Jago gave him his computer, and with it he settled in the smaller of the chairs and set to work finding files. Yes, the ship records wereavailable. And Jase’s notes, on particulars of every member of the Pilots’ Guild, every acquaintance he had, every officer, every piece of history.

Trust that information?

Yes. He did. He discovered even his scruples were useful to Tabini, that his human nerves remained sensitive to human concepts of betrayal… that served the aiji. The penalty was a live and touchy conscience about what he did, but intellectually, yes, he knew Jason had hedged the truth and then, in later years, amended it, quietly, just changing a detail or two.

Now he did believe the record, as he believed Jason. His file regarded more than a hundred of the crew.

Senior Captain Ramirez was seventy-one as the ship counted time.

Senior captain, a son, a daughter, both privileged into command training: command within the Guild had descended down very narrow lines, all but hereditary unless the offspring failed the academic tests.

A wife of fifty-some years, deceased. Marriage on Mospheira was often transitory, sometimes lacking entirely. Marriage on Phoenixwas lasting, rank-linked, alliances of power that just didn’t break, not without dire consequences.

He’d asked Jase whether to believe Ramirez. Jase had written: Ramirez picked me and Yolanda togo down. In a sense, if I have a father… he is. He signed the papers, at least, that drew the samples out of storage. He wanted us born because it was a new age. He didn’t expect what happened.

Jase had written it in Ragi. They’d been talking late that evening, in the sitting room in the Atageini apartment, inhaling a wind laden with djossiflowers.

He still could all but smell the flowers and the fire when he thought of that conversation… when Jase had repeated in Ragi, “We have no man’chi, except to the ship. And our mothers. We have ordinary mothers. But Ramirez sent me. He’s looked out for me all my life. Encouraged what I studied. I suppose that’s having a father.”

“I couldn’t tell you, either,” he’d said to Jase.

No man’chi, except to the ship.

Jase had pursued the old knowledge for its own sake, because Stani Ramirez had had the notion of returning to the world they’d left behind to set up a trade route, a stellar empire. Things had gone monstrously wrong, then, within Jase’s lifetime.

Jase said… and they had cast everything on believing Jase… the Pilots’ Guild was here to set up a defense of the world. The station they’d left at that other star hadn’t stood a chance.

“I saw the pictures,” Jase had said, that night that Bren had found himself absolutely believing the alien threat. “Only a few of us actually went aboard the station. There was a meeting then, when we’d pulled away. Some of the crew said we ought to try to find the aliens and settle accounts; some said we should just run elsewhere and not risk an enemy tracking us home. But there were all the records on the station. There were the charts. Some thought the station crew might have destroyed them; but most thought they didn’t have the chance. We voted to come here, hoping they’ll wait to digest what they took.”

In due time there came a great deal of thumping and bumping in the hall.

“Shall one investigate?” Jago asked.

“Let them proceed in their own way,” Bren said, much as his security chafed to be of use, and to know what was going on. Moving out, he thought, probably crew quite, quite annoyed with the guests from the planet.

The thumping went on.

Banichi settled to reading, Jago, Tano, and Algini played a game of chance. The servants were similarly engaged, casting dice, darting glances at the door.

In time the light by the door flashed once, twice, and the door opened.

A man in uniform said, “Mr. Cameron?” as if he couldn’t tell which was which. “The area is yours.”

“Thank you,” Bren said, keying a total shutdown.

He rose, walked unhurriedly into the corridor, and surveyed a pile of baggage, three more humans, two with sidearms, and a space of corridor which he gathered had just become an atevi residence. “Very fine, I’m sure. We appreciate your work, Nadiin.”

“Captain’s orders,” the man remarked coldly, and walked off, stiff-backed.

Bren’s nerves twitched, cultural reaction bristled just slightly, but he’d triggered that; he’d done it consciously, and he didn’t answer, just stood and watched as the crew, likely the displaced personnel, stalked out.

Well, well, well, he thought, wary of creating lasting anger; or the assumption atevi could be insulted with impunity.

“Crewman!” he said sharply.

There was a fast look, a wary look.

“One regrets the inconvenience. Those dislodged will receive compensation, if they will make me aware of their names.”

“Johnson, sir.” The jaw was set. “Johnson, Andresson, Pressman, Polano.”

“Three names known on Mospheira,” he said, disobeying his own instructions to his staff, to smile. Possibly they were doing that. “One I don’t know. Interesting. We will import goods once cargo delivery begins; let us know what you think fair return. Jase Graham may recommend certain items.”

The stance was less hostile, though uneasy. The foremost crewman returned a sketch of a salute. “Yes, sir. Where do we turn that in, sir?”

“There will be a desk here. Tomorrow if you wish. It may take a while, but we have a long memory.”

“Yes, sir.” The man wavered into a move backward, and all four left, to talk, perhaps to officers, not unlikely to other lower-ranking crew. Likely bribery and compensation broke a good many rules.

The door shut.

Banichi arrived beside him. “Shall one inspect for bugs?” Banichi asked. “Or leave them?”

“Search. Let the staff unpack. One shouldn’t, however, remove their bugs… or destroy the communications panels. Yet.”

“Yes” Banichi said, satisfied.

The search they would make was technical, beyond his competency. He did trust Banichi wouldn’t short out the station's power systems or ring a fire control alarm.

And there the cargo stood, a mountain of black canvas and white packing crates, the galley, kitchen supplies, Banichi’s own gear, clothing… weapons, if the Guild had kept its word and stayed out of their baggage. Their electronics surely weren’t as sophisticated as the equipment they passed through, but there was, to be sure, the quality of the persons using it. He thought of a shipful of technologically sophisticated spacefarers spying and eluding one another for centuries; and he couldn’t quite imagine how adroit competition could make them, whether worse, or better… but knowing the aiji’s court as he did, Bren rather bet on his own allies.

Chapter 10

The servants would not possibly permit the paidhi to enter the apartment they had chosen for him until they had, of all improbable things, produced from the baggage and arranged three small scroll paintings by the doorway.

Farther, in the main corridor they spread out a mat with auspicious and harmonizing symbols, a unification of one in a hallway otherwise appallingly blank.

It all depended on numbers of items with which they had to deal, which they could not possibly have judged without seeing the place, and Bren had to wonder what other adornments they had brought that rested unused. Narani’s sense of felicitous design was undisputed. His ingenuity was extreme.

More—Bren had tried to ignore the racket, and not to ask—they had shifted furnishings, taken other chairs from tracks, traded between rooms, hung small, portable artworks, and set up a kitchen, all in four hard-working hours that by now had entered the mid of the night down in Shejidan.