Explorer (11 page)

“Keeping the populace quiet.”

“Indeed, aiji-ma. A very few at top who know everything, and a great many common folk who have to trust their aijiin to make good decisions . . . and who may waver in their man’chi if previous lies become evident. Therein the ship’s authority has operated in some fear of discovery. And Jase has uncovered one lie. One suspects there are others.”

“Insurrection?”

“The crew’s patience is fragile. Their expectations come closer and closer to the moment of truth. Jase now knows the image they were shown belowdecks was completely, deliberately falsified. If they see the same sight as we come in, they will know they were deceived. And that will lead them to question Ramirez, whom they hold as their great aiji. If that reputation cracks—indeed there will be a crisis of man’chi—partly grounded in the fact that Sabin already distrusts the crew. She affects to choose her isolation from those of her man’chi—not as mad as it sounds, for a human, aiji-ma, even a sign of strength—but a fragile strength, once the crew becomes disaffected and rebellious. And that could happen: the old Guild is very generally blamed even by the crew for past bad decisions, and crew has abandoned that Guild, blaming it for whatever dangerous situation exists. In their view, innocent persons could have been rescued from the station immediately if the Guild hadn’t ordered Ramirez to the contrary.”

“This, you say, is the popular rumor. Is it, however, true?”

“We have no idea. We suspect even Sabin lacks information—she avows that Ramirez created Jase and Yolanda to deal with aliens he hoped would give him a means to defy the Guild. One listened to Sabin say so—and remembers at the same time that Sabin herself may have stronger man’chi toward the Guild than any of the
other captains, living or dead. Jase, on the other hand, lacking other information, believed he and Yolanda were created to deal with the Mospheiran colony. But the plain truth is, we have no knowledge what Ramirez promised the Guild before he left for our world. He may have lied to everyone, top to bottom.”

“Ah, what a lovely nest of contrary intent.”

“Ship’s records might clarify this. Jase persists in trying to obtain them—but the ship-move will give us no time to deal with anything we learn at our best advantage, even if he can get the records from Sabin. And they may not be relevant when we get there. This ship has been away from Reunion for a decade. Anything could have happened there.”

“Certain things have happened on this ship, have they not? We will not, as a start, recognize the authority of this Guild to be above our own.”

Could one ever doubt the dowager’s resolve? And that
was
the order of the universe he served—the point at which he and Jase might diverge, the point at which he had to be what he was—and Jase had to; and that was the way things would be.

“I know Gin-aiji will very strongly join you, aiji-ma. The Guild comes to us begging resources, after having mismanaged human affairs for several hundred years, and Mospheira has relations with the ship-aijiin, but
not
with the Guild at Reunion. Have no doubt that the Presidenta of Mospheira will stand behind you. Conceivably the crew of this ship might stand behind you, in any falling-out with their aijiin—though I would never predict that.”

“Have you explained this state of affairs to Gin-aiji? Or to Jase?”

“I came straight to you, aiji-ma.”

“Flatterer.”

“Prudence, aiji-ma. Among humans, keeping one’s subordinates in the dark is sometimes a matter of common sense and security—as long as one fails to mention it openly, Gin will take it for secret.”

“A very tangled skein.”

“For Gin’s pride, if nothing else. She knows Sabin holds her in complete disregard. It’s a sore point with
her, but fails to provoke her.”

“Sabin does not highly regard Mospheirans in general,” the dowager observed.

“Sabin still views Mospheirans as rebels from ship authority, aiji-ma. She respects Tabini-aiji and she respects you, aiji-ma. If she wanted something from the planet, I’m sure she’d go straight to the aiji and negotiate without even thinking that the Presidenta of Mospheira—or Gin—might be able and willing to give her what she needed. Sabin doesn’t want them here—far more than she suspects atevi intentions, she suspects Mospheirans. Ramirez’s reasons for avoiding Alpha and courting outsiders were not only his.”

“Curious,” Ilisidi said. “Very curious thinking.”

“Our ancestors were extremely hostile to their Guild.”

“One sees a certain grounds for suspecting a hidden man’chi, paidhi-ji.”

“Old feuds die harder than old loyalties, aiji-ma. Even Sabin might not realize how strong the old opinions are in her. And one worries, too, about attitudes among the population we mean to rescue. Who knows what the Guild told them—or what the truth is?
They
may have been told Ramirez refused to pick them up. I find it entirely possible he did refuse, in favor of first establishing his own authority at Alpha—which even Jase may not suspect. Mospheirans would not take that behavior well, if that were the case. Let alone the crew’s opinion.”

