Then out of the dark beside the shoulder of the hill, Jago was back. “Opposition is momentarily cleared,” Jago whispered. “Banichi is watching for any further movement. We have met one of Lord Machigi’s problems.”
The report was for his benefit. The Guild could communicate in many fewer words.
“There is an operations post on the height beyond the ridge,” Jago whispered, breathing only slightly hard, and pointing up . “They may have picked up our signals. Sounds are dangerous.”
His bodyguard at some point had picked up the other side’s transmissions, Bren thought. And Machigi’s problems . . .
The hostile base Machigi had talked about. It dominated routes in and out of Taisigi territory. It made terrible sense that their route, shaped by the land, had run them into it.
He didn’t push his luck with more questions, but Tano said, “We are not surprised.”
A veritable flood of information. Banichi was somewhere ahead mopping up. Solo, for God’s sake. One hoped Banichi was all right and that the alarm switch hadn’t been tripped up on the heights, to bring in reinforcements.
And where are the regular Guild forces? he wondered. If the Guild itself hadn’t moved in to check an advance out of Senji clan, they might be obligingly mopping up the Guild’s local problem for them as they went? His bodyguard had been a while in space, but they had not rusted.
Damn, they had not.
But, twice damn, this wasn’t their job. It wasn’t even Machigi’s bodyguards’ job. They were supposed to be getting out of the way.
They were supposed to be getting back to safe territory.
But now they knew where the target was.
Was there any means to let the Guild know?
No safe way. Not in his way of thinking. He had a responsibility for whatever negotiations followed the Guild actions. He couldn’t risk himself and his bodyguard taking on the Guild’s job. They needed to get out of here. Fast.
Silence persisted in the land around them.
Jago had indicated they should stay put for a time, not, one suspected, to go wandering between Banichi and some objective, or bringing one very slow-moving, glow-in-the-dark human near the opposition.
But at least there were no more gunshots.
It got cold. Very cold. Bren blew on his hands to keep warm, glad of the vest, which at least kept his core warm.
Eventually Algini got up from where he had been sitting. Jago looked at him, then got up and motioned for them to get moving. She quickly moved off ahead of all of them, in utter silence.
Atevi could see in this murk. A human couldn’t. To his eyes, there was no trail where Jago had gone. It was rocky, brushy country, and the night sky had grown overcast, so the dark in the dark places was deeper and played interesting tricks on human sight, especially when one was trying to hurry on rough ground.
Jago was, he thought, on a mission of some kind, and he didn’t want to slow her down. Banichi was out there somewhere ; Banichi might have signaled her, needing somebody to watch his back, and there was evidently some urgency about it.
The hills gave way to a flatter terrain, still at elevation. The Sarini uplands were part of the vast southern plateau, and now—Bren was sure it must be pushing dawn—they were well into that territory, the broad plains that constituted most of Sarini province. If that was where they were, it was a three-way border in the distance, where Taisigi land met Senji and both met Maschi clan and Sarini Province—a border that had lately been a permeable membrane, as agents of one Marid clan and the other had attempted to carve their way to the coast via Maschi holdings.
But there were wedges of land that had never known even the atevi concept of a road—breeding grounds, nature reserves left alone even during hunting season. It was a logical enough place for the renegade Guild to have established a base, a wedge of hills that would see only foot traffic, and that once in a hundred years. Setting up here might be illegal, immoral, and violating every concept of kabiu, but it was logical.
How other such bases might exist—if there was a plan behind what was going on.
That cell Tabini’s agents had found and eliminated over inside Separti Township? They’d attributed that operation to the Taisigi.
Now he wasn’t at all sure of that fact. Tabini’s agents thought they’d gotten it all. He didn’t entirely bet on that, either.
Their opposition had been clever. Nobody had suspected organization among the scattered elements who had run south. No one had—-except the Guild itself; and they hadn’t been talking to the government.
