Текст книги "Explorer"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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“Likely this maneuvering will drag on now for hours,” Jase said. “It might be an opportunity to persuade the dowager below. Tell her it’s for comfort. Comfort, at least.”

“This is the woman who sleeps on stone several times a year. Who rides mountain trails in thunderstorms. Who took on Cajeiri as a ward. I don’t think we’ll persuade her easily, Jasi-ji.”

“Days, Bren. It could be days working this all out. With terrible forces, if we have to move. Hard on the whole body, even in shelter. Tell her that.”

“One will pose the question.” He made the short trek to the security cabinet, quickly, economically.

And met a row of dark and light faces all with the same wary, determined expression.

“Jase-aiji suggests this maneuver will be extremely long, even days, and that for comfort and dignity—”

“No,” Ilisidi said abruptly. “We will not go below.”

“Nand’ dowager…”

“Interesting things happen here. Not there. If I were reckless of staff safety I would send after hot tea,” Ilsidi said. “I forego the tea. In that, I have taken my personal precautions and my staff is settled in safety. We are very well. Gin-nandi is very well.” This with an all but unprecedented nod toward Ginny Kroger, who gave a nod in turn—a unity of appalling, infelicitous two, give or take the ship itself—a welding of Gin’s notorious obstinacy to the dowager’s, which was legendary. Somehow there had been basic converse in his absence.

“I convey the respects of the ship-aijiin,” Bren said with a little bow. “And urge you all make yourselves comfortable, but sit warily, aiji-ma, nandi. One hopes this matter will work itself out peacefully.”

He caught Banichi’s eye, and Jago’s, and they extracted themselves from shelter, with relief, he was sure. He left, with them in attendance and within easier reach of information at the moment—atevi presence re-expanded onto the bridge.

He found Jase where he had been, next the take-hold just outside their shelter.

“The dowager declines. Gin declines. I used the word ‘days.’ They’ve formed an alliance.”

Jase didn’t look at him. Jase’s eyes, like Sabin’s, roved continually over the aisles, where techs sat waiting for response. “We have what facilities we have up here,” Jase murmured. “We can’t change them. But if she grows weary, offer my office, my cabin, my bed, for that matter.”

“One will do so, nadi-ji, with thanks.”

“For yourself as well. I want you rested, paidhi-aiji.”

“One understands that as well.”

Jase reached to his ear and handed him the communications unit, warm from his skin. “Use that. I want you current with our information flow.”

“One concurs.” He positioned it in his own ear, beginning to receive the very limited cross-chatter of station with station, Sabin’s low-key orders, the ordinary life’s pulse of the bridge. Jase secured another unit for himself, meanwhile, from one of the endmost consoles, adjusted it, became available.

“I am now in direct touch with ship’s communications,” Bren muttered to Banichi and Jago. “Make clear to the dowager Jase’s offer of his own cabin, which would afford more comfort and security. Tell Cenedi first: he may have more luck in argument.”

“A very good idea,” Banichi said, with a side glance at Jago—their information had simultaneously gone to Cenedi and to five-deck. And one hoped the dowager would hear reason.

A desk, a chair and a bed within easy walk of the bridge, it turned out, was an acceptable idea. There was not only Jase’s cabin and Jase’s office, but Ramirez’s and Ogun’s, unoccupied, ample room; ample means by which experience could be available and out from under foot, and the dowager was not opposed.

The station, meanwhile, answered an earlier time-lagged query. “ The spook’s been out there for years. It may be robotic. We instruct you, ignore it .”

“What grounds to believe it’s robotic?” Sabin fired back. “Be advised we are taking measures for contact.”

That was all the communication that could flow in that exchange. There followed, from the station, a few further queries. “ What kept you ?” was one particularly significant, along with: “ Who’s in command at Alpha ?”

“Fuel load wasn’t ready,” was Sabin’s immaculately honest answer, along with, “Local control, local politics, but negotiable.” That could cover anything, including armed conflict. “What changes here? What’s our fuel situation?”

There was the prime question.

Meanwhile galley served more tea and sandwiches, and Narani and the dowager’s staff sent up delicacies for the dowager and for humans on the bridge—weary bridge crew, crew who’d stayed far longer than their own shift, while below, crew chafed to be out of confinement in quarters. Officers of the next shift sent wary inquiries, briefing themselves, a busy, busy flow of conversation on several channels, C1 to C12. One had never appreciated how much went on, not even counting the flow of atevi communications aboard, which was another several channels.

