Explorer (7 page)

Bren’s pocket com beeped. So did Jase’s desk unit.

She’s here,
was the general advisement. Heads up.

A few beats later the door opened and Sabin walked in. She was a thin, past-sixties woman with close-clipped
gray hair, uniform sweater and uniform coat. She didn’t walk into a room: she invaded it—gave an habitual scowl to their security, who folded in after her—their security, then her security, two men, Collins and Adams, intent on coming inside if the rest were bent on it.

Bren stood up, a courtesy. Jase poured a cup of tea and set it on his desk edge.

She didn’t take it. She didn’t sit down. “Nature of the emergency. I trust there is an emergency.”

“A fairly major one,” Jase said. “The tape, captain. The tape. And I’m not about to let Mr. Cameron go out of here seeing what he’s seen without hearing your side of this.”

“
What
in hell have you done?”

“Well, looked for answers, for a start.” Jase’s eyes could be perfectly innocent, on demand. “Unfortunately I’ve stirred up more questions than answers, but I have every confidence you had a reason for restricting the tape record. I’m equally confident that you were testing me to see if I could get it. I did. So I’m not sending our ally below with half the truth to work on. I’m certainly not having our allies wait until they get to the station to see what any eye can see—that Reunion was under an immaculate one
g
rotation nine or so years ago, while we were docked and refueling, contrary to the image provided belowdecks; and certainly the crew will see it, and recall all too keenly that
isn’t
what we all saw on our screens, so there’s a whole other question. So I think we ought to talk about this, captain, and I’m sorry about waking you early to do it, but Mr. Cameron’s knowledge of the situation—for which I take full responsibility—provides a certain urgency. Unhappily my watch falls during your sleep, and I apologize. Considering the hour, I at least made you some tea. My aides will provide whatever else you might want.”

Dead silence. Sabin was fully capable of wishing them in hell and walking out, all questions hanging.

She didn’t. “So you got into the log.”

“It took some work, captain. I trust you knew I’d do that. I took it rather as one of the many tests of competency you’ve set me. I did it. Now Mr. Cameron’s seen it. So has his guard.”

They’d provided a chair for Sabin in the scant room there was left. She turned it on its track, took the tea from Kaplan, and sat down.

Bren sat, having been prepared to intervene, glad he hadn’t had to. But the crisis wasn’t past. Sabin often operated on a delayed fuse.

She had a sip of tea—she took it dark, strong, and unmitigated, ignoring the condiments, ignoring the hazards of one past poisoning.

“So?” she said to Jase, likewise ignoring the crowd of security and the sure knowledge the atevi representative was wired.

“I’ve a lingering few critical questions,” Jase said. “I can certainly understand why you didn’t release this to the crew at large. Captain Ramirez faked the monitor output, and he did it before he ever had clear contact with the survivors. Am I right?”

Sabin sipped her tea and didn’t say a thing.

“When crew finds out,” Jase said, “if they find out when they’re in a good mood—that’s one thing. If things aren’t going well when they find out, I ask myself, what else are they going to doubt?”

Sabin shrugged. “You have all the answers. You’ve made the decision to view this with Mr. Cameron. I’m listening to your reasoning.”

“Excuse me, captain,” Bren said. “Our section is disconnected from these events and capable of discretion, if that’s the ruling here.”

“I’m sure you’re capable of a good many things,” Sabin said. “Including seeking your own advantage. I take it the dowager now knows, too.”

“If it isn’t the case, I’m sure it will be as soon as she wakes. At least her staff knows. So does mine.”

“Marvelous,” Sabin said dryly, swallowed the tea and held out her cup to Jase. “Another cup.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jase said moderately, without a ruffle, and handed it to Kaplan to fill, which menial task Kaplan did with dispatch. “And in the reasonable assumption,” Jase said, “like other matters you’ve left me to find for myself, that this tape and the technical way into the log was a matter of my education in command, for which I’m grateful, I certainly learned a great deal more about ship’s operations than I expected, as
you
knew I’d learn, I’m sure, all to the good. So I doubt you’re entirely surprised that this tape Mr. Cameron suggested was
important at the start of the voyage remained an issue with me. I did note you never cautioned me against finding it—and considering my peculiar position in this office, I’ve also spent some time wondering about reasons you may have had for remaining the perpetual dissenting vote on the Captains’ Council. Voting on principle, I take it. Possibly opposed to my very existence.”

