Intruder

by C. J. Cherryh

  Well, that bettered the count, but he desperately needed two more pins. Two more to felicity and stability, and he did not know where to get them.

  Two more, and the numbers might make him safe from the impending baby. And he could not think where to get them, in the heavens or on earth.

  Right now the numbers were unstable: fourteen was fortunate sevens, multiplied and divisible by two: the omen was bad, especially counting the second offspring due in the house.

  But his relationships covered all the continent and extended onto Mospheira and clear up to the space station, including humans and two tribes and six clans. The new baby was going to have Ajuri and Taiben and Atageini by birth, but the rest were not so easy to get.

  He might get the Atageini even more to his side if he was particularly nice to Uncle Tatiseigi. A younger brother was bound to make mistakes that would make Uncle mad. He had begun badly with Uncle, but he was sure he looked better to Uncle Tatiseigi right now than any runny-nosed baby would look for years and years. Uncle was not that fond of babies.

  And he could put adult manners on whenever he wanted to. He had had Great-grandmother for a teacher. He knew how to impress anybody he wanted to impress.

  He put in white pins for the baby’s sure interests. Taiben, for Father; Ajuri for Mother; Tirnamardi for Uncle; and a white one in Malguri, too, he supposed, which made an infelicity of four…and then he thought: the baby will not have grown up being taught by Great-grandmother. So she will always prefer me. If she ever has to choose, she will prefer me.

  There is his first infelicity. I am first, I was on the ship with mani, she thumped me on the ear—a lot—and Mother and Father will never let her teach him in anything like that way.

  There were many, many more black pins than white. Both counts ended on infelicity—but the baby’s far more so.

  Could the baby possibly get a five, for nand’ Bren? That was a worry. Nand’ Bren was softhearted toward everybody. But nand’ Bren would not prefer the baby: nand’ Bren did not turn away from his associates. That meant no fifth pin. He was first. The baby would be born with only four.

  He was much, much happier with that thought.

  And he had no fear anyone was going to come in here and read the calculations of his map. It was not that evident what it represented, that was one thing, and he had just secured his rooms, with the loyalty of two servants whose future—it was not stupid to think—lay most securely with him, even if he was only infelicitous eight.

  He was so soon to be nine, probably before his sib was born; he absolutely refused to share his birthday.

  The plane touched down and rolled to a stop in the dark, the blue field lights obscuring any view of Shejidan. They were almost home. For luggage, there were only the carry-bags for classified Guild equipment, a little extra luggage of Bren’s, and the two fair-sized crates Machigi had sent. Airport security staff and workers under their supervision moved up carts to manage the crates and get them into the waiting van. Jago carried Bren’s bag as well as her own, and they all descended from the plane and boarded the van with the efficiency and speed of a routine arrangement.

  It was a fast trip across the field, over to the open-air airport train station, then into a small enclosed platform where a Special waited—only one passenger car was attached, this trip, and plus the baggage car, and Guild security held both ready for their boarding.

  The crates had to be loaded to baggage; Algini stayed to supervise that, while the rest of them climbed aboard the passenger car—Tabini-aiji’s own car, with dark red velvet curtains making the inside much nicer than the all but windowless outside. It was the same bench seat at the rear that Bren always took, and it was like any return from Mospheira. Any visit to Malguri. Any visit to Taiben—going back for years and years of service to Tabini-aiji.

  At the start of it, he’d flown where they could find room for him and hung about reading and doing work in a cubbyhole, waiting for some train from the Bujavid hill to pick up groceries and afford the paidhi-aiji a seat somewhere.

  Bren let go a slow sigh, as, without even asking, Jago handed him a fruit drink from the well-stocked little fridge this luxury car afforded. It was innocent of alcohol—a good call. God, he was tired. Physically tired, but not so much as mentally tired.

  And he was finally past the point of needing his wits about him. That was a relief. His wits had had all the exercise they could stand.

