Protector

After they had cleared away lunch, they sat at their table and talked and talked—about living on the station, and where they lived now, and what they had been doing for the last year—Irene and Artur had lessons, mostly, a lot of math and science. Their parents were strict about it. “We couldn’t get out much,” Irene said. “The station’s big.” She used several words he could not get, saying something about Mospheirans that sounded unhappy.

“The atevi section you can’t get into,” Gene said. “I tried. I just wanted to see, you know. Security is pretty tight. That was a bigmistake.”

His face wasn’t happy when he talked about that. The others looked uncomfortable. Everything they said about the station sounded unhappy, but he could only get the little words, not the big ones.

He tried to think of something else in the awkward silence, something that would make them happy. Something they could talk about. Then he thought about his slingshota. He took it out of his pocket, and took out the three stones and laid them on the table.

“What’s that?” Gene asked.

“One of my good things.”

“That’s weird,” Irene said, and reached out carefully and fingered the handle very carefully. Tapped it. “Is that plastic?”

He didn’t couldn’t remember their word for wood. “Tree,” he said. “Tree stuff.”

“You’re kidding,” Gene said. “Wood?” He touched it carefully. “I’ve never felt it.”

Artur picked up one of the stones, and said a new word. Irene said it again and added: “What planets and moons are made of.”

“Rock,” Cajeiri said in Ragi. “That’s a rock.”

“Rock,” Artur said. “Rock, yes. I guess it is. But I’ve never had my hands on one.”

“You’re kidding,” Cajeiri said, and then he remembered they had never been outside the ship or the station. And he could not think of anywhere on the station that was rock, or stone.

“It’s smooth,” Artur said, then, and he rolled it around between his fingers. “Is it made?”

“Water,” Cajeiri said. “Water made it smooth.”

“How,” Gene asked, “do you make it do that?”

That was an odd question. But then he realized he had no ship-speak word for river. Or stream. There was ocean. But no word for waves or beach. What they had talked about on the ship was the ship, usually. Occasionally stories they remembered.

He had come prepared. He had a little notebook, and a pen. He started drawing the seacoast, and the peninsula. “Najida. This. Nand’ Bren’s.” He started describing things in Ragi, slowly, and Irene wanted paper, and borrowed the pen to write the words her way on her paper. So they started giving each other words, using the rocks and the slingshota and the juice sloshing in the cup. Waves. Beach. Rocks. Pebbles. Sand. Tides.

It was the old game, the way they had used to be, and he began to feel increasingly at ease. He showed them how the slingshota worked, and that got the attention of mani’s bodyguards—but he did not fire a stone, no. He just showed them.

“That’s really wicked!” Gene said, admiring it.

“Neat,” Artur said.

They were impressed. And everything was perfect.

•   •   •

The young group back there, Jago reported, and Kaplan also observed, was entertaining themselves very happily, and being remarkably quiet about it. Bren and Jase sat and talked, and Ilisidi and Tatiseigi conversed at length, before Ilisidi invited them to sit together and do small talk regarding the ship, the persons Ilisidi dealt with—notably Captain Sabin.

“We are trying to persuade Lord Tatiseigi to pay a visit to the station,” Ilisidi said lightly. “Perhaps you can prevail.”

“One would realize the extreme honor of such an invitation,” Tatiseigi said with a forbidding gesture. “But I would decline. Flying does not agree with me.”

“There is no such sensation on the space station,” Ilisidi said.

“One has no desire to be sealed into a tube and flung into the heavens. With all courtesy, nandi,” Lord Tatiseigi added, with a little nod toward Jase, “toward the elegance I am told exists in the heavens. I am certain it exceeds imagination. But simply to move between Shejidan and Tirnamardi is such an untidy business. One can only imagine the difficulties of a household lifted to the station. Yet—yet I am aware both you and nand’ Bren do maintain such arrangements.”

“We have very capable staff, nandi. Extraordinary people.”

“Ah. There is the grade,” Tatiseigi said relative to the train’s motion. It was slowed a bit, then gathered speed again. “That will be a quarter of an hour to our destination, nandiin. Not so rapid as your shuttle. But one is accustomed to it.”

Guild around them were getting up from seats, putting away service items.

“Nandiin,” Ilisidi said purposefully, then, in a tone that had nothing of banter about it. “We shall enjoy the hospitality of our esteemed Tatiseigi. We shall see nothing untoward comes near these children.”

“Let me assure the ship-aiji,” Tatiseigi said, “that he is welcome under my roof. We have ample room. Ample room.”