“We have to advise the Mospheirans,” Bren said. “For diplomatic reasons, for courtesy if nothing more. If they think we’ve double-crossed them, they’ll deal with the other side. They’ll conclude they can’t trust us. They have to have the same chance to get out of here. They have to know we’re on their side.”
“One can hardly speak securely on the intercom with them,” Banichi said.
“One can’t” he agreed, trying to think what to do.
“It’s not that far,” Banichi said. “I can walk there, too, and talk to Ben.”
“You’ve had a drink. You’re not on duty. No!”
“I might have another. If I’m walking the halls, I am doubtless an inebriate having strayed from duty, and will say I require Kaplan to guide me home. Humans understand inebriation. I recall your machimi. They consider it quite amusing.”
“Not when you’re damned guilty and in the wrong corridor. We’re not supposed to be able to open these doors.”
“One would certainly have to admit to that.”
“And there’s the problem of making the Mospheirans believe you when you get there.”
“Give me a token for them. Is this not machimi?”
“One will be prostrate with nerves the whole damned time,” Bren muttered, seeing less and less chance of dealing with a situation run amok. “One has not the least idea what Kroger may do. The woman distrusts me very easily. We simply can’t—”
“A banner is traditional.”
“Not among humans. Rings. Letters.” It was preposterous. “It’s a damned comedy, is what it is.” Banichi wasn’t one to propose lunacy. He had the feeling of being maneuvered, backed toward an ultimatum.
“We can hardly do this by intercom,” Banichi said, silken-smooth and one drink down.
“I can simply invite them to dinner and tell them face-to-face. No more wandering about the halls. By no means.”
Banichi sighed. “One did look forward to it.”
And not for the simple pleasure of risking his neck, Bren was suddenly sure; if Banichi had ever been serious, Banichi had his own reasons for wanting to undertake that walk. But the more likely answer was Banichi simply nudging him to come up with a plan. “Damn the whole idea! No. I’ll invitethem back. Narani will arrange something. An entertainment.”
“Machimi,” Jago said.
He looked at her, looked at Banichi, saw conspiracy and an adamant intent.
More—a third sinking thought—there was always the remotest chance, while he was trying to shore up Kroger’s doubts of him, that Kroger did know, and hadn’t leveled with himregarding Ramirez and some scheme on the part of Sabin and those who dealt far more with the Mospheirans.
Thatwas an utterly unwelcome thought. He was bounced out of bed past midnight, forced to think of abandoning everything he’d been doing here, informed that every agreement they’d hammered out was in jeopardy if not completely abrogated, and he found himself maneuvered into asking Kroger here to be read the conditions of a retreat.
And what would Kroger say? Wait for us, we’re leaving? Or, You go ahead, dear allies, and we’ll arrange things.
“I don’t think, given the food here, we’ll have any difficulty getting them to come,” he said to Banichi, “granted only I get a message through. But, dammit, Kroger can mess things up. And she may have a mind to do it.”
“Has there been difficulty with communications?” Banichi asked.
“Nothing worthwhile came through Mogari-nai,” Bren said, recalling that fact in present context, too. “They keep having outages, malfunctions, which might discourage anyone from sending critical messages, such as must not be half-received, or meddled with. I did tend to believe them about the outages. Now I don’t. It may well be an excuse to cut us off from communication. I haven’t gotten anything worthwhile from the aiji; I don’t know that he’s gotten my transmissions: I’ve had no acknowledgments. And that, Nadiin-ji, is a critical point: if we can’t be sure our messages are going through, indeed… if they’re lying to us, we can’t do our jobs here. But if we give up our foothold here, we can’t be assured of getting it back, either. If we can’trely on Kroger, if something’s going through in secret, only to Mospheira, we have a grievous problem.”
“One would agree to that,” Banichi said, and solemnly accepted his second drink, having won everything he had come to get. “But the paidhi will not be the presence to test their intentions.”
“Who can? There’s a reason Tabini sent me. There’s a reason I’m sitting here and not uncle Tatiseigi, Banichi-ji, and I can’t contravene that simple fact. If I don’t do this job, yes, you’re right, there’s no one else who can do it, but the simple fact is, if I don’t do this job, indeed, there’s no one else who can do it!”
The glass stopped on the way to Banichi’s lips. Banichi set it down and regarded him solemnly.
“A dilemma, is it not?”
“One I can’t solve.”
“One we daren’t lose,” Banichi said. “This I have from the aiji, that you must return safely. Do what you can. Take what advantage these days offer. Go down, and if things seem in order, come back in thirty days on the next flight.”
“And if things go wrong, I’ve left my staff in a hell of a position.”
“We simply lock the doors,” Tano said, “and hold out.”
“Against people who control the light and heat, Tano-ji!”
“Do you consider it likely we would be killed?” Tano asked. “It would be very foolish of them if they wish anything from the aiji.”
And Kroger had flatly said what he already knew, himself, that very few Mospheirans were willing to enter work for the ship under the old terms. Robotics, that missing part of the equation, might be Kroger’s specialty, but to design and build those machines in space, where they must be built, still required risks in an environment which had proven a killer before now.
He had to talk to them. That was a given. He had to get a notion how Kroger might react once she did know, and once she did know he knew that Ramirez had met with some sort of difficulty. Jase was another concern, one he knew hadn’t left his staff’s minds, but one which none of them could afford to pursue.
Damn, this was inconvenient. And what hadhappened to Ramirez, and where wasJase, and why, if Jase had a mother aboard, was there absolutely no contact?
He didn’t like the shape of it. Clearly, Banichi hadn’t liked it, and had seen in the outage something that might not be an accident.
That hadn’t been an accident, he was now certain. Something that had happened along with some struggle on the station, perhaps even a schism in the crew, or something designed to put the fear in them and justify both Sabin’s reluctance to meet with him—God knew whether she was secretly meeting with Kroger—and the communications problems that cut him off from advice and information from the planet.
He had to work around it. Had to get somethingthrough to advise the planet there was something not right up here.
Mother, he wrote, in language he was very sure station spies could read, I’m sorry to have been out of touch. They’ve been experiencing communications difficulties here. I love you. Be assured of that. I hope things are working out for everyone. I wish I’d brought my camera up here. One thing I do miss beyond all else is pictures of home. You know that one of you in the red suit? I think of that, and the snow, up on Mt. Adams. Sunset and snow. Fire and ice. You
Did you find a cufflink? I think I left it in my room.
I hope Barb is better. Tell her I think of her and wish her a speedy recovery.
Your son, Bren
There was no red suit. His mother never wore that color, swore it was her worst; that was why they had agreed on it as an emergency notice. Red suit: emergency; contact Shawn; watch yourself. It was the only code he had now that might get through the security blackout… if the authorities chose to let him go on receiving small messages, while they knew Tabini’s signature and blacked those out. If they were at all wary, they wouldn’t let it through. If they’d ever noticed Banichi’s trip to the shuttle, they wouldn’t let it through.