“No, you couldn’t. Youthought there’d be a thriving colony here. You thought you’d get fuel for the ship here. Youthought you’d rally the colony to the defense and you’d have everything the way you used to have it, with us doing the mining andthe dying for you to run the ship.”
There was a small silence. But Jase didn’t flinch. “We thought we’d have your help, yes. But we thought we owed each other a mutual debt—a warning, and a chance for us to get out of here if you want to take your chances.”
“That’s a lousy patch on exactly what I said.”
“That’s fine. That’s the situation. Nowwhat do you do?”
He let out a long sigh and fell back into the chair cushions to look at the room beyond, communications that could indeed talk to the ship.
Then at Jase.
“Damn lot of choice you’ve given us.”
“I’m giving you a choice, Bren. The people at the other station didn’t have any.”
“What in hell provoked it?”
“We don’t know. We just don’t know. Maybe they’re just that way. That’s always a possibility, isn’t it?”
“Not one I accept!”
“That’s what I count on.”
What Jase had already said began to sink in. Unwelcomely. “Don’t you lay thaton me! Good God, no.”
“Let me call the ship. We have armed atevi and probably armed humans and airplanes and boats and mechieti and no one knows what else. None of us may get out of this. Yolanda’s already told them don’t rely on Mospheira for anything. If you don’t want to leave the matter of the atevi to blind luck, baji-naji, Bren, let me talk to them. I’ll give them codewords to tell them I’m not compelled and I’ll tell them first to trust you, to trust the aiji and the aiji-dowager and whoever they recommend. And if it comes down to Direiso and the rest of them, maybe they’ll give the outsiders indigestion if they come here, I don’t know. But if we die here, everything is left to chance. They could end up trusting this Direiso person.”
“You’re not inept, yourself, Jase.”
“I’ve tried to learn from you. Will you let me do it?”
25
Banichi,” Bren said at the door of the little room in which the Assassins held private consultation and, having drawn Banichi a little out of earshot of the guard the Guild had placed on the meeting room, he tried to tell a man who last year hadn’t known his sun was a star that aliens were hunting in the neighborhood.
“There are other suns,” was the way he put it to Banichi, “and one of them is a very bad neighbor. Jase is an officer in the Pilots’ Guild and he’s made up his mind we’re preferable to Hanks.”
“A man of good taste,” Banichi said calmly. “What about these bad neighbors?”
“They fly in space,” he said, and Banichi said, “I think Cenedi should hear this.”
Banichi called Cenedi and Jago out of the room. After three more sentences, Cenedi said, “ ’Sidi-ji needs to hear this.”
Jago went to wake the dowager, and in a very short time indeed Ilisidi herself had come out of the office she had chosen as her retreat, immaculate, stiff-backed, and frowning.
“More foreigners,” Ilisidi said, then. “With bad manners, is it? And Jase-paidhi wants us to ally with his people, who provoked them?”
“I think we can avoid alliance,” Bren said, with a hollow feeling in his stomach. “Or manage it to our advantage. But I do think the call to his ship would open options otherwise at risk should he—or I—be unlucky tonight.”
“The risk seems on his side,” Cenedi said, “aiji-ma, since we could then remove him from consideration were we so inclined.”
“He is very well aware of the hazard,” Bren said, “and has expressed the wish that the aiji-dowager take Mercheson paidhi under herpersonal protection as he himself is under the aiji’s.”
Banichi gave him a look. So did Jago, at this yielding up of rights Tabini might have contested. But contest was the operative word. There was no option without extensive negotiation if Ilisidi was the leader in the field, as she was, and there was a certain advantage in having Ilisidi step in. Having her as protector of one paidhi created a new position of authority if somehow they should fail and if Ilisidi had to contest with Direiso.
And for all persons concerned in the transaction including Yolanda Mercheson it brought paghida sara, mutual leverage. It meant negotiable positions.
Meant a place, a man’chi, a salvation—if they could stop the slide toward unreason.
A message had come in. A white paper went from an operator to one of Ilisidi’s junior security to Cenedi, to Ilisidi.
And to Banichi.
Banichi picked up a sandwich from the table. And pocketed it. And another.
That, Bren thought, that was the action of a man who didn’t expect a regular breakfast.
“We’ve just had an indication from Dur,” Banichi said, “that the boy did get down safely. One thought you would wish to know. Whether he’ll be safe when his parents lay hands on him is another matter, but we do at least have a confirmation that they’re being met by his father’s staff. Tano and Algini report movement, however.”
That was worrisome.
“The fortress hears at some distance,” Jago said.
“Not far enough to give it another hour,” Cenedi said. “ ’Sidi-ji.”
Ilisidi gave a wave of her hand. “Whatever one does to make the earth link work,” she said, “do. How long does this talking to the ship take?”
It took very little time, the director said. And gave the orders.
Then it was a matter of settling Jase at the console in the communications center. Jase was visibly anxious.
It was disturbing for the workers, too, Bren was sure, a human not only occupying that post, but giving his own protocols and codewords to the ship in a language they had, for one reason and another, no translators here to interpret.
The ship answered. The foreign voice went out over the speakers so all the room could hear.
Then with full knowledge that the conversation was going to be monitored by a very similar center on Mospheira, Jase had to inform his captain that things were both better and worse than the ship might have feared.
“Sorry to call at this hour,” Jase said, and his voice steadied. “But I’ve thought it over and I really need Yolanda over here.”
“ Yes,” the answer came back. “ How are you?”
“Doing very much better, sir. I’ve received sympathy from the atevi and I’ve made recommendations to the atevi government which they’ve accepted. I need Yolanda, though. Everybody means well, but it’s hard. I want her here. I’ll try to negotiate that myself, but I wonder if you can’t explain to the island that I really need her for a while. Urgent persuasion. That kind of thing. Tell Sandra not to worry about me.”
The whole speech was laced with codewords. If he’d had any concern that Mospheiran cooperation was still a possibility, he’d have expected a following and angry phone call. But they knew. He knew. Jase wasn’t even taking pains to bury them too obscurely in ordinary conversation. He was just delivering the words and all of them could hope they were the right ones.
“ Do you want to talk to your mother?” the captain asked, after hearing all of that with no comment.
“Absolutely no need to, sir.”
“ I’m here anyway,” another, female voice cut in. “ I miss you.”
“Good to hear your voice, mom.” This time there was a little shakiness. “I’m fine. I really am. How are you?”
“ Worried about you. When am I not? How are you doing?”