Explorer Page 5

  “Clearly my watch. And the burning question still remains—what else do we do with it?”

  “When you show it to me, you clearly know you’re showing it to my security. And the dowager’s. I might have given you special privacy. You didn’t ask it.”

  “You keep secrets. So does the dowager.”

  “Secrets again?”

  “That’s the eternal question on this ship, isn’t it?”

  “Tell Ginny Kroger,” Bren said. “She’s tied into our information. It’s hard to keep her apart from anything.”

  “And her staff circulates on three-deck.”

  “And if they know—crew’s not far. You’re right. Everywhere we turn, there’s another question how wide to take this, and it all runs in a circle . . . once you tell one other individual, it all leads eventually to the crew.”

  “You understand my problem,” Jase said. “And telling Gin Kroger, who’s next to telling you, eventually leaves everyone on the ship but the crew knowing what’s in this tape, which has got to be another psychological statement, so far as the crew’s concerned, doesn’t it? Pride. Trust. And how do we admit, this late in the game, that Ramirez lied to them twice? I’m just beginning to figure out how long Ramirez lied to me.”

  “Secrets,” Bren said, “never, ever served Phoenix well. But letting them out just before making port is going to be difficult.”

  “So here we are—trying to shut Reunion Station down and keep the aliens from tracking us back to Alpha? That’s a secret, isn’t it—and one we’re not going to confess to the Guild on first meeting. Secrets are our whole existence. Maybe some of them have to be kept. Even inside. I have scraps of facts that lead under closed doors. And what do we do? Fling wide all the doors? Open just one, thinking we can limit the damage? Restrict images during docking again, and hope that crew won’t think to ask until this has all worked and they’re too happy to lynch their officers?”

  “We don’t even know for an assured fact,” Bren said, “that Sabin herself has a clue what’s on this tape.”

  “She’s got Jenrette to ask.”

  “Maybe she’s never asked Jenrette. Or maybe Jenrette didn’t tell her everything.”

  “She knows there’s a question. Yes, she’s seen this tape, no matter when she saw it. She knows, by now. And knowing all she knows, knowing that I’ve been after this tape, she’s kept it to herself, letting me hunt for it—and ultimately letting you and me go into a situation on arrival without the information, if I didn’t get it. I think that, and I get very angry. And then I reason,” Jase said quietly, not looking at him, “that she hasn’t failed to tell me yet. Not yet. And I keep waiting, day by day, for a briefing on what happened at Reunion—and on a dozen things I don’t even know to ask.”

  “And it doesn’t come,” Bren said. “And it hasn’t come. And we’re running out of time. And you’re mad about that. And getting madder.”

  “It’s that emotional cloud again.”

  “You’re not sure you’re thinking straight about it?”

  “I’m not sure I’m thinking straight about anything. A check on the thought processes is useful. So after a suitable time of sweating it alone—on the eve of our last ship-move—I asked you in on it . . . knowing . . . knowing, unless she does exactly what Ramirez did and freezes the station image . . . crew will see it, first glance. They haven’t thought to ask. No one’s thought to ask. But if it’s laid in front of them, they won’t take five minutes to figure it out.”

  “It’s been nine years. Station could have repaired themselves. Wouldn’t they?”

  Deep breath. “True. And the natural expectation would be, yes, just expect any survivors would have gotten rotation established, on a fairly high priority, to assure there is someone alive and healthy to meet us. So we might get through that. But not once information starts flowing, between stationers and us. Then we’ll get the questions—and I have a dire suspicion there’s more to it than we know.”

  “You’re likely right.”

  “I think crew could swallow the worst suspicions—if it’s on a soaring expectation of success. But having lived down in the lower decks, as, mind, none of the other captains have done—I think if we let the rest of the crew find out in the middle of a crisis that they were lied to like this, they’ll blow, and this time—God knows. God knows whether mutiny is a possibility, but it’s happened once, and we don’t forget that. Sabin’s not overly concerned for crew opinion—never has been. So here I sit, thinking yes, no, go this way, go that way—I’ve put myself in a position, digging this out, an uncomfortable one, but I’ve found it. And now I have to sit on it or let it loose. Either’s a decision.”

