doors, a meandering tour of two-deck, while the agent held his rifle generally aimed at the walls and not at him.

Elsewhere the lift operated.

The man looked in that direction, as if things he saw just weren’t entirely adding up.

And stopped. Wary. Listening to his electronics.

“What’s the matter?” Bren asked.

“Shut up,” the agent said. And aimed the gun at him while he went on listening.

Bren had his hand on a door switch. Storeroom. He was ready, heart in mouth, to make a desperate maneuver and hope the door was adequate, if that was his only choice.

“What’s that?” The agent motioned at that hand with the gun barrel.

“Service closet, sir.” He punched it open to demonstrate the fact, and dropped the offending hand.

“Don’t get smartass. Where’s life in this place?”

“All these cabins. They’re still waiting in quarters. Ship’s rules when we dock, sir.”

“What’s that?”

There’d been a sound, a clank, a clatter. A cart, somewhere in motion not far away. “Oh, I imagine that would be galley, sir. The staff’s delivering food around. People got to eat, no matter if shift’s held over.” The storeroom door shut. Doors always did, left unattended. But the agent was jumpy. Very. The gun twitched that direction. And something in the Cameron bloodstream, some ancestral fool, suddenly just had to push when pushed. “Door’s automatic, sir. Watch your fingers.”

“Where’s auxiliary ops?”

“That’s on a ways aft, sir. We can go there when you like. But there’s more.”

“Let’s go that way.”

He obliged the man. They walked. They saw exactly nothing. They might go to the galley, Bren decided, lacking a plan, not sure how far or how long his staff was holding off, but absolutely certain they were being tracked. He could arrange a diversion, maybe get cook’s help to shove the fellow into a storeroom, his best amateur imagination of a solo heroic finish to this foolery.

But the minute he made a move on this highly wired individual, conversely, and probably what Banichi and his staff was thinking, Jase would have to answer for that action upstairs, with all the others and all that delicate equipment up there—not to mention the communications links this team of enforcers presumably had to the station’s inner workings, where Sabin was also exposed to reprisals. Banichi and the rest might be maneuvering into position in the service accesses, for what he could guess—which was a cold, arduous business, getting between levels. But he wasn’t alone. He was sure he wasn’t alone, and that all the problems he could think of were being thought of: Banichi might have been deceived once about the sun and the stars, but the handling of an armed intrusion and a hostage situation was no mystery at all to him.

The question here was who was hostage. Bren rather thought he wasn’t, that he, in fact, had this part of the problem in hand.

So they walked. And walked. Bren rattled on about safety procedures, the most boring official tour information he could muster, a compendium of the orientation video tour the crew had put together for groundlings. He clutched the trays and the damning picture against him as they walked, and he toured the man up one hall and down the other for what felt like a gun-threatened eternity, telling himself he was gaining time for those who knew what they were doing to work matters out—possibly for Gin to communicate with Jase and coordinate actions.

Meanwhile small rackets led their tour steadily toward the galley’s open door, where cook’s mates came and went. The armed approach drew an anxious look, but no one, thank God, reacted in panic.

“Galley, sir,” Bren said brightly, the obvious, and led their tour inside, stopping just inside the door, where he set the tray and its load onto the nearest shelf and trusted no one to ask brightly what the picture was.

The agent gave everyone the cold eye. A food truck wanted out the door. The agent stood there just long enough to be inconvenient, saying nothing, asking nothing, just looking. The agent moved and the innocent cart trundled past.

“Want a soft drink?” Bren asked, pushing it way beyond bounds, at the same time cuing cook what part he was still playing. “Cup of tea, sir?” He asked himself in an afterthought whether the food menu and the planet-origin smells might give away to this man as much as Jase’s photo, but most anything could pass for synthetic, if the observer were predisposed to believe everything in the universe was synthetic. “Stuff’s real good.”

“Not here for that,” the agent said, and walked out, shoving him aside in the process.

“So what are you looking for?” Stupid question of the hour. Bren followed him. Got into the lead again. Without the damning tray.

“Checking things out,” the agent said, and pointed at random. “Looking for answers. Open that door.”

“It’s just a door, sir. It’s a cabin.”

“Open it?”

