Tracker (29 page)

He's more than a kid. But he
is
a kid.

He won't disobey his great-grandmother. He probably won't disobey me.

But if something untoward happens—

I know which way he'll
want
to jump.

But man'chi overrides.

He
is
atevi. He's definitely become that, since he was last off the planet.

The speaker came live.

“This is an express flight,” word came from the captain. “We will enter prolonged acceleration once we reach switchover, so it will be some time until we become weightless, but you will experience a gradual feeling that the shuttle is becoming vertical, and the center aisle will become a long fall for the duration. Keep your seatbelts fastened, and for the safety of others, do not attempt to retrieve items from storage. A period of free fall will follow when you can safely move about. I shall advise you again before our prolonged braking and maneuvering to dock. Whenever you are in your seat, it is a good idea to have the seatbelt fastened. Remember that the aisle will be, for anyone above the last three rows of seats, a very serious fall, endangering others below. Whenever you are moving about in free fall, please clip to the line that runs fore and aft on what is now the ceiling. Please use the clip at your seat to secure any object that you are actively using and please put such objects away securely when not in use.

“Please attend any personal needs before takeoff, or wait for the inertial portion of our flight. If you have any emergency during acceleration, please push the button at your seat to advise us.”

Bren read the information card. Even last year, they'd upgraded the flight protocols to include the express routing, and, to his slight surprise at the time, they hadn't needed him to do it.

The thought of instructions written by computer was a little scary. But they read fairly well, considering.

Computers likewise laid out their course—but one trusted the course plot was a little better than their grammar.

Warning sounded.

Deep breath. He watched the screen as the service vehicles pulled away.

They began to roll a startlingly short time later, gathered speed as the view began to be sky and a very low horizon. Airborne.

No weather, no obstacles now. They went on climbing, and Bren sat and watched the display as the power began to press them back in their seats and changed the orientation of
down.

The engine-switchover when it came was sleek and smooth, and they went on climbing. The view in the screens had been blue, then more than night—deeper, and colder, because they weren't on Earth any longer.

No phone calls were likely. Nobody would come knocking on the door with a problem.

And there was nothing to do but sit and imagine what was out there in that darkness, and wonder what they wanted, and to try to rehearse, in his own head, what he could say to Tillington to get the man to take dismissal quietly.

What could develop next.

What he could do about Braddock.

He had a recorder with him, a wonderfully tiny device, that stored all the records they had made of kyo speech, of their conversational sessions, such as they were. He put the earpiece in, started it going, put his mind to work, tired as he was, hoping that it might calm his nerves enough. He
didn't
want to rely on the pills for sleep. He needed mental acuity.

The kyo voice—a human couldn't reach that pitch. Possibly atevi couldn't. There were distinctions hard to hear.

And it wasn't calming. It was a case of trying to resurrect the thoughts he'd had then, the tissue of supposition and guesswork that he'd framed around the language. Long hours on the voyage after, he'd made his records, tried to construct the grammar, the logic, get sense of a language unlike any he'd worked with. He had his computer, up in storage. There was that.

There was so damned much to do that he hadn't even been able to touch, with the need to handle logistics, trying to think of every little thing they might need.

He had had no time to handle the most essential thing—which was in the recording, in the notes he'd taken. He could reconstruct it in his head, but he wanted confidence the reconstruction was accurate. He counted on the time the flight would take, to peel away the two years between himself and that time.

God, there were so damned few words. How did he turn a vocabulary of nouns into an exchange about reasons, necessities,
safety
for everybody involved?

Jago, in the seat next to him, touched his arm.

He blinked, drew his mind back from the place he'd been.

Jago said, “Bren-ji. Crew advises there is a transmission from Mospheira, wishing your attention. They believe it may be the Presidenta, or some message from him.”

They were no longer in the purview of the Messengers' Guild, now: station shuttle ops and Mospheiran ground services would be handling communications. But given the hour . . .

Tillington's staff would be handling Central at this hour, and while they didn't control ops, which for an atevi shuttle would all be Geigi's people, they were on duty and able to eavesdrop on any communication that flowed in Mosphei'.

He took the handset with some trepidation, hoping Shawn's office was aware of that fact.

“This is Bren Cameron. Advising you this is not a secure transmission.”

“Bren. Shawn. Looking for an official word from your office, in your old capacity, if you will, no need for secrecy at this point. News of the ship has been released here on the island. Understand the same on the mainland. There's some general distress about this arrival here, and some confusion. Is there anything we haven't heard?”

Shawn wasn't informing him about Tillington. The call was purely a call for the record, now that, as Shawn said, the news had broken. The public needed information.

But
in your old capacity?
Shawn hadn't invoked him as a Mospheiran government official since he'd come back from Reunion. And he hadn't
served
as a Mospheiran official in the last three years.

Maybe it was a comfort to Mospheira to think they had him on duty on their behalf. It was all right with him if that was the case.

And they needed a speech. All right. He could do that, ex temp. He had his wits in good enough order for that.

“As far as I know, Mr. President, there's nothing much to tell beyond the early reports. We've gotten a patterned signal, identical to what we had at Reunion, and we're responding the same.

“We think it's a very good bet, given that exact signal, that that incoming ship carries the individuals we dealt with in deep space. We parted on good terms.

“These people come from a very, very great distance, at considerable effort. It seems to be only one ship, very likely a combination of diplomatic mission and scientific inquiry.

“We're going up as the original contact team, the persons who last dealt with these people. The mission includes the aiji-dowager, myself, and the aiji's nine-year-old son, so you can see the aiji has considerable confidence that this will be a peaceful meeting.

