Resurgence

by C. J. Cherryh

  It had not worked. They had been caught, could legitimately have been killed on the spot, but they had cast themselves on Lord Tatiseigi’s mercy—and Bren’s own—a shift of man’chi, in his aishid’s uneasy estimation. Bren had accepted it—having no inner sense to tell him, having no desire to see two men killed, either. He had always been uneasy about it. It was like being blind, absolutely bereft of a sense that everyone else could use. Asked what to do with them, he had sent them back south to try to rescue their two partners. But he had had no news from them since.

  “I have no sense of this. I truly do not, nadiin-ji. Nor ever have had. Can you contact them?”

  “There are ways,” Banichi said. “There are signals we can send. They will come to us. We will not go to them. That is the kind of arrangement we have.”

  “They have never found their partners,” Bren surmised.

  “No,” Banichi said flatly, and Algini:

  “They have stayed alive, however—remarkable in itself, where they have been.”

  “You know where they are,” Bren said.

  “They have been various places in the Marid,” Banichi said. “Headquarters may know more.”

  “If they are willing,” Bren said. “That is a condition.”

  “There is no question of willingness,” Banichi said. “Their restraint given a chance to act is less certain. They are a hiltless blade, at the moment. No hand has wanted to pick them up. Not even Machigi.”

  Algini moved his foot from the chair, sheathed his boot knife. “We will not have you stand close to this team, Bren-ji—we could never be easy in that. They say their man’chi is to you, and this may be true—but they were willing to turn, twice.”

  “Giving them a usefulness,” Tano said, “might save them.”

  Save them. There were emotions a human could understand and emotions a human could somewhat imagine feeling, but the man’chi within a team, between partners within a team . . . that was not one of them. Banichi and Jago had a loss in their past. Tano and Algini had come together in other circumstances, but what lay behind them—there had been doors in that, too, that he felt he should never open, lacking the capacity to understand what was in those dark places. Man’chi, the cohesiveness, the nature of an atevi relationship, was not in his wiring. Love was. Pride was. Instinct to protect was. But he didn’t connect those things the same way, didn’t have the same triggers and cross-connections.

  These two . . . their partners held hostage by their own leadership to force them into an assignment they would not have taken—they’d aborted it, forsworn their man’chi to everything they had served and handed it to him, the object of the Shadow Guild’s intense opposition. And that move might have killed their partners. They had to be in emotional turmoil. His aishid said the pair was chancy, and giving orders where they were concerned—was just not safe.

  “Do what is right to do with them,” he said, all the while knowing their judgment of the situation would not risk his safety or that of his allies. “I wish them well, nadiin-ji, but I will not endanger you, nor people near me, and I trust you to deal with it. I have no true sense of the pressures on them. Understand me in that.”

  Banichi nodded solemnly and cast a glance at Algini, whose nod was more a downward glance, that subtle an exchange. Things would happen. Something would result. They would use their judgment.

  They talked for a while. Najida was as safe as shipboard for them to sit and discuss sensitive matters—as little chance of eavesdroppers or malice afoot as anywhere on earth, with absolute discretion and good sense on the part of Ramaso’s staff, or there would be Ramaso to deal with. Najida staff had once smuggled significant pieces of his Bujavid apartment furniture and two very large, heavy rugs out of the Bujavid and kept them in hiding, with the whole Bujavid in enemy hands. He never forgot that loyalty, that extravagant, defiant gesture. And they had not lost anyone doing it.

  He trusted Ilisidi, as well . . . not saying she would not lie to him outright, not saying she would not put him in harm’s way if needful. How close she had come to killing him herself once upon a time, he was not sure, but she had certainly run the risk of it without a qualm—for the good of herself and her grandson, as she saw it. Her circle of interests was both extremely broad—the whole aishidi’tat, which she had twice ruled; her allies; her household; her province—and extremely narrow in focus: her precious projects, one of which had walked in on them tonight and offered her—

  —offered her Dojisigi. And a quiet Marid.

