Explorer (6 page)

“Emotional answers. Not logical ones.”

“The man was dying. At that point, maybe emotional answers mattered.”

“Wanting me to make the decision? Me, but not Yolanda? Damn it all!”

“And Ogun. And Sabin. It would be their decision, too, when he was out of the picture.”

“I’d be the deciding vote.
Damn
him!”

“If they split. As they didn’t.”

“Most days I forgive him. I suppose I forgive him. I suppose we’re doing the right thing in coming out here. And if we show up and the Guild does what’s ultimately sensible, and boards the ship, and take orders, so many things will become moot. But by all I know about what’s happened in the past—I don’t think that’s highly likely.”

“I never thought it was all that likely, where the Guild is concerned. If they’d wanted to leave Reunion, they’d have left, wouldn’t they? But they’ve had nine years now to get worse off—or better. If they’re stronger and more recalcitrant, we may have decisions to make.”

“Sabin’s going to decide those issues. That’s the fact I can’t change.”

“Crew may decide,” Bren said. “And
you
have that tape.”

“I’ll confess,” Jase said, “I’ve had it for the last month.”

“Not surprising you’d think about it before showing it to me.”

“I’m out of time for thinking. I had to show it to you. We’re coming up on the last move.”

Last move.

“Before Reunion.”

“This next one I really think will put us there.”

A small inner shiver. “You know, I never get used to this
I think
business.”

“Space is lumpy,” Jase said.

“All that. But I still don’t like to hear
I guess
from the navigators.”

“Or from your partner in this mess?”

“Some things you can’t figure with a computer. Jase, we’ll make it. We do what we’ll do when we get there. It’s all we
can
do at the moment, but we just plot alternate positions, if it doesn’t work. Same as I suppose your navigators do. Which is why I think you called me here.”

Jase gave a wry, one-sided smile. Started the tape moving again. On the screen, the exploration reached a corner.

“The fact is,” Jase said, “the one reconciling fact, in all the Old Man planned, is that he wanted me in some kind of authority over my own destiny. More than that, I think he’d be happy you’re here. And honored that the dowager is here, with all she represents. I think you’re right. Contamination no longer frightened him. He’d reconciled himself to the blended civilization he’d found. I think, all his old Guild notions to the contrary, he’d found the universe a far more dangerous place than he’d ever imagined, and before he died, he’d learned to take allies where he could get them. Yolanda kept her standoffishness from local culture. I didn’t. I fell far more deeply not just into downworld culture, but into atevi culture, and the one thing that both infuriates me and encourages me is that Ramirez appointed
me
to succeed him. Me.
My
view of the universe. My atevi-contaminated, impure view of the universe humans have to live in. It’s not a degree of importance I ever wanted, I’ll tell you. But the thought that Ramirez meant to do it, that he actually approved what I am—is what gives me the courage to get out of bed and go on duty.” Jase pressed a button and skipped ahead, to a point where the helmet-cam view reached a sealed pressure door. In rapid motion they locked through, and then . . .

Then the record ended. Stopped.

“That’s it?” Bren asked.

“That’s it,” Jase said. “That’s all we have. It’s absolutely not regulation that the tape stops like that. It’s very much against regulations. And maybe Sabin knows what happened next and maybe she doesn’t, but certainly, based on that tape, you and I don’t. And that’s the other reason I wanted to talk to you. You’re the diplomat. My outrageous instinct says have the inevitable confrontation with Sabin about this tape right now, before we get to Reunion Station. Tell her what I know, what I suspect, all the structure of tissue and moonbeams. If it’s going to blow up, let it blow and let’s talk about the ship’s great secret, and Ramirez’s crazy ideas, and settle it before we
have another crisis on us. Let me add a fact to keep between you and me. We’ve run with a little excess of fuel, ship’s rule. Enough fuel reserve to get out to a place we know if things aren’t optimum or if the Guild tries to take us.
If
Sabin’s disposed to do it—she can get us away from Reunion. The name of the place is Gamma. And you’re right—I can order that, if Sabin is in some way incapacitated. There are resources there. It would take us years, but we’d get home that way. On the other course, if we do go into Reunion, and dock, and open the hatch—by then we’re dealing with somebody else, with Sabin involved, with people she’ll know and I won’t—who are going to outright outnumber us. Not to mention the crew may be in a very foul mood, once the truth starts coming out. As it still may. If they start talking to remote cousins and the stray mourned-for-dead uncle, all sorts of truth is
going
to come out, this time.”

