Precursor by C. J. Cherryh Page A

looked small… until the eye realized those service vehicles that attended it were trucks.
    “God.” Ben was the only one with a voice. “My God.”
    And Kate: “It’s big.”
    When ten men set their hands to a rope and pulled in unison, amazing amounts of weight slid.
    When an entire civilization worked in concert to accomplish materials and training for a tested design, three years produced—this shining, beautiful creature.
    “
Shai-shan
,” Bren said, standing behind the group, finding a voice. “
Favorable Wind
.” He’d seen
Shai-shan
from framework to molds to first flight, and now Jason’s life, Jason’s departure from the world, rode on these same wings. He’d translated every line of her. He’d all but given birth when she lifted off for her maiden flight, a curious emotion for a maker of dictionaries, a parser of words and meanings.
    “Marvelous, marvelous thing,” Kate managed to say, and the group stayed and stared.
    Jason had a sense of the dramatic, and of diversion. Bren caught Jason’s eye once for all as the group, Kate last, with a lingering glance at the shuttle, began to disperse, subdued, to make their choice of accommodations.
    For a moment Jase gazed back at it, too, then looked at him with a subtle shift of the eyes that indicated the dining recess.
    He went, Jason went. Banichi and Jago walked as far as the arch and stopped.
    There would not be intrusion.
    “So they want you up there,” was Bren’s opener.
    “The aiji’s order,” Jason said with a brittle edge. “Packed in an hour. Hurry and wait.”
    “I’m sure I’ll learn why” Bren said faintly.
    “I’m sure
I
will,” Jase said.
    “Damn it.”
    “Damn it,” Jase said. That much was Mosphei’, and then, in Ragi: “Sit a moment. The tea’s not bad.”
    “Shouldn’t be,” Bren said. “We ordered it.”
    So the parting they’d both dreaded came down to a cup of tea from a dispenser, and all Bren could hope for was a quiet, guarded conversation in the dining section. The Mospheirans wandered about. Banichi and Jago were forbidding gatekeepers, not moving a muscle.
    “Wish I had answers for you,” Bren said. “I wish I had
any
answers. You don’t know?”
    “Just… word came: get up there; and word came from the aiji. Go. Not a choice in the world. I suppose the aiji wanted me here to look over our guests, make sure they didn’t steal the silverware.”
    Atevi joke.
    “I don’t know,” Bren said. “I swear I don’t know. Didn’t know. Didn’t have any more warning than you did.”
    “I believe you.”
    There were signs they used for truth,
I swear
was one of them. They never lied when they said that to each other, though lying was part of their separate jobs… or had been, and might be again.
    “Might still be a weather delay,” Bren said.
    “What about the Mospheirans? Did the Guild want them, too?”
    “Hell if I know,” Bren said. “Not a clue. They asked to go. Tabini said go now.”
    They looked at one another. No sum of the parts made total sense.
    “I’ve still not a clue,” Jason said.
    “Unless they’re going to spite the Guild,” Bren said, and warmed chilled fingers around a plastic cup. “Tabini might do that.”
    “Going to miss you.”
    “Get back down here if you can.”
    “I’ll try,” Jase said. “Get up there, if you can.”
    “I’ll try that, too” Bren said. “If I can find out anything and get a message back to you, when I get to the Bu-javid, I will.”
    “Do we
ever
get word?” Jason asked, rhetorical question. He looked badly used, with the uneven haircut, wisps sticking out at angles. God knew what reason… maybe just a fit of anger at an unreasonable order. Jason wasn’t immune to fits of temper.
    Neither of them were that.
    “Look, tell them that second shuttle won’t make schedule if you’re not down here,” Bren said. “It’s not entirely a lie.”
    “I know,” Jason said. “Damn all
I
can do. Maybe…
maybe
there’s a way back.