Precursor

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Not this watch, Mr. Cameron.”

  “Captain Sabin, most reasonably, and I’ve stated this during three years of negotiations: if agreements with atevi are not completed at the fortunate hour and on time, all agreements are subject to change, in however small detail. Moving appointments can’t be the condition of discussions with the aiji.”

  “This is our deck, Mr. Cameron. You do things our way.”

  “No, Captain, quite respectfully. If you want this deck repaired and in running order, atevi ways matter. If today is inconvenient, can we set a firm time? Afternoon, 1300 hours, day after this?”

  “I’ll see you at 1400.”

  “Delighted. Meanwhile, another matter. Could you arrange for me to phone Jase Graham?”

  “Mr. Graham is a member of this crew, under our authority. He has no duties to you or to your offices. Two days; your schedule. You have your meeting, with me. Are we agreed, now?”

  “Two days, and I will continually hold out for Jase Graham, Captain.”

  “Then you’ll wait in hell.”

  “I doubt your ability to create hell and obtain what you want from Tabini-aiji. We will likely survive your alien invasion.”

  “Don’t rely on it.”

  “There’s no need to argue, Captain. Let’s save it for the meeting.”

  He heard a lengthy silence on the communications system. Then a restrained: “Two days, and persistently no, to your request for Graham. He’s not your citizen.”

  “We will have it on the table, Captain. Thank you.” He punched out on Sabin at that point, likely not what Sabin was accustomed to having happen, but he wasn’t going to allow agreement to dissipate in further discussion.

  He wasn’t at all satisfied with the situation he’d set up.

  He dressed, still in a glum mood, only involving Bindanda’s help toward the end of the process. Breakfast waited.

  But having settled his nerves from the adrenaline rush of one negotiation, he decided to observe routine and get his messages, never sure at what time ship command would lose patience and close off his access simply to demonstrate they could close it off.

  He punched in Cl, dealt pleasantly with the communications officer, and did a send-receive, picked up his messages, and sent the ones he’d written, all without incident.

  From the mainland, head of the list, he found a veritable flood of personal notes from members of the legislature. He skimmed the likelier of them, found them much as expected, locally focused, various lords asking about their various interests, all felicitating him on surviving the perilous flight up in the shuttle, all interested in profit for their districts, their businesses, their concerns.

  The word of his presence up here was out, then, likely with the download of the archive: news of the whole mission would break. He could advise Toby where he was; he could break the news to his family that he couldn’t come back to the island this week or next, no matter the need.

  From Toby, however, there was also a brief word: Toby, knowing the facts of his whereabouts, now, had written first.

  I’ve heard where you are; it’s all over the news… now I know there’s a reason you left as fast as you did.

  I talked to Barb’s husband. He seems a nice fellow, quiet. Barb’s undergoing more surgery, showing some awareness of surroundings now. Excuse the word flow. I’m writing this with no sleep. Jill’s talking about a separation. I don’t know why now, but I do know. My running up here isn’t making it easier right now-, we talked about it on the plane; she told me make a choice and I don’t want to lose my kids, so as soon as I can I’m going back north and staying there. I can’t do this anymore. Mother won’t listen to me, says Barb is a daughter to her, and that’s her choice.

  Most of all I’m not going to lose my wife and my kids. I’m going to get a car, take mother home, and if she gets back to the hospital, she’ll do it after I’m back at the airport, and after that it’s not my problem. I’m sorry as hell, Bren, but if you can’t do this any longer, I can’t, either. My wife and my kids are as important to me as your job is to you, and much as I love you and much as I love mum, I’ve got a life to live.

  He read that twice, hearing Toby’s voice, knowing how much it had cost Toby to write it. He sat down and wrote back.

