Текст книги "Defender "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Well, not too surprising, considering: Jase wasn’t in a particularly festive mood and Jase had his hands full—besides which Jase had, at least marginally, family of his own to consider. Becky Graham was Jase’s mother—and Becky’s quarters might be where Jase had gone for an hour or two.

He hoped so. He hoped Jase wasn’t up to his ears in meetings with never yet time to stop and realize he had lost the one father he knew—the one parent, in that sense. Jase was hardly more emotionally related to Becky than he was to the long-dead hero who’d contributed the sperm—but he and Becky had each other in common, little as they ordinarily acknowledged the bond. Jase was on duty, asleep, or talking to Becky—and least of all wanting to have to justify decisions or give explanations of Ramirez’s actions to an old friend with problems of his own. Now that he thought it through, if Jase was on overload, and likely he was, it was hardly kind to add one more pressure—which was all it would be. He couldn’t move a ship’s captain back into the atevi domain where they could talk at will, as they’d used to; where staff could take care of him. He supposed Kaplan and Polano and now Jenrette did take care of Jase, in a subordinate sort of way, but when he considered Jase’s emotional resources outside that, it came down to Ramirez, Ramirez, Ramirez.

No wide attachments among the crew. No close friends among the crew except Yolanda Mercheson, who’d grown up into a partner and now, cutting through every other fact, an ex-lover. It had been a bad mistake, that liaison. It had soured a relationship and laid bare realities of their familial situation that just weren’t helpful.

And Yolanda being jealous and touchy of her professional prerogatives—justifiably jealous and touchy, since Ramirez had always favored Jase over her—man to young man. That had been hard enough; and ex-lover status seemed to put the coup de grace on the friendship. Ramirez had not only created two human beings, he’d monopolized their childhood, limited their associations, expected Jase to work miracles by his mere existence… and dropped him and Yolanda separately onto an alien world to learn to fit in. Then he yanked them off it the moment they succeeded, messed up their interpersonal relations by favoritism, having all his paternal notions fixed on Jase and being blind to Yolanda.

Then after advising Tabini he was having sudden, crisis-level health problems, he dropped dead, leaving his crew in a commotion, Jase and Yolanda bitterly wounded and generally messed up, and his allies pressed to act on a program he’d leaked to staff while he was dying. Jase was stuck in a rank he didn’t want, in a job he didn’t want. Yolanda had the job Jase did want. Not to mention Yolanda had wanted importance with the crew and never had had an emotional bond to her planetary responsibilities.

Damn Ramirez.

Hell and damn in general.

He was working his way into a piece of temper. He typed a letter to Jase—in Ragi, to confound C1’s perpetual snoopery:

On ship or on the station, our door is open at any hour. If you can by any stretch of argument persuade the ship council that having one of the captains closely resident with your atevi advisors truly makes good operational sense, you would be most welcome to reside here, among persons who would treat you most congenially, seeing to your every want.

Or if you simply have an overwhelming longing for pizza with green sauce, we would make every effort.

The Ragi language cannot convey every feeling I would wish to express: but Banichi and Jago would tell you that you are within this household, wherever your residence is compelled to be hereafter. Man’chi is not broken.

It was what they said at an atevi funeral, among those determined to maintain their ties when the essential link had gone. Man’chi is not broken.

Well, hell, Jase needed to know that. He decided he himself did, where they were both going.

He gave the letter to Tano to hand deliver to Jase, or to Kaplan or Pressman.

And he wrote to the ateva with the well-thought recycling program, and recommended it to Paulson. That was one problem off his desk.

He didn’t know what he could do about his family, his staff down on the mainland—he didn’t know how he could get hold of Toby, or whether he ought to try to talk directly to his mother. All the while he thought about the trip, with his irrational hindbrain insisting he was about to die.

And he wasn’t brave, and he didn’twant to know what it felt like when a starship played games with space and time and did things to human flesh and blood that nature never intended to happen.

What had begun as tension rapidly became indigestion.

“Banichi,” he said into the intercom.

“ He’s not here, nandi.” Algini’s voice, from the security office.

Surprising. He’d sent Tano out, but not Banichi.

“Jago?”

“ Jago has gone with Banichi.”

“When everyone gets back from not being here,” he said to Algini, “tell Banichi I asked, nadi-ji.”

“ One, will inform him that, nandi.”

Get an answer, not inevitably. But one would ask, on this day when nothing was casual.

“Nothing’s wrong, is it?”

