Divergence

by C. J. Cherryh

  “One hopes the display is enough. I would so like to see this end quietly.”

  “So would we all.”

  “Nothing from the dowager herself?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, we may take Cenedi for her voice, I suppose. I hope—I truly hope she is getting some sleep. That may be her plan. With night coming on, things may get a little livelier, and the more problems we can remove by daylight, the better. She may intend to put Nawari in command tonight. But we will need relief. Is Algini getting any rest?”

  “Not that I am aware,” Jago said. “He is delegating what he can. Banichi—” She shrugged. “Banichi is going through files, in his spare moments. The pace of distractions is ebbing. He says so, at least. And we are getting word . . .” Jago held the earpiece close for a moment. “There is a little trouble in the port at the moment. There has been an outburst of gunfire ashore and a building, a machinists’ shop set alight.”

  “One feared we would get to that,” Bren said, and suddenly realized that not only was his aishid uncommonly split, he had Jago and Tano both paying full attention to him. “Where is Nomari?”

  “Behind you, over by the far wall, nandi,” Tano said—formally so, this being fairly public, with traffic going among the tables. “I am watching him. He has gone into the accommodation, with one of his aishid.”

  “Do not let me pose a distraction,” he said. “I do not want him wandering about.”

  “No,” Tano said simply, absolutely.

  “So what do we know?” Bren asked. “What is the latest?”

  Jago said, “The first naval vessel is within the harbor mouth. They will be station-keeping through the night, and preventing any departures. They are lighted, to be sure the opposition knows they are out there. We are in standard communication with them, but the Red Train will direct them. Cenedi reports the railyard is secure. Units in the city send word the main thoroughfare and intersecting streets are secure, likewise the broadcast station, under the lord’s cousin and his family. Some who fled the city for the northern hills are now returning. They pose some problem. We have arrested a few citizens for drunkenness and riot, nothing worse. We have the minor cases housed temporarily in a schoolhouse, cases of suspect activity in the city under guard and interrogation. Generally people have been compliant, likely because they are terrified of us.”

  It was not how the Guild preferred to be regarded. But there were times it served a purpose.

  “If we can only hold the situation this calm until the morning,” Bren said.

  “It has already been a day under Guild rule,” Jago said. “And as with the people here in the residency, they have some fear of us staying—but serious fear of us leaving. Banichi has asked Lord Bregani’s cousin to keep broadcasting news in small amounts, and listing names of people who are attempting to contact relatives, in the hope people will stay close to their radios and feel some sense of progress in the situation. Banichi also has mobile units out broadcasting advisements to various neighborhoods, so that people know there is some good—”

  She stopped, and her eyes unfocussed. “There,” she began to say, and stopped again. Tano pressed his earpiece closer, as some server rattled a tray, but shook his head.

  “Cenedi reports . . . the Council Guild force, next to the lander . . . has picked up movement across the marsh. They have deployed. They are somehow . . . They are in direct communication with the second navy ship, at sea, and it is evidently—changing course. Cenedi is querying their intent. Lord Geigi . . . Lord Geigi’s name is being mentioned. But one gathers he is in contact with the force near the lander and is relaying information.”

  In contact and relaying information was a distinct possibility, and communication with the relay was in the hands of the Guild in Shejidan. Likewise, one was fairly sure, in the hands of. . . .

  “Tabini-aiji,” Bren said, knowing the dowager would not be pleased. Nor did he want to spread that speculation to passing servants. “Do we have a simultaneous operation starting here?”

  “It is—” Jago began, and broke off again. “Banichi is querying. Algini says Cenedi is querying.” And a moment later: “Guild Headquarters is sending verbal communication over the compromised network. They are giving Dojisigin units instructions to cease obeying their command and to stay where they are until contacted. They are demanding Lord Tiajo step down forthwith and surrender.”

  It was not the plan. It was not the dowager’s plan.

