And they walked briskly on their way toward the lifts. How Banichi had done it once, how Nojana had done it… he had no idea, though it might have involved, likewise, walking straight down the middle of the hall, tall and dark and imposing enough to scare hell out of crew.
This time they did meet two walking toward them, crew who stopped dead in their tracks and stared.
“Hello there,” Bren said cheerfully, and waved.
“Yes, sir,” one said quietly, wide-eyed, as they walked by, and not a word else.
They reached the lift.
Was it a surprise that someone came running down the hall?
His security took a mildly defensive posture, hands near guns, as suddenly, breathlessly, a woman with Kaplan’s sort of gear came pelting from a side corridor.
And slowed considerably on the approach, holding hands in sight. “Sir. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Just going down to the dock. Out to the dock. Up to the dock. Whatever you say.”
“You can’t just walk around, sir!”
“I’m not walking around. Just going to the dock. Want to come along? I’ve no objection.—This seems to be an escort, or a witness, Nadiin-ji. Don’t shoot her.”
His escort understood a joke, and laughed, to the woman’s consternation.
“Pauline Sato,” she identified herself. “Tech chief. You can’t be taking the lifts, sir.”
“That’s fine, but I don’t see a way to walk down. Are you in contact with Cl?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you’re our escort, then. Just get us down to the docks. Out to the docks.”
Sato seemed to hear voices. Doubtless she did hear one.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and fell in with them, nervously so. She opened the lift door when they reached it. She kept a nervous eye on the atevi and their weapons as they entered, and eyed them with misgivings between button pushes as she gave the car its instructions.
“We haven’t shot anyone since we’ve been on board” Bren said as the car glided into motion. “The only one who’s been shot so far is Captain Ramirez, and we didn’t do it.”
“I can’t talk about that,” she said.
“Jase Graham didn’t do it” he tossed after. “I rather suspect it was an internal dispute.—But we don’t take sides.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’s the shuttle docking coming?”
She listened to voices which obviously didn’t need a repetition of the question. “It’s going fine, sir. They are docking right now.”
“That’s good. Lead on. We’re doing just fine. Think of it as a holiday. A sacred custom among us, to welcome guests. We expect Tom Lund back. Who knows? Ginny Kroger may bring her own party.”
“You can’t be running about the station, sir!”
“I’m sure. But we’re runningthe station for you, Ms. Sato, whether or not you’ve had that information officially. I’m sure it will come damned soon. And we, meaning the atevi, will be repairing your ship and doing other useful things, while Mospheira supplies your food, so I’d suggest it’s a very good idea we explore this place and establish routines with the shuttle. Absolutely nothing to worry about. I assureyou this whole operation will become routine. We’re not fools.”
“Yes, sir. Please take hold. We’re going up.”
“Take hold, Nadiin-ji,” he repeated in Ragi. “—Have you seen Kaplan, these last few days?”
“I don’t think so, sir. That’s Leo Kaplan. I haven’t seen him.”
They stuck to the floor by virtue of acceleration, but the illusion of gravity began to sink toward the waist, and toward the knees… a queasy sort of feeling. Bren drew in a deep breath and found the ambient air colder than it had been, rapidly so. The car went through a sudden set of gyrations, thumps, and bumps.
“You did push the right buttons, didn’t you?” he asked Sato in all the jolting about of the car. “If you sent us somewhere you shouldn’t, my security would be very upset. They’re obliged to shoot anyone who threatens me. You understand that.”
“It’s the right place,” their guide said staunchly, if anxiously. “Sometimes it just does this. And you can’t be shooting people.”
“I quite agree,” he said, finding the acquaintance of his feet with the floor increasingly uncertain. “I notice you have a gun, amid that other—” He wagged fingers, indicating the heavy load of gear. “—equipment. Tell me, do you use it on other crew? Family members, perhaps? Or have you ever used it?”
“Don’t threaten us!” Sato exclaimed, her eyes wide with fear, and he laughed.
“Don’t worry. Just don’t, under any circumstances. You really shouldn’t carry that sort of thing about.”
“Yes, sir.” He’d deeply annoyed Sato. He thought he detected a blush under the stark lighting.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re friends.”
“I have my orders.”
“Here.” He’d tucked a candy or two in his pocket in case Kaplan turned up. He offered it.
“I can’t take it, sir.”
“Oh, come on, no one’s looking. Or are they?”
“I don’t want it, sir!”
“That’s fine. No obligation.” He pocketed the candy. There was a silent interval.
What he took for a position indicator, a dotted line on a panel and a glowing light on the schematic that he took for their destination showed, at least a good guess, that arrival was imminent.
The car slowed. They began to float, and the car repositioned itself, simply turning them as they held on.
“Interesting device,” Jago remarked.
The car stopped.
The door opened on the bitter cold of the dock, on a place they had indeed seen before, with the crew members drifting about in orange suits, following a web of handlines.
The hatch that had lately mated with the hatch of Shai-shanwas right in front of them: the right destination, indeed. A light board said, in letters a Mospheiran could read, Engaged.
Shai-shanwas almost certainly in dock.
A second lift, just next to theirs, opened a door.
And this one gave up a dozen floating crewmen with rifles, on handlines.
His own security produced guns at the first sight and in a heartbeat, all three were very well anchored and facing the others with no disadvantage.
“No!” Bren said, holding up a hand.
Everything stopped, save a handful of crew drifting on inertia and probably wishing to be less conspicuous targets.
“You’d be fools,” Bren said, in Mosphei’, to the rifle-bearing crewmen. His breath frosted copiously in the icy air. The chill and the fright together produced a damnable tendency for his voice to shake, and he determined not to let it. “Ms. Sato, kindly inform your listeners that there’s absolutely no need to blow our negotiations to hell. This is a quiet visit to our own shuttle, official business, of which we’re bound to see a tiresome lot, and a very tiresome lot if you insist on customs raking over our cargoes or armed fools standing over us. You’ve already begun one war with strangers! For God’s sake, do you think you need a second?”
“Mr. Cameron,” Sato began, and all of a sudden, bad timing, the air lock flashed a light and opened.
Atevi came drifting out, fairly briskly, disembarked, took a split second to realize guns were deployed, and immediately deployed their own.
“Hold!” Bren shouted, in one language and the other. “Hold still!”
There were twenty, thirty of the atevi, in the black of the Assassins’ Guild, all armed, all at a standoff. More were coming out.
And amid all of it, a white-haired ateva floated out: Cenedi, he would swear.