“You’re the number two captain,” Bren reiterated. “You decide what to do. You always had the authority to go after that log record. A little more questionable extension of authority, I suppose, that you show it to me. More, to show it to the crew. But by Ramirez’s decision and Ogun’s concurring vote, you are the number two captain. So I’d think you do have that authority to break this secret wide open—if you choose. It’s your watch. Isn’t it?”

“Clearly my watch. And the burning question still remains—what else do we do with it?”

“When you show it to me, you clearly know you’re showing it to my security. And the dowager’s. I might have given you special privacy. You didn’t ask it.”

“
You
keep secrets. So does the dowager.”

“Secrets again?”

“That’s the eternal question on this ship, isn’t it?”

“Tell Ginny Kroger,” Bren said. “She’s tied into our information. It’s hard to keep her apart from anything.”

“And her staff circulates on three-deck.”

“And if they know—crew’s not far. You’re right. Everywhere we turn, there’s another question how wide to take this, and it all runs in a circle . . . once you tell one other individual, it all leads eventually to the crew.”

“You understand my problem,” Jase said. “And telling Gin Kroger, who’s next to telling you, eventually
leaves everyone on the ship
but
the crew knowing what’s in this tape, which has got to be another psychological statement, so far as the crew’s concerned, doesn’t it? Pride. Trust. And how
do
we admit, this late in the game, that Ramirez lied to them twice? I’m just beginning to figure out how long Ramirez lied to
me.
”

“Secrets,” Bren said, “never, ever served
Phoenix
well. But letting them out just before making port is going to be difficult.”

“So here we are—trying to shut Reunion Station down and keep the aliens from tracking us back to Alpha? That’s a secret, isn’t it—and one we’re not going to confess to the Guild on first meeting. Secrets are our whole existence. Maybe some of them have to be kept. Even inside. I have scraps of facts that lead under closed doors. And what do we do? Fling wide all the doors? Open just one, thinking we can limit the damage? Restrict images during docking again, and hope that crew won’t think to ask until this has all worked and they’re too happy to lynch their officers?”

“We don’t even know for an assured fact,” Bren said, “that Sabin herself has a clue what’s on this tape.”

“She’s got Jenrette to ask.”

“Maybe she’s never
asked
Jenrette. Or maybe Jenrette didn’t tell her everything.”

“She knows there’s a question. Yes, she’s seen this tape, no matter when she saw it. She knows, by now. And knowing all she knows, knowing that I’ve been after this tape, she’s kept it to herself, letting me hunt for it—and ultimately letting you and me go into a situation on arrival without the information, if I didn’t get it. I think that, and I get very angry. And then I reason,” Jase said quietly, not looking at him, “that she hasn’t failed to tell me yet. Not yet. And I keep waiting, day by day, for a briefing on what happened at Reunion—and on a dozen things I don’t even know to ask.”

“And it doesn’t come,” Bren said. “And it hasn’t come. And we’re running out of time. And you’re mad about that. And getting madder.”

“It’s that emotional cloud again.”

“You’re not sure you’re thinking straight about it?”

“I’m not sure I’m thinking straight about anything. A check on the thought processes is useful. So after a
suitable time of sweating it alone—on the eve of our last ship-move—I asked you in on it . . . knowing . . . knowing, unless she does exactly what Ramirez did and freezes the station image . . . crew will see it, first glance. They haven’t thought to ask. No one’s thought to ask. But if it’s laid in front of them, they won’t take five minutes to figure it out.”

“It’s been nine years. Station could have repaired themselves. Wouldn’t they?”

Deep breath. “True. And the natural expectation would be, yes, just expect any survivors would have gotten rotation established, on a fairly high priority, to assure there
is
someone alive and healthy to meet us. So we might get through that. But not once information starts flowing, between stationers and us. Then we’ll get the questions—and I have a dire suspicion there’s more to it than we know.”