  It was going out over regular communications, so all Guild could hear it. Certainly the dowager would be learning that her own plans had been preempted and that one of her two ships was not doing as she had ordered.

  “I need to speak to Lord Bregani,” Bren said. There was no time to think about it or plan what he would do or how he would explain it. Lord Bregani was on his feet, speaking with his associates in a casual way. Bregani should not hear the news from some passing servant.

  Civilians in the room would not have heard what was transpiring yet, but wherever in the residency and wherever in the city or in the port Guild was operating, within reach of their ordinary relays, they were hearing it. A Guild action was underway, invading the Dojisigin, or at least imminently threatening that action.

  Bren stood up, reflexively straightened his coat and his cuffs and headed for Lord Bregani and his appointed bodyguard. Bregani’s Guild bodyguard was frowning, aware there was a problem, and suddenly focused on Bren, expectant. Bregani was cheerful, uninformed of all of it as he walked, intent on someone else.

  Bren intercepted him with: “Nandi. I am the bearer of news the dowager was not expecting, and I am conveying it to you as our ally and associate, directly as I have had it. Guild units near the relay are moving.” The Senjini standing near Lord Bregani might or might not have been told there was a hulking great object sitting out on the coastal plain relaying Guild communications back and forth to Shejidan and the space station. But everybody who had been on the train knew there was a lander out there. As for what it could do—the fact it was now coordinating events on the ground with Geigi, who could see in the dark, and in detail they could not imagine—no, the subclan lords were not prepared for that. Lord Bregani was not prepared for that.

  “Units on the other train are apparently taking an aggressive stance. We do not know whether some specific provocation has happened, but the Guild is calling for the surrender of outlaw units and, specifically, for Lord Tiajo to step down.”

  “God below,” the Juni lord said.

  “It was not planned, nandi,” Bren said firmly. “But your protection was planned, and the dowager’s word on that issue will stand, whatever else is going on. You are her ally and her associate, as is Lord Machigi, whom I have yet to inform. Please be confident of all her agreements, and trust your status as her ally prior to anything Lord Tiajo may have said or done to provoke this. Your territory will not be threatened by this event.”

  “We have Guild running our streets,” Lusi said. We have our current chief trading partner under armed assault and a governing lord under attack. We have a great metal ship in our harbor!”

  “Parbi-ji,” Lord Bregani said, evidently using Lusi’s personal name, “clearly something unexpected is going on. Nand’ paidhi. Is the dowager aware of this?”

  “I cannot swear to the moment, nandi, but she will protect Senjin, whatever is going on. She does not change direction like this. Nandiin, let me inform Lord Machigi before he hears it from some other source, and I will immediately start trying to get your answers in specific. One moment, only one moment, nandi, give me that. Then I will use every contact I have to get a response. I can fairly predict the dowager will be no slower in finding an answer.”

  “Go,” Bregani said, frowning, and Bren turned away, looking to Lord Machigi, who was still unaware, sitting at a table with his non-regulation aishid, drinking something that was not tea, and probab
ly wondering what had the Guild suddenly, massively distracted.

  “A human and a foreigner,” he heard behind him, from what speaker near Bregani was not clear. “What does he serve?”

  There was no answering it. The ground was shifting under the dowager’s promises and they had a city under occupation, with a pile of promises dry as tinder and apt to be set off by a spark. All sorts of possibilities were suddenly in play, and, connected as they might be to Shejidan and the space station, they could not guarantee Lord Bregani’s safety or even their own if an enemy bent on revenge decided to trigger clandestine units to act.

  “Nandi,” Bren said, and took a chair across from Machigi unasked, with Tano and Jago standing behind him. “I have just gotten word there is movement on the western border from our side. The Guild has outright told Lord Tiajo to step down and seems to be moving east toward the Dojisigin to enforce it. I have just advised Lord Bregani. I have not yet heard from the dowager, but I do not think she will be pleased.”

  Machigi stared back, one of his impenetrable stares, giving away little. “In your estimation she did not order it.”

