He couldn’t get to sleep on questions within his reach. He preferred to think about the archive until the possibilities overwhelmed even Toby’s difficulties and Barb’s, and when his mind grew foggier and foggier, he played red-and-blue economic graphs in his head all the way to sleep, simultaneously hoping the spaceport was another few feet of runway toward completion.
He waked confused in the morning, couldn’t find the edge of the bed for a moment, or where the walls were… but there was the comforting smell of breakfast and the same stir in the hallways.
He sat up, heaved himself out of bed, and wandered to the computer and the communications setup, where he keyed up communications and called Cl, the same as he’d done last before going to bed.
“Any answers to my messages?” he asked Cl aloud. “Any word from Graham?”
“No, sir, I don’t have any messages.” It was a new man.
“Link to Mogari-nai,” he said, and the new man on shift wanted to get clearance.
“Confirm it,” he sighed, brusque before morning tea. It had been so convenient to have Cl cooperating yesterday. “Do it on a priority. This is Ramirez’ orders. We were doing it all yesterday.”
“ I have to check, sir,” the answer came back, on the suspicious edge of surliness, but cautious in tone all the same, and a moment later, far more officially: “ Yes, sir. I’m putting you through.”
Bren let go a pent breath. The computer and the wall unit squealed and spat at one another, an affliction to the nerves.
“ Sir,” Cl protested.
“That also is cleared, Cl. It’s the ordinary. Also I want a confirmation that my messages are getting to Jase Graham’s quarters. Can you assure me of that?”
“ Yes, sir. Just a moment, sir.” Again a surly tone: it seemed one of those unfortunate voices that had to make whoever heard it bristle. And the man was, of course, in charge of communications. “ I’m putting the message through myself, sir.”
Bren made not a sound, and pulled his temper back from the brink.
And the answer came back: “ Jase Graham isn’t in his quarters. System says he’s on call, backed up personal messages.”
“Yolanda Mercheson.” The man was informative. Bren liked him better of a sudden. “Can you reach her?”
“Just a moment, sir… No, sir. She’s got messages, too. She’s in conference.”
“I’m expecting a call through from Captain Ramirez, or his office.”
“Let me check, sir.”
A lengthy wait.
“I don’t find anything, sir.”
Well, he said to himself, keenly disappointed, the date had been soft. Maybe the two days included this day. If there was an inherent imprecision in the language, it was counting the day one was on… or not counting it. And Ramirez had been deliberate in not being more deliberate. The man wanted room.
“Cl. Thank you.”
“Yessir.”
Bren heaved a third sigh, went off to dress, settled to work after breakfast, and waited, continually expecting a call.
At mid-afternoon he put through a call via Cclass="underline" “This is Bren Cameron. Could you confirm the meeting we have arranged with Ramirez’ office?”
“ I don’t have it on schedule,” the answer came back from what turned out to be not Ramirez’ aide, but an aide to whatever captain was on duty.
Push too hard, too fast could blow things.
“I expect a call,” he said, “and a firm time.”
He expected a call back from someone. It didn’t come.
Before supper he did a send and receive via Cl, and discovered more committee reports.
But there was, too, a message from Toby: Barb is recovering from surgery. Mother wanted to be there.
He was appalled at his brother. Is that all, Toby? Is that it? What’s going on, here?
Toby was angry at him. Angry, and picking a damned bad time for it. That had to be the answer. He couldn’t think of any other.
After breakfast, the servants moved about very quietly, with downcast looks: the word was clearly out, a small indiscretion of the staff, that there was to have been a meeting of very great import; and one had not materialized.
Bren attempted to lighten the mood. He felt the failure, if it was a failure, on his own shoulders. By now he suspected Ramirez of placing far too much confidence in the agreement of brother captains. He suspected Ramirez had tried some sort of maneuver that had failed, and that was all right. Ultimately it had to succeed, since there was no other sane course for Phoenixto take. He refused to be glum about it, but the silence wore on his nerves.
“I haven’t heard anything, either,” was Kroger’s response, frankly delivered via the intercom. She might be relieved to know, at least, that he wasn’t meeting in secret with the Guild Council. “The download’s complete,” Kroger told him. “We’ve been in communication with Mospheira. It’s hit with quite a commotion.”
“I’m very happy,” he said.
“It’s one thing we’ve done,” Kroger said. “One benefit from this.”
At least they weren’t working at cross purposes. He wasn’t sure about Ramirez and his brother captains.
He tried to convey the Mospheiran indecision about days-one-was-on versus days-ahead to Banichi and Jago, after supper, and succeeded in astonishing them, though they had made a close study of humans and their ways.
“I know,” he said. “I find it alarming, too. I find it disturbing that there’s not at least an advance notice about the precise time of the meeting. But the fact is though we said two days, we didn’t set one. I suppose I should have made sure of a date; but our calendars aren’t congruent. And it was a signal not to push him.”
Jago and Banichi alike had worn their most formal looks all through the day, all through dinner. Now they asked their questions.
“Is Jasi-ji safe?” Jago asked first.
“I think that he is.”
“Is Ramirez attempting something we should know about?” Banichi asked.
“I wish I knew.”
“Does not this great ship work by numbers, and precise numbers?”
“One would think so. But humans work by less precise ones.” He could not keep his security ignorant of his worries, but he had no idea how to give their innate sense of precision a real appreciation of what was going on with the ever-lengthening two days, except to say, “This is a game. It’s a game as humans mean it, the sort one plays with one’s enemies, not yet to fight, but not to agree, either.”
That enlightened them. There were looks of complete comprehension.
And in fact, atevi were quite good at such games: Bindanda’s presence was such a move, which must not be challenged.
“One does see,” Jago said, seeming much more relaxed.
“I find it exceedingly annoying. It’s a signal to me to back off. I perceived that when he chose to be that vague; I took it for something that might shift, and shift it has. But I will not let this situation go much further.”
“And then?” Banichi asked.
“Our greatest risk is my annoyance and his, at this moment; and the aiji’s, if I don’t bring him back to the table before I leave, which seems what this game is about. I don’t think the captains want to get to specifics yet, they want as much as they can get, they think a little more time might solve their problems, and among us… Nadiin-ji, I think the trouble is that some of them want agreement with the Mospheirans and the Mospheirans aren’t interested. I think that’s quite upset certain officers of this Guild.”