Precursor

by C. J. Cherryh

  There was no stir from elsewhere. This was the sequence that had fouled on the first flight, nearly ended the mission in a dangerous spacewalk.

  “Homecoming,” Jase said.

  “Nervous?” he asked Jase.

  “As hell,” Jase confessed, and took a deep breath. “I don’t mind traveling in space at all. It’s stopping short of large objects that scares me.”

  Bren felt safe enough to retaliate. “Better than skimming the surface of planets, isn’t it?”

  The engines cut in. Jase grabbed the armrests. “I hate that, too. I really hate this part.”

  Hard braking. Jase was not comforting.

  Warnings flashed on the side-view screen in two languages: in general, stay belted, don’t interfere with crew, and don’t interfere with the pilot.

  The mechanisms are old, figured in the explanation.

  “There’s an understatement,” Jase muttered.

  This time, however, the locking mechanism didn’t fail: the grapple bumped, thumped… engaged.

  “We have docked,” came the word from the pilot.

  There were multiple sighs of relief. A buckle clicked.

  “Please stay close to your seats,” the steward said. “We hav£ yet to perform various tasks and assure the connection.”

  Bump.

  Gentle bump.

  Second jolt, second crash of hydraulics engaged. Bren told his heart to slow down.

  They were in. Locked.

  “Made it,” he said.

  “Bren,” Jase said, in one of those I’ve got something to say tones of voice.

  “What?”

  “You think Tabini’s ever advised them yet we’re not the test cargo?”

  “I’m sure he has. —Worried?”

  “Now that I’m here, I’m worried.”

  Second thoughts were setting in, in a way he didn’t have to entertain, because he didn’t have any options here. “About them—or us?”

  “Just—worried.”

  “Survival of the atevi, Jase. Survival of all of us. If you’ve got second thoughts about rejoining your crew…”

  “I have no choice.”

  “I can claim you as a charge d’affaires, under Tabini’s wing, and I know he’ll back me on it. You can talk to Ramirez from that protection, inside our quarters, if you think you need it.”

  “You don’t have quarters here… you don’t know you have.”

  “Believe me. We will have.”

  “I’m Ramirez’s choice. I have to play this through, Bren.”

  “For you?” Bren asked. “Or for them? Or because it’s wise? Second thoughts, I understand. Believe me, I understand: I’ve made my choice. Whatever you want for yourself, this is no time to make gestures. Too many lives are at risk here. What’s the sensible truth, Jase? What do you expect?”

  “I need to get to Ramirez. I need to talk to him. We aren’t atevi associations. I remember that from the gut now.”

  Naojai-tu?

  Association-shift? Rearrangement of man’chi? Damiri’s cynic meeting the relics, in the play?

  Humans, on the other hand, made and dissolved ties throughout their lives, even on so limited an island as Mospheira. Jase was human; the Pilots’ Guild was human. In this whole business, everyone in the game could rearrange loyalties… so could the atevi, but under different, socially catastrophic terms.

  “Still friends,” Bren said, meaning it. “No question.”

  “Still friends,” Jase said. “But, Bren, I can’t be who I was down there. They won’t let me be.”

  “Will they not?” He was determined to the contrary, determined, in this last-moment doubt, to recall what Jase had thought last week and the week before. “Listen to me. Will you turn against Tabini, or report against him? I don’t think you will; you understand what the truth is down there. I know you won’t ever turn coat for your own sake. I know you.”

  “Do you? I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “I understand that point of view. Been through it. You know I’ve been through it.”

  “I don’t know I can.”

  “Get your thinking in order. I know the dislocation you’re facing. But think of Shejidan. It’s real. The people you know are real, and depending on you, the same as I imagine people here are. Personally—I’ll get you back, Jase. Damned if I won’t. Politically, you’ll do as you have to for the short term, but don’t ruin my play and don’t stray too far, not physically, not mentally.”

  “I’m not Mospheiran. I can’t explain how different…”

  “Na dei shi’ra ma’anto paidhi, nadi?”… Are you not one of the paidhiin, sir? Am I mistaken?

  From a glance at the screens, Jase flung him a sidelong, troubled glance.

  “Na dei-ji?” Bren repeated, with the familiar.

