Precursor (39 page)

And at the very moment Tano was about to explain the console, the one in their dining hall leaped to life and let out a loud burst of sound.

“God,” Bren said. Tano and Algini were out of their seats. It was not the only source of the sound, and it ceased quickly, as running steps approached the door.

Jago appeared.

“Apologies,” she said. “We have found the main switch, Nadiin, nandi.”

The servants laughed; Tano and Algini laughed, and Bren subsided shakily and with amusement against the back of his chair.

The screen went dark again.

Supper resumed, in its final course, a light fruit custard.

From down the hall it sounded like water running, or a television.

Ultimately, after the custard, he had to send Tano and Algini to find out the cause, and he answered his own curiosity, taking a cup of tea with him.

By now it sounded like bombs.

He walked into the security station.

On one channel, insects pollinated brilliant flowers, unknown to this earth. They were bees, Bren knew from primer school, bees and apple blossoms. On another screen a line of crowned human women dived into a blue pool. On a third, buildings exploded.

The servant staff gathered behind him at the door, amazed and stunned.

Pink flowers gave way to riders in black and white.

“Mecheiti!” Sabiso said, wrong by a meter or so and half a ton.

“Horses,” Bren said. “Banichi, what have we found?”

“One thinks,” Banichi said, “we have discovered the architecture of this archive. There is an organization to it.”

A varied set of images flowed past. He might have delighted in it, on any other evening. He might have laughed.

But while the staff watched, intrigued by human history, he went across the corridor to his room, to the computer, to check his messages via Cl.

Toby
had
written back.
Call off your panic. Jill’s at her mother’s
.

Bren sank into a cold plastic chair.

Not…
thanks, Bren
.

Not…
security knew
.

Not…
I’m going there now
.

Not…
it’s going to be all right
.

The chill sank inward, and lay there. He didn’t move for a moment.

All right, Toby, did Shawn know, did Tabini send something through?

Did I mess things up, Toby?

I want you safe, dammit. It’s not safe there. This is no time for Jill to be running from her security…

He wrote that:
Toby, impress on her this is no time
…

And wiped it. Jill had left her home, run out on Toby. This was not a woman thinking clearly about her personal safety. Or she was rejecting it.

The news of atevi presence and
his
presence on the station was about to break on the island if it hadn’t done so already, touching off every unstable element, from the mainland to Mospheira, in an ultimate paroxysm of paranoia. He was not persona grata with the Heritage Party, which made a fetish of armed preparation for invasion; his mother and Toby’s accidentally stepped in front of a damn bus. If
that
accident had stayed out of the news, it would be a wonder, and that report would taint anything he did, as if there was something sinister and personal in the action.
Anything
was substance for the rumor mills,
anything
might touch off the unstable elements who searched the news daily to substantiate their theories, and the theories were no longer funny. It might be announced on the island at any moment that atevi were going to
run
the space station; even if the majority of Mospheirans didn’t
want
to live under the Guild again, and didn’t want to run the station, they didn’t want to give it up, either.

And Jill picked this moment to ditch her protection.

He couldn’t write plain-spoken things like,
The kids are in danger
. The Mospheiran link wasn’t secure enough to be utterly frank; he didn’t know whether their mother was on a bus bound for the hospital, whether she’d called a taxi, or even ditched
her
security. He knew there was danger, knew there were elements that would unhesitatingly strike at the innocent to wound him, and he’d had his try at gathering his family onto the mainland behind Tabini’s much more extensive security.
That
hadn’t worked.

He couldn’t protect them. Not any more than he could have prevented the accident.

He bowed his head against his clenched hands, muscles tightened until joints popped. He wanted…

But he couldn’t intervene with Toby, or Jill, or Barb, or his mother.

He couldn’t beg off from his job or ask why in hell human beings couldn’t use good sense. He’d asked that until he knew there was no plain and simple answer.

And he couldn’t blame his brother for being angry with it all. He was angry, too. He could move things in the heavens, shift Tabini’s Opinion and move the mechanisms of the
aishidi’tat
on personal privilege, but he couldn’t do a damn thing to prevent unintended consequences.

Get to her
, he wished his brother.
Get to Jill. Get her and those kids back under protection. Don’t hesitate. Don’t quarrel. Just do it
.

And for God’s sake, write to me when you’re all safe.

«
^
»

Aiji-ma, we still wait for any confirmation of agreement from the other captains, notably Sabin, third-ranking, who has set a meeting with me for tomorrow station time, whether with her alone or with others of the captains I still have had no word. I have been unable to contact Jase, whom they continually say is in conference with the captains. Nor have I been able to contact Mercheson, nor has the delegation from the island. I find infelicity in the condition of the halls, and their lack of all numbers and designations. Numbers and colors were erased from such facilities in historical times when occupants wished to prevent intruders from knowing their way about. A local guides us whenever we leave, and he receives a map image, I am sure, through an eyepiece and instructions through a hearing device. Neither device is unknown to the island but their use under this circumstance is somewhat troubling, when a small number of painted signs would indicate the route through what is a very confusing set of hallways.

I have received word directly from my brother. His wife is angry with him and has taken up residence with her household, taking the children with her. I have strong security concerns in this move, but will not allow these to override my good sense in the performance of my duties to you, aiji-ma.

