“Indeed,” Cajeiri said in his high, childish voice, and in the children’s language. “We are very pleased. Thank you, nadiin.”
This pleased everyone. Smiles broke out, and the staff—the office was already well-stocked with stationery and other supplies—came to beg a ribbon and card for the office, that genteel custom of seals and signatures as mementos of an official contactc “Which we would frame behind glass for the office, nandi.”
“I have no ring,” Cajeiri said sotto voce and still in the children’s language.
“One may just sign and use the office seal,” Bren said. “It will be perfectly adequate for the purpose, young sir.”
“Nandi,” Cajeiri said with a nice little bow, and the staff happily scurried about getting the wax and cards and ribbon— there was even available the black-and-red ribbon of the Ragi atevi as well as the white of the paidhi: the office, dealing as much as it did with protocols, had prepared for all ceremonial eventualities. There was a coil of red wax, there were embossed cards, and Bren, on inspiration, ordered out not just a simple card, but a large sheet of paper vellum for the signatures and seals of everyone who had come in. He signed it himself, and Cajeiri did, as well as signing personal cards. The office had lost most of its framed commemorative cards in the organized vandalism that had hit the former premises, except those that had returned with returning staffers, and now the office had a new start on suitable items to hang, an honor for the place and the moment that cheered everyone.
In the midst of it all, a Messengers’ Guildsman showed up at the door, officially to report Mogari-nai’s dish was indeed functioning and the link was indisputably up. The paidhi could speak to the ship above at his leisure and at this very moment.
“We are very grateful, nadi,” Bren said, and nothing would do, in his staff’s opinion, but immediately to link up a phone, hush the tumultuous party, and indeed, to formally salute the station staff aloft, the entity with whom the office had been in frequent communication, in the name of the paidhi, before the troubles came on them. There was quick consultation on felicitous wording of the formal statement.
The Guildsman, personally put on the spot, saw to the link, and set everything on speaker, so that the whole hushed room could hear the staff at Mogari-nai, out on the coast, actually complete the link to the space station.
“This is Alpha Station,” the human voice came back. “Is this Mogari-nai?”
The office director leaned close to the mike, and said, in passable Mosphei’. “This is the office of the paidhi-aiji in Shejidan, rejoicing to resume communications with the office of the station-aijiin.
Stand by, Alpha Station, for the paidhi.”
Cheers broke out, as the acknowledgment came back, and fell away to an excited hush, as Bren moved close to the mike.
“This is Bren Cameron,” Bren said, leaning near. “Alpha, hello.”
“Bren,” another voice said delightedly.
A smile broke out on Bren’s face when he heard that: he couldn’t help it.
“How are you?” that voice asked him.
“Jase.” He lapsed unthinkingly into ship-manners, then bounced back to Ragi, which Jase understood. “One hardly expected one of the ship-aijiin to be standing by, nandi.”
“This is my watch,” the voice came back with some minuscule delay. “They warned us the link was going up, that they were going to contact you. They’ve been stuttering off and on all this watch. So how are you? Are you safe? Is everyone safe?”
Bren switched to ship-speak, for confirmation. “I’m in the middle of an office party, at the moment, celebrating getting our records back—which we’re doing. We’re putting things back together as fast as we can. The aiji is back in office, the bad guys are on the run, the trains are almost on schedule, and the airlines are back in the air. How are you, up there?”
“May we talk to him?” Cajeiri asked, leaning close, and yelled: “Hi, Jase! Hello!”
“Hello,” the informal reply came back, startled. “Nand’ Cajeiri?”
The boy was on his own agenda. Bren edged Cajeiri back a little.
“You can see,” he said, preempting the mike, “that we’re in good shape here, hale and well. How are your supplies holding out up there?”
“Oh, we’re surviving, but we’re getting damned tired of fishcakes.
We’re in contact with the island. They’re prepping the shuttle there.
They’re telling us the other ships survived. Is that true?”
“Survived, but need extensive maintenance and checks, and likewise training time for the crews—they’re coming in, and unfortunately the simulators didn’t fare as well as the shuttles themselves. A few personnel are taking stock, going through checklists right now, and we can get flight programs and such from the island, even use their sims, I’m sure, if we have to. We don’t have an initial flight date. It may be a couple of months yet, but we will fly.”
“That’s great news,” the answer came down. “Really great news.
We wish it were tomorrow, but that those shuttles survived, that’s a real bonus.”
“How is Gene?” the youthful voice shouted past his shoulder.
“I’m sure he’s well,” Jase answered him. “No great problems in the population. We’re well fed, well housed, and settling in.”
The ship crew settling into the station was probably at about the same state of organization as they were, settling into the Bu-javid, Bren thought, living out of baggage and trying to find their records.
Thousands of refugees from the far station had to be fitted into quarters, and a handful of malcontents had to be put into very secure confinement. The station had already been short of supplies when its population had doubled—with, thank goodness, spare supplies from the ship itself—and order and supply was probably balanced on a knife’s edge now, until the shuttles started making their regular flights.
“We’re going to get essentials up there on a priority,” Bren promised him. “Start making your shopping list. Get that to my staff here as well as over to Shawn. We’ll compare notes and get the number one shuttle going with a full load of the most critical.”
“Wonderful news,” Jase said. “Don’t worry about us starving. The tanks will keep us going, and we’re careful with water, but we’re not short. We’re tracking a near-Earth iceball we’re pretty sure we can nab, give or take a month, and that will set us up much better, in that regard.”
“Good, good,” Bren said.
“We’ll set up a contact schedule,” Jase said. “There are some technicals we need to advise the aiji about. Measures the station took while we were gone, some satellites we deployed during the difficulty.”
Well, that might explain certain complaints. “We have reports of landings.”
“Unmanned ground stations,” Jase said. “Those are separate. I gave your staff a parting gift. Rely on them.”
Bren shot a look at Banichi and Jago, who stood near each other, not far away, their faces completely uninformative— So maybe it wasn’t something to discuss even with this entirely loyal staff, and in front of a trio of youngsters who weren’t a fraction that discreet.
“I’ll ask, then,” he said, taken aback—as he was sure Banichi and Jago were, since that had been one of the ongoing puzzles of the new administration. “It’s good to hear your voice, friend.”
“I’ve been worried about you,” Jase said.
“Mutual.” So Jase was safe. There had been no riot among the four-thousand-odd stationers they had just installed in a station with limited food and water. But with Jase reporting in safe and secure, his other personal worry, Toby, came back to him with particular force in the moment. He didn’t intersperse personal crises with official ones, not if he could help it, but Toby had deserved official attention, dammit, some gratitude for his part in things—and communication was still newly restored: his present recourse to the ship and the island might be more than spotty in days to come. “Jase, you haven’t heard anything from my brother Toby, have you?”