Sabin’s eyes were hard and black, still in attack mode, not a bit dissuaded. But she didn’t call security to shoot the lot of them. “That’s all well and good, sir, but I’ll call on your good offices to be damned sure this doesn’t happen again. Now if you’ll get the woman out of here, we have work to do.”
“Captain.” Jase was going to try.
It wasn’t a good idea, in Bren’s experience. He drew a breath and kept going across the ice floes. “The dowager’s come here to pay respects. There’s a reciprocation expected.”
“The hell!” Sabin kept going, but Bren rode right over the top of the outburst.
“You want your supplies, captain—I assume you want your supplies—perhaps we’d better continue this discussion in your office.”
“Here’s good enough.” But Sabin had lowered her voice, and applied her version of conciliation. “I’m damned busy, Mr. Cameron. Get her the hell out.”
“She does understand some Mosphei’, captain. Please use restraint.”
“I am using restraint. I want her off this deck. I want you and her and these people down on deck five and I don’t want to hear from you again until we’re at our destination, at which time I’ll tell you where we are and I don’t want to hear from you after that until we’re back in port at this star. Is that clear?”
“Let me convey for the dowager that she may demand to leave this ship, and if she leaves this ship the diplomatic fallout will be extremely disadvantageous to everything we’ve spent the last number of years building—which I assure you won’t help this ship.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“Far from it. The dowager’s come here to invite you to supper this evening.”
The look on Sabin’s face was astonishing. An expression. A moment of utter, unguarded shock.
“Economical to accept,” Bren said rapidly, before Sabin formulated a reply. “Establishing a cordial tone aboard, bringing the very expert services of her security harmoniously into your service, and the services of the paidhiin, to boot. We’re good, captain. You arehearing me, and I don’t think that was your original intention. We’ll be very pleased to apply our talents to your opposition if you’ll oblige the dowager, win her good will, and make our jobs easier. Besides, she sets a very good table.”
Three expressions from Sabin in rapid succession: shock, outrage, and targeting calculation.
“You’re the damned cheekiest bastard I’ve met in a lifetime.”
“Yes, ma’am, and you’re no pushover, on the other side. If our interests really did diverge, I’d be worried, but I happen to know our best interests and your interests are the same. Besides, you deserve a good dinner, and it won’t be wasted time. You’ll score a relationship that’ll make a big difference out there… that will outright assure you come back here to a working station with resources.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Cameron?”
“No, captain, it’s a pretty good forecast. If this relationship goes bad, everything goes bad; if it goes brilliantly, everything becomes easier. Let me add my personal plea to the case: accept the invitation and you’ll have my assurances I’ll do everything possible to persuade her of yourpoints. I can’t stress enough how great an honor the dowager’s done you by coming here: she’s put her dignity on the line so as to make clear how greatly she respects your authority. Now it’s very useful for your side to respect and accept her hospitality.”
“ Damnedcheeky bastard, Mr. Cameron.”
“Which I trust refers solely to me, captain, and I hope signals your gracious acceptance.”
“There’s nothing gracious about it.”
“The traditional supper hour, for these affairs. Full dress. She’ll spare no effort to honor her guest.”
“How long am I expected to be honored? I’ve got a ship in the process of boarding.”
“About three hours.”
“Flaming hell.”
“You’ll find it worth your while. Eighteen hundred hours, senior captain. She’ll very much understand if you don’t reciprocate with a dinner of your own, given the pressure of events; but she’ll be pleased to entertain you to the utmost.” He switched to Ragi. “The captain, though pressed for time, is inclining to accept, aiji-ma, understanding the great honor you give her.”
Ilisidi inclined her head benignly. “Very good, paidhi-ji. At the fortunate hour.”
“She’s very pleased,” Bren said, regardless of Sabin’s not-quite-expressed consent. “She honors your good will. Understand, as a great lord proceeds about necessary courtesies even under fire, proving one isn’t at all harried. She views you very favorably.”
“Damned nonsense.” From Sabin it was a moderate response.
“My personal gratitude,” Bren said. “Eighteen hundred hours, at our section: staff will meet you there. The aiji-dowager’s good will and good wishes in fortunate number, ma’am.”
He turned. He managed to include Jase in the sweep of his arm toward the exit, but Jase declined the refuge and drifted there slightly askew from them.
One trusted at least there wouldn’t be bloodshed on the bridge. Sabin might have plenty yet to vent, but if appearances were an indication, Sabin was in control, and if she was thinking, she wouldn’t let fly until the two of them were in an office with the door shut.
Under those circumstances he trusted Jase could hold his own and keep his head.
“Mr. Kaplan,” Jase said calmly, “see them below.”
“Yes, sir.” Kaplan opened the door which had self-shut.
“And where is Jase-paidhi?” Ilisidi demanded.
“Preparing to account to Sabin-aiji for bringing us here, aiji-ma,” Bren said, “which I trust he can do.”
“He will suffer no detriment!” Ilisidi said, and turned and addressed Jase. “Assure us this is the case!”
“Aiji-ma, without a doubt.”
“Well!” Ilisidi said, and by now the door had shut itself again. Kaplan scrambled to open it, and they left under Kaplan’s guidance.
It wasn’t that easy, and Sabin would have words of her own, but Ilisidi expected her below, and Sabin had accepted that.
Amazing, Bren thought. Astonishing.
He could imagine several scenarios to follow, in several of which Sabin decided not to come after all, and precipitated an atevi war. Jase, if he could make the point, would faithfully inform her there wasn’t any change of plans possible, not at this point—not without the attendant war, at least.
He’d been steady enough during the exchange. Now, in the stomach-wrenching reverse of the lift action, he found his knees weak. If there’d been a floor to stand on, he thought he’d have felt them going. As it was, he simply tried not to twitch against his escort, and not to shiver as Jago cushioned their arrival on deck five. That brought a little moment of contact with the deck, and if not for Jago, he thought he would have stumbled, if nothing else, from the welter of confusing directions.
Not the dowager. The lift door opened and she emerged with Cenedi, perfectly in command.
“We shall see you at supper,” she said, “paidhi-ji.”
“Honored, nand’ dowager.”
What elsewas there to say? He didn’t plan to eat. His mind was off into a dozen more scenarios, frantic in its application. War or peace was a hell of a dessert choice, and somehow in his management of affairs, his nudges this way and that, his quest after a piece of tape had ended up in a confrontation between aijiin.
Well to have it now, if it was going to happen, while they were still at dock and had options. The thought of Ilisidi pent up in a ship with a captain whose murder she fondly wished—a captain who was the onlycaptain capable of running the ship’s operations—was unthinkable.
God, he wanted to stay on the ground. He wanted to go back down to the planet and go back to his estate with his staff and wait there for it all to be over… but that wasn’t a choice he’d given himself.
He had to get the authorities through this set of formalities, and he had to ask himself if Ilisidi thought she was going to askfor the ship’s log or if his search for the records had become a complete side-channel to the dowager’s intentions of running matters wherever she was. Certainly no one had informed Sabin she was second to the aiji-dowager on her own deck.