  “Aiji-ji, so’sarai ta.”

  There was no real translation, only affection, loyalty, a salute. You taught me, my master. I respect that. Implicit was the whole other mindset, that back-and-forth shift that came with any deep shift in language, an earthquake in thought patterns. From panic in Jase’s eyes, he saw a slide toward sanity and familiar ground.

  “Shi, paidhi, noka ais-ji?”

  Are you reliable, translator-mediator?

  Jase heaved a small, desperate breath. “Shi!” I am.

  “Think in Ragi, Jasi-ji. The language changes the way you think. Changes your resources. Your responses. So does your native accent. You’ve been on a long trip. You’re going to remember things here you’d let slip. But stop and think in Ragi, at least twice a day.”

  “It’s trying to slip away from me! Words just aren’t there!”

  “I’ve been through that, too, every trip to Mospheira. Fight for it.”

  “Please give attention to the exit procedures,” the steward said, with the worst timing in the world or above it.

  “Jase,” Bren said. “What’s your personal preference? Honestly. You don’t get personal preferences. I don’t. But tell me what it is.”

  “If I had personal preference,” Jase said with a desperate laugh, “I’d be home. —God! I’m scrambled…”

  “I know that,” Bren said. “Think of the sitting room in the Bu-javid. Think of Taiben. Think of the sea.”

  “Sha nauru shina. I’ll contact you,” Jase said desperately, as staff rose and the Mospheirans rose to leave. “Or you demand to see me. They’re going to want me to themselves for a number of days. Ramirez I can deal with.”

  “I’ll raise hell till I do get to see you,” Bren said. It might be a close, intense, emotional debriefing, a close questioning no one could look forward to. They would want to bring him back under their authority, even to crack him emotionally to be sure what was inside… Jase had never quite said so, but he had an idea what he was facing. No government could take chances with trust, not with survival at stake.

  Likewise he knew what he was promising Jase, on the instant and on his own judgment of a situation. He had been in Jase’s position. And he knew how Jase might both take comfort in someone saying you matter—and at the same time feel politically trapped. In the emotional impact of the ship that was his home, the atevi world was starting to leak right out of his brain, along with all the memories, all the confidence of what he believed.

  “At Malguri,” he said while bangs and thumps proceeded aft and Mospheirans drifted free of their seats. “At Malguri,” he said, because Jase knew the story, “I had one of those language transit experiences; I think it helped make me fluent. I’ll tell you honestly I don’t envy you the debriefing. And this I can tell you. Don’t ever let them take time away from you. Don’t ever let their reality become yours. I’ll be here as long as possible, and if I have to leave, I’ll apply every means I’ve got to get contact directly with you. I won’t give up. Ever.”

  “You can’t afford that.”

  “Hell, Tabini won’t forget you. And I won’t. You have power, Jase. I’m handing it to you, right now. Aishi’ji.” Associates. He lai
d a grip on Jase’s arm. Tightened it. “We don’t lose one another.”

  Jase concentrated on him with that wild look he’d had once, contemplating a very deep sea under his feet, and all that heaving water.

  “Kindly file out to the rear hatch,” the steward said.

  They unbuckled, were able to rise… straight up… taking advantage themselves of zero-G.

  His staff had gathered up their carry-on baggage, of which there was a fair quantity.

  Tano was with the servants. “One has the manifest, nand paidhi,” Narani said to Tano in his hearing, “so that baggage may find the quarters. How shall I deliver this document?”

  This, in a space increasingly complicated by loose passengers, baggage, straps, and elbows.

  Something banged. Nothing advised what the various bleeps, beeps, bangs, and thumps were, but he thought it might be the hatch, and in the next moment a wave of cold wind came through the shuttle.

  He had to forget Jase then. He cast grim looks at his security, sure that he needed to stay with them, because, being atevi, they would assuredly stay with him, and he wanted no misunderstandings. The possibility of abrupt, wrong movement all rested with him, with the relative position of him, his guard, and threat. He dared not let overzealous station security create a moment of panic.

  “If they do jostle us, Nadiin,” Bren said, drifting up beside Banichi and Jago, “recall they don’t feel man’chi, and may make apparently hostile moves. They are foreigners. Be restrained. Be very restrained. Don’t show weapons.”

