Precursor

by C. J. Cherryh

  Small hours of the morning. Those kind of thoughts.

  He rested the hand with the stylus against his chin, concentrated on the computer screen, buried the files in arcane atevi code which no one on the station would likely crack.

  He got up then, called Kandana, undressed, and lay down in a bed Bindanda arrived to turn down for him.

  “Sleep soundly, nandi,” Kandana said, and Bindanda echoed him.

  “And so must you both,” he said, and shut his eyes, refusing to think of where he was, or what he faced, or what he had to do—beyond take out a title on the station.

  The door shut, leaving the room in utter, depth of space, dark. Air whispered briskly through probably ancient duct work.

  And in that deprivation of senses he drifted down, waking once or twice, asking himself in panic where he was, and whether he was blind.

  “Jago?” he said once.

  But realizing, remembering, calming himself after the separate frights, he found it impossible to resist rest, of which he’d had notably less than his body needed.

  As deep a sleep, while it lasted, as he’d slept in half a dozen weeks.

  The door shot open, and light flared into Bren’s face. He waked in alarm, finding one central reality: Banichi dressed, immaculate, and backed by Narani and two servants. “Time to wake, nadi-ji,” Banichi said.

  He collapsed backward into the pillows, telling himself he was in orbit.

  Truly in orbit.

  Jase wasn’t there. Banichi was.

  Jago. Narani. Tano and Algini.

  He had a meeting with the captains.

  The mind had been very, very far away. He’d been walking on a beach, somewhere in his childhood. He’d heard kids laughing.

  “Nadi?” Banichi asked.

  Banichi could come through a firelight with his hair un-mussed. Bren did not find himself in that condition. Restarting his heart was one priority. Convincing exhausted limbs to move took second place.

  Getting his brain organized was a mandatory third.

  “I’m moving,” he said. Banichi, over the years, had learned not to assume until he saw a foot out of the bed; and he put the necessary foot out, into very, very cold air.

  “God, I don’t think I want to do this.”

  “Shall one wait breakfast?”

  “Bath,” he said, gathered himself up with an effort, and went to the small bath, hoping desperately for hot water.

  It was instant. He hit the wall, managed to get the water adjusted, told himself it wasn’t the shower he was used to; but soap was there, oiled soap with familiar herbal scents: Narani and the staff had everything in order. And when he came out of the bath, his servants were ready with his robe and his clothes.

  He sat down to have his hair dried and braided in its single plait.

  “Did you sleep, nandi?” Narani asked.

  “Very well. What’s the time until my meeting?”

  “Two hours,” Narani said serenely. “One thought you might wish to sleep.”

  “One was very correct,” he murmured, having his hair tugged at. He discovered his eyes shut. “Tea,” he said. It arrived in his hand, preface to breakfast.

  Narani finished.

  He stood up, passed the teacup to Kandana, after which he dressed, taking time to assure the set of his cuffs, and walked out into the hall that now was the heart of the atevi mission.

  Servants bowed.

  Tano occupied a canvas, atevi-sized chair in the room opposite his, the chosen security station, next to the outside access… with a fair stack of electronics and a massive console.

  Where in hell did that come from? he asked himself. He was moderately shocked, and turned to find Banichi waiting for him at what was now the dining room.

  Certain things he didn’t want to know. Certain things he might investigate only if the captains asked him. God knew what else might exist, besides the galley that he and Jase had carefully designed to work with station electronics.

  Doubtless, that set of equipment found compatible power supplies, too. If it was patched into the room electronics in any unreasonable way, he didn’t want to know it, at least not before his meeting.

  Inside the next open door, that which, with two desks secured together, served as their dining hall, places were set for three, himself and Banichi and Jago, two canvas chairs of atevi proportions, and his. Algini was there to draw back his chair for him, and as they three settled, Sabiso brought in a tea service.

  He couldn’t bear the curiosity.

