Tracker (27 page)

“Captains know where and when to position the
ship,
Mr. Cameron.”

“Your translator, Captain, in your service, knows what may be misinterpreted as a hostile move at a later stage of these negotiations. With all due respect,
please
separate
Phoenix
from dock now, to preserve all future options. The kyo do not know how many ships we have. They do not know where they might be.”

“No thanks to your efforts at Reunion!”

“We
know the kyo are definitely armed sufficiently to take out the station. I do not serve any
side
in this, sir, except Tabini-aiji. The aiji has every interest in assisting you, and I am personally assigned to be a resource at your disposal, sir. I am willing to support you at any hour, at any time. If that signal changes in any detail before I get there,
please
keep me advised before you alter your own response.”

Still a lingering silence. But the contact persisted. Then:

“How are you at taking orders, Mr. Cameron?”

“I am excellent at it, sir, and I am equally excellent at my job. I have met these people—”

“People,
is it?”

“People,
sir. The gentleman I dealt with at Reunion is an imposing fellow named Prakuyo an Tep, very smart—a thinker, a very tough individual, and very civilized, who endured ten years of captivity without hating humans indiscriminately. I
hope
he is aboard that ship. I very much
hope
he is in a position of authority on that ship. Whatever the situation, sir, I am deeply devoted to the survival of our side of this encounter, and
our
side includes, as a very high priority, the safety of the ship. I am calling now to offer you my respects, sir, and I hope to work closely with you.”

Again a silence, which extended beyond time-lag.

“Mr. Cameron, you say you will take orders.”

“I assure you, sir, I take orders very well, but my job is to keep the opinions of various sides from intersecting badly. That is
my
expertise, and I will be as zealous in communicating your point of view or Prakuyo an Tep's as I am in representing the aiji's view: that
is
the job I have, sir. I am charged with bringing
all
these views to the table and finding some way for them to be compatible.”

“I'll tell you what I want, right now, Mr. Cameron. I want these strangers out of here, and while you're at it, I want some lasting solution to five thousand people who don't like your people, and who happen to be led by the single damned bastard who created this mess.”

Interesting classification—regarding Braddock.

“I understand and agree in all points, sir. I suspect the kyo ship is here on a fact-finding mission, and I hope we can satisfy them and send them on their way. A year's voyage to reach us is hardly the sort of thing that defines close neighbors.”

“I have things to discuss with you, Mr. Cameron.”

“I would be very glad to have that discussion, sir.”

“Going up with the shuttle tomorrow, is it?
You
were the delay.”

“Yes, sir. Tomorrow is as quickly as I could get the shuttle reconfigured. In the meantime, sir, the
pattern
of our communication with the kyo has previously been an opening of reciprocation.
Phoenix
has all the records of the last exchange, and it also has the personnel who handled the communications. I am extremely glad you have them for a resource. If you start receiving anything different than you are now receiving, I cannot stress enough, send it to me and don't respond to their signal until I've seen it and we've had a chance to confer. The kyo will take a continual repetition of the identical pattern quite patiently. I would
not
like to enter an escalating series of reciprocal actions with them that could be misinterpreted. Their timescale does not seem to be ours.”

Small silence.
“I follow your logic, Mr. Cameron.”

That was a relief. “I will be up there as soon as possible. Express, sir.”

“I'll see you in my office when you get here.”

“Thank you, sir. I'll be there.”

Click.

Connection broke.

He looked across the room, aware now that Jago had come in.

“One could not follow enough of it,” Jago said, which was some encouragement to hope the Messengers' spies couldn't, either.

“I have now told Ogun-aiji we are coming. I neglected to mention the aiji-dowager or the young gentleman. Ogun-aiji and I at least reached a civilized understanding this time. But I am not confident I understand Ogun that much more than I understand Prakuyo an Tep. And I do
not
know his history. I wish I did.”

“How so?” Jago asked.

