Explorer

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Good question,” Jase said. “Useful question.”

  “Was Ramirez loyal?”

  “He created us. Me and Yolanda.”

  Back to that same pathway. “And you were—what?”

  “I think,” Jase said slowly, “and this is a difficult thought—I have this niggling suspicion, sometimes, that, the same way I suspect the Guild had its notion of defining humanity, Ramirez meant me and Yolanda to out-human the rest of the Guild—filtering the human Archive through our perceptions. Being able to challenge their concepts. We were learning Latin and Chinese. The ship was still working for the Guild, cataloging planets, investigating likely ones, ones that met their criteria. Purely scientific, they said. Increasing the human database. For what? For what logical purpose were we going about, that had the station devoting so much energy to our energy needs? But not for us to ask, I suppose. There was always fuel. We’d dock, we’d go. We’d explore and refuel. That routine was my whole world. You don’t question the world—not until the plumbing fails, isn’t that what you said once?”

  “And now?”

  “Now that the plumbing’s really failed? I don’t believe pure scientific curiosity had anything to do with it. I’m sure the Guild sent us where we went, or they wouldn’t have gone on refueling us. Maybe they simply wanted to have us gone as long as possible, to keep our influence out of the station. Maybe they wanted the unification, the symbol, of us as the focus of community effort, the pressure valve. The reason for sacrifice. And they could control us. Fueling was always the sword over our heads. And while all that was going on, I’m sure we were gathering information that would eventually be useful, investigating other solar systems, and fuel sources. But Ramirez—I have this tenuous theory—didn’t ever mention his two linguists to the Guild, not that I ever was aware. And I wonder—did he mean to create what he was looking for? He knew about diversity, which wasn’t quite the Guild’s insistence of everyone walking in step. He didn’t know the lost languages, but he knew he couldn’t create a new Earth on a ship where everybody is cousins and brothers and sisters, and living the same lives and doing the same jobs. He couldn’t do it on a space station the Guild’s running. But he could do it if he ever found a place where he could get supply that the Guild didn’t control, and where he could establish an orbiting base that wouldn’t hold fueling as a sword over his head. He had the genetic storage. He had the Archive. Fantastic as it is on a human level—I think he was hoping to find a place where he could build another station and ultimately set down an unregulated colony.”

  “A green planet.”

  “Another green planet. One without a population. I think, in that, Ramirez and the Guild were after the same thing.”

  “Not to have a population, if it could support humans?”

  “Bren, my friend, what educated ship-folk know about planetary biology fits in a lifesupport tank. I know I don’t know as much as I should. But let me tell you, I do know the British monarchs and the Alexandrine Empire. I know Darwin and Eberly and Teiler. Yolanda knows German history and Bantu. I’m really keen on the Shang Dynasty. Hell, we’re diversity incorporated. We’re culture in a plastic pack. I suspect going back to Alpha wasn’t Ramirez’s real plan. He had every opportunity to do that. No. I think Ramirez’s ideas were pure Guild—humans only. Ramirez wanted the Guild’s plan—but he didn’t want current Guild leadership in charge of it. He intended to run his version of it. And poking around in various solar systems, looking for life-supporting planets to drop us on, I think he got more than he bargained for.”

  “Angry aliens.”

  “Their planet, is my guess. At least something they owned and cared about. They’d probably been watching us for a while. They showed hostile and we made a feint off to another destination. But when we got home, home had already been hit. So they knew damned well what they were hitting. They knew us, knew where we’d come from, and we didn’t know them—not even know which of various systems had been the trigger for the attack. But I think, whoever hit us, they very well knew the neighborhood we’ve only been parked in for a couple of hundred years.”

  “Seems very likely,” Bren said. “Based on all you say.”

  “So back to our question—why do I exist? Hell if I know. But Ramirez was up to something that blew up on him and took out the Guild’s home base, whether it was his idea or the Guild’s. It was a thorough catastrophe. What bothers me in all of this is where Sabin fits. And what kind of politics went on between her and Captain Ogun, when he stayed behind at Alpha and sent her to manage a rescue neither of them thinks is likely? You’d think she’d at least give up her antagonism toward me. But she won’t—as if she thinks I’m still following Ramirez’s agenda.”