“ Mospheiran crew is somewhat distressed, nandi,” Algini said. “ They’ve announced the flight.”

One could imagine somewhat distressed.

And it was headed, now, for the news services. His family would hear. And hedidn’t have the rank to get past Geigi, or Paulson.

“If news services call,” he said to Algini, “I will talk to them.”

The station was in increasing disturbance. His staff was ghosting about on mysterious errands. He’d almost expected a summons from the dowager this evening, but none had come. So Bindanda’s preparations advanced. He heard muted activity in the dining room, service prepared.

The front door opened and closed. One of his missing staff was back. He took comfort in that, hearing the quiet tread that approached his door—Narani, with a report: he knew before he looked up.

“Nand’ paidhi,” Narani said, “Banichi is back. He has Mercheson-paidhi with him.”

Yolanda.

There was a disconcerting surprise.

Yolanda—who stood to inherit his job, his place—everything he valued—everything Jase wanted… who wasn’t the most skilled, where she was assigned, and where she had been operating…

God—he was jealous.

Where had thatcome from? When had thathappened?

Jealous that she was staying.

Angry that she’d deceived him and Jase.

Furiously jealous. Bitterly, painfully resentful. He’d kept the lid on his personal wishes so tightly and so automatically he rarely brought them out to look at, and therewas a small, nasty surprise. He didn’t want her under his roof—so to speak.

Not profitable to carry on a feud. No.

He got up, put on his jacket for manners’ sake—atevi custom—and walked out to deal civilly with an unwelcome guest who’d arrived—unthinkable among atevi—uninvited, at dinnertime.

Chapter 13

“Staff was about to serve,” Bren said, meeting Yolanda in the foyer, intending to issue the polite invitation.

“I’m very sorry,” she said fervently, in Ragi—which went a long way toward patching things with him.

“Do join me.”

“Forgive me,” Banichi said, having escorted Yolanda here. “Nand’ paidhi, Mercheson-paidhi expressed concerns. One took the initiative to accept.”

Yolanda’s instigation, this visit, then… but not the way he’d expected.

“Mercheson-paidhi is an absent household member.” He chose to regard it that way, which Yolanda Mercheson never had quite been, in his cold estimation. She’d been in the household for a time, on the planet, Jase’s lover for a while, until that hadn’t worked. Then back to Mospheira. Then back to the ship where she’d far rather live. “Staff will manage another setting. One trusts you have an appetite, Mercheson-paidhi.”

“One is grateful,” Yolanda said meekly, not quite meeting his eye—but then, an atevi caught in social inconvenience wouldn’t meet his eye, either. Already there was a small flurry of service in the dining room, staff shifting chairs, not yet knowing how to arrange the numbers, or whether Banichi would join them.

“Banichi, will you join us?” Banichi’s presence at least eased the unlucky numerology of two at table. You brought her; you patch the numberswas implicit in the invitation, and Banichi accepted, commitment of his own very valuable time—but there they were, Jago still absent—one supposed if something were wrong, someone would say so. Tano and Algini doubtless had their heads together, possibly assuring Jago’s safety, or good records, wherever she was. That left Banichi.

He entered the dining room with Yolanda and Banichi, sat down, went through the formalities due any guest. They duly appreciated a fine, if informal dinner, the tone much as if Yolanda still were a member of the household.

And formal or informal, one didn’t talk business—rather the quality of the food, the skill of the chef—the arrival of the aiji-dowager might have been a good topic, if the implications of it were business-free, but they weren’t and it wasn’t. The departure of the ship would have been a fine topic, if it were guilt-free and casual; but it was neither guilt-free nor casual.

So talk ran to the weather on the continent, the launch, the situation at the new spaceport, and the lack of news from Yolanda’s former domicile on the island, which did actually skirt business topics.

Dinner came down to a delicate cream dessert—which Yolanda had always very much favored.

“One grew so accustomed to luxuries,” was her only expression of regret.

He let that remark fall. That wistfulness, too, led to inappropriate seriousness. And Yolanda very clearly savored the dessert, and pleased Bindanda and the staff.

“Will you join me in the study?” Bren said at the end. “A glass or two?”

Thoroughly courteous. All business, now.

He had no cause to resent Yolanda—so he assured himself. Of course he and Yolanda should consult, and of course Banichi was absolutely right to have brought her.

“Jago’s about business?” he asked in passing.

“One believes she’s with Cenedi, nandi.”

“Ah.” A briefing. Information. One could only hope.

“Shall I attend you?”

