Explorer by C. J. Cherryh Read Free Book Online Page A

worse off—or better. If they’re stronger and more recalcitrant, we may have decisions to make.”
    “Sabin’s going to decide those issues. That’s the fact I can’t change.”
    “Crew may decide,” Bren said. “And
you
have that tape.”
    “I’ll confess,” Jase said, “I’ve had it for the last month.”
    “Not surprising you’d think about it before showing it to me.”
    “I’m out of time for thinking. I had to show it to you. We’re coming up on the last move.”
    Last move.
    “Before Reunion.”
    “This next one I really think will put us there.”
    A small inner shiver. “You know, I never get used to this
I think
business.”
    “Space is lumpy,” Jase said.
    “All that. But I still don’t like to hear
I guess
from the navigators.”
    “Or from your partner in this mess?”
    “Some things you can’t figure with a computer. Jase, we’ll make it. We do what we’ll do when we get there. It’s all we
can
do at the moment, but we just plot alternate positions, if it doesn’t work. Same as I suppose your navigators do. Which is why I think you called me here.”
    Jase gave a wry, one-sided smile. Started the tape moving again. On the screen, the exploration reached a corner.
    “The fact is,” Jase said, “the one reconciling fact, in all the Old Man planned, is that he wanted me in some kind of authority over my own destiny. More than that, I think he’d be happy you’re here. And honored that the dowager is here, with all she represents. I think you’re right. Contamination no longer frightened him. He’d reconciled himself to the blended civilization he’d found. I think, all his old Guild notions to the contrary, he’d found the universe a far more dangerous place than he’d ever imagined, and before he died, he’d learned to take allies where he could get them. Yolanda kept her standoffishness from local culture. I didn’t. I fell far more deeply not just into downworld culture, but into atevi culture, and the one thing that both infuriates me and encourages me is that Ramirez appointed
me
to succeed him. Me.
My
view of the universe. My atevi-contaminated, impure view of the universe humans have to live in. It’s not a degree of importance I ever wanted, I’ll tell you. But the thought that Ramirez meant to do it, that he actually approved what I am—is what gives me the courage to get out of bed and go on duty.” Jase pressed a button and skipped ahead, to a point where the helmet-cam view reached a sealed pressure door. In rapid motion they locked through, and then . . .
    Then the record ended. Stopped.
    “That’s it?” Bren asked.
    “That’s it,” Jase said. “That’s all we have. It’s absolutely not regulation that the tape stops like that. It’s very much against regulations. And maybe Sabin knows what happened next and maybe she doesn’t, but certainly, based on that tape, you and I don’t. And that’s the other reason I wanted to talk to you. You’re the diplomat. My outrageous instinct says have the inevitable confrontation with Sabin about this tape right now, before we get to Reunion Station. Tell her what I know, what I suspect, all the structure of tissue and moonbeams. If it’s going to blow up, let it blow and let’s talk about the ship’s great secret, and Ramirez’s crazy ideas, and settle it before wehave another crisis on us. Let me add a fact to keep between you and me. We’ve run with a little excess of fuel, ship’s rule. Enough fuel reserve to get out to a place we know if things aren’t optimum or if the Guild tries to take us.
If
Sabin’s disposed to do it—she can get us away from Reunion. The name of the place is Gamma. And you’re right—I can order that, if Sabin is in some way incapacitated. There are resources there. It would take us years, but we’d get home that way. On the other course, if we do go into Reunion, and dock, and open the hatch—by then we’re dealing with somebody else, with Sabin involved,