Visitor: A Foreigner Novel (39 page)

Cullen made one he never made, and threw both arms around him, one strong hug, startling his bodyguard. “Thanks. Just thanks.”

“Come on.” He patted Cullen on the back, headed him for the cell door. “Say your good-byes to this place. You won’t be back. They’re moving you to better quarters.”

Cullen stopped. “I want my pillow.”

“Let Prakuyo know. I’m sure he can arrange its relocation.”

A nervous laugh. “I’ll do that.”

And he walked out into the corridor, and down toward the lift, never looking back.

• • •

Prakuyo had called—and Hakuut and Matuanu were packing. That was one thing.

But Banichi had called, and talked to Cenedi, and to mani, and Cajeiri had not been able to hear a thing, except mani had arranged her own gifts for Prakuyo, which she was sending with Hakuut and Matuanu—the tablets they already had in their possession, and one more; and a large, a very, very large package of orangelle teacakes.

He could stand it no longer. He went to mani’s sitting room, while staff was scurrying around with mani’s orders. “Is nand’ Bren coming back, mani-ma? Is he coming back now?”

“He is coming back,” mani said. “He is coming back with a very important document, which important kyo have signed and sealed, and which he has signed, in your father’s name, with his authority.”

Mani in fact sounded very pleased.

“So will Prakuyo come back?”

“No,” mani said with a wave of her hand. “The mast is highly inconvenient, and the kyo cannot deal with the air or the cold there. Prakuyo bids us farewell from the safety and comfort of his own ship. He is anxious to recover his son . . .”

“His son! Hakuut?”

“Hakuut is his son. Hakuut, it appears, is sixteen years old. For much of his life Prakuyo was a prisoner on Reunion, and Hakuut came aboard the ship after we rescued Prakuyo from Reunion. Prakuyo called it
fair
that he bring his son, since we
brought you. It was, in his way of thinking, reciprocity. It meant different things, for different reasons, his son, my great-grandson. But the kyo’s reciprocity has let us explore the differences, and find agreements. It has not seemed unwise. And in the same reciprocity, nand’ Bren and his aishid will traverse the mast at the same time Hakuut and Matuanu make that passage. And once they are all in their proper places, the kyo will take their ship from dock and go back to their own place.”

“Will they come back?”

“No. The document, to which nand’ Bren set your father’s agreement, and his own with his seal, says that no ship from here may enter kyo space, and no ship of the kyo may come here.”

It was, overall, very good news. He had a little difficulty thinking he would not see Hakuut again, that when he parted with him in the foyer, they would never meet again. Never was not a word he had much experience of, where it regarded associates of his. He did not know how to give them up.

He was already having to put a pin on the edge of his map for associates on the station.

He was going to have to put another, perhaps up in a corner, for places much farther away than Reunion.

• • •

It was a short stop at the residency, with the dowager preparing to go upstairs, and the kyo quarters now deserted. Geigi’s people and Gin’s would move in, collect whatever information might be left in those premises—for science.

What might remain on the other side, the atevi side, was off-limits to Gin’s crew, and simply would be moved out, sent to the cyclers, and otherwise stripped back to the simple set of panels that had combined to make the semblance of an atevi residence. It was over, mission accomplished.

But there was no rest to be had here, in an artifice rapidly collapsing. Rest would come when he reached his own apartment, upstairs, and settled into his own bed, in the reasonable expectation of not having the place blown to oblivion.

“Nand’ Bren!” Cajeiri didn’t quite run. He walked like the young gentleman he was. It was obligatory to exchange courtesies with Cajeiri, to thank his exhausted staff, and to pay respects to the dowager, who had held up amazingly in the odd hours and the long effort to achieve—whatever they had achieved. He had two of three documents in a cylindrical case, each written in kyo script, with numerous glyphs of emphasis, and in atevi symbols, and in the Roman alphabet, in three languages, in such equivalency as he and the kyo could manage, in an impressive assortment of colors of ink, and with various seals, including his own ring, which he had used three times on each document, for aishidi’tat, Mospheira, and the ship-folk—he did need to inform the captains on that score, but it would be binding, for the very practical reason that its captains
would
agree, none of the four having any interest in seeing another Reunion situation, all of the four having no reason to object to seeing Reunion’s survivors find a place on an atevi-ruled planet, out of their hands.

There was one thing left he
could
do, having some fluency.

“I shall go up to ops,” he said to his aishid—they were equally as tired, equally thinking, surely of a chance to rest, which they had gotten only by turns, for what had been a long, long effort. “If I stop, nadiin-ji, I think I shall be too tired to walk any further. I need to be in ops, with Jase. I need to be there, if any question comes from the kyo ship. I cannot answer the technical things, but I can translate.”

“Yes,” Jago said, which was absolute, for all of them. The determination was there to finish it, do the job—and
then
get to their own residency, because this one was already in pieces.

“Advise the staff,” he said. “Tell them we are absolutely too tired for festivities, even deserved ones. We shall simply arrive and sleep, if you wish, nadiin-ji.”

“No reports to be made,” Banichi said. “We have told Cenedi: we shall make our report tomorrow.”

To the Observers—that was a question, what to tell them,
how far to rely on their good sense. He had to rely on his aishid to make that judgment, and he was not sure what that would be.

Tell Jase?