“Very possibly Ogun has
seen
the kyo world—or at least knows where it is. I have no access to the ship's records. And I am not certain the information Ramirez-aiji concealed from everyone is extant or accessible in those records. There may be areas of the ship's records that Sabin and Jase cannot reach. Ogun may know where the first meeting with the kyo was, and under what circumstances. He may not. And despite Tillington's charge that this entire situation is Sabin's fault—by all I can gather,
Ramirez
was the captain on duty when the ship entered into the kyo solar system. The ship was spotted by the kyo, and it left quickly, leaving, of course, a trail to say where it had come
from
, exactly the thing Tillington charged Sabin with doing at Reunion, in coming here. The ship took a circuitous course getting back to Reunion, presumably under Ramirez' orders. When the ship did arrive back at Reunion, it found Reunion had already been hit, and that they were consequently without a secure base—with Braddock in charge, trying to invoke command over the ship. There were two ways to go, then: rebuild Reunion, with the constant threat of another strike—or come back here. Ramirez apparently wanted to abandon Reunion and bring the population here, but Reunion being under Braddock's orders—Braddock refused to evacuate, and the ship just left, possibly by another indirect route. Ogun was second-in-command. He may have known what Ramirez knew regarding survivors on Reunion, and Ogun's dealing with Braddock may go back to that time.”

“But would not Sabin know this?”

“If she was off-shift, decisions might have been taken that she had no idea were taken. Allegedly Ramirez gave Braddock the order to evacuate his people from Reunion, and Braddock refused him.
Did
he refuse? I think it likely is the truth. If the ship had come back here and found no human survivors, they would have lacked laborers and technicians to create any new human settlement. That argues that the ship really did urge Braddock to evacuate—that Braddock in fact did refuse, and that Ramirez-aiji left them stranded because his priority was to protect the ship and re-establish a base here. What he had done troubled him deeply. He revealed the truth about Reunion only when he was dying—but was it to force Ogun by popular sentiment, or was Ogun as surprised by the truth as everybody else? I am convinced that Sabin was indeed surprised by Ramirez' confession. I do not know what she was doing while Ramirez was making some of these decisions, but I strongly suspect that she may have been barred from the bridge—and that her feud with Ogun and the division in command goes that far back. I have very many questions about Ogun, what he did, who his allies were—but most urgently I need to know what his state of mind is now, and how much the past affects his relationship with Sabin.”

He turned his chair, leaned back—looked directly at a face more familiar than his own. And not human. And beloved.

Strange how a few moments of using the language and thinking human thoughts shifted his whole world.

Jago shifted it all back into the order he much preferred.

“Tillington became Ogun's ally during our voyage to Reunion, and Ogun will
not
be pleased,” he said, “when he learns I am requesting Tillington be replaced. But he will accept it, one hopes, before the kyo arrive.”

“Will he be reliable?”

Instantly: where is his man'chi? That was the math Jago lived with.

“One is not sure how Ogun regards me, despite his promise to hear my advice. But if he will hear me for a few moments I think he will realize I can be of far more help to him than Tillington can. Certainly I can be more help than Braddock can.”

Jago gave a silent, grim laugh. One knew what
Jago
thought logical, regarding Braddock's fate, and the math made sense. Humans were, in Jago's estimation, endangering everyone and everything in the world, all to avoid one quiet, well-deserved disposal.

“We Mospheirans are,” he said, “a little crazy. And I
wish
I knew for certain whether Ogun
was
complicit in what Ramirez did. It bears on how he makes his decisions now, and what he might want to hide from discovery—as if it could matter now, at least to me. I think, in simple terms, his man'chi is most of all to the ship. And at this crisis, I care very little what Ogun has done or not done in the past. Our problem is immediate, and my concern is a peaceful, constructive talk with that arriving ship and a negotiation that disengages us from all the kyo's concerns.”

“Yet,” Jago said, “did the kyo not indicate that an association can never be broken?”

