“ Bren ?” Jase’s voice, as the car started moving.
“We’re doing fine down here,” he reported to Jase. “His name seems to be Prakuyo, he speaks a handful of understandable words, and he’s currently stuffing himself on tea cakes and tea at the dowager’s table.”
Small silence. Then: “Get up here. Bren, get up here .”
The lift car didn’t move fast enough: it seemed forever until it let him out at the back of the bridge, and he headed straight for his first glimpse of Jase leaning over C1’s console.
Jase was talking with someone on com, angrily so, something about risk and responsibility and innocence. Then:
“Let us handle it, Mr. Braddock. I advise you, let us handle this ship and everything to do with it. You’ve got one hole in your station as is, and if you start shooting first, we won’t lift a finger to help you. I’m very serious about that.” Jase made a motion to C1, reached past the man and opened a small compartment in the console, extracting one of the communications earpieces. He handed it to Bren. Bren switched it on and stuck it quickly into his ear.
“… reject your credentials for this or any other such operation. You have no authority to contact that ship on your own behalf or ours .”
Patience ended. Ice entered Jase’s tone. “You had an alien hostage. Now we have him. You say let you manage communications between that ship and us; but if they contact us, we have no way to explain to them they’re supposed to talk to you, since in six years you don’t seem to have established any relations beyond a hostage situation. We’ve produced a set of communication files, we are using them at the moment, and you can see it’s not shooting. More, your population knows by now why we’re here, they know your hostage is in our hands, and we offer an alternative. Take our offer, sir. Come on board. Let’s shake hands and not even discuss old history.”
Jase wasn’t doing badly on his own.
“ Captain Graham, you are ordered to desist all independent operations, dock, and open your doors. ”
The one that could use a negotiator’s help was Braddock.
Unfortunately he wasn’t inclined to take help when it was offered.
“ Mr . Braddock,” Jase said quietly, “we’re providing you and your family a comfortable place in our colonial residency, where you can settle in far more comfort and safety than this station can ever offer. We’ve established contact with the alien ship and we have some confidence it won’t shoot unless provoked, but the point is, Mr. Braddock, it’s alien , it’s foreign , it’s not subject to either of us, and it’s apt to do any damned thing, which means we have to deal with it moment by moment. Negotiations are ongoing. If they break down, you can’t defend yourself; we can’t defend you, and we’re going to need fuel to get you and your station population to safety. Open the fuel port and allow an orderly boarding, for your own protection. The alternative is unthinkable.”
“ Captain Graham .” Different voice. God, it was Sabin’s voice.
“I’m here,” Jase said.
“ Captain Graham, relax. The Guildmaster and I are close to an agreement on the fuel and on the boarding. I have every confidence we can do everything we came to do. In the meanwhile, let’s get the preliminaries done. Hard dock. Then we’ll arrange for fueling and and orderly boarding. ”
Jase listened. And frowned darkly. “Captain. Good to hear from you. Why the silence?”
“ Station security precaution. We’ve reached an understanding. Bring the ship in .”
“Shall I move to the fuel port, captain?”
“ Negative. Bring her into personnel .”
“We took a ping off that explosion. We’re testing systems at the moment.”
“ You can test at hard dock, Captain Graham. Proceed .”
“Good try,” Jase said. “But nothing’s changed, Guildmaster. You don’t convince me, and pretense is only going to get us in trouble.”
Silence. The contact broke off on the other side.
“Synthesized,” Jase said. There was a look from C1, a deep breath. Bren heaved a deep breath of his own and put his hands in his pockets, chagrinned—silly lad from the island, he’d believed the voice halfway through that performance. He understood that a computer could in theory reproduce a face as well as a voice, but he’d never heard one do it, and it was an astonishingly good rendition. But linguistically—even computer-assisted—he’d heard definitively non-Sabin word-choices.
“Doesn’t encourage optimism about a solution,” Bren said.
“No. It doesn’t. I’m afraid she’s in a very great deal of trouble.” Crew overheard that, and Jase made no attempt to conceal the facts of the situation, even looked at certain of the crew as he said it. “Her orders took that into account. We hope she’s alive. But we can’t help her by giving in to the Guildmaster, and we can’t help her by putting the ship in reach of an armed takeover.”
“Jenrette knows,” Bren said. “Jenrette knows at least how and where he left her.”
“It doesn’t look good. But I have my orders. And just as urgently, we’ve got that ship moving in on us.”
“C1,” Bren asked the chief com post, “have you received the image from five-deck?”
“Yes, sir.” C1 pushed buttons. Prakuyo’s face, stark black and white, with drink in hand, lit a display. Happy? Their guest looked positively beatific.
An advanced technology might fake the celebratory pose—to judge by quasi-Sabin’s appearance—but the camera had to have Prakuyo’s living image to get that face and manner.
“I’d like to transmit that to his ship,” Bren said to Jase.
“Do it,” Jase said; C1 moved, and a reply window began ticking on the display.
“Brilliant,” Jase said with a deep breath, then asked, sotto voce: “Is he really that cheerful?”
“He’s enjoying the dowager’s company.”
Jase shot him a properly apprehensive look.
“Sir.” C1 suddenly called for the captain’s attention. “Mr. Braddock again.”
“Let him stew,” Jase said. “I’m not available.”
“He’s making threats, sir. About voiding the fuel.”
“He’s made them before.”
“Yes, sir.—The captain’s not available, sir. Sorry.”
“ C1 , do we still have contact with Mr. Becker?” Jase asked.
“Yes, sir,” C2 said. “He made it to the commercial zone half an hour ago, no problems.”
“We’re going to see action reasonably soon, I think,” Jase said. Meanwhile the lift had cycled, and opened. “We’re still short of experienced personnel, Bren. I don’t want to ask this—but we’ve just seen what hope there is of Mr. Braddock taking a reasonable view. We’ve got to lay plans to get into Central—maybe with local help. Maybe not. Our alternative’s pretty grim.”