Precursor (36 page)

And he asked a flood of questions along the way, questions partly because he wanted to know, and partly to engage Kaplan:
What’s down there?
he asked.
What’s that way?

“Can’t say, sir.” For the third or fourth time Kaplan said so, this particular denial at what seemed to be a relatively main intersection in the zigzag weave of corridors.

“Well, why don’t we just go there and find out?”

“Can’t take you there, sir. Not on the list.”

“Oh,” Bren said, lifting both brows. “There’s a list.”

At that, facing him and with Banichi and Jago looming over him, Kaplan looked entirely uneasy.

“Can we see this list?” Bren asked him.

“I get it from the exec, sir. I can’t show it to you.”

“Well” Bren said, and cheerfully rattled off in Ragi, “I think we might as well nudge gently and see what will give. Kaplan-nadi’s restricting what we see, but he’s not in charge of that decision himself. He’s getting his orders from higher up. —What would
you
like to see, Nadiin?”

“Where does the crew live?” Banichi asked.

“Excellent suggestion,” Bren said, and looked at Kaplan, who did not look confident. “Nadi, where is the crew?”

“Where’s the
crew
, sir?”

“What do you do when you’re not on duty, Kaplan?”

“We go to rec, sir.”

“Good.” In some measure, despite the ferocious-looking equipment and the eyepiece, Kaplan had the open stare of a just-bloomed flower. “We should see rec, then, Kaplan-nadi. Or is that on the list of things we definitely shouldn’t see?”

“The list goes the other way, sir. It’s things you can see.”

“Well, that’s fine. Let’s go look at all of those, and then when you’re tired, we can go to this recreation place. That’s rec, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll ask about rec, if you like.”

“Why don’t you do that while we tour what we’re supposed to see? Take us to all those places.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaplan murmured, and then talked to his microphone in alphabet and half-words while they walked. “Sir, they’re going to have to ask a captain about rec, and they’re all—”

“In a meeting.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, tell them we just walked off and left you. All of a sudden I’m very interested in rec. I suppose we’ll find it. Are you going to shoot us?”

“Sir, don’t do that.”

“Don’t overreact,” Bren said in Ragi, “and above all don’t kill him. He’s a nice fellow, but I’m going to walk off and leave him, which is going to make him very nervous.”

“Yes,” Jago said, and Bren walked, as Banichi and Jago went to opposite sides of the corridor.

He’d give a great deal to have eyes in the back of his head. He knew, whatever else, that Kaplan wasn’t going to shoot him.

“Sir?” he heard, a distressed, higher-pitched voice out of Kaplan. Then a more gruff: “Sir! Don’t!”

Bren walked a few paces more, down a hall that showed no features, but the flooring of which had ample scuff on its sheen, leading right to an apparent section door.

He heard an uncertain scuffle behind him, and he turned, quickly, lest mayhem result.

Kaplan, going nowhere, had Banichi’s very solid hand about his arm.

“Sir!”

“He’s distressed,” he translated for Banichi. “Let him go, nadi-ji.”

Banichi did release him. Jago had her hand on her bolstered pistol. Kaplan didn’t move, only stood there with eyes flower-wide and worried, and rubbed his arm.

“Kaplan,” Bren said, “you’re a sensible man. Now what can we do to entertain ourselves that won’t involve your list?”

“Let me talk to the duty officer, sir.”

“Good,” he said. “You do that. You tell them if we’re going to repair this station, we have to assess it. Why don’t you show us one of the not-so-good areas?”

“I can’t do that, sir. They’re cold. Locked down.” He gave an upward glance at Banichi and Jago. “Takes suits, and we can’t fit them.”

“We have them. We could go back to the shuttle and get them. Or we could visit your ship. We’re supposed to build one.”

“Build one, sir. Yes, sir. I’ve got to ask about that.” Kaplan had broken out in a sweat.

“Come on, Kaplan. Think. Give us
something
worth our while. We can’t stand here all day.”

