“To the landing site? To there? Or where?”
“We’ve just been asked to go to the front of the building at moderate speed. This isn’t a run, but it doesn’t leave you any time, nand’ paidhi.”
“Damn,” he said, and unbuttoned his shirt without a second’s further question, was pulling on his sweater when Jago left, which only put him in more hurry to switch trousers and change to heavier socks and heavier-soled boots. He exited the room, still struggling with his coat, to find Jago waiting for him.
“What is the hurry?”
“Perhaps,” she said, “that someone is on the way here. That’s a guess, nand’ paidhi.”
“I’ll take your guesses over some people’s information.” He had gloves. He’d put them in the coat pocket. They reached the main hall and joined a small number of the house security moving out toward the doors. The Atigeini servants gathered in alarm and dismay.
“Not everyone is leaving,” Banichi was telling them. “There’s a shelter in the cellar. House permanent staff has the keys. Extinguish the fire, pull the fuses. That will shut down everything to emergency power. Go below in good order, wait for authorized signals to open the door. You’ll be safe.” Banichi fell in with them as they went out the open front doors, onto the porch—an open car came around the corner of the east wing, running lights on, no headlights, and Bren’s heart jumped, but Banichi and Jago didn’t react to the appearance, just hustled him along the length of the porch.
Something heavy was shoved into his coat pocket on Banichi’s side, jammed down—he put a hand over the weight to stabilize it, no second guess needed what it was, no guess why Banichi picked now to give it to him and had no time to waste in the paidhi’s questions, just—
“Do we have a radio? Do we have communications? We need—”
“No difficulty,” Banichi said and, atevi having better night-vision on the average, seized his arm, the weak one, and made sure his feet found the steps downward. The car had pulled up and security opened the door for him, atevi eyes glowing pale gold in the faint light, there, floating disembodied the other side of the car. He had qualms about getting in, he feared that they might send him off somewhere and they might stay behind in defense of Taiben, but that wasn’t the indication about the situation. Jago got in ahead of him and Banichi took the seat beside the driver, one more climbed into the back and shut the door—that was Tano, he realized all of a sudden.
“Where’s Algini?”
“The car behind, nand’ paidhi. With the radio.” The car took off with a spin of its tires, then lumbered over tree roots and took the downhill by a series of tilts and bounces—they were on what the estate charitably called the branch road, which had far more of branches than road about it. It went around trees rather than have one cut down, it relied on four-wheel drive and a good suspension, which the staff cars had—along with the bar along the back of the front seat that became a good idea as they veered with the road along the side of the lodge and down again, toward the junction of service roads which the staff used getting equipment to and from the various wells and stations—he knew this road, Tabini’d been easy on his slight-of-stature guest, in the first visit he’d made to Taiben.
Not afterward. Not now.
“What’s happening?” he asked, clinging to the safety bar. “Where’s Tabini?”
Maybe Tano and Jago didn’t know. Banichi turned around, arm on the seat back, head down because of the branches that raked over the windshield. “Somebody leaked the event to the local news—we’ve got intruders in the woods and we can’t tell who’re tourists from the lake district and who’s not, which is not a tolerable situation for security. We’ve very good reason to believe this release of information was not a prank.”
“Meaning the same people who have Hanks are out there.”
“Most likely they are.” Banichi turned his head back to the short view of tree trunks and underlit branches as the car jolted its way into a turn.
The driver—probably a ranger—had his hands full: it wasn’t every atevi who knew how to drive, and nobody could avoid collision who didn’t know this road, not from where he sat—the wheel went this way and that, in furious efforts that exerted atevi strength to keep the wheels on track at all, bouncing over roots and jolting over low spots, the low running lights bouncing wildly, amber lights from a car behind them casting their shadows on the seat backs in front of them and reflecting in the wind-shield.
“Are they likeliest to move on Taiben itself?” he asked. “Or the landing site? Do they know exactly where?”
“They may,” Tano said. “It wasn’t in the news report, but no knowing the other information that’s passed.”
