“Then we’re go for launch. Or drop. Or whatever. Landing’s due for thirty-two some hours from now, Taiben’s dawn, 0638 hours local. Right? Daybreak after tomorrow?”
Less than two days. He took a breath. “0638, dawn, day after tomorrow. I hear you. —That fast, Jase?”
“They’re ready. We’re ready. They’re going to tow us in close before they drop us, a chance to back out, I guess, down to the point they cut us loose. —At which point we trust to atevi hospitality and the gods of gravity wells.”
Atevi hospitality. Taiben. Everything Jase was saying indicated the ship had ignored the President’s offer to cut atevi out of the deal. Which was incredible to him.
And in a dizzying two seconds of trying to sort out the implications, he’d bet any amount of money the ship knew it would have the same deal out of Mospheira without giving Mospheira a single one of its requests—
Mospheira being the ally they could always have made it completely unnecessary to risk the ill will of atevi, whose reactions they didn’t know as well—and, thank God, somebody on the human side had thought down a train of logic. Excitement made it hard to keep his voice calm. “Sounds good,” he said, he hoped without missing a beat. “There’ll be somebody out there to meet you. I’ll be there to meet you if I can talk the aiji into ferrying me out to the estate. What do you need from us on landing?”
“Get my partner onto the island as soon as possible. Me—I’m at your disposal, I guess. Next several years.”
“Well, it’s your partner’s choice, a good dinner at Taiben, a personal intro to atevi leadership and a night’s sleep—or a quick pickup and no-frills rush to the airport at Taiben, then straight on to Mospheira. You, on the other hand, absolutely get the deluxe dinner, the personal intro, and a whole night’s sleep before they expect you to be fluent.”
Nervous laughter. “Sounds fine to me. I’ll take the fancy deal. I’ll put it to the captains and Yolanda about the ace-all treatment. Any requests from space?”
“Just pack walking boots. Something real comfortable. There are places you can land where there are no roads. You’ll get a welcome committee. But even after they meet you, you may have to walk to a road, even to a place where we can get overland vehicles, if you happen to drop in somewhere truly inconvenient. It’s kilometers of grass out there, dust and heat with no sanitary stops. At worst case, you come down in some woods and we have to cut you out of the trees first. Please be on target. It’s much easier. My mark was in an area where they can drive right in and pick you up in fine style.”
“As long as they don’t shoot at me and as long as that parachute opens, I’m happy.”
“So are we all. If you should see wildlife, by the way, don’t panic; there’s no animal out there in the grassland that’s going to attack you, and we’ll be tracking you all the way down. We’ll be there—hopefully I will—but if anything intervenes, trust the atevi, be very polite, bow if they bow, and don’t worry about where they’re taking you. The aiji will have every ranger on the estate warned to watch out for you and to take good care of you. That’s a promise.”
“I’ll take it. Deal.”
“I really hope to be there. With luck, I will.”
“I’d really feel better.”
“I don’t blame you in the least—but with me or without me, you’ll make it fine. Keep me posted on progress. If I do go out to Taiben, it may take some moments to get to the phones, but I’m almost never out of reach of radio. You can get to me.”
“I appreciate that. —And I’d better sign off, now, and quit tying up the chair. Com’s got some people working to link with the pod, I’m just cargo at this point, and I really don’t want to annoy the techs. See you. I really mean see you.”
“Yeah. Good luck. Good luck, Jase, good wishes from me and from Tabini-aiji. Kaginjai’ma sa Tabini-aijiu, na pros sai shasatu. All right?”
He was looking at Tabini when he said the latter. And Jase signed off with, gained from the material he’d sent up, a courteous repetition, kaginjai.
Tabini lifted a brow. Damiri and Saidin stared in evident amazement as he hung up the receiver. Banichi, arms folded, listening from the side of the room, also lifted an eyebrow as if to say, well, there it was, suns might be stars and stars might be suns, and neither bothered him, but a paidhi falling out of the sky into Tabini’s estates was about to become real, and for good or for ill within his man’chi.
