A shake of the head. “No.”
One very last question. “Why in helldidn’t you come to me?”
“ Tabinimight not have liked it. I didn’t know what to do.”
That wasn’t quite the defensive answer he’d expected. It made sense; and that set him a little off balance. “I could have kept your question secret.”
Hesitation. “The Old Man was pretty sure you wouldn’tkeep something from Tabini. That man’chibusiness. And I told him what I thought I ought to do, which was ask you, but he wouldn’t risk it. He said that was why he called mein.” A moment’s silence. “He didn’t ask Jase. I guess he thought Jase would tell you everything. Jase’s attached to the planet. But I live here. He was the Old Man. My Old Man. That’s all the logic I had to go on. I didn’t want to be where I was. I didn’t want to keep the secret. But I didn’t know how to turn it loose or whether things would blow up if I did. And by then I knewwe didn’t have the time we thought we did.”
“I know what you’re saying. I appreciate you made a decision the best you could with what you had to work with. And I appreciate the line you’ve tried to walk, solo, trying to preserve your worth to the situation. But the situation’s vastly changed. That’s why I want you inside the household, so you’re never confronted with an atevi question without advice. You know they could have advised you how to deal with Tabini—if they’d been yours to ask. And in time to come,” he said levelly, “and when we get back, you can even tell me and Jase the truth. We’ll all three sort it out. I think this has all finally become the same side.”
“You trust Jase?”
Shocking question. It shook him.
“You don’t.”
Her doubt might be the aftershock of a relationship between her and Jase that hadn’t worked.
“He loved Ramirez,” Yolanda said. “He was wholly committed to Ramirez. And Ramirez didn’t trust him—because of his relationship with you, I’m reasonably sure that was the whole cause. But Ramirez didn’t trust him, in the end. You’re upset with me, with what you found out was going on. Jase isn’t. Jase is taking Ramirez’s dying just too well. Too sensibly.”
“He learned in Shejidan, maybe.” But he didn’t discount the question.
“But it hurts. It hurts, Bren. And he’s not showing it. And I can’t talk to him.”
“You’ve tried?”
“I leave messages: talk to me. No answers. Jase didn’t like what he heard. He’s mad at me. Really mad at me. I think that I wasworking with Ramirez, and that Ramirez went to me—that stung.”
Jase wasn’t the young man who’d parachuted onto the planet. And that fact, perhaps, had foredoomed Yolanda to find her own way through the thicket he and Jase had made of their association… and foredoomed not to get answers, and to be even further on the outside.
Association, be it noted: aishi. Aishihad that troublesome word, man’chi, nestled right in the midst of it. He and Jase hadn’t dealt with one another like two humans, in Mosphei’, where friendshipexisted, where friendshipmight have swallowed down some of the problems in silence. Instead they’d dealt in Ragi, one of them with a man’chion earth, the other with his captainin the heavens. They’d found a means of working around the friendshippart, thanks to aishi, thanks to the organization of the household, where everyone under the same roof had the same set of motives, the same interests, the same imperatives and acted accordingly, in that clearly foreign matrix.
And Yolanda?
Yolanda had landed instead in that generations-deep nest of conspiracy and humanly seductive friendshipsover on the island of Mospheira, after living in her close-knit crew. On Mospheira she’d rapidly learned the finer points of being on no side, of being the one true outsider in a society where there wereno outsiders. All the lessons of the ship to a factor of ten. And being in a matrix that wasn’t as clearly foreign—that assaulted her human emotions with promises that didn’t pan out. Always the outsider. Always the target.
“I’ll try to patch things with Jase,” he said. “I’ll give him your message, for both your sakes. I hope you believe I’m on the level.”
“I know what you once said to me. I said it to myself all the time I was working with Ramirez.”
“What’s that?”
“That if a side in a dispute doesn’t have somebody they think is working only for them—”
“An honest broker.”
“If they don’t have that, they can do something dangerous to everyone. So that’s what I always told myself I was. An honest broker. I was somebody working only for Ramirez, somebody who’d argue with him. The Old Man’s dead, now. Now, I’m not quite working for Ogun. But Tabini’s asked me to work for him. And I’m going to have to choose. I know I am. And you’re saying go with the atevi, and maybe—maybe that’s what I have to do, now. But I’m scared—”
“Good. Be scared. But don’t be overwhelmed. That’s where the household support will save you.”
“It may save me. But what will save Jase? He’s hellbent for going. He’ll be with Sabin, trying to make her look as good as possible, trying to mediate her decisions—trying to keep the peace aboard. That’s not good, Bren. That’s not good for him, because he was Ramirez’s, not hers, and he hates her. He really does. And on this mission is the last place he ought to be. Hear what I’m saying: he’s alone. He’s going to need help. You’re what he has. Don’t fail him.”
He considered the equation. The warning. All of it. Was it after all, love? “I won’t promise you. I won’t.” They’d gone about as deep as they could, each holding the other’s interests hostage, each of them being where the other wanted most to be, each of the three of them given what another of the three most wanted to have. “Meanwhile you get to stand between atevi and humans until I get back. You’ll have carte blanche with my staff they’ll give you. I have the links, the communications, the staff, and the experts you need. Half my staff, understand, are spies, useful spies. Don’t let on you know, even if they know you know: it’s just not done and it’ll make things impossible. Listen to me: wear the clothes, dreamin the language; think in it. My remaining staff will see to your every wish. Down there, Tabini and Damiri will likely ask you to dinner, in which you have no choice. Staff will prime you on protocols. Observe them as you observe safety drills. Your life rides on it. The whole alliance rides on our survival.”
“I don’t need to be more scared than I am.”
“You canbe more scared than this. When you are—again talk to staff. That’s why I want you surrounded by them. You’re paidhi-aiji. You’re most useful to Ogun when you take Tabini’sorders and put yourself at his disposal. You’ll be the honest broker—the only one there’ll be for lightyears around.”
A novice… but not a stupid novice, as it turned out and not without canny advice, either. Once he saw she was truly disposed to take that advice, he had no trouble pouring his resources into her hands and wishing her every piece of luck possible.
Yolanda said fervently, “I’m gladyou’re going on the mission. You want what I know about what’s out there—if Ogun doesn’t know, and he hasn’t told Sabin, then there’s two names to watch. There was a three-man exploration team that went in. I know that Jenrette was one of them; and two more got killed. Tamun was trying to catch Ramirez during the mutiny, and they ran, and Tamun’s mutineers shot them but Jenrette’s still alive, but they aren’t. I didn’t used to think so, but now I ask myself whether Tamun suspected something, and if that was why he was trying to overthrow the council—but Tamuncouldn’t get at it, when he was one of the captains. He couldn’t get the proof, or didn’t release it. So we didn’t know—and now Tamun’s dead. And that scares me. All of that scares me.”