Explorer

by C. J. Cherryh

  That redirection hadn’t fooled the aliens for a minute. Had it? So they had an idea where he came from. They’d been watching.

  Silence. Then a deceptive vector.

  Touching off, perhaps, as Jase said, emotional responses—those sub-basement responses and assumptions that clouded thinking, those gut-level conclusions that were beneath clear thought.

  If he put himself as, say, ship-human, in the aliens’ position—how would he react to seeing an intruding ship pull out without responding? He had no clear idea.

  If he put himself as Mospheiran in that situation—he’d—well, he’d find a superior and give a report. And if he was President of Mospheira—he’d call his ally and ask what his ally Tabini thought. He’d get a committee together. He’d fund a study. He’d be paralyzed until the committee report came in. A Mospheiran had a thoroughly despairing view of official decision-making. On the other hand, the average Mospheiran tourist could be an incredible fool.

  If, next thought, he put himself as atevi in that situation—

  He thought he knew what he’d do if he were atevi. He thought he knew what responses would follow, acted-upon and otherwise. But he had the opportunity to ask someone whose nervous system had those other answers. He called in the least warlike ateva on staff. He called in Jeladi.

  “What would one believe that meant?” he asked, having explained the situation, “if the stranger ship left, under those circumstances?”

  “It went to its associates,” Jeladi said, “by a devious route.”

  “And, nadi?”

  “It will return with weapons, nandi.”

  He was not particularly surprised. Several thousand years of atevi experience led to that conclusion. He gathered himself up, in his bathrobe, and went to Banichi and posed the question. Jago arrived, and he repeated it. “What would you expect?” he asked them collectively.

  “A lure to an ambush,” Jago said.

  “We would not take that bait,” Banichi said.

  Atevi were not the most peaceful of species. Hadn’t been, even before the petal sails dropped down. There was a reason the Assassins’ Guild mediated the law, a civilizing force in the society.

  There remained a third source of information. “I shall dress,” he said to Narani, and began to do so, thinking of begging the dowager to receive a petitioner, no matter that none of them were at their mental best.

  But before he had quite donned his coat, a message cylinder arrived.

  We have heard your question, Ilisidi said—God, how did she manage? Even my great-grandson has an opinion in this case. One should not follow, except with superior force. One should lie in wait. My great-grandson believes we should blow it up immediately and fortify against general invasion. His great-grandfather would have concurred.

  Go to bed. We order it.

  Bren stood there with his limbs wobbling, half-dressed and chilled, thinking—well, now he need not call on Ilisidi. Now he should call Jase with his multi-sided answer and inform Jase how provocative Ramirez’s apparently prudent actions could seem.

  He should call Jase—when he had a brain. And when it wasn’t the middle of Jase’s night. Jase was still asleep. At the moment, he thought, sleep in his own case might produce more intelligence than study would.

  He didn’t want to fly his theories past Sabin until he had his wits about him.

  He undressed as meticulously as he’d dressed, thinking, thinking—how the ship had gone off its direct track home. But the aliens hadn’t wasted time. They’d known where the human base was.

  One assumed an advanced civilization wouldn’t be mindlessly, pointlessly violent.

  One assumed that, based on humanity’s rise from the caves. Based on atevi’s general progress—toward television and fast food. On the whole it tended to be true, for these two species. Any two points made a straight line. But a third—felicitous third—wasn’t guaranteed to be anywhere on that line, was it? Not at all.

  He was losing his train of thought. Points that didn’t lie in a straight line.

  Aliens had gone straight to the station. What they’d done before they hit it, what the station had done—no record.

  Ramirez had left the encounter. That didn’t say, on the other end, what the station had done. Or not done.

  He lay down in bed. Thinking.

  Did the ship observe a pattern in the three blinks from the alien craft? A variation of color, of duration? No information on that score. No image.

  One assumed, humans being sensitive to visual input, that Ramirez would have recorded any such anomaly in the signal—if he hadn’t tucked all the really useful notes somewhere outside the official log.