“Madness.”

“Certainly a tangled mess, aiji-ma. I advise only keeping the lid on that pot.”

“Never examine a stew too closely. It offends the cook. Consult your clever islanders. If Gin-aiji says anything useful, advise us.”

He gave a wry smile. “I shall, nand’ dowager.” Half-frozen in the temperature the dowager favored, he took it for leave to go.

“Don’t coddle that boy,” she snapped.

“Yes, aiji-ma.” He reached the door, slipped out. Servants, waiting all this time, breaths frosting in the chill, conducted him back through the labyrinth to the foyer.

Banichi and Jago had passed the brief interval at tea with Cenedi—doubtless the eccentricities of the ship-aijiin
had been the topic of the hour. And likely the dent in the hall had been a small issue. Last week it had been a spring-gun, and a sailing-plane launched from a slingshot prior to that.

“I need to speak with Gin, nadiin-ji,” he told them, once they stood in the warmth of the main corridor.
I’ll call her,
he’d almost said, meaning the intercom. He’d been an hour upstairs and that unacceptable notion just leapt out. He thought instead about going to her office, but that venue was not as secure, and if he was going to violate Sabin’s clearly expressed wishes for secrecy, he wanted not to risk spreading the news to Gin’s team. “Suggest to her staff she would be welcome in a social call.”

“Asicho hears,” Jago said.

“One will advise Narani,” Banichi added.

Done, then. His arrangements moved with many more parts, but well-oiled, efficient. A dinner event of adequate size and service would happen if Ginny Kroger’s staff and his managed to communicate. He could imagine it.
Yo! Gin! It’s the atevi,
gracelessly shouted to Gin’s office, would get a cheerful Mospheiran answer:
Sure I’ll come. What time?

Mospheirans
viewed themselves as fussily formal.

They walked back to his apartment, where he shed the coat in favor of a dressing-robe. He was able to sit down and take notes, while invitations to Gin percolated through the vents, and while Banichi and Jago consulted Asicho in the security station, catching up on any untoward bit of business that might have gone on—the dent seemed the notable item on five-deck. He made a file, meanwhile, out of the upstairs conference, neatly indexed for points of particular interest, robotically translated, down to the point where the mindless machine couldn’t tell the difference between like words and where his staff couldn’t be expected to figure the meaning.

Noon passed. He skipped lunch. Jago brought him the transcript of the verbal exchanges upstairs, and he traded them Jase’s tape.

“There’s not too much to translate here,” he said, “but index it carefully, nadi-ji.”

“Yes,” Jago said, and added, just as the door opened. “One believes that will be Gin-nadi and one of her staff.”

“Excellent,” he said. They hadn’t disturbed him with the report, but the mission was accomplished. And as Narani showed Ginny into his makeshift study, Jago deftly picked off the aide and requested him, in passable Mosphei’, to come for a separate, far less informative briefing.

“It’s all right,” Ginny assured her aide, who had to be used by now to the concept that when lords talked, aides made themselves invisible.

“Tea, Rani-ji,” Bren requested. “Do sit, Gin. I take it you’ve heard a bit from my staff.”

“At least the topic and the source.” Ginny settled—sixtyish, no different than he’d first met her: thin, gray, with an inbuilt frown that hadn’t been an instantly endearing feature when they’d first met. Nor had the habit of challenging him. He’d come to treasure that bluntness, and her. “I take it the senior captain isn’t supposed to know we’re talking.”

“She knows she won’t prevent us talking. But it
is
sensitive.”

“Our problem or hers?”

“Both. I think in this we ought to accommodate her. If this does get out at the wrong moment, it could cause problems.” Narani provided the tea, aromatic, safe for humans, tinged with fruit and spice. “Thank you, Rani-ji. We’ll manage.”

“Nandi.” Narani politely withdrew—not the microphones that assured everything would be available for reference, but withdrew, at least, his visible presence. Ginny assuredly knew they were bugged, and came here without objection: it was just procedure, and she came.

And came, not infrequently, for the company the stuffy Mospheiran notion of hierarchy didn’t give her within her small technical staff. Back on Mospheira, or in Shejidan, one held short, sharp meetings. Onboard ship, with far less diversion—meetings lasted, especially in the atevi section. Lasted through the afternoon, if need be. With tea and refreshments.

“So?” Ginny asked him, and he told her in great detail.

