Tracker: A Foreigner Novel (The Foreigner Universe) [Idioma Inglés] - Hardcover

Cherryh, C. J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0756409098 ISBN 13: 9780756409098

Verlag: DAW BOOKS, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Tracker is the sixteenth installment of CJ Cherryh's acclaimed Foreigner series.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

C. J. Cherryh planned to write since the age of ten. When she was older, she learned to use a typewriter while triple-majoring in Classics, Latin, and Greek. With more than seventy books to her credit, and the winner of three Hugo Awards, she is one of the most prolific and highly respected authors in the science fiction field. Cherryh was recently named a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. She lives in Washington state. She can be found at cherryh.com.

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THE FOREIGNER UNIVERSE

FOREIGNER

INVADER

INHERITOR

DESTROYER

PRETENDER

DELIVERER

INTRUDER

PROTECTOR

PEACEMAKER

PRECURSOR

DEFENDER

EXPLORER

CONSPIRATOR

DECEIVER

BETRAYER

TRACKER

THE ALLIANCE-UNION UNIVERSE

REGENESIS

DOWNBELOW STATION

THE DEEP BEYOND Omnibus:

Serpent’s Reach | Cuckoo’s Egg

ALLIANCE SPACE Omnibus:

Merchanter’s Luck | 40,000 in Gehenna

AT THE EDGE OF SPACE Omnibus:

Brothers of Earth | Hunter of Worlds

THE FADED SUN Omnibus:

Kesrith | Shon’jir | Kutath

THE CHANUR NOVELS

THE CHANUR SAGA Omnibus:

The Pride Of Chanur | Chanur’s Venture | The Kif Strike Back

CHANUR’S ENDGAME Omnibus:

Chanur’s Homecoming | Chanur’s Legacy

THE MORGAINE CYCLE

THE COMPLETE MORGAINE:

Gate of Ivrel | Well of Shiuan | Fires of Azeroth | Exile’s Gate

New omnibus edition available September 2015!

OTHER WORKS:

THE DREAMING TREE Omnibus:

The Tree of Swords and Jewels | The Dreamstone

ALTERNATE REALITIES Omnibus:

Port Eternity | Wave Without a Shore | Voyager in Night

THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF CJ CHERRYH

ANGEL WITH THE SWORD

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

1

The sun touched the end of the bay, the end of a good day. A ragged streak of cloud lit up gold with a shadowy attempt at pink.

Jaishan ceased her leisurely tacking toward the sunset and turned for port with an experienced hand at the helm. Gold sunlight swept her deck, cast shadows down the planks as the massive boom swung over.

The sail thumped and filled with the shoreward wind, a purposeful course, now homeward bound for Najida estate.

“Fascinating system.” Jase Graham, spacefarer, turned and took a firm grip on the rail as water began to rush and foam under the bow.

Bren Cameron leaned easily beside him, elbows on the same rail. He loved the sound and the feel of the sea. They could have had a bit more speed, but that wasn’t what they wanted now. This was the last bit of sailing they’d get before Jase went back to the space station overhead, and good-byes were in the offing.

Tano was at the helm, enjoying the job—atevi, native to the world, as humans were not: black-skinned, golden-eyed, a head taller than most humans. Tano’s partner Algini was close by him; and their teammates, Banichi and Jago, were lounging on the equipment locker, against the rail, enjoying the wind and the absolute absence of threat.

Bren was glad to see it. Rare that his bodyguard got an hour off, let alone whole days, let alone a week of such days. His bodyguard was still in uniform—Assassins’ Guild black happened to be all they owned. But they had shed their heavy leather jackets in the sun today, and gotten in a little fishing.

Banichi was certainly moving far better than he had a week ago. He was zealously keeping up with the exercises on his arm and shoulder. He was also getting impatient with the rehab schedule and entirely ready, Banichi assured them all, to resume ordinary duty.

Being on the boat meant security enough that Banichi and the rest of them could relax. Ordinary duty out here in the wide bay need involve nothing more strenuous than watching the horizons and casting a line.

There was hardly anywhere on the planet more secure than where they’d been the last number of days. The aishidi’tat, the Western Association of the atevi, was at peace—still in shock from the loss of two lords, the investiture of an heir, and the return of the old leadership of the Assassins’ Guild—but at peace. Banichi, of that Guild, had been no little involved in the event—which was why he was under doctor’s orders not to push anything, and why it took being out in the middle of all this water, with a navy ship out across the bay—to make Banichi admit there was indeed leisure to relax.

Banichi laughed at something his partners had just said. That was a very good thing to hear. It unwound something in Bren’s own gut.

“First vacation in a long time,” Bren said to Jase, beside him. “You’ve got to come down to Earth more often. You’re good for us.”

“My duty-book’s going to be stacked and waiting for me,” Jase said with a sigh. “Anything the senior captains don’t want to handle,guess where it’ll go in my absence. Right to my desk. —But it’s worth it. I’ve enjoyed this.”

“Even the gunfire?”

“Well, I mostly missed that part.”

“Not all of it.”

“It was an experience,” Jase said. “And your own duty-book’s going to look like mine, I’m afraid. You’ve still got the chaff from that mess up north to deal with. Wish I could help with that.”

“Minor,” Bren said. It said something about recent months, that he could call the ruin of an historic atevi clan “minor.” But itwas minor—now that the Kadagidi clan’s influence had diminished.

And diminish, yes, it had. The aishidi’tat, the Western Association, was in fact downtwo clan lords since the start of Jase’s visit, and politics was certain to surround the replacements, but Bren hadsome hope there would be a quick, sensible solution—as yet unthought-of—but it was not his job to think of it. The aiji in Shejidan, Tabini, was firmly in power. The Assassins’ Guild, the core of the judicial system, was functioning as it had not in years. And Bren, paidhi-aiji, translator to the court, intermediary-at-large, could now draw a deep breath and hope all the agreements he’d pinned down stayed put.

They were both human, he and Jase. Bren, born to the planet and Jase, to the starshipPhoenix. Jase had been a special child—born of long-dead heroes, destined to be something a dead man had known and Jase had never learned. That he’d come early to a captaincy—one of the four who held that post—was destiny, maybe; genetics and politics, certainly—“But I don’t know what I was for,” Jase had put it.

“Does anybody, really?” Bren had answered that one, and Jase had thought about it and laughed.

So here they were—Jase a ship’s captain, visiting a planet that had so much history with his ship; and Bren himself—wielding a power he’d never remotely planned on holding, disconnected from Mospheira, and inextricably involved in Tabini-aiji’s affairs. But alike. Intermediaries, both, trained to mediate, to communicate—both of them grown into an authority neither of them had planned to hold and a job nobody had imagined would exist. Mediators. Negotiators. Translators not just of language, but of mindsets and cultures.

Humans were the cosmic accident on the planet, involving Phoenix and a desperate human colony, centuries ago.Phoenix had arrived at the Earth of the atevi, crew and passengers destitute and dying, an unknown world their last reachable hope.

But the world already had a population. Atevi had been chugging along in their steam age, having achieved railroads, having achieved a reasonably peaceful government long before humans had ever appeared in their heavens.

Phoenix built an orbiting station for a base, manned it, and left in search of another home for its colony. But the humans left behind saw what they wanted, and reached for it, flinging themselves earthward, desperately, on what atevi called the petal sails, one after another, until the station could no longer sustain itself, and the final handful left, shutting the station down, leaving it to drift silent, abandoned.

