Betrayer: Foreigner #12

by C. J. Cherryh

  So supper had gone very fast, for one of mani’s suppers, just the one dish and tea, quickly disposed of.

  And immediately after there was more serious talk, mani with Cenedi and Lord Geigi, while Cajeiri translated as much as he could get into his head, for nand’ Tobi and Barb-daja.

  Mani’s guard, stationed on the roof and at various places nobody mentioned, had all the roads under watch. The Edi were watching the overland roads and trails.

  And nand’ Geigi had left orders at Targai when he quit the area, telling the little Parithi clan not even to try to resist any invasion, but to stay under cover as much as possible and even to abandon the house if they had to. Parithi had no Guild of its own there to defend them, and in Geigi’s opinion and everybody else’s, they were not a priority for Shejidan to move anybody in to help them.

  Meanwhile, the men who had come in from Tanaja on the bus had vanished again, telling nobody what they were up to.

  Cajeiri tried to communicate all the detail. He had not used his ship-speak this much in most of a year. Mosphei’ had a different accent and put in pieces ship-speak left out, so he kept having to correct himself. And when nand’ Toby had something to say, he had to ask nand’ Toby several times to get things straight, and then find a time to break into what mani and Lord Geigi were saying to get it across, whispering.

  Nand’ Toby had been working for the Presidenta of Mospheira all during the Troubles, and he understood just how everything was laid out along the whole west coast, and who was where, and who was allied, and who was trouble. So that at least made explaining mani’s answers easier in the other direction.

  The one fact he gathered from mani and Cenedi was what they had already found out, that the Guild was acting on its own in the Marid. Guild who had man’chi only to the Guild were running things at the moment, and Cenedi was not reliably informed, the way Cenedi put it.

  Cenedi was angry about that, Cajeiri thought, but even as high as Cenedi’s rank was, not to mention mani’s, there seemed to be nothing he could do to get the Guild to obey and get people to Najida. Going into the Marid and, as Toby put it, knocking heads, was probably a good idea on the Guild’s part. But mani had rushed into action, a situation neither she nor Cenedi liked, because this second power, this other outlawed Guild, had tried to get Guild action focused on Machigi . . . which mani believed meant they were going to kill him.

  Now here they sat.

  And Cajeiri thought his father in Shejidan was probably doing just what mani was doing: sitting. And it was probably what even the Presidenta over on Mospheira was doing: getting his people into protective positions until it was clear exactly where the Guild was operating and what they were doing, and sitting in his office asking sharp questions and listening to reports. It was all these powerful people could do—because the Guild, which had always taken orders, was obstinately not taking orders or giving out information.

  And it was not just the Maschi and the Edi and the Marid involved. Mani in fact had told nand’ Geigi that when the Edi had appealed to the Gan for help, the lord of Dur had found out; and everybody speculated that Dur, of all their allies, might do something—being far enough from the renegade’s territory that he was not directly in danger. Cajeiri was excited and encouraged to hear that; Dur was one of his father’s staunchest allies, and particularly the young lord of that district, who was incredibly brave and reckless and had an airplane. A yellow one.

  Dur had boats. And planes. And if they came down, things would be a lot better.

  But in either case, the bad news was that the help from the north was going to take time getting here.

  And now the Guildsmen who had come in on the bus had disappeared, and Cenedi would not talk about it or answer mani’s questions, which probably meant Cenedi knew where they were.

  Probably, Cajeiri thought, they had headed back into Targai district, which definitely had trouble; or maybe they had gone down into Separti Township or over to Kajiminda to give Guild help to the Edi who were protecting it. It still all added up to the fact that they might be on their own for a while, and what was blowing up larger and larger in the Marid was like a storm coming up way too fast. There just was not time, now, Cenedi said, to expect any help. They were going to have to get through the night, and possibly a few days longer than that, on their own.

  Meanwhile, mani’s bodyguard was putting booby traps in place. A lot of them. Really interesting ones. Cajeiri had wanted to see in detail what they were, but nobody would let him.

