Silence. Again. Ogun wasn’t pleased to be challenged. He wasn’t pleased to be handed a solution to his mess. He wasn’t pleased at being handed anything he hadn’t chosen . . . including, clearly, the presence of a Presidential envoy.
He had a card.
And maybe it was time to play it.
“You also have, Captain, at the direction of Tabini-aiji and President Tyers, my support, which I am glad to give. I voyaged with Captain Sabin and Captain Graham, so I do communicate well with them, but that is nowhere comparable to my obligation to a populated planet which is my home, sir, as the ship is yours. I have every interest in keeping this station and the ship and all its options safe, and to do that, I need to do what I’m damned good at, sir. But to do that, I need humans on this station not to be conducting a civil war at my back. You are the authority above other authorities up here, so I’m backing you, as I hope you will back me.”
“You are an arrogant bastard, Mr. Cameron.”
“One entirely at your service, sir, and in that interest, let’s create an understanding—and I have discussed this with President Tyers. You want the Reunioners taken out of your way. You wish they, and their politics, had never exited Reunion. And you wish Braddock would take a walk in space. We’re not far apart in that opinion. There’s no way to deal with that situation until we handle the kyo, and we can’t let Braddock use the kyo’s presence as a launch of his second career. If we manage things right, the kyo will come in, they’ll dock, we’ll speak to them, and with the Presidential envoy in charge of the Mospheiran half of the station, things there will stay perfectly quiet while we do it. If we don’t manage to talk to the kyo, the very best outcome we may get is a permanent kyo observation station sitting out there destabilizing our politics and limiting our options for a very long time to come. The President doesn’t want that, the aiji doesn’t want that, and I don’t think you want that. Tillington is making himself an obstacle to our dealing. His replacement will not. And we will move the Reunioner population down to the planet, where it will not be a further issue.”
Ogun blinked. Just that. “Whose word backs that, Mr. Cameron? And how do they get down there? Parachute, like your ancestors?”
“The Mospheiran shuttle program is getting into production, sir. And they will have help from the aiji, who is equally in favor of seeing this issue resolved. It is a viable option. It’s the only viable option, which became an option thanks to your medical folk. One could assume you had some such in mind, when the young aiji’s visitors were able to thrive down there.”
Ogun’s notion? Or was it Sabin who had pushed the meds? Or Jase himself? Someone had, whether for practical hope—or politics.
Ogun stared at him, mouth just a little less clamped. “So who is this envoy, Mr. Cameron?”
“At this point, sir, I haven’t been informed. Communication has been severely limited, so long as Mr. Tillington has been sitting in a position to intercept messages between myself and the President, and so long as communications on the planet are subject to eavesdropping by various agencies. The President may have considered alternatives I know nothing about, but I have a strong hope the appointment will be somebody who’s been here before, who knows the station and its systems.”
That was a very short list.
And Ogun drew in a deep breath. “Mr. Cameron, I hear both good and bad about you. I hear you do get results. So let me give you one very clear warning about dealing with us. Don’t you try to play politics with the captains, even if you think it might benefit you.”
“I have no such intentions. If I can do anything to prevent any problem among the captains, or if you feel I’m not seeing something I should see, inform me, and I’ll do all I can to work with the Council as a whole, because it’s in all our interests.”
“So are you going to break the news to Tillington?”
“Would you prefer to, sir?”
“Not my job,” Ogun said with a wave of his hand. “Your Presidential envoy comes up here—fine. He keeps order and follows regulations. You say you can deal with the kyo. All right. I’ve got no other offers on my desk. You say you can fix the Reunioner situation so we never see it again. Good. I’ll remember that. Right now—go settle in, and don’t disturb what’s not rattling. No changes in orders as they stand. Understood?”
He supposed that was a victory of sorts. Ogun pushed him. He could say, You don’t order me. Or even: Be damned to you: you’re not irreplaceable, either. It was very possible that Ogun had partnered with Ramirez in his decisions. Possibly Ogun had helped bring about the situation they had now, and possibly he’d deliberately kept Sabin in the dark.
But this was also the man who’d managed the station during two years of hell and continued to hold it during the last troubled year of unplanned residents and short supply.
So he contented himself with a quiet, respectful nod. “Absolutely. I’ll work with you, sir. In all respects. Right now I’ll be going to my apartment, dealing with my staff. If any problems come up, if you need a translator—at any hour—you know where to find me.”
· · ·
The residential area was restricted, beyond a guarded door, with, on the other side, all that area of shops and apartments, tiers of them, balconies and shops above the shops, Lord Geigi said.
But past that door and up a level, they had come to this short hall, less wide, far less high, just a little nook above all that huge space.
And suddenly Cajeiri had remembered this specific place. The rest had changed. But not here. Not that much. There was nand’ Bren’s apartment, just as he recalled. There was nand’ Geigi’s. And there was mani’s, in that short hall, and farther down, three other doors that could be storage or passage accesses or most anything. He remembered.
Three years ago he had thought this hall was huge. It was not quite as big as the halls of the Bujavid. And the hall was not as wide nor its ceiling nearly as high as the big area with shops. But it was, more than anything they had seen below, atevi, kabiu, and had a feeling of comfort.
They had hardly been there a moment before the area door opened, and the second part of their company caught up, having come a different way, just ahead of a mass of baggage on carts. Everything was confusion for a moment. Mani’s apartment opened up, pouring out staff excited to welcome them. People he did not at all remember said he had grown so much—
That was true. But it was still strange.
But, sadly, when nand’ Bren’s door opened and the staff came out, they had no one to welcome, except Narani-nadi and Bindanda and Asicho, who stood by giving orders and helping them identify and move the luggage. “They will come,” Narani-nadi said. “They will be here soon.”
But that only made him think all too vividly about the trouble they could be in, and the necessity to keep a calm face and to pretend, like mani, like Lord Geigi and everybody else, that there was absolutely nothing wrong, and that there was no trouble anywhere.
“We shall have tea,” mani said now, after formalities, and invited Lord Geigi, who had just been introducing the Guild observers to the four of his staff who would show them to their apartment, down the hall.
It was certain mani and Lord Geigi would get down to serious talk, after tea. There were so many questions, so very many scary ones—and he was not sure whether he would be invited to hear the news, or whether he would be shut out. He was not even sure whether he wanted to hear—but in his heart, he wanted to.