“One might look in on that meeting.” There was no reason to take up more of Banichi’s time. Yolanda clearly had not come on a hostile mission. There were, among other things, pieces of ongoing business and certain addresses and numbers he had to hunt out of files and give to her before he left, and before he forgot to do it.

“Yes,” Banichi said, and left them to the study and the brandy, the servants caring for the service and the numerology alike, quite deftly and silently. Brandies arrived, and chairs configured for three immediately found another fortunate configuration, ameliorated by a small table and a small porcelain vase empty of flowers.

“I have things for you,” Bren said, for starters, and to let the brandy and a necessary task take the edge off his resentment before they reached any discussion.

So with a glass of brandy beside him and the computer in his lap, he did that, a few seconds’ work, and handed her the file personally.

“This is a matter of trust,” he said, “nadi-ji.” It was the work of several moments to manage that intimate salutation, that particular tone.

She took it soberly and slipped it into a shirt pocket.

“I’ve given you the addresses of persons who will assist you, on the island,” he said further, in ship language, “and I’d advise you to use those channels far more than the ones that tried to get close to you when you were down there. I can assure they doanswer their phones. I’ve also included Shawn Tyers’ private number, if you didn’t have it.” He wasn’t utterly sure she didn’t. “Several others.” Barb’s number was on the list. Toby’s. People he didn’t want remotely involved in any mess Yolanda might make of things, but he tried to have faith in her good sense, and they were resources she ought to know. “I’ve also given you contacts with my staff on the mainland, and you can rely on their advice. Some individuals aren’t official. It’s my personal list. Treat them gently.”

“I understand,” she said.

“You did surprise me,” he said then.

“Coming tonight?”

“Dealing with Ramirez.” He hit her with the question head-on, wondering what she would say for herself, whether her counter would be smug, justified satisfaction—in which case he meant to keep a good grip on his temper.

Smugness wasn’t her response. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell Jase. I couldn’t.”

On evidence of the tone and the expression—he might believe that, but belief still didn’t muster the personal feeling he wished he had for her. “Secrets are hell on a relationship, aren’t they?”

He wished he hadn’t said that. Instantly Yolanda’s lower lip compressed, eyes showed wounding. Deep hurt, quickly held in.

“No question,” she said in ship-speak. And she sat back and seemed to set the armor that covered all her soul, dealing with him, dealing with Jase.

He talked frankly to her after that, warnings, bits of advice about individuals and matters she did know to watch out for. Armor stayed. In a certain measure it made frankness easier. It always had.

Regarding Tabini himself: “I know you have a good relationship with him,” he said, on that delicate topic. “I know you do, or he wouldn’t deal with you. But take two warnings—infelicitous two. Don’t back down from his baiting you. If he thinks you fold rather than argue with him, you’ll be out of his confidence in a heartbeat.”

“I’ve learned that,” she said. “What’s the other?”

“Tell him the truth.” That she pursued the numbers—at least on a small scale—was encouraging. “Third point, fortunate three: listen carefully to what he advises. There’s no one on the planet more dangerous than Tabini. Or smarter. Witness he’s survived all the assassins aimed at him—partly by being so good and so steady in office that even his detractors find a use in his being there. That’shis real success. I learn tactics from him—constantly. I hope you will. Quite honestly—” He made another real try at mending the interface he’d messed up, much as the effort seemed a forlorn hope. “Quite honestly I’m jealous as hell of your being where you are, and a little upset—well, a lot upset—at not being advised of what you were doing.”

“His order,” she said in a low voice.

“Tabini’s? Or Ramirez’s?”

“Both.”

“But who initiated?” What she said tweaked something sensitive, something to which she might be oblivious. “Who contacted whom—first requiring your services?”

Maybe she’d hoped to get out of here without discussing that matter. Maybe it was something she’d been both stalking for an opening and dreading all along. But she answered seriously, meticulously. “I honestly don’t know who did. Ramirez called me in. I don’t know whether Tabini-aiji had called him directly or he’d called the aiji.”

“It would be very useful to know that. But notto remark on, understand. I mention it for your safety. Always know details like that.”

“There was no way to know.”

Her perpetual defensiveness set him off. And he refused to let it do that, this time. There wasn’t the leisure any longer to reform Yolanda. Only to use her services. “Some things it’s necessary to know. Some things it’s unexpectedly critical to know. I’m not faulting you, understand. I’m advising you to the best of my own experience in this situation. In the interest of everybody on the planet down there, I desperately want you to succeed. I want you to do better than I ever did at reading the aiji. I want you to so far eclipse me that you’ll never get caught unprepared. Which means you’ll never get anybody killed. And I’m not sure I can claim that.” Yolanda didn’t understand him or his motives any more than she understood the minds of Mospheiran shop owners… and far less than she understood Tabini, to his long-term observation. She was a spacefarer and if an event or an attitude hadn’t any precedent on the ship—Yolanda didn’t see it. She flatly didn’t see it.