  I have no blame to cast. I’ve felt deeply guilty for what I’ve asked. I’ve asked of you and mum both to turn caring for me off and on like a light switch, all to support me when I tried to stand in both worlds. Now I’m wholly on the mainland, and have to be. I can’t change the job, I can’t change myself, and we both know we can’t change our mother’s desire to have us both back… which I think hurts worse because one of us is permanently out of reach and involved in things that upset her. But generations can’t absorb one another. Time we both stopped worrying, and that’s not easy, but no one can ask more than you’ve already done. Tell mum I love her, tell her truthfully where I am, tell her there’s no way in hell I can get there, and that Barb and I don’t have a future.

  Barb knew it before I did. Barb did the best thing when she married Paul. It made me mad as hell when I found out, but she was always smart about things like that, and she knew better than I did what our association had gotten to be, and what she needed, and that I was killing her by degrees. Her job was always placating me, it wasn’t a healthy relationship, and she went on faithfully trying to do that after she married, I think because she and I do love one another in a caring sort of way. She couldn’t be happy if I wasn’t happy, and she saw how upset I was about the marriage… when I was the one who’d told her our life was always going to be occasional weekends. The simplest truth is the one we couldn’t work around: that she’d be miserable where I am and I’d be miserable where she is, and there just can’t ever be a fix for that, because I won’t come back to live on the island and she deserves a man who’s there through the thick and the thin of life, not just arriving on flying visits.

  If she and mum have a friendship, I have no right nor wish to upset that. They both need friends, especially now.

  But above all else, I owe my brother more than I can ever say. You’ve done more than any human should for the last ten years. Take care of Jill and the kids now,

  make them your priority. Mum’s tougher than you think. Especially don’t worry for me: people take care of me. You take care of your own family, love Jill, take care of those kids, and take any of my advisements of problems from here on out as simple advisements, not requisitions for miracles. Like Barb, you’ve known what’s good and right, and instead you’ve been trying to satisfy me. I’m reforming. No more demands. I’m sending a copy of this to Mother. All my love, for all our lives. Bren.

  And to his mother:

  I’m on the space station, Mother. I’m attaching a letter I wrote to Toby. I love you very much, always. Bren.

  He contacted Cl and sent both before he had a chance to change his mind, or before the difficulty of relations with the captains cut him off. He tried not to think how his mother would read it, and how much it would hurt.

  But one hard letter beat a decade-long collection of niggling apologies that kept his mother hoping he’d change and kept Toby and Barb both trying to change him. That had eaten up years of trying; by now it was a lost cause.

  His emotions felt sandpapered, utterly rubbed raw. He’d said good-bye to his mother, his brother, and the one human woman who loved him all in one package, all before breakfast.

  He thought he’d done, in the professional case and the private one, exactly what he ought to have done: professionally, physically, for a moment on the line with Sabin he’d reached that state of hyperactivity in which to his own perception he could all but walk through walls, a state he knew was dangerous, since in the real world the walls were real. But the chances he took were part of his moment-to-moment consciousness; his position was something he didn’t need to research; his dealings with their isolate psychology was something he’d laid out in three years of working with Jase and hea
ring his assessments of the individuals. He wasn’t a fool. He scared himself, but he wasn’t a fool, not in his maneuvers with the captains.

  The captains’ anger was real, however, and backed with force which—yes—if they were intelligent, they wouldn’t use.

  Many a smart man had been shot by a stupid opponent. Not at all helpful to the opponent, but there the smart man was, dead, all the same.

  And the psychological shocks bound to reverberate through his family… those were real, too. And he couldn’t avoid them. He couldn’t get to Mospheira. He wouldn’t be able to in the future. It was only going to get worse.

  He went to breakfast, forced a smile for his staff, apologized, and felt not light-headed, but light of body.

  He was still in that walk-through-walls state of mind.

  The staff that was supposed to support him recognized the fact and went on doing their jobs in wary silence, and Narani went on bowing and doing properly the serving of tea and the presentation of small courses… he tried to restrain the breakfasts, seeing his nerves hardly left his stomach fit for them, but Banichi and Jago came to join him, and their appetites well made up for his.