So now Banichi cared about stars, and suns, and people from them.
“Landing at dawn,” he said to Tabini. “Day after tomorrow, at the Taiben site. They want one of them possibly to go immediately to the airport after landing and on to Mospheira, but I proposed a slower schedule and an overnight at Taiben, and they’re going to present that idea to their authorities. They could well, referring to the information I sent you, aiji-ma, have agreed to deal with Mospheira. And haven’t, so far as what the young man just said.”
“This suits very well,” Tabini said. “Well done, Bren-ji. This young man—Jase Graham—Jase, is that the name?”
“Yes, aiji-ma.”
“A long way from fluency. But comprehensible.”
“Aiji-ma. Also—I promised him I’d be there to meet him. Knowing I hadn’t your confirmation, I told him it might not be possible, but that it was my hope to be at Taiben when the pod touches down…. I want very much to do this, aiji-ma, in spite of events tonight. If security is going there—I’d like to be with them.”
It seemed all unreal to him. With the breakfast room in ruins. With Hanks—alive or dead or God knew where, in the proceedings of atevi and human politics. And the lander coming down in a game reserve he’d hunted in not so long ago.
He feared he was, at least in Tabini’s reckoning, far too protected a piece, if shooting had begun. But—damn, to see events to change all their lives, and to try to make sure there was no glitch in understanding—
“What does the paidhi’s security think?”
“No question,” Banichi said. “Nai-ma. One could much easier guarantee security there than here.”
“Certainly less breakage,” Naidiri said wryly.
“More range of operation,” Banichi said.
“Though,” Naidiri said, “those who’ve kidnaped Hanks-paidhi certainly haven’t made their last move. Best we secure Taiben tonight. One assumes they’ve attempted to intercept communications.”
“See to it,” Tabini said, with a wave of his hand. “Our man’chi will already have taken whatever precautions they deem necessary, if they’re not deaf and blind tonight. —’Miri-ji, Bren and I will spend the next few days in retreat at Taiben—fishing, I think that should be pleasant. I leave it to you to maintain the residence during the interval. Will you appoint suitable staff out of your household, for a gentleman guest?”
“Saidi-ji,” Damiri said. “See to it.” A wry twist of the mouth. “And arrange for the restorationists to survey the breakfast room. There will be no cleaning until they’ve approved. Have them get at it tomorrow, if the paidhi is determined to leave us; have them get their measurements, collect what they want and get out. If not my bedchamber, I expect the paidhi lodged in suitable comfort at Taiben, if you please. And I expect his return to very quiet, very quick repair.”
“Daja-ma,” Saidin said, “nand’ paidhi. Sixteen staff, I recall, is correct for a guest at Taiben, four more with the paidhi’s appropriate numbers of his personal staff—and expecting the paidhi’s single guest, would seem to be a fortunate number, even if this additional woman were to stay. But in her interest, three more, which in no event is unharmonious.”
On Mospheira no one would have made sense of it. On the mainland, it added five to sixteen to get twenty-one, a three-number of the unbeatably felicitous seven times three union with the three entities correctly represented: the paidhi, the aiji, and the ship; a union which with each participating entity subdivided in twos, as he saw it, let the aggressive Ragi mode of accounting deal with the temporary presence
of an additional guest, owed to Mospheira, which made a fourth estate, whose numbers were clearly made transitory in the situation. A transitory influence of less felicitous numbers was acceptable if you could foist them off on an opposition—such as Mospheira. But Saidin gave him the option of shifting the numbers to a five of indivisible fives, likewise fortunate.
And a man could worry about his sanity that he really understood her question.
“One thinks—yes, three more servants to attend the Mospheira-bound paidhi,” Bren said, “if one would, nand’ Saidin.”
“Gods greater and lesser,” Tabini said, “just so the armed ones exceed the numbers of the opposition.”
Tabini was not a superstitious man.
Nor were those closest associated with him, nor did Saidin seemed shocked at the official irreverence: she was clearly expert in gracefully observant appearances, and would, one could lay odds, never have it reported of her arrangement that things were less than proper.