“They won’t waste time on Taiben when they know we’ve left. They’ve come in afoot. So far. Now that we’ve moved—they’ll probably have transport come in.”
“We’re a one-point target,” Jago said. “They’re diffuse. This is by the nature of a wide border with uncertain neighbors.”
The road took a series of jolts that made the handhold a necessity, even for atevi, then smoothed out, and Banichi turned around again, eyes shimmering momentarily in the following running lights. “We’ve a secure place if we need it,” Banichi said, “nadi-ji. We’re not in trouble. Yet.”
“That lander’s going to come down slowly tomorrow,” Bren said. “If they’ve got any kind of weapons—if they were willing to attack it—”
“We think rather their target is Tabini himself,” Banichi said. “Possibly you. We’ve tried to persuade Tabini to fly back to Shejidan. But the aiji says not. And he extends that decision to you.”
Banichi wasn’t pleased by that. And the reason for the confused, abrupt exit became more clear: scatter vehicles through the woods, keep the opposition guessing where Tabini was and with what group, or at Taiben—and where the paidhi was. Tabini thumbed his nose at the opposition. Tabini’s staff and the paidhi did, that was the message Tabini was sending, and he understood that, but they had a very vulnerable capsule coming down in a place that wasn’t exactly neatly defined—they couldn’t set up a specific watch over a specific ten-meter area and trust the capsule might not be a kilometer or so away, exposed to God-knew-what. Bren sat holding the elbow of his sore arm, in the interval he wasn’t clutching the bounce-bar, feeling the jolts in his joints and in muscles gone cold and tense.
He wasn’t scared, he wasn’t scared, this wasn’t like Malguri, with the chance of bombs falling on them. They were playing tag through the woods, but keeping ahead of the people trying to shoot at them; they’d dodge and switch through ranger tracks the opposition might have maps of, but it wasn’t the same as their driver’s evident experience of the roads. They’d out-drive them, out-maneuver them …
They were in open cars, that being what the rangers used for these narrow trails, and probably the only vehicles with a wheelbase that could take them—but they were visible targets, and the landing wasn’t in a meadow interspersed with trees, or hillside forest, it was down on the flat, in a grassland split by a couple of rocky patches—profoundly eroded and wooded escarpments that ran eighty, ninety kilometers northwest to southeast, with stands of scrub that gave ambushers plenty of cover.
You could see wheel tracks in the grass. They couldn’t get there without leaving a trace that small aircraft could spot well enough. Neither they nor the opposition could maneuver in a sea of grass without a trail someone else could track.
“They won’t chase us here,” he muttered to Jago and Tano. “They don’t need to. They know where we’re going. At least—close enough.”
“Diffuse versus specific,” Jago said. She’d said that. He’d not arrived at the same conclusion until then. But that told him at least his security had thought of it.
Then he had a cold and terrible thought.
“Oh, my God. My computer.”
Banichi turned around in his seat. Flashed a shimmer of yellow eyes. And a grin. “Right between my feet, paidhi-ji. We didn�
�t forget.”
Hormones, he said to himself, his heart settling back to steady work. Damned hormones. Brain fog. A schoolboy mistake. He found himself shivering as the car found a reasonable stretch of meadow grass and ripped along at a reckless bounce. He tried not to nudge against the atevi on either side of him. He didn’t want them to feel it.
But he had the hard weight of the gun in his pocket, too, and finally had the wit to ask, “Has anybody got a spare clip of shells?”
He got three, one from Banichi, one from Jago, one from Tano. The driver had his hands occupied, and the paidhi was out of convenient pockets and carrying enough weight.
The rebels had Hanks. “Is there any way—” Figuring to himself that with all of an aiji’s resources to draw from, there might be personnel to spare. “—any way—” A pothole. “—Hanks has to be somewhere close.” Pothole. “With them. Get into their territory. Go get Hanks.” Bounce. “Let them worry.”
Jago laughed, silent in the growl of the motor and the slap of branches. Grinned, holding on to the side of the car. “Good idea, nand’ paidhi.”
“You thought of that.”
“So will they, unfortunately. I fear they’ll move her out.”