  “No question.”

  “Third choice. Do I confront Sabin?”

  “Truth is a fair start for a complex operation. Truth—at least between two captains of the same ship.”

  “So you think it’s a good idea to ask her?”

  “I’m sure truth may precipitate certain things.”

  “I’m sure of that, too. But do you advise me to do it?”

  “The idea has a certain merit. And certain downsides. Are you going to do it?”

  “I want you in on it.”

  “I’m less sure that’s a good idea. My presence is provocative. Distracting from the issue.”

  “To the good. I want you there. I want Banichi and Jago there.”

  Bren was dismayed. “A threat?”

  “A reminder to us humans we need to settle this quickly and not bring our unguarded tempers to our atevi guests or, for that matter, to the Mospheirans. I want all I’ve got on my side, environment, plain environment, not verbal argument. Sabin absorbs facts. She doesn’t listen to arguments worth a damn. What she sees in a confrontation, that impresses her. If she sees the two of them, she’ll know the scale of it. She’ll know there’s no secrecy possible there. Period.”

  It was, in certain particulars, a fair assessment of the senior captain.

  “So,” Bren asked, “when do you want me?”

  “Now.”

  “It’s four in the morning. Enthusiasm for the truth aside, is she going to be happier being waked up in the middle of her night?”

  “Sleep-cycle,” Jase reminded him. “We have sleep-cycles. Only you planetary types have nights. You run a ship, you get odd hours. And her cycle’s closing out pretty soon. A moderately urgent technical consultation. I think that’s the way to put it . . . a step short of an operational emergency. That’ll get her on deck. If I say I just want to talk theory at this hour she’ll tell me go to hell. And if I bother her in her duty hours she’ll be on edge from the start and anxious to get back to schedule. This is an emergency.”

  “I’d at least offer tea,” Bren said dryly.

  “I don’t think she’ll stay for breakfast. Tea it is.” Jase punched buttons and sent away the schematic. The tape started over. Jase punched another button, this one on his collar. “C1. Captain Sabin to my office at earliest convenience, technical consultation. Wake her.”

  “Yes, sir,” the answer came from the desk unit.

  That fast. He’d agreed. They were in it.

  2

  “Banichi-ji,” Bren said under his breath, sitting in the office chair, and using the pocket com while there was still time, “please advise security everything’s under control and proceeding well.”

  Advise the atevi establishment, that was, and under control was tolerably true. He sat in Jase’s office waiting for Sabin to show up on a small hours of the morning, on a minor emergency call, waiting for all else that might fall out—and the second worst situation he could think of was that Cenedi might have waked the dowager to advise his ultimate authority what was going on upstairs. The second worst. The very worst thing he could think of, outside of a complete malfunction of the ship’s engines, was the dowager deciding to come up here in person to have morning tea and reason with Sabin.

  Tea was not a word of fortunate history, under those circumstances
.

  Kaplan, however, had indeed come into Jase’s office just for that purpose, to make tea . . . a nominally Mospheiran herbal item, one of those light mass planetary amenities that the ship’s crew had taken to as passionately as they took to fruit sugar.

  Polano and Banichi and Jago made a living wall of security outside . . . that sense of presence Jase deemed a very good idea.

  Sabin had gotten the message from C1, and hadn’t objected to Jase’s office as the venue. She might, Bren thought, have breakable objects in her own.

  It was a level of not-quite-critical summons that meant she could take a decent amount of time responding. She might even stop for breakfast, if only to try Jase’s patience, but they made strong tea, all the same. It was pushing five hundred hours, not too far off first shift’s ordinary waking.

  Bren’s pocket com beeped. So did Jase’s desk unit.

  She’s here, was the general advisement. Heads up.