And with that question of appearances in Saidin’s hands, Tabini and Damiri and their security set out to the foyer, declaring they were, for which the paidhi thanked God, going home to Tabini’s residence next door, and the police were going to their office after collecting the tape, and the whole commotion was rapidly dying away to a numb, bruised quiet.
“Nand’ paidhi?” Saidin asked, when the door had shut on the last formalities. “Will you care to see the list of accompanying servants before I issue it to the staff?”
The tremor that had manifested while he was dealing with Jase on the phone threatened to become thought absorbing. “Nand’ Saidin, nadi-ji, I leave everything to your discretion. Please pack what I’ll need, for myself and my personal staff. Send only people of discretion, flexibility and good sense. I’d have you along, foremost, except I know the lady needs you here.”
“Nadi,” Saidin said, with a bow, “please come back safely.”
“I promise you I’ll try to do that, nadi-ji. Not least to please you.”
“You are a scandalous flatterer, nand’ paidhi.”
“Nadi-ji, never. You’re a treasure. Please, rest early. I’ll see myself to bed. I’ve two hands now.”
“Nadi,” Saidin said, and not least among her virtues, understood when a man was tired enough to fall on his face, and withdrew quietly.
Banichi lingered, speaking with Algini in the small secuity office—and Bren eavesdropped, wanting most of all to know Jago and Tano were all right. “Any word?” he asked. “Where’s Jago and Tano? Do you know, Banichi?”
“We’re in contact,” Banichi said.
“They’re safe.”
“Separately. They’re safe. —Are you all right, Bren-ji?”
“Tired. Quite tired. That’s all right. I can walk.”
“Nadi,” Banichi said, and left the office and the com to Algini, and took him by the arm.
Which was probably a good idea, considering the wobble in his legs.
He took off the coat. He gave the gun to Banichi, and Banichi said he would take charge of it, which was altogether agreeable to him.
“You know,” Banichi said, tucking it in his pocket, “it was very foolish, what you did.”
“I didn’t know where you were. I thought Algini was alone by the front door. I had a gun. I didn’t leave it to the servants to check the back balcony because I stood a better chance to stop someone if there should have been a problem….”
“Then it was, over all, well done. Well you were armed, but I admit to extreme anxiousness when you aimed at me, Bren-ji: you presented a disturbing quandary for your own security.”
“I apologize, Banichi.”
“Well done, too, that you waited to confirm your target; one hopes you recognized me. But one fears that you simply hesitated, which is not good. Besides, I must teach you about doors, nadi-ji. Due to their size, and the design of the building, those were not, obviously enough, bulletproof.”
“Banichi, as my life’s become, I’ll pay closest attention to anything you can teach me, and, no, I didn’t recognize you. I knew it was a possibility of it being you.”
“Far easier for me to tell it’s you, paidhi-ji. Anyone can. If you perceive presence, assume they won’t fire if you don’t seem to see them. Dangerous, but less so to your security.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Word from Tano. The scene downstairs indicates a likelihood of Guild members operating without Guild sanction. Despite the evidence of the breakfast room, these are professionals, Bren-ji. This is not the sort that assailed you in the legislature.”
“Professionals acting under man’chi.”
“Evidently so.”
“Does every association have such high-level professionals? I assume they are, since Hanks’ guards—”
“Not every association has such professionals, and that’s a very likely assumption. Such as guarded Hanks-paidhi were not careless.”
“Do you then have suspicions?”
“Four or five.”
“Names known to me?”
“All.”
“Then who, Banichi?”
Banichi hesitated. “Cenedi is a remote possibility.”
“No. Surely not. Not with such lack of finesse.”
“A possibility, I say. One believes the breakfast room itself was a target.”
“And not me?” He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted.
