Explorer by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online

authority to decide the course of this ship, the same as she does.”
    “I’m a captain who knows less about the operation of this ship than the average maintenance grunt. I’m a damn linguist, Bren! That’s what I am. That’s
all
I am, and I’m not even competent at that.”
    “You are competent. What you can do is always invisible to you. From outside perspective . . . you don’t have to sit a technical post. You can command the techs. You can say, go here, or go there. That’s all the captains do, that I’ve ever observed.”
    “And what do I do when we come charging in to Reunion and I haven’t any of the Guild computer keys?”
    “As
surviving
ship’s executive,” Bren said in Ragi, “might one not say—the keys weren’t passed?”
    Jase stared at him. Outright stared. Maybe took an internal moment to translate that twice. But Jase had been in Shejidan, and knew the atevi court, and the use of daggers and plots. The paidhi-aiji was steeped in that culture. And at a pinch, could more than
think
in Ragi.
    “The full range of alternatives,” Bren said, again in Ragi. And in Mosphei’: “A question. Merely a question.”
    “Too much unknown,” Jase said in Ragi. And in ship-speak: “And I’m human, and I’m holding a bomb, in this record. And I respect Sabin. I do respect her. I didn’t start this voyage that way, but I do.”
    “Granted. Not incompatible considerations.”
    Maybe Jase needed a dose of Ragi. Maybe he added, not subtracted, possibilities and solutions. But it remained an uncomfortable situation.
    “You respected Ramirez,” Bren reminded him, in Ragi. “And by all you say, nadi, who knows? Maybe he was about to execute the plan you used to think he had. He released the Archive to the planet. He wasn’t that worried about contamination. Or he’d reconciled himself to us. Maybe he really did refuel the ship as a defense. He planned for another starship . . . but that’s going to be atevi-run. The aiji’s help could provide him his widest ambitions. A developed planet, all those resources. Maybe he wasn’t, in his own plan, going back until he’d prepared a base that wouldn’t fall under Guild control.”
    Worth considering, at least. Jase steepled his hands, thinking, and thinking. “He deployed me, and Yolanda.”
    “Yet put
you
back in space, but not her.”
    “It’s a damned circle, Bren. Everything runs in a circle.”
    “He wasn’t getting any younger. The Tamun blow-up took his health. He didn’t plan, perhaps, to be overheard in what he told you.”
    “About the Great Lie? Betraying the Guild?”
    “I’m betting, though,” Bren said, “that at least by then, the other captains knew what had happened back at Reunion. It would have been irresponsible of him to know there was a Guild authority surviving out here in that critical situation, and not to tell those who’d succeed him. He was dying and told you the biggest secret aboard to make you equal to them. And maybe he wanted to know, for one thing, how you’d take it. And whether you forgave him.”
    “Emotional answers. Not logical ones.”
    “The man was dying. At that point, maybe emotional answers mattered.”
    “Wanting me to make the decision? Me, but not Yolanda? Damn it all!”
    “And Ogun. And Sabin. It would be their decision, too, when he was out of the picture.”
    “I’d be the deciding vote.
Damn
him!”
    “If they split. As they didn’t.”
    “Most days I forgive him. I suppose I forgive him. I suppose we’re doing the right thing in coming out here. And if we show up and the Guild does what’s ultimately sensible, and boards the ship, and take orders, so many things will become moot. But by all I know about what’s happened in the past—I don’t think that’s highly likely.”
    “I never thought it was all that likely, where the Guild is concerned. If they’d wanted to leave Reunion, they’d have left, wouldn’t they? But they’ve had nine years now to get