Explorer (58 page)

“You are,” Bren said. “No question. Our car’s coming. Which lock?”

“Number 3. That’s 243 on the pad. We’re watching you, far as we can. Good luck.”

“Good luck to all of us. Back in a few hours. Or not. If not, don’t do anything. Let me work it out. I’ll do it.”

“I trust you,”
Jase said; and the lift door opened.
“A few hours.”

The last in Ragi. End of the conversation. He thumbed the unit off as he escorted the dowager and Prakuyo through the doors. Cajeiri next. Their bodyguard. He cast a look at Banichi, looking for signs of wear, and found none evident.

He couldn’t afford to divert his attention. Made up his mind not to. He wondered if he should have brought a heavy coat. Then recalled that Prakuyo was quite comfortable in five-deck temperatures.

Prakuyo, at the moment, looked from the doors to them and back again, agitated, anxious—dared one say, joyous? One certainly hoped so.

Long, long ride.

“How far up—” Cajeiri began to ask, and the dowager’s cane hit the decking. Young arms clenched the car close; young head bowed. “One forgot, mani-ma.”

“Then one’s attention was not on one’s instructions. This will be a strange place, and no questions. Think matters through, young sir.”

One did
not
answer the boy’s question, no matter how tempted, in the face of the dowager’s reprimand.

One simply took that advice for oneself. A strange place, and no questions, indeed. No ability to ask. No words.

But hope. There was that.

The car slowed. The illusion of gravity slowly left them. Bren found his heart pounding and his hands sweating, a fact he chose not to make evident. Cajeiri, who had seen zero-g, restrained himself admirably.

Bren doggedly smiled at Prakuyo drifting next to him, at Banichi and Jago who, one noted, wore no visible armament, no more than the dowager’s guard—a peace delegation, Ragi-style; but he wasn’t sure they’d pass a security scan. Which was Ragi-style, too.

Doors opened. A handful of
Phoenix
crewmen met them, drifting near the doors. They had sidearms, but nothing ostentatious. They were there to operate the locks for them; and to sound an alarm, one suspected, if anything went massively wrong.

“Good luck, sir. Ma’am. Sir.” The last, dubiously, toward Prakuyo. With a bow. Ship’s crew had learned such manners with the atevi.

“Good,” Prakuyo rumbled, as they drifted into the chamber, breaths frosting into little clouds.

Machinery worked and the doors behind them hissed and sealed, ominous sound. No panic, Bren said to himself, thinking strangely of the hiss of the surf on the North Shore. Sunset. Sea wind.

Pumps worked only a moment; and the doors unsealed facing them.

The air that met them made an ice film on every surface, stung the fingers. Prakuyo bounded along, catching handgrips, and the dowager simply allowed Cenedi to draw her along, while Cajeiri was quite content to help himself. Bren managed, teeth chattering, wishing there were a conveyor line.

Long, long progress; and one had the overwhelming feeling of being watched throughout, watched, analyzed for weakness, and the human in the party was determined not to show how very fast he chilled through.

They were arriving, finally, at an end, a chamber with a metal grid, and Prakuyo entered it cheerfully, beckoned them in and showed them to hold on.

Good idea. Doors banged shut, the whole affair began to move and spun about violently, under unpleasantly heavy acceleration to give them a floor, after which the air that came wafting from the vents came thick as a swamp, still freezing where it hit metal and condensed.

Rough braking. Cenedi supported the dowager, Cajeiri had to catch himself, and Bren just held on.

They weighed too much. The air was thick as a swamp at midnight. Doors whined and banged open on a dim, dank place, dark blue-green floor, dark greenish blue walls intermittent with deeper shadow—a succession
of edge-on panels, the light so dim it fooled the eye.

A deep rumbling came from all around, and what might be words. Prakuyo bowed deeply, walked forward a step, and out of the shadows a distance removed appeared a solitary, cloaked figure, with Prakuyo’s face, and Prakuyo’s bulk.

“Stop here,” Ilisidi advised, and the paidhi thoroughly agreed: no one should go further, but Prakuyo, who walked a few paces on, bowed again.

Said a handful of words, it might be, underlain with thrumming and booming.

Stark silence from the other side. And as silently—more cloaked individuals from behind the standing panels, and more voices, more booming and rumbling until the floor seemed to vibrate.

