Текст книги "Defender "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“You have an expertise. We’ve got a translator, in Mr. Cameron.”

“That’s not what he does. As a ship, we don’t see what he does. We don’t understandpeople who aren’t under the same set of orders for the last several hundred years. Diplomacy—diplomacy, captain. Negotiation. Mr. Cameron’s good at it. So am I. And I can sit here on this station, helping Ms. Mercheson translate, as I assume she’ll stay in that capacity, or I can go out there, giving you a backup, helping explain to Mr. Cameron and the aiji-dowager how the crew works and how the Guild works. And helping arrive at a reasonable conclusion.”

Sabin didn’t say a thing, only listened, hands still clasped, still easy. “We’re not negotiating my orders, Captain Graham. We’re not having any other orders.”

“We don’t know what we’ll meet. And I know routine operations.”

“Let’s hope for routine,” Sabin said glumly. “Keep the dowager quiet, and you’ll be a use.” Sabin’s cold eyes shot straight at Bren. “So you’re going. What kind of space allotment do you need?”

On the spot? Without calculations? “Myself, two security, four staff. The dowager—she has triple that.”

“No outside equipment,” Sabin said, “be clear on that. No electronics independent of our boards. That’s a safety issue.”

“We exist within the station without disruption and my staff is well aware of the issues. I’m sure we can exist within the ship. These are extremely skilled personnel, captain. An asset, in the remote event diplomacy doesn’t work. Of all else you leave behind, I’d advise you take all of our equipment you can lay hands on, along with our specialized staff and our weapons, that we know how to use with very great expertise. And they’ll be at your service, should you need them.”

Ship’s security was electronically difficult to penetrate. Personally—ship’s security had met Banichi and Jago, who were listening to scraps of all that was going on, and didn’t prevent them doing what they did.

“Under whose orders?” Sabin asked. “I’ll have thatsettled, Mr. Cameron. Yours? Or a planet-dwelling grandmother with a notion she gives the orders?”

“The dowager’s security talks to my security, and won’t do anything that risks the safety of the ship—or that contradicts a ship-aiji’s orders. There is a respect for aijiin on staff, Captain. A profound respect for orders. Ship-safety is in your hands. Safety of outside accesses, while you’re docked—I’d frankly recommend your people take advice from mine in establishing a barrier against intrusion. We’re better than yours, at that.”

He took a chance, but he’d spent significant time dealing with Sabin, and one couldn’t insult a woman whose god was objectivity. She listened, absorbed, analyzed.

“Appearances,” Sabin said.

“We can be discreet. Freeing other personnel on your side.”

“Son of a bitch,” Sabin said. Then: “The whole colonial residency’s vacant on this mission. You won’t be cramped. Your whole station residence couldn’t even make a blip on the ship’s fuel needs or add that much to its mass. Take anything you want.”

“It won’t be that extensive,” he said.

“Kroger will have an establishment. Technicalpeople. Certain number of robot support techs. Gear. A lot of it. Herstaff has bulk.”

He didn’t, personally, want to spend the rest of a shortened life sitting at some remote star, reduplicating the plight of the ancestors. He was very, very glad Kroger and her robots were available.

“Station’s fuel needs will be attended to,” Ogun said, “with the older robots. We’re committed to keep building here. Ms. Mercheson will be liaison with the atevi authorities, and with the President.”

“I’d advise splitting that job, sir. Tom Lund would be very good on the Mospheiran side.”

Ogun knew Lund.

“Reasonable recommendation. I’ll talk with the authorities down there.”

“It’s going to be dicey with Shejidan,” Bren said, took a breath. “I’ll advise one thing, Captain Ogun, with all good will: that you take Mercheson’s advice and tell the absolute whole truth at least to her.” He saw the resentment building in a basically honest man, and plowed ahead. “Captain, if you make those leaders down on the planet look as if they don’t know what the truth is, you’ll not only killany hope you have of dealing with those governments, you’ll likely bring both governments down and have chaos down there that three hundred years won’t fix, noworkers, nofuel, nosupplies at all, ever. I can’t stress enough how precarious the situation can turn and how fast. And I am so relieved the ship is leaving you here to take charge of it.—Ms. Mercheson, you understand me.”

He’d changed from questioning Ogun’s expertise to praising it so fast that Ogun was still absorbing it. And wasn’t coming to a conclusion. Yet.

“Yes, sir,” Yolanda said, scarcely audible, and cleared her throat. “Yes, sir. He’s right.”

