She laughed bitterly, staring back at the replacement of her fortunes, who slept, still oblivious, and thought her all-powerful. Where it regarded a ship like Andra’s Jewel, this was surely so.
There were several cloaks among her belongings. She took out the beige one, and intended to put it on, to hide the sleeve armour, as it would hide the weapons she carried constantly when she left the stateroom. But it went back into the locker, the beige cloak; she fingered another, that was blue, white-bordered, forbidden.
Even to have it was defiance of the Family. In almost two decades no one had worn that Colour.
She did now, in the consciousness of isolation—quiet, furtive defiance; let some beta make inquiry, let some description and name be sent back to Council: at least let it be accurate, so that had they had missed all other signals, they might read this one, clear beyond all doubt. She shrugged it on, fastened it, looked back again at the azi.
Jim had worked himself into the farthest corner of the large bed, into the angle of the two walls, limbs tucked, foetal position. He had done it before, also in sleep. It was somewhat disconcerting, that defensive tactic; she had thought he had relaxed beyond it.
“Wake up:” she called sharply. “Jim. Wake up.”
He moved, disorganised for the moment; then untucked and sat up within the webbing. He rubbed at his eyes, wincing at what was likely a headache to match hers. He looked strangely lost, as if he had misplaced something essential this morning, perhaps himself.
He wanted time, she decided. She paid him no further attention, reckoning that the best thing. He stirred out after a moment, gathered up his clothes from the floor and went to the bath. There was long running of water, then the hum of the shower fans.
Cleanly, Raen thought with approval. She keyed in the Operations channel and sank into a comfortable chair to wait, feet propped, listening to chatter, watching the screen with the mild interest of one who had been herself many times at the controls of a ship on station approach. The meticulous procedures and precautions of the big commercial liner were typically beta, fussy and over-cautious . . . but neither was putting a ship of this size into station berth a process forgiving of little errors. They would spend an amazing amount of time working in, nothing left to visual estimation.
Channel five afforded view of their destination: this was what she had been looking to see. There was the faint dot of the station, due to grow rapidly larger over the next few hours . . . and Istra, a bluish disc as yet without definition. On the upper quarter screen, filtered, was beta Hydri itself, the Serpent’s Tail, a malevolent brilliance which forecast less than paradise on Istra’s surface.
Two major continents, two ports onworld, a great deal of desert covering those two continents. The weather patterns of Istra bestowed rain in a serpentine belt, low on one continent and coastally on the other, storms breaking on an incredible mountain ridge which created wetlands coastward, and one of the most regrettable desolations of the Reach on the far side. The rainfall patterns never varied, not during all human occupancy. Such life as Istra supported before humans and majat came had never ascended to sapience . . . and such as dimly knew better had retreated from the vicinity of majat and humans both.
She had deepstudied Istra, and knew it with what information the tapes had to give. It was not populous. The onworld industry was agriculture, and that was sufficient for self-support: the Family had never thought it wise to turn its most prosperous face to the Outside, The world was merely support for the station, that was the real Istra: the agglomeration of docks and warehouses swinging in orbit about Istra was the largest man-made structure in the Reach, the channel for all trade which passed in and out
It was a sight worth seeing if one were out this far. She meant to do so. But it was also true that facilities at this famous station were primitive and that ships other than freighters did not come here. It was actually possible to strand oneself in such a place, if she let the Jewel go.