And the descendants of those desperate colonists now formed a terrestrial nation: Mospheira. The island of that name lay a day’s sail away, too far across the strait to spot from this vantage, even as a haze above the sea. It was a large island, tag-end of the massive monocontinent on which atevi dwelled, easily within reach of any determined individual with a rowboat and a mission.

But it was isolated by atevi law—excepting one appointee: the paidhi, the human interpreter to the atevi court.

These days, that would be him.

The paidhi’s original job, as Bren had undertaken it, had been, first, to assure an accurate flow of information between humans and atevi; and secondly to turn over human technology to atevi at a measured, studied rate, so as not to upset the peace of the world. That was how the original humans had bought their safety, having lost the War of the Landing.

And humans, Mospheirans now, had locked themselves in technological synchrony with the atevi of the mainland, turning over the safe parts of their precious Archive, not accelerating the pace of development, not pushing atevi into change that might turn dangerous, that might cause upheaval, and war.

Mostly the paidhi’s job had been to collect words—whatever atevi words the sitting paidhi judged humans could accurately and safely use, in the University-controlled interface. It was a glacially slow process. The paidhiin had handled the careful, meticulous phrasing of official communications, but held no control over the content.

That was what Bren had started out to be—a maker of dictionaries, a court functionary who sat on the steps of the aiji’s dais, when court was in session, and who spoke only rarely, on direct request. The utmost ambition of Bren’s life in the first year had been to avoid a second War of the Landing on his watch. He could not, in the beginning, even edit a document. He could only say: excuse me, sir, please, take no offense, but that word has a connotation . . .

But he’d had to deal with Tabini-aiji, who wanted to talk to him, and wanted verbal answers. Fast.

He’d slipped over into actively speaking the language the first week. Tabini had pushed that situation.

Pushed him until he’d begun to operate outside the rules—begun to speak the language. Now he primarilythought in it.

Tabini-aiji wanted more technology. Under Tabini, planes became jets, radio became television, and industry proliferated. Atevi took to computers and improved what they were handed, finding their own path, making their own discoveries.

Then Phoenix turned up, back from centuries of absence, bringing a wealth of old history, old human quarrels, and a single question: which government on Earth had the industrial power they needed? Cultural kinship linked the ship, for good or ill, to Mospheira. Need linked them to Tabini-aiji.

The job of the paidhi-aiji instantly changed. More, the ship appointed its own paidhi—Jase, who’d parachuted down the way the colonists had—to build a relationship with the continent, which had the range of earthly resources a space program needed. It had meant Jase learning Ragi. It had meant atevi building a space program while Mospheirans argued about it. And ultimately it had meant getting atevi and Mospheirans to cooperate—because control of half the orbiting station had been the price of Tabini-aiji’s cooperation.

Everything had changed, like so many snowballs headed downhill. Atevi were in space now, equal partners with Mospheirans on the station in a fifty-fifty arrangement which had two command centers and two stationmasters, cooperating together in a three-way arrangement with the four Phoenix captains—of whom Jase was now third-senior.

And Bren Cameron had ceased to represent Mospheira at all, in any regular way. His personal loyalty—his man’chi, in the atevi way of putting it—rested on the atevi side of the straits, and not just because that was the job he could do best. He represented Tabini-aiji’s interests not only to humans on Earth and aloft, but to atevi lords on the continent, and he held a district lord’s rank in order to do it.

So he’d come a long, long way from Mospheira, mentally speaking—a long way from human allegiances and human politics. He’d not visited the island in nearly four years—two of which he’d spent in deep space, remote from the world, one of which he’d spent down here, trying to patch the damage the push to space had done to the balance of power on Earth.

Of human contacts he still kept active, there was his brother Toby. There was Barb, who had been his lover, and now was Toby’s partner.

And there was Jase, now third-senior of the starship’s four captains—but still technically ship-paidhi, too. Jase knew atevi customs and he spoke Ragi, the principle atevi language, passably well.

And being ship-folk, a stranger to any planet, Jase’s mindset was not Mospheiran. Jase’s instincts might biologically match Mospheiran instincts, but his native accent was ship-folk, and he had never set foot on Mospheira, nor cared to go there.

Well, that was all right, in Bren’s thinking. There was still no one he had rather see in a position of influence among the ship-folk. Jase wanted the survival of Mospheiraand the safety of the ship and the station aloft, and he wanted the survival of the atevi. They shared the same set of priorities.

And if there was one person on the planet who truly understood what he was and how he thought—it was Jase.

 • • • 

That was why, in Jase’s company, at the rail of a moving boat, Bren could draw breath right now with an ease he didn’t feel with others, even the atevi lords whose survivalhe fought to ensure, or the Mospheiran president he tried to keep generally abreast of whatever atevi were doing—or, for that matter, with the aiji he served. They shared a job. They shared the same worries. They served the same interests.

So perhaps it was a little selfish of him to wish his area of the world could float along in the lazy way it had been going for a few more days, just one or two days more, before he had to go back to what Jase called his duty-book.

By tomorrow evening he’d be back in that highly securitied apartment in the privileged third floor of the Bujavid, the great fortress and legislative center above the capital city. There’d be no duty-book, no computer files waiting for him on his return, but there would certainly be a message bowl sitting in his apartment foyer, a bowl overflowing with cylinders from people wanting a slice of his attention—lords and department heads with agendas that had been suspended for the last few weeks while the Assassins’ Guild had a meltdown and the aiji’s son celebrated his fortunate ninth birthday.

Missing from that bowl, to be sure, would be the unwritten problems—a determined handful of people whowouldn’t write to the paidhi-aiji politely and officially advising him they wanted him dead, and who wouldn’t be Filing Intent with the Assassins’ Guild. Oh, no: a legal Filing would never pass muster with the Guild, let alone Tabini-aiji, and his enemies couldn’t gain any partisan following to demand it. So they couldn’t succeed above-board. That meant anything that might come at him would not follow the rules.

That problem went with the title, the estate, the boat. He’d gotten back to the world a year ago from a two-year voyage into deep space—to find the aishidi’tat in chaos and Mospheira bracing for war.

He and the aiji-dowager and the will of the people had set Tabini-aiji back in power, a movement carried on the shock of their arrival and the revelation that neither Tabini nor his young heir was dead.

Well, things were better. He’d actually been able to take a vacation—give or take a few stitches in his scalp, and Banichi’s need for rehab on that shoulder.

And now . . .

Now Jaishan had put her stern to the setting sun and her bow toward the end of the bay. Her sail had filled with a golden sunset, and the west wind was carrying her home with the hum of the rigging and the rush of water under her white hull.

And that was all he needed think of for the better part of an hour.

“Want to take the helm for a while?” he asked Jase.

Jase laughed. “They never let captains take the controls up there, you know. Helm won’t have it.”

“Well, there’s that island over there to port. That’s the only thing in this part of the bay you have to miss. Want to do it?”

“Love to,” Jase said, and they left the rail and crossed the deck. Tano was perfectly content to turn over the wheel and instruct a novice how to handle it. Easy job, with a perfect wind carrying them and not much to do but keep Jaishan’sbow headed for home.

She nodded a bit as Tano demonstrated how she was handling. Then she cut through the water with a steady rush, fast under sail, beautiful in her spread of canvas. And Jase had the helm now, delighted.

Perfect day. Perfect finish.