The dowager took possession of Jase’s quarters. Bren meanwhile stuck close to the bridge, eating a sandwich while wandering between the atevi settled into the executive corridor and the human crew in constant activity on the bridge.

Jase had suggested, not for the first time, that they might take advantage of the moment now go to shift change. Bren’s own knees began to protest he’d stood long enough; and he had no doubt Sabin’s older bones had to be aching far worse than his as she kept up that slow, mostly silent patrol, occasionally commenting into the communications flow.

Waiting, he was sure, for some answer, from some quarter, not likely to rest until it did come, and now the reply-clock was thirty-two minutes into negative territory.

Bridge crew took intermittent rests, a few at each console moving about on break, or, by turns, head pillowed on arms, resting weary eyes, waiting, waiting, waiting.

“ Request you proceed with approach, captain. Explanation after you dock. ”

It wasn’t the positive fuel answer they wanted. It wasn’t, we have everything in order, proceed toward the fueling port .

“They may not anticipate the alien craft can understand our conversation,” Bren murmured—wishing that were so, wishing that the Guild had miraculously turned cooperative—or that the alien out there did understand a common language. There was no proof of either. “One might distrust this request to dock first.”

“ C1, repeat the last query .” That was Sabin’s answer, cold and calm, as if they hadn’t just waited the lengthy time for the last inadequate answer, as if she weren’t, like all of them, aching to have basic questions settled and to know for certain they had fuel. But: do it again , was the response, in essence. Do it again until we get an answer we like .

And meanwhile, be it admitted, they weren’t doing what station wanted.

Bren felt his own knees protesting. And he walked, and paced, trying to think of all possible angles, and finally went back to Jase’s office and sat down in a chair opposite Banichi and Jago’s seat on the floor.

“Station has failed to answer Sabin-aiji’s simple question regarding available fuel, nadiin-ji. She has therefore reiterated her question. This give and take of answers will take, at least, another two hours.”

His bodyguard absorbed that information, respectfully so, noting clearly that Sabin-aiji had not backed down, and showed no sign of it.

“If it should be a lengthy time, then you should nap, Bren-ji,” Jago advised him. “It seems we are not yet useful.”

It was reasonable advice. He had been observing every micro-tick of information flow, fearful of missing some critical interaction, but found no further advice to give… He didn’t like the reticence on the station’s side. If the alien didn’t understand, Sabin was right: they could transmit nursery rhymes and targeting coordinates with no difference in that ship’s behavior—and if it did understand—then they had a very different problem, at once an easier one, but one in which the station would participate, and in which, in the fuel, it might hold a key bargaining item. Most of all he didn’t like the picture he had: a third party, themselves, arriving in the middle of a long standoff, an arrival recognizably allied to the station, talking with it while signaling the alien presence out there. It looked all too much like a schoolyard squabble, politics on that primitive a level, and the imbalance of power since their unexpected arrival here could tip things over the edge.

It would do it faster if they made a wrong move. Two powers had to be refiguring the odds at the moment, and he hoped the apparently bullied party, the station, didn’t suddenly decide to shove things into a crisis with some demand for action, the rationality of which they couldn’t assess at a distance.

“ Shift change ,” C1 announced then, over the general address. “ Crew will go to second shift .”

Belowdecks had waited long enough.

“ Sabin speaking ,” came a smooth, routine murmur following that. “ Situation remains much the same. We have not received adequate answers from station. We have not received a response from the alien presence. As you move through the ship, bear in mind the location of nearest takeholds. We will specifically notify crew of any change in the level of alert .”

Sabin was continuing to inform crew. Give her that. They were going to the second of the ship’s four shifts, one that properly was her own crew. And evidently she wasn’t going to rest now.

“We might rest,” he said. Jago was right. It was only sensible. “The both of you—one wishes there were a bed, nadiin-ji.”

“The floor is adequate, Bren-ji—room for one’s feet, at least. Will the chair suffice?”

“Admirably,” he said, and they rested—Banichi and Jago in full kit, with room to stretch out, at least, himself in a partially reclined chair, hardly daring shut his eyes, because of the buzz of communication in his ear. It became a white sound, and it was too easy just to go out.

He concentrated all the same, aware from the flow of communications that Sabin, still linked, had gone temporarily to her own cabin. That there was a shift-change in progress on the bridge.