“Yes, sir,” Bren said, and politely pushed the entry-request, same as a groundling’s knock at the door.

The door took its time opening. A couple of uniformed crewmen stood there looking confused. Alarmed, to have a stranger with a rifle standing in their cabin doorway.

“This is Mr.—” Bren hesitated, trying to keep it social, ridiculous as it all felt, and he wasn’t sure what level of inanity might just be too much. “Didn’t catch the name, sir.”

“Esan,” the agent said, giving the two occupants his long, flat stare.

“Mr. Esan,” Bren amended the introduction, stupidly cheerful. “Mr. Esan, here, is giving the ship the once-over before we do the formalities. Captain Sabin’s on station doing whatever’s necessary. Captain Graham says I should just tour him around.”

The two crewmen weren’t stupid. And in this corridor of all corridors they’d likely gotten cook’s warning and knew they were the lucky people to deal with a ticking bomb.

“Glad to meet you,” one said, and moved forward to offer a hand.

Esan flinched, oddly enough. Didn’t take the offered hand. Then did, as if the crewman were holding something objectionable… or contagious.

Well, well, well.

“Benham,” the crewman said, doggedly cheerful. “Roger Benham.” He indicated the second, younger man. “My cousin Dale. Welcome aboard, Mr. Esan. It’s good to meet somebody from Reunion.”

“Hard voyage?” Esan asked.

“Oh, average,” Benham said. “Glad to meet you. Esan. Aren’t any Esans aboard.”

“We all took to station,” Esan said grimly, and walked out.

Bren stayed with him. Kept cheerful. And stupid.

“Much the same with the rest of this?” Esan asked—meaning the doors. Having found nothing subversive.

“All the same,” Bren said. “Well, except the storerooms. We can go back there if you like.”

“Bridge,” Esan said. He seemed to be listening to someone. Muttered a quiet, “Yeah,” to that someone at the other end.

“Yes, sir,” Bren muttered, wondering at what time something might go very wrong upstairs and Officer Esan might simply level that rifle and shoot him without warning. The policy decision on this one was more than the dowager and Banichi and Cenedi: Sabin might start something, if she sent word; and Jase might, if he decided he had to move. And something up on the bridge had clearly changed.

Suddenly.

“Back to the lift,” Esan said.

“Yes, sir,” Bren said, and led the way, beginning to think of the gun in his pocket, thinking if things had gone wrong up there he could prevent reinforcement—but getting his electronics up to that deck could give Banichi and Cenedi direct information about the situation. He sweated, trying to figure.

The lift was quick in coming. He boarded with Esan, punched in the bridge, and kept bland cheerfulness on his face, stupidest man alive, yes, sir.

Not a word. Esan was listening to something.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Meeting in the captain’s office,” Esan said.

“Yes, sir,” he said, deciding not to shoot Esan through his coat pocket. A meeting. His heart settled marginally and he was ever so glad he’d gotten that picture out.

The door opened, letting them back onto the bridge. “Captains’ offices are this way, sir.” He stuck like glue, his stupid, cheerful presence guiding the way.

The bridge crew was still pretending to work. They drew stares. The tension was palpable as they walked the short distance from the lift area, past the bridge operations area, into the administrative corridor. Jase’s men were there, Kaplan and Polano, armed, that was worth noting. Armed, but outside, looking anxious while Jase was, evidently, inside.

“Here’s where, sir,” Bren said, and Kaplan opened the door to let Esan in.

Jase was secure behind his desk. Two of the investigators were sitting in chairs in front of it, one standing in the corner. Esan made four.

“Mr. Esan, is it?” Jase rose and came around the corner of the desk, offering a hand. Esan confusedly reciprocated.

Then Jase turned a scowl, aimed at Bren. “Mr. Cameron.”

“Sir.”

“Out!”

No question. Bren ducked back for the door, fast as any offending fool.

Jase stalked to the door in pursuit. “Cameron, you stupid son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing?”

A bewildered investigator started to intervene. But Jase shoved Bren back hard, dived out after him, whirled and hit the door switch as the man tried to come out.

The door shut. The investigator had skipped back: security doors meant business. Kaplan immediately hit lock.