Not good, Bren thought, standing very still, not good if Prakuyo left them. It was not a comfortable place, even to stand. He felt as if he’d gained fifty pounds. The dowager’s joints would by no means take this kindly.

But Prakuyo extended an arm toward them—beckoning, one thought. “Dowager-ji,” Bren said quietly, and moved forward a little. And bowed, as Prakuyo had. One trusted the dowager gave a slight courtesy. Their bodyguards, by custom, would not, until the situation was certain.

“Introduce us,” the dowager said, “paidhi-aiji.”

“Indeed,” Bren said. He walked forward a step, and bowed, trying to assemble recently gained words. “Bren,” he said, laying a hand on his chest. “From human and atevi ship. Good stand here.”

One hoped not to have made a vocabulary mistake. An immediate murmur went through the gathering, a visible shifting of stance.

“Ilisidi, ateva, comes, says good on Prakuyo ship.”

Ilisidi walked forward a pace, bringing Cajeiri with her, offering a little nod. Cajeiri, wide-eyed, made a little bow of his own, car clutched firmly against his ribs, and wisely kept very quiet.

Prakuyo, however, had a deal to say. He waved an arm and talked—one could pick out words—about the station, about going to the ship, about them, by name and individually: he talked passionately, thrumming softly under his breath, and walked from this side to the other, finally demonstrating his own person.

“Bren,” Prakuyo said then. “Come. Come talk. Say.”

Bren drew a breath, walked to Prakuyo’s side, and gave another bow to the one who had appeared first, the one Prakuyo had addressed. “Bren Cameron,” he said, a hand on himself. “Good Prakuyo on Prakuyo ship.” Never using that chancy
we.
Never having found Prakuyo’s word for the same. “Bren, Ilisidi take humans from station to ship. Ship goes far, far. No fight.”

That other person spoke, not two words intelligible, and not thoroughly warm and welcoming, either.

Prakuyo clapped a heavy hand on Bren’s shoulder, a comfort, considering the ominous murmur around about; and Prakuyo talked rapidly—shocking his hearers, to judge by the reaction.

“Calm,” Bren said in Ragi. “One asks helpful calm.”

“Calm,” Prakuyo agreed—knowing that word, it turned out. And launched on an oration in his own language, his one hand holding Bren steady, his word-choice something about station and Madison, quite angrily—then something about Ilisidi, and Bren, about Bindanda—perhaps about teacakes, for all Bren could tell, and a torrent besides that.

There was an argument, a clear argument going on.

And one had to think that for well over six years neither humans nor Prakuyo’s species had made sense to each other, and that the reason they were all standing here in this fix might well have had to do with a now-deceased captain poking about in solar neighborhoods that weren’t his—it wasn’t just Prakuyo’s grievance; it was likely a number of Prakuyo’s people with complaints about the goings-on.

Prakuyo, however, let him go, and engaged in noisy argument with several others. Bren tried to decide whether it was prudent to get out of the way; but then Ilisidi moved, slowly, considerately, with Cajeiri, and Banichi and Jago found opportunity to move up into his vicinity: but a person used to the Assassins’ Guild noted Cenedi had not moved with the group—Cenedi had stayed back there with his partner, nearer the door, and most certainly was armed.

“Not come fight,” Bren interjected into Prakuyo’s argument, seeing tension rising on this side and that, and at a light tap of the dowager’s cane, wanting his attention, interposed a translation. “Dowager-ma, I am
attempting to assert our benevolent intentions. They are discussing what happened here. Prakuyo-nadi seems to be taking a favorable position. But we have no idea what Ramirez-aiji may have done to provoke this: I am suspicious he, rather than the station, triggered hostilities.”

“Pish.” A wave of the hand. “One cares very little what they and humans did.” Bang went the cane. “Now
we
are annoyed, and we wish a sensible cessation.”

There was a moment’s startled silence. Prakuyo said something involving Ilisidi, and Cajeiri, and something Bren couldn’t remotely follow—a rapidfire something that brought a closer general attention on Ilisidi and the boy.

Then came what might be questions from the senior personage, involving Ilisidi and the boy. And him. And Banichi and Jago. They were short of vocabulary and on very, very dangerous ground, and the argument concerning them was getting altogether past them. Not good.

“Nand’ Prakuyo.” Respectfully, since Prakuyo was clearly a person able to give and take with the leadership of this vessel. “Say to this person that humans and atevi go away. Not want to fight. Want to go soon.”

