Free Explorer by C. J. Cherryh Page A

is . . . don’t talk without analyzing the situation.”
    Sabin raked him up and down with a glance, turned to Jase. And back again.
    “And if we have to move suddenly, rather than talk, Mr. Cameron, you can dent the wall. You stay belted in belowdecks until we call you.”
    Amazing. Astonishing.
That
was an agreement.
    “My staff would likely agree with that, Captain. But expert advice in a dicey situation—”
    “
After
we arrive. We’ll come in far enough out, we’ll be searching for our destination. Plenty of time. Take it or leave it.”
    “Accepted, captain.” He
had
won access, unexpected, and a good thing, in his own summation: time to stop asking. Time to get out of the crossfire.
    “So, Captain Graham,” Sabin said.
    “Ma’am,” Jase said.
    “You’re going to offer your sage advice.”
    “I appreciate that, senior captain.”
    “You were always supposed to be the expert. You and Mercheson’s kid.” Yolanda. “Taylor’s Children. Nice symbol. The completion of the ship’s mission. The holy mission to spread human culture. Ramirez didn’t trust what might have happened at Alpha. Not because of the aliens—because of the humans. Because they hated the Guild. Because they’d be numerous, if they’d survived at all, and they’d be hard to direct. If he’d gone to Alpha in the beginning, everything might have been different, but he didn’t. He had this notion of
controlling
the change he was going to make in human affairs. He had this notion of keeping his maneuvers secret—and it couldn’t be a secret if he took the ship back to Alpha and opened up that old issue. Guild would find out wherehe’d been and they’d want answers. Controlling the contact of aliens with the Guild—sitting in charge of everything—that was his notion. Quietly becoming a power the Guild couldn’t control. But his venture brought retribution down on the station, and he ended up going precisely the direction he didn’t want to go—toward Alpha. This was the set of decisions that put us where we were. And he and his faction still ran the ship. You ask about Tamun. Tamun sounded good, to answer your question. He was my chance to get another no vote on the board, a counter to Ramirez and Ogun. But when a captaincy came up, no, the situation out here wasn’t one of those pieces of information we immediately discussed with Pratap Tamun. We were more concerned with problems where we were—the battle to keep some kind of balance against Ramirez’s unilateral decisions. Maybe I should have raised the Reunion issue with him before he got the seat. I didn’t. What I did know—he didn’t accept where Ramirez had led us. He wanted separation from non-human influences.”
    “Separation from the atevi?”
    “Separation from the atevi. Building up the Mospheirans. Helping humans take over the mainland.”
    Appalling. Evidencing a vast lack of understanding. “Mospheira wouldn’t have any interest in ruling the mainland,” Bren said. “They wouldn’t have the manpower to run the continent if they had it handed to them, and they don’t see any reason to want it.”
    “The way they didn’t have any interest in fueling the ship or maintaining the station.”
    “They’re farmers and shopkeepers,” Bren said, “and no, their ancestors didn’t have any interest in doing that for your ancestors. They still don’t.”
    “Which is why atevi are running the place,” Sabin muttered. “Which is all well and good. At least someone’s running things. And not doing a bad job of it, as turns out. But Tamun was a humans-only sort, vehemently so. I’ve come toward a more moderate view, but in an unfriendly universe—I still don’t trust books or faces I can’t read.”
    From hate and loathing to pragmatic, even educated, acceptance? No, it wasn’t an easy step. More, Sabin had always shown a canny awareness of that ambiguity of signals that was so, so, dangerous between two armed species. In her way, Sabin