“With increasing certainty,” Banichi said, “we must take this station, Bren-nadi.”
Mild shock. At least mild shock. Trust Banichi’s absolute clear view of a situation, when his own stuck at leaping over human barriers. He had thought of taking over the ship—with Jase’s consent. Banichi was far more ambitious.
Reasonable? Not reasonable? His heart gave two wilder beats, no longer quite panicked. He wasn’t inhibited by his humanity. Or by being atevi. He had occasionally to apply it as a logic-check, as a brake on atevi actions that might be a shade excessive when dealing with humans not quite as hair-triggered as his escort.
But plan big? Banichi certainly did that.
Taking the station would solve a certain number of problems here.
Relations with humans might suffer… not alone of the Guild, but of the ship—
And of persons capable and willing to serve as agents, they had no more than the dowager’s security, and his.
Yet for what had Tabini-aiji appointed him lord of the heavens and sent him out here? Not to sit on his hands, that was sure.
“One must rest a few hours, nadiin-ji. My reasoning grows exceedingly suspect.”
“Shall we,” Jago asked, “consider possibilities in this direction?”
“I believe we should. We may take Jase into our confidence. I shall have to finesse that. But I believe we may ultimately rely on Jase. On his man’chi. On the man’chi of the crew to him. On the association of our mission to all his associations.” His brain veered momentarily sidelong, into human thinking. Or hybrid thinking, such as his and Jase’s had gotten to be. “I don’t think he expected man’chi from the crew, such as he has. They will follow him. And that is a rare and extraordinary asset among humans, nadiin-ji.” He didn’t know whether he was thinking straight or not, but it seemed to him he had suddenly drawn a fair bead on the situation. “That is an asset we should greatly value—this crew, and Jase.”
“One perceives so, Bren-ji,” Jago said, and Banichi said something of the like.
He didn’t even remember reaching his room. He had the impression he’d spoken with staff. He thought he’d turned down a pot of tea. He undressed, handing the gun as well as the clothing to Bindanda and finished his muddled thought about Jase—something about the meeting with crew—while lying on his face, naked on cool sheets, with the scent and the feel of his own mattress to tell him where he was.
Only a crazed recollection of his hours above five-deck persisted to tell him, indeed, he and Jase had actually—well, if not won the round, at least had the problem locked away. Here and there were not congruent. These decks didn’t match the others. The reasons down here didn’t match those on upper decks, but they fit well enough. They got along.
He didn’t know when he’d been as tired, as absolutely out of resources. He crashed again, beyond coherency, telling himself he had to get up and check on essentials, if he could remember what they were—involving Guild enforcers locked away, involving Sabin, involving that great hole in the station…
He waked a third time and crawled toward the edge of his bed in that total darkness that, with atevi, passed for moderate. “Rani-ji?”
Staff kept the intercom live, to hear such calls. It was not, however, Narani who answered the summons, but Bindanda: bulky shadow in the doorway, a merciless spear of light from the outer corridor, a glare that afflicted his eyes and comforted him at once. If there were any sort of trouble from upper decks he was sure domestic staff would wake him to report.
They hadn’t. He could sleep if he wished, and oh, he wished. Resolution trembled. So did the arm that supported his weight.
But Jago wasn’t here. Jago wasn’t here.
“Is there any word down from Jase, Danda-ji?”
“No, nandi.”
“Jase surely would tell me if there were developments.” He believed it, but Jase, too, had to rest. And he daren’t pin the future of two species on his faith in anyone’s waking him. “Kindly see to it this happens, Danda-ji. And maintain our watch. Jase must sleep, too.”
“One will surely make that effort, nandi. Do go back to sleep. I have that firm instruction, to say so.”
“Where is Jago?”
“Resting, one believes.”
Then it was all right. Bindanda wouldn’t lie to him. “I have every confidence in staff,” he murmured—and dropped onto his face.
The door closed. The light went.
If, however, Banichi weren’t up to something, Jago would be safe in his bed, asleep, would she not? And she wasn’t. And resting didn’t mean sleeping. So Banichi was up to something.
The whole staff might be up to it along with them—whatever it was. Cenedi might likewise be aiding and abetting.
And any action involving foreign humans—or worse, not humans—triggered every warning bell the long-time paidhi-aiji owned.
He urgently needed, despite Bindanda’s wishes, to get up off his face and get dressed and advise his staff where the limits were.
Don’t assume. Don’t do any of those things that had been downright fatal in interspecies relations. The Pilots’ Guild on Reunion Station wasn’t the President’s office on Mospheira. There was no equivalency.
And most of all, none of them knew the nature of that ship out there. There were answers they had to get. A mission for that craft that might or might not let them leave this place: there was no guarantee of reciprocal favors—that logic didn’t reach to the back end of the human spectrum and it didn’t hold up as far as atevi councils, either. Expectation of like result was a box that hemmed in his thinking, that guided him toward what might be a false conclusion, when he ought to be using his head and thinking of multiple ways out.
He needed to be consulting with his staff—knowing—at least being reasonably confident—that Banichi wouldn’t actually put anything into operation without telling him. He’d told Banichi that. Hadn’t he given that instruction?
He couldn’t quite remember. But he had confidence in Banichi, more even than in Jase.
His eyes were shut. Sleep wasn’t a very long hike.
But along that short journey, he began to think critically—a sign of returning faculties.
The Guild had always been difficult. The Guild had been difficult back when the path to a unified humanity had been well-paved and lined with flowers.
The Guild, seeing the attraction of a green planet luring its crew, had doggedly held to their notion of space-based development, and attempted, instead, to force the human colony safely in orbit at the atevi planet to leave and go live in orbit about barren Maudit, instead—where temptations would be fewer.