  “In my estimation, no, she did not. She has made all her arrangements on this side of the Marid, nandi, assuring that Tiajo would think twice before bringing force against her. She has Lusi’ei’s harbor blocked and she is pushing Dojisigi of whatever degree to leave. If Lord Tiajo has any thought of intervening here, we are prepared to deal with her, and we will leave a force capable of defending Senjin. Not part of her plan, but acceptable, the Guild has considerable force poised on Lord Tiajo’s doorstep. But to my knowledge this eastward move by that force was not hers—and I do not need all the fingers of one hand to count the agencies that might move to skirt her orders.”

  “The legislature. Her grandson.”

  “The Guild Council, regarding their outlawed members and their rules. And Lord Geigi, in the heavens, if he saw an impending danger—but one would assume he would have warned us, and he has not. One thing I am sure of is that whatever is happening is not aimed to defy her, is not aimed at you, and is not aimed at Senjin. The demand for Tiajo to step down may be a tactic, opening a way to counter-demand and negotiate. The Guild once committed will likely pursue its own outlawed members, but not to your disadvantage. For now, I ask your support of the dowager. She will hold to that agreement. That is a commitment made, and it will stand.”

  “Are there more surprises?” Machigi asked. “Shall we see another of those descents from the heavens land here? I tell you it will not be welcome.”

  “There are to my knowledge no more of them in existence, nandi. I sincerely believe the one that landed was the last of them, but they were never devised to be used against the Marid. They were originally aimed at the outlaw regime and the last of them, where it stands, will still be used against them. There is, to my knowledge, one navy ship in this harbor, and another at sea, diverted by someone’s order, possibly headed toward Amarja, in the interest of closing that harbor. I am keeping no secrets about this. My word on it. It is not aimed at Senjin or the Taisigin or your allies. I suspect she is gathering information as we are, and one must make the observation: if Tiajo does go down—it will not be bad for you.”

  “Ha. If someone wishes to take down that fool, I shall not object. Take them all down, this Guild of hers, and their works, and light a fire under them. Let the Marid be free of them once for all. I can deal with Senjin.”

  Considering the history of the Marid, that last could be an ominous statement . . . all the more reason to build up a healthy relationship.

  “But dealing with the Dojisigin will not be not the end of your Shadow Guild,” Machigi said. “And if you wish to know where else I have told the dowager to look. . . .” Machigi reached for the bottle, poured a considerable amount into his cup, then pushed the cup across to Bren, took another slightly used cup and poured his own, equally generous.

  “I am listening.” Bren picked up the cup, hoping Jago and Tano recognized the liquor and could warn him off another tea incident. He took a careful sip, tasting herbal flavors beneath the alcohol, but his tongue did not tingle, which was one warning he had learned to heed.

  “Close to your own holdings,” Machigi said. “The west coast.”

  The west coast was the direction of old and troublesome Taisigin ambitions. Ilisidi had traded Machigi the sea route and the ship designs specifically to pry Machigi away from his ancestral claim on the southwest coast, a claim so old it predated the aishidi’tat by a thousand years and involved mythical figures, or at least mythologized ones. The claim had never been realized, no settlement had ever existed there, and it was mostly a tale of war between the scattered clans of the south and the Marid folk who had materialized following the disaster of the Southern Island and the whole south coast, clans that for the last thousand years had warred with each other when they were not warring with their neighbors.

  The dowager had gotten Machigi’s signature on an agreement and promised him trade—in exchange for his giving up his claim on the west coast, and here they sat, on the verge of an answer for the Marid, and the west coast was back on Machigi’s lips.

  A market road ran north to south along that coast and marked the boundary Machigi had agreed to. The vast Taisigin hunting range, one of the largest hunting ranges of any clan in modern times, ran from the Taisigi capital, Tanaja, to the edge of that long north-south road, on the seaward side of which lay the coastal clans of the aishidi’tat. There were independent townships, several, the Ashidama peninsula, and the Kajidama and Najidama peninsulas, one of which was Lord Geigi’s domain, and one of which was his own. Najida.