“You can feel the speed pick up,” Jase said. “Amazing how it feels in your hands.”

No readouts, no numbers here, no helmsman nor navigator, nothing like a starship’s bridge at all, just the wind aloft and salt water running under her keel. The sounds and vibrations all around them were like nothing else in the world, readout without a dial or a blinking light. Bren would have taken Jaishan in himself—he got few chances to enjoy it. But Jase should have this run, something to think back on when he got back to his own reality, up in space.

Maybe this last outing would be a lure sufficient to bring Jase back to the world. Jase hadn’t been so much for fishing. The notion that they were going to kill and immediately eat a creature was just more than Jase liked to inspect too closely, much as Jase appreciated fish when it appeared from a kitchen, spiced, plated, and sauced.

So they’d just sailed this day, skirted the picturesque if hazardous offshore rocks off the end of the peninsula, and at least gone far enough from shore to see the haze on the horizon that was the island of Mospheira.

His aishid, his personal bodyguard, had done all the fishing on the other side of the boat, and brought back a sizeable catch for Najida’s cook to deal with.

But the fatality to fish needn’t trouble Jase, who had happiness on his face and the wind in his hair.

They were dressed atevi-style: trousers, boots, and, since the sun had started down, warm outdoor coats. The bay could be chill. One wanted to keep hands in pockets whenJaishan was moving like this, and Jase’s bare hands would be quite cold, gripping the wheel, but the air was clean and good.

The wind played little tricks as they came past the jut of the Edi headland that sheltered the little fishing harbor there, and Tano anticipated it, turning up by Jase’s shoulder as the wind first fell off and then came back stronger. Jase coped without help. Jaishan steadied, a thing of beauty in the dying light, chasing her own shadow on the water.

And when the shore loomed up in the twilight, and the lights of Bren’s own estate at Najida showed on the hill above the landing, they had a feeling of real homecoming, a sense that they had indeed sailed away from the world today, and were coming back to a lingering fantasy of country life and rustic warmth.

They were arriving too late for dinner at the house, however: that had happened early, before sunset. Bren had asked the youngsters and Jase’s two-man bodyguard to pack for their return, and his staff had intended a special early supper for their guests, with all the youngsters’ favorite dishes.

Bren hoped that affair had come off well, and that the youngsters were having the time together he had intended. He and Jase had had their own light supper at the first of the twilight—sandwiches, nothing extravagant—and they were holding out for wine and dessert once they got in.

 • • • 

They could have been out on the boat all day if he had really pitched a fit. Cajeiri knew that.

They could have been. But nand’ Bren had hinted, quietly and hopefully, that it would please him very much if he could have some time to talk to Jase. Nand’ Bren had offered Cajeiri and his guests a dinner party instead, just themselves as the sole focus of the Najida staff, and Cajeiri had not argued, because nand’ Bren was seeinghis guest go home tomorrow, too, and of course he wanted some time. Nand’ Bren had done everything in his power to make their visit the best it could be, and nand’ Bren had taken them all out on the boat every day but this one.

So all in all, and largely thanks to nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji, the birthday had been excellent, and Cajeiri was sure his auspicious ninth year had had the very best beginning it could have. His guests were here from the space station and his baby sister was born safely and his father had named him officially his heir, in front of the whole aishidi’tat.

Not to mention the Guild had gotten rid of the people who were causing the trouble, and was now doing what it was supposed to do, which was to keep peace in the aishidi’tat. The Marid, the district to the south that had made war not so long ago, was peaceful, and that meant they were safe enough to be out at nand’ Bren’s estate, sailing whenever they wanted and without any great worry about enemies.

Everything would have been perfect this evening, if only there could be endless days in front of them.

But no, Gene and Artur and Irene were going back to the station, leaving on the shuttle tomorrow with Jase-aiji and his bodyguard.

That meant he would not see his guests for another year, and maybe longer than a year if stupid grown-ups got to feuding, again, as grown-ups were always apt to do.

Or if his mother got her way and his guests could never visit the Earth again.

But no feud and none of his mother’s objections was going to stop them meeting forever. He had made up his mind to that, and he was sure his father, the aiji of the whole aishidi’tat, was onhis side this time.

Besides, his mother had his new sister to take care of. That meant she was spending less time worrying about him. And when she was not thinking about him, she was surely in a much better mood.

“This time you will have to write,” he said to his guests, as they were sitting in their suite, well-fed, with all their belongings and souvenirs strewn on the master bed. His valets and his bodyguard were doing the actual packing. They were better at it. Boji, small, furry, black, and large as a baby, was traveling with them, and he was bounding about his cage, keenly aware of the packing, and upset about it. He wanted to be out. And that would not be a good idea, in case the door should open.

“We will write,” Gene said in Ragi, and added: “I did write.”

“You did write,” Cajeiri agreed.

“We all tried,” Artur said.

“This time my father will give me the letters you send. I am sure he will. And I shall write as often as I have something to say.”

“My mother may not give me the letters,” Irene said, also in Ragi. “She can be happy. And then she is unhappy. One does not know what will happen when I am back. She will surely be angry that we stayed more time.”

Upset mothers were not in anybody’s control. Cajeiri understood that very well. “We shall meet next year. Don’t worry.”

It was conniving, that was what Great-grandmother would call it, and Irene would do what she promised she would do, no matter what Irene’s mother said. They could be sure of that. Irene was much braver than anybody might think.

So they connived together. And planned their next meeting.

It felt, on this last night, a little like the old association again, except that Bjorn was not with them—Bjorn had decided to stay with his tutor, or whatever people had up there:school was the ship-speak for it. Gene said Bjorn had had to stay in the program or he could have lost his place with his tutors, and his parents would have been really upset. A place in tutorage was not easy for a Reunioner to get—and Bjorn was smart, and older, and it was a program that, right at the start, just after they had arrived on the station, had let in just the best and smartest of the Reunioner young folk. And now that program was on the verge of being phased out. Cajeiri understood how desperate life was for Reunioners, how short supplies were, and how important it was that Bjorn stay where he was and not be dismissed and lose his chance.

His father being aiji, Cajeiri thought, might have negotiated something that would have let Bjorn come down and not lose his place—but his father had already been extraordinarily accommodating in allowing his guests at all, and he had wanted to create no extra problems with station politics.

They had resolved they were going to be sure that Bjorn could come next time.

And they had set up in detail how they were going to get around obstacles during the next year, arranging for messages to get where they needed to go, and when they should expect the first one, and how he was always going to mention a number in the ending that would tell them what the number of the letter was. That way they would always know whether all the messages were getting through.

They would do the same for messages to him.

He was too young to use the Messengers’ Guild on his own, and there was a scarcity of paper for printing things on the station, so the messages he sent would be real letters on paper, which would go up in packets on the shuttle missions. That meant his packets would go first to Lord Geigi, on the atevi side of the station—that was how it would work. And their answers would all come in the same packets as Lord Geigi’s reports home, on stationery that was part of the souvenirs going with them.

Along with his own little packets he could send any little light thing, if his father allowed and if it fit within regulations. So he decided he would always pack in some fruit sweets for Lord Geigi. He was sure Lord Geigi would appreciate the gift, and send the letters on to the human side of the station. Lord Geigi knew very well how his mail had gotten held forever, this last year. And Lord Geigi was on their side, and hewould do it, and make sure things happened.

