“You too,” he said.
The com clicked off. He laid it down on the side table, beside the teacup.
What he was going to say to Tillington tomorrow to calm things down he wasn’t sure—and it probably wasn’t going to improve with you’re being replaced. Tillington already wished he’d take a walk in space. Maybe Ogun wished the same, though he thought he might have made a dent in that attitude.
One could hope the technician pairs in the two halves of Central would communicate a calm switchover despite the outbursts and tension from Tillington.
And that Jase, physically standing in Mospheiran Central, would advise the human techs exactly what Geigi would tell his own workers, that they were making progress with the kyo and that they all needed to keep things low and quiet.
Could he read anything at all into the timing of the change of communication from the kyo?
It did suggest the kyo ship might be aware that a shuttle had docked.
Meanwhile the kyo ship would also be reading space itself, looking for trails of ships departing or arriving. The kyo would be seeing only two local ships, Phoenix, that they had seen before, and the other ship under construction, with its hull not quite complete. Everything they owned was laid out, impossible to conceal.
Were there other stations? That was the one thing the kyo might not be able to know by observation. Unless they had been there a while.
It was among those things he was determined not to tell them—just in case.
· · ·
Baggage in Great-grandmother’s apartment had given up all the things they had brought from home. There had been soft bumps and thumps, doors opening and closing, all the while they had tea and cakes in mani’s sitting room, but now Lord Geigi had gone home, and had an apartment ready for the strangers from the Guild, too, so they were settling in, and would not be staying in mani’s residence.
And nand’ Bren had come back, and Guild had told Guild certain things were settled with Ogun-aiji. So at least everything was settling into place.
Cajeiri was glad of that, and glad to be able to go to his own room, his own little suite, and shed his coat again and sit in a soft chair. He was feeling frayed at the edges—that was nand’ Bren’s expression, and it fit.
Maybe, he thought, everything would settle now and everybody would use good sense.
And he was very willing to rest. So was his aishid, who were all stripping down and taking advantage of the shower in the servants’ hall behind their quarters. That was very well. There was a large bath, too, and the idea sounded very pleasant but he was just too tired. He thought he would take a turn in the shower, too. He had not really had one of this sort since the ship: it was all fog, and strange, and pleasant to breathe.
The bedroom in mani’s apartment was strange to him, half-remembered, but still strange: they had made the rooms connect the way they did in atevi houses, so it felt more normal than on the ship, but it made things feel odd, homelike, and very definitely not at all home. Behind the hangings the walls were metal and plastics, and over by the door, trying to look like a small carved cabinet, was a whole console to control all the things the lighting and fans did. The hall doors were pressure doors and massive—there was no disguising that. The inside doors slid rather than swinging.
It was both remembered and strange-feeling, like a dream he had had more than once.
And if he could have been with his associates in a visit here, he would have found it all exciting.
But things were not ordinary. They had had tea and cakes and staff had all been delighted to welcome them. They had had an informal tea and mani and Lord Geigi talked about things that he was sure he had not heard the half of.
Then Lord Geigi had gotten a sudden call from nand’ Bren and excused himself, saying he had to go bring atevi Central on duty and that the kyo were now talking, which was both scary and encouraging.
It meant everything they had planned on was starting to happen, that was what. And that could bring good or bad.
So nobody right now had time to have a boy in the way, especially a boy who mostly kept thinking about the fact they had locked the big section doors on the Reunioners, and nobody was even mentioning that as one of the problems.
So now he was here, tucked in a bed, with no Eisi, no Liedi, no Boji in the premises, but his bodyguard was with him—little that they could do if things went very badly with the kyo.
Lucasi and Jegari would sleep on fold-up beds over across the room, and Antaro and Veijico had fold-up beds in his little sitting room, because mani’s was a very proper house, wherever she was.
He stared at the ceiling in the very dim light and thought about the kyo. But that was a little scary.
He thought about his life on the ship, and that led him to think about his associates, and whether they knew he was here, so close. He hoped so.
Lord Geigi had said something troubling tonight to mani. That Tillington-aiji had separated off the Reunioners behind locked doors when they got the news about the ship. And people could be stuck wherever they had been when that had happened.
That was going to affect a lot of people, he thought. He thought of Bjorn, who had a ship-folk tutor, with other students, who might even be caught somewhere on the wrong side of the doors.
He thought of Bjorn’s parents, who were technical people who were lucky enough to have jobs of some sort that they had to go to. Had they gotten home?
Artur’s father worked somewhere, too. He had no idea whether that would be affected.
Gene’s mother had no job. He had never heard Irene say whether her mother had one.
But stupid Tillington had ordered the big doors shut with practically no warning, and while he had opened them again for atevi and Mospheirans after an hour or so, he had just kept them shut for Reunioners, and people had panicked, so they had had to call out ship-folk guards. Nobody could get through those doors, in either direction.
Lord Geigi was not arguing too much about the Reunioner doors, because, Lord Geigi said, he wanted Tillington-aiji not to take the notion to seal the whole Mospheiran section off from his, and separate them from the ship-folk.
We would not tolerate that, mani had said.
He would not tolerate what had already happened, or those doors still being shut—but nobody asked a nine-year-old boy.
Section doors were supposed to be a protection in case of fire, or an asteroid, or something. A particular section could lose all its air and heat, if its door was sealed, and nobody else would be affected.
That was scary. That was just really scary. That was how so many people had died at Reunion, when half the sections had blown out, but also how so many had lived.
He had seen how the station looked, with wrecked sections with no lights, just torn up and dead.
The kyo had done that.
But the instant they realized the kyo ship was out there, Geigi had said, Tillington-aiji had ordered the doors shut, claiming it was a ship order. Geigi said he was not sure that was true at all. Tillington had gone on public address, said it was an emergency, and doors were closing in a quarter hour. And people had started running.
What did one do if one’s residence was too far away? The station was a huge place. People were assigned where to eat. Where to live. Where to work if they were lucky and had a job.
But what if they were caught away from where they were supposed to be?
And before the doors had shut, the news about the kyo ship had gotten out on public address, because someone in Central had pushed a wrong button. That was what Geigi said. Since Geigi’s people were not in charge of Central when it happened, Geigi could not tell who had done it, and supposedly it was an accident, but Geigi was not sure.