Damn, he thought. They would. As a strategist he wasn’t in the game. “Can’t use the airport. Ranger trails, more likely.”
“Good, nai-ji.”
“A peaceful man hasn’t a chance with you,” he said, and Tano patted his leg from the other side.
“Paidhi-ji, we listen because you have good ideas. They’d do these things. So are we doing them.”
“Then where are we going? Around in circles, to make them crazy?”
“If we can,” Jago said. And after a fierce series of bumps and a turn, “There’s a classified number of storm shelters, where we can rest about an hour or so, move around again. Tabini’s plane’s left, or will, very soon now. Just keep them wondering. We hope so, at least.”
22
It was a scary business waiting for two men to find or not find a bomb. Especially when the two were Tano and Algini, who, one came to understand, were good at what they did and had state-of-the-art equipment, at least as good as the potential bomb-placers might have, if someone, however unlikely, had been fast enough to penetrate deep into Taiben Reserve and booby-trap the shelters.
Which no one had, apparently, since Tano and Algini signaled with a double flash of their hand-torch that the way was clear.
So they left the cars, hiked through the brush of the little copse that hid the excavation.
Storm shelters.
Classified storm shelters, with, as they could see when they opened the door, a well-kept interior, electric lights, at least enough to see by, which didn’t depend on generators; and some which did.
For legitimate storms, Bren said to himself, not the political ones for which he suspected the aijiin of Shejidan had built such strong concrete bunkers. There were in fact fairly considerable storms, occasionally tornadic, not infrequently with hail, occasionally deep snow, and there were reasons the rangers who served the estate might want to pull in and take shelter, reach medical kits, even take a shower—the place could shelter twenty atevi, had no trouble at all tucking a stray human in. Bren found a quiet corner, pillowed his aching shoulder against a wad of folded blankets, and discovered a degree of comfort that let him shut his eyes and actually sleep a minute or two, to his own mild surprise, perhaps because things were finally moving in a direction he couldn’t do a damned thing about, and people around him were alert, and knew there was harm aimed at them, and were doing everything in their considerable professional skill to stop it.
He’d felt like the only warning and the only fix in the system for so—damned—long. Now everybody knew what he knew, did what they knew how to do, nobody he cared about was going to get caught by surprise, and nothing was going to be his fault if a bomb dropped on them and blew them to hell—he could sleep on that understanding.
But in not long enough there was an alarm, at least enough stir to rouse him out of sleep. He waked with a thump of his heart and an awareness everyone was coming on guard, but Jago patted his arm, saying it was the aiji coming in, go back to sleep.
The eyelids were willing. But nobody slept through Tabini’s arrival anywhere. There was a general stirring about, discussion among the Guild, who should go where, and then a decision they should go on, but they should leave the paidhi.
“The paidhi doesn’t want to be left,” he protested. “Jago?”
“We stay with you,” Jago said quietly. “We don’t split up.”
He felt reassured in that—as the door opened and Tabini and Naidiri and his group came in, and all of their group but his own security and the man working communications with Algini went out.
He sat still, wished Tabini a good evening, or morning, or whatever it was in this dim place, and held his shoulder against the ache, wishing he had had the foresight to bring his own first-aid kit.
“Bren-ji,” Tabini said, patted him on the ankle in passing his perch on a raised bench.
And then he grew a little uneasy, since Tabini was not as cheerful nor as outgoing as one might look to have him. Tabini was preoccupied and spoke quietly with Naidiri and Banichi, after which Banichi and Naidiri talked with him for some little time, and then went and talked to each other.
“What’s wrong?” he asked Jago quietly. “Can you tell?”
Jago got up, apparently wanting that answer herself, squatted down with Banichi and Naidiri, listening, arms on knees, talking with them for no little while.
Then she came back and said, in a low voice, “There’s a breakthrough we’re relatively sure isn’t tourists. We think we have them identified there, but we’re betting it’s a feint, and that they might have created all this incursion area including the tourists to mask a move more to the south. We’re trying to get information from several sources, but we have some feeling that either they weren’t totally surprised by a landing at Taiben—or a move against the government has been in preparation for far longer than the Hanks matter.”