“Tell Bjorn, too,” he said. “Tell him to write to me. Often. One wishes to hear about his program.”

“We tell him,” Irene said. “I see him sometimes. Not often. But I shall tell him everything we did. He will be—” She changed to ship-speak. “He wanted so much to come. But the rules say no. He cannot be absent.”

“Next year,” Gene said. “Next year for sure. And you keep in touch with me,Reni, do you hear?”

Irene lived in a different section than Gene and Artur. Reunioners were divided up in residencies by sections, and Gene was not allowed to go where Irene and Bjorn lived, which was some sort of special place.

But they had set up their ways to deal with that, the same that they had had on the starship—tunnels, just like on the starship, that ran beside the public corridors, or over or under them. They had mapped them on the ship. They had mapped them on the station, and Gene had explored all the way to the place atevi authority started. They had made maps together, and added a whole new section to the little notebook that Cajeiri always kept close—the little notebook that had always helped him remember, and now helped him imagine places he’d never seen.

He could imagine now where they lived, and how their place related to the atevi side. And before, all last year, politics had gotten in the way of their even getting letters to each other. But now they had an ally, and if someone tried to keep them from writing, the tunnels meant ways they could get to the atevi side, where atevi made the rules.

“Lord Geigi will definitely always help us,” Cajeiri said. “And if people try to stop us from writing to each other, just get to the atevi side. Just walk right up to the doors and say my father said so and they should let you in.”

“Did he say so?”

“Well, he will,” he said, and they all laughed a little, which was disrespectful, but he was also determined it would be true. “And donot tell your parents any sort of things that may scare them!” Humans and atevi might be different, so very different they could have very dangerous misunderstandings. And if one added parents into the numbers, one could only imagine what sort of misunderstanding could happen. “Whatever your parents ask about the trouble, always say, That was very far from us, or . . .” He put on his most innocent face. “Was there something going on?”

Artur laughed, and they all did.

“We never saw the gunfire,” Gene said with his most innocent expression.

“Never!” Irene said. “We just had nice food and pretty clothes and we went to parties and met your parents. How could there possibly be a problem?”

They laughed. There had been scary moments, particularly at Tirnamardi, when nand’ Bren and nand’ Jase had gone to deal with Lord Tatiseigi’s neighbor; and that had been a scary time. They had ashes drifting down onto Lord Tatiseigi’s driveway, and there had been bullet holes in the bus when nand’ Bren and nand’ Jase had come back.

It had been even worse, when Great-grandmother had had to send nand’ Bren right into the heart of the Assassins’ Guild to take down the Shadow Guild. They had had to pretend everything was perfectly normal that evening. But they had not known whether they might all be running for their lives before morning.

That had been an extremely scary night, and nand’ Bren and Banichi and several of Great-grandmother’s guard had come back wounded. But Father had had Cajeiri and his guests inside the tightest protection, and they had had Jase-aiji and his bodyguards with them as well as Father’s and Great-grandmother’s bodyguards around them. Jase-aiji’s bodyguards had weapons that could take out half the apartment and maybe the floor under them, and he was very gladthose had never come into question.

So, no, they had never been in that much danger.

And right after that, while everything was still in confusion, his father had turned his birthday into a public Festivity and he had had to make a public speech and be named, officially, his father’s heir.

His associates had been there when he had become “young aiji,” not just “young gentleman,” so they knew what had happened, and how everything had changed. And so far the title had not been a great inconvenience, but that was, Cajeiri feared, only because he still had his foreign guests. When they left, tomorrow—when they left—

He feared there were going to be duties, and more appearances in court dress, and that his life for the next whole year and forever after was going to be just gruesome.

But he would do it.

He would do it because behaving badly could mean his guests could not come back. Priorities, his great-grandmother called it.

He would definitely have to go back to living in his suite, inside his father’s apartment, with his mother—and his very new sister, who was a baby, and who was going to cry a lot.

He would have his bodyguard for company. And he would have his valets, who were grown men, but they understood him and they were patient. His little household was his, and no one would take that away.

He was sure he was going to have to go back to regular lessons. His latest tutor was not a bad one—even interesting sometimes, so it was not too awful. And he was coming back with a lot of things to ask about.

But he had still rather be out at Najida or Tirnamardi.

He would not get to ride his mecheita until the next holiday, and that only if he could get an invitation from Great-uncle Tatiseigi and if he could get permission from his father to go out to Tirnamardi. And all that depended on whether there were troubles anywhere near. It might be next year before he could go, because there were currently troubles in the north. During the whole year, there was still going to be the question of the succession to the lordship of the Ajuriand the lordship of the Kadagidi, either one of which could break into gunfire or worse and just mess everything up in Tirnamardi, where his mecheita was.

Worse, Ajuri was his mother’s clan, and the upset in Ajuri was going to keep her upset all year.

But maybe being “young aiji” meant even his father would be more inclined to listen to what he wanted.

And what he wanted was to go riding for days and days; and what he wanted even more than that was his guests back again—before next year if he could somehow manage it.

But third, and what he wanted most of all, and had no power at all to arrange—he wanted his guests to live safe from politics up on the station. The situation up there, the Mospheirans feuding with the Reunioners—that quarrel really, really worried him.

There were over twice as many humans on the station as there were supposed to be, and the half of them, who had come up from the island of Mospheira, hated the other half, who had arrived last year from Reunion, out in deep space. There was not enough room. So things had become crowded and difficult.

More, a treaty said that there would always be as many atevi up there as there were humans—andthat agreement was thrown out of balance, with the Reunioners arriving. Now there were twice as many humans as there ought to be, but only the same number of atevi. Maybe it would have been kind for atevi to give up some of their room to make things better, but for some reason they were not doing that. He had to ask his father why. It was possibly because they did not want the Reunioners staying there and fussing with the Mospheirans. Or possibly just that they did not want to interfere in a human feud.

And then there was the accident with one of the big tanks that grew fish and such that fed the station—when the station had already had trouble feeding everybody before the Reunioners had come. Atevi were not willing for humans to be short of food, however. So they had helped with that, with workers and metal to repair the damaged tank. And Lord Geigi had sent workers and materials that modified a number of public areas into living spaces. But it was all still a mess.

And there was no easy way to fix it. The ancestors of the Mospheirans had had a disagreement with the ancestors of the Reunioners, and now, just when the Mospheirans had gotten themselves through a very scary and dangerous time, and built everything to make themselves comfortable and well-fed again—the Reunioners showed up to overcrowd them.

Mospheiran humans on the station wanted to pack up all the Reunioners and send them out to go build a completely new station at the barren ball of rock that was Maudit, far across the solar system. Mospheirans wanted never to see them again.

He did not agree. His three guests were Reunioners, and he did not want them sent out to Maudit.

So if the Mospheiran stationers won and the Reunioners were set to leave, he intended to get his guests and their parents over into the atevi section of the station, under Lord Geigi’s authority, where no human order could reach them. He had not gotten his father’s agreement that that was what they would do—but that was his intention, and he intended to do what he could to arrange that, quietly, so as not to upset adults.

He intended to write to Lord Geigi, for one thing, and get Lord Geigi to agree to protect his guests. And their parents. He would ask it in principle, first. That was one of his great-grandmother’s words. In principle. Nand’ Bren would say, getting one’s foot in the door.

And once he knew that was set up, and given that they could reach Lord Geigi by the secret passages Gene had mapped, then he could at least feel easier about his guests. They might have to go back tomorrow. But tomorrow he would set about getting them back down to Earth for his next birthday.

