Explorer

by C. J. Cherryh

  He dodged a massive tray of unbaked rolls in the hands of a man who gave him only a busy, passing glance.

  Then the man came to a dead stop and gave him a second glance, astonished.

  A year aboard—and he knew the staff, knew the faces. They knew him by sight. Not at first glance, however. That was good.

  And without an exact plan—he suddenly found at least a store of raw material. He waved cheerfully to the man with the tray and, spotting the chief cook over by the ovens, walked casually toward him.

  “Hello, chief.”

  “Mr. Cameron.” Natural surprise. Hint of deep concern. “What’s going on up there?”

  “Well, we’ve got a little problem,” he said. People around him strained to hear, a little less clatter in their immediate vicinity, quickly diminishing to deathly hush. He didn’t altogether lower his voice, deciding that galley crew just slightly overhearing the truth was to the good—gossip never needed encouragement to walk about.

  So he began the old downhill skid of intrigue. He wasn’t Bren Cameron, fresh off the island and blind to the world. He was, he reminded himself, paidhi-aiji—the aiji’s own interpreter, skilled at communication, skilled at diplomacy between two species—and used to the canniest finaglers and underhanded connivers in Shejidan. “Everything so far is fine, except station has locked the fuel down tight and wants Sabin in their offices and their inspectors on our deck, as if the senior captain had to account to them.” That wasn’t phrased to sit well with a proud and independent crew, not at all. “So do you think I could get a basket of sandwiches to take up to the bridge as an excuse to be up there, to find out what’s going on?”

  The chief cook, Walker, his name was, listened, frowning. “What do you think’s going on, sir? What in hell do they want, excuse my french, sir?”

  “They want us to say yessir and take their orders, and I don’t think the captains are on their program. I don’t officially speak for Captain Graham—but I’ll take it on my own head to go up there and find out if he has orders he doesn’t want to put out on general address. If you could kind of deliver a small snack around the decks and at the same time pass some critical information to crew in lockdown, it might be a good thing—tell the crew back the captain, tell them don’t mention atevi or the planet at all if these Guild people ask, no matter what. If they’ve got any pictures that might give that information, get them out of sight. And don’t do anything these people could use for an excuse for whatever else they want to do. Senior captain’s taken all our security with her, trying to make a point to the Guild on station. Captain Graham’s kind of empty-handed up there, worried about them taking over the ship.”

  A low murmur among the onlookers.

  “Taking over the ship,” he repeated. “Which is what we’re going to resist very strongly, ladies and gentlemen. Captain Graham is worried: Captain Sabin is risking her neck trying to finesse this, and Captain Graham’s attitude is, if they even try to claim her appointment as senior captain of this ship isn’t official without their stamp of approval, gentlemen, there’s going to be some serious argument from this ship. Captain Graham’s worried those investigators may make matters difficult up on the bridge. And I want some excuse to go up there and look around and make absolutely sure the bridge crew’s not being held at gunpoint right now.”

  Quiet had spread all through the galley. Not a bowl rattled.

  “So what’s to do, sir?” Walker asked.

  “Back Captain Graham. Be ready, if there’s trouble; if there’s some kind of incursion down here, squash it. Spread the word. We’ve got that alien craft lurking way out there, watching everything that’s going on, expecting us to straighten out this mess and so far being civilized about our going in here to get the answers out of the station administration. I know the aliens are waiting. I talked to them, so far as talk went, and right now they’re being more cooperative than the station authority—who’s got an explosive lock rigged to keep us from the fuel we need, did that word get down here? And a sign on it telling us in our own language it’ll blow up in our faces. I don’t think the aliens could read that sign. Guild won’t say a thing about that ship, and now they’re making demands as if Sabin was to blame for their station having a hole in it. The Guild is holding the fuel against the senior captain’s agreement to walk into their offices and present her papers, as if they had the say over this ship, which she doesn’t agree they have.”

