“Captain Sabin’s on the bridge?” Jase asked.
“I don’t know, sir. The bridge, her office, I don’t know.”
“Adjacent,” Jase said in a low voice, and drew a deep, audible breath. “Stay with me, Mr. Kaplan. The dowager’s asked to see the senior captain.—Aiji-ma, Bren-ji, kindly come and kindly don’t touch weapons.”
Kaplan, who didn’t understand the latter slightly pidgin statement, looked as if he wanted to do something or stop someone and didn’t know where to start. Polano and Pressman looked no happier as Jase shoved off his handhold and sailed down the null-g course to a wall-switch.
Bren followed Jase, desperately trusting atevi to stay with them—Banichi and Jago, and the dowager and her party. If anything went amiss up here, with armed atevi security, armed humans—
The switch opened the door. Bren expected another corridor, and offices: every other door led to the like.
This one opened on a wide technical zone: consoles, displays, flashing lights and readouts, and a number of busy technicians, some of whom looked their way in shock.
More did. Work stopped. Computers didn’t.
It was that area that Phoenixnever opened to visitors—that area Phoenixhad never permitted to be photographed, even if Mospheira and Shejidan both had plans of such a place: the configuration, they’d always said, the precise configuration was as secret and classified as the interior of Tabini’s apartments, the inside of the Presidential residence on Mospheira.
And here they were in the control center, heart of the computers, nexus for communications. The bridge itself was that open space just beyond the array of consoles that, in effect, ran everything above the planet’s surface.
They were in it now. Up to their necks.
And that was Captain Sabin in the brightly lighted bridge section, under a light that sheened her gray hair like a spotlight. Officers and technicians floated at fair random, this way and that, oriented to their work or their convenience. But Sabin, not the tallest, not even the fanciest-dressed—she was in a long-sleeved black tee—was unmistakable.
“There is the ship-aiji,” Ilisidi said with satisfaction, pointing with the ferrule of her cane. “We’ll talk.”
With all the profound courtesy that implied, of who had come to whom.
And Sabin had seen them.
“No weapons!” Bren said immediately, and repeated it in ship-speak, loud and clear, with the gut-deep fright of a slip on ice. “The aiji-dowager has honored the ship’s captains by coming to them, in their residence, and comes here in courteous deference to rulers in their own domain. This is a high honor paid the ship’s command on this auspicious occasion.”
Sabin’s pitch, now. Please God, Bren thought. He’d cued her. Let Sabin once in her life moderate her response.
There was a four-beat silence. Everything froze.
Then Sabin lashed out with a booted foot and sailed toward them like a missile: techs hugged panels and got out of the way as Sabin flew from bright light to dim, from command to operations—and stopped, suddenly, with a reach to a handhold: a crisp, expert halt and a strength astonishing in a thin-limbed old woman.
“This is the bridge,” Sabin said. “This is restricted.” From Sabin that was utmost restraint. “Captain Graham.” Thatwas utmost restraint, too. Say one thing for Sabin: she didn’t light into a brother captain in front of crew. But the anger was palpable. “I’m not going to speak to Mr. Cameron. I can’t speak to the dowager. Kindly straighten this out.”
“You’re not speaking to me,” Bren said and shot right ahead: “Through me, you’re speaking to the dowager, captain. She’s delighted to be aboard and pays you the signal honor of coming to youin your premises rather than requiring you to come to her in audience… thereforeshe came to present her compliments, making you a head of state, captain, and a very favored person.”
Sabin’s eyes were hard and black, still in attack mode, not a bit dissuaded. But she didn’t call security to shoot the lot of them. “That’s all well and good, sir, but I’ll call on your good offices to be damned sure this doesn’t happen again. Now if you’ll get the woman out of here, we have work to do.”
“Captain.” Jase was going to try.
It wasn’t a good idea, in Bren’s experience. He drew a breath and kept going across the ice floes. “The dowager’s come here to pay respects. There’s a reciprocation expected.”
“The hell!” Sabin kept going, but Bren rode right over the top of the outburst.
“You want your supplies, captain—I assume you want your supplies—perhaps we’d better continue this discussion in your office.”
“Here’s good enough.” But Sabin had lowered her voice, and applied her version of conciliation. “I’m damned busy, Mr. Cameron. Get her the hell out.”
“She does understand some Mosphei’, captain. Please use restraint.”
“I am using restraint. I want her off this deck. I want you and her and these people down on deck five and I don’t want to hear from you again until we’re at our destination, at which time I’ll tell you where we are and I don’t want to hear from you after that until we’re back in port at this star. Is that clear?”
“Let me convey for the dowager that she may demand to leave this ship, and if she leaves this ship the diplomatic fallout will be extremely disadvantageous to everything we’ve spent the last number of years building—which I assure you won’t help this ship.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“Far from it. The dowager’s come here to invite you to supper this evening.”
The look on Sabin’s face was astonishing. An expression. A moment of utter, unguarded shock.
“Economical to accept,” Bren said rapidly, before Sabin formulated a reply. “Establishing a cordial tone aboard, bringing the very expert services of her security harmoniously into your service, and the services of the paidhiin, to boot. We’re good, captain. You arehearing me, and I don’t think that was your original intention. We’ll be very pleased to apply our talents to your opposition if you’ll oblige the dowager, win her good will, and make our jobs easier. Besides, she sets a very good table.”
Three expressions from Sabin in rapid succession: shock, outrage, and targeting calculation.
“You’re the damned cheekiest bastard I’ve met in a lifetime.”
“Yes, ma’am, and you’re no pushover, on the other side. If our interests really did diverge, I’d be worried, but I happen to know our best interests and your interests are the same. Besides, you deserve a good dinner, and it won’t be wasted time. You’ll score a relationship that’ll make a big difference out there… that will outright assure you come back here to a working station with resources.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Cameron?”
“No, captain, it’s a pretty good forecast. If this relationship goes bad, everything goes bad; if it goes brilliantly, everything becomes easier. Let me add my personal plea to the case: accept the invitation and you’ll have my assurances I’ll do everything possible to persuade her of yourpoints. I can’t stress enough how great an honor the dowager’s done you by coming here: she’s put her dignity on the line so as to make clear how greatly she respects your authority. Now it’s very useful for your side to respect and accept her hospitality.”
“ Damnedcheeky bastard, Mr. Cameron.”
“Which I trust refers solely to me, captain, and I hope signals your gracious acceptance.”
“There’s nothing gracious about it.”
“The traditional supper hour, for these affairs. Full dress. She’ll spare no effort to honor her guest.”
“How long am I expected to be honored? I’ve got a ship in the process of boarding.”
“About three hours.”
“Flaming hell.”