Rapid blinks—total change of mental wiring. Moment of mental blackout. Then, in Ragi: “Understandable. They disapprove Sabin-aiji’s defiance of their authority. They refuse talk until we get into dock.”
“Then?”
“Then—they and we will be in closer contact.”
“They intend to board.”
“A question whether Sabin will permit that, nadi-ji. But perhaps.”
It was not good. He began to read the psychology of it through an atevi lens, and pulled his mind away from thoughts of association, aishi and man’chi , the social entity and the emotion—which, after all this voyage, began to seem logical even on human terms. Two metal motes with humans inside wanted to come together. Like magnetism. Like man’chi . But once they met—
Human politics were inside those shells. Not just two metal shells. Two grenades gravitating toward each other.
“Do they trust her at all?” he asked—meaning Sabin.
“One doubts,” Jase said, and added, in ship-speak: “She’s just ordered an outside operations team to suit up immediately after we dock.”
“Boarding the station?” They’d have to turn out the whole crew to take something as large as that—and still might be outnumbered.
“To have our hands at the refueling port.”
“That’s not standard operating procedure, is it?” Of fueling stations in the vast cosmos, there were only two he knew. And one, Alpha, ran operations from a stationside control center.
“It’s not. I know that much. The captain’s preparing to have us do it ourselves, from outside. I don’t know what she’s going to say to them. Being Sabin, she may not say a thing. She may just do it.”
Aliens waiting in the wings and the captain outright preparing to commandeer a fuel supply from the people they’d come to rescue, who at the moment weren’t cooperating—at least their officials weren’t. He’d thought his heart had had all the panic it could stand in the last few hours. He discovered a brand new source.
“And we haven’t gotten word from them yet that there is fuel.” That was the prime question at issue, and Jase slowly shook his head.
“They’re not talking about that and we’re not asking. If they can’t fuel us, we have a choice to make.”
“If we run,” he said, “there’s every chance that ship out there can track us out to Gamma and hit us there. Isn’t there?”
“So I understand. Starring down a gun barrel while we scrape what we need together out of space isn’t attractive.”
“We can get the alien remains out of the station and negotiate. I don’t recommend running. We have a reasonable chance so long as we seem to be cooperating with that ship out there.”
“That’s your advice.”
“To keep all sides talking while we spend the next few years gathering fuel. Running’s only going to make matters worse. We’ll have none of the passengers we came here to get, we won’t have destroyed the Archive, and we still won’t have any fuel.”
“I’d tend to agree with you.”
“Most of all—most of all we have to get some sort of calm.”
“Calm.” Jase’s laugh held stress, not humor.
“Whatever situation has existed here for six years has been destabilized by our arrival. And we don’t know what’s gone on here. We have to ratchet down the stress on this situation. And she—” Meaning Sabin. “—has to be reasonable, right along with the Guild. First and foremost, we have to show good faith with that ship out there. That’s a priority, even ahead of the fuel, toward getting us out of here and keeping the Archive to ourselves, with all that means. Hang the fuel situation. We can solve that with Gin’s robots.”
“Over years.”
“Over years and I’d rather not. But that ship out there represents a more critical situation. We get locked into a push-pull with the Guild and we can lose sight of what’s going on at our backs.”
“We have guns.”
“We have guns, they have guns—we also have a potential chance to settle this mess before it comes home with us, Jase.”
“ I agree with you,” Jase said, leaving hanging in the air the implication that the other captain was at issue. “And I’m asking you, Bren, stay up here. Be cooperative with her, whatever it takes. The situation needs you and the dowager with your wits about you, and it needs us all with as much manuevering room as we can maintain with Sabin, if we’re going to have to negotiate our way out of this. She’s not a diplomat. You’ve given her information. Don’t assume she’ll use it diplomatically.”
“I’d better talk with her,” he said, “before we go much closer.”
“She’s several hours less rested.” Jase gave him that look. A plea for extreme caution.
“We have the chance now,” he said. “It’s only going to be less sleep if this goes on.”
Jase said nothing to that, and he walked on down the aisle, quietly intercepting Sabin, delicately as if he were picking up a live bomb. “Captain. A moment, if you can spare it.”
“We don’t have many moments, Mr. Cameron.”
“In private, captain, if you will. I have something to communicate.”
She grudgingly yielded, as far as the end of the console, where the general noise of fans overcame the small noise of low voices. She hadn’t cut off her communications pickup. But if one talked to her, as to him, discreet security personnel were inevitably involved.
“I take it,” she said, “we’re about to receive a personal confidence from the dowager.”
“A message from me, captain. A further offer—with the Guild. I am a negotiator, if the Guild turns recalcitrant. I’m offering, in all good will—so you know your hands aren’t empty. For a start—in spite of my distaste for secrets—I don’t advise spilling everything the aliens out there said, if there’s any likelihood they didn’t overhear it.”
“They’re asking. Likely they didn’t get it.”
“That’s to the good. Second point: never mind Gamma. Get in control of whatever alien material the station’s holding. That’s critical. We can solve a fuel problem. But if they’re not put off our trail, we’re in deep trouble.”
“Oh, I am so gratified to have that advice, Mr. Cameron.”
“Fuel be damned, captain.”
“I don’t recall you got a confirmation from that ship out there that we can leave if we jump to their orders.”
“I can’t swear to their customs, their attitude, or their morality. But I know ours. If there’s a way not to lead them back to Alpha, that’s a priority. It’s common sense, captain.”
Sabin’s mouth tightened. “Priority is options , Mr. Cameron. Yours is one on a list. Fuel, passengers, then their little errand.”