Foreigner #05 - Defender by C. J. Cherryh

Author:C. J. Cherryh [Cherryh, C. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Adventure, Science Fiction, Fiction, General, Space Opera, Interplanetary Voyages, Space Colonies, Science Fiction; American, Space Ships
ISBN: 9780756400200
Google: BmdaAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: 0756400201
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2001-11-09T23:03:28+00:00

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Chapter 11

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Banichi waited to join them in the executive zone, in that stretch of station corridor where Phoenix’s officers maintained executive offices. The captains’ active presence was in plain evidence—the number of aides and security outside those offices, along the lighted row of potted plants—a number including Kaplan, Polano, and Jenrette, at the end of the corridor.

Banichi, who’d followed it all by remote, didn’t say a thing as they met. Only a look passed between him and Jago.

Our Bren’s gotten us into the worst mess yet, Bren imagined that glance to say.

Had Banichi and Jago volunteered to be going where Tabini proposed to send them?

Could sane planet-dwelling folk even contemplate what they were now supposed to do?

The discontinuity of previous and future reality was so great it just made no sense to a reasonable brain, Bren thought to himself. He himself didn’t yet feel the total shock—hadn’t had time to feel much of anything but the pressure of a requisite series of urgent actions.

And he hadn’t formed a position—in effect, since Tabini had spoken through other agencies, he found he didn’t have one, except that of a subordinate taking orders. And he wasn’t used to blind compliance. It didn’t feel right.

“Mr. Cameron.” Jenrette opened a door and let them in, all three. The aiji and the captains had hammered out the inseparability of a lord and his bodyguard in less pressured times, and no one questioned, now, that Banichi and Jago should enter with him.

Jase and Ogun and Sabin occupied three of the four seats at the end table—Ogun’s dark face as glum and sorrowful as it had been during the funeral, Sabin’s thin countenance set in the habit of perpetual disapproval. Yolanda was there, whether as staff or as interviewee. And Jase—

Jase didn’t look happy at all—not happy to know that all he’d trained for was shifting, that was the first thing: Bren translated that from his own gut-feeling. Not happy to be dealing officially with Yolanda, either, Bren imagined—Yolanda was looking mostly at a handheld unit and not looking at anyone.

The other two captains, Ogun and Sabin, couldn’t be happy about anything that had happened lately: not Ramirez’s death, not the duty that had just landed on their shoulders; not with the information that had suddenly hit the station corridors.

And had Sabin even been in on the post-Tamun plans until Ramirez dropped dead and Ogun had to tell her? There was no way for an outsider to know exactly what had transpired between those two, or what the state of affairs might be. It didn’t look warm or friendly, and Jase’s expression gave him no warnings.

“Mr. Cameron,” Ogun said. “I trust the dowager’s informed you of the situation, and the reason for her presence here. We’re not wholly content with it, but the aiji in Shejidan had an agreement with Captain Ramirez that’s come into play. It was bound to, once certain information reached the aiji—shall I spell out the terms of it?”

Necessary to switch to ship-language.

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