“The aiji scares hell out of me,” she admitted then, the most encouraging statement he’d ever heard out of Yolanda Mercheson. “And I’m not you, and I can’t deal with him the way you do.”

“Be afraid of him. But don’t show it. Stand up to him, and show deference at the same time. Balance the two. And you have my good wishes.” God help us, he thought to himself. She didn’t show fear because she didn’t always know when she wasin danger. But she wasn’t the only one with blind spots. He’d come in that blind. He’d spent a night in Ilisidi’s basement learning that lesson. He’d had his arm broken, learning that lesson. “All right. That’s your province. You have to learn. You will learn. Turnabout, advise me—what am I up against on the ship? How do Imake headway?”

She hadn’t seen that question coming, either. She drew a deep, deep breath. “You mean with Sabin?”

“ Andthe crew.”

“Crew is easy. They know who you are. They approve. More than that, ‘Sidi-ji is their darling and you’re with her. Truth is, everybody detestsSabin. Granted they’re both cold as deep space rock, the dowager and Sabin both—‘Sidi-ji smiles at them. That makes all the difference.”

“You know that smile’s not necessarily a good sign.”

“I know, but they don’t know it, and they worship her. Besides, I think she likes it. Well, likeisn’t it, is it?”

“Like’s fine with things. Not people. There’s your difference. She likes their approval. She doesn’t likethem, because they’re not in her association. Think in Ragi when you think about atevi.”

“She favors their applause.”

“She drinks it like good brandy. If they’d only worship Sabin, Sabinwould warm up, don’t you think?”

He saw the body language, disengagement from the very concept. “Not likely. Not ever likely.—But Sabin gets the ship through. We don’t have to like her. If the ship itself’s in trouble, I’ll promise you, you want Sabin on deck.”

“Next question. Do you want her in negotiations?”

Another long breath and a deeply sober thought. “Only if you plan to nuke the other side.”

“Major question. Is she for us, or is she for the authority that sent you here? Does she likewhat we’re doing here? Or is she against it?”

That brought another moment’s thought. “Honestly, I don’t know for sure. I don’t think Ramirez knew… she doesn’t like atevi, she doesn’t like Mospheirans, and I’m not sure she likes the crew, for that matter. The best thing is, she won’t be here, making decisions. Don’t ever say I said that.”

“Encouraging,” he said. So he’d asked the questions. He’d had his answers, all he knew to ask for. Except one. “Did Ramirez tip Tabini off, that he was dying?”

The question scared her. She was far too readable. Far too readable, still, for safety in court.

“ Face,” he snapped, as he’d used to say to Jase, as he’d said to Yolanda more than once. And expression vanished from her face, well, at least that one vanished—quickly replaced with a frown.

“I thought I could be honest with you,” she said.

“You can be. You’d better be, for about five more minutes. Then give expression up for the duration, except inside this apartment, with this staff. Damned uncomfortable pillow, the secrets on this job. Did he tell Tabini?”

“He told him. Therapy wasn’t taking. He was having mental lapses—that’s the truth, Bren. It scared hell out of him, more than the heart condition, because he was forgetting things. And he told me to tell Tabini to get ready, that there wasthe alien threat, that the world had to get ready, that the ship had to be ready, constantly…”

“On three day’s notice?”

“On three minutes’ notice,” Yolanda said. “We’ve been able to pull out of here at any moment, for the last three months—with whatever crew could get aboard. But we haven’t done that. We told Tabini the truth about the aliens and about the situation back on the station, and we asked for fuel so if some armed ship showed up we had some fighting chance against it. And, ultimately, so we could go back and settle what has to be settled back there.”

“Meaning.”

“Meaning to get that station shut down. Make the gesture. Aishimaran to thema.”

Almost untranslatable: sweeping the boundary. Clearing troublesome disputed areas from an associational edge. Atevi neighbors would exchange property to achieve border peace, in a world with neither boundaries nor borders as humans understood the term—a process arcane and fraught with hazard.

“Tabini’s word?”

“His word.”

“Probably describes it very well. But that program in itself has an assumption—that the gesture will be read the way humans oratevi would read it.”