“We don’t take threats,” Sabin said.

“Captain,” Bren said, “excuse me, but as the workers put it—gravity doesn’t care. Gravity doesn’t care, nor do the facts that govern the planet. If you want supply, tell the truth to your translators and let them figure out how to translate the situation in terms the people will understand. Conversely, listen when they say they can’t say a certain thing, and suggest something that will be better understood. Most of all set a course and keep it. That’s my condensed advice. Ramirez surprised us once. About one more lie injected into the situation is going to exceed the possibility of leaders ever explaining anything to them.”

“Is the truth going to make them happier?” Ogun asked.

There was a deep-seated Guild-engendered conviction behind that question, a philosophy that had never done the ship any favors.

“You’d be surprised, Captain. Most Mospheirans—most atevi, for that matter—won’t ever care about anything political until their own supper’s threatened. Once it is, you’ve got hundreds of thousands of people each with ideas and no disposition to compromise until their needs are satisfied. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s whymy ancestors had rather trust an untested parachute capsule than trust one more rational argument from the Pilots’ Guild. People don’t give a damn what you’re doing as long as they’re confident where you’re going. Atevi are fonder of intrigue than Mospheirans, but you’ve hit your limit of surprises with Tabini, no question. They’ll accord you a certain credence as a new leader for the station, but they’ll be watching. Both island and continent will be watching, and watching each other. You have to be even-handed, and you have to be right. Their belief that things must still be running all right because you two are left in charge is very important to their ability to work with each other. It’s a confidence I share or I’d be telling Tabini and Tyers both to get the hell out of this arrangement and protect their own interests separately, and I’m reasonably confident that, even out of the loop as I’ve been, they’d both listen in a heartbeat. Instead I’m going to throw my support to you both and tell them both to trust you. You’re both reputed as the absolute best at what you’re each going to handle, so I haven’t any objections, only my condensed, impolite, and urgent advice on things I think you already know. I’m done. I’m perfectly confident in both of you.”

It was a piece of bald-faced flattery at the end, but was true, too. Ogun didhave a knack for handling the truth with tongs and getting it safely delivered. Sabin could manage sticky operational situations and get out alive—related skills, but in completely different arenas.

Sabin was the hardest to reckon with. “You take orders, Mr. Cameron.”

“On ship? I’d be a fool not to.”

“Are you ever a fool, Mr. Cameron?”

“I’m alive. Most of my enemies aren’t.”

That struck Sabin’s fancy. Delighted her, in fact. She almost laughed. And didn’t.

“Chain of command, Mr. Cameron. Observe it. I’ll take your atevi. You keep them happy. You keep their equipment out of my way. You keep them out of my way. I’m first shift, Captain Graham’s third shift. Pilots will serve in the intervals. I want your primary hours on mine, Mr. Cameron. Say that I want the benefit of your opinions when they do occur. Or if I ask you.”

“I understand you.” No collusion with Jase. He very well understood that implication.

“Good,” Sabin said.

“Any further words, Captain Graham?” Ogun asked.

“No, sir,” Jase said.

Sabin’s hands had returned to their interlaced calm. “Then make your arrangements, Mr. Cameron. That’s all I need from you. That’s all I hope to need.”

“How much time?” he asked.

Sabin cast a glance at Ogun, glanced back again. “Three days to power up from rest. Three weeks to do this in decent shape. But three days will do.”

Three days.

God.

Chapter 12

“Three days,” Bren said to Banichi and Jago on the way back to their section.

“Three days,” he had them relay to lord Geigi and to the aiji-dowager even before they reached the security of their own hall. He wondered if Kroger knew, and if Tabini knew, and suspected the dowager already did.

He stopped personally at Geigi’s door, and learned from Geigi’s major domo that the dowager had already departed to her own quarters—small wonder, since she was straight from a long and difficult journey, and the place was warm.

He stopped there as well. Cenedi himself came to the door to take the message.

“One apologizes for the short notice,” he said. “Cenedi-ji. The ship-aijiin seem to believe that the ship will somehow make that schedule.” He fished shamelessly. “Perhaps their preparations were already advanced.”

“One understands, nandi.” Cenedi completely refused the hook.

“We hope it affords reasonable comfort for the dowager.”

“Understood, nand’ paidhi. We are not surprised.”

Not surprised. No. And therefore prepared? Was that his answer? Three days’ notice?