The ship still waited for response, still waited.

“ Guildmaster Braddock speaking ,” came suddenly, clearly, the station’s answer, a different voice. “ Affirmative on your last query, captain. Don’t take any action toward the outlying ship. Repeat, take no action. We estimate it’s a robot outputting its observations to some more remote presence, which may or may not be manned. Your arrival has lit a fire under the situation. Come in immediately .”

That did it. He wasn’t going to lie there after that answer, rational and sensible as it might be on the surface. He was sure Sabin would head back for the deck like a streak.

Faster. An answer came immediately. “ C1, repeat our former query as a response .”

Sabin hadn’t budged an inch.

Damn, he thought. But he approved her obstinacy. If there was any doubt about the fuel situation and they weren’t talking about the alien, he was just as glad she wasn’t taking Phoenix in to become part of a larger, predictibly orbiting target.

He heartily wished there were better answers out of Reunion. But going out there at the moment wouldn’t help matters. He had nothing to say.

“ Senior captain ,” he heard Jase say, and he tried to stay in his semi-rest, expecting Jase to concur in the response, or to report the shift change complete. “ We have a flash response from the alien. Three bright pulses .”

That was it. He flung the chair upright, and moved.

Chapter 6

He and Sabin came out into the corridor at the same moment, Banichi and Jago close behind him, Cenedi exiting the dowager’s cabin, Gin and Jerry not far behind.

“It’s not a damn group tour,” Sabin muttered, ahead of them only by virtue of her cabin’s position in the corridor. Words floated in her wake and echoed in Bren’s earpiece. “Advice, Mr. Cameron. Advice!”

“Repeat their signal sequence at the same pace as our answer. Not upping the bet. Duplication, we can hope, is perceived as neutrally cooperative. I hope it gains us time, maybe a further signal to compare.”

“Second captain. Do you copy? Implement.”

“ Implementing ,” Jase’s answer came immediately.

Bridge personnel had all changed. Every seat was filled, all the same, every head directed absolutely to console screens and output.

“If that should be a robot,” Bren said as they arrived in Jase’s vicinity, “we might try to calculate the position of any outlying installation by any significant lag in their reply.”

“Ahead of you, Mr. Cameron,” Sabin said. “We’ll be working on that information.”

“ Or it could just represent the lag-time in their decision-making,” he said. “We’ve already told them we’re independent enough that we generate answers when station doesn’t. Contact station and get them to join us in another response. Indicate their cooperation with us.”

“The hell they’ll do that,” Sabin muttered, but: “C1,” she said. “Transmission to station. Quote: Request you also transmit three bright flashes, identical duration, toward spook source. Critical you comply.”

Bren suffered cold shivers. He’d tried to rest and the body hadn’t quite waked up. The mind, however, had, calculating possibilities that began to branch and multiply untidily. The hell they’ll do that . Clearly, by this demonstration and others, the Phoenix senior captain didn’t expect to give the orders to her Guild. It was becoming critical, and the Guild still thought it ran matters. Not a surprise.

But that the Phoenix senior captain meanwhile prepared to act and make a statement, a simple, light-flashed statement to match the ship’s singular: I —that was going to have its effect later in their dealings with station, and they couldn’t help that. Not in their present situation. They could only hope for station to comply, if only it would.

And they had to wait more than an hour to get station’s yes or no. Were they unified we ? Or not?

“Visual senses dominate in that species,” Bren muttered. He’d studied the processes of contact—historically—with the atevi. He couldn’t swear another living soul aboard had that background. And he’d spent eleven months reading on that topic. “Visible spectrum overlaps ours. Brain architecture has that in common, at least, with us and atevi.”

Jase and Sabin alike shot him a look as if he were launching into prophecy.

“The ship out there won’t know the station refused you,” Bren said, teeth chattering in a persistent edge-of-sleep chill, and it sounded like fear, and he couldn’t stop it. “But if our own station won’t cooperate, it tells me something about the Guild, while I’m unraveling alien behavior.”

“Screw your suppositions, Mr. Cameron. Confine your speculations to that ship out there and give me facts, not guesswork.”

“Best I can, captain. The only thing we’ve said to them so far is I and they’ve answered me, too . Useful if we could get the conversation to include a demonstrable we , but we don’t expect to have a we with station, do we, so that’s likely out.” Where did a dialog start, without sea and land and sky for conversational items? Series of lights? Sequential blink used as a pointer?

