Here was where ship and station, who had no experience of any outsiders but each other, had no useful referent that wasn’t buried deep in the Archive, unlearned and unstudied in centuries… except for Jase’s knowledge.
And this was where the paidhi-aiji earned his keep.
The answer came back. Prakuyo listened to all of it, then answered, ticking off points to himself on his fingers, and with a great deal of attendant booming and rumbling, before he reached over and thumped Bren on the back. Hard. Bren caught himself against the counter-edge, tears in his eyes, and hoped the shoulderblade wasn’t cracked.
Prakuyo, however, was happy.
“Go Prakuyo ship,” Prakuyo said, “go Prakuyo ship.”
“Ship come?”
“Come?” Prakuyo said happily, and Bren warily turned toward him, to make another back-slap inconvenient.
“Good,” Bren said, feeling less than confident. And saying to himself that if he was going to be going anywhere, he wanted a few words of the language under his belt.
And, God, if Sabin got aboard before Prakuyo’s ship got here—as that sight of an incoming alien craft was almost guaranteed to prompt her to do—he was going to have to explain the dowager’s decision, and his, and somehow keep bargains they hadn’t Sabin’s—or Jase’s—clearance to make.
He needed words. He needed some picture of what he was working with, or going into.
“Asicho. Get me C1.”
“Yes,” she said, and punched buttons. “C1, nandi.”
“Captain Graham,” he said, sure of his contact.
“ I’m on ,” Jase said, not in Ragi. “ How did that go” ?
“Very well.” In Ragi. “The ship will continue to move in, but shooting is less likely.”
“ It expects him to transfer to it, will it? The stationers are very nervous. One is by no means sure we have removed all resistance, besides it will terrify the passengers. One is not complaining, understand… but can one possibly hold that off? ”
“We are not yet fluent enough to undertake that topic,” Bren said. “One regrets, nadi-ji. He wishes me and the dowager and the heir to visit the ship, perhaps to demonstrate us to his fellows; and the dowager has agreed.”
“ God, Bren .” That last was not in Ragi.
“We do intend to return, and consider it no worse risk than parachuting onto a planet.” That for Jase, who had done precisely that, so Jase could hardly complain of wild risks. “Our guest seems very reasonable and well-disposed, all considered. Understand, these matters were cordially agreed while I was absent, and our guest’s good will and confidence may reasonably be dependent on these representations. It might be a grave mistake to backtrack.”
“ Is our guest promising to let us out of here ?”
“Not entirely clear. Either we have some difficulty communicating that point, or Prakuyo lacks authority or disposition to promise it. I do certainly intend to make that issue a primary point aboard his ship.”
“ Bren .” Jase seemed at a loss.
“Prevent the aiji-senior from forbidding this move. That would be a very great help.”
“ Got that straight ,” Jase said. And in Ragi: “ One understands, and one most fervently wishes you success, nandi-ji .”
“A mutual wish. Baji-naji, Jase-nandi.” He shut down the contact, and carefully patted Prakuyo on the shoulder, since Prakuyo had touched him with such familiarity. “Come. Rest, Prakuyo-ji. We go rest.”
Prakuyo might not have understood the essential word, but he got up and came along, a broad, rolling stride beside him, all the way back to his borrowed quarters.
“Sleep,” Bren said then, making the pantomime. “Rest.”
“Yes,” Prakuyo said with a deep rumble. “Yes.” Prakuyo might be exhausted— he was exhausted; but precious little time they might have before critical things happened: that the alien craft got close, demanding to come in; or that Sabin decided to come aboard and take command. Both things were possible, concurrently, other people had made agreements without asking, and he was running out of energy and out of ideas simultaneously.
Most of all he’d had to go running off settling that problem and not seeing to personal concerns, and his first question to Asicho, going back to the security post, was Banichi’s whereabouts.
“In the clinic, with Jago, nandi. He has followed all of this.”
Banichi would; so would Jago. Could he doubt, as long as they were conscious? “I shall see them,” he said. “Thank you, Asa-ji.”
Off to the clinic, closer to their front door, a little room, seeming smaller still with their casualties and the dowager’s physician and a younger aide.
Banichi had gotten a bandage, at least. Bren inhaled to give himself room next a cabinet and Banichi’s chair, Jago standing on the other side.
“You know what the dowager has agreed,” Bren said straight off.
“Of course,” Jago said, and Banichi threw in, “We will be there, Bren-ji.”
“I bear a certain guilt, only asking it of you.”
“Did I hear asking?” Banichi said with a look at Jago.
“No,” Jago said, “one never heard asking.”
He laid a hand on Jago’s shoulder, Banichi’s being likely extremely sore. “Our guest seems civil, at least, nadiin-ji. My greatest worry is Sabin-aiji, if she involves herself in decisions already taken.”
“Sabin-aiji seems busy at the moment,” Banichi observed.
“May she stay that way long enough.” A large breath. He didn’t want to leave them. But they were in competent hands, there was nothing useful he could do here, and he had to refocus his attention on his own skills. Most of all he had to make decisions, to think about the core vocabulary they had to have, and what he was going to say, and how he was going to negotiate a peace with a vocabulary of some fifty or so words.
A gentle pat. One for Banichi, a piece of temerity, but Banichi was obliged, occasionally, to put up with human notions. “One needs a little time to think. Rest , nadiin-ji. Take painkillers without any consideration of the matter ahead: we wish to project ease and pleasantness.”
Short laugh from Banichi. “Pleasantness.”
“Think of going home, nadiin-ji,” Bren said. “Think of us all going home.” A second pat. “Thank you.”
He escaped before he could embarrass himself further, shook off the scene in the clinic and the memory of that glowing strand of desperate refugees, the recollection that Gin and Sabin were desperately engaged in a mission that was going to complicate his own, in timing—none of these things could be top priority in his head now.
They needed go away and destroy the station . They needed take the inhabitants and excuse us for the inconvenience .
They possibly needed please don’t come calling at our planet , but he didn’t see how he was going to get at that one if it wasn’t a mutual desire for disentanglement.
And he might need stickier words, which could be a provocation to try to pull out of their guest. He might need a pad of paper and a pencil, to do diagrams.
A pocket full of sugar candies. That had been the most useful trade goods—forget trying to pretend all this number of humans and atevi didn’t have a planet somewhere, forget trying to conceal where it was. If that alien craft hadn’t been sitting here waiting for them they might have lied about that issue—but given a direction and adequate optics, no question they could find the earth of the atevi. Prakuyo’s folk might ask about the origin of humans, if they correctly perceived they weren’t quite the same biologically, and that could be difficult. No, believe us, we actually misplaced our home planet .