  “Might you be?”

  “Not that I know.”

  “What could you do against her?”

  “I don’t know. Until I know what I was for—I don’t know what she thinks I might do.”

  “Not that many choices, are there?”

  “There still may be choices. Like—who’s running this ship on the way back to Alpha . . . if anyone’s alive.”

  Guild getting in charge of the ship was a very, very grim scenario. Not one they’d actively considered, in the bright lights of Alpha Station and the full steam ahead of their own planning. But a year later, out in the vast dark of the universe and closer and closer to Reunion, it did prompt a sober reflection—on people, on old loyalties, on their prospects.

  If they got there and there was no fuel, they had that covered—in Gin and her robots. If they got there and found a still-potent Guild in charge—and Sabin much too sympathetic toward them—

  “They’d want the ship, wouldn’t they?”

  “Oh, damned right, they’d want it,” Jase said.

  “You think Sabin seriously might lean their way? Give up her own authority? I don’t read her that way.”

  “Or if she became part of theirs,” Jase said, and drew a breath. “At the start of this voyage I had some doubts about her. But this last year, this voyage—I don’t know what she thinks.”

  A last year of being de facto senior captain. Of working with Ramirez’s unwanted appointee.

  Of having a section of her ship in atevi and Mospheiran control, an arrangement not to her liking. If the Guild didn’t like “contamination,” what did Sabin think?

  “Have you seen any shift in her opinions?”

  “I can’t read her. I do think whatever went on between Ramirez and the Guild, she’s on a completely different agenda. And keeping me out of the log—that’s said something, too, hasn’t it? She never was on Ramirez’s side. Always the contrary vote. Always outvoted. And Ogun put her in charge here. Why, Bren? Why in hell did he do that?”

  “Admittedly putting her where she didn’t have to deal with an entire nation of atevi and diverse politics on the planet. Aboard a ship that’s dead set on its mission—a crew that’s going to be pretty hard to argue with if it gets this tape in hand, among other points. You talk about the Guild possibly taking over. But that’s not the way the crew feels about past decisions, if I have it right.”

  “A two-edged sword. If Ramirez was against the Guild, if blame for this goes against him, I was born part of it. And that’s the critical detail I don’t know. I don’t know when it could blow up and I don’t know what’s going to be the issue.”

  “You’ve got the tape. You could release it. You could take your position from that.”

  “And that could blow wider than I intend. Stranded is a hot enough word with Mospheirans, but let me tell you, abandoning survivors at Reunion—that nearly fried the interface. And things don’t make sense. The way the lie was constructed, right from the start of the ship coming into Reunion, how do you read that? I can’t answer it.”

  “Plain logic: Ramirez stopped the situation, froze the tape until he knew what he’d do.”

  “Until he’d made up what his story was.”

  “Ramirez didn’t know what he’d f
ind going back to Alpha. He knew things might not be optimum. As they weren’t. Ten years getting refueled was a miracle, as was. If the crew had known, they still couldn’t change things, but they’d have sweated and fretted harder. And crew can understand that.”

  “That’s logic. But it’s not emotion. There’ve been too many lies, Bren. The depth of deception in this one event has too many layers. Tamun’s mutiny was only one manifestation of the poison of lies that’s run on this ship.”

  “There’s only one layer in this lie. Ramirez needed the crew to take orders without division of opinion.”

  “And if the crew hadn’t ever found out there were survivors? Would he ever have told the truth?”

  “He’d had the ship fueled. Priority. He’d had the ship fueled. We’re going where he prepared this ship to go. That’s a fact, isn’t it? I think he sweated the situation he knew he’d left.”