Nobody was going to take them away. Nobody was going to threaten them because of some stupid quarrel their ancestors had had.

Nobody was going to stop him.

If being heir of the aishidi’tat meant anything—he was going to get his guests back and keep them safe from stupid people.

2

Three people waited on the dock as Jaishan came in: Saidaro, who cared forJaishan most of the year, and Saidaro’s two assistants, elderly fishermen from Najida village, the Edi community just down the hill from the estate.

On an ordinary day, Bren would have stayed to shut down the boat and talk and do whatever maintenance might have come up, but not this evening.Jaishan was going to be rejoining Lord Geigi’s yacht, going back to her ongoing task of ferrying passengers and supplies to a new construction going on, a new Edi center on Lord Geigi’s peninsula, keeping a promise to the Edi people. The sea offered the best and most direct access to the site, for heavy loads, of which there were several waiting.

So Saidaro would be at work late into the night preparing her for that run, putting up buffers to shield her paint and brightwork from the loads of lumber and stone, coils of wire and pieces of pipe that would be her routine cargo through the rest of the good weather.

And by fall—the new Edi administration would have a focal point, a place where the Edi people were the law.

The sail came in as they passed the point, and Jase surrendered the helm. Tanocould bring her in on sail alone, but the current was tricky here, and it was far easier to turn on the motor for the approach to dock, and not rely on a slightly fickle wind.Jaishan motored in sedately under Tano’s hand, and as they neared the buffers, Jago tossed the mooring loop.

Saidaro, on shore, caught it and dropped it neatly over the post. The two old fishermen waited aft to catch a second line from Algini. Banichi usually did that cast, but Banichi, under strict orders to protect the arm, simply cradled it and stood frowning but compliant.

And with Jaishan snugged in, Saidaro and his helpers ran out the rustic gangway to its buffered catching-point.

From there, Jase and Bren could walk down to the steady, weathered boards of the dockside, with Jago and the rest to gather gear and follow . . . they would not let Banichi carry a thing.

“My feet always expect the dock to move,” Jase said with a laugh.

“We’ll probably both feel the sea moving all night,” Bren said. “I know I will.” He gave a nod to Saidaro and his crew. “Daro-ji, thank you! She is in your hands!”

“Nandi.” Saidaro bowed, the fishermen bowed, and Bren collected his bodyguard and his guest and headed down the few steps from the wooden dock to the flagstone path.

Three of the staff from the house were coming down the zigzag path among the low evergreens, hurrying to assist them with such baggage as there was. Banichi and the rest became all business ashore, even here at Najida, even on this easy walk up the winding path to the driveway. Banichi and Jago went in front and Tano and Algini walked behind, leaving the local lads to gather up the catch from the onboard storage and bring along the smaller baggage. Tano carried only one sizeable case personally—the black leather bag that non-Guild were never supposed to touch. But the mood was easy, all the same.

They walked up a turn, and the beautiful, restored window—recent gift of the aiji-dowager—shone in the twilight above a dark row of evergreen shrubs, red and blue and gold glass lit from within the hall.

The aiji-dowager, who had weathered a serious attack at Najida, did nothing by halves. She had ordered, additionally, two stained-glass windows for the new dining room, a frame for the central window that would look out on the setting sun. It would be a defiant expanse of bright-colored glass, surrounding a window that would give that room the most glorious view on the coast. The windows were a security hazard, but they had their defenses.

And the world they would overlook, one hoped, was more peaceful now than it had been in living memory.

Three and four bends of the path brought them up beyond sight of the window, up to the drive and the portico—an area likewise restored from recent disaster. Construction there was finished. The new west wing’s roof, a skeletal shadow beyond the portico, out where the old garage and the old garden gate had used to be, was actively under construction. The crew wanted to have the complex roof sound and the interior protected before the good season ended, so even with guests in residence, there had been constant hammering during the day, with workmen from Najida village coming and going on the graveled road.

The Reunioner youngsters, who had never seen wood and stone in their lives before their visit, had been fascinated by the process. So had Jase been. They had gone out more than once to watch the work . . . even climbed up to see how the structure was made.

But the crew had gone home to their suppers, down in the village. Hammering had ceased for the night, and would not resume before they left, early, early in the morning.

“You’ll remember to send me pictures when it’s all done,” Jase said as they headed toward the door.

“Deal,” Bren said.

The house door opened for them unasked. Najida’s major domo, Ramaso, welcomed them in, staff waited to take their outdoor coats, and to provide their indoor ones. Other servants deftly took away the day’s catch from those following, and whisked it off to the kitchen—it would likely reappear as the staff breakfast in the morning, once the lord and his offworld guests were safely out the door and away.

“A pleasant trip, nandiin?” Ramaso asked.

“Entirely, Rama-ji,” Bren said. “The young gentleman and his guests have retired?”

“They are still awake in their suite, nandi,” Ramaso said, “well-fed and happy, by all report. Do you still wish only the cakes?”

“Jase-ji?”

“Certainly that will be enough for me,” Jase said. The sandwiches they had had for supper had been more than they could eat. “A glass of wine, the cakes, and I shall be very content.”

“The sitting room, then,” Bren said, and led the way, Banichi and Jago attending. Tano and Algini went on toward their own quarters, there being a little packing yet to do.

 • • • 

He and Jase had their dessert, wine chilled so that moisture frosted the glasses, and a plate of spice cakes still so warm from the oven that the icing melted.

Banichi and Jago took cakes, too, but not the wine, and after sending an order to the kitchen, uncharacteristically informal in this very safe house, they took a second plate of little cakes with them and retired to quarters to help Tano and Algini pack up. Jase’s bodyguard, Kaplan and Polano, were likewise off in Jase’s suite, packing for a much longer trip.

So he and Jase had this one last evening to themselves, no duties to think of . . . locally speaking.

“My hindbrain’s already starting to add up what’s waiting for me,” Jase said ruefully, feet propped on a footstool, and a second glass of wine in hand. “And top of the stack is my report to the captains. Andto Lord Geigi.” A lengthy pause. Then: “And Tillington. Bren, we two need to talk about Tillington.”

“In what regard?”

Tillington was the Mospheiran-side stationmaster, human counterpart to Lord Geigi.

Tillington had been all right, in Bren’s estimation: Tillington had kept his half of the station running fairly well—cooperating, generally, with Lord Geigi, getting along well with Ogun, who ran the ship’s affairs on station.

Tillington had had a hard situation. Phoenix, under Captain Sabin and Jase, with Ilisidi, Cajeiri, and Bren aboard, had gone off on its voyage to deal with a remote station in deep space, a lone human outpost that had been supposed to be dead—but which had been left with records they didn’t want lying there for any other entity to find: those, the human Archive, needed to be destroyed. That was the mission. Ogun, senior captain, had stayed behind, with half the crew, to maintain the ship’s authority on the station.

Then, no fault of anyone aloft, so far as he knew, the disasters had multiplied.

A conspiracy on the mainland had unseated Tabini-aiji, seized the spaceport, grounded all but the one shuttle which had happened to be at the space station. The paidhi-aijiand the ship-paidhi being absent on the mission had meant translation between humans and atevi was down to Yolanda Mercheson, who suffered a breakdown. The shuttles no longer flew and pilots and crews went missing. Supply to the space station stopped.