If that was the case, no one was surprised but those of them who lived here.

Meanwhile a small figure appeared to Cenedi’s left, wide-eyed and apprehensive in the visitation.

Cenedi, too, had followed that minute diversion of his eye, as if someone in Cenedi’s profession hadn’t been aware all along of the boy’s presence ghosting up on him, curious and likely wanting information.

“And the aiji-apparent?”

Cenedi gave a little lift of the brow. A motion of the eyes in the appropriate direction. “What of him?”

“Where will he be, Cenedi-ji?”

“The aiji’s heir, nand’ paidhi, accompanies the dowager.”

“With all respect, this is an extremely dangerous voyage.”

“Yes,” Cenedi said.

What had he left to say or to object?

“I understand,” he said, but he didn’t understand. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t. He’d desperately hoped the boy would go to Geigi. And he’d hoped the dowager would have some sort of information for him, but nothing was shaping up as he wished. “Thank you, Cenedi-ji, if you’ll advise her that I came as soon as I had news.”

“I shall, nandi,” Cenedi said to him—not coldly, but firmly.

So that was that. Feeling shattered, he walked on toward his own apartment, in Banichi’s and Jago’s company, asking himself how he’d let things come to such a state of affairs—and how Tabini could have sent the boy on such a venture even with other family members, and how Tabini could so have distrusted him as to go to Mercheson, or how he could ask his own staff to risk what they couldn’t readily conceive as real—

Banichi hadn’t known the sun was a star when the whole space business became an issue.

He had believed Tabini almost grasped the universe at large, but now, with Tabini’s sending the dowager and the boy up here as if this was a short-term venture to another island, he was no longer sure Tabini did know.

He wasn’t sure, among other things, that the aiji-dowager herself particularly cared about stars, or knew this wasn’t the next planet over, despite her association with the Astronomer Emeritus, and he wasn’t wholly sure Cenedi had a grasp of the geography—or lack of it—either.

Granted it wouldn’tbe that long a trip, at least as perceptions made it. The ship folded space– folded space, as Jase put it; and outraged mortal perceptions just didn’t travel well in that territory.

“Nadiin-ji,” he said to his companions as they walked, “understand, if the sun were a finger-bowl in the aiji’s foyer, then where we’re going would be as far distant as…” He didn’t know. But it was far. “As far as another such bowl in my mother’s apartment. Almost as far as a bowl on the dining table at Malguri. Do you see?”

“Quite far,” Banichi said.

“And once we get there, there may not even be a station. This is not a mission to a station like this station. Nothing so comfortable. This is a ruin. This is an area of conflict and destruction, with unknown enemies that might simply blow up the ship before any of us know we’re in danger. And Tabini’s sending the dowager, and a boy who won’t see the sun, won’t see the sky, won’t have any freedom aboard—” He was about to say they had sufficient time to make other arrangements and to persuade the dowager against bringing Cajeiri. But Banichi was quick to answer.

“Then he will learn the discipline of the ship, nadi-ji. He will learn.”

“And risk his life, Banichi. Is it worth it? What can he learn? What can a child do?”

“If he were a potter’s son,” Banichi said, “he would learn clay. Would he not?”

Among atevi, yes. A child would, if he was among potters. If he were among potters he would not be fostered out to every powerful lord in the Association.

“Yes, one assumes so.”

“So being the aiji’s son, he will learn thisclay, will he not? He will learn these leaders. He will learn these allies.”

What was there for the paidhi to say to that? He foresaw he wouldn’t make headway on that score.

And where wasthe proper school for an energetic, somewhat gawky boy who had thus far damaged an ancient garden—where was the school for a boy who would someday succeed the architect of the aishidi’tat, and for whom, all his life, even now, any untested dish on the table, any careless moment at a party could turn lethal?

Was he in greater danger here, where all the staff was vouched for? Or down there, in a time of Associational uncertainty?

“I’d hoped a safer life for him,” Bren said forlornly. “For everyone on the planet, for that matter, nadiin-ji.” They had reached the door. “I suppose the ship-children won’t stay on the station, either.” He’d held that discussion with Jase, theoretically, and in a safer time—how the ship had always voyaged with its children. How very fortunately they hadn’t left them on the station, which despite appearances had turned out to be the riskiest place of all. The universe isn’t safe, Jase had said at the time.

The universe seemed downright precarious for children at the moment.

