A hesitation. A slight hesitation.
A new voice. “This is Colonel Brown. We understand your situation. We’re instructed to accommodate atevi customs in all particulars. Come on out as soon as ground ops gives you clearance.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The shuttle ticked and popped and boomed, cooling down. Beside him, the crew were busy checking readouts, making changes on the touch-screens and with the switches, setting everything, presumably, for the shuttle to be shut down and held. It would have to sit, under guard, and it had to remain accessible by the crew, a point he raised with Mospheiran security. It was their only way back to space until they could ascertain what might have happened to the other shuttles grounded on the mainland, with the very survival of equipment, maintenance staff and crew far from certain.
“No problem, sir,” the answer came back. “That’s understood.”
No problem, no problem, no problem. Shawn had given orders and obstacles fell down as soon as they came up. He felt he could draw a breath.
And pay courtesy where it was due.
“Excellent job, nadiin,” he said to the crew. “Thank you. One requests you will come with us wherever they assign us, share quarters with us, and maintain yourselves ready to return to space, as soon as we can clear up the difficulties. The Presidenta’s own men will put a constant watch on the shuttle. You need not worry. I say so in utmost confidence.”
There were respectful nods, quiet acceptance. “One request, nand’ paidhi,” the pilot said, “if it were possible to send regards to our households on the mainland when you cross over.”
“One would be extremely pleased to convey such sentiments,” Bren said fervently. These several young men had been stuck in orbit, away from their own parents, wives, associations, since the trouble had stranded them, while the aishidi’tat underwent a violent upheaval, and, as the only shuttle crew likely current in operations, they would be handed the first mission back to the station once conditions permitted it, a shuttle prepped, what was just as scary, by inexperienced Mospheiran ground crews, unless they were fortunate enough to smuggle atevi maintenance over here. “With my personal regards and I am very sure, with the aiji’s, we will look to your households. One absolutely understands your situation, and I convey the extreme respects of all of us. We will by no means forget you.”
“Nandi.” There were bows, expressions of gratitude, that kurdi word, all around, and he left the cockpit with the sure determination to do something for these men—work some miracle to reward their devotion, their professionalism, their man’chi to the program.
“The Presidenta himself has come to meet us,” Bren reported to the dowager, who, amid the debarcation preparations of her staff, pursed her lips and looked satisfied as well as—dared one surmise what she would never admit—absolutely exhausted?
“Excellent,” she declared. Cajeiri, standing at his seat beside her, looked to be both frayed at the edges and brimming with questions, all of which were desperate, but he asked not a one of them, except, “Shall we go out soon, nand’ Bren?”
“As soon as the hull cools, young sir. We have two constraints: the need to be across the straits quickly, so that our enemies have little time to organize a reception, and the need to gather as much information as possible from sources on Mospheira, who have come here to meet us.” Not only Cajeiri, but the dowager was listening. Ilisidi was patient only because it was her question as much as Cajeiri’s. “One hopes the Presidenta will provide informational files we can take with us. But we must accept the Presidenta’s kind hospitality for the night, to recover our equilibrium on the earth. Walking is not as easy to deal with, as long as we have been in space.”
“An extreme inconvenience,” Ilisidi muttered, frustrated and doubtless feeling the change of gravity in all her arthritic joints, not to mention added labor for her heart. “Sit down to wait, great-grandson. Cease fidgeting.”
“Mani-ma.” Cajeiri sat.
Bren found his way aft, where staffs were in last-moment conference, where he could pass on his own immediate information to Jago, who turned up to gather it.
“The dowager is not in favor of long delay,” he said quietly, speaking frankly. “Nor am I. But we must acclimate to the world, if only for a few hours, and get some sleep, and I hope for a great deal of organized information that may be useful to us, from the local government. The Presidenta, Shawn Tyers, is meeting us. One would not be surprised to have Yolanda Mercheson pay us a visit, she being on this side of the strait, and likely very interested in a return flight.” He glanced anxiously toward Cenedi, who represented the dowager’s interests and rarely disputed her opinions or her wishes. “I very much fear for the dowager’s well-being if we attempt to ignore our physical limits and press ahead too fast. I know we risk losing the advantage of surprise, but if we risk her health—we risk everything.”
Jago nodded, leaning on the seat, eye to eye with him. “This is in his mind, too, Bren-ji, be assured. That, and we all entertain the hope you mention, of resources here.”
“We shall sleep in a secure place, I have no doubt of the Presidenta’s hospitality. They have had enough domestic stress that they are no strangers to security requirements.”
“I shall inform the others,” she said.
So that was handled. Bren went back up the aisle to gather up his small amount of luggage, his computer, his duffle with changes of clothes and other items Narani had packed for him. The rest of their luggage was back in the cargo compartment, and there was a fair amount of it, their staffs’ gear, not to mention the clothes and items the dowager had brought.
“Nandiin,” the pilot said, appearing in the doorway, “they are moving a scissor-lift to the hatch. One believes they intend us to debark.”
The language barrier persisted. But they were cooled down sufficiently, it seemed, and checked for hazardous leaks. He gathered up the baggage he would handle and piled it in his seat, then went forward to attend Ilisidi and allow her the proper precedence down the aisle to the hatch.
“About time,” she said. Cenedi had also gone forward, and attended her, offering his arm, but the notion that the dowager was about to meet human notions of hospitality… that was daunting. He was in charge of that, he feared. Every courtesy would necessarily come through translation.
The steward moved aft to open the outer hatch. Banichi and four of Ilisidi’s young men had stayed back there, two of the latter to see to the baggage, the rest to attend the door when it opened, Bren was sure.
Ilisidi walked down the aisle, with Cenedi, lips tight, and young Cajeiri came close behind, with two others of her bodyguard carrying her personal baggage.
So Bren fell in, carrying his own bags. Tano snatched them as he passed, and fell in behind him, with Jago and Algini.
The hatch opened. Air wafted in. The dowager and her party exited onto the quaking lift platform, and he followed, flinching at the flat world. A wave of malodorous heat from the shuttle walls warred with cool and fresh wind off the sea, air as moist as the shuttle’s atmosphere was dry and cold. The side nearest the shuttle felt like the breath of an oven, baking their backs.
And the blue and gray horizons dizzily went on forever, with Mt. Adam Thomas drifting like a vision above a haze in the distance, real, and solid, in flat perspective that warred with recent reality and yet quickly seemed right to memory, if not the inner ear. He stood near the dowager, as their security piled their baggage onto the lift. He gave one hand to the rail and offered one to her vicinity, if not touching her, just as the lift started into motion.