Clarke slid out of view as the shuttlecraft turned toward the Montreal. Min-xue couldn't see their destination through the ports on the shuttlecraft's sides, and the pilot's compartment was shielded from the passenger cabin by a bulkhead. There was a monitor on the back side of that bulkhead, and Richard contemplated turning it on for Min-xue, but he wasn't sure if Min-xue wanted the long view of the Montreal, or of Earth, or of the Benefactor ships.
Both he and Richard knew very well what they all looked like, after all—
Richard?
“A good rain knows the season, and comes on with the spring,” Richard quoted, drawing a smile to Min-xue's thin-pressed lips. “I've been wondering if you would want to talk.”
You're still reading the Tang poets, I see.
“You are an enormously bad influence,” Richard answered, and Min-xue smiled. “Min-xue, I know you've spoken to the Canadian legal team about the—”
About the impact event. Yes, and so have you.
And Richard knew why the young man chose that distancing, clinical term. Euphemism had its uses. “They feel we are not being as forthcoming as possible about Captain Wu's orders.”
They think we know more than we're telling, you mean.
Richard indulged himself in a calculated hesitation. “Yes.”
Perhaps they should ask Captain Wu these questions. I do not know the source of his orders. I am certain that they came from his chain of command, however. Min-xue closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair, regulating his breathing. Richard couldn't do anything about the roughness of the seat against Min-xue's back, or the way the vibration of the engines rattled through the ship as a controlled burn accelerated them toward the Montreal, but he could — and did — dim the Gordon Lightfoot's interior illumination.
“Thank you, Richard,” Min-xue said out loud. He turned his head to press his face to the cold glass of the portal, a gesture Richard saw a lot among his pilots. His pilots. With their hair-trigger reflexes and enhanced senses that made the simplest navigation through daily life an act of courage and endurance. His pilots. Richard's pilots. Richard's ticket to the stars.
And telling Riel I accept her offer of citizenship would make it that much easier to be certain I get there. Eventually.
“You're welcome. Min-xue, I'd like your permission to adjust your wetware somewhat.”
“What are you going to do?” Min-xue didn't open his eyes, but the creases at the corners eased as Richard bumped the light level down again.
“Update the protections and start low-level monitoring on your nanosurgeons.”
There's a problem? You have doubts about the worldwire?
If Richard had a lip, he would have been chewing it. His pilots. And not, frankly, just his pathway to other worlds, but personal friends, all three of them. Well, his friends or Alan's, and there was no practical difference between the two.
Mad as they were.
He'd been unable to save Trevor Koske and Leah Castaign. Humans would persist in being human. “Preventative measures. I'm having the same conversation with Jen and Patty right now.”
You're not telling me everything, Richard.
“I can't.” But closer monitoring of Min-xue's nanotech would give him a further glimpse into the Chinese programming techniques, and besides, he was worried about the unexplained dieoffs in Charlie's ecospheres… and more worried that he hadn't noticed it happening.
Min-xue opened his eyes. His hands curved in to the hand grips molded to the edge of his seat, useful in zero gravity, now useful to push himself forward against the thrust that pressed him back into his seat. “This is the life I have chosen.” He gave his head a sideways shake. “All right,” he said, tightening his grip on the handholds. “All right. And Richard?”
“Min-xue?”
“Turn on the monitor? I want to see where we're going.”
Richard did it, and answered, “Don't we all.”
In a minor confirmation of the law that the perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum, it was the issue of time zones and the selection of a sufficiently closemouthed translator that prevented Riel from contacting Premier Xiong before Sunday morning. She made a major concession in allowing the PanChinese premier to choose the translator. But then again, that was the way the game was played, and machine translation was not nuanced enough for these purposes.
There were channels and there were channels, of course, and the means she was resorting to, while official in the broader senses of the term, weren't exactly diplomatic. Which was helpful, in the sense of deniability, and unhelpful — in the sense of deniability.
And once upon a time, the world made sense, she reminded herself, opaquing the reflective surface of her interface plate and checking her makeup for the third time. And then you got this job. She checked her watch, then checked the time on the heads-up display in her contact, and then rolled her eyes at her own nervousness. She was nauseated with anticipation, and it wasn't going to serve her to any advantage if she didn't get the adrenaline under control.
So what if the PanChinese premier was late? Her meeting with Hardy and Frye wasn't for ninety minutes. And if they showed up early, or she ran long, they could cool their heels out by the water fountain for a while. Which thought made her smile, and not — she noticed in the opaqued plate — not very pleasantly.
She wiped the expression off her face. The hip unit sitting on the desk beside her chimed. She jumped, took a breath, and drank three gulps of the rooibos chai staying warm in her self-heating mug before she felt composed enough to reach out and thumbprint the secure HCD. “Premier Xiong,” she said, raising her eyes as the man's pinched, expectant face rezzed in midair. “It's good of you to agree to this conference.”
“Prime Minister Riel.” A pause, for encoding and translation. “It is good of you to hear me. We have a problem.”
“More than one,” she answered. It came easier as she found her stride; this was no different, really, than any other such conference in her tenure as PM. More fraught, perhaps, and more hazardous, but the actual mechanics were no different.
It was still just a matter of two people sitting down to talk and establish common interests and points of negotiation. Constance Riel folded her hands together. It did not stop her from fiddling with her ring. “Premier, continued hostility benefits neither of us. Let us be frank; Canada is not in a position to profit from ongoing conflict, and I do not believe China is either. You have the problem of the Russians to contend with, the PanMalaysian alliance and Japan… and the same climatic issues we have. I don't want a war, sir.”
A longer pause this time, and she wondered what word the translator had been checking context on. Or if there had been a hasty consultation at a higher level. Eventually, Xiong's impassive face was softened by a blink, and the faint tilt of a smile. “None of us want a war, Prime Minister.”
She saw the sideways flash of his eyes, the faint movement of his head as he shook off some fragment of well-meaning advice. Unlike her, she realized, he must indeed have someone in the room. Other than the interpreter, of course.