“Possibly. The other names … you would not know the Guild members involved, but the second possible instigator is Atigeini: Tatiseigi. Another is lord Geigi. A fourth is Direiso, who, for the Kadigidi, carried the Filing against your name to the Guild. I’m ordinarily restrained from telling you that, but there’s been an action which makes it needful for you to know. That the proposed contract was voted down, if she has pursued it, would place her and her man’chi in dire opposition to the Guild; but she is constitutionally capable of that, and if the action tonight is on the part of an association of which Ilisidi herself is a part, it would involve Direiso. Likewise another of close association with the Kadigidi—Saigimi of the Marid Tasigin, which is the center of an unwholesome sub-association of suspicious interests. Oil is their unifying interest. Oil. And Talidi province.”
He knew the Kadigidi, one of the perpetual annoyances Tabini tolerated both as contentious neighbors and opposition leaders in the tashrid, in the name of, Tabini swore, the value of peaceful opposition—
And though he didn’t know Saigimi by direct experience—Saigimi didn’t occupy a seat in the tashrid—he knew the Marid Tasigin and most of all he knew the business of Talidi province.
Certainly Banichi did.
“Talidi,” he said to Banichi, “is your province.”
“Bren-ji. Don’t doubt me.”
“Banichi,” he began to say, and then knew salads didn’t remotely cover it, and the language didn’t really have a word for lonely. You could substitute. But it didn’t communicate. And neither could the paidhi, on what the paidhi felt Banichi’s loyalty to be.
“Bren-ji,” Banichi said, “I am not the one.”
“I know that, Banichi. I’m capable of being deceived, of course. But if I were—” A knot had arrived in his throat, and he flashed on that painful darkness as Banichi carried him to the floor. “—if I were, Banichi-ji, it’s hardly necessary for you to go to such trouble. I’ve no association outside Tabini’s but to you and Jago.”
He’d disturbed Banichi. Clearly. “Not to us, paidhi-ji.”
He was in a dark, self-destructive humor all of a sudden—emotional, and not knowing why. “To Tabini, oh, yes. And to you. I stick like glue. You’d have to kill me to get rid of me, you know. We’re like that.”
He’d never seen Banichi show such a troubled expression. “Nand’ paidhi, one has no such intention. I assure you. But you have no man’chi to me or to Jago. Which I’m assured you don’t feel, anyway, nadi. So this is nonsense. Is it not?”
“Who knows what we feel? Maybe I do feel it,
Banichi. If I’d shot you, I’d have been very upset.”
“One is certainly glad to know you’d wish otherwise, nand’ paidhi. And I would have been professionally embarrassed. You scared me.”
That, from Banichi, of the Guild he was from, was an intimate confidence.
“But you are not,” Banichi insisted, as if it still troubled him, “of my man’chi. Nor, I hope, physically attracted to me—which is your other choice. Jago, on the other hand—does not entail necessary loyalty to me. —Or does it, among humans?”
They were entering far too deep a subject for a man as tired as he was, as emotionally frayed as he was—and as guilty as he was, on that touchy private ground between Banichi and his partner. He was getting in well over his head, and suddenly Banichi, whom few secrets eluded, seemed to be implying a suspicion and questioning an event he couldn’t forget, couldn’t altogether ignore, and had no wish ever to admit had happened.
So he ignored the question at least, in favor of what he most wanted to know. “Where is Jago right now?”
Ordinarily neither Banichi nor Jago answered such questions of whereabouts, except obliquely. He realized by now that it might be the policy of their Guild or of Tabini’s service, to say nothing about business in progress, and that therefore Banichi would never give him a straight answer. But Banichi seemed to consider a moment, perhaps noting the sidestep he’d done on Banichi’s question.
“At the airport, at the moment. No planes got away. No rail left the Bu-javid underground.”
“Then Hanks can’t have left the premises.”
“One wishes that were the only conclusion. It’s almost impossible to move fast enough to guarantee about rail on the perimeters, unless one is at least anticipating a movement or a direction. The damned hotels down below are a security sieve with connections to the rail.”
“Hard to conceal a human.”
“Less so a willing one.”
“You do strongly think she knew them.”
“One suspects so.”
“Banichi, in my hearing, Hanks called out to her own security. She was distressed and concerned for their danger as well as her own. I heard it in her voice.”
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