Tracker by C. J. Cherryh

that
have
to work. Things that can make the peace last.”
    â€œYour help—would be invaluable.”
    â€œI’m out of touch. I haven’t had time—”
    â€œOne shuttle cycle. You could make a difference.”
    â€œIs this from Sabin?”
    Jase shook his head. “From me. I’m asking you. None of the rest of the potential problems want a compromise. But trying to find a solution, convincing the Senior Captain to take it . . .”
    â€œDown here, I know the issues. Down here, I have a role. Up there—I risk becoming one more issue. I’m
not
a Mospheiran official anymore.”
    â€œYou’ve been up there. You were part of it. I’m asking, Bren. Calling in a favor.”
    Favor.
    Gut-deep, he hated the ride up and down.
    He needed to call the President—Shawn Tyers was an old friend, an old ally. He could be frank and honest with Shawn, make him understand, tell him the situation . . .
    Shawn, who’d come up through the State Department, dealing with atevi—Shawn would understand it was serious. That something urgent had to be done, before atevi had to take notice of Tillington’s statements.
    But what Jase said . . . what Jase described . . . was not
one
problem. Was not one man. There were problems up there. There were five thousand problems, outnumbering the Mospheirans on their own half of the station.
    Five thousand problems and a situation that had gone unaddressed for the last year he’d been trying to pull the threads of the aishidi’tat together, and keep Tabini alive and the shuttles flying and the system functioning . . .
    He’d left problems aloft to the four
Phoenix
captains and the two stationmasters—and knew they’d had troubles.
    Geigi and he had been in close contact, and Geigi hadn’t complained—but Geigi’s priorities had been, the same as his, the survival of the aishidi’tat. Up on the station, Geigi
held

most of the robotics, and the construction stockpiles, controlled all but one of the shuttles that supplied the station, and kept order, presumably, on
his
side of the station.
    On the Mospheiran side, however, there had been a year of stress, a year of overcrowding and some shortages and a stationmaster who wasn’t bearing up under the load—a year when there’d been planning to ship the Reunioners out to another construction, as yet only blueprints, even for the transport to get them there.
    Nobody had committed money to the plan. Nobody had laid supplies on the table. A full year, now, and nothing had advanced except more blueprints, and Reunioners themselves were divided, some wanting to stay, some wanting to go. Braddock had inserted himself into the argument and pushed to go start the building, with himself in charge.
    That had stalled things. Nobody outside the Reunioners wanted Braddock in charge. Most of the Reunioners didn’t want Braddock in charge, but there weren’t any others stepping forward.
    Go up there?
    Talk to people?
    Get Tillington
and
Braddock out of the picture?
    He was tired. He was exhausted. He had the tag ends of the year’s work lying on his foyer table back in the Bujavid, things that
enabled
the solution to the aishidi’tat’s problems. He’d taken a couple of weeks off to handle four kids and a birthday party.
    â€œAll right,” he said to Jase. “All right. I’ll come. I’ll get started on the Tillington matter as soon as I get to Shejidan. And when I do get up there, I’m not coming in on Sabin’s side, understand. I’m far more help that way.”
    â€œUnderstood. I know how you work.”
    â€œBut I’ll get there. Soon as I can get the decks cleared down here. A few weeks.”
    â€œYou take care of yourself doing it. No more taking on the Guild bare-handed. None of that sort of thing.”
    â€œNo more,” Bren agreed fervently.