“Guild, hell,” Sabin muttered, eyes still shut. “We never were sure. Just put a brake on it, Cameron. Don’t speculate.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and folded his hands and stopped where he was, listening, waiting while a very sick woman tried to gather her faculties.
“First off, tell the dowager she’s a right damn bastard.”
It was no time for a translator to argue. Mitigation, however, was a reasonable tactic. “Aiji-ma, Sabin-aiji has heard our suspicions regarding Tamun and received assurances from me and Gin-aiji that we have not arranged a coup of our own. She addresses you with an untranslatable term sometimes meaning extreme disrepute, sometimes indicating respect for an opponent.”
Ilisidi’s mouth drew down in wicked satisfaction. “Return the compliment, paidhi.”
“Captain, she says you’re a right damn bastard, too.”
Sabin almost laughed, winced, and grabbed her head with a hand that shook like palsy. “God.”
“Hurts. I know. I’m sorry.”
“Damn your ‘sorry.’ Tell the dowager she can wander all over the deck and into the reaction chamber for all I care. What’s Graham up to, up there right now? Going through files?”
“I think he might be asking questions.”
“Of Jenrette.”
“Among other actions. I know for a fact, captain, that he’d shoot me before he’d take an action that endangered this ship. Let’s lay suspicions out in plain sight. He lived onworld with us for a number of years, he understands us, and his understandingof us has led him to do what he’s done. Frankly, he in no way anticipated what happened at the aiji’s table. He rather planned to invade the files by subterfuge and try to find out the truth without embarrassing you. And maybe just to ask Jenrette some direct questions… if youdidn’t assassinate Jenrette.”
Blink.
“People havebeen assassinated in this affair,” Bren said. “Not least of our suspicions—Ramirez.”
Blink-blink. “Not unless you did it.”
“You suspected us? We suspected you.”
“Did you do it?”
“No. I investigated, and my staff investigated. No.”
“That’s constructive.” Pain made Sabin shield her eyes and breathe heavily for a moment. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Cameron. Let’s just assume this voyage is going to take place. Let’s assume we can even proceed on schedule. I’m not looking forward to acceleration until this headache stops, but we all have our inconveniences. Did you tell the dowager she’s a bitch?”
“Bastard, ma’am, and she called you one.”
“Good. We understand each other. How long does this headache last?”
“A few days. I hope less, with human-specific medication, all the facilities here…”
“Days.” Sabin winced.
“There are a few native antidotes… at least things that help. But I think the medical staff can do more for you than…”
“Hell. Tell Graham get this ragtag settled into cabins, secure the ship and get the pilot on advisement. Tell Graham I’ll see him when he’s got a moment and don’t push any buttons up there.”
“Captain Sabin.” He was, on the one hand, amazed. On the other—still suspicious. Years in Shejidan had all his nerves atwitch. And gave him the sure instinct to take what the captain offered and look it over very, very carefully. “I’ll certainly pass that message. But we waited all this time. Your comfort—”
“Is not an issue, Mr. Cameron.” Incredibly, she lifted her head and struggled up on an elbow. Bren put out his hands to catch her, knowing at gut level the giddy spin that effort created. But she stayed tremulously steady. “Get the hell out of here and tell Graham move the ship. Now, hear me?”
She sank back. A medic crowded in to check the tubes and the vitals.
“Aiji-ma,” Bren said, “she accepts explanations and orders the mission to proceed. She wishes us to go to quarters and leave Jase-aiji in charge of the ship’s operations.” He said it, and his Shejidan-experienced mind urged caution. “One might, however, provide atevi security.”
Ilisidi’s eyes sparkled. “Here, and with Jase-aiji.”
“One concurs.”
It was a peculiar difference dealing with humans, that one understood there was the possibility of an association with Sabin—and yet, among atevi, there would be an aiji ultimately in charge of that association. Where in all reason did they find someone to be in charge of this one, since neither Ilisidi nor Sabin admitted an overlord?
One had the thoroughly uncomfortable notion that the paidhiin glued it all together, and that Sabin didn’t forgive what Ilisidi had done, and Ilisidi didn’t forgive the insults at her table, and they had Cajeiri looking nervously from one participant to the other in an atevi child’s honest bewilderment. His instincts surely said this shouldn’t work and adults surely weren’t telling the truth.
But that was the whole problem with the atevi/human interface, and that was the problem with educating children of both species to get along without touching one another’s aggressive instincts. And that was the problem of a ship-culture that had a strong feeling of usand themand went armed to the teeth. Letting atevi under the ship’s armor was a hard, hard thing to do.
And just as well, if they had current ability to move about, that they move into the most sensitive areas and make the point they could do so without harm.
“The dowager wishes you a speedy recovery,” Bren said to Sabin, saying nothing about the movement of atevi personnel. “She accepts.”
“The captain of this ship wishes her in hell,” Sabin said dourly, holding a hand over her eyes, and the chief translator foresaw a very, very difficult duty on this ship. “Get me communication with the bridge. Not you. Kaplan.”
Kaplan threw a glance at Bren. Bren tried simultaneously to say go ahead and to look as if he wasn’t anywhere in the loop.
“Good you’re here,” Bren said to Ginny with a touch on the arm. “Want to drop by my quarters when you’re settled? Bring yourself up to speed?”
“That’s in the atevi section.”
“Atevi, Mospheiran… we’re all deck five. It’s going to be close quarters. We’re going to need to secure for motion, imminently, I think. When it’s stopped—when we’re inertial again—” He struggled to revise his earthbound thinking. “Drop by for drinks. Or I’ll come to you. I’ll present you to the dowager.”
“Deal,” Ginny said, and turned and took her own escort out of the crowded compartment. The dowager signaled her intention to depart.
Sabin was talking to someone, presumably Jase, on her personal com, hand over her eyes, wincing.
It seemed time to depart. Bren joined the atevi contingent on the way out.
“One will remain on watch, nandi,” Jago said as they rubbed elbows in the doorway—feet on the deck, the whole world restored to ordinary.
Jago meant that shetook this post, here, by the infirmary… logical choice. She would stand here claiming not to know a word of human language, in which she had a fair fluency.
There had been quiet words passed among atevi all the while he’d been talking to Jase and Sabin: bet that there’d been communications traffic and agents spread out through the ship, all of whom now formed an atevi network of presence. There always was, when an atevi lord moved into an area.
And Jase himself was an atevi interest. Absolutely he was under the dowager’s guard, seen or unseen.
“One agrees, Jago-ji.”
Banichi stayed with him. Jago stayed behind.