  So they were getting ready, with mani’s young men posted on the roof and elsewhere as they had been.

  Nand’ Toby said, too, that if they wanted, he could phone the Presidenta of Mospheira and get help, and Geigi said that the station would provide intelligence to Shejidan.

  “We shall just keep behind our walls, nadiin-ji,” she said, in that tone of voice that ended argument. “We shall defend ourselves.”

  “I don’t understand why,” Cajeiri said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja, “but mani says no.”

  Then Cenedi’s chin lifted, and he sent an attentive look into nowhere, as if he were hearing something from that earpiece he had.

  He said, quietly, “Aiji-ma, nandiin, there is movement out of Senji, bypassing Targai. It has reached the airport. It will likely come this way.”

  The airport. That was close. That was just about an hour away. Whatever was going to happen had started.

  It was difficult to be bored to tears while being terrified, but given a whole day hiding in a hole in the rocks, it was possible, Bren decided. He shifted position to keep his legs from going to sleep, but his backside was beyond numb.

  It had gotten dark. Darker than dark. Clouds had moved in, and there was not even starlight to help. And the strain of listening for hours had taken its toll on mental acuteness.

  He wasn’t listening as well as he had. He actually grew increasingly sleepy and dull-witted with exhaustion, and he leaned his head back and shut his eyes, just reassuring himself with the faint night sounds—telling himself that if those creatures were stirring, nobody was near.

  He came closer to sleep. Felt the slight movement of a breeze . . .

  A very light breeze. The waft of a white, sheer curtain. The smell of flowers. The shadow of the lattice.

  The garden apartment. That was where he had joined up with Banichi and Jago, a different world ago.

  It was the night he’d started carrying an illegal gun in the first place. If he let this dream continue, in the next moment he’d see a shadow beyond that lattice. A gun would go off.

  He’d begun another life, that night, on the chain of events that had led him to Ilisidi.

  And a close association with Tabini, who’d taken him target shooting up at Taiben, in days when he’d been far more innocent.

  Best not sleep. Keep awake. Keep alert. He’d be embarrassed when Jago got back and scared hell out of him.

  Had to move. His leg had a cramp.

  Damn, he wished he’d hear from Jago. Or Banichi. Or somebody.

  Was that the breeze stirring the grass?

  God. The other night sounds had stopped. He just realized that.

  His heart rate picked up. Calm, Banichi had told him. A rapid heartbeat never improved one’s aim. Think of the problem, not the emotional context. And Jago had advised him that it was generally wiser to watch an approaching enemy from cover and find out the number involved before doing anything, including running.

  He couldn’t stand sitting in a hole and waiting, however. He wanted to get up onto his feet. But he had to manage that without scuffing a foot or moving a pebble. Which meant deciding it was going to hurt his chest and that he was going to lever himself straight up anyway, without minding the pain.

  He could do it.

  He’d damned well better do it.

  He did. Control the breathing, Banichi would say. Keep balanced, Jago would say.

  He tried. Poking his head out of his little nook just wasn’t br
ight. As best he could judge, he was in deep shadow.

  And there was, please God, the chance it was Jago coming back. He couldn’t just fire blindly at whatever came.

  He eased the safety off the pistol, however. He looked at the ground, judged the slight difference of shadow and deeper shadow that his human eyes could barely make out, and decided it was best just to stay absolutely still and hope. He wasn’t the one to take on trouble, and his bodyguard didn’t need his warning.

  Whoever it was, he had the impression they were moving on or near the track he and Jago had laid down.

  The sound was coming toward his rocky nook, in all this emptiness. In grass, there was no help for it: there was the vestige of a trail . . . just not much likelihood of anybody happening onto it by total chance.

  Closer. God, he didn’t want to have to shoot. If some stranger came in here, setting that pistol off would echo like doom, from one end of these hills to the other, and would bring all sorts of trouble he couldn’t outrun.

