Maybe rainbows would shine in deep space.
But, he thought, up against this strange creature who smelled like pavement, they did have a major asset in their hands, they’d told the truth to a handful of people. And they hadn’t killed anyone during their mission.
Let the Guild recalculate its assets now.
Thump-clang. Rattle and stop. Blessed stop.
They were in. They were safe.
“Mr. Cameron,” the co-pilot said, “captain’s compliments, and will you get up to his office at the earliest after dock?”
Urgently, never mind they’d just worked a miracle and he had an alien he had to talk to—get upstairs.
Something wasn’t according to plan.
Chapter 16
Come up, Jase had said, and to the bridge Bren went immediately, gun in pocket, jacket torn and rumpled, sweat and the lingering stink of noxious chemicals about him. It made his eyes water. Narani would be scandalized, Bren thought, aware he was light-headed at the moment. He needed to be down below to supervise their alien guest.
But Jase needed him topside, fast.
The lift door let him out. He spared only a quick leftward glance to be sure Jase wasn’t on the bridge. Crew there was busier than it had been, which said something on its own.
And—God?—a blood trail snaked down the corridor from the lift, a set of dots leading down to the executive offices.
Jase’s was the second door. Where the dots entered. There was no bodyguard outside.
He buzzed it and opened the door almost in one motion, hand on the gun in his pocket.
Jase was at his desk.
Jenrette sat opposite, Jenrette, who’d gone aboard the station with Sabin. And Jenrette’s right arm was wrapped, sleeve and all, in bloody bandage.
Kaplan was there, too, Kaplan with blood all over his sleeve, likely Jenrette’s, and Polano stood in the other corner, neither looking happy.
“You got him,” Jase said. Meaning their alien, Bren judged. “He’s alive.”
“Yes. In good shape.” He was a little set aback, that Jase would talk other business in front of this man, but there was nothing he needed to conceal. “Can’t speak to his mood, but no physical damage. He cooperated, in fact.”
“Good.”
“Mr. Jenrette.” He gave a nod to the man leaking blood onto the chair arm and directed his primary question to Jase, all the same. “I take it there’s a problem in other areas.”
“One of the robots blown to hell,” Jase said, “Guild agents in the mast, but not in the tube at this moment: Hendrix and Pressman are holding that. In the confusion that broke out after the fuel port event, Mr. Jenrette got himself to the tube and reached our team inside, to give us Captain Sabin’s instruction—which was to be careful and don’t create a problem.”
Bren sat down. “Well, that came a little too late.”
“Notably,” Jase said. And hadn’t at any point spoken in Ragi. Or evidenced any distrust of Jenrette. Both circumstances told a tale, to a man who’d shared quarters with Jase in Shejidan. Jase, however, was cool and calm. “Explain, Mr. Jenrette. Our atevi allies need to know.”
“Hiding in the vicinity,” Jenrette said, clearly in pain, teeth chattering. “Freezing. They’ve set a guard down there, near the tube access. Or they had one. But when the robot blew at the fuel port, I suppose, or when your team moved in, the guard moved away. Alarms were going. They went to the lift, maybe to get secure-line communications, and I made a break for it. They spotted me and started shooting. Our force started firing back and I got inside.”
Gin’s mission had upended the figurative teakettle. So it seemed.
“Mr. Jenrette says he doesn’t know what’s happened to the captain, except she didn’t like the way things were going. She sent Mr. Jenrette back to report to us and the Guild took exception to him leaving. Whether she’s been arrested or whether she’s trying to reason with them, we have no idea. Meanwhile, by Mr. Jenrette’s evidence, they were shooting at her bodyguard.”
Jenrette was the last member of her bodyguard Sabin would send on a mission to report to Jase—no. Jase didn’t believe it either.
“I got to the mast. I hoped I could get past the guard and get to the tube. I didn’t know whether you could get anyone to cover me, sir, and I was afraid they’d tag me if I called. But it was getting to where I’d freeze to death if I didn’t. Then the alarm happened.”
“Sabin won’t be using ship-com, I take it,” Jase said, “for the same reason.”
“There’s a contact in the Security offices. Coursin is his name. Amin Coursin.” Jenrette moved his arm and winced. “Soon as I get this arm seen to, I’m to deliver what I’ve told you and get back to that meeting point. I’ll carry anything you want to tell her.”
“In Shejidan,” Jase said, “I learned one thing, Mr. Jenrette: if the person who told you to rendezvous is missing— don’t use their contacts. That wouldn’t be wise of you, to go there. And you are experienced security.”
“I’m experienced security, and with all respect, captain, I’m not under your command. I’m under hers. I’ve delivered my message, for what little good it does now, and, again with all due respect, sir, I’m going back to her command, with or without medical treatment.”
“Settle in. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I beg to differ, sir.”
“I said settle down. Your fight is over, Mr. Jenrette. You may be Guild—”
“No, sir!”
“Aren’t you? For that matter, isn’t the senior captain, herself? Damned brave of you—taking a hit for verisimilitude. But while we’re not trusting suspect contacts, Mr. Jenrette, you have to be at the top of that list.”
“Sir?” Jenrette started out of his chair.
Polano moved. So did Bren. And, on his feet, he held an atevi-made pistol aimed at Jenrette’s middle, where even a non-professional couldn’t miss. “Sit down.”
Jenrette subsided back into his chair and sat there like a statue. Bren kept standing, glad Polano was there and armed.
“So we’re at odds,” Jase said. “But I think we’ve been operating at cross-purposes, Mr. Jenrette. I have my own theory about what’s gone on to bring us to this situation. I think the Old Man was going back to take Alpha, at least that those were the orders the Guild gave him. So the Guild wasn’t totally surprised the ship was gone a while, was it? Our long absence only indicated to them that there’d had to be a change of administration at Alpha Station, possibly a messy change of administration.”
To take Alpha Station, their station, Bren thought, certainly hadn’t turned out to be a simple matter of sailing up and taking control. In the end, there’d been anything but Guild loyalty dominating the Captains’ Council.
And increasingly one suspected Ramirez had worked at counter-purposes with the Guild, start to finish, and hadn’t taken his orders from the Guild as any use to him.
“Was that what Tamun found out about, Mr. Jenrette?” Jase asked. “Guild orders?”
“Nonsense,” Jenrette said.
“Your old partners on Ramirez’s security team all died. Tamun shot them. People you’d shared duty with for twenty years. Does that mean anything to you? Not a shred of personal regret for your partners?”