No touch. A gentle shock a little after the takehold ran out: alarming, to people who’d just given up their handholds. “That was the tether line,” Jase said, and Bren translated for the dowager and party.
They sat and stood, atevi and humans, on that division between corridor and bridge, meticulously out of the way, and watching.
Jase stood next to the lot of them, buffer, translator, reassurance.
“We have fired a tether line toward the station mast, nandi,” Jase said to the dowager in Ragi. “This is to stabilize connections for essential lines. The ship’s computers will keep us positioned relative to the station by small adjustments, which we will feel occasionally while docked, none of which should require a handhold. That tether line will keep the fueling probe and communications lines in good order, as well as carrying information within itself, now that it has contacted the reciprocal port on the station.”
“So we should hear from these persons,” Ilisidi said.
“More often and more clearly, nandi, and in communications protected from bureaucrats,” Jase answered.
“Eavesdroppers,” Bren corrected. The words were akin. Jase’s Ragi occasionally faltered, even yet.
“Eavesdroppers,” Jase said with a little nod, a slight blush. “Pardon, nandiin. The tether also provides a person-sized soft tube which permits one to come and go, rather like an ordinary boarding passage, but very cold, very much smaller, easier to retract or even break free in case of emergency. Sabin-aiji is preserving our freedom of movement. We expect a clear understanding with the station before we establish any more solid connection, nandi.”
Sabin meanwhile, not far distant, gave rapid orders establishing that connection, Bren heard that with the other ear.
“ Tether line is established ,” C1 informed the crew below-decks, in that operations monotone. “ Links are functioning .”
Sabin appeared in a far better mood now than an hour ago. She looked to have aged ten years in the last few hours, but there was a spark in her eye now—more like a battle-glint, but a spark, all the same.
“Now we have a physical communications linkage,” Jase said, hands in jacket pockets.
Mechanical whine and thump. Airlock , Bren thought on the instant, with a jump of his heart. They hadn’t heard that in at least a year.
“Someone is going outside,” he muttered to Jase.
“Fuel access, belly port. We are not asking their permission, nandiin. We will see what our situation is. But this process of arranging the port connection may take hours.
“One might take the chance at this point to go back to greater comfort below,” Jase said.
“And when will the captains do so?” Ilisidi asked.
“Perhaps soon, nandi.” Jase looked wrung out, at the limits of his strength. “But we shall go to shift change soon. One anticipates that Sabin-aiji may declare it her night, and when that happens, I shall likely sit watch up here claiming I know absolutely nothing, should the station have questions. We may well start fueling under that circumstance, granted there is fuel. It may cause a certain distress, but Sabin-aiji will not be disposed to listen.”
“A diplomatic situation, then,” Ilisidi said.
“But a human one, aiji-ma,” Bren said quietly. “I should stay up here within reach, but there is clearly no reason for the aiji-dowager to miss breakfast.”
Clearly it tempted. Ilisidi rarely admitted fatigue, except for show. The harsh lines of her face were not, at this point, showing. “One might consider it, if this ship has ceased its moving about.”
“One may trust that, aiji-ma.”
“This bloodthirsty child will go disappointed that we shan’t raise banners and storm the station, I’m sure, but if matters have reached such a lengthy wait, I shall appreciate a more comfortable chair. And this boy needs his breakfast.”
“One understands a young gentleman’s endurance is very sorely tested. I don’t know what other young lad might have stood and sat for so long.”
“One makes no excuses,” Ilisidi said sharply—though the young lad in question, eye level with a human adult, looked exhausted. “A gentleman offers no exceptions, does he, rascal?”
“No, mani-ma.” It was a very faint voice. “But one would very much favor a glass of—”
Click . Softly, Ilisidi set her cane down in front of her feet.
“At convenience, mani-ma.”
Ilisidi’s hand lifted. A disturbance had just rippled across the bridge, Sabin and C1 in consultation, nearby stations diverting attention to that conversation. Technicians’ heads actually turned, however briefly.
Something unusual was going on.
“A moment, nandiin.” Jase excused himself toward the epicenter of the trouble.
“Excuse me, aiji-ma.” Bren took Sabin’s tolerance of Jase in the situation as a similar permission and went, himself, to stand and listen.
The team from Phoenix had reached the fueling port. Video from a helmet-cam showed a yellow and black band and a hand-lettered label stuck across an edge. It said… God? Lock rigged to explode .
“They’ve locked the fuel port,” Jase said under his breath. “With a sign out there for us to read.”
“Evidently there’s something to protect,” Bren muttered, “from us.”
“Get me station administration,” Sabin said in clipped tones, and C1 acknowledged the order.
A sense of unease welled up. Banichi and Jago hadn’t followed him into the sacred territory of the operations area, but he felt a Banichi sort of thought nagging at him. “Jase. If we plug into their systems to talk, can they possibly get into our systems?”
“Two-way,” Jase said. “I don’t know the safeguards. I assume we both have them.”
There had to be safeguards—had to be, if the captains hadn’t trusted the Guild. If the Guild had doubts about the captains. Or had they? “Captain,” he began to say to Sabin, but Sabin leaned forward on C1’s console and said, “Get me the station-master. Now. Asleep or awake, rout him out.”
A loyal ship turned up after a decade-long voyage, there was a lock on the fuel and the stationmaster wasn’t saying glad to see you as it docked? Granted station wasn’t glad they’d approached the alien ship out there—it ought to be happy they’d gotten away alive.
“Anybody bothered by this silence from station?” Bren asked under his breath.
Sabin shot their small disturbance a burning look, intermittent with attention to the console. On the screen, some sort of official emblem appeared, links of a chain, the word Reunion .
“Stationmaster’s answered,” C1 said quietly. “Station-master, stand by for the senior captain.”
“Stationmaster,” Sabin said abruptly. “Sabin here, senior captain. We’re tethered in good order. Speaking on direct. What’s your situation?”
C1 had the audio low, but audible.
And below that circle of links, the screen now held the old Pilots’ Guild emblem, a white star and a ship, superimposed with Pilots’ Guild Headquarters, Louis Baynes Braddock, Chairman .