Not to Tabini, not to the dowager, and not to him. He’d more than walked into the renegade’s operation and exposed it—he began to think he’d walked into the Guild’s long-term counter operation, and triggered it.
Well, hell, if the Guild had politely told its own membership what it was slowly doing, he’d have avoided the coast this spring.
And maybe more people would be dead. So he wasn’t sorry for it.
He just wanted to get past this obstacle and into Maschi territory. Let the Guild handle it. That was all.
14
A sharp yell erupted in the dark, from somewhere in the apartment. Cajeiri flung the covers off and flung his feet over the edge of the bed.
Antaro, was his first thought: the cry had been female. He thought of diving under the bed or into the closet, but if there were intruders, that was too obvious a hiding place.
He heard voices, then, and Jegari and Antaro were talking outside, which was not the sort of thing one expected if they were dealing with intruders. But he was not hearing Veijico. So he thought it might be a fight, then.
So he had better get out there before it got worse. He grabbed his night robe, belted it on, and went out into the sitting room, blinking in the bright lights.
It was no invasion from the roof, and no fight among his bodyguard, either. It was Veijico, looking embarrassed, standing there in the hall in her underwear, and Antaro and Jegari, too—all of his bodyguard in their underwear, all of them with their hair unbraided and looking entirely unkempt. Veijico gave a miserable little bow in Cajeiri’s direction.
“One apologizes, nandi, nadiin.”
“Was it a nightmare?” Cajeiri asked. He had them now and again, although he had never waked the whole apartment, well, not since he was a baby.
“A nightmare, nandi,” Veijico said shamefacedly. “One regrets. One regrets very much having inconvenienced the household.”
She started to turn back toward the room she shared with Antaro. Cajeiri did not think he was going to get back to sleep. It felt close to daylight, anyway. “What time is it?” he asked.
Veijico politely stopped, and when Jegari said it was as late as he thought it was, Cajeiri ran a hand through his hair and decided on waking up.
“Well, one will hardly sleep after that,” he said. He was sorry for Veijico. He supposed the bad dream was about her brother. And he knew he always wanted the lights on and people around him after he had had a bad dream. “I think we should have tea and toast,” he said, “should we not, nadiin-ji?—Will you like some tea, nadi?”
“One is deeply embarrassed,” Veijico said, “and would undertake not to disturb the house further.”
“Tea,” he said, insisting, and Antaro went off to her room to dress and probably to be the one to go after the tea. Cajeiri stifled a yawn. People were standing about in their underwear, a view which was interesting, from his standpoint, but he would see that from time to time all his life. When Guild moved in defense, they moved, whatever they were or were not wearing, and he was politely not supposed to notice it.
So he went back to his bedroom to dress, and before he was finished, Jegari, dressed but still barefoot, showed up to help him.
When he was done, he and Jegari came back out to the sitting room, where Veijico, in Guild uniform, was using a poker to stir up the sleeping fire. She put on three small sticks and poked the coals until it took fire.
She
was deliberately not looking at anyone. Clearly she was still embarrassed.
“I have bad dreams sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I think people are shooting in the house. And then I wake up.”
“It was like that, nandi,” Veijico said, and still she did not look at him or at Antaro.
“Was it about the kidnappers?”
“If I were given permission—” Veijico looked at him, then, her back to the fire. “No, nandi. I shall not ask for permission. I would have to have Cenedi’s support, and I know I would not get that.”
“To go look for your brother?”
“It is not practical, nandi.”
“Lord Machigi sent you and Barb-daja back. Everything will sort out, and Bren-nandi will get him to send Lucasi back, too.”
“The Taisigi caught me, with Barb-daja. But Lucasi will not be caught like that. They will not find him. And he will go on looking for Barb-daja and for me. He will live off the land, and he will not come back until he succeeds or gets an order.” A deep breath. “But if he shoots one of Machigi’s people, nandi, it will be a risk to nand’ Bren. And one very much hopes that does not happen.”