“Go on.” Sabin took the second cup from Kaplan’s hand. “This is actually interesting.”

“As to why I brought Mr. Cameron in on the matter, it’s precisely the consideration of a foreign state of mind that we on
Phoenix
don’t quite understand. The very thing my education prepared me to deal with. You sent me down to the planet . . .”

“Correction.
Stani
sent you down to the planet.” Ramirez, that meant.

“With your dissenting vote, granted. As, very likely, when Ramirez proposed to get into the gene banks to create me and Yolanda in the first place, you weren’t highly pleased. But all that aside, the captains voted, and I exist. It was the ship’s executive that sent me down to the atevi world, unprepared as I turned out to be—but having at least the basics of an understanding what I was up against—what Yolanda and I were up against. Then Mr. Cameron took me in hand and shook new considerations into me. Set me out on an ocean and let me contemplate a whole wealth of new input.”

“This is far less interesting.”

“Like everything not bounded by this hull. I’m aware that’s your view, captain. It’s not your job. But I assure you it’s mine, to understand things external. And that’s my use to you. I was born to acquire a certain expertise—enough, in my executive capacity, now, to know what Mr. Cameron’s knowledge is worth, and enough to consult him when the executive of this ship is as entangled as it is in Guild deceptions, and burdened as it is with past decisions, and sitting on an ocean of information far deeper than we may think it is.”

“Meaning you brought him in here hoping his presence will moderate my response to what you’ve done.”

“
Meaning,
captain, I recommend hearing his input where it regards diplomacy, including internal diplomacy, particularly that of our allies, whose reaction is not to be taken for granted—and I suggest we listen to him particularly carefully, because if a first viewing of this tape touched off his ground-born suspicions, it’s
certainly touched off mine on certain major topics—such as whether Captain Ramirez deceived the rest of the executive or only half of it; or whether Pratap Tamun was specifically after this tape when he staged his mutiny; or whether this crew should worry about the integrity of command; or whether Mr. Jenrette, whom you snatched fairly precipitately out of my security team once this tape turned out to be an issue, is going to be available to me to fill in where this tape stops. And as to why Captain Ramirez ordered me born twenty years ahead of the mission I ended up being uniquely suited to perform, I don’t believe in coincidence. He knew something. He intended something. You’ve spent twenty years of my life voting no on every single issue I’ve been involved in, and probably before that. So I’m asking if you had good reason to vote that way.”

“Good reason.” Sabin seemed surprised, even amused, somewhere in the outrage. “And we’re to discuss these delicate situations with Mr. Cameron present and his security wired to the hilt. Do you intend to provide a translation to your staff, Mr. Cameron?”

“If you ask my discretion, again, my particular interests involve the dowager’s safety and the mission’s success. We won’t jeopardize this ship. Personal issues between members of the ship’s executive are likely outside our concern or interest. But serious questions are posed here, captain, and the tape is disturbing. I’d suggest even at your level you suspect Captain Ramirez
didn’t
tell you half what was going on, and that what happened at Reunion on your last visit didn’t involve unanimous decisions of the executive of this ship.”

He hadn’t put that the most straightforwardly possible. He’d backed around the issue and given Sabin the broadest possible avenue to maneuver. And Sabin took a moment, thinking.

“Not bad, this
tea.
”

“A planetary gift,” Jase murmured.

“Addictive,” Sabin said.

“An easy habit to form, at least.”

“Like a hell of a lot else that’s insinuated itself aboard! Hype up on sugar, calm down with tea, never ask what it does to the body.
Poison
’s at least decently evident in the aftermath.”

Sabin rarely brought up the unfortunate dinner party.

“This
isn’t
poison, is it?”

“No, ma’am,” Jase said. “This is my personal store. And lest we ever forget, you’re in command of the ship getting there and getting home again, while I’m not remotely confident I could do that. So I’m extremely determined you should survive in good health.”

“Home,” Sabin observed. In fact it
was
a curious word for
Phoenix
crew to use about any destination besides the ship itself.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jase said. “
Home
to the atevi world. After which I’ll resign this post and leave your command unquestioned and forever untroubled by my existence.”