“But we have to do something.”

“Third assumption,” he said. “You’ve already done something, in staying out of there. Now you think there’s no choice but go back. But that’s out of my territory, too. I can’t claim I know what’s wise to do. Two smart men, on more facts than I have, agreed it was a good idea.—Did Ramirez intendto die?”

“He was having attacks. The fueling being finished—he was talking with Tabini about breaking the news. About timing in telling the truth. Then the robots were ready. And the day he heard that, he had an attack. He worked past it. I knew.” She tried to keep the still, dispassionate face. “Ogun knew he was in trouble. I don’t think Sabin did, but I’m not sure. Then the last attack. And he wanted to talk to Jase, I guess. And he should have left it to me to brief Jase, because it wasn’t secure there in the clinic, but there were probably other things he wanted to say, too.”

“Like?”

“Things he’d say to us. Personal things. Like apologizing for having us born. For putting on us what he’d put on us. Not quite a normal life, is it?”

Bitterness. Deep bitterness. Maybe it wasn’t wise to answer at all. But he did. “Most of us don’t have normal lives,” he said. “Especially in this business.”

“But were you always paidhi-aiji? Didn’t you grow up? Jase and I—we’d have liked to have known our fathers. We’d have liked to have something but a necessary, logical, already made choice. We’d have liked to fail at something without it being a calamity that involved the Captain’s Council.”

“I don’t envy you in that regard. But you came out sane. And decent. And worthwhile. It’s what we do, more than who we are, that makes our personal lives a mess. If we didn’t do what we do for a job, ordinary people might figure out how to get along with us.”

“Jase and I tried to make a relationship. We tried being teammates, we tried being lovers—not having any other candidates. We weren’t good at it. Something about needing to be loved to know how to love, isn’t that the folktale? We’re kind of defective, Jase and I, in that regard. Really confused input, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think.” Atevi society wasn’t a good place for a human with a problem with relationships to work it out. Himself, with a relationship in shambles and his own brother not speaking to him, he knew that. “You’re all right. You’ll beall right. Life’s long. Hold out till we get back. You’ll have a household around you. Mine. While I’m gone, I want you to come here. Live here in my household.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Advice: do it. They’re the best help you can get. And you won’t be alone. Believe me.”

Her lips went thin. He wondered if she knew where his comfort came from, or the situation he had with Jago. He was proof against anyone’s disapproval, outside the household.

And he knew what he was asking of his household, to take her in, but he saw in her the signs that had taken other paidhiin down—the isolation, the sense of alienation, the burden of untranslatable secrets.

“Here is safe,” he said. “For one very practical reason—you may become a target—take my offer. And trust these people. Completely.”

“I don’t trust. I don’t trust people.”

“Learn. With them, learn.”

Deep breath.

“Listen to me,” he said. “You can’t debrief everything in your own language. You needatevi you can trust to talk to. If you’d had someone to ask about Tabini, in Ragi, it would have helped—wouldn’t it?”

That made itself understood. Resistance weakened.

“All right. All right. I’ll see if I can arrange it.”

“You don’t see if you can arrange it, Mercheson-paidhi. You do it. And listen to me. One more question, one more sweeping question: is there anything else I’d better know? Is there anything else you suspect that Ramirez might have told Jase, that you wouldn’t have been able to tell him in a briefing? Anything you’ve suspected, or knew parts of?”

A shake of the head. “No.”

One very last question. “Why in helldidn’t you come to me?”

“ Tabinimight not have liked it. I didn’t know what to do.”

That wasn’t quite the defensive answer he’d expected. It made sense; and that set him a little off balance. “I could have kept your question secret.”

Hesitation. “The Old Man was pretty sure you wouldn’tkeep something from Tabini. That man’chibusiness. And I told him what I thought I ought to do, which was ask you, but he wouldn’t risk it. He said that was why he called mein.” A moment’s silence. “He didn’t ask Jase. I guess he thought Jase would tell you everything. Jase’s attached to the planet. But I live here. He was the Old Man. My Old Man. That’s all the logic I had to go on. I didn’t want to be where I was. I didn’t want to keep the secret. But I didn’t know how to turn it loose or whether things would blow up if I did. And by then I knewwe didn’t have the time we thought we did.”

“I know what you’re saying. I appreciate you made a decision the best you could with what you had to work with. And I appreciate the line you’ve tried to walk, solo, trying to preserve your worth to the situation. But the situation’s vastly changed. That’s why I want you inside the household, so you’re never confronted with an atevi question without advice. You know they could have advised you how to deal with Tabini—if they’d been yours to ask. And in time to come,” he said levelly, “and when we get back, you can even tell me and Jase the truth. We’ll all three sort it out. I think this has all finally become the same side.”

“You trust Jase?”

Shocking question. It shook him.

“You don’t.”

Her doubt might be the aftershock of a relationship between her and Jase that hadn’t worked.

“He loved Ramirez,” Yolanda said. “He was wholly committed to Ramirez. And Ramirez didn’t trust him—because of his relationship with you, I’m reasonably sure that was the whole cause. But Ramirez didn’t trust him, in the end. You’re upset with me, with what you found out was going on. Jase isn’t. Jase is taking Ramirez’s dying just too well. Too sensibly.”

“He learned in Shejidan, maybe.” But he didn’t discount the question.

“But it hurts. It hurts, Bren. And he’s not showing it. And I can’t talk to him.”

“You’ve tried?”

“I leave messages: talk to me. No answers. Jase didn’t like what he heard. He’s mad at me. Really mad at me. I think that I wasworking with Ramirez, and that Ramirez went to me—that stung.”

Jase wasn’t the young man who’d parachuted onto the planet. And that fact, perhaps, had foredoomed Yolanda to find her own way through the thicket he and Jase had made of their association… and foredoomed not to get answers, and to be even further on the outside.

Association, be it noted: aishi. Aishihad that troublesome word, man’chi, nestled right in the midst of it. He and Jase hadn’t dealt with one another like two humans, in Mosphei’, where friendshipexisted, where friendshipmight have swallowed down some of the problems in silence. Instead they’d dealt in Ragi, one of them with a man’chion earth, the other with his captainin the heavens. They’d found a means of working around the friendshippart, thanks to aishi, thanks to the organization of the household, where everyone under the same roof had the same set of motives, the same interests, the same imperatives and acted accordingly, in that clearly foreign matrix.

And Yolanda?

Yolanda had landed instead in that generations-deep nest of conspiracy and humanly seductive friendshipsover on the island of Mospheira, after living in her close-knit crew. On Mospheira she’d rapidly learned the finer points of being on no side, of being the one true outsider in a society where there wereno outsiders. All the lessons of the ship to a factor of ten. And being in a matrix that wasn’t as clearly foreign—that assaulted her human emotions with promises that didn’t pan out. Always the outsider. Always the target.

“I’ll try to patch things with Jase,” he said. “I’ll give him your message, for both your sakes. I hope you believe I’m on the level.”

“I know what you once said to me. I said it to myself all the time I was working with Ramirez.”

“What’s that?”

“That if a side in a dispute doesn’t have somebody they think is working only for them—”

“An honest broker.”

“If they don’t have that, they can do something dangerous to everyone. So that’s what I always told myself I was. An honest broker. I was somebody working only for Ramirez, somebody who’d argue with him. The Old Man’s dead, now. Now, I’m not quite working for Ogun. But Tabini’s asked me to work for him. And I’m going to have to choose. I know I am. And you’re saying go with the atevi, and maybe—maybe that’s what I have to do, now. But I’m scared—”

“Good. Be scared. But don’t be overwhelmed. That’s where the household support will save you.”

“It may save me. But what will save Jase? He’s hellbent for going. He’ll be with Sabin, trying to make her look as good as possible, trying to mediate her decisions—trying to keep the peace aboard. That’s not good, Bren. That’s not good for him, because he was Ramirez’s, not hers, and he hates her. He really does. And on this mission is the last place he ought to be. Hear what I’m saying: he’s alone. He’s going to need help. You’re what he has. Don’t fail him.”

He considered the equation. The warning. All of it. Was it after all, love? “I won’t promise you. I won’t.” They’d gone about as deep as they could, each holding the other’s interests hostage, each of them being where the other wanted most to be, each of the three of them given what another of the three most wanted to have. “Meanwhile you get to stand between atevi and humans until I get back. You’ll have carte blanche with my staff they’ll give you. I have the links, the communications, the staff, and the experts you need. Half my staff, understand, are spies, useful spies. Don’t let on you know, even if they know you know: it’s just not done and it’ll make things impossible. Listen to me: wear the clothes, dreamin the language; think in it. My remaining staff will see to your every wish. Down there, Tabini and Damiri will likely ask you to dinner, in which you have no choice. Staff will prime you on protocols. Observe them as you observe safety drills. Your life rides on it. The whole alliance rides on our survival.”