“No, sir,” Bren said quietly. He had a dozen arguments, but only one matching Sabin’s order: “We’re here at the sitting captain’sorders, and we feel we should regard that instruction until Captain Sabin’s recovered.”
The doctor wasn’t happy. “Watch them,” the doctor instructed a subordinate, “and don’t let them touch her. Don’t let them touch anything.”
Oh, what a happy situation.
But there they sat. Or stood.
They could all end up under arrest, once the matter shook out—God forbid Sabin should die, though that would solve certain things at a stroke, and it could happen very, very fast if Ilisidi so much as flicked a finger. Bren walked over to her, bowed, and explained quickly, in a low voice.
“Aiji-ma, Sabin-aiji is furious and takes it that she was poisoned, on which I have not been so forward as to claim any knowledge…”
Ilisidi smiled—was it a smile?—and rested a hand on Cajeiri’s shoulder. “She is alive and quite well. It was a very small dose. But we will notbe constrained in movement or access, and that you may tell her.”
There was an arrival at that point. Ginny Kroger walked in, with a handful of the station’s security guards, and the room… already crowded… became very crowded indeed.
“Bren,” Ginny said, and gave a little bow toward the dowager. “Dowager.” She said it in Ragi, a courtesy. Only a few years ago nohuman but the paidhi ever addressed an ateva, and it had become gingerly matter-of-course that one shoulddo so. “We understand there’s been a little question of our freedom to move about. We also understand the captain’s taken ill. We’re here. At your service.”
Ginny, of all people. Bren’s heart gave a thump; and he had to ask what the hell was going on.
Jase, he thought then. Jase, on the bridge, with freedom of communications.
“I’d like to keep this civil,” he murmured, trying to keep it out of Sabin’s drugged hearing. “The captain pushed the dowager, hard. We’ve had a bit of a blow-up and the dowager’s willing to have it be settled, tit for tat. Given the freedom from restriction. That’s how things are.”
“Mr. Cameron.” The doctor was irate. “I’ll thank you to take this mob out.”
“We can move the captain to the dowager’s quarters, where we can care for her,” Bren said… not having consulted in the least, but he took a chance, high and wide. “We feel, given the nature of the reaction, that we ought to remain a resource for her… and we take our commitment to Captain Graham very seriously. We willremove her from the premises if we feel she’s in danger, damned right we will.”
“Get out of here.”
“You can’t enforce it,” Bren said. “Nor should. This is international politicsyou’re taking a wrench to, sir, and mypatient is the agreement that pastes three species together and keeps your ship operational. In that capacity, I’m supported by two of your captains and both the planet’s nations. And I’m not budging.”
“Cameron.”
That was from Sabin. He paid attention, and walked cautiously over to the bed.
“You damn bastard,” Sabin said.
“Yes, ma’am. I am and please attribute the misunderstandings to me, with profound personal apologies. I know the dowager’s limited in her conversation with you, but she’d much rather have an agreement and a civilized understanding. Her presence here is both an honor to you and an expression of her wish to have an agreement.”
Sabin’s scowling face was pale and beaded with sweat.
“You think I’m tracking?”
“I think you’re hearing things, and they come and they go, rather like talking down a pipe. Am I right? But I think you know the essentials. I think you know you can have a voyage with allies—or maybe that voyage shouldn’t take place at all. If we can’t bring the peace we’ve reached—out there—then what are we bringing, captain? If the representatives of the world and the station have to be locked belowdecks and kept out of decisions, we’re not bringing them damned much hope.”
“Who are you going to poison next? The pilot? That will be useful.”
“Captain, here’s a simple question. Did you back Pratap Tamun in an attempt to get information out of Ramirez? Was that where it went wrong?”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“That is a fairly reasonable suspicion, isn’t it? You nominated Tamun. You generally supported him. Tamun wanted information on conditions at the station, because he was suspicious there was something withheld, and Ramirez wouldn’t give it to him. If he’d had what Ramirez knew, he could have brought the whole crew in on the mutiny—but he didn’t have it. And if hedidn’t have it, maybe you didn’t have it. Now every eyewitness but one is dead. And you just appropriated him to your staff.”
Sabin blinked slowly, sweat beaded in the lines about her eyes. The expression was somewhat bewildered. It might be she’d lost the threads of the question. It might be bewilderment of a different sort.
“Jenrette?”
“All the others died in the coup. So there’s Jenrette. And you wanted him away from Jase. And we know it.”
A slow series of blinks. Sabin’s face wasn’t accustomed to bewilderment. The map of lines was better suited to frowns.
“Damn this headache.” She seemed then to lose the pieces. And grope after them. “You’ve built a fairy castle, Mr. Cameron. And poisoned me because of it?”
“Only incidentally because of it, because if I’d believed you were on the side of the angels, or if you’d understood my position, Captain Sabin, you and I might have talked and the level of tension on this ship wouldn’t have prompted you to restrict the dowager’s movements and insult her at her own dinner table.”
“You were the translator, Mr. Cameron.”
“I can’t ameliorate body language, Captain Sabin.”
“You… and Jase Graham. Damn him.”
“Damn us both, captain. Let’s be fair. Didyou know about the situation on Reunion?”
Sabin’s hand wandered to her head, shaded her eyes a moment, shutting him out.
Then dropped.
“Where’s Jules Ogun? Does your coup extend to the station?”
“Call him. I’m sure Jase can patch you through. What’s on the station is what we agreed on, a cooperative power-sharing, Captain Ogun, Lord Geigi, and Mr. Paulson. And considering everything that’s gone on, I’m not sure we’re not all going back aboard the station.”
“Things onstation are what they were.” Ginny moved to the foot of Sabin’s cot.
“Who’s that?” Focusing clearly hurt.
“Ginny Kroger, captain. Our deep concern for what’s happening here. This isn’t the way we wanted to start the voyage.”
“Not what I planned, either,” Sabin muttered.
“So things onstation are secure,” Bren said. “And we can bring the ship back in to dock and try to settle this—you, your crew, the station… everybody. It does admit a certain failure on our part. Maybe we can avoid that.”
Sabin shut her eyes. There was a lengthy silence. Bren looked at Ginny.
“She’s pretty damn sick,” he said. “She’ll be all right, but she’s in no shape to make decisions right now. I don’t think this ship should leave port right now. We’ve been lied to, by Ramirez or by the whole Captain’s Council. We know there are records we weren’t given. We know there’s been deception on deception—whether it’s the old Guild running this show or not, no one’s sure.”