  But then, if Ramirez had known enough to take the right notes, he’d have stood a chance of taking the right actions. Wouldn’t he?

  Eyes were already shut. Brain drifted toward dark.

  He felt the give of the mattress. Felt a familiar warmth, smooth skin against his.

  “Jago-ji.” He’d been thinking back and forth in Mosphei’ and Ragi. At the moment he didn’t know which he spoke.

  “Have you reached a conclusion, Bren-ji?”

  “Not that I trust.”

  “Ramirez’s actions were peculiar,” Jago said.

  “Not for a human,” he murmured. Senses were leaving him. He settled against Jago’s warmth, still trying to think through Ramirez’s actions and beginning to suspect his thinking had gone off the edge of reason.

  He felt Jago’s hand on his face. Felt a caress on his shoulder. He tried desperately to reconstruct his train of thought. Everything was dark, dark and the touch of a familiar hand, the whisper of a familiar voice: “Rest, Bren-ji. Rest now. You try yourself too much.”

  He did sleep. He was sure he slept, because, “Bren,” the intercom said, Jase’s voice, in the middle of his night, and he had to wake. He groped for the side of the bed, momentarily forgetting that he was in a steel and ceramics world, where words were sufficient. He thought he was in the tall bed in his own apartment in Shejidan, and was shocked to meet the floor sooner than he expected.

  “Lights,” he remembered to say, and thoughtlessly blinded himself and Jago. He held a hand up to shield his eyes. “Two-way com.—Jase? What’s up?”

  “Looks like we’re finding an interface,” Jase said. “Not certain yet, but take this for a warning. Whether we’re there or not is always a question, but the navigators think this should be a straightforward entry.”

  “Thanks,” he said, muzzy, out of breath. “Thanks.” And tried to organize what he knew. “We’re not done yet. Jase, I’m not done. I’ve learned things—”

  “I’ve called the senior captain. My chief navigator estimates one to three hours, big give-or-take.”

  “Have you got an answer yet out of that tape?”

  “Makes no sense,” Jase said. “No sense.”

  “I have theories—at least about the contact.”

  “We’ll have to solve those questions on the other side. Drop’s going to happen whether we’re ready or not. It’s in progress. You’ve got leave to be here just as soon as we make entry. Get ready. You may have a very small safe window to move.”

  “Understood,” he said, rattled, and translated that in more detail for Jago. Jase was thinking in ship-speak at the moment, not Ragi, and small wonder. They were going in and he and Jase weren’t ready. But the navigators guessed . . . hoped . . . this would be it.

  And God knew what they were about to meet.

  “Advise Narani, nadi-ji,” he said to Jago. “Advise Cenedi. I’ll advise the dowager myself.” He dragged his chilled limbs off the bed and flung a robe about him as Jago hastened about her orders.

  Bren stumbled to the table that served as his desk and penned a quick paper note:

  Aiji-ma, we may well have arrived at our destination. As ever, there is the possibility of imprecision, but I am proceeding to the ship’s central command immediately after arrival to assess the situation. One hopes for your appro
val as ever. He dimly remembered, on the other side of sleep, the dowager’s unlooked-for response to his query. One appreciates beyond expression your felicitous response to my question. One is grateful. I shall represent your interests with all my efforts.

  He rolled it, slipped it into the cylinder, took the risk of omitting the seal, the reception of which informality depended on the state of Ilisidi’s nerves.

  “To the dowager, Rani-ji,” he instructed Narani, who had appeared in the door to assess the state of affairs, and while Narani undertook that diplomatic errand, Bren headed for his shower, for a minute of warm steam and a dry towel, no waiting for the vacuum. He scrubbed violently, trying to rub sensation into his skin; he toweled his hair, hoping for clear thought.

  Scared. Oh, he was that, no question. He attempted to finger-comb his hair, breaking through the snarls. He put on trousers and boots, trying not to show absolute terror.

