They had only just arrived. And the kyo had not even shown up. And already grown-ups in charge were being fools.
“The paidhi-aiji will do his job,” mani said then, with a sharp thump of her cane. “We are all here. We are all secure. Our remaining baggage will arrive in due order. We could well do now with tea in a proper cup, and a chair that does not insist upon safety belts.”
“Indeed, aiji-ma,” Lord Geigi said, and guided them away from the lift, and toward a set of doors, which opened at a touch of his hand. A hallway with four doors was beyond, a short hall, and another door.
So mani wanted them to go on as if nothing had happened.
Ship security had their own terrible weapons, if it came to shooting. Cajeiri had never seen the white guns fired, but he had stood on the driveway of Lord Tatiseigi’s estate and seen ash coming down from fires they had created.
“Remember the way, Taro-ji,” he muttered to Antaro the moment the doors closed at their backs. “Map the corridors we use getting to the apartment, in case we have to get back here on our own.”
He was good at mapping places, himself. He had learned to remember his way in the dark and cold of the ship-tunnels; and if things went very badly, they could very well need to know their way back to the lifts.
But if that happened—there was still no place for them to go without a shuttle, was there? And none of them could operate a shuttle—even if it had gone through all the refueling and sat ready to move.
They could not get off the station without the pilots, who would be finding their way up to a special residency, too.
They had no way off. And he urgently wanted to understand what was going on.
Another door opened, and the place beyond was huge, upcurving as long hallways had to be, with people going and coming. It was a corridor of offices and even what looked like shops and restaurants, wide as a city street. There were hundreds of people. A scary lot of people. But all atevi.
Their people. Who stopped still, and moved to the sides of the corridor and bowed politely.
Word evidently spread; suddenly there were even more people coming out into the corridor, emerging from places that were, he thought, shops, just like a street in Shejidan, except for the ridged decking instead of paving.
Regular people, he thought. People who ran the station, who lived here.
Not dangerous people.
People such as he saw from his father’s balcony. People who moved, very small and far below, in the street at the foot of the Bujavid hill. One of his earliest, strangest memories of all was his father holding him on the rail of that balcony, with all the city at his feet, and the streets and the city below the hill.
And he had stood at that rail again this year, years older, wondering, just wondering what it would be like to go down there and walk on a public street.
Geigi had surely had a private way to take them to their residence.
But Geigi had taken them out where people were, where people lived, people who seemed respectful, if excited, and glad to see mani and Lord Geigi.
And maybe, he thought, glad to see him. Because he was, like mani, official. Things had been scary, and still were, and Lord Geigi was doing a demonstration, letting people see that they were here, taking care of them. He saw mani glancing from side to side as she walked, nodding politely to people who bowed, just as if it were a court appearance, and these were lords invited to the festivity.
So he did what mani did, and put on a pleasant face, no matter that strange people were very close to him. His aishid stayed right next to him, absolutely on alert; he felt it. But it was scary and exciting at once—and he felt these people’s attention, felt it as if their anxiousness were propping him up and weighing him down at the same time.
All these people trusted they were going to fix things. That was what he was feeling. Their being here was like a promise they were making.
And for the first time the people on the station were not just numbers he heard about. They were these people. They became real to him. And he and mani became real to them.
He only hoped he looked more confident than he felt at the moment.
· · ·
Consternation spread, the moment they got off the lift, one human in sensible brown atevi traveling dress and a dark tidal wave of Guild headed straight down the middle of a station corridor. But ship’s crew, who owned this area, clearly knew exactly who they were. At least half the ship’s crew had seen such sights before, and security at various points evidently had a standing Don’t Interfere order. Doors opened for them, passing the traveling disturbance from one area’s concern and letting it into another.
Bren walked at top speed, not out of breath, but keeping pace, moving along the up-horizoned corridor with all the strange perspective that played tricks with earthborn eyes. Lord Geigi’s two men were in the lead to guide them, but in point of fact Bren himself recognized a hall he had walked before, the administrative section, where Phoenix captains held absolute sway, apart from the other occupants of the space station—and apart from the ship itself.
He didn’t personally remember the guards on duty at the end of the executive corridor, but then, the one part of the ship’s crew he didn’t know by sight—was Ogun’s.
“Sir,” the response was, at those doors, before he said a thing. And as the door opened. “The guns—”
“We won’t use them,” Bren said, and walked past.
“Sir!” he heard behind him, and he raised his voice without looking back. “Appointment with the captain! Don’t delay us! My guards don’t speak ship!”
It was the last short office-lined corridor to the number one office at the end. A secretary had a desk to the left of those double doors, a young man talking to someone on com as they approached.
The word came back, apparently, before they arrived. The doors opened. But—
“They stay here, sir.”
“Two with me,” Bren said curtly, and walked on in, Banichi and Jago accompanying him.
Ogun pushed back from his desk and scowled as Bren stopped midway from the door, and as Banichi and Jago took up a position behind him and to either corner of the room.
Dead stop, then. One didn’t breathe hard. One didn’t give any indication of disturbance.
Ogun, a middle-aged man with intense dark eyes and a complete lack of hair—even the eyebrows—took his own position, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped on his middle, giving no sign of disturbance either. And none of welcome.
“Captain Ogun,” Bren said. “Thank you. I’m glad to say the aiji-dowager and the heir-designate are here with me, all in good order. We’ve brought you what resources we have. Tabini-aiji and the President of Mospheira will wish me to convey their offer of cooperation as well.”
“Sit down,” Ogun said.
No bow was due that reception, just an unhurried nod of acquiescence. Bren took one of the two chairs, arranging his coat and cuffs, with all courtly grace. I’ll sit. Let’s talk. But I’m not your subordinate. Sir.