And that was, if not that, at least an significant improvement on the ship’s onboard situation.

Bren let go his breath. Jase straightened his jacket.

“Good job,” Bren said shakily, and in Ragi. “The intruders are now contained in Jase’s office, nadiin-ji.” He was astonished and relieved, quite astonished at himself, and Jase, and Jase’s team. He didn’t know what precisely what they were going to do about the morsel they’d just lodged in their collective gullet, but they’d defended the ship from capture. They’d won. Themselves. The human species had won one.

Jase gave an approving glance to Kaplan and Polano: “Well done. Well done, gentlemen.” Pressman, the third of Jase’s men, appeared from a little down the corridor, out of Ogun’s office, with a rifle.

“Any word coming from Sabin?” Bren asked.

“No,” Jase said sharply. “Her signal’s quit. And these bastards aren’t getting off this ship until there is word.”

Not good news. Not at all.

“Everything all right down on crew level?” Jase asked.

“Everything but third-shift crew stewing in their cabins.”

“We’ll fix that,” Jase said, and led the way back into the bridge area, into the middle of the bridge. “Cousins,” Jase said to all and sundry on the bridge, “the problem is now contained. C1, kindly continue jamming any output or input from station. Then give me contact with my office, intercom image in my office to monitor thirty-two, with audio.”

“Yessir.” C1 cheerfully punched buttons, and began the process.

Jase picked up a handset and thumbed in a code. “Gentlemen.”

Bren stood by, watching the monitor, on which one saw four armored station agents battering the office door with rifle butts—and asking himself how, if they had begun jamming, they were going to hear from Sabin at all.

They would not, he feared.

“Mr. Becker,” Jase said.

Battering stopped. The group looked at the desk.

“Our captain’s signal has ceased,” Jase said. “You are now jammed, gentlemen. Turn in all armament and electronics and cooperate with Phoenix authority, and we’ll negotiate for your return to your own command. The same authority that established Reunion in the first place is now in charge of this station, and will be in charge, and I advise you not to disarrange my office, gentlemen, since I may be judging your case.”

Bren earnestly wished he had a tap into what Jase received on his earpiece.

“That’s all very well, gentlemen,” Jase said, “but you’re on our deck, this ship maintains its own rules, and I don’t give a damn about your local regulations. Turn over your weapons and peel out of the armor. To the skin. You’ve far exceeded your authority and my patience, and unless I get a direct countermand from the senior captain, not likely under current circumstances, the lot of you are under close arrest.”

One man moved. Leveled a gun at the door and fired. The sound reached the corridor.

Jase punched one more button. “Kaplan? Fire suppression, B4.”

The view on screen clouded. Instantly.

The intruders had, Bren recalled, masks among their body-armor. They surely had internal oxygen. They surely were going to use that resource, fast.

“Gentlemen,” Jase said, “I’m going about other work. Advise me when you’re ready to comply with instructions. I know you’re on your own air. But we can keep the office in fire-suppression for the next century or so. And if you do succeed in breaching that door, gentlemen, be assured you’ll walk into worse. Would you like to negotiate at this point? Or do you want to be carried out after your air runs out? Because I’m prepared to hold out until the next century, but I don’t think you’ll last near that long.”

Bren didn’t hear what the men answered. But Jase seemed grimly pleased.

“C1,” he said, “take precautions, condition red.”

There was an answering murmur from exhausted crew, all the while crew locked down, pulled down covering panels for the consoles, all calmly.

Small under-console panels divulged weapons. The bridge crew armed itself, hand-weapons, a few heavier, to defend the ship’s heart and nerve center if it got to that. Jase might have read his captain’s training out of a rule book, but damn, Bren thought, he’d learned a few things on the planet, and he was ice calm.

Bren’s pocket comm vibrated. He said, without taking the device out publicly in Jase’s domain, “One hears, nadiin-ji. One believes the ship’s personnel are managing the situation very well indeed. Wait.”

The lift door opened. Security personnel arrived, the ship’s few remaining, in full kit, with breathing assist and antipersonnel armament.

“Four Guild enforcers are occupying my office,” Jase said with a hook of his thumb. “Fire suppression’s engaged. Captain’s signal’s gone dead and they’re for security confinement. My personal guard is sitting on the situation. Assist.”