  “The fact is, he told us for all those years we were the last human outpost, there at Alpha. The last hope for humanity. The sole planet for atevi. That we were all preparing a planetary defense. That we were building another starship for a counterstrike, if we had to. Then we get the facts. And this crew’s wild enthusiasm for this venture ran out in the first month of this voyage, far from civilization. Now we’re down to grim determination and the very real likelihood we’re going to find the station dead after all this effort. Things aboard are quiet. They will be quiet, until there’s some result. But if I take this to the crew—”

  “You’re a captain. Equal to Sabin, on your watch. You have the authority to decide the course of this ship, the same as she does.”

  “I’m a captain who knows less about the operation of this ship than the average maintenance grunt. I’m a damn linguist, Bren! That’s what I am. That’s all I am, and I’m not even competent at that.”

  “You are competent. What you can do is always invisible to you. From outside perspective . . . you don’t have to sit a technical post. You can command the techs. You can say, go here, or go there. That’s all the captains do, that I’ve ever observed.”

  “And what do I do when we come charging in to Reunion and I haven’t any of the Guild computer keys?”

  “As surviving ship’s executive,” Bren said in Ragi, “might one not say—the keys weren’t passed?”

  Jase stared at him. Outright stared. Maybe took an internal moment to translate that twice. But Jase had been in Shejidan, and knew the atevi court, and the use of daggers and plots. The paidhi-aiji was steeped in that culture. And at a pinch, could more than think in Ragi.

  “The full range of alternatives,” Bren said, again in Ragi. And in Mosphei’: “A question. Merely a question.”

  “Too much unknown,” Jase said in Ragi. And in ship-speak: “And I’m human, and I’m holding a bomb, in this record. And I respect Sabin. I do respect her. I didn’t start this voyage that way, but I do.”

  “Granted. Not incompatible considerations.”

  Maybe Jase needed a dose of Ragi. Maybe he added, not subtracted, possibilities and solutions. But it remained an uncomfortable situation.

  “You respected Ramirez,” Bren reminded him, in Ragi. “And by all you say, nadi, who knows? Maybe he was about to execute the plan you used to think he had. He released the Archive to the planet. He wasn’t that worried about contamination. Or he’d reconciled himself to us. Maybe he really did refuel the ship as a defense. He planned for another starship . . . but that’s going to be atevi-run. The aiji’s help could provide him his widest ambitions. A developed planet, all those resources. Maybe he wasn’t, in his own plan, going back until he’d prepared a base that wouldn’t fall under Guild control.”

  Worth considering, at least. Jase steepled his hands, thinking, and thinking. “He deployed me, and Yolanda.”

  “Yet put you back in space, but not her.”

  “It’s a damned circle, Bren. Everything runs in a circle.”

  “He wasn’t getting any younger. The Tamun blow-up took his health. He didn’t plan, perhaps, to be overheard in what he told you.”

  “About the Great Lie? Betraying the Guild?”

  “I’m betting, though,” Bren said, “that at least by then, the other captains knew what had happened back at Reunion. It would have been irresponsible of him to know there was a Guild authority surviving out here in that critical situation, and not to tell those who’d succeed him. He was dying and told you the biggest secret aboard to make you equal to them. And maybe he wanted to know, for one thing, how you’d take it. And whether you forgave him.”

  “Emotional answers. Not logical ones.”

  “The man was dying. At that point, maybe emotional answers mattered.”

  “Wanting me to make the decision? Me, but not Yolanda? Damn it all!”

  “And Ogun. And Sabin. It would be their decision, too, when he was out of the picture.”

  “I’d be the deciding vote. Damn him!”

  “If they split. As they didn’t.”

  “Most days I forgive him. I suppose I forgive him. I suppose we’re doing the right thing in coming out here. And if we show up and the Guild does what’s ultimately sensible, and boards the ship, and take orders, so many things will become moot. But by all I know about what’s happened in the past—I don’t think that’s highly likely.”

  “I never thought it was all that likely, where the Guild is concerned. If they’d wanted to leave Reunion, they’d have left, wouldn’t they? But they’ve had nine years now to get worse off—or better. If they’re stronger and more recalcitrant, we may have decisions to make.”

