“Ahead of you, Mr. Cameron,” Sabin said. “We’ll be working on that information.”
“ Or it could just represent the lag-time in their decision-making,” he said. “We’ve already told them we’re independent enough that we generate answers when station doesn’t. Contact station and get them to join us in another response. Indicate their cooperation with us.”
“The hell they’ll do that,” Sabin muttered, but: “C1,” she said. “Transmission to station. Quote: Request you also transmit three bright flashes, identical duration, toward spook source. Critical you comply.”
Bren suffered cold shivers. He’d tried to rest and the body hadn’t quite waked up. The mind, however, had, calculating possibilities that began to branch and multiply untidily. The hell they’ll do that . Clearly, by this demonstration and others, the Phoenix senior captain didn’t expect to give the orders to her Guild. It was becoming critical, and the Guild still thought it ran matters. Not a surprise.
But that the Phoenix senior captain meanwhile prepared to act and make a statement, a simple, light-flashed statement to match the ship’s singular: I —that was going to have its effect later in their dealings with station, and they couldn’t help that. Not in their present situation. They could only hope for station to comply, if only it would.
And they had to wait more than an hour to get station’s yes or no. Were they unified we ? Or not?
“Visual senses dominate in that species,” Bren muttered. He’d studied the processes of contact—historically—with the atevi. He couldn’t swear another living soul aboard had that background. And he’d spent eleven months reading on that topic. “Visible spectrum overlaps ours. Brain architecture has that in common, at least, with us and atevi.”
Jase and Sabin alike shot him a look as if he were launching into prophecy.
“The ship out there won’t know the station refused you,” Bren said, teeth chattering in a persistent edge-of-sleep chill, and it sounded like fear, and he couldn’t stop it. “But if our own station won’t cooperate, it tells me something about the Guild, while I’m unraveling alien behavior.”
“Screw your suppositions, Mr. Cameron. Confine your speculations to that ship out there and give me facts, not guesswork.”
“Best I can, captain. The only thing we’ve said to them so far is I and they’ve answered me, too . Useful if we could get the conversation to include a demonstrable we , but we don’t expect to have a we with station, do we, so that’s likely out.” Where did a dialog start, without sea and land and sky for conversational items? Series of lights? Sequential blink used as a pointer?
And a pointer aimed at what? At the non-cooperative station, which might pot-shot the alien and start a war? That was no good.
“It may be a naive question, captain, but are we moving toward the aliens at the moment? Or toward station?”
“What are you getting at, Mr. Cameron?”
“I’m trying to figure out what we’re saying in relation to where we’re going. Everything’s a word. Where we’re going is a word.”
“We’re splitting the difference at the moment. We’ve veered off from station signal. We haven’t gone on a heading directly for the alien craft. We’re not going directly at either.”
“Good decision.”
“Thank you,” Sabin said dryly, and he ignored the irony.
“Can we stop? Stand still?”
“Relative to what, Mr. Cameron?”
“I don’t know.” He was totally at sea where ship’s movements were concerned. “Just, once we go on toward the station, now or hours from now, we’ve involved the station. If our own station will cooperate with us—then, yes, we could slow way down, sit out here and maybe work this out. I’m assuming the Guild’s not going to be helpful. So if we could, relatively speaking, just stop or slow way down and talk with this outlying ship—if we could say, by our motions, we’re going to deal with you rationally and calmly, no hurry here …”
“We don’t even know if there’s intelligence aboard.”
“But something somewhere in control of this is rational. We have to believe that, or there’s no hope in this situation—and percentage, captain, percentage in this is all with hope . If we can get to talking, if we can get them to accept a slow closer contact and occupy their attention with communications—we may just possibly shift decision-making from their warlike to their deliberative personnel, if there should be that division of power aboard.”
He saw the little frown grow. Sabin was at least listening. And the next part of the thought he didn’t like at all—but it was, personally applied, the hope equation. Percentages.
“If we can do that,” he said further, “if we can just calm down and sit out here increasing our ability to talk to them, then we’ve over all increased the likelihood they’ll talk in all other circumstances. They’ll have invested effort in talking. At least on economy of effort, they’ll reasonably value that investment. Individuals will have committed work to the idea. We may gain proponents among them. We could be several years sitting here unraveling this, but the immediate threat to the station will be a lot less down this path. We might be able to defuse this situation and get their decision-making well away from the fire buttons and over to the communications officers.”
“And you think you can accomplish this fantasy of cooperation.”
He didn’t know what to say. Then he shifted a glance over his shoulder, by implication the array of atevi and Mospheirans—and back. “My predecessors certainly did.”
Sabin’s glance made the same trip. And came back. “You can do it and take my orders, mister.”
“I respect your good sense, captain.”
“What do you propose for the next step?”
“Ignore my ignorance about ship’s operations. But we’ve answered the aliens. Where’s the clock on that, relative to our request to station?”
Sabin checked her wristwatch. “That’s thirty one to station reply and forty six to alien reply.”
“If station agrees to signal with us, we do a unison approach. If station doesn’t agree… how many lights can the ship manage in a row, to signal with?”
“Eight.”
Infelicitous eight. Was it mad for a human mind to think in those terms—to have numbers make a difference at all?
“I’ll give you a blink pattern with those eight. I’ll think of something.”
“I’m sure that’s very useful, Mr. Cameron.”
“We can signal an approach. If we can make an approach to them.”
“You’re recommending this.”
“I’m recommending this.”
Again a long stare. “I’m not expecting station cooperation. Get me your blink pattern, Mr. Cameron. Let’s just see what we can learn.”
Half an hour. He had other minds to consult, and he went and consulted, the aiji-dowager sitting ramrod stiff in an upright chair in Jase’s cabin, Ginny sitting on the bed, security standing about. He sat down and made his proposal, talking to two individuals: the human one of which didn’t remotely understand his craft, but the dowager understood the problems. So, even, did Cajeiri, who stood by his great-grandmother’s chair and listened very solemnly, not a word from him, but a lively spark in his eyes, not a reasonable ounce of fear.