  “I’ve just insulted Sabin and told my mother neither I nor Toby can meet her future requests,” he said to them, “all before breakfast. What I sense around us, Nadiin, is a set of people on this station attempting to contain us, and to contain the Mospheirans, and to contain Jase… to hold, in other words, their accustomed power up here, or at least, to maintain their personal power relative to Ramirez. And by our agreement with Ramirez, none of these things should be happening. We have to push, just gently. I think we should take a small walk, if I can engage Kaplan-nadi.”

  “And where should we walk?” Banichi asked him calmly, over miraculously fresh eggs.

  “I think I’ll ask Kaplan,” he said. “I think we should survey this place they wish us to restore. I think we should walk everywhere. I began my report last night; this morning I have nothing but questions.”

  “Shall we arm?” Banichi asked.

  “Yes,” he said, and added, “but only in an ordinary fashion.”

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  « ^ »

  Kaplan appeared, kitted out as usual, electronics in place, opened the section door himself at the door with a beep on the intercom to announce his presence, and just came inside unasked.

  Narani bowed, the servant staff bowed. Bren saw it all as he left his room.

  Banichi, the security staff, and Kaplan all stared at one another like wi’itikün over a morsel. The door to the security center was discreetly shut, good fortune having nothing to do with it, Tano and Algini were not in sight, and Bren didn’t miss the subtle sweep of Kaplan’s head, his electronics doubtless sending to something besides his eyepiece as he looked around.

  “To the islanders, sir?” Kaplan asked.

  “That, for a start,” Bren said, and went out, sweeping Kaplan along beside him, Banichi and Jago walking rear guard down the faded yellow corridors that looked like something’s gullet.

  And he asked a flood of questions along the way, questions partly because he wanted to know, and partly to engage Kaplan: What’s down there? he asked. What’s that way?

  “Can’t say, sir.” For the third or fourth time Kaplan said so, this particular denial at what seemed to be a relatively main intersection in the zigzag weave of corridors.

  “Well, why don’t we just go there and find out?”

  “Can’t take you there, sir. Not on the list.”

  “Oh,” Bren said, lifting both brows. “There’s a list.”

  At that, facing him and with Banichi and Jago looming over him, Kaplan looked entirely uneasy.

  “Can we see this list?” Bren asked him.

  “I get it from the exec, sir. I can’t show it to you.”

  “Well” Bren said, and cheerfully rattled off in Ragi, “I think we might as well nudge gently and see what will give. Kaplan-nadi’s restricting what we see, but he’s not in charge of that decision himself. He’s getting his orders from higher up. —What would you like to see, Nadiin?”

  “Where does the crew live?” Banichi asked.

  “Excellent suggestion,” Bren said, and looked at Kaplan, who did not look confident. “Nadi, where is the crew?”

  “Where’s the crew, sir?”

  “What do you do when you’re not on duty, Kaplan?”

  “We go to rec, sir.”

  “Good.” In some measure, despite the ferocious-looking equipment and the eyepiece, Kaplan had the open stare of a just-bloomed flower. “We should see rec, then, Kaplan-nadi. Or is that on the list of things we definitely shouldn’t see?”

  “The list goes the other way, sir. It’s things you can see.”

  “Well, that’s fine. Let’s go look at all of those, and then when you’re tired, we can go to this recreation place. That’s rec, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll ask about rec, if you like.”

  “Why don’t you do that while we tour what we’re supposed to see? Take us to all those places.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kaplan murmured, and then talked to his microphone in alphabet and half-words while they walked. “Sir, they’re going to have to ask a captain about rec, and they’re all—”

  “In a meeting.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, tell them we just walked off and left you. All of a sudden I’m very interested in rec. I suppose we’ll find it. Are you going to shoot us?”

  “Sir, don’t do that.”

  “Don’t overreact,” Bren said in Ragi, “and above all don’t kill him. He’s a nice fellow, but I’m going to walk off and leave him, which is going to make him very nervous.”

  “Yes,” Jago said, and Bren walked, as Banichi and Jago went to opposite sides of the corridor.

