Explorer (45 page)

“But he wasn’t Guild, was he? He didn’t take the Guild’s orders. He didn’t take their orders when it came to poking about in other people’s solar systems. The Guild wanted resources. But he was constantly looking for an alternative, not so much for Reunion as for the Guild’s leadership. I rather think you went along with that for a number of years. But he was getting older and no stronger, and when the business blew up and Reunion got hit, then you were going to see to it he carried out Guild orders, if you had to shift the balance of power on the Council. You were going to stop him from his old-age ambition to settle this mess, because you thought he’d become a fool.”

“That’s not so.”

“You’d spied on him all his life. You’d told the Guild as much as kept the Guild happy. And when Ramirez began to look weak, you jumped over to the Guild’s side.”

“Ramirez was, longterm, looking for alternatives to the Guild,” Bren interjected. “Looking at every likely star in reach. And he finally found his answer at Alpha—a whole planetful of alternatives. And not all human. And that’s when he made a choice. And I think that’s when you did, Mr. Jenrette.”

“He was the Old Man,” Jenrette said. “I was with him.”

“And when he made an agreement with the atevi,” Jase said, “and kept it—did you try to save him from himself, too, Mr. Jenrette? When he was dying, were you the one who let the rumor out, about survivors at Reunion? You knew the truth. You’d known it from the time you went into Reunion.”

Hesitation. Hesitation, as if somewhere in the whole equation, there was still a fragment of real loyalty in the man, a desire to justify himself to himself.

“You double-crossed Ramirez when he was dying,” Jase said. “Damn you. And you double-crossed Sabin out there. You didn’t bring us her orders. You brought us theirs.”

“No.”

“The Guild’s orders, Mr. Jenrette. You’re working for the Guild, and you have been since your visit here. I’d like to have known what went on after the record ended. I’d like to know what they said, or did, to turn you so thoroughly to their side.”

“There never was a side,” Jenrette said. “I didn’t double-cross the Old Man, and I didn’t double-cross the Old Lady. I want her back safe. But safe isn’t going against the Guild, safe
isn’t
letting atevi run the ship or taking your orders from
him
, sir.”

Meaning the paidhi-aiji, quite clearly.

“A bloody great hole in the station is safe?” Jase retorted. “A mess with an alien ship out there is safe? You’d better stop and look around you, Mr. Jenrette. You want to say what you think? I’m a jumped-up theoretician? I’m too friendly with the atevi? I’m not really qualified and you’re going to save the ship by steering another batch of us into a Guild trap, when they set the captains against them, when they’ve kept their own population at risk instead of shipping the majority of them out of there? You
have
double-crossed Captain Sabin, Mr. Jenrette, in your mistaken conviction that a handful of deskbound fools have any clue how to assure
human beings survive in this universe
with
our culture and our common sense. Rethink, mister. Rethink and tell me I don’t have the real picture.
They’ve
got a theory.
We’ve
been there and back again. We’ve dealt with aliens and we’re still human, last I looked in a mirror. Not human enough for you, maybe, but that’s the reality, and theirs dead-ends. It’s going to dead-end completely in not so very long, because we’re pulling the population out of here. So where have you ended up, Mr. Jenrette? Doing anything good? I don’t think so.”

Long silence. Jenrette shook. He outright trembled, in the shock of a real injury, but Bren didn’t find himself in the least sorry for the man who’d been a long-term traitor to three captains, his own comrades, and the ship’s whole crew.

“Well,” Jase said, “so what you wanted, Mr. Jenrette, isn’t happening. We’re undertaking the steps to let us board passengers. We’re shutting Reunion down. And if you want to find a way out of your situation, you’d better start trying. Mr. Cameron, do you have any questions for him?”

Bren had not the remotest idea what questions Jase wanted asked of the man, but Jase, sitting on his well-known temper, probably didn’t trust himself to find all the requisite threads at the moment. He didn’t have specifics, but he had keys; and if he could only open a door to information, he hoped Jase might find a wedge to keep it flowing.

