Betrayer: Foreigner #12

by C. J. Cherryh

  All of a sudden the pitch of the sound shifted. It was coming at them. Bren looked up and saw it.

  “Nandi!” Lucasi urged him, and came back for him.

  It was yellow, bright yellow, that little plane. And Bren knew that plane, that noisy little engine, and the pilot, right down to the white sun-blaze on the nose. He raised a hand and waved as the plane roared by.

  “Nandi!”

  “That is Dur, nadi!” he said, his spirits soaring, as that plane flew on a departing diagonal toward Kajiminda, waggling its wings and swooping low as if to taunt the convoy on the road. But it was not for the convoy, that signal, that wild risk of ground fire. “He has seen us! Dur has come in! He cannot land for us, but what he sees, he will report to Najida.”

  “Then one is glad, nandi!” Hope was all but a stranger to Lucasi’s face these last few days. But his look wandered from confusion to a glimmering of understanding. “He will get us help, from Najida or from the airport.”

  “I think he will try to guide them, nadi. I do. One has no idea how long it will take, or who will be in a position to come here, but he may be able to spot the situation at Kajiminda and report that, too. He is no amateur observer. He may not understand the whole situation, but he will be accurate. And he can land that plane in amazing places!”

  “Then I must get you to cover, nandi,” Lucasi said. “He was clever about his path, but one is anxious all the same. Let us go down the slope a little. The brush is not enough.”

  They moved along a distance, then, as Lucasi pointed out a likely spot, Bren ended up helping Lucasi on the steep, bare stretch of rock, and below that descent there was indeed the kind of thing Bren had been hoping for, a flat space of scrub and eroded dirt, and a shattered sandwich of upthrust pale sandstone that offered shelter from most sides.

  Better. A lot better. He only worried now about his bodyguard being able to find him: but if the plane got to Najida and Najida called Kajiminda, that was no problem.

  All they had to do now was to avoid attracting unwanted attention until his bodyguard was able to pick him and Lucasi up and get them safely within a defensive perimeter.

  And a moment when their enemies might be in retreat right down the Kajiminda road was not the time for them to go looking for him. His aishid would trust him to use good sense. He should stop worrying.

  But he couldn’t.

  The whole house was in an uproar. The new barricade at the front door was being taken down, admitting a gust of cold wind up and down the halls, because the young lord from Dur was trying to land right on the road near the village, and the Edi on guard on the hill were shooting at him. The guards on the roof reported it, and the moment they had a gap in the barricade, Ramaso sent one of the young men running out to talk to the Edi.

  More, Great-grandmother insisted on coming upstairs. “One is extremely weary of sitting in a box,” mani said, and they all agreed with that, but not with mani risking herself, coming upstairs when people were shooting.

  But no, if young Dur was landing his plane right on the road, and if young Dur was trying to land to confer, mani would not meet him sitting in a basement, no, absolutely not, it would not do.

  So Lord Geigi and mani headed upstairs to mani’s sitting room, and Cajeiri followed.

  It was upsetting—mani being stubborn, and the Edi shooting at their ally. Cajeiri, for his part, was having trouble even putting on a clean coat, he was so tired. His own bed was only a step away as servants helped him dress, and he wanted just to sit on it—it was the first time he had been back in his own rooms since the shooting had started; but he had to stand up to be helped with the coat, and he had to hurry or miss something, and he was so incredibly tired; and so, he knew, were Jegari and Antaro.

  But there was so much going on that he could hardly bear it. When he gathered up Jegari and Antaro and went out into the hall again, the barricade was down and sunlight was coming in the front, and whoever was supposed to go talk to the Edi must have gone; but the plane was still circling: he could hear it in the distance. He so wanted to see it again—he remembered the yellow plane as one of the most wonderful machines he had ever seen, as good as the starship in the heavens, and he was furious that the Edi were trying to shoot it.

  Servants were out and about, too, and Ramaso was by the open doorway, giving orders. He went to the security station, but nobody was getting in there, and Cenedi was in the way. He stayed and he listened, and Cenedi was giving orders—they were talking to the Edi and talking to the young lord from Dur, actually in the plane, and very hard to understand.

  But then he heard Dur agree to something, and he thought that probably the plane was coming back. He went to the area of the door, and listened, and listened. The portico beyond the gap where the barrier had been was busy with mani’s young men, who were setting up another barricade, dragging panels into place.

  “You should not go out there, young gentleman,” one of the servants said.

  It was better than Cenedi noticing him. He drew Antaro and Jegari with him, back out of the immediate vicinity of the door, which everybody was so anxious about.

  He was so tired and frustrated he sank down against the out-of-the-way part of the wall, where they had put some of the boards from the barrier. He watched out for nails, and sank down on his heels, and rested his head on his arms, and just—

  —drifted off, still waiting for the young lord of Dur.

  The convoy or whatever it was had long since ground past them, though Lucasi said he could hear it to the south of them and thought it might have stopped. It was possible they had reached the abandoned van and had a little delay figuring out whether it was rigged with explosives.

  It might be rigged, for what Bren knew. Tano and Algini could do that very quickly, and he couldn’t remember if they had come near the van while they were discussing what to do.

  But they heard no explosion.

  And it was highly possible that their enemy, failing to be blown up, was trying to figure out now where they had gone.