  “You aren’t doing anything I need to know about,” he said to the two of them, Algini having melted out the door. “Banichi, Jago-ji, surely nothing hazardous.”

  “We know what conies and goes,” Banichi said, “and we listen, Bren-ji. Should we not?”

  “Listen as you wish,” he said, as Narani arrived with Kandana, who bore a great, wonderful-smelling serving dish, the contents of which he could guess as a favorite of his. “Nadiin, you amaze me.”

  Kandana set down the platter, and Narani removed the cover. It was amidi ashi, a delicately shirred egg dish.

  “Eggs, Nadiin?”

  Narani was delighted with his success. “We have a few,” Narani said.

  Dared he think that all his security wore their operational blacks, not courtly elegance; and that made into the uniforms were devices the function of which he generally knew as location, protection against sharp weapons, and objects for quiet mayhem? There were small needles, and several sharp edges within what otherwise seemed stiffening.

  He ate breakfast, not saying a thing more on that matter.

  And a little after the final cup of tea, Tano came in to report a human at the outside door, the promised guide.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  It was not the guide of the day before, but it might have been. The eyepiece, the uniform—the quick sweep of a glance around.

  “You can’t have that table in a corridor, sir,” was the first comment, and Bren smiled.

  “This isn’t a corridor.”

  The young man clearly didn’t know what to do with that statement. The door of the security center, fortunately, was discreetly shut. Algini was inside. Tano, Banichi, Jago, and the servant staff stood in the hallway, three of them in operational black, the servants in their usual formal dress, bowing when stared at.

  The guide looked at him, clearly disquieted. “Come with me, sir.”

  “Lead,” Bren said, and the guide opened the door. The man wasn’t prepared to have Banichi and Jago come with him, or didn’t like it. He stopped there, looking uncertain, then led on, and Bren followed, with Banichi and Jago last, very clearly wearing sidearms.

  There was no conversation, no pleasantry, no curiosity… just a handful of looks at corners, doors, and other excuses to look back, and the young man reported into his communications that he had, “a couple of the aliens coming, too.”

  What the answer was to that indiscreet remark Bren didn’t hear. The young man wore an earpiece.

  Not the most communicative guide he’d ever had. Bren tried to keep the corridors in mind through the changes, gray and white and beige corridors, endless, same-looking doors, two lift descents, one of which went forward, not down… he’d looked at the map last night, tried to figure where the administrative portion of the station had been, and thought they were in it, but where the captains lodged, whether even on the station, he had no idea.

  Three corridors on from the only conversation, they entered more prosperous territory, a place with sound-deadening flooring, spongy, odd-feeling plastic, a bracketed, white-light row of prosperous-looking potted plants, which he didn’t recognize, but they had a fresh, not unpleasant smell. The original colonists didn’t bring many plants; weren’t supposed to, in ecological concerns… though some scoundrels had smuggled down tomatoes and a handful of other seeds from the original station stores; but the ship reasonably had whatever ornamentals had survived. Beside a doo
rway an airy green-and-white thing sent down an umbrella of runners and little plants. Another, at a turn, had improbable large leaves, unlike anything in the temperate zones of the mainland or Mospheira.

  The hallways were no longer blank. Turn right at the green-and-white one, be sure to pass the giant-leafed monster. Jase hadn’t said they had plants aboard… hadn’t known anything on the mainland; but these…

  Could they be from the stores on the station?

  Or from some completely unknown world?

  The doors become more impressive as they walked.

  And centermost, at the end… two potted plants and a gold-metal door… clearly they’d reached some place of importance, but he’d learned never to assume that a door led to a room and not another hallway.

  But their guide led them to it, pushed a button, opened the door, showed them into a council room with a T-shaped table, four seats at the far side. Ogun was one; Ramirez was the other. Thin hair combed down and cut straight across the brow, hollow cheeks, a mouth that didn’t give a thing to anyone; Ogun’s dark, square face was unsmiling.

