Tracker (41 page)

It
wasn't
an atevi way of solving things, over there among the techs, with Gin inbound and taking over and Tillington kiting off to Ogun instead of demanding to talk to his own chain of command, in the President's office. To atevi ears it would sound less like a struggle for power between aijiin and more like an internal clan dispute, with a clan lord whose quarrels inside the house had suddenly outnumbered all his allies . . . so he went out-clan, looking for an ally.

Classic machimi, in its strange way. He had a notion most of his aishid read it exactly that way . . . except maybe Jago, who knew enough to understand that machimi wasn't an entirely reliable guide with humans.

Mospheiran security in the room had begun to get the word, too, audio amped so they could overhear Okana and the techs—even
his
ears could hear the spill from their audio. They wore no less worried looks than they had come in with, still stood clustered in a far corner, observing, outnumbered and still not happy about that, while their command was mutating by the minute.

But the chance that someone would set something off by a wrong move was diminishing. Now endurance began to matter more than authorizations.

Conversation between Okana and Gin ended, with the link left available. Okana talked to a cluster of techs, some of whom left their seats to join the group.

“One requests us to hold here a little longer, Nichi-ji,” Bren remarked.

“Yes,” Banichi said quietly.

Bren clasped his hands behind him and avoided the impulse to flex his shoulders. Court etiquette. One stood. One flexed small muscles, and kept outward appearances.

Gin made another call to Central, talked to Okana and then asked to speak to Bren again. He went over to the boards and took up a headphone.

“Talked to the Senior Captain,”
Gin said.
“We completely agree on points of security, and I'm officially asking you to ask Geigi to change the access codes and then hand them to you, so you can be his backup and my surrogate until I get there and log in, at which point I'll make another code change, so I won't burden you with that, politically speaking. I'm going to be reading the log. I'll also be making suggestions for the empowerment of a Reunioner council, for accuracy of communication—their choice, anybody but Braddock and his crew.”

“I'm sure the atevi sector will back that.”

“My next call is going to be to Sabin. I trust you to call Geigi and get that code change made. I am not going to request my predecessor vacate his apartment until he's able to board a shuttle, so I'll be looking for a residence—tight as things are, I may be bedding down in Central tomorrow night.”

“I'd offer you space on our side, but I'm sure you'll prefer otherwise.”

“Politically speaking—not so good. But I appreciate the spirit of the offer. A dinner invitation, now . . .”

“Whenever you need anything, just ask. Dinner's on offer whether I'm at home or not. My staff would be honored. Did Ogun mention the whereabouts of the other captains? Jase is off in atevi Central, Riggins is aboard
Phoenix,
and I'm not sure where Sabin is. I doubt she's sleeping with all this going on.”

“Appreciated. How long do you look to remain where you are?”

“As long as I can be useful here.”

“Don't wear yourself out, but if you could personally stay in Mospheiran Central at least long enough to get a good read on who's in charge of second-shift, I'd feel better.”

“I'll do that. No problem. Are we keeping full schedule on this shift?”

“No. I'm going to hold this shift until I'm satisfied I've done all I need. I'll call second-shift on for an hour or two so they can understand what's happened and understand my orders. Then I'll give them an early night. I'll ask Geigi to stay in place through my docking, tomorrow. I want all active control on his side of the wall, including communication with ops, until I get there to take formal charge into my hands. I'll be working my way through the log, and I'll appreciate any log updates outside routine, if you'll arrange that.”

“Understood.” Communications was the only aspect of Central even marginally in human hands right now, and while that didn't involve life-support systems and locks all over the station, it was still worrisome so long as human hands were involved. Gin was right. They needed to be sure that only Geigi could push the buttons. “No problem at all. I'll convey what needs conveying to Geigi on the code change. And trust him to deal with the technicals. He'll put the shuttle crew through to ship-com at their request.”

“I'll be reading the log, meanwhile.”

“Gin, you're a jewel.”

“Flattery, flattery. You definitely owe me dinner.”

Long haul, then. Through this shift and into the next. It occurred to him there was one place he might personally gain a little rest from waiting. Tillington's office.

But that, he decided, wasn't a good appearance. Or a good idea.

Politics.

Legal matters.

He went to the doorway of the office, looked about. Typical desktop. Files. Keys.

Drawers. A lot of drawers.

He called Okana over.

“I want you to witness,” he said to Okana, “the condition of this office now. You know I haven't entered it since Tillington left.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'd like to close this door, now, and lock it, and I'd like you to provide orders to the next shift that they not enter this place, because they won't want the responsibility. I'd like for you and the next-shift chief to assure Gin Kroger that nothing in this office has been touched, by me, or anybody else, until she arrives.”

“Yes, sir,” Okana said. “Understood.”

“Meanwhile,” he said, “I'm going to send my own bodyguard off, group by group, for a short break. I take it there's somewhere close.”

“Adjacent room, sir, number 12. Not big, but it's got the comforts.”

“Appreciated,” he said.

It would be. It was shaping up to be a long day. No outsiders got to see atevi Guild or a lord of the aishidi'tat in anything but official form. Gin called for shift-end, and a shunt over to Geigi.

Gin's contact went over to ship-com, through which he also had Jase.

“You with me?” he asked Jase.

“Still holding out,”
Jase said.
“Tillington is sulking in his apartment. He's tried to call the President. He doesn't have that authority right now, does he?”

“Actually no, he doesn't. He did. But right now he'll have to do that through Gin.”

“That's what we thought.”

“Gin's letting him stay in his apartment until he leaves. You can tell him that.”

“When he asks,”
Jase said.

“This is going to be a short shift, next. Just informational. We hope. Everything's quiet.”