“How serious?”
“Very. They didn’t move after the ship sighting. They had a chance then. Tabini was at Taiben. But they likely expected tight security.”
“They can’t think it’s lighter now!”
“The tourist move was very good. When we first sighted the ship, there was nothing at Taiben to draw citizen interest. But a landing—that’s attracted the innocent public. That’s drawn ordinary folk to lose their good sense about the proprieties. One doesn’t drop in on the aiji for tea, Bren-ji, one can’t think of it.”
“Unless there’s a spaceship on the aiji’s front porch. With death rays and disintegrator beams. Jago-ji, they’re out of their minds!”
“This is the public, nai-ji. You’ve made them confident of human good will. Here they are.”
“My God.”
“One could wish we had more time to scour the hills to the south. Banichi asks, as an option, if there’s a way to delay the landing a few hours.”
He looked at his watch, needed the display light in the faint light. “It’s too close. I don’t know. I could try right now. Not later. —But if we advise them what’s going on—Jago-ji, they’ll land on Mospheira. They won’t proceed against hazard, I very much fear they won’t, and that has its own problems.”
Jago’s lips pressed to a thin line. “We’re not prepared to urge a delay yet. It may not be a good idea to delay. The search just has to move faster.”
“We’re talking about very little time, Jago. Once they go point-of-no-return, they’re falling, and they have no choice.”
Jago went back and talked to Banichi and Naidiri, who went and talked to Tabini.
Tabini came back to him, again put a hand on his ankle and said quietly, “Bren-ji. A group is coming in, within a very few moments. They’re stopping. We’re going on to the site immediately. We’re going to make a certain amount of radio noise, in hopes
they’ll think us one of the patrols. I’ve a squad or two in the hills that’s going to clear an area that has nothing to do with the drop, which we hope will attract attention to that area, and we’re going on. We’ve a bulletproof vest. It’s a little large. Please wear it.”
“No argument, Tabini-ma. None from me. You’re aware, I hope, that that capsule drops quite slowly as it nears the ground. It’s not armored. It’s tough—but I don’t think it can take being shot at.”
“We are aware. We’re going to have air cover, at a respectful distance, of course. We’ll be tracking it.” A second pat at his leg. “We believe we know where Hanks is. They’ve been indiscreet with the phone lines. And the aiji has one advantage. I run the phone company.”
He got up, he put on the vest Tano held for him and, worse, the helmet Tabini presented him, which had its advantages, he supposed, if someone were shooting at his head, but disadvantages if he didn’t pad it with a folded small towel until he could see where he was going.
But other helmets were going on, and vests under jackets that probably had their own protection. It gave him the advantage, he thought, of looking a little less like a human and more like an atevi kid playing army.
He put his gloves on. There was nothing to do with his face, except, as Jago advised him, keep his head down, which sounded like a good idea to him.
“They’re coming,” Algini said, listening to his headset, over in the corner, and went on listening.
Banichi passed a woman a cassette. “The aiji’s voice. Mine. Naidiri’s. Dole that out and it’s several hours’ worth of our presence here.”
“Yes,” the woman said cheerfully. “Thank you, ’Nichi-ji.”
’Nichi-ji? Bren thought with a second glance, but it didn’t seem politic to ask. He gathered up his computer from where Banichi had set it when they came in and he held himself ready as the signals passed at the door.
They were going. Himself, Tabini, their respective security forces—the old gambling game, move the cups that held the stone, fast as they could; or pretend to move—meanwhile both sides were doing the same. For the second time in two weeks he was headed for a situation with atevi shooting at each other, he had his pockets weighted with ammunition clips, the bulletproof vest made his shoulder and ribs sore already, and the helmet kept obscuring half his vision—he wasn’t a particularly martial specimen, he thought with a lump in his throat; he’d been shot at enough lately he’d decided he really didn’t like it, and right now he wanted to strangle Deana Hanks barehanded for a situation she’d precipitated, if not directly caused.
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