So that was the dream. They had had disturbing news from the Marid all evening, reports of Guild movement here and there in an action Cenedi was not in charge of, and, what was truly unsettling, neither was his father. All yesterday they had known nand’ Bren was talking to Machigi, trying to get him to deal with Great-grandmother, and Lord Machigi had directly promised to find Lucasi and get him home, but it was just what Veijico said: Lucasi would know none of what was going on. He would not want to be found, and if things blew up worse than they were, there was less and less chance of any good news about Lucasi. That was what Veijico was dreaming about.
“Do you want to go ask for news in the security room, nadi?”
“I am becoming a nuisance there, nandi, and I am not in good favor with Cenedi-nadi.”
That was the ongoing problem. Veijico was still in trouble. He realized he had never quite told Cenedi he had taken her back, and how else was Cenedi going to know that, except she was staying in his suite?
“I shall speak to Cenedi,” he said.
“One would be very grateful,” Veijico said.
“I shall go talk to Nawari, meanwhile, nadi,” Jegari said to her. “Nawari will tell me.”
“One would be grateful,” Veijico said again. But this time she looked at Jegari.
It was curious. Just in that, something shifted in the household. Cajeiri felt it. Adults had always said he would know things and he would feel things differently than his ties to humans. And he had thought they were just saying that to separate him from Gene and Artur and Irene, his friends on the ship.
But something shifted. Antaro came back into the room, and they were all together, and it felt different.
His father had unintentionally handed him a hard situation—trying to protect him by getting him a very young bodyguard that he would not try to shake off his track—not, maybe, reckoning how very hard it was going to be to work out man’chi with them and with Antaro and Jegari. Because mani was right. He had not felt his way through things. He was rowdy and disrespectful, and his ear had gotten very sore from mani’s thwacks on it. She would say things like, “You have no grace,” and “Think, boy. You were not born dim-witted.” And grow very out of patience with him being slow when it came to guessing what he should and should not do.
Then she would say things like, “Nand’ Bren can perceive these things. Why can you not use your head, young gentleman ?” So he knew she was comparing him to nand’ Bren. As if he were human. And things like, “You have to be among atevi. There are things you will know when you live among atevi.”
Nonsense, he had thought. There was nothing wrong with him.
But all of a sudden he did feel something. Something like a puzzle piece clicking into order. It was like Gene and Artur on the ship: if somebody did something stupid, they could figure it out, and forgive it, and stick together anyway. And this way they had—had scared him. He had not understood it. But now that his aishid did it, just that little exchange between Jegari and Veijico, it all felt—better. Safer. Maybe it was Veijico needing them and them forgiving her. Maybe it was the precarious way things were; they had become an infelicity of four without Lucasi, but they did not make a felicity of three by shutting her out, and she more than knew that, he suspected she felt that—because he did.
So there was something to what mani had said. Things made sense suddenly. They were an infelicity that would not heal until they got Lucasi back. But they chose to be that, because they chose to take Veijico in; and she was suddenly different with them. Not alone, now. Antaro came back with toast and tea, and Jegari told her he was going out for a moment, and she should save him some.
So now Antaro had to figure it out. But he helped. He said, “Jegari has gone to find out if there is any news about Lucasi. He will be back. We should save his breakfast.”
“Yes,” Antaro said, and set up the teacups, four of them, and poured three, and served him one.
“Nadi,” Veijico said quietly, taking hers, with a look at Antaro. And the room went on feeling better.
Jago had been back with them for at least a minute before Bren knew it. She was just there, saying nothing, but moving ahead of them, in the eye-tricking last of the night.
“Is Banichi moving ahead of us, Jago-ji?” Bren whispered when he caught up. It was a brief rest, in the dark, on the edge of dawn. “Why have we not met up with him?”
“We are having trouble getting around our inconvenience,” Jago said, and indicated the rugged ground that rose on their left hand, across a ravine. They had traveled, they had climbed through difficult terrain, and they still were not out of the vicinity of their enemies?
