Tracker (30 page)

He'd had Tillington, with whom he could communicate. But no paidhi to communicate with Geigi—they'd had to route matters through the University linguistics department, through translators who read the language, but could not speak it. They'd done their best. He'd supported Geigi, so far as
requesting
supplies for atevi projects—not demanding them; and Geigi had responded positively, for the most part. They'd limped through a very bad time, while the Mospheirans were trying to build their own shuttle, and Shawn had been quietly supporting Geigi and backing atevi trying to bring down Murini's regime.

Then Sabin
had
come back, bringing a man Ogun held accountable for the whole situation. Louis Baynes Braddock, Chief of the ancient Pilots' Guild—who had wanted
Phoenix
to take on the kyo. Braddock, stationmaster over Reunion, had arrived with five thousand survivors, and no supplies.

More, Jase Graham arrived home with Sabin, perfectly fluent in communication with Lord Geigi, and when Tabini-aiji took back the aishidi'tat, and everything began flowing that hadn't flowed during the hard years of their absence, effortless. Shuttles flew. Supply arrived. If it had all been good change, Sabin might have won the Mospheirans' good will despite the gift she'd brought.

But all the new construction, all the gains the station had made in the Mospheiran section, had to be diced up to house the Reunioners—lifelong stationers, who had skills, and wanted jobs, which the Mospheirans weren't going to surrender.

He'd known it was difficult. He'd not known how difficult.

And insofar as Tillington had made himself the champion of Mospheirans seeking to hold on to their station—Tillington would have support. Insofar as Tillington supported Ogun and made Ogun feel he had allies—Tillington would have Ogun's support.

Insofar as Tillington wanted to play on the old, old resentments of the colonials against the governors, claiming conspiracy—Tillington could wake something deep in Mospheiran roots that had not slept that long, that had waked now and again in Mospheiran relations with the aishidi'tat, that was certainly
ready
to wake, when Mospheirans identified modern Reunioners with the hated colonial administrators and the ancient Pilots' Guild.

He had to move in ahead of that situation, get Ogun to listen, create a
place
for Ogun in the arrangement they had to have with the human side of things, and
not
let a war break out between the Mospheirans and the Reunioners.

Or have a mutiny within the ship's crew.

With the kyo inbound.

Represent Mospheira?

God.

He had to think.

D
ebarkation
was what the crew called it. It was a new word in Cajeiri's notebook—or it would be when he had a pen.

Debarkation involved a lot of preparation he never remembered before.

But the last trip he had made to the station, he had had no idea what the shuttle was doing, except when it behaved like a plane. He had had no idea what was up in the front of the shuttle except a lot of dials and lights, and he had not paid a great deal of attention.

Now he did understand. He was much more grown up on this trip. He was a
person
and not a baby. He had spent hours and hours with his notebook, in the seat next to nand' Bren, and they had compared their notes, and spoken back and forth in kyo. Bren had asked him his opinion on meanings, and he had answered and nand' Bren had taken him seriously and even made notes. He was very proud of that. And mani had given him a nod, after, as if she approved. He held that in his mind and worked it over and over when he read his notes.

An ap wo su pargha. Please sit down. An ap wo hi ga sha. Please open the door . . .

He remembered words he had written down but had no idea what they meant, but nand' Bren had guesses.

That was how they had spent their time. And Veijico and Lucasi had told them stories about mountain winters. And Antaro and Jegari had told them about hunting in Taiben. He told them about crossing the straits on nand' Toby's boat, when he had first seen that much water. And how he and mani and nand' Bren had ridden in a train car with fish.

Then he and his bodyguard had gotten to hook up and go forward into the crew compartment, with all the readouts and computers, and the copilot had explained how they would dock with the station when they got there, and even demonstrated some of the interesting-looking instruments.

That had been yesterday. He wished he could be up there during the whole last hour, just to watch, but he had things to gather up and mani's orders to listen to, and they did have the television to show them what was going on, slow as it was.

Most of all he was beginning to be very ready just to be out of the cramped space of the shuttle seat, where one had to stay, once they started braking, and that was sitting still for a long, long time.

Braking had stopped, they were floating again, and he had hoped they would be allowed to get up, at least at their places, but the crew came on the address system and warned them all they had to keep the safety belts on and that there could be bumps.

It was an awfully long time.

And they had not been able to see anything but a wall for quite a while, on the displays. There was one blinking light. Just one.

Suddenly there was word from the crew to take hold.

He took hold of the seat arms. He already had his seatbelt fastened.