But from the viewpoint in Shejidan, if the heir were absent, out of reach of assassins, and would presumably return—one hoped—older, backed by potent allies, and by that time possessed of unguessed true numbers, what was more, why, then dared any enemy of Tabini’s make too energetic a move, with so many numbers in the equation unknown and unreachable?

In a sense—no. An atevi enemy was far less likely to move against a boy one day to appear out of the heavens with potent allies and gifted with mysterious new numbers.

Never say Tabini was a fool. Not in this, scary as it was—and not in other decisions Tabini had made. Neither a fool nor timid in his moves.

Neverget in his way: hadn’t the paidhi known that among first truths?

Jago opened the door. Narani was there, in the foyer. Of course Narani was there to meet him. Bindanda was. Several of the others attended, with worried faces.

“We have begun packing,” Narani informed him with a bow. “One trusts court dress will be in order, to meet distant foreigners.”

“Very good,” he said, and felt as if a safety net had turned up under him. Of course information flowed on the station. They knew. “Rani-ji, there is a choice to be made, staff to stay, staff to go with me. I want this establishment to stay active. There’ll be specialized needs. Mercheson, Shugart and Feldman will be operating out of the station. They’ll be translating for the court. They’ll need extensive expert help.” Tano appeared at the door of the security station—Tano and then Algini, who had been following as much as they could, passing things along where appropriate. Thanks to them in particular, things ran smoothly. And he had to make a decision very unwelcome to them. “We have to have security staff remaining here, too.” Narani, too, elderly and fragile, and very, very skilled at keeping the household running—ought to stay here, out of danger. “Rani-ji, I set you in charge of the household while I’m gone.”

“Yes, nandi,” Narani answered.

“Tano, you and Algini, you have to run matters here. You’ll be in charge of Associational security on this station, right next to Lord Geigi’s staff. Directly linked to the aiji, as I expect, too.”

“Yes, nand’ paidhi,” Tano said quietly. He might already havea direct link to the aiji’s staff—more than possible, that, all along.

“One hopes to be with you, nandi,” Bindanda said, uncharacteristically setting himself forward: Bindanda, who made his own reports to the aiji’s uneasy ally, uncle Tatiseigi. “I ask this favor. Who else can cook for you?”

“I’ll weigh the matter, certainly, Danda-ji. You’re of extraordinary value in either place.”

Listening staff. Worried staff. They hadn’t foreknown, at least, no more than he.

And he still hadn’t personally absorbed the shocks of the day—he proceeded on automatic, doing what he thought had to be done, but he knew he shouldn’t be deciding things on the fly, disposing of people’s lives like that, treating their loyalty as something to pack or leave…

But given three days, God, what could he do?

He stood there in the foyer, having shed his coat, and felt a distinct chill—the ship secretly prepared to move, Tabini aware of the mission for months, years, and bypassing him—

He questioned his situation, and realized he was looking at Bindanda, knowing at base level that his own household, like any household, had leaks to certain ears. He had to take the distress in stride. It was inevitable Tatiseigi and the conservatives would hear any faltering, any hint of weakness.

And did an ordinary human, however honored—set up for a decoy, perhaps—expect Tabini to tell him everything, once Tabini had gained a certain fluency in the language?

No. Not even reasonable. Everything in Tabini’s character had advised him to watch himself.

And Ramirez.

Dared he say his human feelings were, personally, hurt?

That hefelt cast aside?

So he made similar decisions regarding his own staff. Could he forget that?

“Your service,” he said to Narani, when, immediately after, he caught Narani alone in the hallway, “your service, Rani-ji, is of inestimable value to me, either here—or going with me. I spoke just now in what I thought your best interest, in proper honor, and knowing the household will need a skilled hand. Or, Rani-ji, if it were your wish, you might also retire—with a handsome pension, I might add, and my profound gratitude. But—”

“Retire I shall not, nand’ paidhi.” Rare that Narani ever interrupted him. This was extreme passion.

“One hardly did ever think so,” Bren assured him in a low voice. “But despite all I said, I urge you choose, Rani-ji, and settle the household either with yourself or another of the staff, and I trust that choice absolutely. I do want you to choose staff to go with me, to the number of four or five servants: I leave the fortunate numbers to your discretion. Security will be Banichi and Jago. I do think Bindanda might be of great use.”

“Then if the choice is mine, nandi, I shall go with you, myself, for one, and I shall prefer Bindanda, if you agree.”

