“You were mad at me,” he said.
“No,” Jago said, in Jago-fashion.
“God.”
“What is ‘God?’ ” Jago asked.
Sometimes, with Jago, one didn’t even know where to begin.
“So you’re not mad at me.”
“Bren-ji, you were being a fool. I would have gone with you. You would have been all right.”
“Banichi couldn’t!”
“True,” Jago said.
Anger. Confusion. Frustration, or pain. He wasn’t sure what got the better of him.
Jago reached out and wiped his cheek with her fingers. Business-like. Saner than he was.
“Tears,” he said.
“What’s ‘tears’?”
“God.”
“‘God’ is ‘tears’?”
He had to laugh. And wiped his own eyes, with the heel of the hand that worked. “Among other elusive concepts, Jago-ji.”
“Are you all right?”
“Sometimes I think I’ve failed. I don’t even know. I’m supposed to understand you. And most of the time I don’t know, nadi Jago. Is that failure?”
Jago blinked, that was all for a moment. Then:
“No.”
“I can’t make youunderstand me. How can I make others?”
“But I do understand, nadi Bren.”
“ Whatdo you understand?” He was suddenly, irrationally desperate, and the jet was carrying him where he had no control, with a cargo of dead and wounded.
“That there is great good will in you, nadi Bren.” Jago reached out and wiped his face with her fingers, brushed back his hair. “Banichi and I won over ten others to go with you. All would have gone.—Are you all right, nadi Bren?”
His eyes filled. He couldn’t help it. Jago wiped his face repeatedly.
“I’m fine. Where’s my computer, Jago? Have you got it?”
“Yes,” Jago said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
“I need a communications patch. I’ve got the cord, if they brought my whole kit.”
“For what, Bren-ji?”
“To talk to Mospheira,” he said, all at once fearing Jago and Banichi might not have the authority. “For Tabini, nadi. Please.”
“I’ll speak to Banichi,” she said.
They’d charged the computer for him. The bastards had done that much of a favor to the world at large. Jago had gotten him a blanket, so he wasn’t freezing. They’d passed the border and the two prisoners at the rear of the plane were in the restroom together with the door wedged shut, the electrical fuse pulled, and the guns of two of Ilisidi’s highly motivated guards trained on the door. Everybody declared they could wait until Moghara Airport.
Reboot, mode 3, m-for-mask, then depress, mode-4, simultaneously, SAFE.
Fine, easy, if the left hand worked. He managed it with the right.
The prompt came up, with, in Mosphei’: Input date.
He typed, instead, in Mosphei’: To be or not to be.
System came up.
He let go a long breath and started typing, five-fingered, calling up files, getting access and communications codes for Mospheira’s network, pasting them in as hidden characters that would trigger response-exchanges between his computer and the Mospheira system.
The rebels, if they’d gotten into system level, could have flown a plane right through Mospheira’s defense line.
Could have brought down Mospheira’s whole network. Fouled up everything from the subway system to the earth station dish—unless Mospheira, being sane, had long since realized he was in trouble and changed those codes.
But that didn’t mean they were totally out of commission. They’d just get a different routing until he got clearance.
He hunted and pecked, key at a time, through the initial text.
Sorry I’ve been out of touch…
Banichi had been forward in the plane, standing up, talking to Ilisidi and one of her men, who was sitting at the front. Now he came down the aisle, leaning on seat-backs, favoring the splinted ankle.
“Get off your feet, damn it!” Bren said, and muttered, politely, “Nadi.”
Banichi worked his way to the seat beside him, in the exit aisle, and fell into it with a profound sigh, his face beaded with sweat. But he didn’t look at all unhappy, for a man in excruciating pain.
“I just got hold of Tabini,” Banichi said. “He says he’s glad you’re all right, he had every confidence you’d settle the rebels single-handed.”
He had to laugh. It hurt.
“He’s sending his private plane,” Banichi said. “We’re re-routed to Alujisan. Longer runway. Cenedi’s doing fine, but he says he’s getting wobbly and he’s not sorry to have a relief coming up. We’ll hand the prisoners over to the local guard, board a nice clean plane and have someone feed us lunch. Meanwhile Tabini’s moving forces in by air as far as Bairi-magi, three-hour train ride from Maidingi, two hours from Fagioni and Wigairiin. Watch him offer amnesty next— if, he says, you can come up with a reason to tell the hasdrawad, about this ship, that can calm the situation. He wants you in the court. Tonight.”
“With an answer.” He no longer felt like laughing. “Banichi-ji, atevi have all the rights with these strangers on the ship. We on Mospheira don’t. You know our presence in this solar system was an accident… but our landing wasn’t. We were passengers on that ship. The crew took the ship and left us here. They said they were going to locate a place to build. We weren’t damned happy about their leaving, and they weren’t happy about our threat to land here. Two hundred years may not have improved our relationship with these people.”
“Are they here to take you away?”
“That would make some atevi happy, wouldn’t it?”
“Not Tabini.”
Damned sure not Tabini. Not the pillar of the Western Association. That was why there were dead men on the plane with them: fear of humans was only part of it.
“There are considerable strains on the Association,” Banichi said somberly. “The conservative forces. The jealous. The ambitious. Five administrations have kept the peace, under the aijiin of Shejidan and the dictates of the paidhiin…”
“We don’t dictate.”
“The iron-fisted suggestions of the paidhiin. Backed by a space station and technology we don’t dream of.”
“A space station that sweeps down from orbit and rains fire on provincial capitals at least once a month—we’ve had this conversation before, Banichi. I had it with Ilisidi’s men in the basement. I just had it, abbreviated version, with the gentlemen in the back of the plane, who broke my arm, thank you very much, nadi, but we don’t have any intention of taking over the planet this month.” He was raving, losing his threads. He leaned his head back against the seat. “You’re safe from them, Banichi. At least as far as them coming down here. They don’t like planets to live on. They want us to come up there and maintain their station for them, free of charge, so they can go wherever they like and we fix what breaks and supply their ship.”
“So they will make you go back to the station?” Banichi asked.
“Can’t get at us, I’m thinking. No landing craft. At least they didn’t have one. They’ll have to wait for ourlift capacity.“ He began to see the pieces, then, in a crazed sort of way, while the arm hurt like bloody hell. “Damned right they will. The Pilots’ Guild will negotiate. They’re scared as hell of you.”
“Of us?” Banichi asked.
“Of the potential for enemies.” He turned his head on the head rest. “Time works differently for space travelers. Don’t ask me how. But they think in the long term. The very long term. You’re not likethem, and they can’t keep you at the bottom of a gravity slope forever.” He gave a dry, short laugh. “That was the feud between us from the outset, that some of us said we had to deal with atevi. And the Pilots’ Guild said no, let’s slip away, they’ll never notice us.”