And they, foreign as they were, large as they were, numerous as they were, and armed to the teeth, hardly needed leveled weapons to scare the hell out of the human guard. A handful of weapons stayed leveled, and if anyone should fire, bullets might go anywhere, ricochets like swarms of deadly midges.
Sato hovered close, trying to tell him something about cargo.
“Hell with cargo… order those guns up!”
“They are ordered, sir.”
“Have them order it again! They’re not complying.”
Sato did. A moment later the last guns lifted out of line, and Bren drew a whole breath.
“About the cargo, sir,” Sato began.
“Ha!” Ilisidi waved the cane perilously near the lift panel. “Does one float up here, or is there sensible ground somewhere?”
“There is ground, aiji-ma. —She wishes to find a place with what she designates a sensible floor. She’s very old, Ms. Sato. I can’t reckon, myself, how old, but she’s revered from one end of the aishidi’tat to the other. She’ll have come with considerable baggage. We need more space. The other corridor will do.”
“He says she’s very important among atevi and very old and she has a lot of baggage, sir,” Sato relayed that. “He wants more room.” Sato winced, and Bren could hear that noise past her earphones. “I know, sir. But there’s thirty, thirty-six of them, sir, not counting the shuttle crew.” Sato winced a second time.
“Tell the esteemed captain the rooms I last took were vacant, which shows there is vacant space on this station and the aiji dowager needs it. She has health conditions. If she were to die up here, I couldn’t predict the consequences. We have to get her out of this chill, immediately. —Nand’ dowager, please come into the car. Banichi, Jago. Come.” He gave no orders to Nojana, who had moved somewhere, vanished, in the way the Assassins’ Guild was notorious for doing. “Ms. Sato. Immediately!”
“Yes, sir.” Sato was still talking to the captains, saying, “She really is old, sir. She’s tiny for one of them and very wrinkled and grayed. Everybody treats her like royalty.”
“She is,” Bren said. “No question. Ask the Mospheirans. Her security’s hair-triggered and extremely dangerous.”
“The captain says, sir, be damned to you.”
“If I translate that, you may be at war.”
“Don’t translate that, sir.” Sato flinched from a direct question from the dowager, which happened to be, “To whom does she speak?”
“To the captains,” Bren said. “Nandi.”
“Then tell them they have a damned cold reception hall! And a damned disorderly procedure!”
“I have registered that complaint, aiji-ma.” The lift had started moving, and he quickly instructed their fellow passengers, the dowager, and about half her security, in managing the shift of floors.
Ilisidi set her stick against what proposed to be the floor and rode through the change with no evident distress, her eyes snapping and fierce, and her jaw set.
“Well, well,” she asked when they weighed something again, “is this the dread transition? Are we now in the station proper? And are we soon to meet these troublesome captains?”
“She wishes a meeting with the captains,” Bren said to Sato, and Sato relayed that.
“Tomorrow,” Sato relayed back. “At—”
“At oh-one-hundred,” Bren supplied.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that a local proverb for cold day in hell?”
“Sir, I don’t—don’t understand.”
“Cold day in hell, Ms. Sato, as in at no damn time! This appointment is made, it is firm, and if you want cooperation, you will damned well make that meeting happen!”
“Is there a difficulty, paidhi-ji?” Ilisidi asked as the car went through a set of jolting intersections amongst the tubes, swaying all of them.
“One expresses determination the captains be punctual,” Bren said. “Will tomorrow suit?”
“No,” Ilisidi said. “The day after. My bones hurt. I wish to rest.”
“Yes, aiji-ma.” He turned a bland look on Sato. “Relay to them that she will meet with them on the following day.”
“However!” Ilisidi said. “I shall see Ramirez-aiji in my quarters immediately.”
“She says she will speak to Ramirez tonight.”
Sato’s eyes went wide, behind the lense she wore. “Captain, she says—” She broke that off. “You can’t do that.”
“She favors Ramirez. You’d better produce him.”