  He felt he was already home as the train began to move. He knew every turn in the track from here on, and he saw relaxation slowly set into his bodyguard as well, everything became as predictable and as safe as it ever could be.

  Not to depend on, however. The news was probably leaking out about the Marid contact. That would racket through the rumor mill. It would touch off crazy people. And animate sane ones who had opposing interests.

  The bullet-shield curtains were drawn on the one window that actually was a window; they almost always were drawn. If they hadn’t been, at about this turn, one could have seen the Bujavid on its hilltop, rising up and taking with it some of the mazy tiled roofs of the city. At the bottom, one would see one little spark of outrageous neon at the limit of the classic Old City neighborhoods—and he’d just as soon not see it. He’d been wanting to get that neon display in the hotel district outlawed for years, but he’d never quite found it worth the fight with the very party that generally supported him—the innovators, those who favored human tech and humans, and happened to think neon light was a great tourist attraction.

  Another familiar turn about the hill and the train diverted onto the track that only a few trains, and mostly this engine, ever took, the line which led into the tunnel of the Bujavid hill itself.

  Still more turns—he was down to the bottom of the fruit juice now. One could tell by the sound and by the reduction in speed, exactly where they were, every detail of the system as they slowly climbed toward the Bujavid train station.

  Algini and Banichi silently got up and went back to the hand baggage. Tano, one arm still somewhat impaired, made a move in that direction, pure habit; but Jago got up, put a hand on Tano’s good shoulder, and went back in his stead to help Algini and Banichi. Tano settled again, looking annoyed.

  “How is it, Tano-ji,” Bren asked him, “after the flight? Was the pressure change a problem?”

  The frown persisted. “Nothing of consequence, Bren-ji.”

  “Hurts, then.”

  “Not much,” Tano said, moving the shoulder. “It needs exercise.”

  “Prescribed exercise,” Bren said staunchly. “And sleeping in your own bed tonight, Tano-ji.”

  “Indeed,” Tano said more cheerfully. “And you in yours, Bren-ji. Well-deserved, in your instance.”

  The train slowed and slowed further, coming to a halt at a platform Bren could see in his mind. They stopped. The door of the car opened.

  Bren took his case in hand and got up. Tano did. They walked back to the door as Banichi opened it, and, behind Algini and Jago and Banichi handling the baggage, Bren stepped down to the platform—a fair hop for a tired human. Just as automatically, Tano reached out his good hand and steadied him in his landing beside the baggage.

  “To the lift,” Banichi said, indicating he should not wait about. It was an area crowded with idle carts, offering only freight lifts, not the ordinary passenger siding. Freight had come in recently on another train; crates of seasonal vegetables, probably eggs, and sacks of flour sat on the other side of the platform, at the other freight dock. Their own engine would be in motion again once it had given up its last baggage, moving to stand ready, though reversed on the track, for Tabini’s own occasional use. There was no other inbound traffic at the moment, just a stack of personal crates on the passenger platform indicating that someone else had arrived in the residencies, bringing furniture with them, by the size of the crates—not an uncommon event with the legislature about to go into session.

  They left Algini and Tano to arrange things with the
crates. Banichi and Jago took their own hand baggage, a light load for them, and they headed toward the quieter area of the platforms, where the lift shafts made a vast pillar, the spine of the hill, going up and up from here. There were the lifts, a bank of them, along with the pipes and conduits, the veins and arteries that carried everything that came from or went into the Bujavid.

  There were not many passenger lifts, and none these days went above the main floor or the offices. Banichi and Jago held the door of the one waiting—no lift was going to budge with Banichi in the doorway—and Bren walked in.

  Banichi got in. The doors shut. The car went up and up, a considerable rise to the floor of offices above the legislative halls. There, observed and recognized by the guards on duty, they took themselves and their baggage across to another lift and rode up to the third residential level.