And a pointer aimed at what? At the non-cooperative station, which might pot-shot the alien and start a war? That was no good.

“It may be a naive question, captain, but are we moving toward the aliens at the moment? Or toward station?”

“What are you getting at, Mr. Cameron?”

“I’m trying to figure out what we’re saying in relation to where we’re going. Everything’s a word. Where we’re going is a word.”

“We’re splitting the difference at the moment. We’ve veered off from station signal. We haven’t gone on a heading directly for the alien craft. We’re not going directly at either.”

“Good decision.”

“Thank you,” Sabin said dryly, and he ignored the irony.

“Can we stop? Stand still?”

“Relative to what, Mr. Cameron?”

“I don’t know.” He was totally at sea where ship’s movements were concerned. “Just, once we go on toward the station, now or hours from now, we’ve involved the station. If our own station will cooperate with us—then, yes, we could slow way down, sit out here and maybe work this out. I’m assuming the Guild’s not going to be helpful. So if we could, relatively speaking, just stop or slow way down and talk with this outlying ship—if we could say, by our motions, we’re going to deal with you rationally and calmly, no hurry here …”

“We don’t even know if there’s intelligence aboard.”

“But something somewhere in control of this is rational. We have to believe that, or there’s no hope in this situation—and percentage, captain, percentage in this is all with hope . If we can get to talking, if we can get them to accept a slow closer contact and occupy their attention with communications—we may just possibly shift decision-making from their warlike to their deliberative personnel, if there should be that division of power aboard.”

He saw the little frown grow. Sabin was at least listening. And the next part of the thought he didn’t like at all—but it was, personally applied, the hope equation. Percentages.

“If we can do that,” he said further, “if we can just calm down and sit out here increasing our ability to talk to them, then we’ve over all increased the likelihood they’ll talk in all other circumstances. They’ll have invested effort in talking. At least on economy of effort, they’ll reasonably value that investment. Individuals will have committed work to the idea. We may gain proponents among them. We could be several years sitting here unraveling this, but the immediate threat to the station will be a lot less down this path. We might be able to defuse this situation and get their decision-making well away from the fire buttons and over to the communications officers.”

“And you think you can accomplish this fantasy of cooperation.”

He didn’t know what to say. Then he shifted a glance over his shoulder, by implication the array of atevi and Mospheirans—and back. “My predecessors certainly did.”

Sabin’s glance made the same trip. And came back. “You can do it and take my orders, mister.”

“I respect your good sense, captain.”

“What do you propose for the next step?”

“Ignore my ignorance about ship’s operations. But we’ve answered the aliens. Where’s the clock on that, relative to our request to station?”

Sabin checked her wristwatch. “That’s thirty one to station reply and forty six to alien reply.”

“If station agrees to signal with us, we do a unison approach. If station doesn’t agree… how many lights can the ship manage in a row, to signal with?”

“Eight.”

Infelicitous eight. Was it mad for a human mind to think in those terms—to have numbers make a difference at all?

“I’ll give you a blink pattern with those eight. I’ll think of something.”

“I’m sure that’s very useful, Mr. Cameron.”

“We can signal an approach. If we can make an approach to them.”

“You’re recommending this.”

“I’m recommending this.”

Again a long stare. “I’m not expecting station cooperation. Get me your blink pattern, Mr. Cameron. Let’s just see what we can learn.”

Half an hour. He had other minds to consult, and he went and consulted, the aiji-dowager sitting ramrod stiff in an upright chair in Jase’s cabin, Ginny sitting on the bed, security standing about. He sat down and made his proposal, talking to two individuals: the human one of which didn’t remotely understand his craft, but the dowager understood the problems. So, even, did Cajeiri, who stood by his great-grandmother’s chair and listened very solemnly, not a word from him, but a lively spark in his eyes, not a reasonable ounce of fear.

No more than in his great-grandmother. “So,” Ilisidi said, having heard him out. “What does Jase-aiji think?”

“One will surely consult him in this, aiji-ma.” He had a keen awareness of passing time. Of the impending reply window. He hastily took his leave, gathering Banichi and Jago and Gin—almost Cajeiri, but for the dowager’s sharp command restraining the rascal.

“Answer?” Bren asked Jase, arriving beside him on the bridge. The communications flow in his ear was momentarily interrupted, for sanity’s sake. He was screwing the earpiece back in as he asked.

