Foreigner - Explorer. Part 7

"Sabin is not optimistic about this mission."

Ginny sipped the dregs of her tea. "I insist on optimism at this point. I'm ready for the alternative-at least the one that gets us out of there fast. But I hope there's fuel waiting for us and my robots and my staff don't have a thing to do but connect the lines and suck up the good news and load survivors. At a certain point I don't care what Jase's ancestors did. I want to get home. I want to win this."

A lengthy mining operation out in a stellar wilderness was one alternative. There were far worse ones to contemplate.

Like running straight out into alien guns.

"Let's hope," he said. "Let's hope for a fast, simple homecoming at the other end."

"It's springtime back home," she said meditatively, Mos-pheiran-like pouring herself another cup. "Did you know? Tourists on the north sh.o.r.e. Nice little bar in Port Winston. Orangelles. That's what I imagine. Orangelles, orangettes, li-monas and chi'tapas. You can smell them in the air."

Fruit flavors. Flowers. Orchards in bloom.

"I'll settle for salt air and the waves," he said, since they were indulging fancy. Best air on earth. Best sound in the world. In his memory, he discovered, it was less Mospheira's north sh.o.r.e and more the sound of his own cliff-shadowed beach, a strip of white sand under the balcony wall, a little floating pier, lord Geigi's huge boat tied up there.

And the faces. And the voices. Bren-ji Bren-ji, they'd call him. And they'd all understand when he wanted to go barefoot at low tide.

But they were there. He was here. Lord Geigi was running the station they'd come from, trying to keep relations between atevi, Mospheira, and the s.h.i.+p's technical mission functioning smoothly. A vacation at his own seaside estate was a pipe dream.

"I'll take a sunset on the beach," Ginny said cheerfully. "Mind, no tourist shops. I erase those."

"Oh, we're editing."

"Privilege of being out here in h.e.l.l's armpit. There'll be this nice little bar, white fence, blooming vine-chi'tapas petals on a sea breeze, while I'm at it, so sickening-sweet you could just choke. Sunset, just one of those orange ones."

"Touch of pink," he said.

"Clouds and sails. Lights of the boats on the water, right at twilight."

"I'll go with that." He liked that image. It wasn't really maudlin. Ginny wasn't a maudlin sort. She edited that out, right along with the tourist shops and their sh.e.l.l boats and paper flowers. In favor of chi'tapas. "I'll give you one. Big stone fortress on a stony hill. Huge wall and a gate. The ground's so steep gra.s.s won't grow in a solid ma.s.s, just sort of little shelves of gra.s.s and bare ground between. Th.o.r.n.y brush. And it's one of those gold sunsets above the hill. There's light in the windows, and there's supper waiting, and you're riding in on mecheita-back."

"You're riding in," Ginny said with a laugh. "I'm walking on two feet." riding in," Ginny said with a laugh. "I'm walking on two feet."

"Most dangerous place to be." Mechieti had fighting-tusks, short ones, and didn't mind stepping on a pedestrian or knocking him flat, at very least. When the herd went, the individuals went, the dreadful fact of an atevi cavalry charge-unstoppable as an avalanche; forget steering. "But there's roast something or another for supper-"

"Oh, stop. I'm going to die. Roast, with gravy."

"Brown gravy."

"Hot bread. Fruit preserves and real b.u.t.ter."

"Egg pudding. With chi'tapas."

Sigh.

"We'll get back," Ginny promised him doggedly. "We'll get back. I can't deliver you roast and gravy in a castle, but I'll buy you dinner at Arpeggio."

"Date."

"Jago's not possessive?" Slow wink from a woman as apt as Ilisidi to be his grandmother.

"Totally practical. Well, mostly." It was good to exchange human-scale jibes and threats. He'd come very much to appreciate this woman's steady, slow-fuse humor in recent years. "All this talk of food. G.o.d. Want to drop in for dinner?" He'd halfway thought Ilisidi might propose a supper on this eve of change. But she hadn't. Staff hadn't contacted staff, which was how lords avoided awkward situations. "Can't promise roast and gravy either."

"Deal. Absolutely. Your cook-your food stores-I don't know what you do to it, but it sure beats reconst.i.tuted egg souffles and catsup."

"Don't say catsup near Bindanda's egg dishes. He'll file Intent."

"Anything for an invitation. Can Banichi and Jago be there? I'll practice my Ragi."

"Delighted. You might might have 'Sidi-ji as a fellow guest; and we might end up there, instead, but I swear you'll get dinner. Trust me." have 'Sidi-ji as a fellow guest; and we might end up there, instead, but I swear you'll get dinner. Trust me."

"Either will be glorious. Believe me."

A dinner.

It posed a pleasant end to a day that overlooked a sheer drop. He hated hated the s.h.i.+p moving. He hated that whole phase of their travel. the s.h.i.+p moving. He hated that whole phase of their travel.

He hated worse the antic.i.p.ation this time. He needed company, he found. He pitied Jase. He wished he could find the means to get him back-if only for an hour.

But hereafter Jase belonged to the s.h.i.+p. Had to. That was the way things had worked out... at least for the duration.