“Sir, —sir, I’m to tell you that that’s impossible. He’s dead.”
“No, he isn’t. You produced Jase Graham, after trying to pin Ramirez’s death on him, which was a lie. I happen to know he’s alive, and he’d damned well better stay that way. Are you talking to Tamun?”
“To Captain Tamun, sir.”
“Well, well, tell him that. Tell him whether Ramirez has retired from the post or whatever he’s done, he’s valuable as a mediator, and his health matters. Put me through to Captain Ogun.”
“I can’t do that, sir.”
“Can’t? What does Ogun have to say about it?”
“I mean, sir, I don’t have that control. Phoenixcomm does it.”
“Well, then Phoenixcomm can damned well find all the captains. Let’s not play favorites. The aiji dowager wants to talk to the lot of them; she’ll do far better if there are five captains instead of four. Atevi detest the number four. And two. They find all sorts of offense in it. Five, Ms. Sato. And I suggest you relay that quite seriously. —Banichi, nand’ Cenedi, we’ll be going to our own quarters. I trust you’ll be pleased to sit there until we can secure more comfortable arrangements. Because the station is in such bad condition, not all of it is accessible.”
“She will wish to sleep, Bren-nadi.”
“Ah. Mattresses! That’s the other point. —Ms. Sato, mattresses, in sufficient number. Atevi-sized mattresses, and beds. Or the makings of them. This is a very ingenious crew.”
“Sir.” Sato looked as if she were living the worst day of her year, and dutifully relayed to someone who seemed to be overhearing quite efficiently, as was. “The captain says this is outrageous and he won’t put up with it.”
“Who is this strange creature?” Ilisidi demanded, freeing her cane to take a poke at Sato, who looked horrified, and flinched, jammed in as they were, shoulder to shoulder, atevi and humans.
“This is a young woman, aiji-ma.”
“A woman, is it? She looks like a television with limbs! Is this the fashion here?”
“The aiji remarks on your equipment and says you resemble a television, which she detests. —Aiji-ma, she is a dutiful member of the ship. She is speaking with her aijiin, who instruct her.”
“Does she! A very odd arrangement. Are the captains afraid, and send this young girl?”
“She asks if the captains are hiding in fear.”
Sato half-relayed that, in modified form, winced at the reply. “The captain says she has no business coming here without arrangements.”
“I won’t translate that. You’ll have days straightening it out, and maybe a lifelong enemy. The atevi didn’t arrange this. Your captains did, when the captains sent down an agreement. Atevi have accepted it, in the dowager’s coming here. You’ll get your station built; you’ll get your ship; or you get the nastiest damned war on this front you can conceive of. Phoenix can choose which it would rather have.”
There was a lengthy silence while Sato listened to something else from the captains.
She was still listening when the lift arrived at its destination and opened onto a corridor… not a deserted corridor, not a corridor with an official welcoming committee, but a corridor crowded with about twenty or so crew in blue coveralls, men and women and a scattering of young folk, all of whom stared at the strangeness that had arrived in their midst.
“Look at the floor!” Bren said, feeling the impropriety of the stares, and crew, accustomed to orders, did that, at least fo
r a split second.
It prevented drawn guns.
“Thank you very much,” Bren said, and in that unplanned-for, crew-level curiosity, he found brazen opportunity. “The aiji dowager, Ilisidi, grandmother of Tabini-aiji, ruler of nine tenths of the planet. She intends to meet with all the captains, and build you a working station and a second ship! She’s as curious about you as you are about her; and if you value the comfort and ease of our future relationship, be polite, don’t alarm her security, and smile, if you please!”
Ilisidi exited the car to survey this crowd, leaning on her cane, flanked by tall, armed security. She clearly found interest in the unprecedented encounter with curious humans, and diverted her gaze to a young boy who wriggled through the adult ranks to see. For a moment she stared as frankly, as curiously, then stamped the heel of the cane fiercely on the deck, prompting a startled intake of breath from the crowd. The child ducked back in fright.
