Explorer

by C. J. Cherryh

  “That’s all right. I’m not eager for this. Our guest, by the way, is enjoying dessert. He can out-consume Banichi. They hadn’t fed him enough. Or the right things.”

  “Ship cuisine benefited greatly from Bindanda’s influence,” Jase said quietly, and said something aside from the com, then: “If things get dicey, I’m thinking of putting our guest on com, let him talk to that ship. Good idea or bad?”

  “Could be a good idea. We don’t know what he might promise them or encourage them to do, that’s the situation. Not a good idea they move into line of the station’s guns. He speaks a few words, Jase. Not many, but at least a few. Maybe you could get him to follow a diagram, maybe you could show him where the guns are and let him explain the situation.”

  “God knows what they’d understand the situation is between us and station,” Jase said. “I’d like to control communications better than that. We don’t know but what he’d say come in and get me.”

  “You’re probably right,” Bren said. “Listen, I’ll handle it when I get back. See you.” Gallows bravado, as he clicked off. It was increasingly dawning on him that this was the craziest thing he’d ever done—fueled by the optimism of a little dive into the lightly watched perimeter of the station, where, in a uniform society, nobody was expecting a security breach. Now they were expecting it—well, they’d be expecting it by the time they noticed their doors weren’t locking. This was the high stakes move. The very high stakes. Control of the whole station. Most important, stopping the station from taking a shot at that ship.

  And, along with that, right at the top of their list: blowing the Archive. Preventing the whole cultural works of the human species from becoming a prize of war.

  “Our guest is enjoying another dessert,” Narani informed him, “and greatly appreciates the fruit pie.”

  “Excellent. One has great confidence in the staff. And in your resourcefulness, Rani-ji.” The whole rest of the staff was hovering about the dining hall, being sure nothing untoward happened—their collective strength surely enough to subdue their guest and rescue the dowager and Cajeiri, if needed.

  Fruit pie hardly sounded like discontent or dispute, except the sugar high of all those tea cakes.

  He patted the gun and the key a second time, then gave a little bow. “One hopes to be home for breakfast.”

  “Nandi,” Narani said with a little bow of his own, and let him out the door, down to security where Banichi and Jago were in preparations, giving last-moment information. Barnhart was there, hands in coat pockets, heavy cold-boots on his feet, gas mask tucked down at his collar—certainly not the sort of gear one wore in one’s office.

  “Thanks for coming,” Bren said, and held out a hand, Mospheiran-style handshake. “We’re on a rush move here. I trust you know about the ship moving in. I appreciate the backup.”

  “No question,” Barnhart said.

  They were ready.

  18

  The lift had begun to work overtime, cars rigidly locked on their task, shuttling back and around from the forward airlock to the decks above—specifically to three-and four-deck, where common crew by now must have spread out in sections to assign cabins and see that station-born residents obeyed stowage, that they understood the movement rules, the alarms, and the plumbing and the area restrictions—crew that made themselves living rulebooks, because human beings under stress didn’t reliably absorb labels and lists. The ship had laid out and rehearsed all the plans during their voyage. They’d held weekly drills, such that Bren had a very clear inner vision of those corridors, rows of doors like every other, but now with real live people inbound with their kids, their small bundles of baggage. They came thanks to Narani’s brochures, thanks, perhaps, to his handing out sheets of printed paper in a remote region of the station where station security didn’t expect contraband and hadn’t been prepared to defend the station’s version of truth against a simple handful of printed papers.

  Their clerk might have run to his office, called his wife and said, simply, Pack; the ship will take us to Alpha; and a wife might have called a mother who called a father, who called his second daughter at work, and that daughter called her husband, who called his sister and her teen-aged kids: human relations went like that, and if people really believed his promise that the brochures were a boarding pass—then God save them, he thought. They were naive, they were innocent of Braddock’s policies, and they deserved rescue, if the ship could get nobody in administration out alive.

  This time there might be shooting. There was likely to be.