  The doors opened quietly and let them out into an elegant hallway of antique carpet runners, porcelains on pedestals, crystal chandeliers, and a sparse choice of individual doors on either hand…among which, to the right, was, finally, his own apartment, a direction he hadn’t taken all year, not since he’d come back from space.

  Home. No more Farai clan holding the place hostage. And no more making do as a resident with someone else’s staff—well, there would be a little making-do, for a few days yet, since they hadn’t a master cook, hadn’t all the furniture back, and hadn’t full staffing yet. But that was coming.

  And Najida staff was waiting for him, some of whom, including his valets, Supani and Koharu, had a permanent appointment. For the rest, which he very much looked forward to, the very next shuttle flight would bring staff from the apartment on the station—people sorely missed, some who’d flown to deep space with him; and who hadn’t found it possible to get a flight down to meet their own kin on their return, nor for the whole year since.

  Oh, one could so gratefully do with a little dull tranquility and normalcy…at least as much as one could find in an apartment right next door to Tabini’s, and not that far from Lord Tatiseigi and the aiji-dowager, not to mention just upstairs from the legislature, the aiji’s audience hall, the committee offices—

  And not to mention, upstairs from his own clerical office, which had reconstituted itself in the last year and was again swamped with correspondence.

  Plus he’d have the news services to deal with by tomorrow—but the news people couldn’t get access to the Bujavid train station or the upstairs of the Bujavid.

  Maybe he could manage a few days’ respite. Sleep. Sleep would be good. Sleep under his own roof, so to speak, and with no pressing emergency.

  They carried their baggage to their own front door, and they had not even to knock. The ornate doors swung inward from the center, both leaves, and let him and his travel-weary bodyguard all in at once.

  Staff waited in the foyer, people from whom they had parted only a few days ago—but all in new jobs and a new place, with smiling faces and happy enthusiasm.

  “Nandi.” Supani, his major d’ pro tem, immediately helped him off with the traveling coat. Koharu took that garment from Supani and handed it on to Husaro, who whisked it out of sight for cleaning, to be ready if needed in the morning. And immediately there was a simpler, lighter coat for indoors.

  Thus clad, he went doggedly through the company, naming names down to the very young chambermaid, meeting each, thanking them for coming. To the lot, then and especially to the girl, who was only fourteen, he said, “Do advantage yourself of the post whenever you wish, nadi. Send as many cards as you need. One understands several of you are for the first time in the city. So you all must take hours off and go take tours. Go as several together.”

  “Nandi,” was the general murmur, bows, diffidence, delight. “Nandi, thank you.”

  His bodyguard were due a rest of their own; Tano and Algini had yet to arrive with the baggage, but they would be here soon.

  He was obliged to take a tour of his own apartment, which the staff had labored to render habitable, freighting furniture in across country from the Najida basement, finding linens, stocking the kitchens, installing his wardrobe and his personal items, his library…

  These brave people had saved so much that was his from the predations of the Farai, and it would take hours to go through the library alone and find out which of his books had arrived. He had to inspect every room, admire it, assure one and the other anxious staffer that it was perfect. He was tired, but they had shepherded his belongings back, in some cases having risked their lives stealing it away before the Farai had moved in two years back.

  So, yes, he did admire it and all their ingenuity. First of all was what was new: a guest room the apartment had never had. It had appeared in the reorganization of Tabini’s apartment and the redefinition of the sitting room wall and foyer—due, they all understood, to the elimination of a servant passage which had been declared a security hazard to Tabini’s apartment. Tabini had gotten a storeroom out of the transaction, but the paidhi now had guest quarters—small but elegant, with furnishings his staff had picked out, tasteful and classic and very fine.

  In the Bujavid, where space was at a premium, it was a miracle, an incredibly generous gift, especially considering the donor, and his staff was absolutely delighted and proud. They hoped the furnishings they had chosen did it justice.