“You want to see the rec area, sir, let me ask. —But you can’t go in there with guns, sir.”

“Kaplan, you’re orbiting an atevi planet. There will never be a place an atevi lord’s security goes without guns. And you really don’t want them to, because if you have
two
atevi lords up here at any point, without the guns, the lords are going to be nervous and there might not be good behavior. Banichi and Jago are Assassins’ Guild. They have rules. They assure the lords go to the Guild before someone takes a contract out on one of the captains. Think of them as law enforcement. There’s a whole planetful of reasons down there that took thousands of years to develop a peaceful way of dealing with things, and I really wouldn’t advise you to start changing what works. Why don’t we go somewhere interesting?”

“Yes, sir, but I still have to ask.”

“Do,” he said, and looked at a sealed, transparent wall panel with a confusing lot of buttons. “What do these do?”

“Lights and the temperature, sir, mostly, and the power, but
don’t open that panel, sir
, some of the sections aren’t sealed, sir.”

“Relax,” he said with a benign smile. He began to like Kaplan, heartily so, and repented his deliberate provocations. “Let’s go. Let’s go to rec. You’re a good man, Mr. Kaplan, and a very sensible one.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaplan said, still breathing rapidly. “Just let me ask.”

Kaplan was nothing if not dutiful. Kaplan engaged his microphone and did ask, passionately, in more alphabet and numbers, and nodded furiously to whatever came back. “Yes, sir,” he said finally. “They say it’s all right, you can go to rec.”

“Let’s go, then,” he said. “And do you have a cafeteria? The mess hall? Shall we see that?”

“That’s on the list, sir.” Kaplan sounded greatly relieved.

“Good,” he said. “Banichi, Jago, we’ll walk with Kaplan-nadi. He’s an obliging fellow, not wishing any trouble, I’m sure. He seems a person of good character and great earnestness.”

“Kaplan-nadi,” Banichi said in his deep voice, and with a pleasant expression. “One would like to know what he does transmit to his officers.”

“Banichi wants to know what you see and send,” Bren said. “Such things interest my security.”

“Can’t do that,” Kaplan said, all gruffness now.

“Buy you a drink?” Bren said. “We should talk, since you’re to be my aide.”

“I’m not your aide, sir. And I can’t talk, sir. I’m not supposed to.”

“Aren’t you? Then I may request you. I’ll need someone when I’m on the station. Are you married?”

“Married, sir, no, sir.” Kaplan’s nervousness only increased.

“Where do
you
live?”

“238C, sir.”

“That’s a room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alone?” Bren asked.

“Two and two, sir, two shifts.”

“In all this great station? You’re doubled up?”

“On the ship we had more room,” Kaplan said. “But they’re working on the ship.”

“Doing what?” Bren asked.

“Hull, mostly.”

“Damage?”

“Just old, sir, lot of ablation. And when she’s in lockdown, it’s not easy to be aboard; you can’t get a lot of places in zero-G, sir. See those handholds? Not much use on a station, but on a ship, that’s how you get by if you have to crawl.”

It gibed with what he knew from Jase. While he kept up a running interrogation on points of corroboration, it was more corridors, more turns, twists, and descents, not a one of them distinguished from the other except by the occasional wall panels. It was an appalling, soul-numbing stretch of unmarked sameness.

They came to a corridor with one open door.

“This is rec, sir,” Kaplan said, and led them to a moderately large room with a zigzag interior wall—a safety consideration, Bren knew by now—and a handful of occupants. The decor consisted of a handful of very faded blue plastic chairs, all swivel-mounted, at green wall-mounted, drop tables. Most astonishing of all there was a decoration, a single nonutilitarian blue stripe around the walls. There was, besides the stripe, a bulletin board, and a handful of magnetically posted notices.

Crewmen, doubtless forewarned, rose solemnly to their feet as they came in.