  He clung barehanded to the safety rail in the car, next to Banichi and Jago. Barnhart was behind him with Desabi, Anaro and Kasari, three of the dowager’s young men: fortunate seven. They were off to take a space station that could, undamaged, have housed a city full of humans.

  The illusion of gravity, supplied now only by the car’s jerks and turns and final stop, ceased altogether. The doors shot back with a sigh and showed them a safety web in dim lighting and a clutter of stationers and small baggage every which way—stationers that caught sight of Banichi and Jago and stared, wide-eyed. There were startled outcries.

  “Allies!” Bren shouted. “Friends! You’re perfectly safe! Keep moving!”

  A good sign, he thought, that the refugees were more concerned about getting into the car they’d just vacated, and two of the ship’s own crew were there to get them on in good order.

  “No crowding!” one shouted as they left that problem behind and forged ahead, past the round tube entry where Kaplan and Polano were in charge of a handful of crew, armed and hard-suited against the unthinkable, that they would have to slow down a panic rush or a takeover attempt. Beyond them was utter dark.

  “Outbound!” Bren yelled at the pair.

  “Mr. Cameron, sir,” Kaplan said. “You take care!”

  “Intend to,” he answered. Meanwhile a lighted gold ribbon of a conveyor line delivered more would-be passengers up and, past its sprocket, headed down into infinity. Banichi grabbed it, Jago did, and Bren tailed on, yanked authoritatively down past ascending passengers.

  “Allies!” Bren shouted at those frightened looks in the dark, underlit by the conveyor line itself. “Hang tight! Warm space coming!”

  Cold was all here—air in the tube stung the nose and burned the lungs, and dim light made them all shadows, except the light from the conveyor line, a golden glow that touched hands, underlit faces and edges of coats, bundles—they were ordinary folk, might-be shopkeepers and schoolchildren, workmen and businessfolk attached to this ribbon of light, grandmothers shepherded by younger folk, women carrying bundled children in one arm, one-handing their way up the conveyor, all packed tight for a space. That made about a lift car-load or two. Then there came a vacant space on the line, where crew below must be parceling out the refugees, lumping them into groups, sending them out a long, long ride in the absolute dark of the pressurized mast where the station itself hadn’t deigned to turn the lights on.

  Their own party was the only one downbound, and Banichi and Jago wisely kept upper bodies turned slightly away, where atevi eyes wouldn’t catch the indirect light of the conveyor line. Down and down they went, past another clot of refugees, then into the spotlight glare of the tube entry, where a few bright lights overpowered the dark beyond.

  No lights in the mast. No power, or no cooperation from Central for their own people voting, so to speak, with their departure. But no lights suited invaders very well. Invaders found a safe concealment.

  Maybe he should have sent Prakuyo back to confinement before he left. Certainly leaving him in the dining hall with Ilisidi and the boy was worth a cold second thought. But it was far out of his hands now.

  Long, long ride to think about that. And not a thing in the world he could do. No com. No information, either direction.

  Then bottom. End of the line, down in the spotlights that shone on desperate refugee faces, a parka-coated crewman.

  “Friends!” Bren said as th
ey met and passed one another on the lines, and an alarmed outcry was swallowed up in dark and cold.

  They were at a lift station, where the glowing dot of a button said a car was coming, doubtless with more people.

  It arrived, brightly lit as the door opened, tightly packed with refugees who in their haste to get off and find their way, never noticed some of the people waiting in the dark for a lift were taller and broader than ordinary. The passengers cheered with relief to see the conveyor lines, to realize they’d met ship’s crew; they came burdened with children and bundles, and wanted through this ordeal of cold and dark as fast as possible. They wanted safety, and reassurance.

  Bren got in, held the door for Banichi and Jago in the warmth and light: Barnhart and the dowager’s men entered, all of them, pressed close to the walls.

  Time for the precious key. Bren pulled it out, fighting cold-stung tears that froze his lashes together and obscured his vision. He stuck it in the slot, input the builder’s code, A1, which was as close to the operational heart as a car could get.

