If it were a Ragi lord, there would have been a good quarter hour of tea. Ogun just stared, grim-faced, for a moment. “You’ve talked with Geigi.”
“I have, sir. I understand Stationmaster Tillington is upset and there is a small situation in progress. I hope we can get past that.”
“You come up here high and wide, apparently with a program and your own intentions. Let me make something clear, Mr. Cameron, if there’s been any doubt at all. I don’t give a damn for your groundbound politics. And you don’t decide things up here.”
“Let me make clear my position, also, Senior Captain. There’s a problem approaching this station, probably intending to dock. I’m the best resource you’ve got, I’ve met the kyo before, I’m here to arrange a peaceful contact with this incoming ship, and I assure you, I equally don’t give a damn about issues that divide you on this station. I don’t have a side, except insofar as I want everybody to come out of this alive and happy. If we can get past our internal problems and arrange tight control over what signals we send out to that ship, we’ll all be safer.”
“You say you don’t give a damn. Unfortunately you are terrestrial politics, personified.”
“The Central schedule is disrupted. I take it the issue is Stationmaster Tillington.”
“The issue is five thousand unscheduled problems you dumped on my deck, Mr. Cameron! The issue is potential riot and sabotage, which has now gone critical, thanks to the kyo you stirred up. You’re here to damp it down? Fine. Now explain how you’re going to deal with that ship.”
“First off, Senior Captain, I strongly suspect the kyo are here to reconnoiter. I think they want to know what we are, how extensive our holdings are, and how many ships we have. But I don’t think I want to tell them that.”
Ogun let go a slow breath.
“So?”
“We know there’s another species out there besides kyo. The kyo may be looking for evidence of our dealing with their enemies. They may also want to verify that we haven’t been lying in what we have communicated to them. We have very little in common, physically. We don’t share the same comfort zone. Trade is certainly inconvenient over such a distance. Maintaining a presence here—I hope is equally inconvenient for them. I think they’re here just to look.”
“You’re betting on it. You’re betting a lot, Mr. Cameron.”
“The extent to which I bet will change as I get information, Senior Captain, and I will be reporting to you as I get it. I’ll be hoping for all the help I can get.”
“You brought the aiji’s kid up here.”
“The contact we made was through that kid. And through the dowager.”
“As a woman?”
“As an elder. We think. As we think the boy’s youth was also a positive. We honestly don’t know the age or gender of anyone we dealt with. We guess. But we don’t know. It’s that basic. We want to re-create what understanding we had, take up the conversation where we left it, with the very same persons we were talking to, granted the person we met is on that ship. We hope he is. We were trying to gain an understanding of each other—despite the fact most of the kyo words we know are things like tables and chairs, food and drink. But that’s my skill, sir. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m trained to do. You on this ship have never made close contact with another species. Neither, as I gather, have the kyo. Atevi and Mospheirans have. Our relationship is the equation I think that ship is here to solve. It puzzles them. It seemed to interest them. And we don’t want to present them the spectacle of quarrels in our midst.”
He left a small silence, then, and Ogun sat staring at him, but with an occasional redirection in the stare, a thought hurtling meteor-like through a mind itself quite, quite foreign to atevi or Mospheirans.
“They’re transmitting,” Ogun said, tight-jawed. “They’re repeating a series of beeps. Whatever that means. We answer the same. They haven’t changed. What’s your opinion?”
“That they have no desire to startle us, perhaps. That they’re inviting a changed response from us. Or intending to give one themselves as they get closer. In short, I don’t know. We’ve had no experience to tell us, except that this was exactly what they did the last time, and we’re doing what we did the last time.”
“You think you can talk to them, in some meaningful degree.”
“I’m certainly prepared to try, sir. We were able to meet face to face with what may have been significant higher-ups aboard their ship. The presence of persons of older and younger age among us, notably the aiji-dowager and the aiji’s son, did seem to impress them. They may have taken it as proof of a peaceful intent.” He wasn’t sure he was getting through to Ogun in the least. The jaw stayed set. He tried something less conservative, involving more guesswork. “They blew hell out of Reunion, but they didn’t destroy it. I think they sat there silent and at distance and waited. They appear to have watched Phoenix come in when Ramirez was Senior Captain, then watched it leave without removing the population. They then went on sitting there, evidently, for ten more years, knowing what direction you’d gone and probably which star was your likeliest destination.”
Ogun’s jaw clenched and a muscle jumped. That was all.
“Possibly they’ve also been sitting out in the fringes of this solar system for some time,” Bren said, “watching us the way they watched at Reunion. I understand we could miss that sort of presence, if they weren’t actively transmitting.” And right into the heart of the old feud. “And regarding that, I have a question, sir, that could be important to know. When the kyo spooked Phoenix out of their space, back under Ramirez’ command, did you come into their space directly from Reunion, and did you go directly to Reunion after you were spotted?”
The jaw worked a moment. Ogun knew exactly what he was asking. And it was extremely sensitive territory. “Not directly. We tried misleading them on our exit, which is how they got to Reunion ahead of us. Unfortunately our back-trail hadn’t faded. The back-trail was, yes, what they followed instead of us.”
“So they’re not communicating faster than they can fly.”
“Nobody can do that,” Ogun said.
“Did you pick up any attempt to communicate the first time you met?”
“No. They showed, and it was Ramirez’ decision to move. Fast.”
That mattered. Phoenix popped up in kyo space, didn’t talk, ran without trying to talk. Just spooked out.
“It helps to know, sir. So we don’t know what sort of ship they took you for. We have no knowledge what sort of species they’re at war with, either. Or whether they’ve ever talked to them.”
“Meaning?”
“They crippled Reunion. They went straight there instead of following you, and crippled it. And waited. Whether another ship followed you wherever you went in your retreat—whether there’s always been just one kyo ship—there’s no indication. That ship attacked Reunion, and it’s my suspicion they sat just watching Reunion try to recover, waiting for a ship to show up. And when you did come in to Reunion, you found it damaged, you found survivors, and, apparently after an exchange with Stationmaster Braddock, Braddock refused to abandon the station and Ramirez left them in their situation. Am I right? Ramirez kept that communication secret, had only his aide in on it, and didn’t tell the captains who were off-duty. Did he spot that watcher? Did he spook out and run because of it?”
Silence for a moment. A muscle jumped in Ogun’s jaw.