“Can Ramirez refute it?”
“He won’t last ten minutes in their hands.”
“Then bring him here.”
“We can’t. We aren’t where we can get through the halls carrying him. We’re in a service corridor, where they were working, where they haven’t powered up yet, but there’s a few…” Jase drew a breath. “This didn’t take everybody by surprise. They’re not working there now, but those who were, they know how to set up, and they did, and they warned me Ramirez was in danger, but I didn’t know how much. And now we’re there, and there’s not damn much heat and there’s no water because it won’t flow through the pipes, but there’s air pressure, because it’s an air lock, and we can get it.”
“You’re living in an air lock?”
“A work area airlock. It’s large. There’s six of us.” Jase’s teeth began to chatter and he fought to control it. “I knew it would be hard, Bren. I didn’t know it would be like this. I thought I could reason with Ramirez. I thought he could control the rest. I didn’t know they’d go this far.”
“We have made every arrangement,” Banichi said, “to remove Bren from the station, Jasi-ji. In all high regard for you, the aiji’s interests are best served if Bren is removed from this venue as soon as possible.”
“I can’t go,” Bren said. “I can’t go now.” Very clearly his security was ready to hit him over the head and carry him to the shuttle, no idle threat, and he could not permit that. “We areinvolved. I didn’t want this, but Jase is here, and whatever we do next, it can’t be to leave him stranded.”
“We can take him with us,” Banichi said, “we can hold him here within this section and defy the captains to remove him. There are alternatives.”
“The situation aboard is in flux” Bren said. ”Baji-naji. If we take Jase away, Ramirez’ interests will fall entirely or the station will enter a period of factional warfare that the aishidi’tat can ill afford.”
“Nor can the aishidi’tat afford to lose you, nadi. You cannot run this risk.”
“I’m valueless if I sit idle, Banichi.”
“This is not a fifteen-day decision,” Banichi said. “It’s thirty days. Twice that, that the shuttle will remain on the ground.”
“Then it can return with additional security,” Bren said. “How likely, Jasi-ji, is Ramirez to survive his injuries?”
“With medicines, he may,” Jase said. “Fever is setting in. We daren’t take him anywhere. I have to get back to him, Banichi.” He had recovered some of his fluency in Ragi. “It’s not only man’chi, which I do feel, but logic. Without this man, my people will fall under Tamun’s control and use only the Mospheirans, and destabilize them by doing so, and destabilize the aishidi’tat, perhaps, too, if things go badly.”
“He’s right,” Bren said. “If Tamun deals with the likes of Gaylord Hanks, we’re in trouble. The Mospheirans are back under the hand of the Guild, they’re in civil war over that, and we in the aishidi’tat are in for a very rough ride being the only source of earth-to-orbit transport, with weapons orbiting over our heads, Nadiin-ji. Remember the ship is heavily armed. Under ill-disposed leadership, it might issue threats against the aishidi’tat, completely ignorant of the realities on the planet, completely foolish, completely unable to make peace after it has made a war greater than the War of the Landing. Bad as the situation is, Banichi-ji, I can bein no better position than I am now. We have Jase. We have a warning. The crew hasn’t fallen all the way into Tamun’s hands. There remains something we can do.”
“There remains something the paidhi can do on the ground, too,” Banichi said, “in safety. One can cut them off from labor and supplies and sit and wait. That is the more prudent course, nand’ paidhi. We can rescue Jase, who can attest the truth of what happened, which they must deal with if they wish supply. The Mospheirans cannot build a shuttle. They have no materials. Above all else we must remove the shuttle from their reach until we have some resolution. We cannotallow them to have it.”
Banichi’s argument was a telling one, victory the slow way, starving the Guild of labor and supplies, possibly entailing the fall of the rebel captains.
“Yet if they know we have boarded with Jase and that we’re taking that shuttle down to the mainland, not to return,” Bren said, “they may move against us, and we may end with a damaged shuttle or a shuttle held by force.”
“We have the other shuttles, not yet complete, but approaching it.”
“And no destination for them without the station, and without the ship,” Jase said. “Nadiin-ji, I can’t leave Ramirez to die. I have to go back to him, now. He has to have the medicines. That’s the answer to all of this. He can’t die. I agree we have to get him here. We have to get him help. But right now, he needs help where he is, and every moment I stay here, the condition in the corridors could change.”
“Thirty days’ wait,” Jago said. “Thirty days and an unpredictable situation.”
“What situation? We’ve never received this information,” Bren said in a tone of mock indignation. “We’ve had no visitor. We know nothing. They’re cutting us off from Tabini’s messages and no knowing what else, but we know nothing of that; we’re completely ignorant and suppose Tabini simply has nothing to say. We carry on for thirty days, and wait for our messages to get down with the crew.”
“We might trade one steward for one servant,” Banichi said. “Nojana would be an asset. The shuttle can spare him.”
“Dangerous,” Bren said.
“We have to get them word, at any event,” Banichi said. “If they see nothing of us, the shuttle will have a mechanical hold, some small problem, until they do hear.”
How could he not foresee Banichi would have some such arrangement? He was appalled. “So we must contact them… and we have Kroger to deal with, too. We can’t let them blithely proceed while we change our plans. They’ll be outraged.”
“One has one’s tasks to do,” Banichi said.
Bren cast him an unhappy look.
“First I must find where Jase is lodged,” Banichi said, “and safeguard his return. Then Kroger. But Kandana can go to the shuttle, and exchange very easily with Nojana. If Nojana arrives, we shall know the message reached them.”
“Be careful,” Bren said.
“I mean to be,” Banichi said. “Shall we find the medications, Bren-ji?”
“Do,” Bren said, and laid a hand on Jase’s shoulder. “If the place you’re hiding has you in this condition, it can’t be helping Ramirez. We have to get him here, into warmth, and care.”
“He won’t,” Jase said, down to the honest truth. “He won’t agree. I tried to persuade him. He’s off his head, maybe, but I don’t think so. While he’s on his own, he’s still in command. He hasn’t appealed to anyone else, any outsider. He’ll order the crew when he’s strong enough.”
“What’s the damage?” Bren asked. “What help has he got? What care?”
“There’s a medic with us,” Jase said. “Or he might have died. We’ve gotten supplies in. We’ve got a blanket for him. We’re just kind of short.”
“He needs warmth,” Bren translated. “Jase, think in Ragi.”
Jase made an obvious, physical effort. “I’m trying,” he said in that language. “I’m just tired. Questions. A lot of questions. No sleep. Hiding. I’m not thinking at my best.”
“One of my sweaters,” Bren said. “I know we brought a couple. Whatever we can fit you up with. Is cold all you’re contending with?”
“Cold, dark, there’s just not much…” Jase looked for a moment as if he’d fall on his face, and Bren brought him up with a hand on his shoulder.