Geigi had refused to move the one shuttle he had left from its station berth. Geigi had kept it ready against the return of the ship—with the paidhiin, the aiji-dowager, and Tabini’s heir.

Tillington had argued long and hard about that shuttle. He had wanted to use it to build up Mospheiran technology and launch a human force to unseat the conspirators on the mainland—not a happy prospect on the atevi side of the station, and Geigi, who had the shuttle and the only crew able to fly it, said a firm no.

Geigi, meanwhile, had launched his own program to deal with the mainland’s new rulers. He had shut down construction on the atevi starship, diverted all its labor and resources to the construction of a satellite communications network, hitherto lacking, and to the production of sufficient food in orbit, which would render the station independent of Earth.

Tillington had cooperated with that—not happy, no, but cooperating, while the Mospheiran government had pushed its own shuttle program into production. They pushed training pilots of their own—and struggled with supply delays. The mainland, in hostile hands, no longer supplied certain materials, and the Mospheiran space program made progress only slowly.

In the midst of it all, Phoenix made it back—bringing in five thousand Reunioner refugees—when the station had thought at most there might be a hundred or so.

The aiji-dowager lost not an hour. Geigi, discovering Phoenix was coming in, had the shuttle and crew up and ready, and Bren, and the aiji-dowager, and Tabini’s son—had headed straight for the shuttle dock. They’d landed on Mospheira, and crossed the strait to deal with the conspirators in a way a human invasion never could.

The ship, in the exigencies of prolonged dock, and with supplies at rock bottom, refused to house the refugees any longer. It began disembarking the refugees—five thousand souls, all turned out onto the station, skilled workers, without jobs, without housing, and with no prospects, in a station with no jobs, not enough housing, and no plan for their numbers to double. The ultimate issue was—what voice should these new people have in anything? What were they going to demand, if they were given any vote at all?

And if they had to increase atevi presence to balance the numbers of humans—the newcomers would still be a majority of humans aloft, andthey included people with children. They were going to increase in numbers, andthey didn’t have to pass screening to get into orbit—they were born there.

On Earth, things were much better. Murini’s regime, the conspiracy, had held power on the continent only by force and assassination. Now Tabini was back in power, Murini was dead, and there was peace on the continent.

Mospheira likewise prospered. Trade resumed, and their shuttle program now regularly sent a vehicle into orbit. Atevi shuttles were in regular service. Vital supplies reached the station, so one had assumed there was progress on the situation aloft.Geigi had said nothing negative about Tillington, except the complaint that the man always sided with the senior captain, and that humans had dithered along with a decision about the refugees. But then—well-bred atevi were not inclined to complain until they were ready to call on the Assassins’ Guild. So to speak.

Evidently—it was not all under control up there.

“So what’s going on up there?” he asked Jase. “What’s Tillington doing—or not doing? I understand his workers aren’t happy. I knowsomebody’s got to make his mind up and find a solution for the refugees, andthey’ve been divided as to what. But is it worse than we know?”

Jase took a deep breath. “As of five days ago, it turned decidedly worse. I talked to Sabin last night, and I have clearance to say this. From her. Not from Ogun.”

Secrets and division between the two senior captains. That didn’t sound good.

“Here’s the problem,” Jase said. “Tillington’s been agitating to get the Reunioners to go to a new construction at Maudit. You know that. But when the news got out three Reunioner kids were coming down here, the rhetoric got significantly nastier. And apparently when we called asking the kids’ time down here be extended, Tillington stepped over the edge. He’s now claiming that Sabin and Braddock made a deal so Braddock would agree to evacuate Reunion Station.”

“We had to haul him out by force. That’s ridiculous.”

“The alleged deal puts five thousand refugees, some of them with knowledge of critical systems, behind Sabin taking over the human side of the station, putting station operation entirely in Reunioner hands, and Sabin taking over as senior captain.”

An ugly scenario unfolded instantly. If one wanted to view Sabin in Mospheiran terms, with the knee-jerk Mospheiran assumption of self-interest and territorial interests over all, Sabin had been, for the last two years, in a position to dictate life and death for the Reunioners, and five thousand refugees constituted a large potential subversive force, on that scale.

The fact was—if Sabin had wanted, last year, to take Phoenix and all five thousand Reunioners and go establish another station somewhere, she could have done it with no hardship to herself and no permission from anyone. If she were aboardPhoenix, as she had been, nobody could have stopped her, and the world might never have seen the ship again.

But Sabin had done as she had proposed to do. She’d lifted off all survivors from the station, even Braddock—she’d destroyed the problematic human Archive and brought the refugees—numbering vastly more than anyone thought—safely to Alpha Station.

True, she’d put them off the ship and onto the station as beyond the ship’s ability to sustain any longer. That would have upset Tillington, but the ship wouldnot attach itself as a permanent hotel for residency. None of the captains would agree to that.

That had suddenly made the refugees a Mospheiran problem—Tillington’s problem and Captain Ogun’s problem.

No, Sabin hadn’t made herself highly popular with Mospheiran stationers, and hadn’t been high on Ogun’s list of favorite people before she’d taken the ship to Reunion. Ramirez, who had been senior captain, was dead. Ogun had been second-senior, Sabin third, when an alien species had come down on Reunion ten years and more ago. And there remained, behind Sabin’s voyage back to Reunion, deep questions about command decisions and why the possibility of survivors had been hushed up. Captain Ramirez’ deathbed confession about Reunion had left nothing safe or sure between Ogun and Sabin.

But the fact was, despite the personal differences that had arisen between Ogun and Sabin, Ogun had stood by while Sabin took the most precious thing ship-folk had,Phoenix itself, and headed out where (one now suspected) Ogun damned well understood there was an extreme danger.

Had Ogun ever fully briefed Sabin about what had really happened out there?

Two hundred years ago, human beings had planted their space station in territory an alien species claimed—had evidently passed unnoticed—untilPhoenix had poked deeper into that species’ territory and triggered alarms.

That species, the kyo, had blown Reunion Station half to ruin—then vanished, only to pop out of the dark again when Sabin arrived.

Monstrous expediency might at that point have said to hell with human survivorsand the Archive: save our own skins—but Sabin hadn’t done that. Sabin had calmly stood her ground with the kyo and gotten all the survivors off.

Sabin might have promised the Reunioners any sort of thing while they were in transit, just to keep peace aboard.

But Sabin hadn’t done that, either. Bren had been there. Jase had been there, second in command. So Bren knew with certainty that Sabin had never made a deal, never made promises of power—never given the refugees anything but adequate food and a way to survive.

“All right,” he said to Jase. “Lay it out for me. Who stands where in this mess? Who’s on whose side and why?”

“One.” Jase held up his first finger. “Sabin and I. We backed these three kids coming down here. Ogun didn’t want that. It wasn’t going to happen. You saw what happened to me when I landed—sick as hell for weeks when I came down. All sorts of theories as to why, with me as the living proof of why spacers don’t adapt. The medics had their notions. But taking Reunioner children down there and having them sick was not a popular idea, politically speaking. Then Tabini-aiji insisted on it. Sabin and I—and the senior medic—won the argument once atevi politics weighed in.” Jase held up a second finger.“Two. From the moment the Reunioners walked onto the station deck, Tillington has wanted to send the Reunioners off to mine Maudit and build a separate station where he never has to see them again.” Third finger.“Some Reunioners, notably Braddock, actually want to go do that. You can guess why.”

