Precursor (51 page)

“Nadi,” Narani said, “Nojana has arrived safely. What place shall I assign him?”

“Kandana’s, for now,” Bren said, and heaved a breath of relief, hoping now that the shuttle made schedule. “Thank him. I’ll speak to him after breakfast.”

In a very little more, Jago slipped into the section.

“How did they take it?” Bren asked her first of all. “How was it out there?”

Jago gave a delicate shrug. “Banichi isn’t back yet?”

“Not yet.”

“There was a close pass of their security,” Jago said. “I heard them, and feared they might come my way. I took a lift up, then down again when I hoped they had gone.”

Hearing.
There
was an atevi advantage he generally forgot to reckon.

“I hope Banichi hurries,” he said. “The Mospheirans weren’t pleased, I’ll imagine.”

“Not pleased. Tom-nadi is still going down, to fly to Mospheira to report; he hopes to come back on the next shuttle. Gin-nadi is remaining. She thanks you for your advisement and wishes to meet with you.”

“You told her about Ramirez.”

“Yes, nadi.” Jago was very clear on that. “I told Kate-nadi to be sure the message was accurate, and asked Kate-nadi not to speak the news aloud, but to write it for her very small and to beg her not to speak this information aloud even among themselves. I indicated also we believe they are monitored. She replied by writing, and I memorized it and destroyed the note: namely this.” Jago took a breath. “ ’The hardliners have taken control. They want to deal only with us, using only Mos-pheiran help, no atevi in orbit. They want to fill out the crew by training Mospheirans. I’ve told them we can’t produce the resources and can’t manufacture what they need. They talk about surmounting that problem. The ship is armed, but I don’t know what they can do. I believe we are potentially in trouble.’ That is word for word her answer. Tom-nadi is going down to warn the President.”

“It’s not good news.”

“Do they think to start another war?” Jago asked him. “Does this reference to weapons mean weapons turned against the mainland?”

“I don’t discount the possibility. I rather think they mean that they can get the Mospheirans up here.
That
means getting their hands on a shuttle and being able to fly it.”

“The shuttle has no accessible autopilot,” Jago reminded him.

The autopilot required a complex code which atevi pilots would not surrender. “I’ll feel better when I know it’s away clear,” Bren said, and thought to himself,
And when Banichi’s back
.

«
^
»

C1, Bren said, ”send-receive to Mogari-nai.” “
Yes, sir
.”

There was no question to him about the shuttle, which was due to depart. Nojana had informed them that the captain’s instructions were clear and that the shuttle was continuing a normal preparation for launch. Kandana would be aboard by now; Lund would be headed in that direction at any moment, for a launch at local 0900, and there was still no Banichi, still no word from Jase, no word, as Bren expected at any moment, that the meeting with Sabin was canceled.

Come on
, he wished Banichi, as everyone on staff tried to pretend cheerfulness in spite of the situation. Jago was brisk, cheerful in her comings and goings.

Bren thought of the fact of Banichi’s absence in every other breath, telling himself that if anything should happen to Banichi for his sake he would never forgive himself. He could hardly look at Jago. He had no cheerfulness to spare.

The upload was felicitations for the safe shuttle flight from numerous agencies, and from his mother…

From his mother, an honest-to-God letter.

They say you’re on the space station, and that’s why you couldn’t return my calls. I shouldn’t be surprised ever at anything, I suppose. I know you must be worried about Barb. I sent her flowers in your name. She came through the surgery. She’s very strong. She’s gotten rid of a couple of the tubes, which she says is about time. I haven’t told her where you are. She doesn’t remember anything about the accident. She asks whether she fell on the escalators or whether she was shot or something.

And you tell her, but she forgets. They still have her sedated, and she wanders in and out. She talked about going up to Mt. Adams with you, to the lodge. She said you’d promised that. I haven’t told her anything to the contrary. You can’t reason with sick people and this isn’t the time for it.

I had a disturbing call from Toby. He’s having trouble with Jill. He says she objects to his coming here, as if she didn’t visit her family two and three times a year, not to mention dropping those kids on Louise. I think Toby should put his foot down about that. The children run around at all hours, and I know they’ve slipped out of the house at night. Louise can’t keep up with them, and if Jill doesn’t take a strong hand with those kids, they’re going to be a problem in another couple of years. Toby just thinks anything Jill wants is fine and the kids are spoiled the same way. Too many material things, not enough family time, and by my opinion, too much running about on that boat. I never approved of exposing the children to the mainland. I know certain things are all right for you. But the children shouldn’t see them.

At any rate, things are quieter here. I wish you were here.

Why
did he let things like this bother him?
Why
, amid every other world-threatening worry he had, did this one letter send his blood pressure soaring, and how could it persuade him he was derelict not to drop everything and run home and talk sense to his mother?

There was no logic. She was his mother.

He wished she hadn’t written today. He honestly wished that. And felt guilty about it. He felt
angry
about Barb lying there with a damned batch of flowers his mother had signed his name to.

How
dare
she? Easily. She just did, that was all. She knew best. Ask her.

“Bren-ji.” It was Jago who leaned in the door, supporting her weight in transit on the door frame. “Four men outside.”

The knell of doom, it might be. His mind leaped into a completely different track: Banichi might have run into serious trouble. Talking them out of it might be an option, but not with a handful of armed men.

And there was a
reason
atevi residences were constructed as they were. “
Mantos an
,” he said, for which there was no translation, nor any more order needed. Jago relayed the order,
mantos an
, and every door they owned whisked shut, within the same ten seconds.

Jago stayed on his side of the door. He was certain that Tano and Algini were in the security post, and that that door was shut, and in his mind’s eye he could all but see Narani, alone, walking to the door.