  “No, sir,” one man said, and a dozen others echoed.

  “But there we are,” Bren said. “We don’t know why the innocent people we came here to rescue aren’t rushing to get aboard and get out of here. Or why they didn’t just board, the last time this ship docked. We believe there’s people on that station that might like to board. But they’re not showing up, and the only communication we’ve got is a sign telling us hands off the fuel. That’s why the order hasn’t come to walk about. I want to get up there to lend Captain Graham some help, and I figure there’s less suspicion about galley bringing food in—so can you figure how to make me look like I’m on galley business?”

  “Bridge wants more sandwiches,” Walker growled, with a look around, and personnel moved, fast.

  Then Walker asked him outright: “What’s gran down there thinking about this situation? The atevi backing you?”

  “Backing your captains, while Captain Graham’s taking every measure not to let any outside inspector near five-deck. We don’t want to explain the whole last nine years of our alliance to a Guild that’s in a standoff with an alien ship and not leveling with us. We don’t want them scared. Gran Sidi perfectly well understands the need to finesse this operation. Right now you’re likely the only group that’s free to move. You can carry messages, receive information, get it back here, carry signals, carry plans, if it goes that far. I can’t stress enough how important it is we keep the peace down here, keep your freedom to move, and just stay ready to back the captains.”

  “Damn right,” Walker said, and, an assistant turning up in the aisle with the requisite basket atop a loaded drink-tray, Walker took the goods and handed the exceedingly heavy arrangement to him. “Anything you need, sir. And anything your people down on five-deck need, if you’re having to stay locked down. Same to the bridge.”

  “I’ll pass that on,” Bren said earnestly, restraining the habitual bow. “Thank you, chief. Thank you all.”

  He walked out, one more member of cook’s staff on a mission involving sandwiches, drinks, and now the bridge. He didn’t know a thing, didn’t have an ulterior motive, didn’t have a badge or an ID. No one on the ship ever had a badge, the same way they didn’t put up directional signs. They were all family. Outsiders, once the spotlight was on, stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.

  But he didn’t look that foreign, by the galley worker’s initial reaction. And everything he’d just said in ship-speak, he was sure Jago followed well enough, at least the gist and intent of it, especially since he was sure Ginny had made it to the security station by now, to provide help with the nuances.

  He carried his load down the main corridor back to the lift, not, at the moment, worrying about Guild agents inside the ship. He was just an ordinary fellow, that was all, a crewman whose greatest fear was getting his food orders mixed up.

  He maneuvered his tray inside the lift, knuckled the requisite buttons, held his tray steady and kept his face serene.

  One deep breath before the door opened. He walked out beyond that short partition that screened the lift area from the bridge.

  A gray-armored man stepped out from the other side of that partition and leveled a rifle at him.

  Well, well, that was different. He had no trouble at all looking discomfited, while his eye took in an immediate and tolerably complete snapshot of the situation—Jase angry and alarmed, the bridge crew sitting idle stations on a ship that wasn’t moving, while four gray-armored men, one gray-haired, gray uniform, likely a technician, leaned over the number one console, the besieg
ed tech leaning inconveniently far over, but not yielding his seat.

  “Sandwiches, cap’n. The chief thought you’d need ’em.” Bren used his best and broadest ship-accent, simply ignored the armed threat and blundered on, presenting the tray to Jase, who waved him on—no exchange of glances, nothing but a set jaw and a situation in which an intruder from belowdecks was oh-very-welcome to walk around, the captain saying nothing about it at all.

  Anxious eyes fixed on him at various places, techs recognizing him and doing a masterful job of not showing it. Hostile Guild stares assessed him as a nuisance, a fool on a job mostly below their radar, and passed him.

  “Dunno what we got,” Bren said to the first bridge tech, looking at the sliced side of sandwiches, while Jase resumed his argument with the Guild agents. He let the woman take a pick of fillings, then wandered over to the Guild investigator. “You’re from the station.” Brilliant observation. “I’ll bet you’re glad to see us.”

