Defender by CJ Cherryh

Three years after Bren and company take the space station, Bren spends the first third of the book confused at the pieces moving around the situation: himself, robots, Ramirez, Geigi, Jase, Yolanda, Ginny, Ilsidi, Tabini’s heir, a long dead ruler’s funeral, and the silence of Tabini keeping Bren in the dark. Then he spends the second two thirds helping push those pieces as fast as possible, hoping he pushes in the correct direction. All while dealing with family emergencies from a vast distance. This story of conspiracy, political intrigue, and negotiation relies on a competent Bren dealing with rapidly changing situations to come up with potential solutions. When first introduced to Bren, back in the first trilogy, Cherryh tells the reader that he works as a diplomat and translator. Yet Cherryh’s plot and characters show him like a spy: his kidnapping, torture, ignorance, and actions do not match up with what Cherryh tells about Bren. However, her we see diplomat Bren in full force. In short, Bren’s effectiveness and understanding drive the plot—thanks in large part to CJ Cherryh’s tightly focused, third person perspective.

“I don’t envy you in that regard. But you came out sane. And decent. And worthwhile. It’s what we do, more than who we are, that makes our personal lives a mess. If we didn’t do what we do for a job, ordinary people might figure out how to get along with us.”

But that doesn’t mean Bren understands everything. At many points, Bren wonders why Tabini wanted him at the funeral on the planet. But when the reveal comes a third of the way in, he realizes that Tabini didn’t need him there so much as need him away from the station. This makes sense based on Tabini’s character, as Cherryh’s characters usually make sense. I already know Tabini uses those around him as assets—he devotes himself to their safety, but only to a point. They all are expendable for the greater good, as Tabini is in charge of the greater good. But beyond that, his secretive ways and desire to double check everything make sense in this specific situation—which Bren and the reader do not understand until later in the book. Also, the atevi-human interface gets in the way, as Bren wants to like Tabini and feels slighted at Tabini keeping him in the dark. This feeling reinforces the alienness of Bren and the atevi. Alienness always works both ways.

God hope the house of cards he and Tabini had built lasted long enough to provide a pattern for the girders of a whole new world.

The plot again shows Cherryh setting up a situation, then dripping and implying information about the characters to the reader, meaning that the ending falls rationally out of the people involved. I want to dwell on this for a few more sentences because this tendency brilliantly guides a lot of Cherryh’s work, and all of the books in this Foreigner series so far. She holds back information from Bren and the reader—due to her tightly focused, third person narrative—to help set up tension and mystery. But she also pulls no punches—a passing statement early in the book that the ship is fueled and can move at any time comes home at the end when it undocks from the station. This pace of revealing information drives Cherryh’s plot pacing: slightly too long for a reveal in Voyager in Night, perfect pacing in Precursor.

“Gently, gently, young man,” Ilisidi said. “Haste only startles what you wish to catch. Stalk your desires. Don’t snatch.”

The theme here shows Bren dealing with assumptions, learning truths, and then trying to react in wise ways to the new situation. This applicable theme seems a bit broad, sure, to some extent all books are about this theme. But Cherryh really dives into the theme, throwing misunderstandings, surprises, and multiple opinions at the reader to show how Bren’s rational note-taking and thinking helps prioritize problems and isolate unknowns, suggesting ways to deal with the unknowns. And then, because she pulls no punches, we see him trying various responses, some successful, some not. This willingness to let Bren not succeed every time perfectly shows Cherryh’s strength at creating characters. If Bren ever succeeds without cost, I would stop reading these books.

Atevi relied on a rational universe. Humans on the island enclave of Mospheira had faith in miracles. Humans on the starship over their heads had more faith in a second armed starship and a planetful of allies, in a universe otherwise sparse with life.

The one thing I would say about this book is that it wouldn’t make much sense without first reading Precursor, at least. Ilsidi and Tabini are really sketched in here, as characters, and the reader could easily be lost without having some sense of how those characters react to reality. But, being a sequel in a series I think should build off of each book, this potential negative is actually a positive to me. I’m glad Cherryh didn’t spend twenty more pages explaining these two characters.

“We do not forget,” Tabini continued, as nerve and flesh all but liquefied in relief and bodyguards stood down from red alert. Tabini swept on, in possession of all attention. Thank God no program dropped. Breathing itself was at a minimum. Tabini’s oratory was all fortunate threes now, rapid, hammering into nerves still resounding to two strokes of the bell, still waiting for the resolution of their universe. “We do not break our strong connections with all that Valasi-aiji built. We do not abrogate our traditions. The more knowledge we acquire, the more we rationally comprehend the universe, the more we control our own destiny—”

One last comment here. Cherryh baits and hooks the reader, she doesn’t pull punches. But she also bait and double or triple hooks the reader. When Ramirez moves to his deathbed, Cherryh hooked me hard. I know things are going to blow up with the ship then, and maybe the station too. But then Ramirez lets out that the other station that suffered an alien attack, Reunion, has survivors aboard. Now I’m hooked again, with this juicy problem facing the characters. And right then, Ilsidi and Tabini’s heir appear on the station. And Bren’s mom starts maybe dying. And Jill leaves Toby. Cherryh just piles on the problems and the book can’t be read fast enough from there. Bait and double hook. I need to do this more in my own writing.

His security had not been idle. Never, ever think it. “So you have suspicions.”
“It’s our tendency, is it not?”

I adore this book. Where Precursor stands among Cherryh’s best work, this one falls just barely short of that. Bren doesn’t change so much as his understanding of his relationships with those around him change. And only having one character so far, that lack of change did drag the book down a bit for me. This shows a book more about adventurous negotiation than character development, and I always advocate for character development. Don’t get me wrong though: this book is about the characters, firmly about them and not the adventure, but because those characters don’t change much, the book doesn’t hit me as hard as Precursor did. However, this is probably my second favorite in the series so far. Good book. Solidly good book. Well worth the read after Precursor.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and folded his hands and stopped where he was, listening, waiting while a very sick woman tried to gather her faculties.
“First off, tell the dowager she’s a right damn bastard.”
It was no time for a translator to argue. Mitigation, however, was a reasonable tactic. “Aiji-ma, Sabin-aiji has heard our suspicions regarding Tamun and received assurances from me and Gin-aiji that we have not arranged a coup of our own. She addresses you with an untranslatable term sometimes meaning extreme disrepute, sometimes indicating respect for an opponent.”
Ilisidi’s mouth drew down in wicked satisfaction. “Return the compliment, paidhi.”
“Captain, she says you’re a right damn bastard, too.”