Conspicuous among them, a very stout ateva in a thick winter seaman’s coat sailed along far too fast for safety, free of the handline.
“Lord Geigi,” Bren said. He was shivering too badly to effect the needed rescue, but Cenedi interposed a hand and brought the lord of the seacoast to a gentle halt.
“This is remarkable, Nadiin,” Lord Geigi said, his gold eyes shining, and an uncommon flush to his ebon face. “This is quite remarkable. Have we won? And what are we fighting about?”
“One trusts so,” Bren began to say, and then saw three of the human workers drifting toward him.
With them came a human also in the garish orange of the dock workers, a man with a dark, completely familiar face, a man who was armed, Bren very much suspected; but there was no brandishing of threat, no hesitation in approaching them: this was a man who considered the place his.
“Captain Ogun,” Bren hailed the newcomer, and there was a quiet, tense meeting, Ogun with him.
“Captain Ogun,” Jase said. “Captain Ramirez has set me in the fourth seat. His authority. I’m taking third, until he’s back on line to say otherwise. Tamun’s under guard. Dresh will be, when he comes out.”
Ogun never changed expression. “You have the codes?”
“Since I was with the old man in the tunnels. I can key in,” Jase said with no friendliness in his voice. “ Trustme that I can. I’m not proposing to keep the seat. Only to keep it warm.”
“Good sense,” Ogun said, as if words were gold, and scarce. “Tamun is out. Dresh is out. You have that third seat. You’ll have it until the Council meets. Then we’ll discuss it.”
“I’ll step down at that time,” Jase said. “Damned fast. I’ve no desire to sit on Council, let alone hold a chair.”
“First qualification of the job,” Ogun said. “Is Tamun alive?”
“Alive,” Jase said. “He’s become a Council problem.”
“A hellof a council problem,” Ogun said, and touched a metal collar beneath the gaudy orange suit. “Sabe. We’ve caught Tamun. Jase is third man, Ramirez’s appointment. And mine. We’ve got more atevi aboard, another important one, looks to be. They were waiting… to see what we’d do, apparently. Yes. We gave them a hell of a show, didn’t we? Now we’ve got to find beds for the lot. Sabe, pull all crew onto the ship. Council is going to meet. We need to patch what’s ripped. We need it very badly.”
Sabin must have answered him then.
“Done. You’re clear,” Ogun said, looking out into the vacant recesses of the dock. “Hold where you are. There’s no need for you to come out until this is absolutely stable.”
Then he diverted that flat stare to Bren. “Well, Mr. Cameron.”
“Well, sir. I’m very glad you escaped. I feared you hadn’t. They hit us on the way out of your office.”
“Frank?”
“Could use a hospital. He’s with Dr. Kroger.”
Ogun stared at him a moment with a wry, misgiving expression. “Agreements stand. You’ll have what resources you need. Turn over all prisoners, all casualties to us. Systems you’ve damaged, Mr. Cameron, ultimately, you fix.”
“Those within our reach,” Bren said. “Fortunately not as long a tab as might have been.” His hands were beyond feeling. The leg still hurt and had cramped from the shock, his heart still tending to skip and flutter. He wanted nothing so much as to find a place with air, warmth, and the simple, blessed illusion of gravity and things staying put.
But instead of doubling up to indulge the pain, he had to translate the amenities, the meeting of a Lord of the Association, Lord Geigi, who insisted on trading pleasantries with the acting senior captain of the Pilots’ Guild… very slow, very formal pleasantries, in which, toward the end, his teeth were chattering. Jase was doing no better.
“Tea,” Geigi declared at last. “Do we float about up here like fish? I confess I could do with a hot pot of tea, indeed I could, and maybe a dose of something besides. I trust the dowager has established some sort of comfort. Has she not?”
“Beyond any doubt,” Cenedi said, while Bren found it enough simply to drift unmoving until Jago drew him back toward the lift, and a far less crowded descent.
Banichi provided his coat, warm from his body, and Jago another, for Jase, who was in worse case, and feeling the strain on bruised ribs. Kaplan and his friends had come down. Geigi rode with them, and Geigi’s personal guard had come. Cenedi, however, had stayed above, with Tano, to assure no misunderstandings broke forth.
Tano had suggested they send for Ben Feldman, and Bren thought it a very good idea. Ben would take to the moment he’d waited for all his long education, his one chance to deal with the interface when it meant the most, and Bren reminded himself that he had to talk to Kroger, advise her, get Ramirez to the best care they could find. And Frank. Frank, too. Everyone they could gather up who’d had the worst of this clash of old suspicions and new ambitions. He relayed that to Kaplan, who relayed it all to Cl, and presumably to Sabin and Ogun.
Jase was going down for his own coat, and was going up again when he’d rested. Ramirez had saddled him with responsibilities Jase didn’t particularly want, but wouldn’t shirk. He’d become an acting captain, in Tamun’s place, and didn’t want that, either, but someone had to do it.
And he had to tell his mother he was still alive, against all likelihood to the contrary.
Tea seemed a very good idea, too, meanwhile, a bed even more so, and Bren hoped for both not far from where the lift let them out. Jase had picked the level and the area as they got in.
Their feet met the floor more and more firmly and the very air seemed to grow warmer and warmer… perhaps it was illusion, but he felt it finally gave him enough oxygen by the time they reached their destination and exited into the corridors.
But they were not deserted corridors. Crew were gathering up baggage, leaving rooms… just that fast, the order had come down to them to vacate the station, to take up residence again on the ship.
To mend things, Ogun had said, to heal what was ripped up by conflict.
Not to stay walled in their metal shell while the whole station was rebuilt, Bren was resolved in his own heart. They should not do that. They would mend the interface, supply Kaplan and his friends with enough fruit-sugars to keep them sleepless, teach the wanderers the value of planets, the ultimate, luxurious and rare beauty of the world.
Meanwhile he just wanted to get through the corridors without getting shot by one of Tamun’s resentful cousins. Narani and Bindanda were advised; the dowager was advised. They might arrive with an untidy amount of curiosity at their heels, but the doors would open, their own refuge would swallow them up… they’d get that pot of tea, the hot bath, the bed he was sure Bindanda had ready for him.
An old man, an innocuous old man, stood ahead of them, staring a moment at what had arrived in his vicinity and overturned his orderly if extraordinary life. Many of the crew were old. A few were not. More individuals came out of various rooms along the route, setting baggage out to return to cramped quarters on the ship.
Then a farther section opened, giving up a handful of young people, both male and female, who stood at a distance: curiosity had become a crowd.
“Walk easily, nandiin-ji,” Banichi said calmly in Ragi. “Think of a village, in which the inhabitants have come out to inquire of their lords, and to discover whether the danger is yet past.”
“They say the old lady’s coming,” Kaplan said, being tapped into Cl through his earpiece. “They want to see her. The crew’s heard about the old lady coming out. They want to see you. They want to see her.”