“Not that secure, unfortunately.”
“I understand.” From whom it was not that secure remained a question—whether it was one of Tillington’s techs still on duty, or Ogun himself that Sabin was worried about. “I’m going to ask Lord Geigi to bring his shift on now and possibly stay on extended watch, the Mospheiran crew having been on, I understand, a very extended session. Let them get some sleep. Will that be acceptable, to give you and the human staff some rest?”
“Acceptable and very welcome at this point, Mr. Cameron. We will order a shift of control to the atevi stationmaster as soon as we have his signal, and the head of staff will implement that shift, or we’ll work down the list until someone will. We only ask to be notified of any change in the kyo transmission.”
“Absolutely, Captain.”
“Sabin out.”
The contact clicked out.
Geigi would be in control of operations from now on until Tillington was replaced.
That was an immense relief.
But had he done an entirely good job? He didn’t think so. He’d just sent a very upset Tillington off to his Mospheiran allies to complain, granted that was all Tillington did. He entertained a somewhat uncharitable wish that Tillington would call down to Shawn’s office tonight to lodge a complaint. Or protest to Sabin.
Neither, however, would lead to a good solution. It would be far better to have Tillington accept the change that was coming, and he hadn’t set that up at all smoothly. One could only hope that Tillington and Jase had been inside the office with the door shut, and not out on the floor when Tillington had lost his temper.
Maybe the stress had just piled up. Maybe Tillington was reaching a point where he would welcome being relieved of duty, maybe given at least a sideways promotion on Earth—
But he was beginning to believe he shouldn’t recommend the man for any such consideration. An official who saw an alien warship bearing down on his station, locked his fellow stationmaster out of controls shift after shift—
Tillington wasn’t the first to wish him in hell, but he had certainly been passionate about it. Maybe Tillington had been following Ogun’s orders—or guiding them. Walking out like this—Tillington had been camping out in Central shift after shift after shift, sleep-deprived and not at his most rational in the first place. He might have reached his physical limit. He might have gotten an order from Ogun.
Morning might bring more sober reflection. He hoped so.
But at the moment—that shuttle bringing Tillington’s replacement couldn’t get here fast enough.
And whatever was done at Tillington’s orders or by Tillington’s people right now—he wanted someone keeping an eye on station systems.
The original dual setup of Central had been a remote redundancy in case of disaster, two Centrals each on a different power unit, and at a considerable remove. They’d used that, finding it a way to share control between atevi and humans.
And mad as it had seemed during negotiations for the initial setup, the system had not only worked, it had continued working during the coup, when the station had had to fend for itself—when the station had had no functional translator. In the system as it had developed, as he understood it, humans and atevi “talked” personally through the input keyboards and the displays. Nearing shift change, human Central would begin passing off working situations to atevi Centraclass="underline" the automations all went over at the flip of a digital switch, but the transfer of active problems required an atevi worker who didn’t speak the human worker’s language first to shadow what was going on and understand what had been done—or vice versa—
Those procedures Geigi said worked amazingly well.
And sharing the same job, seeing the same problems over and over, workers who had never met, and who could not speak to each other outside their keyboards, worked together day after day on a kind of interlingual shorthand that had spread somewhat uniformly through both sets of techs, tagging familiar problems with their own set of descriptive icons. Neither side would understand the other’s discussion of the problem—but both sides always knew exactly what was going on.
Not infrequently, though illicitly, so Geigi had explained, pairs of techs shared pictures of family and spouses. The relationships weren’t the same, across that line; but sets of techs had become people to each other, across that barrier.
And would those techs, right now, running on nerves and with their chief officer in an emotional state—be glad to make the turnover to their atevi partners and go home to rest? They were divided into two shifts, so they had some relief, but even so, it was sleep and work, sleep and work, with no break, under a man undergoing a meltdown . . . a man whose insistence was that atevi were siding with the Reunioners, in a plot with the two captains who were standing watch in Central, with the kyo bearing down on them. The techs had to be at their own breaking point.
“Jago-ji, advise Geigi to be ready to make the shift in Central just as soon as he can get his team there, and treat the other side very gently. Workers there are exhausted. Tillington has just walked out and left his staff upset and without direction. Tell Geigi that the kyo have begun transmitting our names now—that part is good news—I have responded, in a repeating transmission, at an identical interval, and he must wake me and also report to the Captains if there is any change in what I have left in operation. One cannot assume it is definitely Prakuyo an Tep we are dealing with, but the kyo are asking to see me, the dowager, and the young gentleman. Tell Geigi workers may be advised that this message from the kyo is a favorable change.”
“Yes,” Jago said, and left. Every detail he had enumerated would be handled, and handled quickly. He could rely on that.
But the problem inside Mospheiran Central remained far from resolved.
The servant still stood by. Bren sat there a moment, still holding the com: tired or not, there was no way he was going to sleep until he had word things were on an even keel and the switchover was complete. He looked at the servant, made a slight move of his hand, and in very short order another cup of tea arrived on the side table.
“Thank you, nadi-ji,” he said to the servant.
“Nandi,” the servant said, all earnestness. Staff knew. Staff knew enough to make them worry right along with him.
And he was supposed to solve it.
He felt that expectant look. He felt it and asked himself what in hell he could do.
The com in his hand buzzed.
“Bren?”
It was Jase.
“I’m here.”
“Just reporting in. Sabin’s finally going off-shift. I’m going to stay here in Central to supervise the handoff to Geigi’s crew and to officially dismiss the shift. I want to talk to Geigi for a moment after we hand over. By the time I get through here, I imagine you’ll be wanting to be in bed, too, right?”
“I do think I’ll make a lot more sense in the morning, but if you want to drop by tonight, I can manage.”
“No sense wearing yourself out. Things are under control. I’ll see you in the morning. If anything goes amiss, I’ll call you.”
“I’m going to need to talk to Tillington tomorrow, after he’s had a chance to calm down. I’ll try to resolve that situation. At least calm it down.”
“Good luck with that operation. —And thanks, Bren. Thanks. Good night. Get some rest.”