  Doors shut. The car banged into motion. Feet hit the floor and Bren tucked away the key and zipped the pocket, fingers so numb he had to look to be sure he had the zip secure.

  Perfectly ordinary lift car. It could have been on their home station—give or take the level of weaponry around him. It rose, it clicked through ordinary operations. He watched Banichi and Jago take out sidearms and asked himself whether he should draw his gun and prepare to threaten the opposition, shoot without warning—or attempt the civilized approach he had envisioned when he insisted on coming.

  “Let me attempt to talk to whatever individuals we meet,” he requested of them. “Barnhart, the atevi have body armor. Keep to the rear; we don’t want to lose our hands-on person.”

  “Enough said,” Barnhart answered him.

  The car slowed. The indicator didn’t say first level. Someone had a priority code.

  “To the sides,” he said in Ragi—foolish of him to attempt to direct the operation, but they understood him and got to the protected sides.

  The car stopped. A man in a suit, communications to his ear, simply got on, and didn’t seem to register there was anything particularly unusual until the dowager’s men flattened him and took his handheld away. An item sailed out of the car, far down the corridor—the handheld, Bren thought in one heartbeat, before a siren started up, where that object landed.

  “Evacuate immediately,” that object screamed, deafening in volume . . . in Gin’s voice. “Instability warning. Evacuate to the mast. Prepare for cold. Evacuate immediately . . .”

  Conspiracy between Gin and his staff. His heart thumped as he shoved his key back into the slot—deciding this time not only to punch the button, but to hold it—he’d seen maintenance do that. It might work.

  The car got underway. Not a sound from the man in the suit, and a glance back didn’t even show his presence, only Ilisidi’s three guards in the corner.

  Level 3. Section 2.

  They were getting into the critical area. Holding the key in and the button down was working or they’d met a run of luck not too surprising in a station bleeding occupants toward the ship. Jago had gotten a small gray box out of their bag, and had that in hand. A grenade? Another noisemaker? He hoped not to meet resistance. And was sure he wouldn’t get his wish.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get the sweat out. Wiped them clear, trying not to hyperventilate. Banichi and Jago were right with him.

  Level 2. Section 1. They were nearly there. Nearly there. Atevi had guns at the ready. Barnhart had wedged himself in the back somewhere. Question was, when they’d built the station, A-1 had been the building center, the core of original construction. It was near the control center. It wasn’t necessarily inside the control center.

  Level 1. Section 1.

  The car stopped. “I shall have a look, nadiin-ji,” Bren said, snatching the key back as the doors opened. He stepped out into an ordinary corridor, typically without numbers or signs; but with a single clerk in rapid motion; and he could see the secured doors of what was surely Central just to his left.

  “Alarm on four!” he called out, which happened to be the truth. “Alarm on four! They’re evacuating.”

  The clerk looked at him in shock.

  “Get out of here!” Bren said; and about that time his company exited the lift car. The clerk pasted himself to the wall.

  “Grenade!” Jago said, and Bren translated it: “Grenade! Run! Ship’s boarding!”

  As another noisemaker hit the corridor, siren shrieking, Gin’s voice saying over and over, “Evacuate!”

  Banichi and Jago ran for those doors; and Bren ran, Barnhart ran, and two of Ilisidi’s men ran with them. Down went the black bag, Banichi opened the flap, and handed Jago a small object and a sticky wad which Jago pressed together into the door seam—Bren was watching that as Banichi, black bag in hand, jerked him back and pressed him against the wall, Banichi and Jago on either side of him. The stuff exploded with a shock that came up through the decking. Alarms screamed and machinery operated down the hall. Doors shut.

  Central knew they were here, no question. Sirens warred, out of sync, theirs and the station’s, as Banichi and one of Ilisidi’s men seized the pair of damaged doors, wrestled something like a truck jack into the bottom.

  Fire from inside the room pasted back, close to Banichi. Bren drew his gun, sole comfort in a situation that hadn’t turned out in the least diplomatic. Barnhart proved to have his own gun; but the human contingent could only watch as the second of Ilisidi’s guards added his strength to the jammed doors, as machinery and atevi muscle warred. More pellet-fire streaked out of that room, burning two streaks in Banichi’s sleeve, making him wince.

