Precursor (20 page)

Their ship. The ship. She carried the dust of solar systems, the outpourings of volcanoes on Maudit’s moons, the cosmic dust of wherever
Phoenix
had voyaged… and the scars of the first accursed sun where
Phoenix
had lost so many lives. Jason’s forefathers. His own.

The whole world had seen the scarred image on the television during the first shuttle flights, and the sight had shocked everyone, moving some even to question whether it was the same ship.
Phoenix
in all Mospheiran accounts was always portrayed shining white, though every schoolchild also memorized the truth that the earth of the atevi was in a debris-filled, dangerous solar system, that the colonists had rebelled against
Phoenix’s
plans for refueling principally because fatalities were so much a part of mining.

The image of authority. The ark that had carried all their ancestors on two epic journeys, and a third… without the colonists, but with Jase’s fellow crew. Bren felt a chill go over his skin, felt a stir in his heart, an awe he hadn’t entirely expected.

Now the outcome of this last voyage, this run home with hostile observers behind them. The captains had no disposition to die without a struggle, as hard a struggle as their compatriots back in this solar system could make of it, with or without their consent.

Welcome to the space age. Welcome to the universe
we’ve
made, and the consequences of all
we’ve
done.

“Stand by, Nadiin, for braking. —Sirs, ladies, prepare your safety belts. Secure all items.”

Bren tugged the belt tight, fastened the shoulder belt as Jason unhurriedly, confidently at home, did the same.

He glanced across the aisle and saw his security belted in, looking as calm as if they sat in their own apartment.

There was no stir from elsewhere. This was the sequence that had fouled on the first flight, nearly ended the mission in a dangerous spacewalk.

“Homecoming,” Jase said.

“Nervous?” he asked Jase.

“As hell,” Jase confessed, and took a deep breath. “I don’t mind traveling in space at all. It’s stopping short of large objects that scares me.”

Bren felt safe enough to retaliate. “Better than skimming the surface of planets, isn’t it?”

The engines cut in. Jase grabbed the armrests. “I hate that, too. I really hate this part.”

Hard braking. Jase was not comforting.

Warnings flashed on the side-view screen in two languages: in general, stay belted, don’t interfere with crew, and don’t interfere with the pilot.

The mechanisms are old
, figured in the explanation.

“There’s an understatement,” Jase muttered.

This time, however, the locking mechanism didn’t fail: the grapple bumped, thumped… engaged.

“We have docked,” came the word from the pilot.

There were multiple sighs of relief. A buckle clicked.

“Please stay close to your seats,” the steward said. “We hav£ yet to perform various tasks and assure the connection.”

Bump.

Gentle bump.

Second jolt, second crash of hydraulics engaged. Bren told his heart to slow down.

They were in. Locked.

“Made it,” he said.

“Bren,” Jase said, in one of those
I’ve got something to say
tones of voice.

“What?”

“You think Tabini’s ever advised them yet we’re not the test cargo?”

“I’m sure he has. —Worried?”

“Now that I’m here, I’m worried.”

Second thoughts were setting in, in a way he didn’t have to entertain, because
he
didn’t have any options here. “About them—or us?”

“Just—worried.”

“Survival of the atevi, Jase. Survival of all of us. If you’ve got second thoughts about rejoining your crew…”

“I have no choice.”

“I
can
claim you as a charge d’affaires, under Tabini’s wing, and I know he’ll back me on it. You can talk to Ramirez from that protection, inside our quarters, if you think you need it.”

“You don’t have quarters here… you don’t
know
you have.”

“Believe me. We will have.”

“I’m Ramirez’s choice. I have to play this through, Bren.”

“For you?” Bren asked. “Or for them? Or because it’s wise? Second thoughts, I understand. Believe me, I understand: I’ve made my choice. Whatever you want for yourself, this is no time to make gestures. Too many lives are at risk here. What’s the sensible truth, Jase? What do you expect?”

“I need to get to Ramirez. I need to talk to him. We
aren’t
atevi associations. I remember that from the gut now.”

Naojai-tu?

Association-shift? Rearrangement of man’chi? Damiri’s cynic meeting the relics, in the play?

Humans, on the other hand, made and dissolved ties throughout their lives, even on so limited an island as Mospheira. Jase
was
human; the Pilots’ Guild was human. In this whole business, everyone in the game could rearrange loyalties… so could the atevi, but under different, socially catastrophic terms.

“Still friends,” Bren said, meaning it. “No question.”

“Still friends,” Jase said. “But, Bren, I can’t
be
who I was down there. They won’t let me be.”

“Will they not?” He was determined to the contrary, determined, in this last-moment doubt, to recall what Jase had thought last week and the week before. “Listen to me. Will you turn against Tabini, or report against him? I don’t think you will; you understand what the truth is down there. I know you won’t ever turn coat for your own sake. I know you.”

“Do you? I don’t know
what
I’ll do.”

“I understand that point of view. Been through it. You
know
I’ve been through it.”

“I don’t know I can.”

“Get your thinking in order. I know the dislocation you’re facing. But think of Shejidan. It’s real. The people you know are real, and depending on you, the same as I imagine people here are. Personally—I’ll get you back, Jase. Damned if I won’t. Politically, you’ll do as you have to for the short term, but don’t ruin my play and don’t stray too far, not physically, not mentally.”

“I’m not Mospheiran. I can’t explain how different…”

“
Na dei shi’ra ma’anto paidhi, nadi?”
… Are you not one of the paidhiin, sir? Am I mistaken?

From a glance at the screens, Jase flung him a sidelong, troubled glance.

“
Na dei-ji?
” Bren repeated, with the familiar.

“Aiji-ji, so’sarai ta.”