  A few beats later the door opened and Sabin walked in. She was a thin, past-sixties woman with close-clipped gray hair, uniform sweater and uniform coat. She didn’t walk into a room: she invaded it—gave an habitual scowl to their security, who folded in after her—their security, then her security, two men, Collins and Adams, intent on coming inside if the rest were bent on it.

  Bren stood up, a courtesy. Jase poured a cup of tea and set it on his desk edge.

  She didn’t take it. She didn’t sit down. “Nature of the emergency. I trust there is an emergency.”

  “A fairly major one,” Jase said. “The tape, captain. The tape. And I’m not about to let Mr. Cameron go out of here seeing what he’s seen without hearing your side of this.”

  “What in hell have you done?”

  “Well, looked for answers, for a start.” Jase’s eyes could be perfectly innocent, on demand. “Unfortunately I’ve stirred up more questions than answers, but I have every confidence you had a reason for restricting the tape record. I’m equally confident that you were testing me to see if I could get it. I did. So I’m not sending our ally below with half the truth to work on. I’m certainly not having our allies wait until they get to the station to see what any eye can see—that Reunion was under an immaculate one g rotation nine or so years ago, while we were docked and refueling, contrary to the image provided belowdecks; and certainly the crew will see it, and recall all too keenly that isn’t what we all saw on our screens, so there’s a whole other question. So I think we ought to talk about this, captain, and I’m sorry about waking you early to do it, but Mr. Cameron’s knowledge of the situation—for which I take full responsibility—provides a certain urgency. Unhappily my watch falls during your sleep, and I apologize. Considering the hour, I at least made you some tea. My aides will provide whatever else you might want.”

  Dead silence. Sabin was fully capable of wishing them in hell and walking out, all questions hanging.

  She didn’t. “So you got into the log.”

  “It took some work, captain. I trust you knew I’d do that. I took it rather as one of the many tests of competency you’ve set me. I did it. Now Mr. Cameron’s seen it. So has his guard.”

  They’d provided a chair for Sabin in the scant room there was left. She turned it on its track, took the tea from Kaplan, and sat down.

  Bren sat, having been prepared to intervene, glad he hadn’t had to. But the crisis wasn’t past. Sabin often operated on a delayed fuse.

  She had a sip of tea—she took it dark, strong, and unmitigated, ignoring the condiments, ignoring the hazards of one past poisoning.

  “So?” she said to Jase, likewise ignoring the crowd of security and the sure knowledge the atevi representative was wired.

  “I’ve a lingering few critical questions,” Jase said. “I can certainly understand why you didn’t release this to the crew at large. Captain Ramirez faked the monitor output, and he did it before he ever had clear contact with the survivors. Am I right?”

  Sabin sipped her tea and didn’t say a thing.

  “When crew finds out,” Jase said, “if they find out when they’re in a good mood—that’s one thing. If things aren’t going well when they find out, I ask myself, what else are they going to doubt?”

  Sabin shrugged. “You have all the answers. You’ve made the decision to view this with Mr. Cameron. I’m listening to your reasoning.”

  “Excuse me, captain,” Bren said. “Our section is disconnected from these events and capable of discretion, if that’s the ruling here.”

  “I’m sure you’re capable of a good many things,” Sabin said. “Including seeking your own advantage. I take it the dowager now knows, too.”

  “If it isn’t the case, I’m sure it will be as soon as she wakes. At least her staff knows. So does mine.”

  “Marvelous,” Sabin said dryly, swallowed the tea and held out her cup to Jase. “Another cup.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jase said moderately, without a ruffle, and handed it to Kaplan to fill, which menial task Kaplan did with dispatch. “And in the reasonable assumption,” Jase said, “like other matters you’ve left me to find for myself, that this tape and the technical way into the log was a matter of my education in command, for which I’m grateful, I certainly learned a great deal more about ship’s operations than I expected, as you knew I’d learn, I’m sure, all to the good. So I doubt you’re entirely surprised that this tape Mr. Cameron suggested was important at the start of the voyage remained an issue with me. I did note you never cautioned me against finding it—and considering my peculiar position in this office, I’ve also spent some time wondering about reasons you may have had for remaining the perpetual dissenting vote on the Captains’ Council. Voting on principle, I take it. Possibly opposed to my very existence.”