Chapter Four.

IN THE END IT WAS HIS cook in collaboration with the dowager's, and a table set in mid-corridor-anathema to s.h.i.+p safety officers-and both both staffs and the lords of heaven and earth at table. staffs and the lords of heaven and earth at table. Pizza Pizza seemed the appropriate offering, a succession of pizzas, with salad from the s.h.i.+p's own store, and atevi lowland pickles, and the dowager and her staff delighting in salty highland cheese on toast. The aiji's heir adored pizza, and was on very best behavior. A new hanging adorned the hall, which had had all its numerology adjusted for the occasion. Cajeiri's reputation was safe. seemed the appropriate offering, a succession of pizzas, with salad from the s.h.i.+p's own store, and atevi lowland pickles, and the dowager and her staff delighting in salty highland cheese on toast. The aiji's heir adored pizza, and was on very best behavior. A new hanging adorned the hall, which had had all its numerology adjusted for the occasion. Cajeiri's reputation was safe.

There was adult talk, translated, and a fair offering of liquors, and a warm glow to end a rare evening.

"An excellent company," Ilisidi p.r.o.nounced it.

"One applauds the cooks," Cajeiri piped up-an applause usually rendered at the main course, but it was still polite and very good behavior, and entirely due.

Bren offered his parting toast. "One thanks the staffs that lighten this voyage-for their cleverness, their hard work, their unfailing invention and good will."

"Indeed," Ilisidi seconded his offering.

"I also thank all persons," Ginny said-in Ragi, a brave venture, "and one offers sincere respects to the lords of the a.s.sociation and to the aiji's grandmother and to the aiji-apparent."

That called for reciprocal appreciations, before they went to their separate sections and their several apartments.

Over all, Bren said to himself, it was like the voyage itself-an astonis.h.i.+ng event, a mix of people on best behavior and divorced from those things of the world that usually meant diplomats working overtime to take care of the agitated small interests. An event that would take a month to set up-they managed impromptu. They had very little to divide them, at least on this deck.

Pizza, that food of sociality and good humor, had been the very thing.

A social triumph.

The dowager had genteely remarked on the change in the hangings, without remarking on the dent. Cajeiri had surely realized she knew, or he was not her great-grandchild.

Ginny had gotten her company of engineers through an evening mostly in Ragi, without a single social disaster and even with a triumph of linguistic achievement at the end. She'd likely polished that speech for hours.

And, as Cajeiri had very aptly pointed out, the joint efforts of the two staffs had turned out a success. In a long and difficult service aboard, there had to be some moments to cheer, and this was one.

We should have done this before, he thought, and wished Jase had been able to come down. That would have made the evening perfect.

But Jase had had-one hoped-a night's sleep by now, if Jase dared sleep. It was near the end of Sabin's watch.

One day, one very long day, at the end of which, guests all departed to their separate venues, Bren could sit in his dressing-gown and review his notes, by a wall on which two potted plants had run riot. Gifts from home, those were. They'd seemed to grow with more vigor during s.h.i.+p-moves. Humans didn't like the state they entered, but the plants thrived, given water and food and light enough.

He read until he found his eyes fuzzing, then took to bed. Jago came to bed shortly after and they made love... well... at least that was what Mospheirans called it.

Atevi didn't. Jago didn't. He didn't care and she didn't. There was no safer companion, no one who'd defend him with more zeal, no bedfellow as comfortable in a long and difficult night. She came to distract him and and herself, and it worked. He did sleep. herself, and it worked. He did sleep.

And waked, and finding Jago asleep, he slept again, thinking muzzily of station corridors and of the petal sails of his ancestors, dropping down and down through the clouds of a scantly known world, onto atevi struggling to master the steam locomotive.

G.o.d, who'd have thought, then, where they'd all be, now?

"Stand by," a voice said at oh-G.o.d in the morning. "s.h.i.+p-move in one hour."

Now? They weren't waiting until watch-end? It was Jase's watch. The s.h.i.+p didn't move on Jase's watch. But the robot maintained night lighting. It had to be.

Sabin was likely awake to supervise. And it was Jase's techs and officers that needed, one surmised, to exercise their skills in-for the first time this year-long voyage.

"Shall we be on duty, Bren-ji?" Jago asked out of the pitch darkness.

"One hardly knows what we could do," he said, and then did figure what they could could do with an hour to wait, because they couldn't go out into the corridors, rousing staff to risk their necks. do with an hour to wait, because they couldn't go out into the corridors, rousing staff to risk their necks.

At the end of that hour the count went to audible numbers, and he and Jago counted, and tried to time themselves to the s.h.i.+p's curious goings-on.

It felt strange when the s.h.i.+p did go. It made a giddy feeling, and after that life went on, just a shade light-headedly.

"It's very strange," Jago murmured.

"Well, if anyone asks, we can say we did it." Bren burrowed his head into her shoulder, and tangled unbraided hair, gold and black. He had the illusion of the verge of downhill skiing. It was like that.