“We expect to start the conversation with them exactly where we left off.

“We have the help and support of the
Phoenix
captains and we're quite confident that this will go as amicably as the last meeting did.

“And should anyone ask the obvious question, there's no reason at all to expect that these people will want to land on our planet. Their normal gravity is a little off from ours: it's not likely they'd be at all comfortable on Earth for an hour, let alone a longer stay.”

God, he so wanted to ask Shawn where things stood with the Tillington situation. But he wasn't going to trade that information in this conversation.

“That's my answer, Mr. President. My best estimate. I hope everything is going well there. We're having a good flight, preparing for our mission. I'm reviewing our language study on the way. We expect them to come to the station, possibly to wish to meet ship to ship. In either case, we can manage.”

“All's well here,”
Shawn said.
“We're keeping our regular launch schedule, right down your track, so we hope you will be able to clear dock for us up there.”

Right down your track. Express. And only two days behind them. Shawn hadn't said Presidential envoy, but pressing the shuttle dock facilities that tight—that was no freight run, either. He understood. Anybody who understood space operations would understand.

Tillington, whether he was listening now, or whether he got the word from ops, would understand it, very clearly, that the President was sending something.

“The technical lads are muttering about sequencing and docking room up there, but they'll cope. No problems that we foresee.”

“Thank you, Mr. President. We'll urge that our shuttle be moved out of the way as soon as possible. We don't have that much to unload.”

He
hoped
for Kate Shugart. God, he hoped for Kate Shugart to be Shawn's appointee.

But he still couldn't ask that question and Shawn wasn't advising him before advising Tillington—
if
Shawn decided to advise Tillington.

That gave them two days on the station deck with the kyo incoming, both halves of the station aware of the kyo, Tillington in charge and the china all balanced in tall stacks, as the atevi proverb had it.

“Have a safe trip,”
Shawn said.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” he said, and the contact shut down, leaving him with the unsettling realization he had just gotten his official Mospheiran title back.

His connection to the University and the State Department apparently was renewed along with it.

So he was going to have to speak for Shawn, too, without quite speaking for Shawn, until the Mospheiran shuttle got there with whatever news it brought.

Springing a replacement as a total surprise, two days after their arrival—that was going to be a dicey moment.

But a hell of a lot worse if Tillington decided to resist removal.

Have a safe trip.

Good luck,
was what Shawn could well have wished him.

His brain had been full of surmises about kyo grammar and sentence structure.

Now he had to map a meeting with Tillington. In case.

And a meeting with Ogun, to explain it all.

Jago, sitting beside him, gave him a questioning look. The exchange with Shawn had been via the earpiece. Atevi hearing could pick up the voice despite the ambient noise of the shuttle under power, and Jago understood more of the language than the University on Mospheira would like. But Jago would not pick up all the verbal code behind the words.

She queried him in the mere arch of a brow.

“The Presidenta asked me official questions, only so he can relay my answer to the news services, regarding the visitors. The real news is that the shuttle from Mospheira is running only two days behind us. I believe he
is
sending someone to replace Tillington. He also addressed me as paidhi representing Mospheira.”

“Has there ever been another paidhi?”

“No.” One couldn't count Yolanda Mercheson. “None in the last three years.”

Jago gave a tip of her head, less surprised than he was, he was sure.

And a lot more confident.

“I hope for Kate Shugart,” he said. “I hope there has not been politics in the appointment, but likely there was. The ability of Mospheirans to imagine conspiracies is exceeded only in the Transportation Committee of the aishidi'tat. And I have no time to become involved in a discussion.
Being
paidhi for the humans—means I am charged with securing cooperation.”

“From Ogun-aiji.”

“From Ogun-aiji to start with. I think it will be politic to meet with him directly on arriving—before meeting Sabin-aiji, unless she comes to meet us first, and I do not believe she will. Ogun being seniormost of the captains, he is due respect.”

Jago listened: one saw the analysis flicker through her eyes. “One assumes that Jase-aiji has an association with Sabin—and with you. Which is stronger? Will approach to Ogun weaken Jase-nandi, regarding Sabin?”

“One does not think so. One hopes not. For any repercussions—I have to trust Jase.” The route past Ogun's expectations of treachery was forming in his brain as he talked—where Ogun's loyalties lay now, and where they had been when Ramirez had been alive, and the mess Ogun had had to deal with when Sabin and Jase had taken the ship out to Reunion.

Why had Ogun let her take the ship?

Possibly because he couldn't stop her without armed force.

Perhaps because Sabin had threatened to take the truth to the crew.

She never had. But there might be facts known among the Reunioners, kept vivid by their resentments for being left—when
Phoenix
, under Ramirez in those days, had run, and left them to face the kyo.

That information, coming out from the Reunioners and apt to reach the Mospheirans
and
the ship's crew, might be one reason Ogun was upset.

Grant that Ogun hadn't been the one to make the decision to leave Reunion. He'd been second to Ramirez. Ogun might have compromised his conscience to make what he had thought at the time was the only choice.

He'd been rather well forced, also, so long as Ramirez was alive, to oppose Sabin, who was
not
well in accord with Ramirez. Where had Sabin been during the kyo encounter? He had no idea, nor did, apparently, Jase, which said something.

But all that was old history. That was something interior to the ship and maybe something he would never know.

But what
was
steering the current problem was Ogun's support for Tillington. It was understandable. When Sabin had set out to settle what had become of Reunion, Ogun had had to work with the man, half-fearing, perhaps, that Sabin might not come back, and half-fearing that she would come back with information that would ruin him.