“We are prepared to offer an apology,” he said flatly, unprovoked. She had expected to have to force him into that particular corner. She didn't trust it.
“In exchange for?”
“An apology in return.”
“The attack on Toronto was unprovoked, Premier—”
“The attack on Toronto was not supported by our government,” he answered, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. She blinked. It was not the translator who had spoken.
Xiong's accent was inferior to his translator's, but his English was perfectly plain as he continued, leaving Riel at a loss. “The miscreants will be punished when they are located. To that end, we require the return of the crew of the Huang Di. Surely there can be no question that this is appropriate, and that it is necessary for us to question our citizens and determine whether there were, in fact, orders — and if so, from whom they came.”
Ah. That, Riel had an answer to. “Premier, we also would like to see the crew of the Huang Di answer a few questions. In a public forum, rather than behind closed doors.”
“I see.” He glanced down, consulting his notes or concealing the green flash of an adviser's message across his contact. “We would like the compiler code to the operating system being used by the nanosurgeon infection that Canada has inflicted upon the unsuspecting nations of the earth. We profess ourselves willing to share our own codes, and to make this information available to the scientific community and to the security forces of any nation or supranation that wishes access to them. Pursuant, of course, to a security check.”
“I'm afraid that won't be possible,” she answered. Even if that weren't a back door into Richard that I wouldn't give my sister. “I am, however, certainly open to entertaining the resumption of friendly relations between our countries.” Where “resumption” is a euphemism for “we never have gotten along all that well, but I'm willing to ignore that little twenty-year dustup that we don't call World War III if you are.”
“You realize, Madame Prime Minister, that while I am amenable to… negotiations, there are elements within my nation that will be opposed.”
“I have an Opposition of my own, Mr. Xiong.”
He chuckled, his eyes twinkling like agates, the first flash of a real personality she'd seen. “I'm sure you do. There's something else you should understand, if you are determined to permit the United Nations to address this matter.”
“It wouldn't be fair to go to NATO, would it now?”
His smile was very cool, and very thoughtful. “You're aware that the same technology that is used to enhance the starship pilots can be used to create more… traditional warriors?”
“Canada is aware.” And then the bottom dropped out of her stomach, a trap door under a hanged man's feet. “Are you insinuating that China has such a program in development, sir?”
“Of course not,” he answered. “It would be classified, if we did. I'll see you in New York City on the eighth of October, then?”
“Will you be attending yourself, Mr. Premier?”
“Madame Prime Minister,” he answered carefully. “I should not miss it, if it lies within my power.”
He vanished, and Riel rolled away the ache in her neck. One down, she thought. Hardy and Frye up next. I hope this counts as a productive morning.
Patty knew why Captain Wainwright had sent her to the air lock to meet Xie Min-xue. Partially because she was young, and a pilot, too — and could be trusted not to do anything stupid like trying to shake Xie Min-xue's hand — and it was partially to get her off the bridge, where she'd been fretting since the Buffy Sainte-Marie uncoupled from the Montreal.
So she waited by the interior air lock door, her hands self-consciously relaxed, hanging palms-in against her thighs, her heart beating faster than it should, her hair braided so it wouldn't drift into her face, and one foot hooked under a grab strap. Alan? How much longer?
“He's the only one disembarking the shuttle,” Alan answered. “And they're docked. It'll just be a minute.”
Patty took a slow breath. She didn't close her eyes. She didn't need to, really; she just imagined herself armored, a golden metal robot shaped like a girl, or like a sketch of a girl on the mud flap of a truck. And the air lock cycled, and she found herself standing in front of a slender man, a boy, really, her own age or just a little older, his gleaming black hair floating above arched brows and his dark eyes glittering through his squint. He didn't smile, and he looked supremely comfortable in zero G. A duffel bag drifted from his left hand.
“Pilot Xie Min-xue?”
“I am.” Cautiously. Softly, his face slightly averted, so that his hair slid across one eye as if it could protect him from the directness of her stare.
She kicked free and pushed back quickly and dropped her gaze. “I'm Patty — I mean, I'm Patricia Valens. I'm one of the Montreal's pilots. I'm supposed to show you around.”
His chin lifted when she said “pilots,” and she could almost see the tension in his shoulders ease. “Show me around?”
“Give you a tour,” she said, assuming he had not understood the colloquialism.
“No, I understood.” Did he always speak so softly? “I had assumed I should be confined to quarters.”
She smiled and drifted another half-step away. He breathed easier once he had a little more room. “Escorted,” she said. “At least for a little while. But Richard will help you find your way around. We're supposed to treat you as a guest. Follow me.”
He did, silently, paying very close attention but asking no questions as she gave him the quick tour of the ship. She took him up the ladder in the central shaft so he could get an idea of the Montreal's size, and he gasped over the mock gravity in the habitation wheel, but “She's bigger than the Huang Di,” was his only comment, and that after she had showed him the bridge.
“About twice as big.”
Silence descended again, until she showed him to the small cabin that would be his. She stopped beside the hatch, standing to one side. “You'll stay here,” she said. “I'm sorry. I've done all the talking.”
“It's all right,” he said, but didn't undog the hatch or step through it. “I'm not very… talkative.”
They stood in the corridor facing each other. Patty could hear the Chinese pilot breathing, waiting. Finally, she stepped away from the hatch. “You can go in. You don't have to wait for me to open the hatch.”
“It's all right,” he repeated. He swallowed and looked down at his hands, fretting at the strap of the duffel. “Miss Valens.”
“Patricia.” She wasn't sure why she gave him the formal version of her name. Maybe the way his hands shook, almost too fast to see. “Please.”
“Thank you,” he stammered. “I wanted to ask you…”
“Ask,” she said, when he'd been stuck long enough that it seemed as if interrupting would be a mercy.
“Did you know Leah Castaign?”
Patty didn't realize she'd stepped back until the bulkhead stopped her. She stared at him and forced her jaw to close. “You can't have known Leah.”
“No,” he said. “But she—” He sighed, and twisted his head aside again, staring at the floor, his hair a mess from gliding up the shaft in zero G.
Oh. “She died for you,” Patty said. She swallowed hard, but didn't look away when Min-xue's head snapped up.