Top of the hill. Big long slope below. Biting cold. Right now he was warm, but if he got out of bed and moved about, he'd be cold-everyone was, continually, when s.p.a.ce was folded and the s.h.i.+p was where things from the workaday universe didn't like to be.

s.p.a.ce did fold. That was what Jase said. He didn't understand it, but atevi mathematicians were intrigued.

Long, long slope.

Downhill on the mountain. A streamer of white and a whisper of snow under skis.

Toby would be on his heels.

Except he and his brother Toby had left the mountain a long, long time ago.

A world ago. Their mother had been in hospital when he'd left the world, uncertain whether she'd live. The aiji had called him to duty and he'd gone, leaving Toby to deal with the world... as Toby did and had done, all too often. As Toby's wife and kids did and had done, but it grew harder and harder. Another kind of steep, steep slope, and he couldn't help Toby or his mother, and he couldn't patch things, and he couldn't turn back time.

He was lost, and confused for a while, and seemed to dream. The world became a veil of spider-plant tendrils, branching to more and more little worlds, and he wasn't sure which one he wanted. But one of them Jago was in, and that was where he went.

He moved, and she moved. "It's very strange," she said. And it was.

It was, however, possible to go about a sort of a routine while the s.h.i.+p needled its way through folded s.p.a.ce. Bindanda managed to create a basic but very fine breakfast, and it was possible to get a little work done, at least of the routine and non-creative sort, translating files-approving what the computer did-that being about the height of intellectual activity he trusted himself to manage.

That was the first day. Jase had indeed been captain of record during that transition. Sabin, it turned out, had gone to her cabin and wished him and his crew luck.

Maybe it was a sea change in relations-a statement to the crew at large that she trusted him that far, since below-decks was sure to have learned that Jase had been in charge. Or maybe it was a subtle strike at Jase's confidence, meant to scare him. One thing remained certain: the navigators, the pilot, and the technical crew ran matters. The trade-off of authority and the alternate crew hadn't risked the s.h.i.+p.

Presumably, at the same time, Jase attempted to persuade the senior captain to trust outsiders with the log files. It remained to be seen whether that would ever happen.

The staff watched television.

The dowager stayed withdrawn in her cabin, her standard practice throughout these voyages through the deep dark: no invitation would tempt her. No one was at his best, and the dowager had no interest.

The heir, however, took to racing wheeled cars, which Ca-jeiri had seen in videos out of the human Archive, and which he had made for himself out of pieces of pipe, tape, pieces of wire, various washers and gaskets, and beans for ballast. One early model exploded on impact with the base of the section door and sent Cajeiri and the servant staff searching the hall for errant beans-not so much for fear of the footing as the certainty that any s.h.i.+p's maneuver would turn them all into missiles.

Over the next number of days Bren produced the briefing tape. No one on the s.h.i.+p was at his sharpest, but Bren judged his wits adequate at least for a summation of the situation, and he reviewed for the entire security staff, in careful detail and with numerous questions from Cenedi, exactly what he knew: the surmises of various authorities, the history of the Guild, the physical details of the station's structure and, not strange to his own staff, the station's necessary and critical operations, especially as regarded the fuel port, the mast accesses, and the damage the s.h.i.+p had previously observed.

Then the staffs-his, the dowager's men, and Gin's-put their heads together. In a meeting of their own lethal Guild, they listened to the briefing tapes, then considered the structural charts, reviewing approach, docking, and the refueling protocols. No one would deceive them. No one would confuse them by telling them lies. And no emergency would overtake them unantic.i.p.ated.

Bren wished he could say the same for himself.

"Any luck on the records?" he asked Jase, in a social call.

"She says she has it on her list," Jase said.

So, well, d.a.m.n, but not surprising. That could go on for days. And doubtless Sabin intended it to take an adequate number of days.

He helped staff where he could. Security came back to him ready to discuss their situation and their potential situation for muzzy days and evenings of careful reconsideration. He informed himself on finer technicalities about s.h.i.+p-fueling that he had never intended to know, but a translator necessarily learned, and relayed that information. He fell asleep of nights with Jago, their pillow-talk generally dealing with the same worrisome contingencies and potential operations as occupied their days.

And he slept and waked and slept and waked, day upon quasi-day, with diminis.h.i.+ng conviction about the accuracy of time-cycles in their automatic world.

No luck, Jase still informed him, regarding Sabin and further records. She still says she's thinking about it.

Watching them them, Bren began to think. Watching their reactions. Maybe waiting for Jase to make a move... but maybe, at last, questioning her own universe of rights and wrongs and consulting her human conscience. He a.s.sumed Sabin had one. But hope for it daily diminished.

He visited Ginny for one lunch of quasi-egg sandwiches on something that pa.s.sed for bread, and arranged to bring an atevi-style dinner to their section.

Then the notion took them of holding a truly formal folded-s.p.a.ce supper in the Mospheiran corridors-Cajeiri wanted to come, and gained permission from the dowager. He even demonstrated his best car for Ginny's engineers and mechanics.

Immediately there were notions for improvement and a proposal of bets. An electric motor. Remote steering.

"No," Ginny chided her engineers, but one suspected no no would by no means suffice. would by no means suffice.