  “Cameron.” Harsh admonition from Jase. A clear warning. “Do your job.”

  “Yessir.” He turned a charitable face to the Guild investigator. “Want a sandwich, sir? I got a few extras here.”

  “No,” the intruder said.

  “I’ll take one,” the besieged chief tech said, the one with the Guild man leaning over his shoulder.

  Bren let him take a pick while the argument went on, Jase with the Guild. “In absence of the senior captain’s direct order, no.”

  Bren started down the row, handing out drinks and sandwiches, his back to the problem. Worried eyes met his, one after the other, warning, desperately asking.

  “Cook’s compliments,” Bren said, hoping to God nobody recklessly tried a whispered message. He was used to acute atevi hearing—and the electronics that routinely amplified it. There was ample evidence of electronics on the intruders, doubtless amplification, and he strongly suspected some sort of link back to Guild headquarters, but maybe not as good a link as they might want, given two hulls and the technical facts of their connection. He didn’t need to pass specific messages. His very presence with a tray of sandwiches said cook knew, so crew below knew and atevi and Mospheirans knew. He was no threat—but atevi had a reputation for stealth and silent interventions. Don’t panic, his being here said. We’re aware. Gran Sidi is aware. The captain has armed, skilled support.

  Jase’s ongoing debate with the Guild—he couldn’t hear it all, but it seemed the Guild inspectors demanded to see the log and Jase kept saying no, the senior captain had ordered to the contrary, the senior captain had to authorize that, and the senior captain wasn’t here, so hell would have icicles before any non-crew touched a board.

  “Not until she’s on this deck and she changes the order,” Jase said. Perfect imitation of a subordinate with one bone to chew and absolutely no imagination of doing anything to the contrary. The Guildsmen, in their turn, wanted to call their headquarters and get that direct contact with Sabin.

  “Won’t matter,” Jase said, obdurate. “Won’t matter. Until she’s on this deck, no matter what she says to the contrary, I have my orders. Nothing she says is going to mean a thing to me until she’s back here and she can say so on our deck.”

  For the first time a certain method appeared in Sabin’s madness: you asked, I went, now you want it different. Sorry. You’ve blown your cover and I won’t do a thing until I’ve got answers.

  One hoped to God nobody had tried to apply force to Sabin and her security team. One hoped she reached the Guild offices, took her stand and explained to the Guild why they had to turn over all alien remains and materials in their custody and pack their suitcases for a long trip.

  Meanwhile there seemed to have been no word from her. Jase stood his ground, heard all the arguments, nodded sagely—and went repeatedly back to a simple shake of the head and a repetition that he wasn’t going beyond Sabin’s orders.

  Bren coasted past, dumbly made a second attempt to hand the captain a sandwich and a drink in mid-argument.

  “Cameron,” Jase said in warning. “Just stow it.”

  “Yessir,” he said, as if he’d understood some silent, peeved order, and wandered off to the administrative corridor, the Guild agents’ suspicious eyes on his back. One of them was going to follow. Not good.

  He took his tray and basket into Jase’s office, whisked the damning picture off the shelf and under the basket atop the tray, then set down Jase’s sandwich and drink just as the shadow appeared in the doorway.

  And came inside.

  “Can’t leave you in here, sir.” Bren made his voice perfectly polite, a little nervous as he tucked his empty tray close. With a free hand, he waved the agent toward the door. “I got to go, sir, if you please. Can’t leave anybody in the captain’s office. Regulations.”

  The agent edged out, scowling, casting a look over his shoulder. Bren walked out and happened to lock the door in the process.

  He had one drink container left. He blithely offered it to the agent—and let that cold answering stare go all the way to the back of his eyes. His only personal problem was getting back with the tray and reporting to cook. He didn’t know what the captain was doing. He didn’t know what the problem was up here. It wasn’t his job. The galley was. Captains and officers solved the big problems. It was all way over his head.

