Cherryh, C. J. - Foreigner 06 by Cherryh C. J

Author:Cherryh, C. J. [Cherryh, C. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-08-29T17:12:05+00:00

He obliged the man. They walked. They saw exactly nothing. They might go to the galley, Bren decided, lacking a plan, not sure how far or how long his staff was holding off, but absolutely certain they were being tracked. He could arrange a diversion, maybe get cook’s help to shove the fellow into a storeroom, his best amateur imagination of a solo heroic finish to this foolery.

But the minute he made a move on this highly wired individual, conversely, and probably what Banichi and his staff was thinking, Jase would have to answer for that action upstairs, with all the others and all that delicate equipment up there—not to mention the communications links this team of enforcers presumably had to the station’s inner workings, where Sabin was also exposed to reprisals. Banichi and the rest might be maneuvering into position in the service accesses, for what he could guess—which was a cold, arduous business, getting between levels. But he wasn’t alone. He was sure he wasn’t alone, and that all the problems he could think of were being thought of: Banichi might have been deceived once about the sun and the stars, but the handling of an armed intrusion and a hostage situation was no mystery at all to him.

The question here was who was hostage. Bren rather thought he wasn’t, that he, in fact, had this part of the problem in hand.

So they walked. And walked. Bren rattled on about safety procedures, the most boring official tour information he could muster, a compendium of the orientation video tour the crew had put together for groundlings. He clutched the trays and the damning picture against him as they walked, and he toured the man up one hall and down the other for what felt like a gun-threatened eternity, telling himself he was gaining time for those who knew what they were doing to work matters out—possibly for Gin to communicate with Jase and coordinate actions.

Meanwhile small rackets led their tour steadily toward the galley’s open door, where cook’s mates came and went. The armed approach drew an anxious look, but no one, thank God, reacted in panic.

“Galley, sir,” Bren said brightly, the obvious, and led their tour inside, stopping just inside the door, where he set the tray and its load onto the nearest shelf and trusted no one to ask brightly what the picture was.

The agent gave everyone the cold eye. A food truck wanted out the door. The agent stood there just long enough to be inconvenient, saying nothing, asking nothing, just looking. The agent moved and the innocent cart trundled past.

“Want a soft drink?” Bren asked, pushing it way beyond bounds, at the same time cuing cook what part he was still playing. “Cup of tea, sir?” He asked himself in an afterthought whether the food menu and the planet-origin smells might give away to this man as much as Jase’s photo, but most anything could pass for synthetic, if the observer were predisposed to believe everything in the universe was synthetic.

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