“Station says their policy is no contact. They repeat their order to come in.”

His heart thudded for no particular reason: he’d expected worse—but the citing of policy under present circumstances hammered at his nerves. The communications chatter was back in his ear. He watched Sabin stroll over.

“Negative,” she said. “So?”

“I suggest, then, unless the alien initiates some new pattern we can work on—blink all lights sequential toward the end-most, toward that ship. Then slow. And turn. Blink all lights toward the center. Then steady light, and go toward them.”

“That’s it ?”

“Works in downtown Jackson traffic,” he said, beyond being defensive. “Communicates to our species. Atevi intuitively figure it on Alpha station.”

“A damn stationside turn signal?”

He shrugged. “We’re not going to communicate the whole dictionary, captain. Simplicity. The most universal things we can think of: we’re turning and we’re coming toward you very, very slowly .”

Sabin swore under her breath.

“What would you do, captain, if they sent that signal to you?”

“I’d uncap the fire button, plain truth.”

“Would you fire?”

Sabin thought more soberly about that. Expressionless, walked over to the third console and gave an order.

Another transmission-wait clock showed up on the main screen.

They’d signaled.

“ Takehold, takehold, takehold ,” the intercom warned the ship.

Maneuvering. His plan was in full, precipitate operation, not waiting for answer.

He looked uncertainly toward Jase. Jase looked to him , that was the panic-producing realization, and there wasn’t time. “Nadiin-ji,” he said to Banichi and Jago, “take hold. Advise the dowager. We three shall use the alcove.”

Where he had at least the hope of contributing advice—if the aliens didn’t construe their movement as attack, or simply prove intractably hostile.

“Bren-ji.” Banichi insisted he enter first. Jago followed. They made a sandwich of him within the protective, padded closet, and he tried not to shake like a leaf. They rather expected the lord of the heavens to have a notion what he was doing. And not to shiver.

An hour and more until the aliens knew they were slowing and turning—and signaling their intentions. Which might also make a shot miss them, if the aliens pissaciously fired before they considered the blink signal.

Head against the padding. Eyes shut.

Final alarm. The ship began to maneuver. Ships that traveled such vast distances so fast were rather like bullets. They weren’t meant to jitter about, changing course, making loose objects and passengers into pancakes. Phoenix certainly wasn’t designed to do it.

But she did.

Long change of direction. Time for thought, which he tried not to use, except on his next step.

Suppose the other ship echoed the signal, including the ship movement. Supposing they came forward.

Suppose they offered some different signal.

Suppose, on the other hand, they sat inert, not doing a thing. Could Phoenix detect it, if they did? Or if, sitting still, they fired?

A certain degree before a physical missile reached them. No detection if hostility traveled at the speed of light. One thought ever so uncomfortably of very bad television, back home, death rays from the heavens, shadow-creatures menacing whole towns—

Such naive images. And so unwittingly prophetic if he couldn’t think of the right answers.

He felt the living warmth on either side of him, steady, absolutely unflinching.

Calm, calm, calm. Panic didn’t serve the cause, not at all.

“How are they down on five-deck?” he asked.

“Very well, nandi,” Jago answered.

“And the dowager?”

“Very well, too,” Banichi said on his other side.

“Well,” he said, “nadiin-ji, we have at least gotten one signal out of these folk, whether or not it comes from something like Gin’s robots—which hardly matters: if signal is being offered, signal is being offered, dare one say? So we orient ourselves toward them. We have offered a signal stating our proposed motion, which we hope does not look like stealth or offense.” He had the Assassins’ Guild right at his elbow and hadn’t asked them their opinion of the captain’s precipitate execution of his plan. “How would you manage a peaceful approach to them, nadiin-ji, figuring a complete dearth of cover?”

“One would stand at distance and signal in plain sight,” Banichi said, “except that distance places this inconvenient lag between responses, and one seems therefore not to be quite in plain sight.”

“One hopes, if nothing else, the signals continue to flow,” Jago said. “We have every confidence the paidhiin will manage matters very adequately in that regard. But does there not remain the small possibility, Bren-ji, that there have been other, surreptitious messages from the station to the ship?”

Trust the Assassins’ Guild to entertain truly disturbing thoughts—it was their job. “One hardly knows,” he said. “We cannot guarantee Jase has all the information, nadiin-ji.” He had Jase’s communication device muttering in his ear—but that channel only carried voice transmissions, and only what C1 opted to put on that channel.