“Mr. Jenrette,” Bren said quietly. “Mr. Jenrette, I’m relatively sure you’re quite adept at leaking information. Maybe you dropped just enough hints to provoke Tamun to turn on Ramirez; and Tamun killed your partners, which was why you swerved about and turned on Tamun. I’ve no doubt you were at Ramirez’s ear for years. I’m relatively sure if anything aboard this ship for the last twenty years has skewed off course, your fingers are somewhere in it. All these things I believe are the truth, but they’re all past. What is important is that we’re going to get the fuel we need, we’re going to get everyone off the station that we can persuade aboard, and then we’re going to have to blow up the station with everyone that’s left aboard—your Guild, foremost. Probably our senior captain and your latest colleagues in her bodyguard, but she knew the risk she ran, and I’m sure you did. After we blow it up, we’re going to take our alien guest over to his people, and take what agreement we can get and go back where we came from. That’s what we’re going to do, Mr. Jenrette. But you
know what we came here to do. And I’m sure you’ve told the Guild. Why of all things did you think you could walk back in here and be believed, with me, and with Captain Graham? Or was that the job Guild leadership gave you? You’d lost your usefulness with Sabin: she was onto you. So they just made a last-ditch try and sent you here—because if you’ve hired a traitor, you don’t go on using him. You find someplace to send him where he’ll be taken care of. Unhappily, we’re the only other place there is. You’re supposed to do some sabotage. Use your skills on their side. Never mind what you contain. What you know. You’ll be a good follower, and die trying. Then Braddock won’t have to meet you again.”

Jenrette stared him, jaw set, full of anger, and said not a word.

“If you’d stuck with Sabin,” Bren said, “you’d have had her ear. But you’ve thrown away your influence. Sabin did have reservations, exactly as you do. The dowager respects the senior captain:
atevi
would have listened to her as a strong voice for her point of view. But you’ve silenced her. You’ve silenced
all
the voices of human dissent. Thanks to their own mismanagement, the Guild likely will fall; Ramirez is dead, and Sabin may not survive. Tamun, in his rebellion—he didn’t do what you wanted. He decided Ramirez was lying, when most of the lies were yours. Between you, you and Sabin and Tamun, I suspect you kept Ramirez from ever trusting us with the whole truth. How am I doing?”

“Go to hell.”

“Pretty well, I’ll imagine.”

“Listen to me,” Jenrette said. “Listen to me! All we have to do to get out of here is for
him
to answer Guild rules. Then we’re
all
away free, with no trouble.”

For Jase—to surrender
Phoenix
and come under Guild command.

“Meaning Sabin’s also refused the Guild’s orders,” Jase said. “Interesting.”

“It’s your choice.” Jenrette swung round toward Jase. “In a post you don’t remotely qualify for. You’re no captain of this ship. You have no right.”

Jase shook his head with amazing patience. “The stakes are too high, Mr. Jenrette. And trust me, your hand isn’t nearly high enough. Sabin tried to help you—maybe knowing all the while you’re a Guild agent. And look
what she got for her trouble. It’s damned lonely being your friend, Mr. Jenrette.”

“Shut up.”

“You know, Braddock himself may have figured you’re always on your own agenda, and that’s not a wholly useful agent: Bren nailed that, didn’t he? You’re a total fool, but you always know better than your captains, than the Guildmaster, than everybody. Consequently you’re no use to anyone. So Braddock sent you here. Best use for you.”

“Taylor’s bastard,” Jenrette spat. “You don’t have the answers. You weren’t born with any answers. You aren’t God. Just existing doesn’t make you
anybody
, Graham. Not anybody!”

“Take your pick,” Jase said. “I’m sure, if your devotion to the Guild is that strong, Mr. Jenrette, we’ll let you go join Mr. Braddock. He may even remember your name, and he might even keep his promises to you—even if he hasn’t kept them with his own station population.”

“On the other hand,” Bren said, “if your convictions aren’t strong enough to die with the Guild—maybe you aren’t so convinced that’s the best course.”

Jenrette wouldn’t look at him. Not at either of them.

“Make your decision,” Jase said.

“What kind of deal?” Jenrette asked. Not, one noted: I see the light. I change my ways; but: What kind of deal? It was possibly a glimmer of truth.

“You want a pardon?” Jase said.

Jenrette looked at Jase—interested for about a quarter of a heartbeat; then very, very wary. That face he saw wasn’t genial Jase Graham, usually silent second to Sabin. It was Jase Graham who’d stood in the aiji’s court and held his own with the lords of the Association.

“I’m putting you outside,” Jase said quietly. “And there’s only one way you’ll get back aboard. And that’s if you bring the senior captain, alive and well, with every one of her escort.”