There was no real translation, only affection, loyalty, a salute.
You taught me, my master. I respect that
. Implicit was the whole other mindset, that back-and-forth shift that came with any deep shift in language, an earthquake in thought patterns. From panic in Jase’s eyes, he saw a slide toward sanity and familiar ground.

“Shi, paidhi, noka ais-ji?”

Are you reliable, translator-mediator?

Jase heaved a small, desperate breath. “
Shi!
” I am.

“
Think
in Ragi, Jasi-ji. The language changes the way you think. Changes your resources. Your responses. So does your native accent. You’ve been on a long trip. You’re going to remember things here you’d let slip. But stop and think in Ragi, at least twice a day.”

“It’s trying to slip away from me! Words just aren’t there!”

“I’ve been through that, too, every trip to Mospheira. Fight for it.”

“Please give attention to the exit procedures,” the steward said, with the worst timing in the world or above it.

“Jase,” Bren said. “What’s your personal preference? Honestly. You don’t
get
personal preferences. I don’t. But tell me what it is.”

“If I had personal preference,” Jase said with a desperate laugh, “I’d be home. —God! I’m scrambled…”

“I know that,” Bren said. “Think of the sitting room in the Bu-javid. Think of Taiben. Think of the sea.”

“
Sha nauru shina
. I’ll contact you,” Jase said desperately, as staff rose and the Mospheirans rose to leave. “Or you demand to see me. They’re going to want me to themselves for a number of days. Ramirez I can deal with.”

“I’ll raise hell till I do get to see you,” Bren said. It might be a close, intense, emotional debriefing, a close questioning no one could look forward to. They would want to bring him back under their authority, even to crack him emotionally to be sure what was inside… Jase had never quite said so, but he had an idea what he was facing. No government could take chances with trust, not with survival at stake.

Likewise he knew what he was promising Jase, on the instant and on his own judgment of a situation. He
had
been in Jase’s position. And he knew how Jase might both take comfort in someone saying
you matter
—and at the same time feel politically trapped. In the emotional impact of the ship that was his home, the atevi world was starting to leak right out of his brain, along with all the memories, all the confidence of what he believed.

“At Malguri,” he said while bangs and thumps proceeded aft and Mospheirans drifted free of their seats. “At Malguri,” he said, because Jase knew the story, “I had one of those language transit experiences; I think it helped make me fluent. I’ll tell you honestly I don’t envy you the debriefing. And this I can tell you. Don’t ever let them take
time
away from you. Don’t ever let their reality become yours. I’ll be here as long as possible, and if I have to leave, I’ll apply every means I’ve got to get contact directly with you. I won’t give up. Ever.”

“You can’t afford that.”

“Hell, Tabini won’t forget you. And I won’t. You have power, Jase. I’m handing it to you, right now.
Aishi’ji
.” Associates. He laid a grip on Jase’s arm. Tightened it. “We don’t lose one another.”

Jase concentrated on him with that wild look he’d had once, contemplating a very deep sea under his feet, and all that heaving water.

“Kindly file out to the rear hatch,” the steward said.

They unbuckled, were able to rise… straight up… taking advantage themselves of zero-G.

His staff had gathered up their carry-on baggage, of which there was a fair quantity.

Tano was with the servants. “One has the manifest, nand paidhi,” Narani said to Tano in his hearing, “so that baggage may find the quarters. How shall I deliver this document?”

This, in a space increasingly complicated by loose passengers, baggage, straps, and elbows.

Something banged. Nothing advised what the various bleeps, beeps, bangs, and thumps were, but he thought it might be the hatch, and in the next moment a wave of cold wind came through the shuttle.

He had to forget Jase then. He cast grim looks at his security, sure that he needed to stay with them, because, being atevi,
they
would assuredly stay with
him
, and he wanted no misunderstandings. The possibility of abrupt, wrong movement all rested with him, with the relative position of him, his guard, and threat. He dared not let overzealous station security create a moment of panic.

“If they do jostle us, Nadiin,” Bren said, drifting up beside Banichi and Jago, “recall they don’t feel man’chi, and may make apparently hostile moves. They are foreigners. Be restrained. Be very restrained. Don’t show weapons.”

“Yes,” Jago said, that disconcerting Ragi agreement to a negative.

The Mospheirans pushed through their midst, evidently intending to be first out. “Let them, Nadiin,” Bren said, by no means inclined to argue with Kroger’s sense of proprieties.

Kate and Ben, more hesitant, drifting free, looked distressed, worried as they passed, clutching drifting luggage.

“Understood,” Bren said to the junior staff. “Go on past. Best if you do go out first. Best if the first thing they see isn’t atevi. Good luck to you.” His servants waited, cramped to the side, while Kroger and her team exited.

“Go,” he said then, and went forward, using the seat backs for propulsion. Jase stayed close, experience and unthought confidence in the environment in the way he gauged distance ahead of him and checked a small movement with unthought precision.

A little of the motion sickness quivered through Bren’s stomach, or indigestible fear. He imitated Jase, using the same technique of small pushes and stops against the seats to avoid bumping into his servants. “Nadiin-ji. Follow Banichi and Jago. Do not make sudden moves, no startling of the humans.”

The air in the ship had turned from mere cold to truly bitter, breath-steaming cold. His hands were numb. Within the air lock, it was worse still; the chill turned any moisture in the air to ice. He met the handline there, took hold, regretting gloves had not been part of the arrangement in their shirtsleeve environment, as he followed Kate’s feet out into the bitter chill of the access.

There a handful of ship worker-personnel, suited against the cold, wearing masks and goggles, likewise clung with gloved hands to the rigged line. The Mospheirans had gone on, a line of bodies the brain kept saying was ascending a rope through water. Perception played tricks, in a stomach-wrenching glance at an environment of metal grids and pipes and insulated walls.