“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.”
9
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 understanding 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 belowdecks, 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 stationmaster. 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. “Stationmaster, 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 to
uched 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.”