“Well!” she said. “This is a village, is it not? And where are those in authority? Are they hiding?”
“She asks if the captains are hiding,” Bren said, and in Ragi: “I think we must move along, nandi. They are all restricted in their society. These people have come without their aijiin ordering it, out of their own curiosity about this new association, but they have no authority except that of all people.”
“Ah.” Ilisidi drew basic sense out of that shorthand comparison to atevi affairs, instantly grasped the situation, and reached out a hand to touch the arm of a startled young girl, to caress a wide-eyed early-teener face. “Pretty child.”
“She thinks you pretty,” Bren said, and the girl broke into a nervous, very human giggle, blushing and ducking.
“Not a captain to be had,” Lund said. “What’s going on, Chindi?”
“Mr. Lund,” a man said, from the side, and looked abashed.
“So what do they want?” someone called out. “What are they here for?”
“To build you a station,” Bren said, and by now the second lift had arrived, bringing human security and about fifteen more of the dowager’s security, uneasy package that that car must have been. It spilled out both sorts of passengers, armed, and confused at what they met.
“You all better break it up!” Sato lifted her voice. “We’ve got to get them to their quarters. You’ve all got jobs to do! You’re to get back to work!”
“What’s all the guns?” another asked. “What’s all this with guns?”
Lund shouted out, “I’ve got four industry representatives freezing up on the dock, here to arrange imports, and trade, nothing to do with guns.”
“The aiji dowager is here in response to negotiations,” Bren said, “and she’s establishing atevi presence on this station. You wanted help. You’ve got it. You can tell that through the crew. You’re fifteen hundred people in deep trouble, and you come here wanting food, shelter, and supplies. You’re in reach of them, if you can make this lady happy. She’s the aiji’s grandmother, and her good report will weigh very favorably with the aiji.”
“Take her to her quarters!” a woman called out. “Get her whatever she wants!”
“Cheers for the aiji’s grandmother!” someone yelled from the back, and the crowd shouted out alarmingly.
“A welcome,” Bren said quickly. Clearly now the crowd wanted to make itself the dowager’s escort, and Tom’s, and for a moment the crowd and Cenedi’s guard looked to be heading for difficulty, but Bren threw himself into the midst, physically pushed several too-familiar reaches aside, and waved his hands, clearing a space. “Easy, easy. Her guards are anxious. Back it up, there.”
The crowd’s enthusiasm was in no wise dampened. They kept to one side of the hall and marshaled themselves into a line. Sato and the human security tried to insinuate themselves between, but they were having little luck at it.
Cenedi’s force simply moved in and stood their ground. Bren ushered the dowager along where Sato tried to lead, the whole confused situation beginning to travel, now, as the lifts gave up still more humans and more atevi and a slightly disheveled few human guards who no longer had their weapons.
Keep it moving, was Bren’s most urgent thought, and they walked, accompanied and pursued by crew, the dowager walking along at her own unhurried pace, observing the appalling infelicity of the dingy corridors.
“This is a very poor place,” she said. “We can improve this, Nadiin. We certainly can. A common vase and field flowers would improve this.”
“One does think so, nand’ dowager.”
“And this!” Ilisidi gave Sato’s leg a moderately gentle swat of her cane, startling Sato into a moment of stark fear. “What is this strange creature doing?”
“She is broadcasting to the captains.”
“Aha!” Ilisidi stopped. Everyone stopped around her. The perilous crowd thickened, those near the rear bunching up. “And to Ramirez?”
“Ramirez is not likely receiving,” Bren said, his heart beginning to pound. There was nothing he could do to restrain the dowager in public, no more than he could prevent an avalanche, and, besides, she was no fool. What she did she meant to do, ignorant as she might be of things never in her ken. “The present captains have attempted to kill Ramirez, aiji-ma. At least Tamun has. Ramirez is alleged to have escaped, but no one knows.”