  He pronounced it very fine, very fit, and they were happy with that. He went on, finding some things back in their proper places. There might be a new couch in the sitting room, but they had gotten the tapestries away and a room-sized carpet, of all things—the ingenuity and courage involved was memorable. They had saved his modest china, but they had ordered in a new dining set. They had insisted on replacing the pots and pans and all the food, saying that they would trust no utensil or store that the Farai had used and left.

  His office desk had a broken lock, but that had been repaired. His shelves were again full of his books and a few mementos he recognized from Najida.

  There was the security station, part of the suite Banichi and Jago had already occupied—they were in communication with Tano and Algini, who had just returned to the Guild office some of the armament they had brought back, not quite appropriate for defense in the Bujavid.

  And above all, there was that wonderful bath, just as he had left it. At the moment he wouldn’t care if there were Farai currently sitting in that great tub. He had to have his bath, to clear the way for his aishid to use it, and he said finally, with the tour now reduced only to Supani and Koharu, “Nadiin-ji. I am absolutely exhausted.”

  “One anticipated so, nandi,” Supani said. “Cook has arranged a light supper for you and your aishid, when they wish.”

  A light supper for a late arrival. It was his standing instruction at Najida, and it was perfect for tonight. This staff knew him. This staff understood him. Everything happened by magic. His world was in perfect order: he had a bath waiting, and they would, once Tano and Algini were in, shut the doors definitively and be one household, safe and secure, beyond reach of anyone.

  The bulletproof vest fastened under the arm. He shed that overheated confinement with an immense relief. Supani and Koharu reverted to their true and proper jobs, being his valets; Koharu took the vest away to be cleaned, and within a little time he was neck-deep in steaming water and very, very content with the world.

  “Shall we leave you, nandi?” Supani asked. “Or would you prefer we stay?”

  “Stay, stay,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

  So Supani and Koharu sat by informally on the bath benches and chattered on about the staff’s adjustment to the apartment, about the pot and pan situation, and the fact that Pai—a lad from Najida kitchens, not quite a sous-chef, but ambitious and willing—had gone bravely down to the city and bought the essentials along with the groceries, independent of reliance on the Bujavid storehouses, to which they did not have an authorization, an action which it was hoped would be approved.

  “Excellent,” he murmured, eyes shut. “An
d furniture for the staff quarters, nadiin-ji—you are well provided for, one hopes.”

  “We are all perfectly content, nandi,” Koharu said. “We are a little short of beds as yet.”

  Eyes open. He sat up in the bath. “Oh, this will not do, Haru-ji!”

  “Beds are coming, beds are coming, nandi. By the time the staff from the space station arrive, everything will be kabiu and orderly in our quarters. We have only two people as yet unprovided for.”

  He sank back again, up to his chin. “One hopes, nadiin-ji. I cannot accept that my staff is sleeping on the floor.”

  “We are quite comfortable, nandi, for the time being. Two have doubled up. We have most excellent facilities—those were renovated, too. We have never lived in such modern surroundings.”

  “You are content with that.”

  “We are very content. We have every convenience.”

  They were from a fishing village. A place of great tradition. His apartment was scant of history, but it had some things in which they could take great pride.

  And he would have to get a list of what was still needed. For two, going on almost three years now, he had been away, either on the station, the ship, or living a hall away, on Lord Tatiseigi’s charity.

  Now he was back in a place utterly dedicated to keeping the paidhi-aiji functioning and doing his job. He had anything he wanted. More money than he could possibly spend, even considering he was renovating Najida, and bringing improvements to Najida village, and assisting with the Edi’s new manor house.

  And it was an extraordinary staff, who had left their kinfolk in Najida to come to a city where they knew absolutely no one, only to keep the lord of Najida in comfort. He owed them. He owed them the best he could possibly provide. They, in a different way than his bodyguard, kept him safe and functioning.

  “You should each have whatever you wish,” he said. “Just let me know what you need, and I shall sign for it with the Bujavid storage.” He slipped beneath the surface, where all was quiet except the circulating pump, and resurfaced for air, in good humor.