The station might have opened that outer door and secured a tactical advantage. Whatever was up, they had opted not to do that.

Bren rose, having taken the gun from his computer case, wondering if the captains’ men might cut down Narani and use some electronic key to the door locks, defeating all but armed resistence; and for some moments he waited, quiet, straining to hear any activity at all outside.

Then came a light, muted tap at the door, and Jago opened it, on her guard: he stood with gun leveled.

Narani was there, alone, with the silver tray, bearing an odd wisp of pink cellophane. A candy wrapper, and a card.

“They have no message cylinders, as it seems,” Narani said. “They are Johnson-nadi and his associates, the ones displaced by our residency.”

Bren cast Jago half a glance, confused, but it was most certainly a candy wrapper, and somehow it had ended up in the transaction with Johnson and associates. “Kaplan,” was his instant guess, the only route by which it might have happened, and he set his gun carefully on the counter and went out into the hall, with Narani.

Their front door, as it were, stood open, and Johnson, Andresson, Pressman, and Polano waited quite respectfully in the corridor.

“Mr. Cameron?” Johnson said. “We came to name our favor.” And when he said nothing to that remarkable statement: “You’re passing out those sweets for favors. Have you got any more?”

His security was on highest alert, Banichi was missing, and he wasn’t without suspicions it was a reconnoitering mission; but he solemnly translated for Narani, who bowed and went off to find the requisite stores.

“My head of staff is looking for them,” he said. “Friends of Kaplan?”

“Cousin,” Andresson said.

“Ah. Would you like to come in and have tea?”

“Don’t know tea, sir.”

“Well, probably I shouldn’t. It kept Jase awake all night the first time he had it. But I can see imports will be very popular.”

“Like the sweets, sir.”

“I favor them myself.” He heard Narani coming back, but did not turn his head, having had Banichi and Jago for teachers. He received the small box, a common tin box, and presented it to Johnson. “Very happy to oblige.”

“You want this back, sir?”

“The box? It’s yours, if you like it.”

“It’s got pictures,” Johnson protested.

It was printed with flowers and fruits, as it happened, and had an oval with the inset of a sea. Indeed it was a fine little box, where paper was unknown.

“I hope you enjoy them. We’re very comfortable here, thanks to you. If you’d like to come back when you’re truly off-duty… we could show you some of Jase’s favorites. I wonder if you aren’t that Johnson he mentioned.”

“There’s thirty of us Johnsons aboard,” Johnson said. “And he’s captains’ level, which we don’t get to, much.”

Sometimes a devil took him. There was no other way he found to describe it. He had wanted to get word out to the crew, and in that small personal confidence, he saw an opening and went for it. “I heard the rumor. Have they caught the person responsible?”

“What rumor, sir?”

“That Ramirez was shot. You
haven’t
heard? Maybe it’s not true.”

“Shot, sir?
What’s
this?”

“I don’t know. I heard something.You’re Kaplan’s cousin, are you?” The business of the request for candies had made complete sense to him now. Kaplan had had some to repay a personal favor; they were promised a favor; they wanted theirs in candy, and God knew what the sugar hits were selling for within the crew. “They’re trying to blame Jase Graham, and that’s a damned lie. Jase likes Ramirez. I know damned well Jase would never shoot him—and where’d he get a gun, when he’d just been through a security check? But others hadn’t. I’m damned upset. We had an agreement that was going to get the ship fueled, and now there’s somebody trying to kill Ramirez, who for all I know is locked up in fear for his life.”

“You’re jessing us.”

“I’m worried, is what. You’re the only ones I’ve talked to in days. I don’t like what I’m hearing, and I think maybe there’s something damned underhanded going on. You want to come back here and talk to me, I’ll be glad to tell you and anybody else in the crew what I know, which is that there’s something damned messy in the works that’s somebody’s notion of getting the Mospheirans to work with them, but the Mospheirans won’t, they don’t want it, and some folk on this station are just scared to death of the atevi, who’re doing their damndest to help… Narani, attend me closely. Smile… Does this look like an enemy? He’s a perfectly upright, peaceful man with grandchildren.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnson murmured. “But we’re security and we’re supposed to know if there’s something going on.”

Security, was it? Naive as children, and looking for a bribe, however fierce they might be if they were set off. “Look for yourselves, have a good look. We’ve got a table that violates a code, as I understand, a grandfather who’s doing his own job the best he can, and my room, all my secret goings-on, right here, perfectly in the open… Jago, put the gun up and come smile at these gentlemen.”

Jago came out and smiled and bowed very nicely, despite the sidearm neatly in its holster.

“Nadiin,” she said, and said, in Ragi, “Be careful of these men, nandi.”

“One certainly is,” he said, and in his best approximation of Jase’s dialect, “Damned mess, is what. My staff is concerned.”

“Where’d you hear this?” Johnson asked bluntly. “Who told you?”

“I got it from the Mospheirans,” he said, total fabrication. “I think they heard it in the bar in their area. It’s a rumor. But it is sure we were supposed to meet with Ramirez days ago and it keeps being put off and put off, and no one ever meets. Tell
Ogun
what I’ve told you.”

“We’d better get out of here,” Polano said, and the others thought so, too. They retreated to the door, still with their box of candy.

“You tell whoever you report to that we’re damned tired of waiting,” Bren said, “and we don’t care who we deal with, but we’re here to deal and get this place operational. Tell Kaplan… tell him, too. I owe him an explanation. Tell him to get here.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnson said, and the door shut.

Bren heaved a deep, shaky breath, regretting twice over that Banichi hadn’t shown up, and likely wouldn’t, now, until the down cycle of the activity in the corridors. Banichi was lying up somewhere, surely, surely that was what had happened. It had just gotten hot wherever Jase was, and Banichi hadn’t thought it safe.