  An office door opened halfway down the corridor, and fire came from the lift car: their own guns keeping whoever was in that new doorway pinned down and out of action; Bren tried to see the target and couldn’t.

  Their own doors widened, jostled aside. Jago dropped down to the deck in the doorway, rifle braced at ankle level, and fired into the room.

  Pellet fire came out, over her head.

  Banichi pulled a grenade out of his jacket and tossed it in. Jago rolled over, out of the way, shielded by the ruined doors.

  Percussion grenade. Flash-bang. It no sooner went off than Banichi and Ilisidi’s men charged over Jago’s position and dived to either side within the room.

  Jago scrambled up and in.

  And damn if he was any use back here. “Watch the hall!” he shouted to Barnhart, and dived low inside the jimmied doors, skinned through the gap on his belly, facing a console base of some kind, only to feel a powerful hand seize the coat in the middle of his back and drag him aside and back against the wall.

  Not so much use here, either. Jago had him, hugged him close in the process of wedging him further back into the corner, where her armor protected him. A pall of smoke hung over the place, reddened by the lights blinking on consoles, and sirens were still going off.

  Banichi and Ilisidi’s men inched toward wider positions.

  And people were going to die.

  If he didn’t think of something.

  “I’m Bren Cameron from Alpha,” he shouted, “here with local allies from Alpha. Cease fire and get rid of the weapons. We’re a rescue mission! Just don’t fire and you’ll all get out of this alive!”

  Fire answered that offer, pellets ricocheting everywhere, doing no good for the consoles, which began beeping protests.

  “One doubts they will surrender,” Jago said, incredibly patient.

  “One regrets the attention, Jago-ji.” Pellets ricocheted all about them. “Barnhart is out there watching the hall.”

  “Excellent, Bren-ji.” Jago moved a little. “Stay here. Cover your ears.”

  Banichi and Ilisidi’s men had just that instant passed out of sight behind a console, and now Jago moved—he hoped he hadn’t thrown their timing off. He crouched low, trying to become in
visible.

  Bang. A pop-grenade, a distraction. A man broke cover into his aisle, low as he was, and Bren braced his back in the corner and braced his pistol against his knees, affording that security guard a view down the gun-barrel.

  “Stand up,” he said. “Stand up. Hands up. You’ll survive only if you do as you’re told. Where’s Braddock?”

  “Office.”

  “Stand up!” he snapped; but about that time pellets flew all about and the man, starting to stand up, ducked down, covering head and ears.

  “I can’t!”

  Another grenade explosion went off. What light panels hadn’t fallen, came rattling down everywhere, and Jago appeared on her knees behind his prisoner, snatched him by the foot and flattened him with an elbow and an open-handed blow that sprawled the man flat on the deck.

  “One apologizes,” Bren whispered, too deaf to hear his own voice, and Jago scuttled toward him, seized him by the arm and dragged him off to another aisle of consoles where a handful of harmless, non-combatant station techs, caught between invasion and security forces, had taken cover and lay in heaps, covering heads and necks and each other.

  A door was down that aisle. A windowed office.

  “He said Braddock is in the office, Jago-ji.”

  “Tell these persons to move.”

  “Crawl out of here,” Bren said. “Clear this aisle. You’re safer outside: just stay down and don’t act hostile. Move, and you’ll survive!”

  Most of a dozen techs and clerks mobilized themselves, scrambling out of the aisle, down into another row, an aisle that led potentially to the door; and Jago eeled forward, low, up against the door in question—stuck a device to it and got out of the way, as pellet-fire erupted from another aisle.

  The limpet went off—blew a hole where the door edge met the wall; and fire-suppression went off, clouds of vapor coming down.

  “Gas!” Jago yelled, and Bren dragged up his own mask, while the air grew thick with fog.

  Jago, meanwhile, got a hand on the door-edge and pulled, and pellet-fire came out at them.