Trust was such a precious commodity.
He took a little chance, from his own quarters, to consult Gin’s staff, wondering how things were going, not wishing to bother Jase with questions, and Gin’s staff reported that Gin was tired, that she and Sabin were swearing at each other, and that another of Gin’s team was suited and out there.
Excellent. Beyond excellent. He sat down on his bed and fell backwards, eyes shut, seeing Gin, suited, in that lonely camera view. Sabin, in that doorway.
That ship moving in on them, blip on a screen, more ominous than anything Braddock could still throw at them.
What more did he want to say?
Come, go, give, take, you, we, they. Woman, man, child.
Fight, not fight. Shoot. Not shoot.
Food, water.
To, from, out of, on, off, over, under, around, through . Pesky directional words that in some languages weren’t words at all.
Not . Ragi was dubious about negatives, wrapped them carefully in courtesies and precise formulae.
Always, never, soon, if . Truly the soft tissue of thought. Time. Time and degree of reality. May and could , those words of conjecture. No hope at all of getting that far into the language. They had to stick to concrete, demonstrable items and actions.
And which language? Prakuyo had picked up elementary Ragi hand over fist, in a matter of hours, and six years among humans hadn’t made him fluent—that he admitted, that he wanted to admit.
It argued that Ragi was a better bridge for Prakuyo’s people. And it stated the truth: that humans weren’t the highest power in these regions, that if one wanted to trade—another useful word—or talk—the best language for it was likely going to be Ragi, and the authority that governed it all wasn’t on the station, nor even on the ship: it was in Shejidan, and the dowager was its representative— he was its representative. He hadn’t abdicated his responsibilities. He’d acted on the ship’s behalf because the senior captain had stripped all its security away—leaving, perhaps deliberately, atevi as the ship’s defense.
Atevi, like nature, abhorred a vacuum. They moved in. He had. He didn’t want to argue the point with Sabin, who probably thought she was running things—certainly he didn’t want to argue it in front of the neighbors.
So, well. Leader, authority, government, people, nation . Those pesky abstract structures that everyone called simple, that provoked so many wars.
Not to mention those pillars of atevi and human civilization please, thank you , and have a nice day . By the way Prakuyo took to the dowager’s society, that element was present in yet another species.
The ship whined and flexed elements of its gut it hadn’t used this energetically in all his time aboard. It had traveled empty. Now it drank down the survivors of this place, this situation, those desperate families and individuals that wanted most of all to live, who had very little concept where they were going or whether it was going to be better or not—but trusting even the appearance of aliens among them, in what amounted to a rush for the lifeboat. That augured well for their ability to fit in where they were going.
Didn’t cure the fact that Braddock was still loose, but the outflux gave Braddock less and less to work with, and Braddock now had very little control over anything mechanical. The wisest among his aides had to be gathering the family silver and running for the exit.
He let his eyes shut. Didn’t trust himself and kept a steady count in his head, which if it began to falter, he had to open them at once and stay awake.
One minute, two, three.
Com went off and he yelped as if he’d been shot, grabbed it out of his pocket and thumbed it on, his heart creeping down from a frantic beat. Had he slept?
“ Bren ?” It was Jase. Agitated. “ Bren, do you read ?”
God, what time was it? An hour. Damn !
“Listening, listening, Jasi-ji. Go ahead.”
“ There’s fuel. There is fuel, Bren, do you hear ”?
His heart leapt up again.
“ And that ship’s still moving in, and we’re still pinned here with refugees coming aboard. Senior captain wants me to put out a security contingent and bar the cold zones to the refugees so we can move the ship in .”
To keep people out of the cold areas and reorient the whole procedure to a stable, locked-down docking configuration. A lot safer for the passengers.
“ Which doesn’t let us mate up with the alien ship ,” Jase said further. “ And which is going to create questions on their side if we shift position… and is going to bring Sabin back aboard to do it herself if I don’t take her request. She’s not informed what we’re doing. I’m going to have to tell her .”
“Better now than after she’s come back. I don’t like not having a secure com-line. Braddock’s still out there.”
“ I can send a courier. I can tell her I’m sending one to explain a situation .”
That would take time.
“ What progress down there ?” Jase asked.
“An hour’s unintended rest. But our guest had to be frayed, too. I’m going back at it now. We’ll be ready, Jase.”
“ Sleep is progress ,” Jase said charitably. “ In short supply up here, I’ll tell you. But our ETA for that ship is about three hours and docking shortly after. If you’re going to put any presentation together, just give us raw sketches and C2 can render them in the same form we’ve used all along with them .”
“Good idea.”
“ Got to go .”
“Do it. Thanks. I’m back at work.”
Feet on the floor. Body upright. Quick pass of a wet cloth to bring the wits back awake.
Sleep was progress, and he hoped Banichi and Jago were making that kind.
He had to go wake Prakuyo up, and hope he could establish a safe mode of communication that had taken his predecessors in Shejidan centuries of careful work.
Three hours. Three very short hours.
He needed more than skill. He needed someone very bright on the other end of the telescope; and he hoped to God that Prakuyo, who’d survived six years of stubborn non-communication, was able to meet him at least halfway.
Chapter 20
Prakuyo had been sleeping, so Narani said—small wonder, sleeping, Bren thought, having been catch as catch could with bed for what seemed a very long time, now.
It was court dress, no question, with the ship drawing close.
“Advise the dowager’s staff,” he said to Narani, “that the foreign ship is three hours away. One might add on a little time to establish a link of some sort, nadi-ji, one has no idea. But by no means wake Banichi or Jago. Jeladi can do that duty in the interim.”