Where he had at least the hope of contributing advice—if the aliens didn’t construe their movement as attack, or simply prove intractably hostile.
“Bren-ji.” Banichi insisted he enter first. Jago followed. They made a sandwich of him within the protective, padded closet, and he tried not to shake like a leaf. They rather expected the lord of the heavens to have a notion what he was doing. And not to shiver.
An hour and more until the aliens knew they were slowing and turning—and signaling their intentions. Which might also make a shot miss them, if the aliens pissaciously fired before they considered the blink signal.
Head against the padding. Eyes shut.
Final alarm. The ship began to maneuver. Ships that traveled such vast distances so fast were rather like bullets. They weren’t meant to jitter about, changing course, making loose objects and passengers into pancakes. Phoenix certainly wasn’t designed to do it.
But she did.
Long change of direction. Time for thought, which he tried not to use, except on his next step.
Suppose the other ship echoed the signal, including the ship movement. Supposing they came forward.
Suppose they offered some different signal.
Suppose, on the other hand, they sat inert, not doing a thing. Could Phoenix detect it, if they did? Or if, sitting still, they fired?
A certain degree before a physical missile reached them. No detection if hostility traveled at the speed of light. One thought ever so uncomfortably of very bad television, back home, death rays from the heavens, shadow-creatures menacing whole towns—
Such naive images. And so unwittingly prophetic if he couldn’t think of the right answers.
He felt the living warmth on either side of him, steady, absolutely unflinching.
Calm, calm, calm. Panic didn’t serve the cause, not at all.
“How are they down on five-deck?” he asked.
“Very well, nandi,” Jago answered.
“And the dowager?”
“Very well, too,” Banichi said on his other side.
“Well,” he said, “nadiin-ji, we have at least gotten one signal out of these folk, whether or not it comes from something like Gin’s robots—which hardly matters: if signal is being offered, signal is being offered, dare one say? So we orient ourselves toward them. We have offered a signal stating our proposed motion, which we hope does not look like stealth or offense.” He had the Assassins’ Guild right at his elbow and hadn’t asked them their opinion of the captain’s precipitate execution of his plan. “How would you manage a peaceful approach to them, nadiin-ji, figuring a complete dearth of cover?”
“One would stand at distance and signal in plain sight,” Banichi said, “except that distance places this inconvenient lag between responses, and one seems therefore not to be quite in plain sight.”
“One hopes, if nothing else, the signals continue to flow,” Jago said. “We have every confidence the paidhiin will manage matters very adequately in that regard. But does there not remain the small possibility, Bren-ji, that there have been other, surreptitious messages from the station to the ship?”
Trust the Assassins’ Guild to entertain truly disturbing thoughts—it was their job. “One hardly knows,” he said. “We cannot guarantee Jase has all the information, nadiin-ji.” He had Jase’s communication device muttering in his ear—but that channel only carried voice transmissions, and only what C1 opted to put on that channel.
Jase was on the bridge, nonetheless, moderating Sabin’s reactions, if nothing else. And Sabin, so far as they saw, responded to their arguments, and met the station’s with anger.
But his security reminded him: one couldn’t, here or in Shejidan, just watch the noisy things that were going on. Atevi lords died of mistakes like that. Subtexts mattered. Plans advanced by moves not apparently related to the objective. God, one could go crazy in the levels of distrust that existed between ship and station and that transmission-source out there.
A queasy motion. Turns on any axis were subtle, mere reorientation. They’d shed velocity as they bore. Then what seemed a turn.
They accelerated briefly, modestly, he thought, eyes shut, trying to read the ship’s motion.
At a certain level, biological organisms trying to get within proximity without touching off fight or flight mostly did the same things, at least on the evidence of atevi and humans. One could call what they did an approach. Or, even being human, one could call it a hunter’s moves. Stalking the prey. One hoped—hoped—
The all-clear sounded.
He moved. His bodyguard moved. He followed Banichi out of their refuge, Jago following him as he looked for the principals in the case.
The bridge seemed calm. Sabin and Jase were back on slow patrol of the aisles of consoles.
Banichi meanwhile spoke quietly to Cenedi and Asicho, advising them of the current situation.
The reply-clocks ran on the display, independently, computer-calculated, one supposed.
Bren heaved a deep breath, went and stood at the end of the middle row of consoles, his bodyguard with him, all of them quietly watching the display for information.
Station’s answer arrived first. “ Don’t contact the alien. Don’t meddle with the outlying ship. It’s been quiet for six years. Let it alone. Do you read? ”
Late for that.
Station wasn’t taking Sabin’s instructions, that was clear, and thought Sabin should take theirs.
“Captain Sabin,” he heard Jase say, amplified by the earpiece, “we should proceed on Mr. Cameron’s advice.”
“We’re on course, second captain.”
“If the spook’s been out here six years, it may have gathered something of our language—if it’s picked up any station chatter. If, God forbid, it’s gotten hold of any personnel.”
Jase’s mind was clearly working. Chillingly so—convenient as it might be to their mission to meet an opposition that could be talked to. The blink-code procedure wouldn’t carry that. Direct transmission might.
Dared they risk breaking pattern with what seemed the alien’s own chosen mode of communication?
Not wise, every experience informed him. Not wise to push the envelope.
“We should stay to the blink-code, captain, unless they initiate another mode.”
“We’ll try Mr. Cameron’s notion,” Sabin said grimly, and gave no window into her own thoughts.
Neither, one noted, did she show any inclination to answer station’s orders at the moment.
They stood. They waited.
The clock ticked down.
“ Repeat ,” the word came in from Reunion, “ do not contact the outlying ship .”
Sabin’s lips made a thin line. “I believe we’re having transmission troubles,” she remarked to all present. “C1, put me on general address.”
“Proceed, captain.”
Sabin picked up a wand mike from C1’s console. “ We have now signaled the alien craft and diverted course toward it in what our planetary advisors suggest is a reasonable approach. We remain on high alert. We are not releasing crew from cabins. There remains a likelihood of sudden movement which exceed takehold safety. In other words, cousins, we may have to get the hell out of this solar system. Stay smart, stay put, stay alive .”