  “Go on.” Sabin took the second cup from Kaplan’s hand. “This is actually interesting.”

  “As to why I brought Mr. Cameron in on the matter, it’s precisely the consideration of a foreign state of mind that we on Phoenix don’t quite understand. The very thing my education prepared me to deal with. You sent me down to the planet . . .”

  “Correction. Stani sent you down to the planet.” Ramirez, that meant.

  “With your dissenting vote, granted. As, very likely, when Ramirez proposed to get into the gene banks to create me and Yolanda in the first place, you weren’t highly pleased. But all that aside, the captains voted, and I exist. It was the ship’s executive that sent me down to the atevi world, unprepared as I turned out to be—but having at least the basics of an understanding what I was up against—what Yolanda and I were up against. Then Mr. Cameron took me in hand and shook new considerations into me. Set me out on an ocean and let me contemplate a whole wealth of new input.”

  “This is far less interesting.”

  “Like everything not bounded by this hull. I’m aware that’s your view, captain. It’s not your job. But I assure you it’s mine, to understand things external. And that’s my use to you. I was born to acquire a certain expertise—enough, in my executive capacity, now, to know what Mr. Cameron’s knowledge is worth, and enough to consult him when the executive of this ship is as entangled as it is in Guild deceptions, and burdened as it is with past decisions, and sitting on an ocean of information far deeper than we may think it is.”

  “Meaning you brought him in here hoping his presence will moderate my response to what you’ve done.”

  “Meaning, captain, I recommend hearing his input where it regards diplomacy, including internal diplomacy, particularly that of our allies, whose reaction is not to be taken for granted—and I suggest we listen to him particularly carefully, because if a first viewing of this tape touched off his ground-born suspicions, it’s certainly touched off mine on certain major topics—such as whether Captain Ramirez deceived the rest of the executive or only half of it; or whether Pratap Tamun was specifically after this tape when he staged his mutiny; or whether this crew should worry about the integrity of command; or whether Mr. Jenrette, whom you snatch
ed fairly precipitately out of my security team once this tape turned out to be an issue, is going to be available to me to fill in where this tape stops. And as to why Captain Ramirez ordered me born twenty years ahead of the mission I ended up being uniquely suited to perform, I don’t believe in coincidence. He knew something. He intended something. You’ve spent twenty years of my life voting no on every single issue I’ve been involved in, and probably before that. So I’m asking if you had good reason to vote that way.”

  “Good reason.” Sabin seemed surprised, even amused, somewhere in the outrage. “And we’re to discuss these delicate situations with Mr. Cameron present and his security wired to the hilt. Do you intend to provide a translation to your staff, Mr. Cameron?”

  “If you ask my discretion, again, my particular interests involve the dowager’s safety and the mission’s success. We won’t jeopardize this ship. Personal issues between members of the ship’s executive are likely outside our concern or interest. But serious questions are posed here, captain, and the tape is disturbing. I’d suggest even at your level you suspect Captain Ramirez didn’t tell you half what was going on, and that what happened at Reunion on your last visit didn’t involve unanimous decisions of the executive of this ship.”

  He hadn’t put that the most straightforwardly possible. He’d backed around the issue and given Sabin the broadest possible avenue to maneuver. And Sabin took a moment, thinking.

  “Not bad, this tea.”

  “A planetary gift,” Jase murmured.

  “Addictive,” Sabin said.

  “An easy habit to form, at least.”

  “Like a hell of a lot else that’s insinuated itself aboard! Hype up on sugar, calm down with tea, never ask what it does to the body. Poison’s at least decently evident in the aftermath.”

  Sabin rarely brought up the unfortunate dinner party.

  “This isn’t poison, is it?”

  “No, ma’am,” Jase said. “This is my personal store. And lest we ever forget, you’re in command of the ship getting there and getting home again, while I’m not remotely confident I could do that. So I’m extremely determined you should survive in good health.”