“Gentlemen, ladies.” Bren walked past Kaplan, walked around the walls, keeping a careful eye to the reaction of the crew to Banichi and Jago… fear, curiosity, all at the same moment. The crewmen wanted to stare and were trying not to. “Good day to you,” Bren said, drawing nervous, darting stares to himself. “I’m Bren Cameron, emissary from the aiji at Shejidan. This is Banichi and his partner Jago, chief of my house security, no other names. Think of them as police. Glad to meet you all, gentlemen, ladies.”

“Yes, sir,” some said. Those terms had fallen out of use. He was an anachronism in their midst, or he was their future.

“Seems we have an agreement,” he said, curious how far news traveled among the crew. “We’re going to be building here. Mospheira’s going to provide you all the comforts of the planet, up here, according to what we’ve settled on, everything from fruit juice and hot dogs to seat cushions. Jase Graham. You know the name?”

They did, though there wasn’t a clear word in what they answered. It was Kaplan’s wide stare replicated, one and the other, men and women.

And he’d bet the place had been cleared of anyone not on a List, too.

“Jase is a friend of mine.
Friend
. You may have heard—or you may hear—you can’t say that with the atevi: that they don’t quite work that way. That’s true. But it doesn’t mean you can’t get along with them and that they aren’t very good people. You have to figure out
associations
with them. For instance, if you get along with me, you know you can get along with my security, my staff, my associates, and everyone I get along with. There’s no such thing as one ateva. It’s really pretty easy if you ask the atevi what they think of the other ateva you plan to be nice to. Glad to meet you all. My security is glad to meet you, no one’s going to shoot anyone. Don’t mind that they don’t smile. It’s not polite to smile until you know each other. Kaplan.”

“Sir!”

“Introductions, if you please.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaplan said, and proceeded solemnly to reel off every name, every job, and rank: there were Johnsons and Pittses and Alugis, there was a Shumann and a Kalmoda and a Holloway, a Lewis, and a Kanchatkan, names he’d never heard. They were techs and maintenance, all young but one, who was a master machinist. “Glad to meet you,” Bren said, and went around shaking hands, doggedly determined to put a face and a name to what had been faceless for two hunded years and three more in orbit about the planet. “My security won’t shake hands. Our culture is foreign to them. They find you a fortunate number, they compliment you on that fact; they find you a comfortable gathering. I believe your library has a file on protocols when talking to atevi: I know I transmitted that file a couple of years ago, and hope it’s gotten around.”

No, it hadn’t. He could tell by the looks. And he was far from surprised.

“Well, I hope you’ll take a look at it on a fairly urgent basis, since there will be atevi working here. And don’t take humans from the planet completely for granted, either. From your viewpoint, they’re quite different, and words don’t mean quite the same; I was born on the island, myself, and I can say you don’t at all sound like Mospheirans. What
do
you do for entertainment, here?”

“Games, sir.” That from a more senior crewman. “Entertainment files.”

“Dice,” another said.

Jase had said entertainment was sparse and opportunities were few. Jase had been vastly disturbed by rapid input, flickering shadows, any environmental phenomenon that seemed out of control: Jase standing on a deck on the ocean under a stormy sky was far, far beyond the bounds of his upbringing… an act of courage he only comprehended on seeing this recreational sterility. “Jase enjoyed his planet stay, gathered up some new games. I know he sent some footage up.”

It hadn’t made it to the general crew. There were blank glances, not a word.

“Definitely, we have to talk about the import situation,” he said, with a picture he really, truly liked less and less. “I’m sure the Mospheirans will offer quite a few things you might like.” Give or take the whole concept of trade, which he wasn’t sure they really understood on a personal level. “You’ll have a lot of things to get used to, among them the very fact of meeting people who aren’t under your captains’ orders, who speak your language and mean something totally different. Who don’t mind surfaces bouncing around under them and lights flashing and who are rather entertained by the feeling.” The looks were somewhat appalled. “We, on the other hand, will be largely involved in construction: improving the station, providing fuel, materials, that sort of thing. And we understand you found a problem out in far space. We’re used to dealing with strangers. We hope to deal with your difficulty and solve it.”