  “Sabin’s going to decide those issues. That’s the fact I can’t change.”

  “Crew may decide,” Bren said. “And you have that tape.”

  “I’ll confess,” Jase said, “I’ve had it for the last month.”

  “Not surprising you’d think about it before showing it to me.”

  “I’m out of time for thinking. I had to show it to you. We’re coming up on the last move.”

  Last move.

  “Before Reunion.”

  “This next one I really think will put us there.”

  A small inner shiver. “You know, I never get used to this I think business.”

  “Space is lumpy,” Jase said.

  “All that. But I still don’t like to hear I guess from the navigators.”

  “Or from your partner in this mess?”

  “Some things you can’t figure with a computer. Jase, we’ll make it. We do what we’ll do when we get there. It’s all we can do at the moment, but we just plot alternate positions, if it doesn’t work. Same as I suppose your navigators do. Which is why I think you called me here.”

  Jase gave a wry, one-sided smile. Started the tape moving again. On the screen, the exploration reached a corner.

  “The fact is,” Jase said, “the one reconciling fact, in all the Old Man planned, is that he wanted me in some kind of authority over my own destiny. More than that, I think he’d be happy you’re here. And honored that the dowager is here, with all she represents. I think you’re right. Contamination no longer frightened him. He’d reconciled himself to the blended civilization he’d found. I think, all his old Guild notions to the contrary, he’d found the universe a far more dangerous place than he’d ever imagined, and before he died, he’d learned to take allies where he could get them. Yolanda kept her standoffishness from local culture. I didn’t. I fell far more deeply not just into downworld culture, but into atevi culture, and the one thing that both infuriates me and encourages me is that Ramirez appointed me to succeed him. Me. My view of the universe. My atevi-contaminated, impure view of the universe humans have to live in. It’s not a degree of importance I ever wanted, I’ll tell you. But the thought that Ramirez meant to do it, that he actually approved what I am—is what gives me the courage to get out of bed and go on duty.” Jase pressed a button and skipped ahead, to a point where the helmet-cam view reached a sealed pressure door. In rapid motion they locked
through, and then . . .

  Then the record ended. Stopped.

  “That’s it?” Bren asked.

  “That’s it,” Jase said. “That’s all we have. It’s absolutely not regulation that the tape stops like that. It’s very much against regulations. And maybe Sabin knows what happened next and maybe she doesn’t, but certainly, based on that tape, you and I don’t. And that’s the other reason I wanted to talk to you. You’re the diplomat. My outrageous instinct says have the inevitable confrontation with Sabin about this tape right now, before we get to Reunion Station. Tell her what I know, what I suspect, all the structure of tissue and moonbeams. If it’s going to blow up, let it blow and let’s talk about the ship’s great secret, and Ramirez’s crazy ideas, and settle it before we have another crisis on us. Let me add a fact to keep between you and me. We’ve run with a little excess of fuel, ship’s rule. Enough fuel reserve to get out to a place we know if things aren’t optimum or if the Guild tries to take us. If Sabin’s disposed to do it—she can get us away from Reunion. The name of the place is Gamma. And you’re right—I can order that, if Sabin is in some way incapacitated. There are resources there. It would take us years, but we’d get home that way. On the other course, if we do go into Reunion, and dock, and open the hatch—by then we’re dealing with somebody else, with Sabin involved, with people she’ll know and I won’t—who are going to outright outnumber us. Not to mention the crew may be in a very foul mood, once the truth starts coming out. As it still may. If they start talking to remote cousins and the stray mourned-for-dead uncle, all sorts of truth is going to come out, this time.”

  “You’re the number two captain,” Bren reiterated. “You decide what to do. You always had the authority to go after that log record. A little more questionable extension of authority, I suppose, that you show it to me. More, to show it to the crew. But by Ramirez’s decision and Ogun’s concurring vote, you are the number two captain. So I’d think you do have that authority to break this secret wide open—if you choose. It’s your watch. Isn’t it?”