“Is that the same place?” Bren surmised.
“Yes,” Jago answered. “We are below it, but not away from it. We are wary of surveillance, Bren-ji. We cannot dismantle it without betraying our presence. Banichi is mapping it. We are going to have to lie low for the day if this way does not work out. How are you faring?”
“I can do it,” he said, impatient of the delay. And then he had to be honest. “If it doesn’t involve a vertical climb. That—I can’t.”
“One hopes to avoid that.”
So that was the story. They were increasingly exposed. There might be enemies waiting in ambush. The sun was coming up, and it was still night to human eyes—but to atevi vision?
They were getting into a region where there had been trouble, and it might have posted sentries. And the day was coming.
“I can go faster, at least,” he said.
“Banichi is back,” Algini said in a low voice, close at hand. Where? he wondered, looking around like a fool. He saw nothing but rocks and brush.
But as they started moving, and just a little distance farther, a tall shadow appeared in their path, gave a handsign, and they all waited while Banichi and Jago exchanged a handful of words and signs.
Then Tano said, “Banichi has found the boy.”
Lucasi? Good God. “Where?” he asked. And then thought of the enemy base. “God. Is he up there?”
“No,” Tano said. “But ahead of us. We are going to where he is.”
They’d made all possible racket in the district, including gunfire. The enemy had to be on high alert up there. Now they moved quietly, slipping down into a nook in the rock, behind vertical slabs, overgrown with brush, and down and up again, Banichi and Jago in the lead, and Banichi not stopping for a lengthy report.
They came to a split in the rock, a difficult passage over tumbled boulders, a nook deep in shadow.
He didn’t see any sign of Lucasi there, not at first, and then he saw the direction of attention of the others and made out the faint outline of a figure sitting next to the scrub with one leg extended. That figure started to get up, but Banichi signed abruptly and it stayed put.
Bren came closer, finding, indeed, the
ir missing young Guildsman, with a splinted leg and an attitude of utter exhaustion and dejection.
Tano, their team medic, dropped down on his haunches and asked, “Your condition, nadi?”
“Foot and ankle, Tano-nadi,” came the faint answer.
“He was the one who started all this,” Banichi said in the lowest of voices. “He came very near to being shot, but he spoke to me in time.”
Jago had missed spotting the kid, when she had gone over the area. He had recognized Banichi in the dark. And he had somehow not gotten away from the original firefight, the one that had touched off the trouble. That was something.
“Can he walk?” Bren asked.
“He will slow us down,” Banichi said. “He will have to keep up to our pace or hide and wait for help. We cannot risk you, Bren-ji. He knows that very clearly.”
He didn’t like the choice. He felt responsible for the boy.
But if the renegades succeeded in taking them, the aishidi’tat had a problem.
He went over to the boy and half-sat against a rock—if he knelt down to the boy’s level, he thought, it would take his whole aishid to get him on his feet again. “One is glad to see you, nadi.”
“Nandi,” Lucasi said with a lowering of his head. “One understands the depth of trouble I have caused.”
“Banichi has told you that your sister is safe, along with Barb-daja.”
A nod. “Yes, nandi. One is deeply grateful.”
“Banichi may have told you. You are in Taisigi district, and that post up there is not Taisigi. The Guild is moving on a nest of renegades of the Guild, from the years of the Troubles. And this will not be a safe place once they arrive. Can you possibly attempt to stay with us, or can you go to ground and stay there?”
“I wish to go with you, nandi.”
“Make the safest decision, for your own sake, whether to try this or to go to ground. I wish very much to present you to your partner safe. But we cannot have you endanger this mission.”
“I can do it,” Lucasi said. “I can, nandi.”
Bren walked back to Banichi. “I have told him the importance of our mission. He believes he can stay with us.”
Betrayer: Foreigner #12 Page 20
