“When you show it to me, you clearly know you’re showing it to my security. And the dowager’s. I might have given you special privacy. You didn’t ask it.”

“ You keep secrets. So does the dowager.”

“Secrets again?”

“That’s the eternal question on this ship, isn’t it?”

“Tell Ginny Kroger,” Bren said. “She’s tied into our information. It’s hard to keep her apart from anything.”

“And her staff circulates on three-deck.”

“And if they know—crew’s not far. You’re right. Everywhere we turn, there’s another question how wide to take this, and it all runs in a circle… once you tell one other individual, it all leads eventually to the crew.”

“You understand my problem,” Jase said. “And telling Gin Kroger, who’s next to telling you, eventually leaves everyone on the ship but the crew knowing what’s in this tape, which has got to be another psychological statement, so far as the crew’s concerned, doesn’t it? Pride. Trust. And how do we admit, this late in the game, that Ramirez lied to them twice? I’m just beginning to figure out how long Ramirez lied to me .”

“Secrets,” Bren said, “never, ever served Phoenix well. But letting them out just before making port is going to be difficult.”

“So here we are—trying to shut Reunion Station down and keep the aliens from tracking us back to Alpha? That’s a secret, isn’t it—and one we’re not going to confess to the Guild on first meeting. Secrets are our whole existence. Maybe some of them have to be kept. Even inside. I have scraps of facts that lead under closed doors. And what do we do? Fling wide all the doors? Open just one, thinking we can limit the damage? Restrict images during docking again, and hope that crew won’t think to ask until this has all worked and they’re too happy to lynch their officers?”

“We don’t even know for an assured fact,” Bren said, “that Sabin herself has a clue what’s on this tape.”

“She’s got Jenrette to ask.”

“Maybe she’s never asked Jenrette. Or maybe Jenrette didn’t tell her everything.”

“She knows there’s a question. Yes, she’s seen this tape, no matter when she saw it. She knows, by now. And knowing all she knows, knowing that I’ve been after this tape, she’s kept it to herself, letting me hunt for it—and ultimately letting you and me go into a situation on arrival without the information, if I didn’t get it. I think that, and I get very angry. And then I reason,” Jase said quietly, not looking at him, “that she hasn’t failed to tell me yet. Not yet. And I keep waiting, day by day, for a briefing on what happened at Reunion—and on a dozen things I don’t even know to ask.”

“And it doesn’t come,” Bren said. “And it hasn’t come. And we’re running out of time. And you’re mad about that. And getting madder.”

“It’s that emotional cloud again.”

“You’re not sure you’re thinking straight about it?”

“I’m not sure I’m thinking straight about anything. A check on the thought processes is useful. So after a suitable time of sweating it alone—on the eve of our last ship-move—I asked you in on it… knowing… knowing, unless she does exactly what Ramirez did and freezes the station image… crew will see it, first glance. They haven’t thought to ask. No one’s thought to ask. But if it’s laid in front of them, they won’t take five minutes to figure it out.”

“It’s been nine years. Station could have repaired themselves. Wouldn’t they?”

Deep breath. “True. And the natural expectation would be, yes, just expect any survivors would have gotten rotation established, on a fairly high priority, to assure there is someone alive and healthy to meet us. So we might get through that. But not once information starts flowing, between stationers and us. Then we’ll get the questions—and I have a dire suspicion there’s more to it than we know.”

“You’re likely right.”

“I think crew could swallow the worst suspicions—if it’s on a soaring expectation of success. But having lived down in the lower decks, as, mind, none of the other captains have done—I think if we let the rest of the crew find out in the middle of a crisis that they were lied to like this, they’ll blow, and this time—God knows. God knows whether mutiny is a possibility, but it’s happened once, and we don’t forget that. Sabin’s not overly concerned for crew opinion—never has been. So here I sit, thinking yes, no, go this way, go that way—I’ve put myself in a position, digging this out, an uncomfortable one, but I’ve found it. And now I have to sit on it or let it loose. Either’s a decision.”

“No question.”

“Third choice. Do I confront Sabin?”

“Truth is a fair start for a complex operation. Truth—at least between two captains of the same ship.”

“So you think it’s a good idea to ask her?”

“I’m sure truth may precipitate certain things.”

“I’m sure of that, too. But do you advise me to do it?”

“The idea has a certain merit. And certain downsides. Are you going to do it?”

“I want you in on it.”

“I’m less sure that’s a good idea. My presence is provocative. Distracting from the issue.”

“To the good. I want you there. I want Banichi and Jago there.”

Bren was dismayed. “A threat?”

“A reminder to us humans we need to settle this quickly and not bring our unguarded tempers to our atevi guests or, for that matter, to the Mospheirans. I want all I’ve got on my side, environment, plain environment, not verbal argument. Sabin absorbs facts. She doesn’t listen to arguments worth a damn. What she sees in a confrontation, that impresses her. If she sees the two of them, she’ll know the scale of it. She’ll know there’s no secrecy possible there. Period.”

It was, in certain particulars, a fair assessment of the senior captain.

“So,” Bren asked, “when do you want me?”

“Now.”

“It’s four in the morning. Enthusiasm for the truth aside, is she going to be happier being waked up in the middle of her night?”

“Sleep-cycle,” Jase reminded him. “We have sleep-cycles. Only you planetary types have nights. You run a ship, you get odd hours. And her cycle’s closing out pretty soon. A moderately urgent technical consultation. I think that’s the way to put it… a step short of an operational emergency. That’ll get her on deck. If I say I just want to talk theory at this hour she’ll tell me go to hell. And if I bother her in her duty hours she’ll be on edge from the start and anxious to get back to schedule. This is an emergency.”

“I’d at least offer tea,” Bren said dryly.

“I don’t think she’ll stay for breakfast. Tea it is.” Jase punched buttons and sent away the schematic. The tape started over. Jase punched another button, this one on his collar. “C1. Captain Sabin to my office at earliest convenience, technical consultation. Wake her.”

“ Yes, sir ,” the answer came from the desk unit.

That fast. He’d agreed. They were in it.

Chapter 2

Banichi-ji,” bren said under his breath, sitting in the office chair, and using the pocket com while there was still time, “please advise security everything’s under control and proceeding well.”

Advise the atevi establishment, that was, and under control was tolerably true. He sat in Jase’s office waiting for Sabin to show up on a small hours of the morning, on a minor emergency call, waiting for all else that might fall out—and the second worst situation he could think of was that Cenedi might have waked the dowager to advise his ultimate authority what was going on upstairs. The second worst. The very worst thing he could think of, outside of a complete malfunction of the ship’s engines, was the dowager deciding to come up here in person to have morning tea and reason with Sabin.