  “Haste, nadi-ji,” he told Asicho when she began to comb his hair. “We may be surprised by events. Never mind it pulls.” He would have welcomed a sharp pain, anything to define the space, the time, the event, some keen sensory input to sting him out of this foggy-headed limbo of the ship before space straightened itself out again and dumped them into a situation none of them could predict.

  Bindanda and Jeladi both showed up to assist him. For the important event of their arrival, Narani had provided a shirt that had to go on with its coat, the lace so starched it could cut cake.

  Asicho finished his pigtail with breathless haste. Narani arrived to supervise Bindanda and Jeladi and be sure of the lace. Banichi and Jago were, meanwhile, managing for themselves, he was sure, while he accepted the help a lord needed, all of them hurrying, accurate, calm in the way his staff had been calm dressing him for court warfare.

  One assumed the cylinder had by now found its way to the dowager’s attention at such an hour; one very well knew Cenedi knew, and that courtesy was done. Handled. One thing of all the things on his agenda was done and nailed down tight.

  A siren blew briefly. Space, that had held them in a mind-fogged grip for day upon day of perceived time, was about to unfold itself, taking them back into reality with it.

  Not his favorite thing. God, no. A lot like landings in airplanes. Or space shuttles.

  He was, however, formally dressed. Ready for whatever happened.

  “Fifteen minutes to drop,” the intercom informed them.

  He received a vexed message from the dowager. Could not the ship-aijiin arrange such events at a more civilized hour?

  “This is the captain speaking.” Sabin’s voice, not Jase’s, in dead calm, near monotone. “We are beginning procedures for arrival. All non-essential crew to quarters. Take hold, take hold, take hold.”

  Official, then. Sabin was in charge over their heads and crew, all the great majority of personnel that maintained non-critical stations and operations, was to tuck down and remain invisible and out of the way for the duration.

  Jago arrived, dressed in her best—armed, though what good that did against their current situation he had no idea, nor, surely, had Jago. The weaponry was an expression of support, of professional attention to detail.

  “One believes we should take our seats,” he said calmly, and settled down in a broad, comfortable, bolted chair, carefully arranging his coat tails. Jago took the other. The rest of staff had such accommodations in the security station, where Banichi likely sat; or in their own accommodations, where they could ride comfortably belted down in bed.

  “Stand by.” C1’s advisement, the calm clear voice of senior communications.

  The slight muzziness of their days of transit increased, convinced the senses that the ship was sliding sideways, then forward.

  His staff took it far, far better than he did. His stomach felt very queasy, and he didn’t want to shut his eyes: sense-deprivation only made it worse.

  Boarding a plane. He was scarcely out of his teens. Scarcely out of university.

  Coming in at Shejidan, ahead of a cargo of tinned fish and electronics, all the tiled roofs spread out below him. It rained, common enough in spring. The tiled roofs became more textured, more real, slicked and shining, while the surrounding hills veiled themselves in rain and cloud.

  The Bu-javid sat on its hill, mysterious, indistinct in blowing rain. He’d live there one day. He hadn’t imagined it, then. But he’d have an apartment high on that northern wing, just that window . . .

  Explosion of gunfire, amid golden fields. They were shooting at targets, and Tabini-aiji, tall, slender, skilled marksman, popping branches off a dead limb, while a novice human paidhi tried to figure why the unprecedented invitation, and trying to hold his own firearm steady and not shoot the servants. Illegal for him to have the gun, but the aiji invited him, and he asked himself what the motive might be.

  Shot in the dark, in the spring night, with a shadow outside the blowing draperies and the smell of djossi flowers on the heavy air.

  A very foolish, very young human interpreter diving out of bed and behind the unlikely cover of the mattress.

  Banichi had found him there. Found him, and traded guns with him, and covered what might have been a deep secret among atevi lords.

  Keep him safe, Tabini had ordered Banichi and Jago, and who could have known they’d one day be guarding his life this far from home?

  Keep him safe. Was ever a man luckier in his associates?