  He’d give a great deal to have eyes in the back of his head. He knew, whatever else, that Kaplan wasn’t going to shoot him.

  “Sir?” he heard, a distressed, higher-pitched voice out of Kaplan. Then a more gruff: “Sir! Don’t!”

  Bren walked a few paces more, down a hall that showed no features, but the flooring of which had ample scuff on its sheen, leading right to an apparent section door.

  He heard an uncertain scuffle behind him, and he turned, quickly, lest mayhem result.

  Kaplan, going nowhere, had Banichi’s very solid hand about his arm.

  “Sir!”

  “He’s distressed,” he translated for Banichi. “Let him go, nadi-ji.”

  Banichi did release him. Jago had her hand on her bolstered pistol. Kaplan didn’t move, only stood there with eyes flower-wide and worried, and rubbed his arm.

  “Kaplan,” Bren said, “you’re a sensible man. Now what can we do to entertain ourselves that won’t involve your list?”

  “Let me talk to the duty officer, sir.”

  “Good,” he said. “You do that. You tell them if we’re going to repair this station, we have to assess it. Why don’t you show us one of the not-so-good areas?”

  “I can’t do that, sir. They’re cold. Locked down.” He gave an upward glance at Banichi and Jago. “Takes suits, and we can’t fit them.”

  “We have them. We could go back to the shuttle and get them. Or we could visit your ship. We’re supposed to build one.”

  “Build one, sir. Yes, sir. I’ve got to ask about that.” Kaplan had broken out in a sweat.

  “Come on, Kaplan. Think. Give us something worth our while. We can’t stand here all day.”

  “You want to see the rec area, sir, let me ask. —But you can’t go in there with guns, sir.”

  “Kaplan, you’re orbiting an atevi planet. There will never be a place an atevi lord’s security goes without guns. And you really don’t want them to, because if you have two atevi lords up here at any point, without the guns, the lords are going to be nervous and there might not be good behavior. Banichi and Jago are Assassins’ Guild. They have rules. They assure the lords
go to the Guild before someone takes a contract out on one of the captains. Think of them as law enforcement. There’s a whole planetful of reasons down there that took thousands of years to develop a peaceful way of dealing with things, and I really wouldn’t advise you to start changing what works. Why don’t we go somewhere interesting?”

  “Yes, sir, but I still have to ask.”

  “Do,” he said, and looked at a sealed, transparent wall panel with a confusing lot of buttons. “What do these do?”

  “Lights and the temperature, sir, mostly, and the power, but don’t open that panel, sir, some of the sections aren’t sealed, sir.”

  “Relax,” he said with a benign smile. He began to like Kaplan, heartily so, and repented his deliberate provocations. “Let’s go. Let’s go to rec. You’re a good man, Mr. Kaplan, and a very sensible one.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kaplan said, still breathing rapidly. “Just let me ask.”

  Kaplan was nothing if not dutiful. Kaplan engaged his microphone and did ask, passionately, in more alphabet and numbers, and nodded furiously to whatever came back. “Yes, sir,” he said finally. “They say it’s all right, you can go to rec.”

  “Let’s go, then,” he said. “And do you have a cafeteria? The mess hall? Shall we see that?”

  “That’s on the list, sir.” Kaplan sounded greatly relieved.

  “Good,” he said. “Banichi, Jago, we’ll walk with Kaplan-nadi. He’s an obliging fellow, not wishing any trouble, I’m sure. He seems a person of good character and great earnestness.”

  “Kaplan-nadi,” Banichi said in his deep voice, and with a pleasant expression. “One would like to know what he does transmit to his officers.”

  “Banichi wants to know what you see and send,” Bren said. “Such things interest my security.”

  “Can’t do that,” Kaplan said, all gruffness now.

  “Buy you a drink?” Bren said. “We should talk, since you’re to be my aide.”

  “I’m not your aide, sir. And I can’t talk, sir. I’m not supposed to.”

  “Aren’t you? Then I may request you. I’ll need someone when I’m on the station. Are you married?”