“Do they not know?” She turned, that dreadful cane clearing a hasty circle. She stood, a dowager empress of most of the world in black furs and red-and-black brocade, the hand that held the cane black-gloved, leather glittering with ruby insets, and she swept that cane about as if she owned the hall, the guards, the humans, all of them. “Ramirez, I say! Ramirez!”
“Ramirez isn’t here!” someone yelled out, and every atevi nerve must have been twitching at that exchange, fingers must be itching to fire at the mere thought of someone addressing the dowager out of turn.
Bren held up a hand. “Ramirez was shot,” he said, “but a guest of mine says he’s alive and in hiding on this station.”
“Mr. Cameron!” Sato protested, but the fear was in him, the adrenaline was running high in him and, as an official of the aiji’s court, he did what he had to do. He backed the dowager’s demand.
“Ramirez escaped,” Bren said above the noise. “He’s still in hiding from whoever tried to kill him… from whoever’s still trying to kill him, and I’ll swear to you it’s not us. They tried to pin it on Jase Graham, and then they had to send Jase over to us when it turned out Jase Graham had been helping him hide.” He saw the shocked faces, knew what Jase had told him about truths not being admitted in this crew, even among those who knew better. “So where is he? And why did they send Jase to us, if not in hopes he’d be fool enough to steer them straight to Ramirez?”
“Mr. Cameron!” Sato said, and a gun hit the floor from somewhere about her person, spun across the tile—and stopped dead under Jago’s foot.
The crowd flinched.
Ilisidi’s cane hit the tiles, right beside. “Unacceptable!” she snapped, and no translation would serve.
Jago merely bent, picked up the gun, spun it over butt-first and mutely handed it to Bren.
Bren handed it to a very chagrined Sato, while all the crowd watched. By now, more had gathered.
“Better not do that again,” Tom Lund said. “You don’t know how fast these people could nail you to the wall.”
“There aren’t to be any unauthorized weapons,” Sato declared, but Bren didn’t even bother with translation. More and more vividly the old devil obstinacy reared its head and said Go now, downhill, hellbent, and he saw his course.
“We’ll set up to receive visitors,” he said. “I’m sure one of you hearing me knows exactly where Ramirez is, and the aiji dowager quite reasonably wishes to meet him. The captains are listening to us, at least Tamun is, through Ms. Sato, here, who’s a nice young woman. So from them, I’d like to hear the answer myself, where Ramirez is, and in what condition, and why in hell some member of this ship’s crew tried to kill a man who’s laid
down the essential agreements that are going to protect this ship! I know the aiji wants to know! I’d promised it was your business and none of mine, but there’s a lie being told to you, and to us, and there’ve been too many lies. Settle your internal disputes any way you like, but this one’s become damned inconvenient. It’s time you dealt with the truth. This atevi delegation is here to bring about everything you’ve expected in coming here this whole long voyage, and we’re being badly treated!” It was Jase he spoke for, all Jase’s frustrations. “Taylor’s Children, Jase Graham and Yolanda Mercheson, have taken refuge with us, with strangers, because their own won’t deal with them.”
“That’s not so!” someone shouted out, and suddenly there was a thump, a movement among the security ranks, two and three humans trying to go at one another, by what it seemed, and then five and ten and twenty, but atevi simply hauled the two sides apart.
“They’ve been lying!” one of the original two yelled, and atevi hands pried guns away from the combatants.
“We should get the dowager to safety,” Banichi said, “very soon.”
“One is quite willing,” Cenedi said. “ ’Sidi-ma. Come. Come and let us establish a safe area.”
“Badly run,” was Ilisidi’s damning judgment of all she saw. She waved her stick forward, and they walked, Jago marching Sato along, and the crowd tailed after them, with shouting and the constant threat of weapons in that crowd, a family fight, Bren said to himself, a factional spat. Ilisidi having stirred the pot, it boiled.
They took a turn. They passed security doors which the crowd behind prevented from closing, and they moved as briskly as they could persuade Ilisidi to walk, toward their own area. Lund was still with them. There was no question of separating. Everything remained volatile.