  But no choice, he thought, hearing a step in the grass outside.

  “Bren-ji,” a whisper said.

  It wasn’t Jago. It was Tano or Algini, one or the other, and he felt the blood drain from his head. “Here,” he whispered back, and a shadow slipped in between the rocks.

  Algini, he decided, feeling the aftermath of the adrenaline rush.

  “Jago’s been gone all day,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” Algini said. “We have contact.”

  God, that was a relief.

  “Banichi?”

  “No,” Algini said, and relief plunged right back into worry.

  But there was no chance to ask extensive questions. Algini moved, and he went too, out into the clear. “Tano?” he whispered, outside.

  “He is coming,” Algini said, and Bren tucked the gun into his pocket and went with Algini, moving as quietly as he could, in Algini’s footprints, or as close as a human stride could make it.

  He was quickly out of breath, his mouth was parched, and blisters made walking painful; Algini had to slow down, and finally to rest, hunkered down next to a line of brush.

  “Tano will catch up with us,” Algini said.

  “Banichi?”

  “Possibly switched off,” Algini said. “Possibly out of range.”

  Jago might know. Wherever she was. Bren found himself chilling in the wind and tried not to shiver. Algini was never a fount of sympathy: his mind worked otherwise, on facts and necessities, and one decided it was far better to let Algini think and listen and not to be nattering away with questions to which Algini had no answer. Whatever had happened, had already happened, and at this point they were headed, he hoped, as directly as possible toward Targai, where they could reach Geigi and, if they were lucky, signal the bus to come get them. They were on flatter ground . . . which could mean they had reached deep into the uplands and maybe were approaching one of the few roads that ran through Maschi lands.

  “Water, if you will, nadi,” was his one request of Algini. Algini passed him a small flask, and he held the water in his mouth a long time on each small swallow. It was stale, but it was the best thing in hours. He started to hand the flask back.

  Algini made an abrupt move of his hand, then held up two fingers.

  Tano, and company. They were going to meet and probably part again after conferring and laying plans.

  Then Algini, uncharacteristically, volunteered information. “We have now lost Jago’s contact, nandi.”

  His heart sank. There was still nothing they could do about it. “Yes,” he said, acknowledging he had heard. Nothing more. He looked at the ground and tried not to think what could have gone wrong. Jago would go to help Banichi only if she were sure Tano and Algini were going to find him.

  So they had found him. What else was going on out there in the dark at the moment, he had no idea, and he was convinced Algini would tell him if he knew anything more.

  They waited.

  16

  Great-grandmother would not, she still said, take refuge in the basement . . .

  “Are we to sit in a hole in the ground along with that coward and malefactor Baiji! We will not, nadi!”

  Cajeiri never recalled Great-grandmother addressing Cenedi so rudely. It was late, people needed to settle to bed, particularly nand’ Toby, who was not that well; but that was not happening, not while mani held out abovestairs.

  Cenedi replied, jaw set, “Aiji-ma, I will carry you downstairs myself if you will not go. Then I will stay there with you to be sure you stay, when your guard needs my presence. Live or die, they will have to get along without me, because you clearly need me more.”

  Cajeiri never recalled Cenedi answering back to mani, either. He found his mouth open,and shut it, and his bodyguard, there to witness along with Lord Geigi, was likely dismayed.

  “What’s the matter?” nand’ Toby asked.

  It was not a good time to be talking. Cajeiri didn’t say a thing.

  Then Lord Geigi said, offering a gentlemanly hand, “Aiji-ma, let us go down together for a light snack and leave our bodyguards less worry, shall we? We shall have Cook provide us cakes and tea, and we shall have my radio, and we shall keep well apprised of the situation on the grounds. Kindly do come, aiji-ma, and keep me company. Otherwise this waiting may be very tedious.”

  Mani’s temper was up, for certain, but Lord Geigi bravely persisted.

  “Sidi-ji,” he said. “Do join me. You know what they say about lords who ignore their bodyguards.”