  Offered her, remotely possible, Hurshina, or at least a good excuse to make him unhappy.

  Her grandson Tabini had the ultimate power of decision. She was in favor of that. Her grandson did not obstruct her projects—one of which had been settlement of the tribal peoples, the Edi and the Gan. She had done that. Settling the uneasy politics of the whole west coast, the activities of which abutted, yes, humans? That remained elusive. From the time when she had ruled the aishidi’tat as regent for her grandson, she had perceived the west coast and its unsettled situation, not the Marid, as the problem that could rise up to undo the aishidi’tat. Humans had created the problem. Humans centuries back had dropped onto the world unasked, lost a war—and the aishidi’tat, to settle the peace, had displaced the tribal peoples from Mospheira, the only territory the aishidi’tat could effectively isolate—and given it to humans on the condition that they stay there. Period. Forever.

  Hence his job as paidhi-aiji, which had used to be as Mospheira’s representative to the aiji’s court. Now he was Tabini’s own diplomat, not only to the humans, but to other atevi as well, negotiating what Tabini wanted others to do—and the dowager had appropriated him on no few occasions.

  He had the feeling that the dowager’s intentions were still concentrated on this coast—which was not Ragi, ethnically, which was differently organized from the Ragi clans of the north, and a region which had been a concern to her in both her terms as aiji-regent. It was old business, unfinished business, the problem she had never been able to settle: this region—this coast—with tribal peoples who had been displaced by the human settlement, themselves settled on confiscated land in a region politicked-over for generations by people like Hurshina and, from a considerable distance, Machigi. To this day—the whole southwest quarter of the continent remained a part of the aishidi’tat, but deeply involved in its own politics, its feud with the Tribal Peoples, its tendency to raise up moneyed interests while letting poverty take whole areas of the townships. The population was a mix of broken clans, small remnants of sub-clans generally represented by the Maschi, whose reach extended from the Senjin border to Kajiminda Bay; but mostly conducting a completely fragmented, lordless politics in a model actually closer to Mospheiran society. It was an area where, once, a fractious group of humans had held influence, until defeated, at heavy cost. Now wealth and patronage spoke louder than historic clan connections, an uneasy mix of human-like economic structure and atevi institutions, and Hurshina of Jorida ran two great townships and numerous coastal villages with no legal standing to do so.

  To their east, with a hunting range claimed right up to the Great Coastal Road, was the Marid, not closely tied to the central government in Shejidan—and not all speaking Ragi, for that matter. An older civilization on the Southern Island, as the Ragi atevi called it—had gone down in ruins, a result of the Great Wave and the subsequent breakdown of civilization there. That lost civilization was Machigi’s heritage—refugees from a thousand years ago, and still fighting among themselves. No clan in the Marid had been able to gain power over all the others. Ever.

  Machigi’s forebears had tried to expand their backdoor territory clear to the west coast—territory that would give them control of the entire southwest coast and all of Ashidama Bay. But their plans had all gone down in local quarrels, infighting among the Marid districts—until Machigi had begun to talk about it again, and gained the loyalty of
both the Dausigin and the Sungenin Marid.

  That new threat had actually had been fortunate for the north, because Machigi had stood off the Dojisigin and Senjin at a time when Murini’s conspiracy, with connections to the Dojisigi, had overthrown Tabini and put the aishidi’tat into the hands of the Shadow Guild. Machigi’s allies in the Dausigi and the Sungeni areas had seen that situation as threatening, and they had stood with him—making him a power in the southern Marid that could stand off Dojisigin authority.

  At that point Machigi had, with Shejidan back under Tabini’s rule, gotten a message from Ilisidi: resign your ambitions for Ashidama Bay and we can make a deal.

  One Bren Cameron had carried that particular message, one of the scarier trips he’d made, in a career that had found him on the wrong end of gunfire more times than he could count. That offer had been one of the dowager’s more outrageous moves. But one that worked.

