Their front door, as it were, stood open, and Johnson, Andresson, Pressman, and Polano waited quite respectfully in the corridor.
“Mr. Cameron?” Johnson said. “We came to name our favor.” And when he said nothing to that remarkable statement: “You’re passing out those sweets for favors. Have you got any more?”
His security was on highest alert, Banichi was missing, and he wasn’t without suspicions it was a reconnoitering mission; but he solemnly translated for Narani, who bowed and went off to find the requisite stores.
“My head of staff is looking for them,” he said. “Friends of Kaplan?”
“Cousin,” Andresson said.
“Ah. Would you like to come in and have tea?”
“Don’t know tea, sir.”
“Well, probably I shouldn’t. It kept Jase awake all night the first time he had it. But I can see imports will be very popular.”
“Like the sweets, sir.”
“I favor them myself.” He heard Narani coming back, but did not turn his head, having had Banichi and Jago for teachers. He received the small box, a common tin box, and presented it to Johnson. “Very happy to oblige.”
“You want this back, sir?”
“The box? It’s yours, if you like it.”
“It’s got pictures,” Johnson protested.
It was printed with flowers and fruits, as it happened, and had an oval with the inset of a sea. Indeed it was a fine little box, where paper was unknown.
“I hope you enjoy them. We’re very comfortable here, thanks to you. If you’d like to come back when you’re truly off-duty… we could show you some of Jase’s favorites. I wonder if you aren’t that Johnson he mentioned.”
“There’s thirty of us Johnsons aboard,” Johnson said. “And he’s captains’ level, which we don’t get to, much.”
Sometimes a devil took him. There was no other way he found to describe it. He had wanted to get word out to the crew, and in that small personal confidence, he saw an opening and went for it. “I heard the rumor. Have they caught the person responsible?”
“What rumor, sir?”
“That Ramirez was shot. You haven’theard? Maybe it’s not true.”
“Shot, sir? What’sthis?”
“I don’t know. I heard something. You’re Kaplan’s cousin, are you?” The business of the request for candies had made complete sense to him now. Kaplan had had some to repay a personal favor; they were promised a favor; they wanted theirs in candy, and God knew what the sugar hits were selling for within the crew. “They’re trying to blame Jase Graham, and that’s a damned lie. Jase likes Ramirez. I know damned well Jase would never shoot him—and where’d he get a gun, when he’d just been through a security check? But others hadn’t. I’m damned upset. We had an agreement that was going to get the ship fueled, and now there’s somebody trying to kill Ramirez, who for all I know is locked up in fear for his life.”
“You’re jessing us.”
“I’m worried, is what. You’re the only ones I’ve talked to in days. I don’t like what I’m hearing, and I think maybe there’s something damned underhanded going on. You want to come back here and talk to me, I’ll be glad to tell you and anybody else in the crew what I know, which is that there’s something damned messy in the works that’s somebody’s notion of getting the Mospheirans to work with them, but the Mospheirans won’t, they don’t want it, and some folk on this station are just scared to death of the atevi, who’re doing their damndest to help… Narani, attend me closely. Smile… Does this look like an enemy? He’s a perfectly upright, peaceful man with grandchildren.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnson murmured. “But we’re security and we’re supposed to know if there’s something going on.”
Security, was it? Naive as children, and looking for a bribe, however fierce they might be if they were set off. “Look for yourselves, have a good look. We’ve got a table that violates a code, as I understand, a grandfather who’s doing his own job the best he can, and my room, all my secret goings-on, right here, perfectly in the open… Jago, put the gun up and come smile at these gentlemen.”
Jago came out and smiled and bowed very nicely, despite the sidearm neatly in its holster.
“Nadiin,” she said, and said, in Ragi, “Be careful of these men, nandi.”
“One certainly is,” he said, and in his best approximation of Jase’s dialect, “Damned mess, is what. My staff is concerned.”
“Where’d you hear this?” Johnson asked bluntly. “Who told you?”
“I got it from the Mospheirans,” he said, total fabrication. “I think they heard it in the bar in their area. It’s a rumor. But it is sure we were supposed to meet with Ramirez days ago and it keeps being put off and put off, and no one ever meets. Tell Ogunwhat I’ve told you.”
“We’d better get out of here,” Polano said, and the others thought so, too. They retreated to the door, still with their box of candy.
“You tell whoever you report to that we’re damned tired of waiting,” Bren said, “and we don’t care who we deal with, but we’re here to deal and get this place operational. Tell Kaplan… tell him, too. I owe him an explanation. Tell him to get here.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnson said, and the door shut.
Bren heaved a deep, shaky breath, regretting twice over that Banichi hadn’t shown up, and likely wouldn’t, now, until the down cycle of the activity in the corridors. Banichi was lying up somewhere, surely, surely that was what had happened. It had just gotten hot wherever Jase was, and Banichi hadn’t thought it safe.
Or Banichi was playing medic, in which Banichi had some small skill. Banichi would have used his own sense about that.
“You mentioned Ramirez to them,” Jago remarked when the door was shut.
“I more than mentioned him,” he said. “I told them the truth. They’re security, but they’re also part of the crew, and they’re not happy about this, never mind the damn box of candy. Have we more of that coming, Rani-ji?”
“Of the candy, nandi? Yes. Kandana made a special note of it.”
“Good.” He rapped a code on the security post door, and was not surprised to see guns on the other side of it as it opened. “It’s all right,” he said, but he didn’t know how more to reassure the staff. “I’ve broken our silence with the crew, baji-naji. Having Banichi gone and not knowing… I don’t know whether I was wise, Nadiin-ji, but we have limited means to make known what we do know. I’d rather have told Kaplan, but I made a choice. We don’t know how long we have. We assumethe shuttle will depart on schedule. Maintain watch. Anticipate a shutdown of lights and air.”
“We remain prepared,” Tano said.
“Could I doubt?” he answered. He didn’t, not them.
Himself, and his own breakneck course through a field of rocks, oh, he had numerous doubts.
He could have waited until the shuttle left before doing something so rash.
He hadn’t.
And he sweated the hours until, quite predictably, Cl read him a note from Sabin giving her regrets, her apologies for missing the meeting with him, and resetting it for the 16 that 1300 hours.
“Of course,” he said quietly. “I suppose the shuttle got off safely.”
It was after time. There was nothing to tell them, one way or the other.
“ Right on time, sir. Nominal.”
“That’s very good,” he said. “Thank you, thank you very much, Cl.”
Jago happened to be in the room, reviewing a section of the station maps.