There were a lot of bangs and thumps as the shuttle made connections, and he expected those. He even thought he knew what they were, because the crew had told him.

The view in all the screens still just looked blank, but that, he understood, was because the cameras were aimed at the surface of the mast where they docked, and they had just latched on—at a relative stop. The crew had explained
relative stop
, too: meaning they were still going faster than anything on Earth, but they and the station were going very fast together.

And now the station's docking machinery had them, and hugged them close. The thumping and whining going on was the connections being made for air and power.

Finally came a very big noise, which he had been warned would be the passenger debarkation tunnel locking on.

The most exciting thing in their arrival so far was seeing
Phoenix
from the outside. He had never seen the ship, even after traveling inside. And now he could show his aishid what he had been talking about forever. The ship was as beautiful as he imagined, complicated, huge, all white where it was white and absolute dark where there was any shadow.

Crew said that
Phoenix
ordinarily stayed up at the top of the mast, so people could come and go from it. Quite a few of the crew lived aboard, but now, they said, the ship had moved off a little—to give the kyo room, when they came in.

So the crew said.

But something his aishid had heard from the seniors said the ship moved out because it was just smart to have options when the kyo came in; and that sounded a lot more like the truth.

Debarkation was the next step, meaning to get up and leave. And the signal came.

They unbuckled and clipped on their safety lines, and put on their heavy clothes and gloves and masks for the actual crossing. In free fall and with the safety lines, it was not easy, and mani just wrapped herself in an immense velvet cloak that she had brought from Malguri.

Then it was time to leave. Two of the crew came back to guide them.

Mani went first, well, except for Cenedi.

“Thank you, nadiin,” mani said, in leaving, and gave the crew a little packet, which Cajeiri knew was a bundle of event cards, already signed and ribboned with red and black; and Cenedi gave them another set with a white ribbon, which came from nand' Bren. Families collected those, generation to generation; and in their comings and goings on the shuttle, they had not had the chance to give cards before this, but they took care to do it now, and the crew, all in masks and gloves and heavy coats, too, bowed in the odd way one had to bow in free fall.

The strange thought came to him that the really unique card to have would be from the kyo themselves: that was one
he
would like to have—but the kyo would not be passing out any such when they came in, he was quite sure.

Still if he did get any keepsake, he would be sure to give it to his father. He decided that would be a good idea.

Maybe one for his mother.

Maybe one for Sei. That would be politic.

The hatch opened. The air that leaked in from the opening of that door was colder than anything one could even remember. It was so cold the outgoing gust from their shuttle made a sparkle of crystals against the ceiling lights. They had to move quickly now because of that cold, clip onto the safety line that was in the ceiling of the tube, go for a little ways, and then once they were entering the exit, transfer to another rail, all of which one had to do calmly and quietly, with one's hands freezing, because getting in a hurry and dropping the line could make matters worse.

He
was the one of his little group who knew how to do it:
he
was the one who had no hesitation about this part. He was very proud of that. In the lead except for Banichi and Jago, and the two crewmen going out ahead of all of them, he clipped onto the little unit on the line that went out to the tube, and pushed the button himself, the way crew had told him he should do. It yanked him immediately out the door.

And at that point the station swallowed them up, a ribbed yellow gullet with cold that bit deep and fast, between the heaters that operated at intervals. Cajeiri ducked his chin to keep the warmth inside his coat and hurried along, already panting a little, because it was so cold. Mani and Cenedi and Nawari went right behind him, and nand' Bren and everybody else came right behind that, he was sure. Frost crystals sparkled in on the yellow ribs between the lights and the heaters.

At the end of the tube was the big dark cave of the mast itself, which was so big that lights could not touch the other side of it—and everybody had to stop, unhook from the first unit to another clip on another line, which snatched them along into a blue tube, and then just nothing—nothing, no tube, just the line. The crewmen ahead all whirled away into the gloom, and all one could see was the small light on each clip where it attached to the line, like lonely little stars.

Then they vanished. The mask limited his vision, and for a moment he saw was no light but the glow from the connection that was pulling them along. But it was all right. He was moving too.

Then there was a bright light, and shadows of people in suits: the lift shone bright in all that darkness—whether they were up or down or sideways he had no sense at all. He just wanted the machine to hurry, hurry, get them all where there was something but darkness.

