“You’ll have to follow them, Nadiin-ji, as I must, and mine are to take this station. My way is by negotiation, and the aiji sent me to try that to the limit of my ability. I believe I read this correctly, and I will not lie to you. I intend to go and to confront them in their territory and to demand they honor agreements.”
“If they were atevi,” Banichi said directly, “you would not be right.”
“I may not be right as it stands,” he said, “but if I’m not, I give you leave to remove the captains and their security on the spot.”
“That,” Banichi said, “we find satisfactory.”
Chapter 24
It was not Kaplan who guided them. It was the old man, whose name-badge said Carter; and it was a long, glum-faced progress into the administrative section, into the region of potted plants and better-looking walls.
It was the same chamber, at the end of the hall, and the old man opened the door and let them in.
Ogun was there. So was Sabin, so was Tamun, and a fourth man, a gray-haired man, who was not Ramirez, all seated at the table, with armed security standing behind, and next to the interior door.
Bren stood at the end of the conference table, waved Jago and Banichi to the sides of the room… one each, hair-triggered, and expecting trouble, but not by the stance they took. Banichi adopted an off-guard informality he never would have used in the aiji’s court, a folded-arm posture that verged on disrespect.
Jago became his mirror image.
“Mr. Cameron,” Sabin said reasonably. “We won’t mention your incursions into the station. We understand your security precautions. We advise you we have our own.”
Interesting, Bren thought. Ogun sat silent. Sabin, now second-ranking, spoke, and Tamun still said nothing. The new man sat silent as Ogun. “I’m glad you understand. I see you’ve rearranged your ranks. This is no particular concern of ours.”
“It shouldn’t be,” Sabin said harshly.
“We can salvage agreements,” Ogun said, “if you’ll observe that principle.”
Ogun had difficulty meeting his eyes, and then did, and on no logical grounds he read that body language as a man who took no particular joy in the present situation, a man who might be next.
“Captain Dresh,” the fourth man said. “Taking Ramirez’s place. We will not tolerateany interference in our command of the ship.”
“What you do with the station—” Tamun spoke for the first time. “—is your affair. Yours and the Mospheirans. You don’t interfere with command, you don’t interfere with the ship, her officers, or her operations.”
He cocked his head slightly, cheerful in the face of what was surely an attempt to shake his nerve. He had Banichi and Jago on his side, and the security standing at the captains’ back had no idea, he said to himself. He failed to give a damn for the threats, did hear the proffer of an understanding, and refused to proffer anything in return.
“Mr. Cameron,” Sabin said. “Do you understand?”
“I’ll relay your sentiments.”
“We have messages,” Ogun said, “representing our position. We’ll transmit them when you take the next flight down. They’ll be extensive, and detailed. We include the agreements as we see them, our requirements, our commitments to the aiji and to the President of Mospheira.”
They hadn’t gotten a separate offer. Durant and Shawn had been too canny for that; so had Tabini.
And next shuttle flighthad seemed attractive until theyoffered it, and thought it to their advantage.
“My clerical staff can begin work,” he said.
“You begin work,” Sabin said. “And you take that flight, Mr. Cameron. We’ve done all the negotiating we’re prepared to do.”
“An incentive.” Tamun tossed a signal at the guards behind him, and the man nearest the door opened it, not without Banichi’s and Jago’s attention.
The guards brought out a man in filthy coveralls.
Jase.
Clearly he was meant to react. He did, internally, and thought of options at his disposal to remove Tamun from among the living.
“Take him with you,” Tamun said. “Take him, take Mercheson, and their adherents. They’ve refused to live under the rules of this ship. You repeatedly claim you need their assistance in translation. You have it.”
“Jase,” Bren said calmly. He was rumpled and scraped and had a bloodstain on his sleeve; he might be unsteady on his feet, but he saw a signal to join him. The guards brought Mercheson out, similarly bedraggled; two older women, and a younger… Jase’s mother, Bren thought. He’d seen her in image.
All of them, exiled. All of them, turned over for shipment down on the next flight.
“Chances for dissent are few,” Tamun said, “except at stations. Our last port of call took away no few dissenters, but they had no luck. Let’s hope, Mr. Cameron, that this one fares better.”
“Let’s hope that my mail starts coming through,” Bren said. “Let’s hope that the power stays stable. Let’s hope I take this gift as an expression of your future will to have a working agreement and get our business underway. Where do the Mospheirans fit in this?”
Sore point. He’d thought so.
“You raise that question with Ms. Kroger,” Tamun said. “Next time let them send someone with power to negotiate.”
“Probably myself,” Bren said equably. “I’m a pragmatist, Captain Tamun. I deal where I have to, to my own advantage. I can use Jase; I’m sure I’ll find a use for other help.”
“You stay the hell out of our affairs!”
“You give me direct communication with the aiji and no damn censoring of my messages, Captain. Blocking out my messages won’t make me any more reasonably disposed.”
“Don’t push us.”
“The messages, and stable power to our section. We’ll be taking the adjacent rooms. We needthe space.”
“The shuttle will be on schedule,” Tamun said quietly, as quietly as he had been violent a moment before. “Be on it. Let’s see no more than scientific packages for a while, Mr. Cameron. We’ll honor agreements. This is the authority you’ll be dealing with. Accept it, and go do your job, whatever that is.”
“My mail.”
“Damn your mail, sir! You don’t make demands here!”
“You don’t make them down there. If you want anything transported, I need access to mail I know hasn’t been tampered with. You altered one of the aiji’s messages! That’s a capitalmatter in the aishidi’tat, sir, and you leave me to explain that to my government, which will be damned difficult, sir! If you want anycooperation out of me orthe mainland orthe island, you consider the mail flow sacrosanct! You’re verging on no deal at all.”
“Get out of here!”
There was the explosion point. “Jase. Yolanda. I take it these are your respective parents. Let’s go.”
He turned, gave a glance to Banichi, a signal, and Banichi moved with him, not without a harsh glance toward the captains, and Jago never budged from her position by the door until their whole party was out it, in company of the sullen old man who had guided them there.
Then she swung outside, hand on her sidearm.
“We’ll return to our apartments,” Bren said to their guide, and the old man led off.
There was a conspicuous presence of armed men down the hall as they walked, a presence that retreated down a side corridor when they came and that proved not to be in the side corridor when they passed.
Jase said not a word, seeming to have enough to do simply to keep himself on his feet, but doing it, walking with his hand on his mother’s arm. Yolanda walked with the two others, and Jago brought up the rear, not taking anything for granted.
Not a word, all the way back, and to their own doorway, which opened to receive them.
Narani hurried out to offer Jase his support. Bindanda took Yolanda in charge, with small bows to the relatives.