He was not sure he had ever quite, quite broached the subject of Bindanda with Narani. He considered, then took the plunge. “One knows, surely, Rani-ji, that he isGuild.”

Narani lowered his gaze ever so slightly and looked up again with the most clear-eyed, sober look. “So am I, nandi.”

He was absolutely astonished.

“In my man’chi, dare I ask, Rani-ji?” He almost asked now if there was anyone on his staff who wasn’tin the Assassins’ Guild. But he politely refrained from requiring Narani to lie.

The good gentleman lowered his eyes and bowed, ever so slightly. “As tightly so as your security is.”

Dual, then, one of Tabini’s own—it made perfect sense. As Bindanda was within Damiri-daja’s man’chi, and within Tatiseigi’s. And thatbound up within his household the same potent alliance as bound very important elements of the Western Association.

“Who will be your third?” he asked.

“Asicho,” Narani said, naming the young woman who attended Jago, at need. This was not the first young woman—and ask, Bren thought, in what merciless school Asicho had had her training, and to whom she was apprenticed.

“Accepted,” he said, not even asking to what other power Asicho might belong; and he wished he had Tano’s and Algini’s technical expertise, but in the field, and this was, he rather relied on Banichi’s. “Do as needful with the numbers. You have my complete approval, Rani-ji. You’re impeccable.”

“Nand’ paidhi,” the old man said, and gave a little bow and went to do what he knew how to do.

Absolute loyalty within the walls.

Betrayal straight from the top, from the aiji, it might be… and yet he was embraced by those in the aiji’s man’chi, who didn’t know they were betrayed. He tried to make that column of figures add, standing there like a fool in the hallway, and he couldn’t.

Because, dammit, he was feeling, not thinking. Standing between species as he did, thinkingwas a survival skill, feelingwas a useful barometric reading, and the job, the important thing wasn’t the survival of Bren Cameron—it was the accurate reading of situations that enabled Shejidan and Mospheira to survive.

And whatever the ship did or arranged, he couldn’t let it sell out those interests.

He took himself to the study to gather his wits, while his staff dealt with less abstract matters.

And, one world touching the other, a servant appeared, regular as clockwork, asking amid the necessary confusion whether he wished tea—he often did, when he ended the day.

“Yes,” he said. A little routine was good for him—reassuring to the staff. So he agreed to the tea, and sat, and stared at the walls, the familiar shelves, the environment he had designed, he himself, with his own hand.

His place. His creation. It wasn’t for him to resent being ripped out of it, sent off into danger as casually as he dealt with the servants.

Barometric reading? Betrayal was something he’d personally felt more than once with atevi. It was an emotion he’d most specifically learned to turn loose and forget, because the equations of behavior just weren’t the same, and a human couldn’t feel the tugs and pulls that made some decisions, for an ateva, logical and reasonable—even automatic, lest he forget. He’d been locked in Ilisidi’s basement and beaten black and blue, and he’d forgiven that; he’d been handed over to an enemy, and set up for assassination, and he understood that. Forgiveness didn’t matter a thing to an ateva who thought the decisions logical. Man’chi was man’chi and actions within it were all reasonable, when a lord needed something.

But there were puzzles.

Why would Tabini call him down to the planet for a completely empty mission? Why call him down for a small private talk that only discussed court gossip and then send him back again with not a word of what was coming?

Why, why, and why, when Ramirez was at death’s door and events were sliding toward the brink?

Granted Tabini had known that, in specific—was the whole ceremony down there only cover? A way for the dowager to get to Shejidan and then board a shuttle—but for some reason not the shuttle that carried him, though he had become inconsequential to the aiji’s plans?

Had his trip down and back been diversion, to attract the news services and raise empty questions, keeping the news away from Ilisidi? His presence was far more unusual than hers—and it had attracted notice.

Possible. Entirely possible. He could accept being used in that sense. It made perfect sense, and didn’t at all hurt his feelings.

But the timing—right before Ramirez’s death. Rightbefore the news broke.

No. Cancel that thought. Assassination wasn’t likely. The one thing, the one unintended event that let the cat out of the bag had been that worker with the injured hand, the one who’d overheard Ramirez giving Jase an emergency briefing. That had thrown everything public before the captains could move: thathad brought the acceleration in the program, when a couple of thousand crew found out they’d been deceived, tricked, delayed, and lied to. If not for that one accident, the surviving captains could have had a year or more to plan the mission.

Kroger had just arrived up here with the robots and the promise of an accelerated program, that was planned.

