“It doesn’t tell me an answer, what he wanted.”
“Oh, you’re fairly well on the track. He kept nosing about until he found trouble and until trouble found us. Then he had the notion of going back to Alpha colony. And when we did go back, and when he found what he found, it set him back, oh, for about an hour. By then, of course, we had limited options. And no fuel. And we knew that the island was founded by rebels against ship’s authority; and that the atevi continent—having all its drawbacks—had natural resources the island didn’t. So right from the start we had our problem—and we weren’t that sure the trouble that hit Reunion wasn’t coming on our tails. I didn’t vote against refueling at Reunion. I didn’t vote against refueling at Alpha. I didn’t vote against cooperation with the atevi, for that matter. It was all we had left. It’s all we still have left. I tell you, if I ever have to plant a space station, I’ll do it in a populated, civilized region, not out around some remote rock with a disputed title, where you don’t know who the owners are.”
“That’s what happened?”
“We haven’t a clue what the aliens think. We’re pretty sure we went where they objected to us being. Violently objected. As far as I’m informed, they didn’t consult the space station to lodge an objection: they just hit it, took out half the mast and did major damage to the ring, fortunately missing the fueling port. End report. We hope, in the nearly ten years we’ve been building a space program and refurbishing Alpha Station, that Reunion has managed to patch itself up and gather in a load of fuel for us. If, as you say, worse isn’t the case. That’s the truth, pretty much as it’s always been presented. Except the fact, evident to me, at least, that our chances of finding the station in one piece are minimal, for exactly the reason you cite, and our chances of convincing the crew we ought to give up on that station are nil until they know there are no surivivors. We are a democracy, junior captain, at the most damnedly inconvenient moments.”
“I’m glad to hear it’s not worse.”
“Oh, it can easily be worse, sir. I assure you it can easily be worse.”
“What was Captain Ramirez up to when he had me born?”
“Stani kept his own counsel,” Sabin said. “Or he confided in Jules.” That was Ogun, who was sitting back at the atevi station, managing a small number of ship’s crew in technical operations—and in the building of another starship. “Frankly, Stani had a lot of pipe dreams involving what we could build out here. I’m more pragmatic. Where we are is what we are. And Taylor’s Children aren’t anything better than what we are.”
“I’d agree, ma’am. Quite honestly, I would. What I do have for a resource is unique training.”
“And, curiously enough, a certain divorcement from the past—as well as unique entanglements. You’re Stani’s pet project.” From hostile, Sabin had become downright placid. “And by your own qualities, you’re liked. It’s occasionally useful to have a captain the crew likes.”
“Crew’s gotten rather fond of you, as happens. And they’d take the truth from you—now, if not before.”
“Bull.”
“Crew knows how you work, senior captain. Doing my job and yours. And they’re grateful.”
“You’ll have me shedding tears.”
“Truth. It’s my skill, remember, to figure out what people are really saying about the powers that be.”
“Doesn’t matter what the crew thinks.”
“I differ with you on that one.”
“Differ all you like. You say you just know what people think. Fine. You don’t figure me or you wouldn’t have to ask.”
“You’re not simple, captain.”
“ I don’t play your games. I don’t give a damn. And don’t plan to.”
“Yet you took a chance and sponsored Tamun into office. You believed in him.”
“He was qualified.”
“And collectively, Ramirez and Ogun agreed and voted him in. And he turned on you. I take it he turned on you.”
“You’re asking if I sponsored the mutiny.”
“I’m asking if you have any special clue why he turned the way he did.”
“I’m a lousy judge of character .”
“I still suspect it was about these tapes.”
“You want to know the deep-down truth, second captain? I don’t know and I don’t give a damn at this late date. Tamun turned out to have an agenda I didn’t know he had, and Stani and Jules didn’t know he had. They took my advice. It was bad advice. A bad decision approved by all three of us. And since he’s dead and the ones still with us that followed him have stepped sideways as far as they can, it doesn’t matter these days, does it?”
“I hope it doesn’t,” Jase said. “I truly hope it doesn’t. I want us to get there, grab any survivors we can find, and get out of the neighborhood forever, as fast as we can.”
“And if there’s other occupancy?”
“Just get out of the neighborhood as fast as we can.”
Sabin leaned back, cup cradled in a careless hand. “You really want your question answered, why you were born?”
“I’m curious.”
“It’s possibly germane. Stani had a notion of contacting the civilization he thought he’d found. But it contacted us , didn’t it? So much for reason and diplomacy.”
Contacting the civilization , Bren thought, and felt cold clear through. Jase’s instincts were right, if not his exact suspicions. Stani Ramirez had stepped far outside Guild rules—long before he returned to Alpha.
“I hope not to do that,” Jase said, “contact the other side, that is.”
“I’m glad you hope so,” Sabin said, “because where we are and what we’re doing, and where we’re meddling, can bring all hell down on our heads. The short answer is—Ramirez had a plan. You were to advise him in his projected alien contact, whenever the chance came. And that didn’t ever happen, did it?”
“I’d say,” Jase said quietly, “that I never had the question posed. Ever. And if I had had it posed to me, senior captain, maybe things wouldn’t have gone the way they did.”
“You were a green kid. You couldn’t do anything.”
“And a year later he dropped me on the atevi planet. The point is, senior captain, he answered without me. Anything he did with the aliens was an answer. Leaving the scene was an answer. Maybe totally the wrong one. And anything we do in the future is under the same gun, with a bad start, because of things Captain Ramirez did that we may not even know about. I need to be on the bridge when we arrive in system. And log records that might tell us what he did would be extremely useful.”
“Oh, now you want to give the tactical orders.”
“In no way, senior captain. Advice. First thing I learned in the field: you don’t have to speak to strangers to carry on conversation. Staying’s an answer. Running’s an answer. Shooting’s a statement or an answer. Before the conversation gets to missiles, the ship needs a second observer. Another opinion. I may not belong in a captaincy—but I was competent enough in Shejidan that at least you don’t have a war with that species. You need me there. You need Bren.”