“Station’s not cooperating with you.”
“Tell the second captain keep his advice. I’ve heard it. Trust me that I’ve heard it.”
“Captain, it’s cooperation I’m offering. To convey your viewpoint to station. To get what you want.”
Sabin gave a short, grim laugh. “You say. You know the dowager’s a bastard. So am I. And so, in your sweet, stubborn way, are you, Mr. Cameron. Tell the second captain I’m fine , and I can deal with the Guild. Now go shut the hell up and leave me to my job.”
He’d walked into this trying to get ahead of the situation. Numb as he was and remote from full-tilt feeling, his brain uneasily advised him the paidhi was not truly functioning at his utmost, either. And he didn’t know what he’d accomplished. Sabin took advice without telling the advisor she was taking it. And one never knew what she’d do.
“What did she say?” Jase asked, in Ragi, when he drew back into range of him and Banichi and Jago.
“She is at least maintaining our secrets from the station,” Bren said in Ragi. “She refuses to accept the alien mission ahead of our own. And hopes, one believes, that there might be fuel. If the station had any time at all to prepare itself before this second incident, they ought to have thought, if Phoenix comes back, fuel is essential to our own safety. Therefore it would be very highest priority. Would it not be, Jase-aiji?”
“One certainly hopes,” Jase said. Meanwhile the image forward was a rotating, damaged station.
Sabin paused by C1 and gave an order. And spoke on general address.
“ Sabin here. This is the situation: we have contact with the station and we’re on track for our high berth, contrary to their instructions. I’ve ordered a team to suit and connect the fuel probe from the outside. Communications with the station have been limited: considering we’re not alone here, that’s understandable. But due to numerous unanswered questions, these are my orders. We’ll refuel as a priority, and if station has other ideas, we’ll hear them afterward. You’ll have a ten minute break coming up as soon as I sign off. Do what you need to do and get back to a secure bunk. Second watch crew will maintain current assignment. Third watch will take station after docking. ”
Damn, Bren thought. She wasn’t letting Jase’s crew take station. She was driving her own past a due change. Had driven herself for hours.
“ We don’t know the situation on the station ,” Sabin said. “ And so long as we don’t know, we don’t let our guard down. Keep on alert. This isn’t a time for any celebration, and nobody will attempt to contact station communications. Evasive action remains a moment by moment possibility. I’m giving you a ten-minute break off strict precautions, but as you value your necks and the necks of those around you, don’t get sloppy .
“ Ten minutes. Starting now. No excuses. ”
“I need to translate that for my staff,” Bren said to Jase, and relayed the information in Ragi, above and below decks, that they might move about for a very few moments.
Banichi and Jago had stood by quietly the last while, translating occasionally on their own, always there. That was a relief to him, too, as if, while they were not by him, even by the width of the bridge while he was talking to Sabin, he had been somehow stretched thin. Now that they were close, all of him was there… curious notion for a Mospheiran lad to get into, but that was the way his nerves read it.
Bridge crew, half a dozen at a time, took the chance for a break, a mad rush for the available facilities. Those first absent returned, and gave immediate attention to business while partners made the same rush.
Sabin herself took a small break: “You’re in charge,” she told Jase in passing. “Don’t start a war. Evade if there’s a twitch out there. Nav knows.”
“Thank you, captain,” Jase said quietly. Jase changed none of her orders, did nothing but walk the aisles on Sabin’s routine. When Sabin got back, he simply made a small salute, continued his own patrol and said not a word.
She did approach, however, and talked with him somberly in low tones that failed to reach Bren’s ears. She’d trusted him, however briefly. Jase hadn’t failed her.
The dowager and Cajeiri, meanwhile, took advantage of the moment to come out, with Gin and the rest, and, unopposed, resumed their seats along the bulkhead. Cajeiri was wide-eyed and watching, the dowager grim, while Gin—Gin watched everything that moved. Neither captain seemed to note their arrival, but Bren waited, assured both captains had very well noted it, expecting that if Sabin had had any comment, Jase would soon wander by.
Jase did.
“When we go in,” Jase said with a little bow, “we’re going to maintain rotation. It’s a power drain, operating like that, and it means we don’t grapple—we tether. Senior captain’s ordering it to make life more comfortable here. The tether dock means more security for us. That’s a cold, uncomfortable passage that only takes two at a time. It’s a deliberate bottleneck. It doesn’t accommodate boarders.”
“She’s not letting crew off.”
“No. No way. Crew’s not going to get communication with the station.”
“Prudent.”
“Also significant—maintaining position on tether gives us the excuse to keep our systems hot.”
“So we can move at the drop of a hat.”
“If a hat should for some reason drop,” Jase said. “Yes.”
“But in that state—we can’t board passengers.”
“Not rapidly,” Jase said. “We can easily hard-dock from that position, for general boarding. But the thing that may be most important, soft-dock slows down the rush to the ship. She wants our fuel load. Her priorities. And it’s sensible. We don’t want to depopulate the station all in a panic.”
Any Mospheiran knew what had happened to the station at the atevi star, once the inhabitants had decided their futures lay elsewhere, on the planet. They’d deserted for the planet below, a trickle at first, then a cascading chain of desertions and station services going down, until the last few to leave the station had just mothballed it as far as they could and turned out the lights.
“God,” Jase said then, while input pinged and blipped at the consoles, “I hope this whole business goes fast.”
“Fishing trip’s still an offer,” Bren said, deliberate distraction—but that offer seemed to strike Jase as more unreadably alien than the communication out there in the dark. A different world, that of the atevi. A different mindset, that required a quick, deep breath. But it offered stability.
“If I survive this,” Jase said shakily, “I swear I’m going for Yolanda’s job. Frequent runs down to the planet. Court appearances. Estate on the coast. Right next to yours.”
“I’ll back you. Big yacht, while we’re at it. We’ll go take a close-up look at the Southern Sea.”
“I’ll settle for a rowboat,” Jase said in a low voice. “A sandy beach and a rowboat.”
While the numbers went on scrolling on the screens.
“Don’t let your guard down,” Jase said suddenly. “Keep ready for takehold.”
Chapter 9