They stood another half hour and more. Bren tried to think of a courteous way to suggest again they rest, and found none.
Then Ilisidi lifted her cane and pointed to the jump seats against the takehold cabinet. “We shall sit, Cenedi-ji.”
“Yes,” Cenedi said, and certainly with relief. They moved to let down two of the jump seats.
Ilisidi sat down. Motioned to Cajeiri to sit. There were three other seats. “Paidhi-ji. Gin-nadi.”
Persons of equivalent rank might sit. Bren accepted the honor gratefully, and relayed the invitation to Gin, who sensibly did come and sit down, accepting her lordship, leaving Jerry to stand.
The numbers ran on the screen. Jase and Sabin continued their slow patrol of the aisles and C1 made a brief status report to the general crew: “ Situation normal on the bridge. Still awaiting response window relative to station. We have Reunion Station in long-view. Channel one is currently providing that image .”
They sat. Cajeiri’s packet proved nothing more dire than a book, which evidently the dowager approved—or accepted as a necessity for young nerves. Bren found himself trying to see the book title, trying to see any information at all to distract an information-hungry brain, but he couldn’t quite manage. So they all waited. Distances were large and information crawled over inconceivable dark spaces.
Jase and Sabin spoke together for a moment. The station image suddenly grew more distinct. No exterior lights showed, none of the navigational blinkers operating on the mast. A source of flicker showed as trailing debris from a massive dark area of destruction.
The clock ticked down toward the reply window. Anticipation on the bridge was palpable.
The clock entered negative territory; and time ran. Anticipation began to curdle.
“Is it not past time?” Cajeiri asked—having learned perfectly well to read human numbers. He had closed his book and held it against his chest.
“It is, indeed, young gentleman,” Ilisidi said. “Which may mean many things, including the possibility that we are too late to effect a rescue. Or that the one person on watch has decided to read a book. Hush, and listen.”
“What if—?”
“Hush.”
Cajeiri hushed, and with worried looks at the display, reopened his book and buried himself in it. The sentiment was much the same among the techs. And the captains. Gin Kroger frowned, saying not a word. Bren exchanged a worried look with Banichi and Jago.
“Might we have sandwiches?” Cajeiri asked eventually, in the long crawl of time.
“The aiji’s heir alone may have a sandwich,” Ilisidi said, “while his elders worry.”
A small silence. “I no longer feel hungry, mani-ma.”
“When the crew has refreshment,” Ilisidi said, “ then would be appropriate.”
“Yes, mani-ma.”
Cajeiri dutifully returned to his book. Bren longed to get up, to pace the deck, to ask Jase what he’d said to Sabin and what Sabin had said to him—but his questions did no good, no more than Cajeiri’s, and he kept them to himself.
“ This is C1. As yet there is no response from the station. Stand by, ”
Natural caution, Bren said to himself. The station, if there was anyone receiving, had likely to advise its own officers, review the situation, decide to respond to a distant signal.
“Captain.” A communications tech flashed a signal. Sabin was over there in an instant. So was Jase.
They looked like two rescuees from a drowning.
“We have signal,” Sabin said aloud. “A simple hail.” And to the technicians: “Put me through. Put two-way communications on general address, bridge excluded.” She lifted her personal comm to speaking range. “This is Captain Sabin, CS Phoenix , inbound, ETA in your vicinity sixteen hours fifty-six minutes. Hello, Reunion.”
Distantly, from the administrative corridor, as it would on every deck, breaking centuries of precedent, her voice echoed, marginally time-lagged.
No time lag at all within the corridors… compared to the astronomical distances involved in their communication.
Atevi, however, needed quick information.
“A signal has come from the station,” Bren translated the situation quietly, as he sat. “Sabin-aiji has identified herself vocally and given, human reckoning, sixteen hours fifty-six minuta as our arrival.”
“Sixteen and thirty-eight,” Ilisidi said, instantly converting the awkward number… not felicitous, but certainly transitory, as the ship was rushing toward that goal, making the gap tighter and tighter. He hadn’t been able to reckon that far that fast, and should have, he realized to his chagrin, if his brain weren’t overladen with human concerns and racing in a dozen directions at once.
“We contain the numbers of all the world,” he murmured, “which are fortunate, aiji-ma.”
“And we are not superstitious country folk.” Ilisidi sat with hands about the shaft of her cane, in a human chair that would have been inconveniently low for the majority of the atevi staff. A seat on his scale and Ginny’s. And Cajeiri’s. “But do they then trust this reply as genuine, Bren-paidhi?”
“I don’t think Sabin-aiji necessarily trusts anything in this situation,” he said, “but yes, aiji-ma, there’s a certain rush to accept this welcome as reasonable and expected.”
“And?”
“The station authorities may well view us with suspicion after years of delay in our return. We don’t even know for certain Ramirez-aiji left here on their mission—or on his own.”
“The residents should have left this inconveniently located outpost and saved us the bother. And they chose not to vacate.”
“Yes, aiji-ma.”
“Unreasonable, by any logic.”
Indeed, not the first time atevi had posed that nagging question. Not the first time they’d discussed it on this voyage.
“One certainly wishes one knew why before we arrive,” he said. “I have some doubt that even Sabin-aiji is confident that things are as Ramirez-aiji recorded them.”
On the other side, Reunion must have concluded, from their nine year delay, that there hadn’t been fuel waiting, indicating a political situation or a technical failure, or possibly the loss of the ship itself. If things had gone ideally, from the station’s point of view, the ship would surely have coasted up to the station at the atevi star, gotten fuel as fast as possible, and been back in short order.
In the nine, ten years counting Ramirez’s transit to Alpha, depend on it, any survivors at Reunion had had ample time and motive to implement options that no longer included Phoenix .
And now, suddenly, here was Phoenix back again to upset their efforts at self-rescue, efforts potentially involving power struggles and reputations. More, in their eyes, the ship would come freighting in God knew what business from Alpha, with all its questions. On one level, if things were less than disastrous here, Reunion authorities might question very closely what Phoenix had found. And that didn’t help their mission run smoothly.
Figure it. If there were two humans, there were two sides, and if both had a pulse, politics would be at work somewhere in the business.