“Do you need relief over there?”

“I'm all right. A couple of hours. We're going to be briefing the new shift, getting an understanding.”

 • • • 

That was the hope at least. A request to Geigi brought a screen live, a read on the kyo transmission, on a screen tucked away in the corner. One part showed, as Bren tried to make sense of it, the course plot. Another was a clock ticking down the expected arrival of the next kyo signal.

Another was another clock, which one guessed marked the time to their automated reply, a few minutes on. The clocks counted off as he watched, a note popped up on the fourth quarter of the display, and the clocks reset.

That was the exchange with the kyo. Measured. Identical. Proceeding while human authority had a relatively quiet upheaval.

It stayed even, measured, identical, for which one was duly grateful.

So did the course, which one suspected, though had no knowledge to prove it, led toward the station.

Okana dismissed his people, who quietly left. The place was deserted for a moment. Then second-shift arrived by ones and twos, anxiously so, people eyeing the weapons, warily settling into place at dead boards. A few had exchanged a word or two with Okana on the way in, and people leaned together, to say in low voices, things like, “Tillington's out.
Dr. Kroger's
coming in.” And: “It's all right. We're doing all right. They're not touching the doors.”

Meaning—barriers weren't coming down. Angry people weren't coming in contact. What Tillington had set up wasn't being undone.

Okana caught Bren's eye, then quietly left.

 • • • 

“Thank you for coming in,” Bren said. “I'm Bren Cameron. Everybody you see is somebody's security; don't be anxious. You may have heard that Mr. Tillington's been relieved, and his office is now locked pending the arrival of a Presidential envoy. President Tyers has asked Dr. Virginia Kroger to come up here to handle Mospheiran affairs in the kyo situation—she's experienced, she was with the expedition when we met the kyo, and she's arriving with current knowledge of the situation. We're holding everything as we found it, meanwhile, taking advice before we change anything—” He saw that brought visible release of pent breaths. “In short, you'll have a stationmaster who has experienced the kyo. We expect to meet with them, exchange scientific information, assure each other of good will, and part company for another number of years. So far, so good. We're communicating exactly as we did in the last meeting. It's certainly an exciting event. But no reason for panic. We'll get the station through this, and we're going to be taking some precautions for your safety, but we really don't anticipate a problem. I'll be retiring over to the atevi side of operations as Dr. Kroger assumes command here, and we've assembled the team that met the kyo the last time. We somewhat expect they've done the same, and that we'll have a pleasant, maybe a productive encounter. I can't answer more than that, except to say that they promised to come visit, and they have, to firm up agreements, and they'll likely go away again to their own territory. So bear with us. We'll be feeling our way through this, but there's no sense of alarm about it. Who's shift-captain here?”

A hand went up, at Okana's former seat.

Bren beckoned. The man got up and walked over to him. Put out a hand.

“Jim Harris,” the man said. “Port Jackson. Met your brother more than once.”

That
was an unexpectedly pleasant meeting. A lord of the aishidi'tat in public and on official business stayed properly formal, but there was personal conversation, how Toby was, where Toby was. Mospheira was, in many ways, astonishingly small. Everybody had lived where they lived for generations, and if you were in any social subset—like boat-folk in Port Jackson—people knew people who knew you. It was a thoroughly strange conversation, Port Jackson, Toby's boat, and bilge pumps, here, in the troubled operational heart of the station, but two authorities talking together eased everyone's nerves. People began to talk among themselves in the background, with occasional curious stares at atevi—whom they might never have seen at such close range, over such a long time—though, as Geigi said, crew could say—also—
We talk. We show each other pictures.

I know four or five whole words of Ragi.

It was all going very easily, very smoothly.

Then Tano had a call on com, and the look Tano wore changed. Fast.

 • • • 

Mani declared that the hour would be what the hour was in the Bujavid, and that had meant supper while the time felt like the middle of the afternoon, and bed before what was ordinarily supper.

Mostly Cajeiri suspected it was because mani was tired and sore and wanted to go to bed. She absolutely would not let anyone see her limp—much—but she had worn a constant frown, saying that the flight was certainly necessary, but that there were a great many inconveniences in the process.

Not to mention, she said, the cold of the mast, which had gotten through the cloak quite uncomfortably and made her bones ache.

So the whole house went to bed, and he lay abed, trying to persuade himself it was night, even if, up here, there was always night outside, and always day for somebody, inside.

He was a little worried about mani, that she had had such trouble, and ached, and now had so little appetite. He worried about her going to bed early, but if mani said it was night, it was night for everybody in the household, and that was that.

Lord Geigi had said everything was all right, that Tillington was gone, that the codes were all being changed, which in this place was the same as changing all the locks to everything, and it could be done very fast, in the blink of an eye.

That was what Lord Geigi had said.

Changing the codes was fast, but it confused a lot of things, Lord Geigi had said that, too. And there was no prospect of Lord Geigi getting back to his own apartment until tomorrow.

Which might mean nand' Bren would not be coming back either.

He wished they would; and he punched the pillow with his fist. He wished they could all have dinner and then brandy with mani. He wanted to listen to the serious talk and learn things.

But that was not going to happen.

It was too early, and his mind was wide awake. His aishid was learning to sleep whenever they had a chance to sleep, but it was a knack he had not learned yet.

And if he stayed up past mani's hours now, then mani would be up and about things in what she declared was morning and he would be too sleepy to think tomorrow. And he would be cross. Which was never a good thing to be, in mani's household.

There had been excitement today. There was going to be excitement tomorrow, too, with the new station-aiji coming.

Well, and he had gotten one exciting bit of news, too, from Lord Geigi's call, which was that the new aiji would be Gin-nandi.