“Cameron.” Harsh admonition from Jase. A clear warning. “Do your job.”
“Yessir.” He turned a charitable face to the Guild investigator. “Want a sandwich, sir? I got a few extras here.”
“No,” the intruder said.
“I’ll take one,” the beseiged chief tech said, the one with the Guild man leaning over his shoulder.
Bren let him take a pick while the argument went on, Jase with the Guild. “In absence of the senior captain’s direct order, no.”
Bren started down the row, handing out drinks and sandwiches, his back to the problem. Worried eyes met his, one after the other, warning, desperately asking.
“Cook’s compliments,” Bren said, hoping to God nobody recklessly tried a whispered message. He was used to acute atevi hearing—and the electronics that routinely amplified it. There was ample evidence of electronics on the intruders, doubtless amplification, and he strongly suspected some sort of link back to Guild headquarters, but maybe not as good a link as they might want, given two hulls and the technical facts of their connection. He didn’t need to pass specific messages. His very presence with a tray of sandwiches said cook knew, so crew below knew and atevi and Mospheirans knew. He was no threat—but atevi had a reputation for stealth and silent interventions. Don’t panic, his being here said. We’re aware. Gran ’Sidi is aware. The captain has armed, skilled support.
Jase’s ongoing debate with the Guild—he couldn’t hear it all, but it seemed the Guild inspectors demanded to see the log and Jase kept saying no, the senior captain had ordered to the contrary, the senior captain had to authorize that, and the senior captain wasn’t here, so hell would have icicles before any non-crew touched a board.
“Not until she’s on this deck and she changes the order,” Jase said. Perfect imitation of a subordinate with one bone to chew and absolutely no imagination of doing anything to the contrary. The Guildsmen, in their turn, wanted to call their headquarters and get that direct contact with Sabin.
“Won’t matter,” Jase said, obdurate. “Won’t matter. Until she’s on this deck, no matter what she says to the contrary, I have my orders. Nothing she says is going to mean a thing to me until she’s back here and she can say so on our deck.”
For the first time a certain method appeared in Sabin’s madness: you asked, I went, now you want it different. Sorry. You’ve blown your cover and I won’t do a thing until I’ve got answers.
One hoped to God nobody had tried to apply force to Sabin and her security team. One hoped she reached the Guild offices, took her stand and explained to the Guild why they had to turn over all alien remains and materials in their custody and pack their suitcases for a long trip.
Meanwhile there seemed to have been no word from her. Jase stood his ground, heard all the arguments, nodded sagely—and went repeatedly back to a simple shake of the head and a repetition that he wasn’t going beyond Sabin’s orders.
Bren coasted past, dumbly made a second attempt to hand the captain a sandwich and a drink in mid-argument.
“Cameron,” Jase said in warning. “Just stow it.”
“Yessir,” he said, as if he’d understood some silent, peeved order, and wandered off to the administrative corridor, the Guild agents’ suspicious eyes on his back. One of them was going to follow. Not good.
He took his tray and basket into Jase’s office, whisked the damning picture off the shelf and under the basket atop the tray, then set down Jase’s sandwich and drink just as the shadow appeared in the doorway.
And came inside.
“Can’t leave you in here, sir.” Bren made his voice perfectly polite, a little nervous as he tucked his empty tray close. With a free hand, he waved the agent toward the door. “I got to go, sir, if you please. Can’t leave anybody in the captain’s office. Regulations.”
The agent edged out, scowling, casting a look over his shoulder. Bren walked out and happened to lock the door in the process.
He had one drink container left. He blithely offered it to the agent—and let that cold answering stare go all the way to the back of his eyes. His only personal problem was getting back with the tray and reporting to cook. He didn’t know what the captain was doing. He didn’t know what the problem was up here. It wasn’t his job. The galley was. Captains and officers solved the big problems. It was all way over his head.
The agent collected the drink. Bren just wanted to get back to the galley. Didn’t want to lose the tray. No-damn-sir, didn’t want to look any angry officer in the eye.
The hand dropped. Bren went on his way. And reaching the bridge, interrupted the captain in mid-argument. Again. “Beg pardon, sir, cook’s asking when’s shift change?”
“Just set it up,” Jase said. That wasn’t chance wording. “These gentlemen will be touring belowdecks very briefly—tell ops down there they have their own key.”
Damn, Bren thought. Their own key . The captains notoriously had keys, builders’ keys, that let them into anything. If they had that, nothing was defended except the bridge, where human bodies sat obdurately between the Guild men and the boards.
He carefully kept the stupid look. “Yessir.” He hugged his tray to him and headed toward the exit. Past the last agent.
Whose rifle dropped to bar his way.
“What’s this with guns?” he asked, quick as thinking—let Banichi and Jago know he was in trouble. Indignantly: “What’s this with guns, captain?”
“You don’t interfere with my crew,” Jase said, strode over and shoved the rifle up, hard. “You may be almighty Guild enforcement, mister, but you don’t interfere with crew carrying out my orders.”
“This is the way it’s going to be,” the senior agent said from the heart of the bridge. “We stay aboard and we supervise. We supervise until your captain gives us access, and maybe we supervise some more. That’s our order from our deck, and that’s that, captain, so get used to it.”
The standoff continued. Bren edged toward the lift, remembered to cast a questioning look at Jase as the source of all law, and got his silent order. Go . Do something.
They were between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They couldn’t afford a shoot-up on the bridge, they still hadn’t had fueling questions answered—and Sabin was on the Guild’s deck and vulnerable, if not already under interrogation. Not good, not good, not good. He could call his staff in, but he wasn’t ready to blow the situation wide open.
“Cameron,” Jase said. “Get below. Advise gran.”
“Who’s this gran?” the Guild senior wanted to know.
“Senior officer,” Jase said. “In charge of logistics for the colony level. I take it your briefing included that detail.”
It didn’t. The Guild men looked perplexed, hadn’t a clue that the ship was here to take their residents off the station, and Jase didn’t explain what the ‘colony level logistics’ had to do with anything, either, whether it was full of colonials or not.
But a suspicious man could guess whatever the station had ordered or asked of Ramirez—strike evacuation of the station as part of the plan, at least as far as these lower-level officers knew.
“Well, that colony level’s the mission, gentlemen.” Best Sabin imitation he’d ever heard Jase launch. “It’s been the mission since our last call here, and I suggest you bear it in mind as you tour the facilities. Maybe your command hadn’t any inclination to tell your office what the exact arrangement was, but we’re expecting their help in operations, we’re expecting a certain contingent from your station to board in good order and with their equipment, and if general administration is trying at this point to wilt and change the mission, let me remind you that you’ve got an alien ship out there that’s curious what we’re doing. I’m well sure it has a limited patience, and if you want to prove obstructionist to our taking on a fuel load to deal with it, I have to ask whether your administration is on the up and up with you, with the station population, or with our captains.”