No question there. Braddock, accustomed for years to being absolute authority on Reunion, had new ambitions.

Fourth finger. “Sabin wants them landed on the planet where they’ll be swallowed up forever in a sea of Mospheirans.” Thumb. “Themajority of Reunioners want to build new space onto this station and integrate with the Mospheirans, who don’t want them to be there.”

“Six,” Bren said, holding up his own thumb. “Mospheira has an opinion in this affair. Mind, I haven’t consulted on this one—I’m a long way from representing Mospheira at all, these days—but Mospheira won’t want a rival government setting up out at Maudit any more than they’ll want Mospheiran-born workers outnumbered and outvoted by Reunioners on the station. They won’t want Reunioners settling in atevi territory, which atevi would never permit, anyway. But they also know, like it or not, that five thousand Reunioners aren’t going to go away.”

“Whatever happens,” Jase said, “however we resolve the question, disposition of the Reunioners can’t wait another year. Itcan’t. The station had to surrender three entire sections to their residency, piecemeal, and jury-rigged. We have people living in what used to be workshops, partitioned-up, but extremely bare bones. Singles are still in barracks—that’s a minor problem. But no jobs. No cooking facilities: you get food at kitchens, just like on the voyage. There’s a flourishing black market, and theft we haven’t had to cope with on the Mospheiran side. Fights break out, and Braddock’s people swagger about attempting to say they run things, even holding trials. It’s not tolerable long-term. And Tillington’s just gone over the edge, accusing Sabin of conspiracy, stirring things up on the Mospheiran side. So this is a quiet request, just an advisement. Can you do something about Tillington—move him out, move him up or down, no preference, but get him somewhere he can’t cause more trouble? And is thereany way to look at getting the Mospheiran legislature to bring the Reunioners downworld?”

Bren drew a deep breath. It was a sane proposal. With the new med, the fact there’d beenno such sickness as Jase had experienced before, either in Jase or the children—yes. It became possible. That didn’t mean it was going to be an easy proposal to advance in the Mospheiran legislature. But yes, if the ship had come up with something to enable an easier transition to the planet—if it had found a way to prove the Reunioners could live and thrive down here—

“I’m doing all right down here,” Jase said. “I’m adjusting. Those Reunioner kids have no problems.Nothing. They’ve skipped pills. Two have been off them more I suspect than they admit. They’re not sick, so they forget. So Reunionerscan adjust to being down here. We supply the population with meds for a few months . . . and their way of looking at the world will adjust. Maybe a few will have to go back, for medical reasons that haven’t turned up yet. But right now—if the Mospheiran legislature hasn’t been getting the word from their constituents up there—we’re still fragile. Damned fragile. We’ve got water, we’ve got basic protein and carbohydrate, but there are shortages of things we need. Diet’s not what it was. And I waited to bring this up now because I didn’t want to be debating it while we were trying to deal with the kids and everything else that was going on. Then the Sabin and Tillington matter blew up, making it impossible to put the problem off any longer. I’m sorry to tie the two together. But they tie themselves together, unfortunately. Tillington doesn’t want the Reunioners, and he apparently doesn’t want any Reunioner kids on the planet.”

“Landing does become possible.” They’d been consistently hearing only two solutions for the refugees . . . Maudit, or a station expansion. There were serious objections to both. Now . . . “Where do the captains stand? You want me to propose this as a program?”

“It’s Sabin’s position. And mine.”

“Not Ogun’s?”

“Ogun wouldn’t be unhappy to be rid of the problem.”

“The logistics are impossible. Five thousand people, going down by shuttle, between cargo runs.”

“Easier down than up.”

“It still takes the passenger modules.”

“There’s light freight you could pack into that config on the return.”

“That’s still a lot of shuttle loads, while you’re having shortages.”

“The more people we shed, the less pressure on the system. Mospheira’s program’s looking to launch a second shuttle next year. And we can build a second shuttle dock, granted Geigi will give us the resources. That doubles our ability to handle freight.”

“We can’t double the shuttle schedule—they take the time they take.”

“We could build more shuttles. In space. So no unneeded ground time.”

Resources and construction gear tagged for the starship under construction had already been diverted to Geigi’s robot landers and the satellite system. Resourceswould have to be diverted to a Maudit expedition or a station expansion: that the Reunioner problem was going to absorb resources was a given. And a second dock was safer, did conceivably speed turnover . . . increased options. There were ground holds because of a problem in orbit.

“Have you mentioned the idea to Geigi?”

“Not yet. But he’s already contributed supplies, just in housing the refugees. He did say—which I certainly relayed to the Council—that the aiji will not permit the station to increase permanent human occupancy space without a corresponding increase in atevi population; and that if there is a decision to build a station out at Maudit, the same principle will apply.”

“That would be correct.”

“Tillington’s also said he’d demand a Mospheiran presence at Maudit, whether or not he’s gotten an official position on that, which also slows down any movement of the Reunioners elsewhere, because if we don’t have shuttle space to spare, we definitely don’t have transport for three different construction crews going to Maudit, let alone materials and habitat. I tell you, Bren, the damned thing just accretes parts and pieces, and most of them add to the problems rather than solving them. Everybody wants to control it. Nobody wants to actually do it. Whatever it is. And we can’t go putting it off. This last year’s been difficult. We’re entering a second year with these people in temporary housing, on a diet that’s bland beyond description and supplemented with pills. We’ve got to do something. And the anti-nausea med works. And human senses adjust. It’s our best option, Bren. It’s entirely possible.”

“It does change the picture. I agree. The logistics remain a problem.”

“The politics are a problem. And they’re becoming a worse one. It’s not anything analogous to the old situation, but both sides, at least at the administrative level, are treating it as if the old feud is alive and well.”

Mospheirans had fled to the planet in the first place because they’d fallen out with the ship and station administration. And Reunioners were the descendants of the old admin and the loyalists who had taken off and deserted the Mospheirans, only to return in this century, tail between their legs, having stirred up a worse mess than the War of the Landing.

Reunioners, in the person of Louis Baynes Braddock, wanted to dictate the future of humanity in space?

Packing the lot down to Earth became an increasingly attractive solution. Possibly it was going to be more attractive to themajority of the Reunioners.

“They’ve never experienced a planet. It won’t be the same for them.”

“The kids had no trouble,” Jase said. “And these people aren’t their ancestors. Reunion was gravity-anchored to a lump of rock and ice, not really a planet: there was no attraction there. But thereis a natural attraction to this planet. The past isn’t the present. Once you tell the Reunioners that the planet is a possibility for them—minds will change. And those kids justproved they can live down here. That’s the point.”

“It’s a better alternative than we have had.”

“Economically and logistically.”

“And politically. Mospheirans can make controversy out of siting a shuttle port theydo want. Room for five thousand people they envision as the ancestors—”

“Versus an expansion of the station that’s going to upset the Treaty. Or a separate state with a history of hostility.”

“The Reunioners won’t all favor it,” Bren said.

“Braddock chief among that number. He wants his own station, out there, out of reach, with his hand-picked officers running things again.”

“He can still cause trouble. God knows, Mospheirans are always ready for issues.”

“Up there—there’s no shortage of issues. Being short of food and living space is productive of issues.”

“Mospheirans down here don’t know Braddock’s name,” Bren conceded. “Most don’t have a clue about the Pilots’ Guild. Nor, for that matter, do we actually care.”