He was still asking himself that when he got into the lift, bound for ops.

He was asking himself that when the lift let them out again in that heavily securitied corridor, near that massive door, beyond which one of the station’s essential nerve centers gave orders and regulated processes.

Tell the captains the truth?

Truth had done damage within the ship, after lack of truth had roused massive distrust. Lies and secrets had been the rule.

And aboard that kyo ship was one devastating secret, the existence of which threatened—everything.

Outside of himself and his aishid, the dowager knew. Cenedi knew. Tabini would need to know. He had to ask himself whether even Shawn Tyers, sitting in the Presidency of Mospheira, should be privy to a secret that, if ever whispered in the halls of government, would hit the streets and rouse—God knew what reactions. Panic. Anger. Conspiracy theories would run wild inside the hour.

He didn’t know about Shawn’s security. He didn’t know whether Shawn also had people
he
would feel obliged to tell, and if he did, and
they
had people—the damned thing was endless. How many degrees could the information go out, before
someone
talked to somebody in a hallway in Mospheira’s power structure and somebody else overheard?

Tabini knew how to keep secrets. The dowager had taught him.

There would come the day Cajeiri had to know.

But right now—he was missing a razor and a comb which he had to make some excuse to replace, and a guilty conscience said that telling staff he had accidentally left them aboard the kyo ship was just—a question he didn’t even want to raise. A comb was one thing. A razor had to come from Mospheira. It
could be gotten on the station, on the Mospheiran side. Atevi didn’t use such a thing.

He could ask Gin. But that was one more person he was asking himself should he tell. Should he tell Geigi? Should he tell—when he got down to the world—his brother Toby?

But at some point, he had to draw the line and stick with it. At some point, he was going to have to choose to lie to someone who had a
right
to know. Because at some point, the risk became too great. It was a weight he had to carry. He had talked to Cullen about the hard parts he’d have to deal with;
he
had his own. He couldn’t share the responsibility.

Secrecy. As heavy as that knowledge was, it went along with the strong likelihood that at some point—
Cullen
was going to find out. Prakuyo knew, and Prakuyo’s crew knew, and the whole kyo hierarchy had to know. At some point they’d have to trust Cullen with the truth of the atevi and that the entire time he’d been with Bren, he had been a shuttle-ride away from another human civilization. They’d have to tell him someday—or Cullen would find out someday. Such things were ticking bombs, waiting until some point of stress to blow wide and do damage. But he couldn’t control Cullen. Cullen had to figure for himself. And maybe if any human could understand why he’d had to keep that secret—by the time he figured it out—Cullen might.

“Bren.” Jase caught sight of him as he walked in, as guards passed them through. Jase welcomed him, nodded to his aishid, and beckoned them on into the narrow aisles of techs and screens.

Two big screens showed the kyo ship, with the umbilical still attached, or at least as much as the cameras could take in, a confusing pattern of reflected sun, red and blue working lights from the station structure, and absolute, unremitting black of shadow.

“How was it?” Jase asked. “You look exhausted.”

“Pretty tired,” he said.

“What took so long? Agreement, your message said. Have we got one?”

“Pretty good one. The kyo are keeping Reunion alive. Remaking it, I suppose, in their own way. They don’t want contact. They want ships to stay out of their space. But if we need to contact them, we can go to Reunion. We can contact them there. That’s in the document.” Deep breath. “I had to sign it for the captains. It seemed expedient. I know what that’s worth, technically, but it was that or lose the momentum. And they were agreeing. They just don’t want to be contacted right now. Maybe never, but certainly not until they’ve ended their war. They wanted to be sure they didn’t have a situation with us on the other front. I convinced them we’re peaceful, and as anxious for privacy as they were. They were glad. We all signed. I brought you one of three documents. It’s in the things I’m sending up to the apartment. I’m just not up to an interview with Ogun and Sabin right now, if you understand.”

“I do. So will they. We’re all,
all
, grateful.”

A voice on com said,
“Uncoupling.”

The screen didn’t appear to change. The umbilical was still out there.

“Confirmation on uncouple. Clear.”

A schematic flashed up on the second large screen, simply a set of dots, moving to the right.

“They’re moving.”

The dots vanished in favor of the second ship image, a white structure slowly, slowly moving in relation to the station structure. The umbilical separation became clear, the end just left, motionless, while the ship, at the speed of a train leaving station, eased itself back and back.

“Moving with authority,” Jase murmured. “But they pretty much do as they want to do. Scared hell out of ops coming in.”

“All booms clear,”
came the word from com.
“Clear to go.”

The ship moved more definitely now, straight back, at increasing speed.

“Were you all right with them?” Jase asked with a critical look.

“Short sleep. Long sessions. But we’re fine. We’re all fine. More than fine. Good outcome, Jase. Very good outcome.”

The ship kept accelerating. Backward—forward—who among them knew which end was the bow, or whether the kyo much cared?

“Cajeiri kept asking, had I heard, had I heard. Ogun was worried about you. That’s a first.”

“Gratified,” he said.

Jase just looked at him. Second brother, Jase. Jase, who
did
carry a paidhi’s burden—the power to decide, the power to inform, the obligation at times to take a stand against his own superiors.

“Jase,” he said, and lapsed into Ragi. “Come upstairs. We need to talk.”

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