“They did,” he said. It was not a comforting thought. “But it can have a happier interpretation. And perhaps a closer association can be postponed.”

“One certainly hopes so,” Jago said.

I
t was ungodly early to be up and about. But lights were on, staff turned out, and the kitchen had swung into action this morning under Bindanda's assistant, while Bindanda was going over his checklists.

Acknowledgements came in.

From Ilisidi:
We shall keep the agreed schedule.

From Tabini:
We have confirmed all orders you have issued. Our son will join you at the appointed time tomorrow.

And from the Guild, through Tano:
The Guild unit will join us at the train station. They are advised about baggage and security requirements. They will carry only hand baggage. They will rely on Lord Geigi for supply, and he is preparing a residence for them near his own.

Matters he hadn't personally overseen were being handled. Baggage had gone out last night. The Red Train was undergoing preparation to take them to the port before tomorrow dawn, and that preparation would be guarded, and closely supervised.

Now the nerves started. Breakfast sat uneasily on the stomach. And Bren found himself looking at familiar faces, familiar things in the apartment, telling himself he
would
be back, and all these people would be safe if he could just quit the dark train of thought that kept intruding and concentrate on business at hand. Staff knew what to do. His bodyguard did. They were in close communication now with Cenedi, Ilisidi's Guild-senior; and with Tabini's. They were giving orders to Cajeiri's young bodyguard, and that unit was being overseen by Tabini's bodyguard. Everything was happening as it ought to.

He sat down in his office to have one more cup of tea, review the dictionary one more time, seeking insights, and think through everything he had on his own list.

A very illicit little Guild communications unit was going with him. They were not telling the Guild observers about that item. His handgun, however, was staying on Earth. If he turned out to need a weapon, his bodyguard would provide it.
They
were amply armed, and understood far better than the unit from Headquarters what they could and couldn't do in that fragile environment, and where they could and couldn't do it.

Trust that the unit from Headquarters was going to be a quick study on such points, and that they would grasp the problems of using weapons on the station. It left them a wide array of things they could do—and shouldn't have to.

And they would also be dealing with ship security, whose personal armament could blow the side off an earthly building.

He sat. He studied.

“The news is now broadcast to the public,” Jago arrived to inform him. “There is, on the part of some, alarm; and of course the rumor has begun to circulate that the kyo will land as humans did, though the report directly denied this will happen. Lord Machigi has sent an inquiry through staff to his Trade Ministry asking whether there is more to know on that matter. The dowager has responded that we had no means to predict the timing of this visit, but that there is no such landing contemplated, that the kyo are most probably here to confirm what we told them, and that we are going up there to conduct a diplomatic meeting.”

“Indeed,” he said.

So their close allies were asking reasonable questions and getting one small piece of truth more than the public was yet getting. The world was in acceptable order.

“I shall draft a similar letter to Dur and the Atageini.”

It was something to do. It was a function he normally had. It avoided thinking of more troublesome details.

And when he had done it, he wrote an advisement for his secretarial office: he customarily received direct communications from citizens, even atevi children, asking for explanations, and his secretarial office needed a list of prepared statements that could answer those questions.

It was now down to pure time-filling. He had done everything he could do. The baggage was out of their hands, the shuttle was loading and fueling, and everything was starting to roll downhill with a dreadful inevitability. All that was left was asking himself over and over if there was possibly anything he had forgotten, any item he was going to need, any instruction he had failed to give, or any letter he ought to have sent.

Topari. God.
Topari.

He wrote, briefly:
Please be assured, nandi, that everything we have discussed will go forward without interruption. The heavens have other residents, and one of these, as you will have heard, has come on a courtesy call which must be addressed in due form and with proper ceremony. We believe this will be a brief visit concluded with the departure of these visitors. But I have arranged for business to be conducted as usual in my brief absence.

I am confident of a good outcome. It should not in any wise delay the fulfillment of agreements between yourself and the aiji-dowager.

God, one earnestly hoped it worked out that way.