“I can’t do that,” Jenrette said.

“Because she’s dead?”

“No. I don’t think she’s dead. But look at this.” Jenrette demonstrated his wounded arm. “You’re sending me out there to get me killed.”

“Mr. Jenrette, I’m not sending a station shopkeeper to do this job. I’m sending a covert professional, who’s managed throughout his life to be secretive. You’ll find a chance to get to her. You’ll have a wider chance as the panic spreads and as the station loses its personnel—wider still, as Braddock’s trusted people get the notion their only hope is this ship. And let me make it very clear. I will let Mr. Braddock aboard. I will
not
let you aboard unless you satisfy my condition. If we don’t get Sabin, you’ll stay on this station. You’ll be on it, all alone, in the dark, when we blow the remnant of this station to cold space.” Jase had leaned on a chair back nearest Jenrette. Now he stood back. “Mr. Polano.”

“Sir.”

“Are your reinforcements outside?”

Polano cross-checked on his com-set. “Yes, sir, they are.”

“Then take him out of here. Get the arm treated. Then put him out into the mast where you found him.”

“Free, sir?”

“He doesn’t come back aboard unless he’s in Captain Sabin’s company.”

“Yes, sir,” Polano said with satisfaction. “Yes,
sir
.”

“Mr. Jenrette,” Jase said nicely, with a little wave of his hand. “Go with Mr. Polano and company. Goodbye and good luck.”

“Damn you,” Jenrette said, and got to his feet. And clearly thought about a move.

Polano showed him the door. And after a self-preserving second thought, Jenrette turned and walked to the door.

There were half a dozen men outside, ordinary crew, armed, and backing up Polano.

The door stayed open a second or two after Polano and Jenrette left, and shut.

“He may do one thing,” Bren said, “or the other. Fifty-fifty he reports to Braddock.”

“I put it sixty-forty against,” Jase said. “Jenrette’s not atevi. He’s a survivor. And I think he’s not found the
chaos he hoped to find aboard. He doesn’t like what he’d have to tell Braddock. Eighty-twenty he’ll lie to Braddock. Question is, can he make Sabin believe him?”

“You’re lucky Sabin took him out of here. God knows what he’d have done.”

“I don’t think luck had anything to do with it. I think she knew what he was. I don’t think she knew how far he’d misinformed Tamun. But she didn’t trust me, with him aboard, to keep this ship out of Guild hands. I think she thought I’d let my guard down.”

“And if he comes back?”

“If he comes back with Sabin—he’ll have his chance to convince her he’s a hero.”

They were committed to the hilt.

And Bren shakily pocketed the gun.

“Our alien’s alive and well?” Jase re-asked him.

“In good condition. Tolerates our air, clearly hasn’t died of our food in six years—a lot of problems shortcut by those two items . . .”

“Shortcut by the plain fact the Old Man was poking around among planets with our life requirements,” Jase said. “So the Guild had an alien hostage. And they don’t, now. We do. We’ve got Jenrette. We’re short a robot, but the word is out. We’ve papered the mast with our fliers. They’ll have hell’s own time rounding those up.”

“We dispersed others on the far side of the station.”

“Any shooting?”

“We made a fair amount of racket—Jago tossed a few grenades, but nobody got killed, nobody hurt on our side. About the brochures—I confess I told certain people they were first-boarding tickets.”

Not much had struck Jase as funny in the last number of hours. The laugh was startled, quickly gone. “We urgently need to talk to this alien. Any possibility?”

“Six years in confinement . . . if he hasn’t learned at least
yes, no
, and
go to hell
I’ll be surprised.”

“But that’s not guaranteed by anything you’ve heard.”

“No. It’s not guaranteed. I’ve sent him to five-deck. Furniture that fits his size. Personnel with the physical
strength to hold him. He’s large. He’s far too strong for human guards. He’s almost too strong for Banichi.”

“I trust you know what you’re doing.” Jase tapped a stylus on his desk. “We’ve made a fair stir here. Observers on that ship out there are going to start wondering. I don’t want to back this ship out and take them the hostage, for several reasons. I don’t want to panic the station. And I don’t want to get involved in negotiations with the aliens out there before we board our people. I want it a fait accompli. But if we take all that mass on, we’ve got to chase the fuel situation to a conclusion, next number one priority. We lost a robot. We did get some pictures. And we know where the guns are.”