“You’re likely right.”

“I think crew could swallow the worst suspicions—if it’s on a soaring expectation of success. But having
lived
down in the lower decks, as, mind, none of the other captains have done—I think if we let the rest of the crew find out in the middle of a crisis that they were lied to like this, they’ll blow, and this time—God knows. God knows whether mutiny is a possibility, but it’s happened once, and we don’t forget that. Sabin’s not overly concerned for crew opinion—never has been. So here I sit, thinking yes, no, go this way, go that way—I’ve put myself in a position, digging this out, an uncomfortable one, but I’ve found it. And now I have to sit on it or let it loose. Either’s a decision.”

“No question.”

“Third choice. Do I confront Sabin?”

“Truth is a fair start for a complex operation. Truth—at least between two captains of the same ship.”

“So you think it’s a good idea to ask her?”

“I’m sure truth may precipitate certain things.”

“I’m sure of that, too. But do you advise me to do it?”

“The idea has a certain merit. And certain downsides. Are you
going
to do it?”

“I want you in on it.”

“I’m less sure that’s a good idea. My presence is provocative. Distracting from the issue.”

“To the good. I want you there. I want
Banichi and Jago
there.”

Bren was dismayed. “A threat?”

“A reminder to us humans we need to settle this quickly and not bring our unguarded tempers to our atevi guests or, for that matter, to the Mospheirans. I want all I’ve got on my side, environment, plain environment, not verbal argument. Sabin absorbs facts. She doesn’t listen to arguments worth a damn. What she sees in a confrontation,
that
impresses her. If she sees the two of them, she’ll know the scale of it. She’ll know there’s no secrecy possible there. Period.”

It was, in certain particulars, a fair assessment of the senior captain.

“So,” Bren asked, “when do you want me?”

“Now.”

“It’s four in the morning. Enthusiasm for the truth aside, is she going to be happier being waked up in the middle of her night?”

“Sleep-cycle,” Jase reminded him. “We have sleep-cycles. Only you planetary types have nights. You run a ship, you get odd hours. And her cycle’s closing out pretty soon. A moderately urgent
technical
consultation. I think that’s the way to put it . . . a step short of an operational emergency. That’ll get her on deck. If I say I just want to talk theory at this hour she’ll tell me go to hell. And if I bother her in her duty hours she’ll be on edge from the start and anxious to get back to schedule.
This
is an emergency.”

“I’d at least offer tea,” Bren said dryly.

“I don’t think she’ll stay for breakfast. Tea it is.” Jase punched buttons and sent away the schematic. The tape started over. Jase punched another button, this one on his collar. “C1. Captain Sabin to my office at earliest convenience, technical consultation. Wake her.”

“
Yes, sir,
” the answer came from the desk unit.

That fast. He’d agreed. They were in it.

“Banichi-ji,” Bren said under his breath, sitting in the office chair, and using the pocket com while there was still time, “please advise security everything’s under control and proceeding well.”

Advise the atevi establishment, that was, and
under control
was tolerably true. He sat in Jase’s office waiting for Sabin to show up on a small hours of the morning, on a minor emergency call, waiting for all else that might fall out—and the second worst situation he could think of was that Cenedi might have waked the dowager to advise his ultimate authority what was going on upstairs. The second worst. The
very
worst thing he could think of, outside of a complete malfunction of the ship’s engines, was the dowager deciding to come up here in person to have morning tea and reason with Sabin.

Tea
was not a word of fortunate history, under those circumstances.

Kaplan, however, had indeed come into Jase’s office just for that purpose, to make tea . . . a nominally Mospheiran herbal item, one of those light mass planetary amenities that the ship’s crew had taken to as passionately as they took to fruit sugar.

Polano and Banichi and Jago made a living wall of security outside . . . that sense of presence Jase deemed a very good idea.

Sabin had gotten the message from C1, and hadn’t objected to Jase’s office as the venue. She might, Bren thought, have breakable objects in her own.

It was a level of not-quite-critical summons that meant she could take a decent amount of time responding. She
might
even stop for breakfast, if only to try Jase’s patience, but they made strong tea, all the same. It was pushing five hundred hours, not too far off first shift’s ordinary waking.