Jase was on the bridge, nonetheless, moderating Sabin’s reactions, if nothing else. And Sabin, so far as they saw, responded to their arguments, and met the station’s with anger.

But his security reminded him: one couldn’t, here or in Shejidan, just watch the noisy things that were going on. Atevi lords died of mistakes like that. Subtexts mattered. Plans advanced by moves not apparently related to the objective. God, one could go crazy in the levels of distrust that existed between ship and station and that transmission-source out there.

A queasy motion. Turns on any axis were subtle, mere reorientation. They’d shed velocity as they bore. Then what seemed a turn.

They accelerated briefly, modestly, he thought, eyes shut, trying to read the ship’s motion.

At a certain level, biological organisms trying to get within proximity without touching off fight or flight mostly did the same things, at least on the evidence of atevi and humans. One could call what they did an approach. Or, even being human, one could call it a hunter’s moves. Stalking the prey. One hoped—hoped—

The all-clear sounded.

He moved. His bodyguard moved. He followed Banichi out of their refuge, Jago following him as he looked for the principals in the case.

The bridge seemed calm. Sabin and Jase were back on slow patrol of the aisles of consoles.

Banichi meanwhile spoke quietly to Cenedi and Asicho, advising them of the current situation.

The reply-clocks ran on the display, independently, computer-calculated, one supposed.

Bren heaved a deep breath, went and stood at the end of the middle row of consoles, his bodyguard with him, all of them quietly watching the display for information.

Station’s answer arrived first. “ Don’t contact the alien. Don’t meddle with the outlying ship. It’s been quiet for six years. Let it alone. Do you read? ”

Late for that.

Station wasn’t taking Sabin’s instructions, that was clear, and thought Sabin should take theirs.

“Captain Sabin,” he heard Jase say, amplified by the earpiece, “we should proceed on Mr. Cameron’s advice.”

“We’re on course, second captain.”

“If the spook’s been out here six years, it may have gathered something of our language—if it’s picked up any station chatter. If, God forbid, it’s gotten hold of any personnel.”

Jase’s mind was clearly working. Chillingly so—convenient as it might be to their mission to meet an opposition that could be talked to. The blink-code procedure wouldn’t carry that. Direct transmission might.

Dared they risk breaking pattern with what seemed the alien’s own chosen mode of communication?

Not wise, every experience informed him. Not wise to push the envelope.

“We should stay to the blink-code, captain, unless they initiate another mode.”

“We’ll try Mr. Cameron’s notion,” Sabin said grimly, and gave no window into her own thoughts.

Neither, one noted, did she show any inclination to answer station’s orders at the moment.

They stood. They waited.

The clock ticked down.

“ Repeat ,” the word came in from Reunion, “ do not contact the outlying ship .”

Sabin’s lips made a thin line. “I believe we’re having transmission troubles,” she remarked to all present. “C1, put me on general address.”

“Proceed, captain.”

Sabin picked up a wand mike from C1’s console. “ We have now signaled the alien craft and diverted course toward it in what our planetary advisors suggest is a reasonable approach. We remain on high alert. We are not releasing crew from cabins. There remains a likelihood of sudden movement which exceed takehold safety. In other words, cousins, we may have to get the hell out of this solar system. Stay smart, stay put, stay alive .”

Bren translated that for his allies down in the executive cabins, and for five-deck. And waited. And sweated.

“ Captain Sabin .” A deeper voice, this time, from Reunion Station. “ This is Guildmaster Braddock. If you insist on this change of course, you risk our lives. We have this information for you. This is very likely a robot. It’s sat there for years without moving or responding. We have no indication of it being controlled from outside. Optics have turned up nothing in outlying regions. We detect no transmissions and no active probes. Our experts believe it’s a failed piece of equipment dating from a second attack on us and we urge you reconsider any approach to it. If it’s dormant, it does us no good to wake it up. Abort whatever you’re doing in regard to it. If you’re on Ramirez’s orders, abort. You don’t know what you’re messing with. You may get a robotic response and it may be lethal and unstoppable. I urgently advise you pull back .”

That, Bren thought, that was interesting… not least regarding a second attack, in the ship’s absence. And interesting regarding Ramirez’s relations with his Guild, if they’d had overmuch doubt. Station hadn’t trusted Ramirez. And they’d had no way to remove him from command.