“Tamun was a bastard,” Jenrette said, jaw clenched. “No regrets at all he’s dead. And he’s irrelevant to the case at hand.”
“Regrets for Ramirez?”
“Regrets for Ramirez,” Jenrette said somberly. “He was the Old Man.”
“But he wasn’t Guild, was he? He didn’t take the Guild’s orders. He didn’t take their orders when it came to poking about in other people’s solar systems. The Guild wanted resources. But he was constantly looking for an alternative, not so much for Reunion as for the Guild’s leadership. I rather think you went along with that for a number of years. But he was getting older and no stronger, and when the business blew up and Reunion got hit, then you were going to see to it he carried out Guild orders, if you had to shift the balance of power on the Council. You were going to stop him from his old-age ambition to settle this mess, because you thought he’d become a fool.”
“That’s not so.”
“You’d spied on him all his life. You’d told the Guild as much as kept the Guild happy. And when Ramirez began to look weak, you jumped over to the Guild’s side.”
“Ramirez was, longterm, looking for alternatives to the Guild,” Bren interjected. “Looking at every likely star in reach. And he finally found his answer at Alpha—a whole planetful of alternatives. And not all human. And that’s when he made a choice. And I think that’s when you did, Mr. Jenrette.”
“He was the Old Man,” Jenrette said. “I was with him.”
“And when he made an agreement with the atevi,” Jase said, “and kept it—did you try to save him from himself, too, Mr. Jenrette? When he was dying, were you the one who let the rumor out, about survivors at Reunion? You knew the truth. You’d known it from the time you went into Reunion.”
Hesitation. Hesitation, as if somewhere in the whole equation, there was still a fragment of real loyalty in the man, a desire to justify himself to himself.
“You double-crossed Ramirez when he was dying,” Jase said. “Damn you. And you double-crossed Sabin out there. You didn’t bring us her orders. You brought us theirs.”
“No.”
“The Guild’s orders, Mr. Jenrette. You’re working for the Guild, and you have been since your visit here. I’d like to have known what went on after the record ended. I’d like to know what they said, or did, to turn you so thoroughly to their side.”
“There never was a side,” Jenrette said. “I didn’t double-cross the Old Man, and I didn’t double-cross the Old Lady. I want her back safe. But safe isn’t going against the Guild, safe isn’t letting atevi run the ship or taking your orders from him , sir.”
Meaning the paidhi-aiji, quite clearly.
“A bloody great hole in the station is safe?” Jase retorted. “A mess with an alien ship out there is safe? You’d better stop and look around you, Mr. Jenrette. You want to say what you think? I’m a jumped-up theoretician? I’m too friendly with the atevi? I’m not really qualified and you’re going to save the ship by steering another batch of us into a Guild trap, when they set the captains against them, when they’ve kept their own population at risk instead of shipping the majority of them out of there? You have double-crossed Captain Sabin, Mr. Jenrette, in your mistaken conviction that a handful of deskbound fools have any clue how to assure human beings survive in this universe with our culture and our common sense. Rethink, mister. Rethink and tell me I don’t have the real picture. They’ve got a theory. We’ve been there and back again. We’ve dealt with aliens and we’re still human, last I looked in a mirror. Not human enough for you, maybe, but that’s the reality, and theirs dead-ends. It’s going to dead-end completely in not so very long, because we’re pulling the population out of here. So where have you ended up, Mr. Jenrette? Doing anything good? I don’t think so.”
Long silence. Jenrette shook. He outright trembled, in the shock of a real injury, but Bren didn’t find himself in the least sorry for the man who’d been a long-term traitor to three captains, his own comrades, and the ship’s whole crew.
“Well,” Jase said, “so what you wanted, Mr. Jenrette, isn’t happening. We’re undertaking the steps to let us board passengers. We’re shutting Reunion down. And if you want to find a way out of your situation, you’d better start trying. Mr. Cameron, do you have any questions for him?”
Bren had not the remotest idea what questions Jase wanted asked of the man, but Jase, sitting on his well-known temper, probably didn’t trust himself to find all the requisite threads at the moment. He didn’t have specifics, but he had keys, and if he could only open a door to information, he hoped Jase might find a wedge to keep it flowing.
“Mr. Jenrette,” Bren said quietly. “Mr. Jenrette, I’m relatively sure you’re quite adept at leaking information. Maybe you dropped just enough hints to provoke Tamun to turn on Ramirez; and Tamun killed your partners, which was why you swerved about and turned on Tamun. I’ve no doubt you were at Ramirez’s ear for years. I’m relatively sure if anything aboard this ship for the last twenty years has skewed off course, your fingers are somewhere in it. All these things I believe are the truth, but they’re all past. What is important is that we’re going to get the fuel we need, we’re going to get everyone off the station that we can persuade aboard, and then we’re going to have to blow up the station with everyone that’s left aboard—your Guild, foremost. Probably our senior captain and your latest colleagues in her bodyguard, but she knew the risk she ran, and I’m sure you did. After we blow it up, we’re going to take our alien guest over to his people, and take what agreement we can get and go back where we came from. That’s what we’re going to do, Mr. Jenrette. But you know what we came here to do. And I’m sure you’ve told the Guild. Why of all things did you think you could walk back in here and be believed, with me, and with Captain Graham? Or was that the job Guild leadership gave you? You’d lost your usefulness with Sabin: she was onto you. So they just made a last-ditch try and sent you here—because if you’ve hired a traitor, you don’t go on using him. You find someplace to send him where he’ll be taken care of. Unhappily, we’re the only other place there is. You’re supposed to do some sabotage. Use your skills on their side. Never mind what you contain. What you know. You’ll be a good follower, and die trying. Then Braddock won’t have to meet you again.”
Jenrette stared him, jaw set, full of anger, and said not a word.
“If you’d stuck with Sabin,” Bren said, “you’d have had her ear. But you’ve thrown away your influence. Sabin did have reservations, exactly as you do. The dowager respects the senior captain: atevi would have listened to her as a strong voice for her point of view. But you’ve silenced her. You’ve silenced all the voices of human dissent. Thanks to their own mismanagement, the Guild likely will fall; Ramirez is dead, and Sabin may not survive. Tamun, in his rebellion—he didn’t do what you wanted. He decided Ramirez was lying, when most of the lies were yours. Between you, you and Sabin and Tamun, I suspect you kept Ramirez from ever trusting us with the whole truth. How am I doing?”