“We,” Prakuyo said, and said a word of his own language, indicating himself and all the others. Then that same word including Bren and Ilisidi and all the rest. And something more complicated, more emphatic, that provoked strong reaction, dismay.

Damn, Bren thought, wondering what that past argument about
we
and
they
might have produced here. Prakuyo’s folk didn’t like that word. Passionately didn’t want to be lumped together with non-whatever-they-were. Prakuyo hadn’t been for it, either.

But Prakuyo argued with the idea now. Argued, with occasional booms from deep in his chest that sounded more deeply angry than mournful. And finally gave a wave of his hand, ending argument, producing some instruction to the onlookers.

“Drink,” Prakuyo said, “come drink.”

Was that the resolution? An offering so deep in the roots of civilized basics it resonated across species lines?

“Nandi,” he said to Ilisidi, “we are possibly offered refreshment, which in my best judgment would not be wise to refuse.”

“About time,” Ilisidi said, hands braced on her cane. “Great-grandson?”

“Mani-ma.”

“We shall see the most correct, the most elegant behavior. Shall we not?”

“Yes, mani-ma.”

“Come,” Prakuyo said to them, “come.”

“Cenedi,” Ilisidi said, and their rear guard quietly added themselves back to the party as they walked slowly with Prakuyo, between two of the edge-on panels, into deep shadow that gave way to a broad corridor, with adjacent panels sharply slanted, obscuring whatever lay inside.

Two such moved, affording access to a room of cushioned benches of atevi scale; and Prakuyo himself came and offered his hand to Ilisidi, whose face was drawn with the effort of moving in this place.

It wasn’t court protocol. It was, however, courtesy, and sensible in this place of dim light, uncertain footing, and exhausting weight: Ilisidi allowed herself to be seated, patted the place beside her for Cajeiri, and on her other side, for Bren.

Prakuyo also sat down, with that other individual, who proved, in better light, to be an older, heavier type, with numerous folds of prosperous fat.

Younger persons brought a tray with a medium-sized pitcher and a set of cups—one would expect tea, and a human experienced in atevi notions of tea worried about alkaloids; but what the young persons poured for them proved to be water, pure, clean water.

“Very good,” Ilisidi remarked, which Prakuyo translated; and himself poured more for her and for the rest of them.

“Good,” Prakuyo said. “Good come here.” He said something more to the older person, and by now others had come in to observe, and to listen to Prakuyo’s account, which ranged much farther than Bren could follow.

It took the tone, however, of a storyteller getting the most out of the situation, and came down to mention of their names again, and expansive gestures that looked unpleasantly like explosions.

“Ilisidi,” Prakuyo said then. “Say.”

“We have come,” Ilisidi said, paying no attention to this gross breach of courtly protocols, “we have come to settle matters, to recover these ill-placed humans and take them away, where they will cause you no further trouble. The ship-aiji who caused these difficulties is dead. The station-aiji who treated you badly is deposed and will never have power again, and the ship-aiji who rescued you is now in charge of the ship and the station. We take no responsibility for the doings of these foreign humans but we are glad to have returned you to your ship.”

Prakuyo launched into God-knew-how-accurate a translation, or explanation, or simply an elaboration of his prior arguments. At which point he asked for something, and one of the lesser persons ran off, presumably on that errand.

Prakuyo kept talking, overwhelming all argument, dominating the gathering. Clearly, Bren thought, this was
not
a common person, though what the hierarchy was on this ship was not readily clear. Six years they’d sat watching, observing—by all evidence of the damage done to the station, capable of simply taking it out, and of having done so before Prakuyo ever came close enough to get himself in trouble. But they’d taken a twofold approach: first to send in a living observer, then to sit and wait—long on a human timescale—six years.

For what? For Prakuyo to teach the humans to talk to them? For the ship that had left to come back? They hadn’t hit it, either, but they might well have tracked it.

A cautious folk. Capable of doing the damage they’d done—but they’d taken a long time to respond to Ramirez’s intrusion: they’d come in on the station rather than the mobile ship; they’d gotten provoked into a response, and then sat and watched the result. This wasn’t, one could think, a panicked, edge-of-capability sort of action, rather an action of someone as curious as hostile, wanting to know exactly how wide and fast the river was before they tried to swim in it.