  Breakfast on a balcony, in a thin coat, freezing, drinking burning-hot tea before it chilled to ice. Breakfast with the dowager, who hadn’t needed a coat.

  Breakfast and a broken arm.

  And an end of all easy assumptions, all confidence in what humans believed about atevi intentions and the atevi’s choices for their future.

  That breakfast had led him here, wherever here was beginning to be.

  Down, now, increasingly down, an illusion of falling through space faster and faster, weightless for a moment.

  Then here.

  Here.

  Suddenly at rest, when intellect knew they weren’t: that the ship was still going faster than a planet-bred imagination easily grasped.

  But down felt down again, as if it had never been different—at least a planet-habituated stomach felt very reassured by the current state of affairs. The safe universe had fractured and someone had fixed it. Very nice, very reassuring.

  That meant they had arrived. Space had straightened itself out. And he had to move. Quickly, by Jase’s advisement.

  He got up, and Jago got up.

  “We’ll go up to the bridge,” he said, as if he proposed a trip down the hall at home. Thoughts were suddenly easier. He remembered things. One didn’t have to nail every thought to the wall.

  But now he wasn’t sure any of his prior reasoning about the log records made thorough sense.

  Jago tugged her jacket smooth. He adjusted his coat. They went out to find Banichi. Staff had turned out into the corridor, too, understanding that events would flow rapidly in this arrival.

  “This is the senior captain speaking,” the intercom speakers said suddenly. “Early indications indicate arrival in Reunion System. General crew will stay in cabins until further notice.”

  They had arrived. Banichi met them at the security center, where Asicho waited, ready to take up her watch at the boards. Narani had accompanied them down the corridor. So did Bindanda and Jeladi. They all gathered outside the security station, all his household, all awaiting information and instructions on which their safety might depend.

  All relying on him.

  And in the same instant he grasped that distressing thought, the dowager’s apartment door opened and the dowager exited her rooms—with Cajeiri in tow. In court dress. It was not a casual expedition.

  Ilisidi, Cajeiri, Cenedi. One of the senior staff carried a fair-sized packet wrapped in a tablecloth—lunch, one greatly feared.

  They had notions where they were going.

  Cajeiri, too, had a small wallet tucked unde
r his arm, which Bren feared was not lunch.

  And had he somehow implied, in his general muzziness, that the senior captain had cleared them to come up? There was nothing that stopped a tidal wave or the aiji-dowager once assumptions had gone this far. She was dressed. She was in motion.

  And, granted Sabin was going to have the proverbial litter of kittens, the dowager was a resource the paidhiin could well use close at hand if things came unhinged.

  “Go,” Ilisidi said with an impatient wave of her cane, as if she were not the one arriving late. “Go, go, nadiin. For what do we wait?”

  “Nandi.” Bren stood aside to prefer her and Cajeiri, and both their bodyguards folded in behind.

  5

  The senior captain would be too busy to lodge strong objections, Bren said to himself, watching the lift level indicator flick numbers past. And the captain did expect him, and expected help.

  “The ship-aiji believes we have indeed arrived at our destination, aiji-ma,” he said as the lift rose. “One isn’t quite sure how they know, but one supposes they find familiar indications.”

  Ilisidi gave an indelicate snort. “High time.”

  The lift stopped at its appointed level. The doors opened and they walked out into that neck of the lift foyer that had no view of the bridge, only of the administrative offices beyond.

  So far, so good.

  Jase stood in view, beside the short screening wall. The lift noise had not gone unnoticed. Whatever his opinion, Jase kept perfectly deadpan, poker-stiff as they walked toward him, beyond that curtain wall and into full view of the bridge. Captain Sabin, in those narrow aisles of techs at consoles, stood there, watching over the situation, occupied, at the moment, at a console in the middle aisle.

  “Four jump seats to your right,” Jase muttered in Ragi. “Emergency cabinet is next to them. Go there if alert sounds.”

  Bren spotted the seats and the access—the takehold cabinet was, in effect, the curtain wall itself, and their party certainly exceeded the safety seating.