“Is there still an emergency?” he asked. “Is the station intact?”
“ Perfectly intact, sir,” Cl answered, the regular, daytime Cl, which reassured him. “ Sorry. I don’t have the details. I have to shut down now.”
Disappointing, to say the least. He went to report the situation to his staff, that the day’s schedule had changed.
“I don’t know why,” he said to the staff. “We felt no impact, as if there were explosion, or a piece of debris, but I don’t know that we might, on so large a structure. I’ll work in, today. Simply do what needs doing.”
It was a slow day, in some regards, a frustrating, worrisome day, but power at least stayed rock-steady.
He made notes on the discussion with Kroger. He answered letters. He wrote letters… restrained himself from writing to Toby, and asked himself whether the link was going to be in operation.
There was a quiet supper. He had pronounced himself not particularly hungry, and perhaps a little overindulged from the day prior. “I get very little exercise here,” he said to Narani, “I don’t walk enough. Satisfy the staff, certainly. But I have no need for more than a bowl of soup.”
He was primarily concerned, after his day’s work, to have the earthlink function smoothly, and it seemed to.
But the messages were all from the mainland.
“Put me through to Jase Graham,” he said, the ritual he and Cl had established.
“Sir, he’s still in conference.”
“I thought he might be rather less busy with the station’s problems.”
“I’m told he’s still in meetings.”
“Yolanda Mercheson?”
“Still in meetings.”
“Captain Sabin.”
“Still in meetings, sir, I’m sorry.”
“Captain Ramirez.”
“Sir, all the captains are in meetings.”
One wondered if anything was getting done anywhere on the ship or the station. He wanted to be cheerful for his servants’ sake, but was glum at heart, surer and surer that Ramirez had not pulled off his majority, and that the meetings Jase and Yolanda were involved in likely involved sitting under guard, in isolation, and answering occasional questions from a deadlocked association of captains.
And that was the most optimistic view.
A shadow appeared by his bed, utterly silent—just loomed, utterly black, and his heart jumped in fright.
“Do you wish?” Jago’s lowest voice. “Nadi?”
“Bren-ji,” he corrected this slide toward formality. “Some aspects of this being a lord I don’t like. Sit down.” He made room for her on the narrow bed, realizing at the same time that she and he wouldn’t fit it, or at least, not comfortably.
He shifted to give her room, her arms came about him. Deeper thought and glum mood both went sliding away, in favor of a thoroughly comfortable association and the easy, gentle comfort of her embrace. He heaved a sigh, not obliged even to carry his weight, not with Jago, who supported him without any thought. Her breath stirred his hair, ran like a breath of summer over his shoulder, and for the next while, and right down to the edge of sleep, he didn’t think.
But he felt a certain uneasiness, a certain sense of embarrassment, the rooms were so small, the staff pressed so close. The bed required close maneuvering.
“You can’t be comfortable here,” he said. “Don’t wake with a kink in your back, on my account.”
“I have no difficulty,” she said.
He was habitually cold; he wasn’t, while she was in bed. But he truly didn’t want the closeness of the quarters here to create a difficulty.
“Perhaps you should go for other reasons,” he whispered to her. He always felt guilty for the relationship, the event, whatever she might call it. She had a partner. To this hour he had no idea whether her being here represented some allowed breach of that partnership, or what the relationship was between her and Banichi—which was a trust he had absolutely no willingness to betray. They had never been at such close quarters. She’d always assured him Banichi understood, understood, understood, but he was uneasy, tonight.
“What other reasons?”
“Getting some sleep, for one.”
“I might sleep, if nand’ paidhi weren’t talking.”
“That’s not the point,” he said, and felt the tension he created. “The whole staff must know, Jago-ji.”
He felt, rather than heard, her laughter. “One is certain they do.”
He couldn’t bear the evasions any longer. He slid free and rested precariously on an arm near the edge where he could be absolutely face to face with her. “Jago-ji. I will not hurt Banichi. I have every regard for you, and I know youwould never disregard him, but I worry, Jago-ji, I do worry what he thinks.”
“He is amused.”
“I know you say that, but a man is a man, and people are people, and they can say something, but it doesn’t make it so, Jago-ji. I have no wish to offend him. I would be devastated to create a breach between you”
“There is none. There has never been one.”
“ Are you lovers, Jago-ji?”He’d chased that question all the years of their partnership. “Have you been, forgive me that I ask, but this causes me a great deal of guilt and worry—” He was under assault, and he fended it off, determined to get out what he had tried a dozen times to express. “—Guilt and worry, that I ever crossed any barrier that I might not have understood…”
Jago’s body heaved gently. After an instant he knew she was laughing. A callused, gentle hand moved slowly across his shoulder. “Bren-ji. No.”
“What do you mean, no, nadi? Have you been lovers?”
“Bren-ji. He is my father.”
He was stunned. He rolled back, fell back onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling. The whole universe shifted vector.
Then the thin mattress gave, and the general dim dark gave way to Jago’s outline, her elbow posed on the other side of him, her fingers tracing their way down from his chin.
Amused, she said. Banichi was amused at their carrying-on.
Not disapproving.
But her father?
“Bren-ji. We do not make relationships public, in our Guild. I tell you as a confidence.”
“I respect it.”
“One knows without doubt the paidhi is discreet,” Jago said, and found his ear, found his hands… outmaneuvering Jago was difficult, and he had no interest in trying that. For the first time he had a relatively clear conscience in her regard, and a joke to avenge. He pulled her close, dismissing the proximity of the servants as any concern to them.
They ran unexpectedly out of bed, on the edge, and nearly over it.
Jago simply rolled out of it, taking him and the sheets with her, and laughed.
Chapter 18
Jago was gone before dawn, and he was in bed when he waked, in bed with the smell of breakfast wafting through the hall.
Bindanda and Kandana were a little reluctant to meet his eye. Had he and Jago embarrassed the whole staff, Bren wondered, chagrined. He found nothing to say, and thought he should ask Jago… he truly, urgently should ask someone what the staff was saying. It could hardly be Banichi; he couldn’t envision that conversation. He knew he would blush. Jago might be the recipient of merciless amusement, and she was hardly the one to ask.
He thought perhaps he could speak to Tano… certainly to Tano, rather than staid, dignified Narani. He could manage to do that on the way to breakfast, which otherwise might be a very uncomfortable affair.
He had chosen less than formal wear for a day on which he had no schedule but deskwork: a sweater and a light pair of trousers with an outdoor jacket, about adequate for the chill of the air, after which he dismissed Bindanda and Kandana, opened up his computer, and went through the send-receive with Cl, and through the usual litany of questions, refusing to give up on Jase or Yolanda or on direct contact with the captains, three of whom he was anxious to hear from.