“Lied to the crew, too,” Ginny said with a shake of her head. “Lied to the Guild, lied to Jase—lied to everybody. Not surprising.”

“On Ramirez’s side, there was some reason. It was a useful lie. And one Ramirez could have predicted would give him maximum maneuvering room with us. But still—”

“But still. But still. But still.” Ginny, the guest, lifted her cup for a refill. They’d gone through one pot and were on their second. “You know, you always wonder what things would be like if there weren’t these diversions into deception. Unvarnished truth never seems the ship’s first recourse. The expectation that the crew would be rational. The expectation one’s allies might just realize that ship command hasn’t told the whole truth on any major point in the last three hundred years . . . I mean, don’t they figure we’d figure, sooner or later? That crew would?”

Bren poured the bottom of the pot for himself. “I think they figure we’ll figure they’ll be lying and they’d only confuse everyone if they told the truth.”

“Point,” Ginny agreed. “But from the absolute start. From the very start of them going in, Ramirez, faking that image. Damn him. Chasing aliens, for God’s sake. And he’s the
good
guy.”

“We assume he was on the side of the angels. Jase assumes he was. These days, Jase isn’t any more sure of that than we are.”

“Hell on Jase, stuck up there with Sabin-bitch for company. You think he can get those other records?”

“We’re moving ship tomorrow. He’s sticking close to Sabin. He says he’ll try.” Jase didn’t know a thing about ops, or rather, knew as much as he’d been able to pick up by hearing, but he’d never so much as been on the bridge for a look around before being named captain by the aforesaid Ramirez. “I won one thing. I’ve asked—insisted—both the paidhiin should be on the bridge at arrival in system.”

“And Sabin said?”

“Oh, she’s not totally in favor. But she agreed.”

“Good God.”

“Sabin is not optimistic about this mission.”

Ginny sipped the dregs of her tea. “I insist on optimism at this point. I’m ready for the alternative—at least the one that gets us out of there fast. But I hope there’s fuel waiting for us and my robots and my staff don’t have a
thing to do but connect the lines and suck up the good news and load survivors. At a certain point I don’t care what Jase’s ancestors did. I want to get home. I want to win this.”

A lengthy mining operation out in a stellar wilderness was one alternative. There were far worse ones to contemplate.

Like running straight out into alien guns.

“Let’s hope,” he said. “Let’s hope for a fast, simple homecoming at the other end.”

“It’s springtime back home,” she said meditatively, Mospheiran-like pouring herself another cup. “Did you know? Tourists on the north shore. Nice little bar in Port Winston. Orangelles. That’s what I imagine. Orangelles, orangettes, limonas and chi’tapas. You can smell them in the air.”

Fruit flavors. Flowers. Orchards in bloom.

“I’ll settle for salt air and the waves,” he said, since they were indulging fancy. Best air on earth. Best sound in the world. In his memory, he discovered, it was less Mospheira’s north shore and more the sound of his own cliff-shadowed beach, a strip of white sand under the balcony wall, a little floating pier, lord Geigi’s huge boat tied up there.

And the faces. And the voices.
Bren-ji,
they’d call him. And they’d all understand when he wanted to go barefoot at low tide.

But they were there. He was here. Lord Geigi was running the station they’d come from, trying to keep relations between atevi, Mospheira, and the ship’s technical mission functioning smoothly. A vacation at his own seaside estate was a pipe dream.

“I’ll take a sunset on the beach,” Ginny said cheerfully. “Mind, no tourist shops. I erase those.”

“Oh, we’re editing.”

“Privilege of being out here in hell’s armpit. There’ll be this nice little bar, white fence, blooming vine—chi’tapas petals on a sea breeze, while I’m at it, so sickening-sweet you could just choke. Sunset, just one of those orange ones.”

“Touch of pink,” he said.

“Clouds and sails. Lights of the boats on the water, right at twilight.”

“I’ll go with that.” He liked that image. It wasn’t really maudlin. Ginny wasn’t a maudlin sort. She edited that out, right along with the tourist shops and their shell boats and paper flowers. In favor of chi’tapas. “I’ll give you one. Big stone fortress on a stony hill. Huge wall and a gate. The ground’s so steep grass won’t grow in a solid mass, just sort of little shelves of grass and bare ground between. Thorny brush. And it’s one of those gold sunsets above the hill. There’s light in the windows, and there’s supper waiting, and you’re riding in on mecheita-back.”