  The agent collected the drink. Bren just wanted to get back to the galley. Didn’t want to lose the tray. No-damn-sir, didn’t want to look any angry officer in the eye.

  The hand dropped. Bren went on his way. And reaching the bridge, interrupted the captain in mid-argument. Again. “Beg pardon, sir, cook’s asking when’s shift change?”

  “Just set it up,” Jase said. That wasn’t chance wording. “These gentlemen will be touring belowdecks very briefly—tell ops down there they have their own key.”

  Damn, Bren thought. Their own key. The captains notoriously had keys, builders’ keys, that let them into anything. If they had that, nothing was defended except the bridge, where human bodies sat obdurately between the Guild men and the boards.

  He carefully kept the stupid look. “Yessir.” He hugged his tray to him and headed toward the exit. Past the last agent.

  Whose rifle dropped to bar his way.

  “What’s this with guns?” he asked, quick as thinking—let Banichi and Jago know he was in trouble. Indignantly: “What’s this with guns, captain?”

  “You don’t interfere with my crew,” Jase said, strode over and shoved the rifle up, hard. “You may be almighty Guild enforcement, mister, but you don’t interfere with crew carrying out my orders.”

  “This is the way it’s going to be,” the senior agent said from the heart of the bridge. “We stay aboard and we supervise. We supervise until your captain gives us access, and maybe we supervise some more. That’s our order from our deck, and that’s that, captain, so get used to it.”

  The standoff continued. Bren edged toward the lift, remembered to cast a questioning look at Jase as the source of all law, and got his silent order. Go. Do something.

  They were between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They couldn’t afford a shoot-up on the bridge, they still hadn’t had fueling questions answered—and Sabin was on the Guild’s deck and vulnerable, if not already under interrogation. Not good, not good, not good. He could call his staff in, but he wasn’t ready to blow the situation wide open.

  “Cameron,” Jase said. “Get below. Advise gran.”

  “Who’s this gran?” the Guild senior wanted to know.

  “Senior officer,” Jase said. “In charge of logistics for the colony level. I take it your briefing included that detail.”

  It didn’t. The Guild men looked perplexed, hadn’t a clue that the ship was here to take their residents off the station, and Jase didn’t explain what the ‘colony level logistics’ had to do with anything, either, whether it was full of colonials or not.

  But a suspicious man could guess whatever the station had ordered or asked of Ramirez—strike eva
cuation of the station as part of the plan, at least as far as these lower-level officers knew.

  “Well, that colony level’s the mission, gentlemen.” Best Sabin imitation he’d ever heard Jase launch. “It’s been the mission since our last call here, and I suggest you bear it in mind as you tour the facilities. Maybe your command hadn’t any inclination to tell your office what the exact arrangement was, but we’re expecting their help in operations, we’re expecting a certain contingent from your station to board in good order and with their equipment, and if general administration is trying at this point to wilt and change the mission, let me remind you that you’ve got an alien ship out there that’s curious what we’re doing. I’m well sure it has a limited patience, and if you want to prove obstructionist to our taking on a fuel load to deal with it, I have to ask whether your administration is on the up and up with you, with the station population, or with our captains.”

  God. Jase had learned something in the court at Shejidan. It was the best impromptu flight of imagination and half truths since Ilisidi’s launch-day banquet.

  It certainly seemed to catch the mission leader aback. At least a doubt or two flickered across that square face. Bren, on the other hand, reminded himself not to look remotely sharp, only being part of the furnishings, same as the cabinetry. He had his gun in his pocket, an open com they hadn’t detected, or didn’t think was out of the ordinary for crew, and a listening post down below which he had every confidence was processing all this and laying contingency plans to get control of the ship, if need be. He didn’t have a word to say. No, not a thought in his head but awe of authority and a certain confusion about the situation.