God. Jase had learned something in the court at Shejidan. It was the best impromptu flight of imagination and half truths since Ilisidi’s launch-day banquet.
It certainly seemed to catch the mission leader aback. At least a doubt or two flickered across that square face. Bren, on the other hand, reminded himself not to look remotely sharp, only being part of the furnishings, same as the cabinetry. He had his gun in his pocket, an open com they hadn’t detected, or didn’t think was out of the ordinary for crew, and a listening post down below which he had every confidence was processing all this and laying contingency plans to get control of the ship, if need be. He didn’t have a word to say. No, not a thought in his head but awe of authority and a certain confusion about the situation.
“Cameron,” Jase said.
“Sir.”
“Conduct this officer down to the lower decks. Let him inspect on crew and colony level. Let him satisfy himself of whatever questions he has.”
“Yes, sir.” Eager and very glad to escape—that part was no act. He asked the agent who’d stopped him: “You want to come with me, sir?”
There was a look passed among the Guild enforcers. The rifle was still a question, not quite put back to safety. A second look.
“Stay in touch,” the senior officer said, and the man moved a step and touched the lift button.
The lift car was waiting right on their level. The door opened immediately. Bren got in, hands occupied with his trays, and freed a finger for the button, heart crashing against his ribs. He had weapons: a straight-edged tray as well as the gun in his pocket, but the best two were his brain and the awareness of his own staff and Ginny’s. There were service accesses. His staff might move, and he wasn’t ready to have that happen. Jase wasn’t—or he’d surely have included five-deck in the proposed tour.
The door shut. The Guild agent bulked close to Banichi’s width, given the body armor, the weapons, the equipment.
Not quite as mentally quick, however. “Thought we were going down one,” the agent said.
“Cap’n said tour you around the colony deck, sir. Figured you’d want to see that, where we got all the special rigging.”
The agent wasn’t eager to admit he and his hadn’t a clue what rigging and what arrangements were, and it clearly wasn’t uncommon for Guild levels to keep truths from each other. If there was anything but a top level officer at the other end of the agent’s electronics, figure that that authority would still have to wonder if there were higher-up secrets to which their agents were inadvertently being exposed—he gave himself about thirty minutes of administrative confusion before someone conceivably asked far enough up the chain and got an order to take action.
But the desire to see all they could see might well keep this fellow tame and following—that left three on the bridge, not four, and just that quarter less force gave Jase more breathing room up there.
The lift door opened on a bone-cold, very dimly lit corridor.
“What is this?”
“Colony level, sir.” He was glad of the coat. Breath frosted. Rime formed on the edge of the door. “Just starting the warm-up.”
“For what?”
“Dunno, sir. Best I know, there’s guys you’re sending, and here’s space for ’em, and we’re going to save the day, I suppose, where we’re going. We got the stores—you want to tour the stores, sir?”
“I’ll take your word for it.” The agent, breath hissing between his teeth, reached for the lift controls.
Bren hit the order for two-deck. Fast and first. First number entered was the number, unless the user used an override, and the agent didn’t appear to have the key.
“What’s on three?” The car moved.
“More crew quarters, sir.” He still had the tray and the basket—and Jase’s picture—clutched against him.
“You’re not damn bright, are you?”
“No, sir,” Bren said cheerfully, as the lift doors opened on two.
The agent looked disgusted. But this level was lighted, it was warm. The agent walked out and Bren walked to his right, tray clutched tight against him.
“This nearest and straight ahead is medical, sir. Just this way is crew area.” Straight to the right, side corridor, a fair walk, two more corridors. Bangs and thumps came from the distance, cook’s operation. Bren felt his heart thumping while his brain sorted the corridors, the charts, the not-quite-perfect knowledge of what was where among all these unmarked doors.
There was, for one thing, warm-storage here, for items various departments needed often and didn’t want frozen. There were cleaning closets. He earnestly wished he dared shove the man into one and lock the door.
That firepower, however, might be adequate to blast right back through a door, and most of these doors were crew quarters. He wasn’t expert in firearms. He wasn’t sure. He wished he could contrive to ask Banichi and Jago that surreptious question, but he didn’t know how to describe the rifle.
So he walked, opened random section doors, a meandering tour of two-deck, while the agent held his rifle generally aimed at the walls and not at him.
Elsewhere the lift operated.
The man looked in that direction, as if things he saw just weren’t entirely adding up.
And stopped. Wary. Listening to his electronics.
“What’s the matter?” Bren asked.
“Shut up,” the agent said. And aimed the gun at him while he went on listening.
Bren had his hand on a door switch. Storeroom. He was ready, heart in mouth, to make a desperate maneuver and hope the door was adequate, if that was his only choice.
“What’s that?” The agent motioned at that hand with the gun barrel.
“Service closet, sir.” He punched it open to demonstrate the fact, and dropped the offending hand.
“Don’t get smartass. Where’s life in this place?”
“All these cabins. They’re still waiting in quarters. Ship’s rules when we dock, sir.”
“What’s that?”
There’d been a sound, a clank, a clatter. A cart, somewhere in motion not far away. “Oh, I imagine that would be galley, sir. The staff’s delivering food around. People got to eat, no matter if shift’s held over.” The storeroom door shut. Doors always did, left unattended. But the agent was jumpy. Very. The gun twitched that direction. And something in the Cameron bloodstream, some ancestral fool, suddenly just had to push when pushed. “Door’s automatic, sir. Watch your fingers.”
“Where’s auxiliary ops?”
“That’s on a ways aft, sir. We can go there when you like. But there’s more.”
“Let’s go that way.”