Ship’s integrity was the ship’s highest law. Ship was country and family, even if they’d had their bloody fights. And station admin was only a cousin-relationship, when it came to that. Bren didn’t say a thing, only stood and watched the security team, clearly ready for some time, head down the short hall.

The executive offices security door shut across that view, protecting the bridge from whatever unpleasantness might break out of Jase’s office.

Jase stood still, pushing the earpiece firmly into his ear. The spy-eye was still running, but the white fog inside the office gave way to thermal image. Four armed men, each in a corner, clear as could be.

The door to that office opened. A barrage opened up, anti-personnels bouncing all over—astonishing in a small space. There seemed to be a deal of wreckage. The intruders flinched, went down under a continuing volley of pellets that richocheted off every surface in the small office and hit from every angle.

Two attempted a breakout. Bren stifled a useless warning.

The two dropped at the door, netted and shorted out, in every electrical contact exposed. A third went down, in split-screen, clawing at a suit control that didn’t seem to be functioning, and a fourth tried to bolt.

Security netted that one, too, right atop the other two, a struggling lump. It looked like Kaplan who hauled that one out and up.

It was over. Won. Bren let go a breath. His knees felt the weight of hours.

“Got the bastards,” Jase said quietly.

The bridge crew breathed, too, shoulders just that degree relaxing—but they were still armed, still waiting for orders.

“You can let them out, C1,” Jase said. “Get additional security to do a fire-check and a bug-check down there. Let’s not have any lingering problems.”

Definitely learned in his time in Shejidan, Bren thought. Banichi would declare it a fine job. Not finessed, but certainly well ended. They stood there, watching the search on the monitors, and he took a moment to report.

“Nadiin-ji, one believes the local matter is now aptly handled. Jase-aiji has done extremely well. One regrets to report Sabin-aiji’s signal has ceased for some undefined reason, but the internal threat is under arrest and destined for detention. Jase remains firmly in charge of the ship.”

Doors opened. Armored, masked security, Kaplan, Polano and Pressman among them, by the badges, dragged their prisoners out, four net-wrapped men, stripped of armor and weapons—men who looked far smaller and less threatening, in disarranged blue fatigues stained with sweat.

“Have medical look them over, inside and out,” Jase said. “Then tank the lot and have a look at their communications.”

“Yes, sir,” the head of the second team answered, and bundled the problem out of view of the bridge, lift-bound.

“C1,” Jase said quietly.

“Sir?” Crisp and proper.

“Once they’ve cleared the lift, I’ll go down and address the crew on two-deck. And for bridge crew,” he said, raising his voice, turning to make it carry. “Well done. Good job, cousins. Continue measures in force, pending further orders. We’ll go to shift change very soon now, with thanks.”

Relief went through the bridge crew on the gust of a sigh. Arms went to safety, a scattered, soft sound.

“Restore the boards for next shift and we’ll carry on, cousins. That’s all. I don’t know how this is going to affect the senior captain’s situation, but we’ve got the ship rather than losing it. And if they’ve got the fuel, we’ll figure a way to work this. It’s clear they’re not going anywhere. Resume operations.”

Crew began putting weapons away, clearing the safety covers from consoles. The bridge began to normalize operations.

Jase’s face had been flushed with anger. Now the sweat broke out and the flush gave way to pallor. Bren remarked that. But Jase didn’t offer to go to quarters, and Bren himself didn’t move. His legs felt like posts. The adrenalin charge was trying to flow out of him, fight-flight instincts having incomplete information from the brain, which said, with complete conviction, You can’t quit. It’s not done. They had an alien threat at their backs and station had slammed a stone wall down in front of them.

“Prisoners are secured in medical, captain.” That from C1.

“Assembly on two, C1, all shifts.”

“Yes, sir,” C1 said, and Jase said, from every speaker in the ship, and likely within hearing of the make-shift brig:

“Captain Graham will address crew on two-deck, all attend, all attend. Three minute warning.”

“Mr. Cameron,” Jase said.

“Captain?”

“You’ll do me the honor, Mr. Cameron. You can explain the atevi position. I know ours.”