  Ilisidi was unique among atevi. She had constitutionally distrusted humans—but she had decided to trust him. She had been and was still a bastion of mediaeval ways and attitudes: her holdings at Malguri, in the far East, scarcely had electric light. But she had supported atevi involvement on the human space station, involved herself and her precious great-grandson on a voyage to settle a human problem lightyears distant, had involved herself again when an alien power came calling, and, just as recklessly as she had dealt with one Bren Cameron, she had broken through an alien language barrier and talked to beings that well might have ended atevi and humans.

  Dealing with other atevi, in the Marid? That had been no stretch of her imagination. Machigi was not all that foreign.

  Remarkable woman. Change kept happening. And Ilisidi kept running before the wind, using technology and people with ruthless practicality—but with a fierce sense of her people, her way and her assets.

  So now . . . Machigi suddenly produced an ambition to have a railroad link to the main system, which was going to annoy hell out of Senjin and the Dojisigin and upset the west coast into the bargain?

  Oh, yes, she had listened.

  Yes, there were advantages—God, there were. If Senjin could be weaned from the Dojisigin everyone would be better off . . . except for the Dojisigin. And the potential reaction from the Southwest Coast . . .

  Currently, the use of the rail’s great loop was highly cargo dependent. When the Red Train finally reached them tomorrow, it might have taken the shorter route, coming down the steep grade from the mountains, a route which ran from the capital of the aishidi’tat to the capital of the Senjin Marid, where it would take a westward turn through Maschi clan holdings and over to Najida, But that would be a very unusual routing for the aiji’s personal train—which was as security-sensitive as a train could be. No. It would almost certainly take the substantially longer route, going north out of Shejidan before angling west, using the transcontinental rail until it took the southern spur to the Najida-Adaran line. Najida station—by no means a rail yard—still had a turning-wye that let it reverse, making it an easy matter for the Red Train to go back the way it had come—its usual pattern.

  Likewise, heavy cargo out of the Marid did not return north up the steep grades and switchbacks: it used the much longer route, to Najida and north, conducting freight traffic from Dojisigin and Senjin, to trade for things the Marid did not produce.

  So now Machigi wanted to build a rail link northward to the Senjin capital to join that trade, a link to carry trade goods to Shejidan and receive northern goods in the south.

  It had been part of the plan—as Machigi’s trade with the East by sea began to find its way in—a link not to Senjin, but overland to Najida.

  They had planned on time. The Tribal People, the Edi, of Najida and Kajiminda were determined to preserve their rural peace. If Machigi’s plan went through, they could not turn Najida into a major station.

  And there was yet another factor to be considered. Ilisidi had her own plans, already in progress—plans that included improvement of the transcontinental rail that linked her province to the aishidi’tat, and the building of warehouses in Hasjuran, on the transmontane line, to the excitement of one Lord Topari, who sat atop the southern pass. It had seemed an economic move: furs and leather out of Hasjuran were competition for her own district, but taken another way, they were supply. A minor project—Hasjuran. A warehouse or two. It had mills. Tanneries. A processing plant. The mountain air produced a unique dried meat product.

  The tiny three-clan district of Hasjuran, highest pass except the continental divide, had the last station before the steep descent to Senjin.

  Her encouragement, her economic favor and social advancement of rough-edged Lord Topari of Hasjuran—which had seemed typical of one of the dowager’s constant little projects—was unifying the fur industry all of it?

  Now came Machigi, with a proposal to reverse the order of ship-building and rail, advancing a scheme to pry Senjin away from alliance with the Dojisigin Marid, and into alliance with the Taisigin Marid, Machigi’s district, on Senjin’s southern border.

  Senjin might have felt the activity in Hasjuran as ominous, hanging almost literally over his head.

  Dojisigi, east of Senjin and across the Marid Sea, might likewise feel a cold breeze off the heights.

  Neither would like Machigi’s trade agreement with the dowager, but most of the aishidi’tat felt it would never come to fruition, that the seas were too rough, the storms too unpredictable, and that the sea trade would only be a gesture, a clever ploy to get the Shejidani guilds admitted into Machigi’s district, something which might prove far more important to the north.

