“Homecoming,” Jase said.

“Nervous?” he asked Jase.

“As hell,” Jase confessed, and took a deep breath. “I don’t mind traveling in space at all. It’s stopping short of large objects that scares me.”

Bren felt safe enough to retaliate. “Better than skimming the surface of planets, isn’t it?”

The engines cut in. Jase grabbed the armrests. “I hate that, too. I really hate this part.”

Hard braking. Jase was not comforting.

Warnings flashed on the side-view screen in two languages: in general, stay belted, don’t interfere with crew, and don’t interfere with the pilot.

The mechanisms are old, figured in the explanation.

“There’s an understatement,” Jase muttered.

This time, however, the locking mechanism didn’t fail: the grapple bumped, thumped… engaged.

“We have docked,” came the word from the pilot.

There were multiple sighs of relief. A buckle clicked.

“Please stay close to your seats,” the steward said. “We have yet to perform various tasks and assure the connection.”

Bump.

Gentle bump.

Second jolt, second crash of hydraulics engaged. Bren told his heart to slow down.

They were in. Locked.

“Made it,” he said.

“Bren,” Jase said, in one of those I’ve got something to saytones of voice.

“What?”

“You think Tabini’s ever advised them yet we’re not the test cargo?”

“I’m sure he has.—Worried?”

“Now that I’m here, I’m worried.”

Second thoughts were setting in, in a way he didn’t have to entertain, because hedidn’t have any options here. “About them—or us?”

“Just—worried.”

“Survival of the atevi, Jase. Survival of all of us. If you’ve got second thoughts about rejoining your crew…”

“I have no choice.”

“I canclaim you as a charge d’affaires, under Tabini’s wing, and I know he’ll back me on it. You can talk to Ramirez from that protection, inside our quarters, if you think you need it.”

“You don’t have quarters here… you don’t knowyou have.”

“Believe me. We will have.”

“I’m Ramirez’s choice. I have to play this through, Bren.”

“For you?” Bren asked. “Or for them? Or because it’s wise? Second thoughts, I understand. Believe me, I understand: I’ve made my choice. Whatever you want for yourself, this is no time to make gestures. Too many lives are at risk here. What’s the sensible truth, Jase? What do you expect?”

“I need to get to Ramirez. I need to talk to him. We aren’tatevi associations. I remember that from the gut now.”

Naojai-tu?

Association-shift? Rearrangement of man’chi? Damiri’s cynic meeting the relics, in the play?

Humans, on the other hand, made and dissolved ties throughout their lives, even on so limited an island as Mospheira. Jase washuman; the Pilots’ Guild was human. In this whole business, everyone in the game could rearrange loyalties… so could the atevi, but under different, socially catastrophic terms.

“Still friends,” Bren said, meaning it. “No question.”

“Still friends,” Jase said. “But, Bren, I can’t bewho I was down there. They won’t let me be.”

“Will they not?” He was determined to the contrary, determined, in this last-moment doubt, to recall what Jase had thought last week and the week before. “Listen to me. Will you turn against Tabini, or report against him? I don’t think you will; you understand what the truth is down there. I know you won’t ever turn coat for your own sake. I know you.”

“Do you? I don’t know whatI’ll do.”

“I understand that point of view. Been through it. You knowI’ve been through it.”

“I don’t know I can.”

“Get your thinking in order. I know the dislocation you’re facing. But think of Shejidan. It’s real. The people you know are real, and depending on you, the same as I imagine people here are. Personally—I’ll get you back, Jase. Damned if I won’t. Politically, you’ll do as you have to for the short term, but don’t ruin my play and don’t stray too far, not physically, not mentally.”

“I’m not Mospheiran. I can’t explain how different…”

“ Na dei shi’ra ma’anto paidhi, nadi?”… Are you not one of the paidhiin, sir? Am I mistaken?

From a glance at the screens, Jase flung him a sidelong, troubled glance.

“ Na dei-ji?” Bren repeated, with the familiar.

“Aiji-ji, so’sarai ta.”

There was no real translation, only affection, loyalty, a salute. You taught me, my master. I respect that. Implicit was the whole other mindset, that back-and-forth shift that came with any deep shift in language, an earthquake in thought patterns. From panic in Jase’s eyes, he saw a slide toward sanity and familiar ground.

“Shi, paidhi, noka ais-ji?”

Are you reliable, translator-mediator?

Jase heaved a small, desperate breath. “ Shi!” I am.

“ Thinkin Ragi, Jasi-ji. The language changes the way you think. Changes your resources. Your responses. So does your native accent. You’ve been on a long trip. You’re going to remember things here you’d let slip. But stop and think in Ragi, at least twice a day.”

“It’s trying to slip away from me! Words just aren’t there!”

“I’ve been through that, too, every trip to Mospheira. Fight for it.”

“Please give attention to the exit procedures,” the steward said, with the worst timing in the world or above it.

“Jase,” Bren said. “What’s your personal preference? Honestly. You don’t getpersonal preferences. I don’t. But tell me what it is.”

“If I had personal preference,” Jase said with a desperate laugh, “I’d be home.—God! I’m scrambled…”

“I know that,” Bren said. “Think of the sitting room in the Bu-javid. Think of Taiben. Think of the sea.”

“ Sha nauru shina. I’ll contact you,” Jase said desperately, as staff rose and the Mospheirans rose to leave. “Or you demand to see me. They’re going to want me to themselves for a number of days. Ramirez I can deal with.”

“I’ll raise hell till I do get to see you,” Bren said. It might be a close, intense, emotional debriefing, a close questioning no one could look forward to. They would want to bring him back under their authority, even to crack him emotionally to be sure what was inside… Jase had never quite said so, but he had an idea what he was facing. No government could take chances with trust, not with survival at stake.

Likewise he knew what he was promising Jase, on the instant and on his own judgment of a situation. He hadbeen in Jase’s position. And he knew how Jase might both take comfort in someone saying you matter—and at the same time feel politically trapped. In the emotional impact of the ship that was his home, the atevi world was starting to leak right out of his brain, along with all the memories, all the confidence of what he believed.

“At Malguri,” he said while bangs and thumps proceeded aft and Mospheirans drifted free of their seats. “At Malguri,” he said, because Jase knew the story, “I had one of those language transit experiences; I think it helped make me fluent. I’ll tell you honestly I don’t envy you the debriefing. And this I can tell you. Don’t ever let them take timeaway from you. Don’t ever let their reality become yours. I’ll be here as long as possible, and if I have to leave, I’ll apply every means I’ve got to get contact directly with you. I won’t give up. Ever.”

“You can’t afford that.”

“Hell, Tabini won’t forget you. And I won’t. You have power, Jase. I’m handing it to you, right now. Aishi’ji.” Associates. He laid a grip on Jase’s arm. Tightened it. “We don’t lose one another.”

Jase concentrated on him with that wild look he’d had once, contemplating a very deep sea under his feet, and all that heaving water.

“Kindly file out to the rear hatch,” the steward said.

They unbuckled, were able to rise… straight up… taking advantage themselves of zero-G.