Explorer (31 page)

“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 besieged 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 besieged 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.”