Sabin’s gaze strayed up past Jase’s shoulder, to the barren shelves, the single framed photo, the fishing trip.

Snapped back, and hooded in speculation. “A captain of this ship wants to live on a ball of rock.”

“I’m Ramirez’s appointee,” Jase said. “An interim solution to a specific problem, in no wise approaching your expertise or your talent, I’ve no question.”

“Yet you get into the ship’s log and distribute information on your own authority.”

“I do specifically what I was trained to do, senior captain, which is to figure whether smart people are saying what they think they’re saying when the words reach somebody not on their wavelength.”

“You’re determined you’ll never lack employment.”

“And I hope I’m useful, captain. Question: Tamun got into the captaincy and immediately mutinied, and died. Was it all about this tape?”

“Why would you suppose that Pratap Tamun has anything to do with this tape?”

“He was bridge crew. And how many of the crew that watch were sworn to secrecy, and how many of them had to hold onto suspicions for years, watching the executive lie to their cousins and mothers?”

“Lie?”

“Lie, captain. It’s clear the images fed throughout the ship—maybe even to the bridge—were a lie. And the common crew is going to find out, now or later, assuming there’s anyone alive on Reunion Station.”

“Make it later. Once the mission’s succeeded they won’t care. If they find out before—it certainly won’t
serve this ship.”

“On the whole, I’ve reached the same conclusion.”

“Oh, I’m gratified.”

“But if we can tell at a glance that that station’s alive, so could anybody else coming here over the last nine years, and if someone has come calling, and if they’re the same hostile aliens, the station won’t have fooled them by playing dead and using spinner chambers way inside, which somehow some of us were left to assume. As good as put up signs saying
we’re here.
Let me pose you this, captain: let’s assume—let’s outright
assume
we’re going to get there and find the station in ruins. Let’s assume worse than that. Let’s assume we’re going to get there and discover humans don’t own it any more. What’s left for us? We should have told the crew the truth back at dock. If we don’t tell them now and they get there and find trouble, where are we going to start telling the truth?”

“And I’m saying if that happens, crew’s going to be too busy for questions. Stow this information and don’t make trouble.”

“What
did
you see when you were there last? What was Ramirez poking about in when the ship tucked tail and ran back to Reunion in the first place?”

“Stop at the first problem. Other operations aren’t in your capacity.”

“Why did Tamun finally turn on you, captain? And while you’re at it—why was I ever born?”

“Both deeper questions than you ever want the answer to.”

“Ramirez meant to double-cross the Guild years ago. Didn’t he?”

“He had a lot of crazy notions.”

“And you voted no every time.”

“We have witnesses, Captain Graham. Maybe this is best said between us.”

“Maybe it’s not. Maybe at this point I’m done with secrets and having him here will save me the trouble of explaining it all. So treat him as family. Why? What were you voting against? Why were you always opposed to me?”

“Your ignorance isn’t enough?”

“You can’t provoke me out of asking the question, Captain. Why do I exist?”

“What’s your guess?”

“That Ramirez had a private notion of a colony of his own, one that the Guild might not find out about until it was too late.”

Sabin didn’t respond at once. She sipped cooling tea and set the cup down. “Well, you’re smarter than I thought.”

“It doesn’t tell me an answer, what he wanted.”

“Oh, you’re fairly well on the track. He kept nosing about until he found trouble and until trouble found us. Then he had the notion of going back to Alpha colony. And when we did go back, and when he found what he found, it set him back, oh, for about an hour. By then, of course, we had limited options. And no fuel. And we knew that the island was founded by rebels against ship’s authority; and that the atevi continent—having all its drawbacks—had natural resources the island didn’t. So right from the start we had our problem—and we weren’t that sure the trouble that hit Reunion wasn’t coming on our tails. I didn’t vote against refueling at Reunion. I didn’t vote against refueling at Alpha. I didn’t vote against cooperation with the atevi, for that matter. It was all we had left. It’s all we still have left. I tell you, if I ever have to plant a space station, I’ll do it in a populated, civilized region, not out around some remote rock with a disputed title, where you don’t know who the owners are.”