  “Yes,” Jago said, that disconcerting Ragi agreement to a negative.

  The Mospheirans pushed through their midst, evidently intending to be first out. “Let them, Nadiin,” Bren said, by no means inclined to argue with Kroger’s sense of proprieties.

  Kate and Ben, more hesitant, drifting free, looked distressed, worried as they passed, clutching drifting luggage.

  “Understood,” Bren said to the junior staff. “Go on past. Best if you do go out first. Best if the first thing they see isn’t atevi. Good luck to you.” His servants waited, cramped to the side, while Kroger and her team exited.

  “Go,” he said then, and went forward, using the seat backs for propulsion. Jase stayed close, experience and unthought confidence in the environment in the way he gauged distance ahead of him and checked a small movement with unthought precision.

  A little of the motion sickness quivered through Bren’s stomach, or indigestible fear. He imitated Jase, using the same technique of small pushes and stops against the seats to avoid bumping into his servants. “Nadiin-ji. Follow Banichi and Jago. Do not make sudden moves, no startling of the humans.”

  The air in the ship had turned from mere cold to truly bitter, breath-steaming cold. His hands were numb. Within the air lock, it was worse still; the chill turned any moisture in the air to ice. He met the handline there, took hold, regretting gloves had not been part of the arrangement in their shirtsleeve environment, as he followed Kate’s feet out into the bitter chill of the access.

  There a handful of ship worker-personnel, suited against the cold, wearing masks and goggles, likewise clung with gloved hands to the rigged line. The Mospheirans had gone on, a line of bodies the brain kept saying was ascending a rope through water. Perception played tricks, in a stomach-wrenching glance at an environment of metal grids and pipes and insulated walls.

  In the same moment the workers saw what was coming: the body language wasn’t as definite in zero-G, but Bren saw it. First: Jase; we know him, glad to see you. Then: That’s a stranger, coupled with, Omigod, they’re large, they’re alien, and there are more of them than us.

  Jase reached out a bare hand to one of the anonymous workers and caught a gloved grip. “Luz?”

  “Jase.” The word came muffled through the mask. Josefin was the name on the orange protective suit. “Jase!”

  “This is Bren Cameron behind me. His staff. Atevi security. And his servants. I hope the message got here.”

  “Yes,” Luz said. “Yes. Mr. Cameron.” Bren drifted along with the assistance of the rope. Exposed flesh, face, ears, and fingers—burned and chilled in the dry cold. The inside of his nose felt frosted, his lungs assaulted. He held out his own hand, had it taken, gingerly, in a grip that hurt his cold fingers.

  “Thank you for the welcome. My bodyguard and staff, thanks. Glad to be aboard.”

  “Yes, sir,” was the answer. Luz Josefin, a woman with dark eyes behind the goggles, seemed paralyzed an instant, then said, “Yes, sir. Hurry. You’ll freeze. Watch your hands. Warm your ears when you get inside.”

  “Thanks.” Bren moved along rapidly then, fingers having lost all feeling. Jase was with him. His staff followed. The atevi crew hadn’t exited—wouldn’t yet; they and the pilots, with their separate hatch, would still be at work, checkout and shutdown. Bren concentrated on getting himself and his security to the end of the rope and the doorway he saw ahead before he lost all muscle coordination… and before Kroger might shut the door in their faces.

  “Air lock.” Jase shoved him through, using leverage. “Watch those controls. Don’t push any buttons.” He bumped Mospheirans, couldn’t help it, tried not to kick anyone.

  “Are enough of us going to fit?” he asked Jase in Mosphei’, and was glad to see another crewman, wearing bright yellow, standing guard over the lift controls.

  His staff packed themselves in. There was a directional arrow on the wall, and the attendant hauled at the Mospheir-ans, saying, “Feet to the floor,” until they had squirmed and rotated into some sort of directional unity, “Feet down,” Jase said. “Watch the luggage, Nadiin, push it to your feet.” The door shut by fits and starts, wedging them and their baggage in, and Bren blew on the fingers of one hand, asking himself how fast frostbite could set in on the one maintaining a hand-grip.