  Now—Machigi, in a clandestine visit, indicated Senjin was vulnerable.

  He had had amazingly few cares coming into dock, where he had assumed everything would come down to a pleasant evening with Toby and Barb and people he trusted implicitly, before a return to the capital and resumption of business, which might be a shade tense given Tatiseigi’s doings in the north—but nothing that couldn’t be handled at leisure.

  Now—he had cares enough to keep him up late at night, just thinking, thinking, thinking—in which matter he was sure Ilisidi was well ahead of him, benevolent in her intentions toward him and his, generally, but, God! there were so many points of risk here.

  Tall stacks of china, the atevi proverb had it. Very tall stacks were at issue, centuries in the making.

  7

  The Red Train was—Cajeiri had wanted to be notified—now out of the city and on its way to Najida, and the late family dinner, including Father, was done with a minimum of fuss. Everybody was exhausted—hard to say why, since most of the day had been sitting and waiting, but Cajeiri wanted nothing so much as to stop moving and not answer questions any longer. Boji had had his cage-rattling tantrum in the outer hall and on arrival in the suite, but even he had quickly settled, curled into a furry ball on a perch, likewise weary from the trip. Eisi and Liedi had more right than any of them to plead exhaustion, having ridden in baggage with Boji, but they still insisted on unpacking and dealing with wardrobe, their real and essential duty, as if to say—remember, young gentleman? This is what we signed on to do.

  Cajeiri, in the bedroom of his own suite, having shed both coat and vest, on the edge of taking off his boots and preparing for bed, collapsed into his soft bedroom chair and stared, wondering how they were all going to manage.

  He had had four bodyguards when he started his trip. Now he had eight, in the same little suite of rooms. His four longest serving were only a little older than he was—that was Antaro and Jegari, Veijico and Lucasi, two sets of brothers and sisters. His father had added the gray-haired seniors on the trip: Rieni and Haniri, Janachi and Onami, who were far more than high-ranking veterans. They were Guild instructors, respected, and—for which he was very grateful—possessed of a good sense of humor, along with a willingness to adapt and teach, and flexibility enough to let him escape with his y
ounger aishid, just occasionally.

  His younger aishid had offered the seniors their beds, in two rooms attached to Cajeiri’s bedroom, the proper place for a lord’s seniormost security to sleep. But Rieni and his unit had declined the courtesy, saying they had already solved that problem, and would take quarters right against the bedroom wall, in the rooms that belonged to the servants’ passage, moving Eisi and Liedi and Father’s general staff in sequence down a couple of doors. The servants’ hall offered, Rieni said dryly, all-hours access to the kitchen, and gave them the ability to come and go without waking the household, and no, they were too high-ranking to worry about appearances and prerogatives. They would manage quite comfortably, given a few needful items.

  It was generously done. His senior bodyguard technically outranked everybody but the very highest clearances, even Father’s bodyguard. They had seniority just short of the Assassins’ Guild Council.

  And they had a perfect right to have asked for far more than a place in a common hall with domestic staff, but Onami said slyly that they would be furnishing those rooms with a very wide permission, and taking a third room as a backstairs security post—his personal security, apart from the security post Father’s guard maintained. They wanted television, armchairs, a small refrigerator and a microwave. Guild Headquarters would supply the rest. And they wanted to section off the area they needed, create a new doorway, wall off the upward stairs and maybe keep the downward stairs and take some storage space below . . . it would entail a lot of construction.

  It scared him a little, these new arrangements that had arrived and started rearranging his household. His expanded aishid would henceforth protect him as separate from Father, or Mother, or his sister, who were not, emphatically not, in his mind, disposable—but he understood he was their primary, their principal charge, and that was the way it had to be. He was fortunate nine, and he had seen far too many assassination attempts—one during this last trip—not to mention Aunt Geidaro being murdered while she was on the phone.