“Tamun.”
“Just so. I rather think Ogun might stand with Ramirez if he had the chance. He may be doing so, for all I know. For all I know he’s barricaded in some safe place trying to keep himself alive.”
“Tamun must fall,” Jago said.
“But wemustn’t do it,” he said.
“Are they not pragmatists?”
“Emotional creatures, as well. We should not do it if we can possibly avoid it. The captains are reservoirs of an expertise in operating this ship that we can’t pull out of the archive: it’s the same business as the starship crew not being able to fly the shuttle. We can’t just take over the ship and hope to operate it. And without it, if the aliens are real, we have no defense. We haveto get Ramirez back in power, but at worst, we may have to make peace with Tamun, if only for the sake of what he knows.”
“This would not be an agreeable outcome,” Jago said.
“No,” he said, “it would not be. But we are limited in what we can do, besides try to maintain an alternative, and not frighten the crew. If we run out of candy, we pass out dried fruit and offer them shots of vodka, and promises, and we hope Banichi stays safe. He’s doing the right thing in trying to keep Ramirez alive and away from assassins: I think Jaseis advising him how important that is, and we need to support him. Take inventory of supplies we do have. We need to get decent food to Kroger’s rooms and advise themof the situation.”
“Do we trust her, Bren-ji?”
“Against the likelihood of a conflict in the crew and an unknown rising to authority?” There was one thing Mospheira detested even more than change and that was uncertainty. “There’s all the history of the Pilots’ Guild and the colonists in our favor. In this, I think quite likely they’ll work with us.”
That the shuttle had landed safely was the most welcome news.
There was not one damned letter from any of the committee heads, and while it was remotely possible that Tabini hadn’t written, it was by no means possible that felicitations from the mainland would not pour to Mogari-nai, and onto his staff, who likewise sent no word.
Infuriating. Troubling. Bren found multiple words for the situation.
From his brother there was not a word. None from his mother. Therewas a disturbing situation. If she’d mentioned the shuttle landing, that alone might have caused the captains to censor her letter—which she would hardly understand, when her son failed to write, when Toby was trying to hold his marriage together, and couldn’t take time out to go solve another crisis that was the cause of the difficulty in the first place.
Bren took his computer back to his desk and carefully, patiently, constructed a positive mood… an hour’s worth of construction, which led to a day’s constructive work in another set of missives for Tabini.
His last ones had gotten through. He was relatively sure Tabini had a clear notion that not everything was as well as the first letters indicated.
At the mid point of the night the outer door opened, and shut; and Bren rolled out of bed, looking for the gun.
His door shut. Immediately. He waited in the dark, shivering in the chill, listening with trepidation as the door opened and shut a second time.
The door of his quarters opened; and Jago stood in silhouette against the muted corridor light.
“A message” Jago said. “Nothing of concern, Bren-ji. Banichi says a hunt is going through the tunnels and that we should affect not to hear it.”
“They’re hunting Ramirez.”
“They have begun a door-to-door search, claiming we have secreted some personnel aboard, nadi. Banichi will not be caught by their nets. Go to sleep.”
“On that?” he asked. “Jago-ji, he can’t stay out there forever. If you’re communicating with him, tell him the hell with independence: bring Ramirez here. Let’s raise the wager. Let them take him from us, damn them!”
“I believe he would be willing,” Jago said. “The humans may be reluctant.”
More than likely, he thought, trying in vain to recover any urge toward sleep. More than likely there was considerable resistance in the crew, all the reasons he himself had already thought of, but what they were risking, keeping a wounded man on the run, was everything, everything humanity owned in this end of space.
Come in, he wished Banichi, staring into the dark. Don’t listen to human reasons. Talk sense into Jase. Say no to him and get back here. Get himback before someone gets killed. There’s still a way to patch this.
Wishes did no good.
Sandwiches did, at least improving Kroger’s rations, a strike back in a war of nerves.
The lights went out for fifteen minutes or so in the evening; came on; and went out again an hour later.
A candle in the hallway provided sufficient light for atevi, and the household proceeded with supper.
“I fear they may be aware of our monitoring,” Bren whispered to Tano after supper, in the utter, ghostly stillness of that dark. “Dare one think they might move up on us?”
“Significant monitoring is passive,” Tano said, “and we listen, nadi Bren, we do listen for any such. They make noise in the tunnels now and again, but nothing near us.”
“It makes no difference that we have no idea where Ramirez is. Certain authorities might thinkhe’s taken refuge with us.”
“We watch, nadi Bren. We watch.”
“One knows so,” he said. He wanted Banichi back. Immediately.
But he did no good pacing the floor or making his security nervous. There was always the chance that the lights might not come on again. There was the chance they would freeze in the dark, though he doubted that his security would allow that without a blow struck.
He wantedthe adjacent rooms in their hands.
And then he had the most uncomfortable notion where Banichi might be, and where Ramirez might be, and how the fugitive captain was receiving food, water, and care. He cast Tano an uneasy look, and kept quiet about the idea.
He went back to bed, where it was warmer, and shortly after that all the lights came on and the fans started up.
“One doubts they will willingly freeze the water pipes,” Jago said blithely the next morning. “One believes, nadi, these outages are connected with the search.”
“With listening?”
“Likely,” Jago said. “Likely they hope to hear movement.”
He simply cast a look toward the door, by implication toward that section beyond it.
Jago shrugged, and said not a thing.
He made a gesture for here! Made it emphatically. Bring him here!
Jagogave a negative shrug: not wise, she meant, he was sure of it. His security would not jeopardize him, whatever else, and would not let the search lead here. He recalled what Banichi had indicated, of making noise in distracting directions.
A dangerous set of maneuvers.
Damned dangerous, he said to himself, but he doubted close questions served anyone’s safety: if they were where he thought, they were as good as within their perimeter.
Day, and day, and night and night.
No messages came up from Mogari-nai, not a one. He ordered Cl to send-receive, and had no idea whether his messages went anywhere. He wrote to councillors, to department heads, to his staff, and to his mother, not daring to mention that he hadn’t gotten any messages, not daring to admit he was worried.
“Any word from Jase Graham?” he asked daily, as if there were nothing wrong in the world.
Occasionally he called Kroger, and twice summoned Kaplan for uneventful escorts over and back.
He’d thought he’d found the limits of his nerves and passed them long ago. Shouting and argument he could deal with; silence was its own hell.
But withstanding that was as important. And Jago was happier, at times, even cheerful… interspersed with days of bleak worry, when he was relatively certain something was going on that his security opted not to tell him. There were more outages, and one that lasted until he was sure the pipes were in definite danger.