  “West,” he echoed Machigi. “You are surely not meaning Lord Geigi, nandi. Or me.”

  Machigi took down a massive swallow and grimaced. “I have no quarrel with Lord Geigi. Not even in his giving land to the ship-wreckers.”

  The ship-wreckers would be the Edi, who now lived peaceably on Najida and supplied a good many of the Najida staff. They were currently building a new residency on Kajiminda peninsula, and that might have displeased Machigi: the Edi were an old problem. But . . . the Edi ‘ship-wreckers’ were no longer active.

  “Separti?” That and Talidi, market towns for the whole coast, were the only things left.

  “Separti, Talidi . . . Jorida. The whole Ashidama region. Look to them for your next trouble, paidhi, in your own neighborhood.”

  He had meant to get up quickly, and not to drink more than a sip of the liquor. He stayed seated, and leaned his arms on the table. “If you have observations, nandi . . .”

  “Oh, I have observations aplenty and I have shared them with the aiji-dowager. Jorida Isle, in Ashidama Bay. Jorida has money, the vast majority of which has come from brokering between the Dojisigin and your own law-abiding aishidit’at.”

  Brokering. Curious choice of words. “Black market? Or what?”

  “Regular trade up to Cobo. And, yes, black market. Smuggling.”

  “Black market . . . in what?”

  “Items that never should have left their final resting place.”

  That sounded like grave-robbing. But there was one vast grave all the Marid respected. Or should respect.

  “Are you talking about artifacts?”

  “Among other things. Yes.”

  “Where are they dealing?”

  “Oh, Cobo, again. Or northward. Or east. With or without their knowledge, northern lords with more money than they need have helped finance your northern Shadow Guild for decades, and Jorida is the hub of it. Jorida funds the looters. Dojisigi, mostly. The flotsam that washed up last, from the Great Wave, brigands from the outset. And if Tiajo’s network shatters, the pieces will follow their usual route and end up right on your doorstep, paidhi. I have warned the dowager, and yes, the ships were late into position. This noisy arrival down from the heights hastened everything into motion, with the sh
ips not yet in position.”

  “They were to block both harbors. Lusi’ei and Amarja.”

  “One to block Lusi’ei. One to stand off ready to move if needed.”

  Machigi had been handed a plan he had not been given. Nor, likely, had Tabini, who commanded the navy.

  “What were they to do—the ships? What changed?”

  “The one to block Lusi’ei. The other to watch traffic out of Amarja, possibly to defend Tanaja.”

  Machigi’s own capital. Likely the ships were the protection he had wanted.

  “The second seems to be heading now toward Amarja. And the Guild force is going in.”

  “I have warned her: starve it out rather than burn it. Hit Amarja with major force and the enemy will move.” Machigi made a fist and expanded it, fingers in various directions. “They will not fight. And some will be on the west coast, where they always were.”

  It was not exactly news that Ashidama, the bay south of his own Najida and Geigi’s Kajiminda, was a recalcitrant area that had never quite joined the rest of the aishidi’tat, but it had also not actively supported the coup against Tabini. It had not actively done anything during the Troubles but trade with the Marid and trade with Cobo. They were not one of Machigi’s own trading partners: Machigi did trade with the west coast, but further north, at Cobo.

  Goods from the northern Marid, however, flowed to Ashidama Bay by ship out of the townships. Najida likewise traded most of its produce and fish down to Ashidama townships; and villages all along the coasts bought and sold there, as well, in a village-to-village commerce.

  “Can you be more specific, nandi?” Bren asked. “What should I say to the dowager?”

  “Say that if she can recall the aiji’s forces, it would prevent a problem. You can reach her by this new system.”

  “Yes, nandi. I can.”

  He pushed back from the table, moved off a few paces and looked at Jago. “Inform Banichi and inform Cenedi.”