  But Bren smiled, taking his own advice. He walked in on the even numbers, even balance of seats. No round table here. The captains clearly dominated the arrangement.

  “Sir,” he said, “captains.” He walked the length of the table to Ramirez, offered his hand, forcing the reciprocal gesture, and Ramirez rose, the first Mospheiran-style politeness he’d met. “Glad to meet you in person, captain; Captain Ogun, a plea-sure.” He extended his hand there, too, and Ogun frowned and rose, taking it.

  “Cameron.” Ramirez said, settling, and shifted a glance toward Banichi and Jago, just the least admission of their presence, about which he said not a thing, nor lodged any objection. Ogun sat down.

  “Delighted you could find the time,” Bren said. “I trust you’ve spoken with Jase.”

  “Extensively,” Ramirez said. “He says you’re here with authority.”

  “That’s so.”

  “To offer what?”

  “What do you want?” Bren asked.

  “What we want, Mr. Cameron, is a skilled work crew that we can communicate with.”

  “Failing that, a skilled work crew who communicates accurately with their group leader.”

  “When do we get the full set of shuttles?”

  “I saw number two six days ago. No skin yet, but soon. Fast as it can be done. You want a job done… we have personnel who will be interested in coming here. You came here wanting a base. You didn’t have a way to reach us. We built it. What else?”

  Ramirez waved a hand about him. “Make the station work.”

  “That can be done.”

  “Can you do it?” Ogun asked with a dour, flat stare. “These people of yours have a size handicap, fitting into places.”

  “They also have talents, captain, as I’m sure Jase has told you, which enabled the shuttle out there.”

  “Human-designed,” Ogun scoffed.

  “More convenient,” Bren said. Ramirez, if he was senior, said nothing, and tempting as it was to come back with wit, Bren restrained it in favor of a calm, respectful demeanor. They were autocrats, no question. This was the heart of the Guild. “You wield absolute authority here. The aiji has the same. The aishidi’tat, the Western Association, is a misnomer: the aiji rules the whole of the continent, can manage the industry you need, with minimal difficulty, and will keep his agreements.”

  “And push,” Ramirez said, “like hell.”

  “He’s an impatient man.”

  “Man,” Ramirez said.

  “You are in communication with an alien authority, captain. Man is the term they use for you and themselves, which is fortunate. Their customs aren’t yours. Their instincts aren’t yours. The first contact of humans with atevi was a success that led to a disaster. If you’d come a century ago, I don’t want to guess what might have happened. No supplies. No help at all from the planet. But very fortunately, now there’s a small association of trained personnel who know how to work with one another, a handful of leaders on the mainland and on the island who understand how to avoid problems, and with a good deal of luck we’ll agree, and make you very happy.”

  “Not by throwing schedules to the winds and pressing us!”

  There it was, natural consequence of the situation, and it was a case of tiptoeing past it or confronting it, keeping the aiji’s position his own secret, or laying it on the table and playing the pieces where they fell.

  He made his choice.

  “Being one of that small association of trained personnel,” Bren said, arms on the table, “I would have urged the aiji to proceed differently. Unfortunately, no one on your side asked me or Jase about recalling the paidhiin. That looked like a fast move. It touched off the island, it touched off the atevi, and that was exactly what happened. Jase couldn’t explain why he was recalled. Yolanda Mercheson hadn’t called back with reasons. You may have had good reasons, but I couldn’t tell the aiji I understood, and the aiji decided to find out, by honoring his agreement with the Mospheirans and sending one of their delegations up with his and not announcing the fact beforehand, even to me, since I happened to be on the island and not within secure communication range. That, gentlemen, is a very good example of the communications difficulty we hope to avoid in the future. Fortunately, this misunderstanding didn’t harm anyone. I might have argued with the aiji not to do it; but it was already fairly well in progress. My instincts said not to; I came here on twelve hours’ notice because, frankly, I want to know who I’m dealing with before I advise the aiji what to do.”

