See me. Emergency.
“Yes,” Tano said, and punched buttons. “Done, nandi.”
“Workers in Gin-nadi’s hearing,” he said then, informing his security staff, who might not have followed all that transaction in Mosphei. “Workers are carrying a rumor that the ship didn’t find the remote station destroyed, as they reported, and that crew remained alive aboard it. That this was something the captains knew.”
“Then the source is reputed to be the captains?” Tano asked.
“It would apparently go that high—if it’s true at all.” Everything they had done here to secure their mutual future depended on the ship’s assurances that the aliens that had attacked and destroyed the remote space station couldn’t possibly have gained information from the ruin—that the destruction there was complete, and that no data on the location of their own station could have gotten to the aliens.
And if that weren’t entirely true—if the conflict out there was still going on—
Banichi appeared in the doorway. “Were workers or crew the source of the rumor?” Banichi, with his earpiece evidently attuned to proceedings in the security station, was completely briefed, and had the salient question.
“I don’t know,” Bren said. “But I want to know. Jago’s out in that section. Is she aware?”
“Now, yes,” Banichi said.
There was an increasingly queasy feeling at the pit of his stomach.
Tabini unavailable, Ramirez dead, the newly-arranged captains off to their private councils, and now rumor cast doubt on all their agreements— allthe ship’s many promises and protestations, all oaths, all reassurances—
This was very, very bad news. And it wouldn’t raise trust, among the Mospheiran workers.
“We’d better get an official answer for this one, fast. Keep trying to get Jase. Contact C1 as well as the beeper—” C1 being Phoenix-com. “Put me through as soon as possible.”
“Yes,” Tano said.
“If it’s only a rumor,” he said to his staff, “it’s still serious. If it isn’t—we’ve been lied to. But we don’t assume that as first choice. It may be more complicated than that.”
Meanwhile Tano pushed buttons and tried to find Jase.
“C1 doesn’t respond,” Tano said—and thatwas more than troublesome. “I believe a recorded message is saying all communications are routed through station central until further notice.”
Not good, not good at all. Bad timing, if nothing else.
“Use the operations emergency channel.”
“The ship is fueled, Bren-ji,” Banichi pointed out.
Phoenix, once all but helpless, was not, at the moment.
“Gini-ji. Get Paulson.”
“Yes, nandi.” Algini moved, then signaled him the call was through.
“Hello? Paulson?”
“ Mr. Cameron?”
“Paulson.” The relief was a cold bath. “Rumor’s running the halls. C1’s not responding. I think we need a little extraordinary security out there. Keep workers on their shifts. No shift-change, do you agree? Restrict the bars and rec areas. Call it a funeral.”
“ You’ve heard the rumor.”
“What have you heard?”
“ ThatPhoenix lied to us.”
That wasn’t the construction he’d like to put on it. But that was certainly a Mospheiran gut-reaction—a mild one, considering the history of lies the ship had told the colony from the beginning, and the distrust there still was, on the planet, among those whose ancestors had parachuted into a gravity well to escape Phoenix’iron grip.
“We don’t know all of it. We don’t even know a legitimate source, unless you’ve got better information than we do. As far as we know, it’s just loose talk that’s gotten started.”
“ We’ve already put the word out: we’re holding employees at posts, we’ve canceled all breaks until further notice and shut down private calls. Supposedly somebody overheard something in the infirmary. Some worker. When Ramirez died.”
Paulson wasn’t the sort of director who heard rumors. No one told Paulson anything. Except now it seemed as if someone had. Someone had told everyone.
A worker had come into the infirmary with a cut hand. And been treated in the area where Ramirez died.
“What did they hear?”
“ Ramirez told Graham that the station out there is still operating. Still has crew on it.”
Ramirez himself. He was stunned at the indiscretion. But maybe a dying man hadn’t had choices.
And what did he say to that?
“Can you find that worker? It’s got to be in infirmary records.”
“ It’s not all, understand. Ramirez ordered Graham take no extraordinary measures to keep him alive. Said that he wanted to die. The ship was fueled and he was ready to die. That’s what’s being said around.”
He didn’t doubt the details. Now he wasn’t sure he doubted the central rumor. A deep and volatile secret had broken out of confinement.
At worst construction, they were betrayed—and not for the first time. His ownMospheiran heritage welled up in him, in deep, angry suspicion.
He shut it down. Tried to think instead of react.
“We don’t have all the facts,” he said to Paulson. “I’m asking, keep your workers exactly as you have, out of places where they can gather and theorize. I’m applying to ship command for a clarification. Talk to that worker if you can. Let’s find out the truth.”
“ When you know what’s going on, I’d appreciate a call.”
“Deal.”
Still no answer to the beeper, and no help from C1. Bren punched out on Paulson and looked at his security team.
“Did you follow, nadiin-ji? Ramirez-aiji in dying said to Jase-paidhi that there were indeed people left behind on the other station and that at that time it was operational. He said, at the same time that he had fueled the ship and that he was ready to die.”
“Perhaps we should visit Jase,” Banichi said. “Jago and I.”
If they were on earth, they would have other recourses—they might well have sent a messenger from the Guild. They weren’t on earth, and hadn’t, and he didn’t want to start a war with the ship-crew.
“We’re going to have to advise the aiji,” Bren said. “That on a priority. Put another call through, Gini-ji, to Eidi, to anyone you can get.”
“Put on the vest, Bren-ji,” Tano said ominously, meaning the projectile-proof one that restricted his movements and his breathing, and no, he didn’t at all want it, one more ferocious inconvenience in an already maddening hour—but under the circumstances and with what was riding on the lives of a handful of critical personnel, he had no choice but agree.
“I shall,” he said. “I shan’t forget it, Tano-ji.”
“Jase is calling back,” Algini said suddenly, and Bren snatched up the ear-set.
“Jase?”
“ Bren. I have a page from you. I’m on my way to a meeting.”
“Jase. I don’t know if you know, but whatever Ramirez told you—it got out. That the other station wasn’tdestroyed, for starters. Is that true?”