  “Never been this way but once,” Jase said. “Should have remembered gloves. Sorry. Sorry about this.”

  “Yes,” Bren said with economy, teeth chattering. “Gloves have to go on the list.”

  The car moved.

  “Hold on,” Jase said. “Jai! Atira’na. Don’t let go.”

  “Hold on!” Jago echoed, amused, as it proved understatement. Bags settled, forcing themselves among atevi feet. Kate’s bag traveled to the floor and thumped.

  “We’ll go through the rotational interface,” Jason said in Ragi, and repeated it in his native accent. “Don’t let go the handholds at any time.”

  It was a curious sensation, a little like going from flying to mildly falling, resting very lightly on a floor, then weighing more and more. Where does this stop? Bren’s senses wanted to know with panicked urgency.

  The Mospheirans had been told no large hand baggage. This was a point the Mospheirans had clearly noticed, and probably resented like hell right now, as his four servants fought desperately to keep theirs organized. Tano and Jago helped, shoving items back in the shifts of stress.

  A lift, hell. It didn’t lift, it suddenly moved sideways, like a small plane in a thunderstorm.

  It dropped.

  Came to a stop. Definitive stop, Bren decided, and relaxed an ice-burned stranglehold on the safety grip.

  The door opened on light, warmth, a beige wall and an official welcoming committee, men and women in blue uniforms, all the expected signs of rank… uniforms identical to uniforms in historical paintings, in old photographs, in plays and dramas.

  It wasn’t teleconferences anymore. It was living history looking them in the face as they got off the lift, one of those perception shifts: home, for Jase, to him and the Mospheirans, history, like someone dressed up for a play—while the atevi saw this uniformed lot as… what else?… the very emblem of the foreigners who had dropped from the sky.

  Bren immediately recognized two of the faces he’d seen previously on a viewing screen: Captain Jules Ogun, third-shift, dark-skinned, white-haired. In real life, he had curiously few wrinkles, as if some sculptor’s hand had created them, then smoothed
them out again. He was over eighty years old, and had the body of a younger man.

  “Captain Ogun, Lieutenant Delacroix,” Jase said quietly. “The Mospheiran delegation, Mr. Lund, Ms. Kroger; and Bren Cameron, the aiji’s representative.”

  Ogun offered a hand, shook Lund’s, and Kroger’s, then Bren’s, a thin-boned, vigorous grip.

  “Sir,” Bren said, “a pleasure to meet you.”

  Ogun gave him an eye-to-eye stare, not a happy one, not an angry one either. “Mr. Cameron. I take it this mission was the aiji’s sudden notion. And the President’s.”

  “We were sent,” Kroger was too quick to say, “on the aiji’s schedule. It was hurry up or lose the seats.”

  Coldly, Ogun turned his attention past her to Jase. “Jase.

  Welcome home.“

  “Thank you, sir,” Jase said quietly.

  “As for the suddenness of this move,” this with a sweeping glance at Bren and Kroger, “the quarters aren’t prepared. Not a priority, since we’d received no prior word and I don’t hold my crew accountable. I can explain we don’t have the space. I can explain that when we occupy a section of this station we have to secure seals, check the power conduits, turn on power, check the lines, and bring up a section the size of our ship from the extremes of space and vacuum… which we don’t damnwell have the personnel to accomplish without risk. Our occupancy is of two sections, plus the core transport, plus the ship. No room. That’s first. Second, I understand there’s cargo you don’t want opened, that you want put under your control. Unacceptable.”

  It had been a long flight. If Bren had a wish, it was for facilities—soon, but the aiji’s dignity was life and death. Ridiculous as this standoff got, it was everyone on the planet’s life and death.

  He launched into a translation for his staff, occupying attention, making clear that there was a communication problem which no amount of shouting could cure, and hinting that his staff didn’t communicate, which might become a problem to the station.

  Then, giving the captain a direct look: “Space under your constrained circumstances, is negotiable, sir. Our cargo is diplomatic baggage, which falls within the previously agreed circumstances, and any interference in it will compromise all negotiations. This has been cleared; it is agreed. We’re prepared to be understanding regarding your degree of preparedness; but not about our necessity for appropriate food.”