That light came at a steady pace, surrounded them, drew them in, and people waited there, station crew, he thought, in bulky suits, who unclipped them and steered them like so many floating balloons into the lift car, which now, yes, he did remember. He was sure it was Nawari who gathered him in next to him and kept him from floating away; and near Nawari he saw mani, bundled tightly in her cloak, and Cenedi, who never left her. More and more of mani's young men arrived in the lift.

Then he saw nand' Bren, the other person smaller than his aishid, and once they were in, last of all, the crewman pushed buttons and extended safety bars. Those rods separated them into sections and sorted out where down was going to be—he remembered that part, too, all in a flash, that one would not want to be facing wrong when the lift moved.

The big lift car was filled shoulder to shoulder.

The door shut.

And, thump! the car began to move.

The floor came up to meet his feet. And there was a
down
again. Tall bodies in front of him cut off the view. The frost was melting fast around the heating outlets. Some people started taking their masks off, which made him think it was probably all right. He pulled his off, and breathed in air still icy cold and so dry it made him cough. He was by no means encouraged to take off his heavy coat. But a hot wind was blowing hard from the vent, and the lift went on clanking and moving, pressing their feet hard to the floor.

“Keep the gloves on,” he heard someone say, and he did. He could see Cenedi from here. He saw Banichi, who was taller than most everybody, up near the doors, and that was where nand' Bren would be standing.

He began to shiver, and he kept blinking fast because of the cold, but the hot air kept flooding in, and eased breathing. They were all heavier: it was like taking off in a jet standing up: the lift was moving that fast.

But that feeling let up so they almost floated, and then a warning began to sound and a loud voice said hold on to the bar, just before the whole lift thumped, and jolted awfully, sideways.

Cajeiri could see nothing on eye level except the back of a Guild jacket, which he thought was Algini's.

But their weight was just what it ought to be.

Then the motion had slowed so it just felt like any lift anywhere, well, mostly, except the walls were still cold, even where the hot air blasted out and melted the frost so fast it evaporated. The air became less dry. Breathing was easier.

Then they slowed, stopped, so he had to take hold of the bar. He was a little worried about mani. But Cenedi was there. Nawari was. They would hold her.

He remembered. But some things were different. They had changed the lifts. It had used to be much scarier. Or he was that much bigger.

He definitely remembered getting
to
the shuttle by the lifts.

But not getting
from
it the first time, before the voyage.

He had been very little. And someone had held him close.

He began to remember the corridors inside the station. He remembered the texture of the decking, and the way the walls curved. All sorts of details came back to him. Human faces, all of them together in the dark.

And the apartment and his room there.

But that had been on the ship. Textures and smells and sights that had gotten away from him. He remembered. He went on remembering, pieces sliding into place.

Tunnels. And mani's pretty draperies. And nand' Bren's plants. There had been one plant. In space, it had just kept growing. And making more stems, that made more plants, all white and green, Great-uncle's colors. It was like a dream. But it had really done that. He had not imagined it.

Everything jumbled up in his mind. Memories exploded through his head, so fast. Where things were—routes they had taken—but those were on the ship.

The halls they had run through, to get down to Earth before their enemies knew.

The places he had been before they had gone on the ship. Everything was confused.

He was
never
lost.

Except now.

He had been young. Now he was fortunate nine, and remembered three worlds—four, if one counted the kyo ship. Memory. Dreams. Sometime nightmares, on the world and up in space.

He was back where most of his real memories began. And he felt an unaccustomed fear, because before his memories, before his first flight, where his parents had been—so much of it was just blank.

He had never known there was so much gap. But the gap had happened here. In this place. Here was where he had forgotten things.

Where he had forgotten his parents, and most of all, his mother.

 • • • 

The readout panel had said
aishidi'tat
at the beginning, in Ragi characters—which, Bren thought, should warn any human he'd stepped into the wrong lift if he didn't want to go to the atevi section . . . where he was extremely relieved to be headed, given the troubling fact Central direction had been in Mosphei' for the rest of the flight. Central had picked up the kyo signal, Central had gotten word from the ship—and Central had not budged since, no ordinary switchover to atevi control, no communication to speak of, except the steady direction from operations, which
was
under atevi control while an atevi shuttle was inbound.

Operations—and, early on, and again before they committed to dock—he had talked to Jase.

Who periodically assured them, in Ragi, that there was no change in the kyo situation, and that they should proceed as planned. It
was
Jase, definitely. They had exchanged their code words, and Jase hadn't given him the one that meant trouble.

What is going on with the station communications? he had asked Jase in the second of those two conversations, and Jase's answer had been simply, The man refuses to leave.