But Tabini had just turned over the management of his heir to Ilisidi. Then Ramirez died—and Tabini couldn’t admit himself surprised or disarrayed, not even for a death. He’d already turned Cajeiri over to Ilisidi—and had to stand by that, or not send Ilisidi, who was the only choice that wouldn’t create dangerous stress in the Association. Geigi would have been next most logical—but Geigi was western, and that was controversial.

So from the aiji’s point of view, Ramirez had needed to stay alive.

Ramirez, who hadn’t briefed Jase, which he’d clearly wanted to do, and did rashly at the last. The captains hadn’t made provision for a successor, or for a full complement of four captains, acting or permanent, for the ship in operation. So as a group, the captains hadn’t known. Onecaptain might have acted to remove Ramirez, and Sabin would have been his immediate suspicion, but he saw no advantage she gained.

And the three day departure? He didn’t know how long it took to prep a fueled ship for a mission from scratch. He did know that the ship never had been powered down, that it ran, continually, being a residency and training site for its crew, performing tests and operations the station couldn’t provide—so in that sense it had never shut down. Maintenance was always going on. Galleys were active. Provisions were always going aboard, to what level of preparedness they had never questioned. The ship’s machinery shops and production facilities, though micro-g, were warm, powered, and in constant use, from the first days, when Phoenix’smanufacturing facilities had been the sole source of parts and pieces for station repair. They still were turning out a good portion of station foodstuffs, most of the extruded beams—there was very little difference, in that regard, from crew engaged in station manufacture and those on shipboard production, except that some operations went better in micro-g and some went better in the station, where things naturally or unnaturally fell into buckets. Crew came and they went, one facility to the other, and various aspects of the ship—including the power plant—had never shut down.

So maybe the ship-folk never had bet their lives wholly on the station or on the planet below.

Maybe the ship had alwaysbeen three days from undocking and leaving, give or take the fuel to go anywhere in particular after undocking. He hadn’t asked, and Jase hadn’t told him what—to Jase—might be an underlying fact of life.

And now, in the paidhi’s longterm ignorance of shipboard realities, Phoenixcould just break away and go on a moment’s notice. Three days might be the captains’ notion of a leisurely departure. And the whole affair that had untidy strings and suspicious tags dangling off it—might not be the strings and tags of conspiracy, but rather of hastily revised plans, plans that had had to be changed in frantic haste… because the whole thing had been shoved into motion prematurely by Ramirez’s failing health.

Well, hecouldn’t solve it. His staff didn’t know the answer. As to whether Ramirez had explained the situation fully to Tabini, the aiji-dowager never gave up a secret, either, until she could get good exchange from it.

The simple fact was that they were going, and the dowager was going, and he was going, a headlong slide toward a cliff—beyond which he had insufficient information even to imagine his future.

And that meant he had to set his own private life in suspension; and it wasn’t tidy. It never had been tidy, or convenient, or well-packaged; and now was absolutely the worst time. He didn’t want to call the hospital and tell his mother– Oh, by the way, I’m leaving the solar system for a couple of years. Good luck. Regards to Toby…

He could send to Toby. He needed to. But he didn’t know what to say: Sorry you’ve been in the position you’re in and sorry I can’t help, but I’ve been kidnapped…

That was close to the truth, as happened, and he imagined Toby would be terribly sorry he’d hung up once he knew. Toby would be all sympathy for his brother, and he hadn’t any expectation the spat they’d had was a lasting one—well, bitter because it touched on very sore topics—but Toby wouldn’t think twice on his own misfortunes once that letter reached him.

But it wasn’t a letter he wanted to write cold, either. He wanted to say the right thing, which he hadn’t managed to do in the last few letters, or phone calls.

So what was there to do, then, while his staff packed and put together a suitable supper?

He answered memos from various departments, some incredibly mundane, one with a proposal for a new franchise for paper products, with a clever internal recycling option. On an ordinary day he might have been intrigued with it and spent energy chasing down advisors.

Today, he was sure the department in question had no remote idea what was on his desk… and he didn’t care if paper recycled or piled up in masses.

He couldn’t call Paulson or Kroger with what he knew, not until there was an official announcement—and he wasn’t in charge of the timing of that. Ilisidi was. The captains were.

He placed a call to Jase, on a small afterthought, wishing Jase would join him for supper, and met, not uncommonly, a wall at C1: “ Captain Graham has your calls at top priority.”