Tracker: A Foreigner Novel (The Foreigner Universe) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

C. J. Cherryh planned to write since the age of ten. When she was older, she learned to use a typewriter while triple-majoring in Classics, Latin, and Greek. With more than seventy books to her credit, and the winner of three Hugo Awards, she is one of the most prolific and highly respected authors in the science fiction field. Cherryh was recently named a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. She lives in Washington state. She can be found at cherryh.com.

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THE FOREIGNER UNIVERSE

FOREIGNER

INVADER

INHERITOR

DESTROYER

PRETENDER

DELIVERER

INTRUDER

PROTECTOR

PEACEMAKER

PRECURSOR

DEFENDER

EXPLORER

CONSPIRATOR

DECEIVER

BETRAYER

TRACKER

THE ALLIANCE-UNION UNIVERSE

REGENESIS

DOWNBELOW STATION

THE DEEP BEYOND Omnibus:

Serpent’s Reach | Cuckoo’s Egg

ALLIANCE SPACE Omnibus:

Merchanter’s Luck | 40,000 in Gehenna

AT THE EDGE OF SPACE Omnibus:

Brothers of Earth | Hunter of Worlds

THE FADED SUN Omnibus:

Kesrith | Shon’jir | Kutath

THE CHANUR NOVELS

THE CHANUR SAGA Omnibus:

The Pride Of Chanur | Chanur’s Venture | The Kif Strike Back

CHANUR’S ENDGAME Omnibus:

Chanur’s Homecoming | Chanur’s Legacy

THE MORGAINE CYCLE

THE COMPLETE MORGAINE:

Gate of Ivrel | Well of Shiuan | Fires of Azeroth | Exile’s Gate

New omnibus edition available September 2015!

OTHER WORKS:

THE DREAMING TREE Omnibus:

The Tree of Swords and Jewels | The Dreamstone

ALTERNATE REALITIES Omnibus:

Port Eternity | Wave Without a Shore | Voyager in Night

THE COLLECTED SHORT FICTION OF CJ CHERRYH

ANGEL WITH THE SWORD

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

1

The sun touched the end of the bay, the end of a good day. A ragged streak of cloud lit up gold with a shadowy attempt at pink.

Jaishan ceased her leisurely tacking toward the sunset and turned for port with an experienced hand at the helm. Gold sunlight swept her deck, cast shadows down the planks as the massive boom swung over.

The sail thumped and filled with the shoreward wind, a purposeful course, now homeward bound for Najida estate.

“Fascinating system.” Jase Graham, spacefarer, turned and took a firm grip on the rail as water began to rush and foam under the bow.

Bren Cameron leaned easily beside him, elbows on the same rail. He loved the sound and the feel of the sea. They could have had a bit more speed, but that wasn’t what they wanted now. This was the last bit of sailing they’d get before Jase went back to the space station overhead, and good-byes were in the offing.

Tano was at the helm, enjoying the job—atevi, native to the world, as humans were not: black-skinned, golden-eyed, a head taller than most humans. Tano’s partner Algini was close by him; and their teammates, Banichi and Jago, were lounging on the equipment locker, against the rail, enjoying the wind and the absolute absence of threat.

Bren was glad to see it. Rare that his bodyguard got an hour off, let alone whole days, let alone a week of such days. His bodyguard was still in uniform—Assassins’ Guild black happened to be all they owned. But they had shed their heavy leather jackets in the sun today, and gotten in a little fishing.

Banichi was certainly moving far better than he had a week ago. He was zealously keeping up with the exercises on his arm and shoulder. He was also getting impatient with the rehab schedule and entirely ready, Banichi assured them all, to resume ordinary duty.

Being on the boat meant security enough that Banichi and the rest of them could relax. Ordinary duty out here in the wide bay need involve nothing more strenuous than watching the horizons and casting a line.

There was hardly anywhere on the planet more secure than where they’d been the last number of days. The aishidi’tat, the Western Association of the atevi, was at peace—still in shock from the loss of two lords, the investiture of an heir, and the return of the old leadership of the Assassins’ Guild—but at peace. Banichi, of that Guild, had been no little involved in the event—which was why he was under doctor’s orders not to push anything, and why it took being out in the middle of all this water, with a navy ship out across the bay—to make Banichi admit there was indeed leisure to relax.

Banichi laughed at something his partners had just said. That was a very good thing to hear. It unwound something in Bren’s own gut.

“First vacation in a long time,” Bren said to Jase, beside him. “You’ve got to come down to Earth more often. You’re good for us.”

“My duty-book’s going to be stacked and waiting for me,” Jase said with a sigh. “Anything the senior captains don’t want to handle,guess where it’ll go in my absence. Right to my desk. —But it’s worth it. I’ve enjoyed this.”

“Even the gunfire?”

“Well, I mostly missed that part.”

“Not all of it.”

“It was an experience,” Jase said. “And your own duty-book’s going to look like mine, I’m afraid. You’ve still got the chaff from that mess up north to deal with. Wish I could help with that.”

“Minor,” Bren said. It said something about recent months, that he could call the ruin of an historic atevi clan “minor.” But itwas minor—now that the Kadagidi clan’s influence had diminished.

And diminish, yes, it had. The aishidi’tat, the Western Association, was in fact downtwo clan lords since the start of Jase’s visit, and politics was certain to surround the replacements, but Bren hadsome hope there would be a quick, sensible solution—as yet unthought-of—but it was not his job to think of it. The aiji in Shejidan, Tabini, was firmly in power. The Assassins’ Guild, the core of the judicial system, was functioning as it had not in years. And Bren, paidhi-aiji, translator to the court, intermediary-at-large, could now draw a deep breath and hope all the agreements he’d pinned down stayed put.

They were both human, he and Jase. Bren, born to the planet and Jase, to the starshipPhoenix. Jase had been a special child—born of long-dead heroes, destined to be something a dead man had known and Jase had never learned. That he’d come early to a captaincy—one of the four who held that post—was destiny, maybe; genetics and politics, certainly—“But I don’t know what I was for,” Jase had put it.

“Does anybody, really?” Bren had answered that one, and Jase had thought about it and laughed.

So here they were—Jase a ship’s captain, visiting a planet that had so much history with his ship; and Bren himself—wielding a power he’d never remotely planned on holding, disconnected from Mospheira, and inextricably involved in Tabini-aiji’s affairs. But alike. Intermediaries, both, trained to mediate, to communicate—both of them grown into an authority neither of them had planned to hold and a job nobody had imagined would exist. Mediators. Negotiators. Translators not just of language, but of mindsets and cultures.

Humans were the cosmic accident on the planet, involving Phoenix and a desperate human colony, centuries ago.Phoenix had arrived at the Earth of the atevi, crew and passengers destitute and dying, an unknown world their last reachable hope.

But the world already had a population. Atevi had been chugging along in their steam age, having achieved railroads, having achieved a reasonably peaceful government long before humans had ever appeared in their heavens.

Phoenix built an orbiting station for a base, manned it,...