A slight grim laugh. “The fact Louis Baynes Braddock still thinks he should order the Captains’ Council doesn’t impress them?”

“Not in the least.”

“Maybe we can bring Tillington on board, get him behind the notion of landing all the Reunioners, setting things back the way they were. . . .”

“I sincerely doubt it. For other reasons. Bren, the man poses a problem apart from the Reunioner issue.”

“He was a good administrator through the Troubles. He and Geigi worked out a system to communicate without us . . .”

“Which has become a problem. He doesn’t want me involved and he certainly doesn’t want Sabin. He’s all snug with Ogun. And so far as his great achievement—that neat little system that doesn’t require humans to communicate with atevi in anythingbut code, it’s just a longer list of the code the shuttle program worked out, and Tillington’s so devoted to it he doesn’t call onme at all, or ask me to interpret the soft tissue of the answer. Geigi will ask me in depth. I have a good relationship with Lord Geigi. But with Tillington—no. With him, yes is yes, that’s the end, and he’ll read it according to whathe thinks yes means. And if it later doesn’t turn out to be the precise yes he wanted, then he says Geigi broke his promise. Communication staff to staff is cordial, accurate, and makes things run. Communication between the two stationmasters is another matter.”

It was a complete right turn from the information he’d gotten from Geigi, even in prolonged exchanges. But—dealing with atevi—sometimes silence was another kind of information. Atevi completely avoided problematic humans, rather than collapse a useful situation. Humans didn’t always figure that out.

They’d gone to war, humans and atevi, as an outgrowth of such a situation.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“He doesn’t like Reunioners,” Jase said. “And yes, the shortages and the crowding are a problem, but it wasn’t the personal choice of the Reunioners. He complains to his subordinates and crew chiefs, sympathizes with their problems, blames the Reunioners for all of it. He was massively upset about the kids’ visit, called it special privilege for the Reunioners, didn’t want it to happen, said they were short of supplies and the kids’ visit was taking up a shuttle flight—an exaggeration. We used the smallest passenger module and we’ll carry cargo both ways. Ogun wasn’t in favor of it—he was siding with Tillington’s view until the aiji’s request came through. But that wasn’t the end of it. He said Tabini’s government was still unstable, he said the children would be in danger and if anything happened the Reunioners would riot. Well, Sabin fixed that. She proposed I go down as interpreter and run security. So that happened, and we came down. But when we called up to the station to advise the kids were going to stay through another shuttle rotation—Tillington started saying he had information that the kids were a setup, that they’d always been a setup, and that Sabin had arranged their meeting the young gentleman on the ship.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It gets better. According to Tillington, Sabin’s plan was to get Reunioner kids linked to the young gentleman, to get in tight with the atevi, to get an agreement with Braddock and the Reunioners, thatshe was going to be their ally. That it was all cooked up on the voyage back.”

Bren’s pulse ticked up a notch. Two notches. “He actually said that.”

“That’s as Sabin reported the statement to me, which she had from Ogun—who usually doesn’t restructure information. Ogun asked her what the truth was. She naturally said hell, no, it was entirely atevi business what the young gentleman did. She didn’tstop it, because atevi security was watching over the situation. She said she’d as soon space Braddock, given a choice; she’d done everything she’d promised Ogun she’d do, and she’d handled a refugee situation they hadn’t planned for.And she’d brought the ship back, what more proof than that could he want?”

“Saying the aiji-dowager might have an ulterior motive is like saying the sea has tides. But involving her as your captain’s ally in a special deal, as putting emotional pressure on the aiji’s son, in her care—at his age—and to take—” Neither ship-speak nor Mosphei’ had a word for it. He changed to Ragi. “—to institute a new aijinate aboard that ship, far from the aishidi’tat, to involve herself and the aiji’s son in foreign politics and foreign ambition— No.” He dropped back into ship-speak, for another logic. “First, you and I know it didn’t in fact happen. The aiji-dowager deals from her own hand. No one else’s. And certainly she wouldn’t use her great-grandson as anybody’s ally in some human power game. No. First, it’s false. She allowed the association with the Reunioner children for her great-grandson’s sake—a boy who’d scarcely seen another child—of any sort. And secondly, if word of this accusation reached her, she might well File Intent on Tillington. Mind, shedoes have Guild personnel on the station. He’d better not repeat this theory, anywhere outside Ogun’s office.”

“We have no way to stop him. It’s not mutiny. It’s opinion, and, all said, he’syour official. In the Mospheiran sense.”

“No question he’s Mospheiran,” Bren said. “But he’s not on Mospheira.”

“He’s opened a wide gulf with Sabin. I don’t know how he can retreat from this.”

“I don’t know how he can retreat from it either, given the situation. I’m serious about the dowager’s position. She will be serious, if she takes notice of it. If Geigi hears it, Geigi won’t work with him.”

“Geigi already won’t work with him. I know Geigi can speak a little Mosphei’. It doesn’t happen.”

True. Basically true, during all their absence from the solar system and all the troubles, with all the building, Geigi had been communicating using the supply system codes they’d developed for that interface in the space program, in shuttle guidance, in all the places where numbers and codes could carry a meaning.

“So he’s become a liability. A serious liability, driving a program that’s going to divert materials for years. And the Reunioners remain a problem driving every decision we make. If we propose moving the Reunioners down, that process is going to take time, and new construction, with politics all the way. If we remove Tillington now, he’ll have an opinion. If it’s political power he’s courting, I can foresee which party will back him. Damn. Isnothing ever simple?”

“We’ve got Tillington on one side, Braddock on the other, up there, and theoretically we’re not in charge of Braddock, Tillington is. Tell the President this: when you chose the crews to come up to the station, youscreened people you sent. They’re all certified sane. The Reunioners were all born on Reunion. They’ve been through hell in the last ten years. And we took all the survivors. There was nothing like screening. There still hasn’t been. We’ve got theft we never had to deal with. We have a shadow market we never had to deal with. You wouldn’t believe what you can turn into alcohol. We’ve likely got some seriously confused head cases in that population. And we’ve got Braddock, who thinks the Pilots’ Guild is in charge of the universe. We’re one psych problem short of a security nightmare. Andwe’re fragile. Phoenix is. Tillington’s politicking between Sabin and Ogun is bringing liveour old issues. My people still haven’t answered all the questions aboutwhy Ramirez pulled us away from Reunion and stranded those people out there in the first place. It’snot a dead issue with the crew or with the Reunioners. It may never be. Damned sure nobody in the crew is on the side of the old Pilots’ Guild, and Braddock’s claims to speak for that ancient organization get no handhold with us. But now Tillington’s shooting sparks into a volatile atmosphere. I don’t think he understands how what he’s saying translates to usor to atevi. But he’s the wrong man in the wrong place right now.”

He’d been busy since he’d gotten back. He’d been fighting for Tabini’s return, fighting to keep Tabini in office, fighting to defuse issues that had nearly taken the aishidi’tat apart. Tillington had been a name to him, and he’d trusted Geigi to tell him if there were things that needed attention. Of course there were disputes. There were issues. Those had seemed distant, someone else’s problem.

Then three kids wanted to come down to the planet for a birthday party, and three political systems exploded?

“Understand,” he said, “I have no standing with the Mospheiran government any longer. I haven’t been back there since before we left the planet.”

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: DAW BOOKS
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0756409098
• ISBN 13: 9780756409098
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar