Текст книги "Defender "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Date.”

“ You got a flood of mail, I noticed.” That meant: Is there anything wrong I need to know?

“Yes, yes: the news broke. I’m up to my ears in it.” It was all Mosphei’ and ship-language, nothing hidden, and everything hidden: they passed information the way they’d learned to do in the Bu-javid, where every wall had ears, and most of all he took reassurance from Jase’s tone, and the simple fact that Jase was personally in touch. He knew about the tank. Jase had an immense amount to absorb; and he was utterly, terribly vulnerable when he did it. He wondered that Jase could find the courage, at the moment. “I’ll take care of it. As things stand, I’ll be packed in fairly short order; I understand the dowager is packed—”

“ Her gear is already boarded, along with some few personnel.”

“We’d better really get moving, then.”

“ First watch tomorrow is soon enough. If you wait until fourth, you’ll be mixed in with crew boarding. Senior captain’s expressed a preference to have all non-crew on before the board-call goes out. We’re leaving people. There’ll be partings. We want to give them room.”

We. Jase had finally included himself among the captains, mentally. “Understood. We’ll make it. No problem. We’re packed fairly light, considering. If you need to contact me, don’t worry about the hour.—And if you just want to stop by before that for a sandwich, we do compare more than favorably with the crew lounge.”

Jase seemed to be amused: at least he skipped a beat, and since Jase’s sense of humor usually vanished under stress, that response was reassuring. “ I’m sure. Take care. See you after undock– maybe before, but that’ll be on business.”

“See you,” he said, and gave the unit back to Yolanda. “He can’t get loose. But he seems all right.”

Yolanda had stayed and listened, with never a sign that he ought to extend the questioning.

“He seems fine,” she said. He trusted her instincts, at least on that issue. And his exchange with Jase—the sort they’d learned to make in Shejidan—was like old times, all the old signals, crisp on the uptake and easy in delivery. Jase was fine, at least as regarded his freedom and his safety now.

Jase was attempting to gain an expertise he’d hitherto dodged and defied. In no wise could he bring himself up to speed with this late start, but he could learn what was going on, what was routine and what wasn’t—if schedules meant the technical minutiae of ship-function, the things that should happen from undock to the moment they exited the solar system.

Jase wasn’t idle. He’d never thought it, but he began to understand what Jase seemed to be undertaking, finally—not wholly surrendering to Ramirez’s plan for him, no, he knew Jase’s stubborn self-will. Jase hadn’t given in. But Jase was far too clever to choose ignorance, either. Information came available to him, and Jase grabbed it while his feet were still—so to speak—on station decking, and before his range of choices diminished. Yolanda worried about his state of mind, and maybe a friend ought to worry about him battering himself against his own ignorance—but it was Jase: it was pure Jase, this headlong attack at a problem he could single out for his own.

Worry later, he thought. Right now Jase was doing things that made thorough sense to his longtime partner—if not the healthiest choice for a man who needed real sleep. There wasn’t much of that going on in his own apartment, either.

By supper, his staff adamantly, with a flourish, presented his favorite dishes, clearly determined that the paidhi should have a regular, sit-down meal and an hour-long hiatus in his problems.

After supper, better still, Narani reported their own packing complete, ready for boarding at any moment, while the ship-status showed 42% complete. The departure wasn’t moving on schedule, he was sure, and he hoped for a reprieve—any reprieve, from any source. Tabini saying, no, he didn’t have to go—that would do… though it wouldn’t happen, and it shouldn’t happen. There were worse things than going. Staying, while someone who’d make a mistake went in his place—that was worse.

He stayed up re-drafting letters until he knew he made no sense, and accidentally failed to store the right copies, three of them in a batch.

That was how things were going. He’d had two brandies, and sat staring at one of the pictures he’d chosen to take, thinking of camping on Mospheira’s north shore, and Toby’s yacht at anchor just off the cove.

Fire, fire on water, that night they’d fought off Deana Hanks’ hopes of a war, around the beached wreck of a boat.

They’d had some successes… the side of reason and interspecies sanity. They weren’t out of hope. They’d won the big ones.

But to this hour he’d utterly, wholly, failed his family. He didn’t have time left to do the things he needed to do, there wasn’t a relationship he had on the island that he hadn’t offended, and as things stood now, Barb had heard the news and learned he was on his way out of the solar system. He’d failed to send the letters he still had to send; he’d lost the draft, and his mother and his brother had to get the news the hard way.

So he had to get the letters written—again—not as good as they’d been before he lost the drafts, but the best he could.

On two brandies—he tried.

Dear Barb,

I have to thank you for your loyalty to my family, particularly in the last few years.

I can choose the right words for the job I do, but I never said the right things at the right time between us– maybe because I didn’t listen that well, maybe because I had too much of my attention elsewhere, and presumed too far… all of which is behind us at this point. We still rely on each other in ways in ways I have no right to ask– but knowing you’re where you are, where I can’t be, leaves me deeply in your debt. I hope, but have no right to ask, that you’ll shed some of the good advice you’ve given me on my brother and my mother.

I count on you, without a right or a claim, and I can only pile the debt higher. With more good memories than bad

—Bren.

He didn’t send, not immediately. He slipped it into an electronic folder to send when departure was imminent. The words finally came to him. The dam was broken.

Toby, by the time you read this you’ll know the situation, where I am and why I can’t be there. I can’t ask you to explain this one to Mother. I just want you to know I couldn’t have a better brother.

For your kids, for you and Jill… for all of you, I have to do this.

For all the rest of it,—

It was like writing a will. It might well be one. And he couldn’t dwell on the situation, or grieve over it—the job didn’t budget time for that.. It never had.

I wish you the life you need and deserve.

Maybe after this there’ll be time for me to pay you back at least a fraction of the favors I owe you. My fondest memory, the best human memory I have, is the sight of you at the rail of the oldMolly yacht, sailing in to save our skins. That, and you and the kids on the beach. I didn’t get a family, except yours. I wish I’d been a better brother.

I wish everybody my best.

At very least– forgive me the bad bits and be sure I’m thinking of you often.

He knew he ought to edit it. He knew there were two brandies on all that correspondence.

Dammit, what more could he say or do?

His staff was still at work—Jago, who had slept no more than he had; Banichi who, also, a certain number of years ago, had not cared whether the sun circled the earth or the earth circled the sun—it was, Banichi had said, immaterial to his job.

He supposed in a certain sense it still was immaterial to Banichi.

He tried to achieve that calmness of soul.

He took a deep breath and transmitted.

Chapter 15

The ship, by morning, miraculously stood at 92%, which argued that elapsed-time had nothing to do with whatever the ship was doing.

With that, too, came a page of loading instructions for all the in-quarters equipment, instructions which—after the initial computer scan did the very rough translation—contained only minor glitches to send the staff into fits of laughter. Don’t have sex with inappropriate equipmentwas the absolute favorite, which looked immediately to become a salacious proverb in the household. Always be playful with officersran a close second.

It was a profound relief to laugh—if the paidhi hadn’t a dire presentiment of a situation that might be all too frequent in Yolanda’s tenure—which perversely brought hysterical tears to his eyes. He wiped them, and tried to steady his nerves, especially when Yolanda exited her quarters to find out what the laughter was about.

Handed the document in question, she looked at it. “Playful,” she said, frowning critically.

Good for her. She’d caught that one.

And blushed at the other. “Oh, dear.”

There was hope, Bren thought, and went off to the study to quiet his nerves. But there one of the servants gave him the routine message list.

Nothing from the planet. A vast, deep silence from that quarter.

Blocked again? It might well be. Tabini wouldn’t want a smoothly-running operation distracted.

The fact that he had family in trouble—that didn’t register, on an international scale. It didn’t possibly register. He tried not to feel anything, not worry, not anger, not frustration: leave it to Toby, leave it to Toby, leave it to Barb.

Assuming his letters had gotten to them.

And still rely on them—because they were who they were, and they didn’tneed his advice, and it was only for their comfort that he wrote, not because they had to have a word from him. Wasn’t that the point? Wasn’t that what he had to rely on, ultimately?

He met briefly with the staff that would stay behind, Tano and Algini momentarily surrendering their posts to Jago. Narani attended to answer questions. The rest, those staying, were the youngest faces, including most of the female staff, the youngest over all—and given Yolanda within their care, Narani’s choice of the oldest of the women as chief of household seemed apt enough.

“Staff will come up from the world to assist at your request,” Bren told them. “If you request. In all points except courtesy to Mercheson-paidhi, you will still remain mystaff, nadiin-ji, with senior authority over the premises, and I leave you a letter with my seal to make clear that you have that authority. You’ll watch over my property and the integrity of security here, under Tano and Algini, who will be the ultimate authority in that regard, reporting where they deem fit. Please be circumspect in your actions, stay generally to the section, and consult with security in technical matters. Youwill act for Narani, and you will stand firm here. Only the aiji’s own directives can override my orders. Not Lord Geigi’s will nor anyone else’s—not Ogun’s, not even the aiji-dowager’s staff—will take the place of my orders, and you will not consult other households except through Tano and Algini, who may use their discretion whether to take an order from those sources. Do you agree? Staff will obey senior security in matters remotely regarding security. Mercheson-paidhi will have reasonable authority in the house, but you may refuse an order long enough to consult with Tano and Algini as to that order’s safety.”

There were deep flushes, suddenly extreme nervousness… the sort of young flightiness and uncertainty that he wished had a Narani in charge… he wished he could have two of that gentleman—indeed, two of everyone he was taking with him; but it wasn’t possible, and he had to rely on Yolanda’s honest intent and his servants’ discrimination regarding hazards.

“Security may indeed resort to lord Geigi or to the dowager’s men with any matter that requires their attention,” he said to them further, which was instruction mainly for Tano and Algini, “or that might suggest consultation. One trusts their discretion. And as for the staff in general, don’t ever hesitate to report a matter, however trivial, to security, at whatever hour. Better too much information than too little: you’ll learn what’s necessary. As for Geigi’s staff, or the establishment the aiji-dowager may leave, one is sure they’re very good, they’re discreet, and one believes, Tano-ji, Gini-ji, you can rely on their advice… as you can rely on Geigi’s or the dowager’s man’chi, if the matter is of mutual concern. Also, Mercheson-paidhi is within your charge, not the other way about. Make her comfortable, advise her, correct her as you’ve corrected me. She’s new to the office. She will make mistakes which will stem from foreignness, I am confident to say, rather than from fault in judgment.” Please God, he thought, saying so. “Support her with advice. Leave critical judgments to Tano and Algini. They will know.”

He rarely saw those two look worried. Even Algini gave him a look when he said that.

“I have every confidence,” he said.

The ship stood at 98%. They had an advisement for all non-crew to board.

Whatever went on in the offices, on the island, on the continent, even in the apartment, stopped being his problem.

God hope the house of cards he and Tabini had built lasted long enough to provide a pattern for the girders of a whole new world.

God hope he got home sometime close to schedule.

Could he ever have dreamed he’d be making this trip, a decade ago?

Ogun had trained crew, a newly-refurbished station, brand new factories and the plans for a starship… if the people he left couldn’t manage with those assets, he didn’t know what more he personally could do for them.

He had already dispatched Bindanda and Asicho to board ahead of them, with his written authorization, which he trusted ship security had honored, and now sent two of the servant staff with another authorization, with two motorized trolleys all loaded with their baggage—those just far enough ahead of them to make it through the lifts and checkpoints and not impede their progress. The dowager’s baggage was somewhat ahead of theirs, so staff advised him, also with authorized staff. Boarding for the rest of them—was down to the last minutes.

He and Banichi and Jago said their goodbyes to Tano and Algini in the security station, and again at the door—that was hardest.

One didn’t hug atevi, not as a rule. He broke that rule, for his own soul’s sake, and embarrassed them.

“It’s the human custom,” he said. “Indulge me, nadiin-ji, for my comfort, and take good care of yourselves. I value you very, very extremely.”

“We are most extremely honored,” Tano said, “paidhi-ji.”

“Bren-ji,” Algini said, and carefully, uncharacteristically, hugged him. Then Tano did. Bren all but lost his composure, and might have if, when he walked away, he hadn’t been in company with Banichi and Jago and Narani and the chosen servant staff.

They had increased their estimate of those going. More had found an excuse this morning– I wish very much to see this place, was one, and: My father would never forgive me if I left the paidhi-aijivied with I wish to leave my mother’s name in this far place.

Ship authorities had said they had room enough for a few extra. For the whole apartment, if they wished. So the list grew a little, and Narani recalculated the numbers and ordered more compartments opened, which one authorized, a simple message to the ship—no fuss, no extraordinary effort.

Could a human or an atevi wish better staff around him?

And walking down that corridor, realizing how close they were to boarding and how close he was to letting loose the reins of the unruly political beast he’d ridden breakneck for his whole adult career… he experienced a certain momentary euphoria.

“Baji-naji,” he said to Banichi and Jago in that giddy feeling. “Baji-naji, nadiin-ji, if it doesn’t work now, if Mercheson-paidhi can’t make it work, and if Geigi can’t, on what we’ve built—” He said it to convince himself, after his dark night of doubt. “—I don’t know what more I can do.”

“Bindanda has successfully boarded,” Banichi reported to him. “He reports the quarters are heated and lighted and he has set himself to stand guard at the entry, to establish a perimeter, pending arrival of the baggage carts.”

“Jase-aiji has communicated with Tano,” Jago added—electronically connected as ever, “and given clearance for the baggage and staff to board. We’re expected at our convenience, likewise the dowager, who will follow us.”

It all felt completely unreal of a sudden, as giddily impossible as it had seemed possible a second ago. He was a kid from Mospheira. He was a maker of dictionaries in a little office in the Bu-javid.

What in hell was he doing in the execution of an order like this one?

He had no business exiting the solar system. He felt the whole concept as a barrier, a magical line that, if he crossed it, would simply evaporate him, a creature that would burst like a bubble in the featureless deep of space.

Yet Jase had exited and entered several solar systems in his life. The ship did it as routine. Magic didn’t apply. He had no business being scared of the process, or supposing that disaster would swallow them up without a trace or a report. Hadn’t Jase had to have faith in boats, getting out on the sea for the first time, and figuring out that the sea was deep, and that he was balanced on a rocking surface high up—relative to the sea bottom. It didn’t matter that a body falling into the water floated and didn’t plummet straight to the bottom—it hadn’t convinced Jase’s gut. And knowing that this ship had done this again and again successfully—in atevi reckoning, were those not good numbers?

As the shuttles had good numbers?

Hell with that. He’d gotten more timid about airplanes, since flying the shuttle.

He’d begun to hold onto the armrests of airplanes, trying to pull the plane into the sky. Stupid behavior. Anxious, animal behavior. He told himself again and again what made airplanes stay in the sky… the way he’d used to tell Jase, who trulydidn’t like zipping along near a planet’s surface… and didn’t starships work on perfectly rational principles he just didn’t happen to understand as well as he understood airfoils?

In the station’s informational system, Banichi now reported, the ship had reached a mysterious 99% and holding.

“The dowager has decided to accompany us in boarding,” Banichi said further. “Her party will overtake us at the lift.”

So. So. A deep breath. Time to wait for protocols. He stalled his small party at the lift door.

In due time, at the dowager’s pace, with her staff and with Lord Geigi and his men for escort, Ilisidi and Cajeiri arrived and joined them at the personnel lift. The dowager was of course immaculate and fashionable in a red fur-cuffed coat, and the heir-apparent, neatly pig-tailed in the black and red ribbons of his house, wore a modest black leather coat, red leather gloves, and a quiet demeanor vastly different than his arrival.

Terrified, Bren thought with sympathy for the boy.

Sent from Tatiseigi’s ungentle care to Ilisidi’s and Cenedi’s, and now exiled to travel to the ends of creation in a human-run ship. Was ever a boy faced with more upheaval in his few years?

He was very glad Lord Geigi had come to see them off… considerable inconvenience, all the bundling-up for the cold core, a disturbance in the schedule of a man who got only a little more sleep than he had, Bren was very sure. Still, the man’chi was very tight, very sure, and it would have been sad had Geigi not stirred himself out to walk with them.

Hug Geigi? Not quite.

“Paidhi-ji,” Ilisidi said with a polite nod, the intimate address, acknowledging her traveling companion.

“Aiji-ma.” He bowed at the honor. “Nandi.” For Geigi, with human affection.

Banichi had called the lift, at the dowager’s approach. It arrived at precisely the grand moment.

“Young man.” Ilisidi offered her arm to her great-grandson, and the boy took it ceremoniously, escorting his great-grandmother with the grace of the lord he was born to be. They boarded. Cenedi and his men, and the dowager’s servants—small distinction between the two duties—held back. Geigi made a subtle wave of his hand, cuing himto move: thatwas the way it was, a difficult matter of protocols, and Bren moved, heart racing, thoughts suddenly a jumble of remembrance that, no, he was not demoted, and that Geigi, to whom he was accustomed to defer, gave place to him in the personnel lift—

As if he were higher rank.

Because he was leaving, perhaps, and numbered in the dowager’s party, not, silly thought, that the paidhi-aiji, if he even retained the title, in any way outranked the lord of the station. Empty honors, Tabini had paid him. The paidhi wasn’t any lord of the heavens, and hadn’t any claim to Geigi’s man’chi.

God, no. He didn’t want Geigi or the dowager to change the way they dealt with him. He didn’t want a paper title. He supposed it augmented his rank in dealing with Sabin… no matter it was meaningless, but he suspected Geigi was, if charitable, amused. He hoped Geigi wasn’t offended. He hoped the dowager wasn’t about to make some issue of it all.

He didn’t want any more. He wantedto retire to his estate on the coast for at least a month and look at the stars from the deck of a boat—Toby’s boat, at that.

Instead, the lift arrived, and they all fitted in, the same procedures they used when taking the shuttle down to the planet. He hoped that workers would communicate and the baggage wouldn’t stall in their path, and that it would all happen magically, so that the newly appointed lord of the heavens didn’t end up in interstellar space without shirts or Bindanda’s cooking supplies.

So much had to be a miracle. So much just sailed past his numb senses; and meanwhile he had to muster intelligent small-talk, in a station where the weather wasn’t a possible topic.

“So much done so quickly,” he said to the dowager as the lift rose.

“Did you hear from my grandson?”

“I did hear, aiji-ma.” He feared he blushed. And it wasn’t a topic he wanted to discuss, his elevation to mythical lordship. “One was very gratified by his letter.”

“Ha,” Ilisidi said, one of those ambiguous utterances. “Politics.”

And Geigi: “My staff is in communication with your quarters, nandi-ji.” Oh, he was glad to hear warmth in Geigi’s tones. “Does Mercheson-paidhi favor fish, do you think?”

“She will be greatly honored by your attention, nandi.” Fish was almost always safe. And he did remember. “She does favor melon preserves, extremely. All varieties of fruit.”

“Ah.” Geigi was pleased to have a personal knowledge. And his ability to get foodstuffs off the planet was scandalous. “One will manage.”

The apartment might be awash in melon preserves. “I’ll be in your debt if you can show my successor the refinements, nandi. One wishes she might have had the benefits of the dowager’s estate, as I did.”

“Ha,” Ilisidi said again. “Benefits, is it?”

“I found it so, dowager-ji. It taught me a very great deal.”

“The paidhi listened,” Ilisidi said, and tightened her grip on the boy’s arm. Gravity was at the moment only a function of the car’s movement. “As some should! Do you agree, boy?”

“Yes, mani-ma.”

“ Grandmotherwill do,” Ilisidi said sharply. “ Aijiwill do better. You have official rank here, if I say so, and we’ll see whether those shoulders are strong enough, yet. So I say, today. Who knows for tomorrow?”

“Yes, aiji-ma,” This quietly uttered, a young soul sharply keyed to the dowager’s voice—

Mechieti racing wildly on a hillside, breakneck after the dominant. Reason had nothing to do with it. Bren didn’t know why he flashed on that, of all moments when he’d nearly died. But it was the fact of native wildlife. It was the fact of atevi instinct: it was the nature of man’chi…

He witnessed it, he thought. He didn’t feel it. But he intellectually understood the boy had learned to twitch in certain ways to instincts that were life to his species, and held tightly to his grandmother’s hand.

That was reassuring to everyone concerned.

They braked. The door opened in a waft of cold pressure-change that frosted metal surfaces.

This time, however, it was not the old familiar sights—not the shuttle dock, with the hatch leading to whatever shuttle sat in dock.

It was dock 1, and a long snake of yellow tubing, which led, he understood, to another, grapple-reinforced tube, where Phoenixrode.

Baggage must have cleared. He didn’t see it.

“Well, well,” Geigi said, “it seems this is the place.”

“So one assumes,” Ilisidi said. Suited workers now appeared in the tube, out of the bend inside it. “One assumes we have an escort. Go, go back to reasonable places before you freeze, Geigi-ji.”

“Safe voyage,” Geigi wished them. “Safe travel, safe return, aiji-ma, Bren-ji.”

There were bows, such as one could manage, reaching out for safety lines strung along the wall.

Then Geigi and his men were inside the lift, they were outside, and the door shut at their backs with appalling finality.

Phoenixwas surely at the other end—intellectual knowledge, but with no view of the dock, only the tube leading to the hatch, it felt rather like being swallowed by some giant of the fairy tales.

The workers beckoned them on. Ilisidi didn’t question, rather proceeded down the handline in the only direction possible.

“One can’t sail off here, aiji-ma,” Cajeiri observed. “Are those the captains?”

“A sensible person wouldn’t try to sail at all,” Ilisidi retorted. “And those are workers. Don’t gawk. Don’t chatter. It burns the lungs.”

Burn, it did. Breath seemed very short. Or the paidhi was breathing very rapidly.

“A small load of baggage was ahead of us,” he said to the workers as they met. “It all should go to fifth deck, my possession.”

“Yes, sir,” the worker said. No argument, no delay, no fuss. “The tag was all in order. It’s well ahead of you. Go right along. Sir. Ma’am.”

Things went with frightening finality.

This is real, a small voice said to him, but for the most he felt numb—not as much fear of the trip itself as reason said was logical, rather more a sense of danger to the things he was leaving: fear of what might change while he was gone, family he might lose, people who might carry on their lives without him, and get to places and situations to which he was irrelevant.

I’ll come back, he said in his heart. I’ll make it back.

But that part wasn’t wholly in his hands any longer.

Now the unwinding of the yellow serpentine showed them an open hatch, and it swallowed them up, a large hatch, that had no trouble taking in all their party at once, with room left over for one of the workers, who punched appropriate buttons and threw switches. And bet that atevi security, his and the dowager’s, recorded those movements, and the accompanying confirmation of lights.

The outer door shut. Then the smaller of the inner doors opened, and their chill gusted out with them into a corridor as bare, as purely functional as the access tunnels on the station: panels with steady and blinking telltales, gridwork deck, ladders going up and sideways—a puzzle to a ground-dweller until a ground-dweller’s mind registered the obvious fact that he was drifting and didn’t even know which way was up. The air smelled vaguely of paint and plastics and something that could be oil, or solvent. Fans roared.

It was a tubular corridor—ending in a pressure door, again, like the station accesses.

“A grim place,” Ilisidi pronounced it, but alert to everything around her.

“This way, if you please,” their guide said: his clip-on badge, on a close look, was ship security. “Captain Graham’s compliments, I’ll be your escort to your quarters. Mr. Cameron, if you’d please advise everyone watch the doors as we go.”

“He presents felicitous greetings from Jase-aiji.”

“Who is not here!” Ilisidi said, displeased.

“Who is managing the ship to keep it safe, aiji-ma, and sends security to direct us past hazardous equipment. I’m very sure it’s proper.”

“We demand Jase.”

“Aiji-ma,” Bren said, “it’s by no means certain that Jase is physically on the ship.”

“Are we to believe that planning is so slipshod, as not to include any inquiry from us? Are we to believe that this is the degree of care which attends our voyage on this chancy vessel? We do not budge from this corridor until we have assurances.”

This very cold corridor, this corridor the cold of which had, after the deep chill of the dock, penetrated his coat and his gloves and started into his human-sized body.

But bluffing? No. Not Ilisidi.

“She demands Captain Graham, specifically,” Bren said. “Protocol requires it. So we’ll stay here.”

“You can’t stay here, sir. You’re in a traffic area.”

“I agree. I respectfully suggest this place is very cold, and I personally will be very grateful if Captain Graham is aboard, and makes every effort to get down here, so we can resolve this before we become a traffic problem.”

Their guide had a baffled look, and relayed that fact on his personal electronics: “Gran Sidi’s aboard and wants Captain Graham to take her to quarters immediately.”

There might have been discussion. Or incredulity on the other end.

“They’re in the corridor, sir, and won’t budge.”

“The aiji-dowager has suggested,” Bren added, “that if he fails to appear this would be a major breach of protocol, not auspicious at all for the voyage. Downright unlucky for the ship.”

The worker relayed that, too, as: “The aiji-dowager’s upset, ma’am, and Mr. Cameron’s saying it just has to get done. Something about unlucky for the ship.”

Another silence. And if there was a superstitious streak left among the crew it regarded the ship itself.

“Captain Graham’s in a meeting, sir.”

He could suggest they get Sabin down to the entry corridor if Jase wasn’t at hand; but he didn’t personally want to deal with Sabin, especially Sabin disturbed from her work.

But still—setting a precedent with the dowager demanding Jase, dealing with Jase—it made sense. It was a means of getting hands on Jase at will. So he bit his lip, refused to shiver or to show any discomfort at all. “I’m afraid we’ll stand here until he can find the time.”

The security man relayed that. Meanwhile Cajeiri examined a panel with a mere glance, then an inclination sideways. And received a severe tightening of the dowager’s hand on his arm, if the slight lift of his head was any sign.