  “Gods unfortunate, when did you become mine?” she muttered, and sharply: “Great-grandson!”

  “Mani!” Cajeiri said instantly.

  “You will come with us. And bring our guests down.”

  Finally! “Yes, mani!” Any other answer was apt to get a thwack with her cane, and not a slight one. “Please come downstairs, too,” he said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja. “Get some sleep.”

  “How close is the enemy?” Toby wanted to know. “I can shoot, understand. I’m a better shot than my brother.”

  “This is Guild business,” Cajeiri said. “It’s going to be bad up here. Mani says come down right now, and I’ll bet she knows something. So we have to go with her. Or she won’t go.” He looked at his bodyguard. “Taro-ji, Gari-ji, I don’t think you should be up here. Jico-ji—do whatever you decide to do.”

  “I am Guild,” Veijico said quietly. “I shall be upstairs, nandi.”

  It was also possible to be bored while worried sick, and there was nothing to do but sit and stew about the situation.

  “Is there any reason they would switch off, Gini-ji?” Bren asked, desperately, finally, in their long sitting still. “Do you think they are still all right?”

  Algini took a while answering. The Guild held certain information very close, and it was not likely at all that Algini would divulge method, only conclusion.

  “When Guild goes against Guild,” Algini said, “yes. One might switch off.”

  It was his dearest hope Jago and Banichi had done exactly that.

  It had to pass for good news. Banichi and Jago were a force of two. The number of renegade Guild in the district was certainly far higher than that, even if they might have slightly reduced the odds tonight. They knew the direction Banichi and Jago had taken, at least generally, and prolonged silence and absence could tell them that there was something ahead of them they didn’t want to meet.

  That would put that problem out into the far edge of Machigi’s territory, or right in the near edge of Geigi’s, neither being good news for their situation.

  He began to wonder if that was the case. And once Tano caught up, they might decide that, instead of going north and trying to cross into Maschi territory as quickly as possible, they might veer off to the northwest and try to reach Najida directly. He wasn’t completely in favor of that. It would be farther. A hellish lot farther. He wasn’t sure how much he had left in him; and he most of all wanted to get back to Najida and in reach of a pho
ne.

  But if Tano and Algini said that was the best thing to do, he was going to have to find it in himself to do it.

  If he could shed the damned vest . . .

  But they weren’t going to let him do that.

  Algini knocked his knee with the back of his hand, a signal to pay attention. Something was going on, but Algini hadn’t moved, otherwise, and just waited. And waited. “I have shut down my locator,” Algini said. “But Tano will find us.”

  Tano was close. But there was a chance the enemy was close, too.

  Moments passed.

  “They are here,” Algini said, in a night no different to Bren’s eyes and ears than the last hour. “Come, Bren-ji.”

  Tano and Lucasi. He got up. Algini took a grip under his arm on the way down the slight rise, for which he was grateful, and from out of a very little cover of brush, there were, indeed, Tano and Lucasi, the latter under his own power with, apparently, a stick he was using as a cane.

  “We are all going dark now,” Algini said to him in a low whisper. “We have to make time toward Maschi territory.”

  Still going north, then. Going for the major road. Or close to it. “Yes,” Bren said, and he just kept up as they started off, holding the thought in his mind that Banichi and Jago might have done the same, and they all might be heading toward some mutually agreed goal, to make a rendezvous.

  He walked, at least doing no worse than Lucasi, who was walking with an improvised crutch and with his ankle now professionally splinted clear to the knee. They were a hell of a group, he thought, two of them doing well to be walking at all and not going as fast as Tano and Algini could wish. Bren had one sip more of water and kept going, trying not to breathe like a steam engine on a grade and trying to keep his feet out of holes, of which there were a great many, given the rocky, graveled ground. Tano and Algini were lugging heavy packs, and they made no fuss about it, just kept going doggedly at what was undoubtedly a slower pace than they would like to set.