Garal frowned. “It can’t be about Excellency Zat. They couldn’t possibly have gotten here so quickly.”
“No,” said the spider mech, “it looks like the ships they came on have been here for a week or more. It can’t be about Zat. Or if it is, they knew about it before it happened. And now we have a problem.”
“Did they know?” asked Taucris, no doubt, like Ingray, having reached the point where all the chaotic, fragmented reports from the station had ceased to give her any useful or accurate information. “Was Excellency Zat’s murder all about giving the Federacy a pretext for invading?”
“It’s possible,” observed the spider mech, very obviously Tic Uisine now. “They probably told Hevom they’d get him out, but he’s a poor cousin; I imagine no one will try too terribly hard to rescue him just now.”
“Ambassador?” Taucris had finally noticed the change in the spider mech’s personality.
“No,” whispered the spider mech, curtly. “We don’t really have time for long introductions or explanations, so I’ll keep it short. I’m Captain Tic Uisine. I really did steal my ship, and a number of bio mechs along with it. Not coincidentally, they look very much like any Geck ship mechs. The ambassador really has been harassing Ingray in an attempt to find me. She has not, however, demanded custody of Garal Ket. That was me. The Geck ambassador almost certainly knows I’ve done it, and has done nothing to stop me. She’s very possibly on this elevator somewhere and I imagine she’s waiting for more specific information on where I actually am.”
“I …” Taucris looked at Ingray.
“I’m sorry,” Ingray said. “But the Omkem were talking about trying Garal for murder, when it’s obvious e didn’t do it, and besides, the murder happened here on Hwae and we know Hevom did it! They obviously just wanted someone to pin it on, and they’d decided that was Garal. And even if e wasn’t turned over to them, e was probably going to end up back in Compassionate Removal. For something e didn’t even do!”
Taucris stared at her, and then looked at the spider mech, and then at Garal.
“The plan,” said Tic, “was to get to the station, and then for Garal—and Ingray if she wanted—to get into vacuum suits and go out on the station hull. I was going to have mechs pick em up and bring em to my ship. It’s a long trip in a vacuum suit, but worth it if I could get em away. Worst case, the Geck would intercept em. I don’t think they would hurt em.”
Still speechless, Taucris looked at Ingray.
“I’m sorry,” said Ingray again. “I couldn’t just leave Garal there.”
“This conversation was probably going to happen at some point anyway,” said the spider mech. “The problem right now is that my mechs are already on their way to the station. It’ll take a while for them to change course for the platform. I’m calculating that right now. It’ll be a near thing, but I’m fairly sure I can do it. The question is, who’s coming with me? Garal, of course, and I don’t think Ingray was planning to but for various reasons—the most urgent being the fact that her family is in the middle of what would seem to be the Omkem’s supposed motivation for sending armed mechs onto Hwae Station—for that and for other reasons, I suspect and hope she will change her mind. But you, Officer, we will be leaving in a difficult position. You were supposed to deliver Garal to the station, and ultimately to the Geck, under the assumption the Geck had demanded custody of em.”
Taucris stared at the spider mech for a long, tense moment. Then she said, “That situation still applies, doesn’t it? The treaty still says Garal is Geck if e declares emself Geck.”
“Well,” admitted the spider mech in its whistling whisper, “the Geck also have to accept em. Which they haven’t actually had a chance to do.”
“But they might,” Taucris said. “And you, Captain Uisine, is it? We can’t get Garal to the station or to the Geck, as things stand. But you could. You’ll take Mx Ket to the Geck, right?”
The spider mech hesitated. “No.”
Taucris frowned and folded her arms. “That wasn’t how you were supposed to answer.”
“I’m trying to be honest with you,” said the spider mech testily. “As I said, we’re potentially putting you in a very difficult position.” Taucris made a disgusted sound. “Look,” the spider mech insisted, “Ingray is going to be really unhappy if I get you in trouble, and you’re going to be really unhappy with Ingray if you find out we lied to you any more than we have already. What else am I supposed to do?”
“You’d take me to the Geck if I wanted to go, though, right?” asked Garal, eir voice mild.
“Of course,” replied the spider mech. “I just don’t see why you’d want to.”
“Last I heard,” suggested Ingray, “the Geck ambassador was still insisting Tic was Geck. And Taucris is supposed to deliver Garal to the Geck.”
“Well,” admitted Taucris, arms still folded, “I’m supposed to deliver em to Extra-Hwae Relations, so they can deliver em to the Geck. But I can’t do either one now.”
“Right,” agreed Ingray. And then her nausea flooded back. Not from microgravity this time. She swallowed, and breathed very carefully through her mouth.
Taucris unfolded her arms and sat down again in the space between Ingray and Garal. She sighed. “You’d probably better go with them, Ingray. The … Captain Uisine is right, it might be safer for you to be away for a while.”
The spider mech patted Taucris’s knee with one claw. “Don’t worry, Officer. We’ll get her back to you as soon as we can. Or, you know, you could come with us.”
“Not without losing my job,” Taucris said. “And I might anyway, as it is. Besides, people are going to be panicking up on the platform, and Safety might need my help. Have you finished calculating?”
“I have,” whispered the spider mech. “And I have a plan.”
14
By the time the elevator had nearly reached Zenith Platform, the news of events on the station had been out for hours and elevator staff had informed passengers that while the elevator would finish its trip—it had to—no passengers would be allowed onto the platform, let alone onto a shuttle bound for the station.