“Do use caution firing near conduits and pressure seals,” Jago said solemnly, and Banichi added:
“But do so if needful. Safety systems are generally adequate and quick. Look for a door you may shut if this fails.”
When had his security tested that theory?
“Keep the communications open,” Jago said from his left. “In the general activity all over the ship, a steady signal will be less notable than an intermittent one. Speak Mosphei’. That, too, will be less evident. We will take this ship, Bren-ji, at any moment your safety or liberty seems in question.”
“One will be very grateful at that point,” Bren said in a low voice. “But one fervently hopes no such event will happen, nadiin-ji.” Exhaustion had given way to a wobbly buzz of adventure. He was armed, wired, and on his own for the first time in—God, was it almost ten years?
He thought he could still manage on his own.
Chapter 10
A quick call on Ginny—that came first. And the simple act of getting into that section proved two reassuring points: that Jase had taken care of business and that their section doors were indeed not locked to their personal codes.
He surprised one of Gin’s men in the corridor. Tony, it was. Tony Calhoun, robotics.
“Mr. Cameron, sir.”
“Doors are set, autolock from the outside, protection against our station examiners prowling about, but codes still work on the pads. For God’s sake, don’t anyone walk out and forget your hand codes. Is Gin available?”
“Yes, sir. To you.” Tony thumped the door in question. Twice. Three times.
Gin answered the door in two towels. “Need help?”
“Just a heads-up. I’m up there to back Jase, if he needs it. You’re down here to back me, if you’ll do that—my staff’s monitoring. If they need a simple look-see topside, one of your people can go up, too, right?… Banichi may want to take action, but I’m sure he’ll appreciate an intermediate if he can get one. Meanwhile my staff may need a backup translator. Can you do it?”
“Best I can,” Gin said, holding fast to the primary towel. “Anything they need. Anything you need. Go. Get to it.”
The airlock started its cycle, distant thump. Someone was coming aboard or going out. They involuntarily looked up. Looked at each other.
“See you,” Bren said, and went back the half dozen steps down the hall and out to the lift, hoping that system still responded to his code, and hoping it picked up no other passengers.
It moved. He punched in, not the bridge, but up to crew level.
Deserted. Crew was still awaiting the next shift-change and nobody had gotten clearance to enter the corridors, not for food, not for any reason.
Secrets, they didn’t have on this voyage, not between captains and crew. But the lockdown had to chafe, and it couldn’t any longer be a question of crew safety, not with the ship linked to station.
Not a good situation. Not productive of good feelings aboard, granted there’d been one mutiny on this ship as was. And Jase hadn’t released them. Jase assuredly didn’t want common crew available for any Guild inspectors to interrogate. He could imagine the first question.
So where were you for the last nine years?
And the second.
What aliens?
Second cycling of the airlock. Bren found his heart beating faster, his footsteps a very lonely sound on two-deck.
Sabin was leaving with her guard, very, very likely, and not taking all the Guild intruders out with her. They couldn’t be so lucky as a quick formality and a release of prohibitions. The Guild inspectors were aboard now, he’d bet on it, as he’d bet that Sabin no longer was aboard and that the ship’s security had gone with her, leaving the techs, Jase, and that portion of the crew that routinely maintained, cleaned, serviced and did other things that didn’t involve armed resistence. They were, to all the Guild knew, stripped of defenses.
Sabin, however, wasn’t the only captain with a temper. Jase’s had been screwed down tight for the better part of a year—but it existed. Guild investigators, up there, were going to pounce on any excuse, question any anomaly; and if they found anything they were going to have their noses further and further into business.
While a captain who didn’t know the systems had to maintain his authority.
A decade ago, when Phoenix had come in here, had ordinary stationers rushed to board and take ship toward their best hope, the colony they’d left at Alpha? No. No more than common crew rushed into the corridors to do as they pleased. Spacers lived under tight discipline, and didn’t do as Mospheirans would do, didn’t go out on holiday when they’d had enough, didn’t quit their jobs or change their residence. They obeyed… except one notable time when the fourth captain, absent information, had raised a mutiny.
Guild leadership wanted Ramirez to take the ship out and reestablish contact with their long-abandoned colony. But fourth captain Pratap Tamun had taken a look at the situation of cooperation between Ramirez and the atevi world and raised a rebellion that, even in failure, had seeded uneasy questions throughout Phoenix crew.
Lonely sound of his own footsteps. Closed, obedient doors. Ask no questions, learn no lies.
And what else had Ramirez’s orders been when the Guild sent him on to Alpha?
And what did Sabin really understand about that last meeting between Ramirez and his Guild? And what did she intend to do, taking an armed force as her escort… some twenty men and women, her regular four, and Mr. Jenrette?
Among other points, Ramirez’s orders wouldn’t have Phoenix assume second place to the planet’s native governments, that was sure.
Not to take second place to the colonials supposedly running the station, also very sure.
To take over the colony that Reunion believed would be running the station, was his own suspicion of Ramirez’s intentions—the likely mission directive from Reunion: gain control of it, run it, report back.
Those orders hadn’t proven practical, when there’d turned out not to be a functional station or a capable human presence in Alpha system. Ramirez had had to improvise. Ramirez had rapidly discovered the only ones who could give him what he wanted were atevi, and Ramirez, one increasingly suspected, had been predisposed to think answers might come from non-humans: Ramirez had chased that assumption like a religious revelation once he found a negotiating partner in Tabini-aiji, and found his beliefs answering him. By one step and another, Ramirez had gone far, far astray from Guild intent: the mutiny had gone down to defeat, Ramirez had died in the last stages of his dream.
So what could Sabin do now but lie to the Guild one more time and swear that Ogun was back there running Alpha Station’s colony, everything just as the Guild here hoped?
She could of course immediately turncoat to Ogun and all of them and tell the Guild the truth, aiming the superior numbers and possibly superior firepower of the station at an invasion and retaking of the ship… from which she had stripped all trained resistence.