Destroyer by C. J. Cherryh Page B

whenever Sabin’s opinion coincided with hers. “We are always prepared. Tell her see to her own people.”
    “The dowager states she is prepared for any eventuality.” There were times he didn’t translate all of what one side said; and there were times he did. “The aiji-dowager expects you to control the human side of this. She is prepared to make inroads into the atevi situation.”
    “Go below and observe takehold,” Sabin said. “The lot of you. We’re not wasting any time getting in there, no time for more ferment on their side or ours, thank you.”
    “Aiji-ma,” Bren translated that. “The ship is about to move with greater than ordinary dispatch and Sabin-aiji politely urges us all to take appropriate shelter belowdecks for a violent transit. This will speed us in before there can be further disturbance on the station or among our human passengers.”
    “Good,” Ilisidi said sharply and headed for the lift, marking her path with energetic taps of the cane. Her great-grandson and the rest of her company could only make haste behind her to reach the doors, while the ship sounded the imminent-motion warning.
    It was certainly not the homecoming they’d planned. Damn, Bren thought bleakly, taking his place inside the lift car. They’d ridden from nervous anticipation to the depths of anxiety all in an hour; and amid everything else—
    Amid everything else, he thought, looking across the car at Cajeiri, there’d been no special word for a boy who’d just heard bad news about his mother and father, and who remained appallingly quiet.
    What did he say to an atevi child? Or what should his great-grandmother have said, or what dared he say now?
    The lift moved. Meanwhile the intercom gave the order: “Maneuvers imminent. Takehold and brace for very strong movement.”
    Four thousand colonists were getting that news, people unacculturated to the delicate and dangerous situation they were going to land in on the station, people whose holier-than-common-colonists attitudes were even more objectionable to the Mospheirans who were half the workforce on that station, and whose ancestors had suffered under Guild management . . . and who were going to have to sponsor the Reunioners if, as seemed likely now, Gin’s plan prevailed.
    Four thousand people who’d been promised paradise ended up on tighter rations than they’d had where they’d come from. And the Mospheirans, who were going to have to live with them and who’d already endured hardship since the shuttles had stopped flying, weren’t going to be anywhere near as patient with their daily complaints as the ship had been.
    Jerry and Gin were holding quiet, rapid-fire consultations next to him, Jerry agreeing to stay aboard the ship while Gin went to her on-station offices to take control. Banichi was holding quick converse with Cenedi.
    The lift hit five-deck level and opened for them. Gin and Jerry went one way, they went another, past sentries, into the atevi section.
    “Aiji-ma,” Bren said, prepared to take his leave and deal with his own staff. “Nandi.” For the youngster, who gravely bowed. He remained distressed for the boy, the heir, who might in some atevi minds on that station now be the new aiji of Shejidan; but none of them had time to discuss their situation or accommodate an eight-year-old boy’s natural distress—not in a ship about to undertake maneuvers. Beyond that, he reminded himself, Cajeiri’s whole being responded to man’chi, a set of emotions a human being was only minimally wired to understand. For all he knew, the boy was approaching the explosion point. Every association of the boy’s life was under assault, while atevi under him and around him in the hierarchy would rally round and carry on with all the resources the battered association could rake together. God knew what the boy was feeling, or whether he was just numb at the moment, or how he would react when the whole expectations of the station atevi centered