“Banichi wants to know what you see and send,” Bren said. “Such things interest my security.”
“Can’t do that,” Kaplan said, all gruffness now.
“Buy you a drink?” Bren said. “We should talk, since you’re to be my aide.”
“I’m not your aide, sir. And I can’t talk, sir. I’m not supposed to.”
“Aren’t you? Then I may request you. I’ll need someone when I’m on the station. Are you married?”
“Married, sir, no, sir.” Kaplan’s nervousness only increased.
“Where do youlive?”
“238C, sir.”
“That’s a room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alone?” Bren asked.
“Two and two, sir, two shifts.”
“In all this great station? You’re doubled up?”
“On the ship we had more room,” Kaplan said. “But they’re working on the ship.”
“Doing what?” Bren asked.
“Hull, mostly.”
“Damage?”
“Just old, sir, lot of ablation. And when she’s in lockdown, it’s not easy to be aboard; you can’t get a lot of places in zero-G, sir. See those handholds? Not much use on a station, but on a ship, that’s how you get by if you have to crawl.”
It gibed with what he knew from Jase. While he kept up a running interrogation on points of corroboration, it was more corridors, more turns, twists, and descents, not a one of them distinguished from the other except by the occasional wall panels. It was an appalling, soul-numbing stretch of unmarked sameness.
They came to a corridor with one open door.
“This is rec, sir,” Kaplan said, and led them to a moderately large room with a zigzag interior wall—a safety consideration, Bren knew by now—and a handful of occupants. The decor consisted of a handful of very faded blue plastic chairs, all swivel-mounted, at green wall-mounted, drop tables. Most astonishing of all there was a decoration, a single nonutilitarian blue stripe around the walls. There was, besides the stripe, a bulletin board, and a handful of magnetically posted notices.
Crewmen, doubtless forewarned, rose solemnly to their feet as they came in.
“Gentlemen, ladies.” Bren walked past Kaplan, walked around the walls, keeping a careful eye to the reaction of the crew to Banichi and Jago… fear, curiosity, all at the same moment. The crewmen wanted to stare and were trying not to. “Good day to you,” Bren said, drawing nervous, darting stares to himself. “I’m Bren Cameron, emissary from the aiji at Shejidan. This is Banichi and his partner Jago, chief of my house security, no other names. Think of them as police. Glad to meet you all, gentlemen, ladies.”
“Yes, sir,” some said. Those terms had fallen out of use. He was an anachronism in their midst, or he was their future.
“Seems we have an agreement,” he said, curious how far news traveled among the crew. “We’re going to be building here. Mospheira’s going to provide you all the comforts of the planet, up here, according to what we’ve settled on, everything from fruit juice and hot dogs to seat cushions. Jase Graham. You know the name?”
They did, though there wasn’t a clear word in what they answered. It was Kaplan’s wide stare replicated, one and the other, men and women.
And he’d bet the place had been cleared of anyone not on a List, too.
“Jase is a friend of mine. Friend. You may have heard—or you may hear—you can’t say that with the atevi: that they don’t quite work that way. That’s true. But it doesn’t mean you can’t get along with them and that they aren’t very good people. You have to figure out associationswith them. For instance, if you get along with me, you know you can get along with my security, my staff, my associates, and everyone I get along with. There’s no such thing as one ateva. It’s really pretty easy if you ask the atevi what they think of the other ateva you plan to be nice to. Glad to meet you all. My security is glad to meet you, no one’s going to shoot anyone. Don’t mind that they don’t smile. It’s not polite to smile until you know each other. Kaplan.”
“Sir!”
“Introductions, if you please.”
“Yes, sir,” Kaplan said, and proceeded solemnly to reel off every name, every job, and rank: there were Johnsons and Pittses and Alugis, there was a Shumann and a Kalmoda and a Holloway, a Lewis, and a Kanchatkan, names he’d never heard. They were techs and maintenance, all young but one, who was a master machinist. “Glad to meet you,” Bren said, and went around shaking hands, doggedly determined to put a face and a name to what had been faceless for two hundred years and three more in orbit about the planet. “My security won’t shake hands. Our culture is foreign to them. They find you a fortunate number, they compliment you on that fact; they find you a comfortable gathering. I believe your library has a file on protocols when talking to atevi: I know I transmitted that file a couple of years ago, and hope it’s gotten around.”
No, it hadn’t. He could tell by the looks. And he was far from surprised.
“Well, I hope you’ll take a look at it on a fairly urgent basis, since there will be atevi working here. And don’t take humans from the planet completely for granted, either. From your viewpoint, they’re quite different, and words don’t mean quite the same; I was born on the island, myself, and I can say you don’t at all sound like Mospheirans. What doyou do for entertainment, here?”
“Games, sir.” That from a more senior crewman. “Entertainment files.”
“Dice,” another said.
Jase had said entertainment was sparse and opportunities were few. Jase had been vastly disturbed by rapid input, flickering shadows, any environmental phenomenon that seemed out of controclass="underline" Jase standing on a deck on the ocean under a stormy sky was far, far beyond the bounds of his upbringing… an act of courage he only comprehended on seeing this recreational sterility. “Jase enjoyed his planet stay, gathered up some new games. I know he sent some footage up.”
It hadn’t made it to the general crew. There were blank glances, not a word.
“Definitely, we have to talk about the import situation,” he said, with a picture he really, truly liked less and less. “I’m sure the Mospheirans will offer quite a few things you might like.” Give or take the whole concept of trade, which he wasn’t sure they really understood on a personal level. “You’ll have a lot of things to get used to, among them the very fact of meeting people who aren’t under your captains’ orders, who speak your language and mean something totally different. Who don’t mind surfaces bouncing around under them and lights flashing and who are rather entertained by the feeling.” The looks were somewhat appalled. “We, on the other hand, will be largely involved in construction: improving the station, providing fuel, materials, that sort of thing. And we understand you found a problem out in far space. We’re used to dealing with strangers. We hope to deal with your difficulty and solve it.”
That struck a chord, finally. That was something they understood… and didn’t believe.
“Yes, sir,” came from another one, whose name was Lewis. Bren hadn’t forgotten, didn’t intend to forget a single name.
“Have you talked to Jase since he’s been back?” he asked.
“No, sir,” one said, and there were various shakes of the head.
“Interesting,” he said, and had a very uneasy feeling about this place, about the crew, about the whole situation. “But you do know him.”
“Yes, sir.” They seemed to take turns talking. Or they were all wired, like Kaplan, getting their answers from elsewhere.