  There was a small, stone-faced silence.

  “Mr. Cameron, you’re pushing us.”

  “No, Captain Ramirez, I’m being completely honest. I stand between, admittedly, not a foreign power, but an alien one, and you. The Mospheirans will have promised you the sun on a platter. We in the aishidi’tat know their virtues… and their limits. I, as a one-time representative of the Mospheiran government, know their limits; and I say in all desire to have Mos-pheira benefit from your protection, that I hope you don’t rely heavily on any offers from the island, because I know who makes them. Fortunately, that’s not relevant. The resources critical to your needs are on the atevi side of the straits, except for a little tin and a little silver, which I’m sure Mospheira will be glad to sell you. That’s my opening position.” He drew a breath, seeing he was already pressing most of the way to the wall. He went the rest of it. “The specifics of my position are actually quite generous, unless you have personnel to spare to run a space station, as I know you don’t. This is the atevi’s star, the atevi’s planet, the atevi’s native solar system; you have a ship that looks to have had hard times, and you want supply. We think we can arrange a bargain.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “No. By all you say about an oncoming threat, we and you don’t have two hundred years to learn one another and fight a mistaken war over trivialities. Ask the Mospheirans what they think of sharing the station. They won’t like the idea at all; but they may not refuse it. Atevi don’t want to share it, either; but they know Jase, they think he’s been telling the truth, and they’re disposed to work with you and with the Mospheirans to gain their own say. It’s a situation they know they have to live with.”

  “You mind my conveying this to them?” Ramirez asked, sitting in a similar attitude, arms on the table. Ogun frowned, no different than his other frowns.

  “I’d be happier with free access to the Mospheiran delegation, but I don’t think you want us to have that, as much chance as we’ve had to do it beforehand.”

  Ramirez cast a glance aside at Ogun.

  “What do you want in exchange,” Ogun asked, “to arrange this delivery of goods? What coin are we going to trade in?”

  “Ideas, captain. Atevi understand that commerce. Knowledge. The agreement that they’ll run this station.” It wasn’t the end of the agreement; there was the question about whose law

 
; was going to prevail, but the first objective was possession of the station. “Tabini-aiji declared the terms he wants; I’ve relayed them. I’ve relayed to him what I know about the kind and amount of supply Phoenix has used; I think he can do it.”

  “Can he build another starship?”

  That stopped him cold, for at least a handful of heartbeats. It was the logical extension of the request. It was completely reasonable, in that sense.

  “I can relay that request.”

  “Can he do it?”

  “Yes. I think he can. How many are on the ship? How many does it take?”

  “Jase didn’t tell you?” Ramirez asked.

  “I ask the senior captain, who probably has figured the size of the request he’s making of the planet: how many does it take?”

  “Up here? To man the station and handle the equipment? Five hundred minimum. To build… varies. Several hundred at mining; several hundred at refining; several hundred at fabrication…”

  “The old figure, the first figure, was three thousand.”

  “Twice that. Twice that.”

  “Five shuttle trips to start.”

  “Mr. Cameron, this station is holed in a dozen places.”

  “That’s not as difficult as not having a station, is it?”

  “Why was there a war?” Ogun asked. “The Mospheirans say the atevi are inclined to war.”

  Bren shook his head. “The War happened because humans moved in with atevi, allied with the wrong party in a chaotic situation, ignored their boundaries, and didn’t know what they were doing. Atevi didn’t see it coming, either. That’s why we have paidhiin. That’s why only one human after the dust settled was licensed to live on the mainland and mediate trade.”

  “You turned on your own leaders.”

  “Mospheira still pays me. I’ve objected. They keep putting money in my account, and I just don’t spend it. It’s their position I still somewhat work for them, despite my advisements to the contrary, and the plain fact is that I do mediate. They don’t want a war; the aiji doesn’t. None of us want your war, but if it comes here, we don’t see any chance of ignoring it.”