Bren re-read the message, searched for words that might cue any other reader as to subject, decided to send as it was, and set up his computer on the table next the wall console.

He punched in. “Good morning, Cl.”

“Hello, sir.”

“Send and receive.”

“Yes, sir”

The squeal went out and came back.

“Good day, Cl. Thank you.”

“Out, sir.”

Cl didn’t readily know about mornings. Bren had a notion to ask Cl what his name was… at least the one that was there of mornings, or this shift, as the ship and station reckoned time.

And breakfast was waiting for him, but he wanted to see first what he had caught in his net this morning. He ached for a message from Toby, but Toby had his mind on other than sending to him, he was sure, and no news meant Toby had gone on his way and likely reached Jill’s mother’s house last night. If something went wrong,
then
he might hear from Toby.

And there was no message from that quarter, none from the island, none from Mogari-nai.

There was a message from Tabini, a simple one:
We have been in contact with the Foreign Office regarding matters of your concern. My devoted wife has transmitted a message through your office to your lady mother by the State Department offering her concern and her wish for the lady’s early recovery
.

He was astonished. And grateful.

And hoped to God his mother sent a civil reply.

No, no, Shawn would mediate that. It would be decorous.

He had to thank Lady Damiri. And he very much suspected it was a signal. Tabini was aware of everything, and meant to reassure him.

He was moderately embarrassed to have had Tabini do that… though it was not an outrageous proceeding if it were some notable man of the province or of the court: a matter of courtesy, it was. He didn’t know how his brother might receive any word from Tabini. He didn’t trust his family to behave, was what it boiled down to, and he was vaguely ashamed to realize he held that opinion… justified as it might be.

There were messages from various others, more business of the committee heads to whom he had sent messages, he was quite sure, a few outraged ones, who were put out that a human should be leading an atevi delegation and had no shyness in saying so. The traditionalists had their opinions, and in fact he somewhat agreed with them, but couldn’t speak against the aiji’s decision that had put him here. He left them to Ilisidi, and hoped for the best.

There was a message from students of the Astronomer Emeritus, who were astounded and pleased at his voyage, and who asked what wonders of the stars he could see from his vantage.

What celestial wonders? Human obstinacy and suspicion was not the answer the students wanted. The captains, damn them, had sent down images from other stars but had ungraciously declined to give their coordinates or to tell where they were in the human system of reckoning.

He’d arranged the University to transmit its own stellar catalog and its own system of reference and nomenclature three years ago. And Jase had drawn them a map… a hand-drawn, crude thing, but referencing the charts; so the reticence of the Guild on that topic had passed quietly unnoticed, except in certain close circles.

And the students wanted pictures?

In the press of things strange and hostile up here, he’d utterly forgotten there was an outside, that there was a reality of stars and forces more universal than the captains’ will.

He went off to breakfast, thinking the while what he was going to do about those images, putting them at the head of the mental queue, since there was so damned little he could do today about the rest; and then thinking: damn, of course, the archive. Images had gone down to the planet with that.

Locating them in that universe of data meant having an appropriate key. And he had an idea where to find it, knew what the keys ought to be, in words like
navigation
and
data
and
star
and
map
, with which his staff might search the download. Simply comparing the two areas of the Mospheiran maps and the maps in the download…
simply
! There was a bad joke. But it could be done.

“Thought?” Banichi asked him, and, distracted, he had to laugh and explain he was thinking of dictionaries and starcharts.

“Usefully so?” Banichi asked. Banichi had learned that such things as the stellar nature of the sun had some relevance to his job, quite a basic relevance, as it had turned out, but hardly relevant to the performance of it.

“We’re contained and without sight of the stars,” Bren said. “And the students of the Astronomer Emeritus ask me for pictures and data.”

“Are there windows?” Jago asked.

“I imagine that there are, but not necessarily of the sort you might imagine. Most that this station sees, it sees through electronic eyes, through cameras.”

“Interesting,” Banichi said. One wondered why, and, with Banichi involved, came up with several alarming possibilities.

“Of course,” Bren said, “on the other side of all walls and windows and out where the cameras are is hard vacuum.”

“One does recall so,” Banichi said. “But a view of the exterior might be useful. One would like to know the relationship of pieces.”

“That, I might provide. I can ask Cl. There might be a view available.”

“Interesting,” Jago said, too.

They finished breakfast. And after the accustomed compliments to cook and staff—in this case Bindanda—Bren went to the dining area wall panel and punched in Cl.

“Cl,” he said when he had an acknowledgment. “We’ve been here this long and we haven’t seen the stars. Can you show us a view?”

“Not
much to see from the cameras
,” Cl said. “
But hull view’s active
.”

The screen came live on a glare-lit, ablated surface, and absolute shadow.

“Where is that?” Bren asked, having an idea what Banichi was after, and now Tano and Algini had come in haste, Jago having apparently informed them what was toward.

“
That’s looking back over the hull from forward camera 2
,” Cl said.

“Is that the shuttle?” Bren said. There was a reflected glow on a smooth surface, the edge of a wing, perhaps.

“
Should be
,” Cl said. “
I can angle for a better view. This isn’t the deep dark, here. There’s planetshine, for one thing
,
not mentioning the star. You want stars, sir, you should be a little farther out.“