Bren’s heart sank. Ignored. Absolutely ignored.
“I’ll expect a full explanation of the situation from your side,” Sabin said to Braddock. “As for your officers boarding this ship, inspect as you like, under Captain Graham’s supervision, but I’ve no intention of transmitting ship’s log containing base location into your station records in the presence of an unexplained foreign presence, and that’s the law on this deck. Personnel link is adequate for current business. Beyond that, I assure you Phoenix remains the senior entity in this organization: we are your founders , sir, and we don’t take orders.”
“ We’re well aware of your unsuccessful maneuver to breach the fuel port .” Did one imagine a sudden, desolate chill in relations? “ When we see the documents that confirm your authority to command, we’ll have more to say, Captain Sabin. Our personnel are on their way and expect entry .”
“I’ll expect your escort momentarily, Mr. Braddock. Let’s get this business done. Sabin out.”
C1 cut the connection. Sabin wasn’t happy. That needed no translation. She straightened, glowered straight at Bren, looked at Jase, at the lot of them. The tic was still pulsing away in her jaw. It wasn’t a good time to argue—but, Bren thought, feeling the deck had just dropped away under his feet, it was a very unfortunate time for Sabin to shove advice aside.
“Captain Graham.”
“I’ll be honored to go in your place,” Jase said quietly. “In that capacity, I might be more useful.”
“Protocols, second captain, protocols say you aren’t the one to go, sensible as it might otherwise be. Main security will go with me. With weapons.”
“Yes, captain,” Jase said quietly and Bren stepped to the background with a glance at Banichi and Jago.
“Inform the dowager and fifth deck, nadiin-ji. The fuel port is locked with an explosive device and a sign in human language. The station demands Sabin-aiji come report in person to establish her legitimacy before the Guild chairman will release the fuel. We believe this is subterfuge. Captain Sabin is arming her primary guard to go outside the ship, but she has admitted Guild officers inside our security, expecting Jase to finesse this.”
“Shall we assist?” Banichi asked, surely with a certain anticipation he hated to hold back.
“Not yet, Nichi-ji. Not yet.” The troubling truth was that Phoenix had relatively few security personnel on each shift—they weren’t a warship: they were a small town; and their advantage was they knew each other, but their glaring disadvantage was—they only knew each other. Sabin thought she knew the Guild better than the rest of them, and that might be true, but the move she made scared him—scared him in the extreme.
Ilisidi had moved forward, into the aisle, with Cajeiri, with Cenedi, and her gold stare fairly sizzled.
“We have understood. This is dangerous insolence in the absence of power, in this wrecked station. Say so to Sabin-aiji. Say that we shall lend force to her actions.”
He foresaw refusal. But he went closer to Sabin and rendered that: “The dowager calls the station dangerously insolent, says people sitting in a wrecked station have no real authority; she offers atevi assistance.”
“Unfortunately,” Sabin said between her teeth, “and the governing fact, we have no real fuel .”
“If you board, ma’am, they have you and the fuel,” Jase pointed out. “And without you, this ship has no way home.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Akers seems quite undamaged and serviceable.” That was the senior pilot. “Failing Mr. Akers, Ms. Carem and Mr. Keplinger. And they surely have your canny advice, Captain Graham.” It was the sort of petty sniping that consistently flew at Jase and his appointment. “It also has you , Mr. Cameron, and the dowager and her security, and Ms. Kroger, and if the station does an explosive vent on the fuel, I’m hopeful we have machinery as adequate to recover it as it is to mine in the first place.”
“With extreme difficulty, captain. With that ship lurking out there, that—”
“We can’t do anything about that ship, now, can we, Mr. Cameron, without that fuel, except run to a point where we’ll be definitively out of fuel and stuck, probably a place, as you so eloquently maintain, that our alien observer can find us with no trouble at all. Meanwhile we don’t know the situation on station, which I mean to find out. And when I do, I intend to enforce common sense with information and observations I don’t intend to pass through station’s communication system. I’ll be in touch. Failing that, Mr. Collins or Mr. Jenrette will be in touch.”
Jase frowned. “I’d ask you not take Mr. Jenrette, ma’am. He’s a resource I could—”
“Mr. Jenrette, I say, who knows the station intimately and who’s a resource for me.”
“His loyalty is suspect,” Bren said sharply.
“By you, sir. Confine your speculations to the aliens. And I don’t expect innovation aboard this ship, second captain. Wait for my orders. If things go massively wrong and you have to go to aggressive measures on your own, ask C1. If you have to take this ship out of dock, call on Mr. Akers and follow his advice meticulously. If at any time we get another flash from the observer out there—advise me before you start freelancing any communications back to it; and if you can’t advise me, advise station to advise me. Above all, have a clear idea what you’re going to do if it all goes wrong. We don’t want surviving records, second captain. We do not want that .”
“I understand you,” Jase said faintly. And they all did understand. It was self-destruction she meant. Terrible alternatives. Even Phoenix had a major stake back at the atevi planet—all there was left of humanity in this end of the universe was at risk if things went wrong here.
Sabin sealed her jacket, implied preparation for cold. For passage out of the ship and into the station mast.
“So congratulations: you’re in charge, Captain Graham. Remember we’re very immaculately Guild and we follow the regulations until we know what our options are. And that means you , sir—” A glance at Bren. “Get your tall, dark friends below-decks right now and keep them there. Aliens never left the atevi planet. Our own crew isn’t putting their heads above two-deck to tell these inspectors differently. The inspection team will fill out their little check list, skip the log check, as per my orders, and go back to report they didn’t get any more here than I gave the Guild chief on his request. That’s the way it should work, Captain Graham. That’s the way it’s going to work. So get gran, there, the hell below, right now.”
One definitely hesitated to translate that small speech for the dowager’s consumption. But it was time to translate, inserting proper courtesies.
“Aiji-ma,” Bren said to her, “officials of this human Guild are very soon coming aboard to inspect the ship’s credentials. Sabin-aiji suggests we go below immediately. Officials are arriving at any moment. We must not be seen.”