  They might follow his bodyguard to Kajiminda, which would bring the enemy under Edi fire and complicate Banichi’s situation trying to get into Kajiminda.

  Or they might decide right away that the track toward the woods was a decoy and go casting about for where they were, figuring a high-level hostage might save their situation.

  Lucasi checked the locator at irregular intervals, just a fast look.

  He did pick up something.

  “It is not our associates,” Lucasi said. “We could be picking up Najida.”

  “What about the enemy, back where we left the van? Can you tell direction?”

  “One is not authorized to say.”

  Damned Guild regulations, Bren thought.

  And then Lucasi added, looking worried: “It may be our enemies, trying to draw a response, figuring we could take them for our allies. I must admit, nandi, that I am not an expert with this.”

  At least Lucasi was not overestimating his abilities. That was actually comforting.

  But the signal apparently stopped.

  There had been the plane. Allies knew where they were. Or would know. Things could start to move . . . which itself could be a point of danger.

  The sun had passed zenith. The temperature was a curious mix of cold rock, where they were sitting, and a potential for sunburn, where heat beat down from overhead. They hoarded their water, shared it very, very cautiously, and kept absolutely still.

  There had been no repeat loop by the airplane. It was likely on the ground somewhere, either at the airport or at Najida, if not headed back to Shejidan airport, hours away, or down to Separti, or, God knew, some convenient patch of grass where Dur could report to somebody who could do something about the situation. One could hope things were going on, and that plans were being laid in detail—

  Plans that involved the whole west coast and peace or continued war, not to mention lives saved or lost.

  And here he sat, holding
a good many of the keys to the situation in his head, and he wasn’t in shape to do anything. Lucasi had wilderness skills and a weapon, but he couldn’t walk far. So they were stuck on this damned hilltop. Plans could have gone to hell. The situation was changing, with that plane involved. One hoped his bodyguard had seen it, and had seen the convoy, and had drawn conclusions . . . but if they changed plans, they couldn’t advise him, either, without advertising their presence.

  He thought wildly of just taking out on his own and hiking to Najida, hiding in ditches and behind rocks, getting there any way he could, then getting on the phone there and raising hell with Shejidan until he could get them to send his bodyguard some help over at Kajiminda. If he were Lucasi’s age and had two good feet . . .

  But he wasn’t. And the kid wasn’t in shape for it, either.

  He thought of a lot of things, none that were practical, and most of which were rash in the extreme, and he knew, sensibly speaking, that a stray, pale human in run-down boots and a pale dress coat wandering through the lines of fire was just not going to end well.

  But, damn it! There were a lot of entrenched opinions out there about to bump into each other and in need of the paidhi to knock heads together . . . Edi mistrust, Ragi mistrust, Marid mistrust, several clans who didn’t like each other, the Guild itself fragmented, and the Marid under attack. People were going to get killed, people he intensely cared about were in the middle of it, and he needed a damned phone.

  Which—he swept a careful hand back over his hair, trying not to look any more disreputable than he already did, unshaven and dusty as he was—would ironically make a cell phone a very handy thing, except such a call could be intercepted, and he would bring the whole damned renegade force down on him and Lucasi.

  So what good was that? What the damned Guild locator couldn’t do, it couldn’t do either. His ideas were running up against two facts: he wasn’t in shape to run for it, and going against his agreement with his bodyguard was far too risky. Getting shot by the Edi was no better than getting shot by the renegades.

  Lucasi leaned close and indicated direction with a move of his hand. “Someone is coming, nandi.”

  From the south. From the direction his people should come—but from the direction the heavy firing had come earlier.

  He drew a deep breath. And Lucasi flicked the button on the locator he wore.

  Green light flickered twice and went out.

  Lucasi cut it off fast and looked at it as if it had been a bomb.

  “Get to deep cover, nandi. Quickly!”

  “What did it say, nadi?

  “That was the wrong signal, nandi. We are in serious trouble. Go. Quickly.” Lucasi lurched to his feet and seized Bren’s arm, pulling him along, but it was a question who was helping whom . . . a damned sad situation, Bren thought incongruously, and with it came the hope the next shot he took didn’t land in the same spot.

  Upon which, in between protecting his balance and Lucasi’s and trying to prevent them both from breaking their necks, he tried to think what to do, how to work their way out of this.

  If he had to fall into hostile hands, the best thing was to stay alive, and keep the kid alive, and try to work his way out of it with words—a far better defense than a gun in his hand. The damage he could do Tabini—he could, Banichi’s word, finesse that. That was his job. Get him to a leader he could talk to, he could find some chink in the opposition’s armor, something to bargain with.

  Brains. And a plan. A plan only happened if he had a situation in front of him.

  He wasn’t doing damned well with Banichi’s kind of work.

  They skidded, leaving a track. It was a wonder both of them made it to the bottom of the sandstone shelf in one piece, but they hadn’t been quiet about it. He caught Lucasi by the sleeve to keep him from pitching over, while Lucasi, with his bad ankle, was trying to balance the heavy gun in the crook of one arm, having unslung it from his back, and manage his makeshift cane with the other; it was not an outstandingly successful combination.

  “Please do not attempt to shoot anyone even if you get a target,” Bren said. “It will only get us killed, nadi. I can talk to them.”

  “This is my fault,” Lucasi said. Both of them were panting for breath, and bits of rock crumbled under their feet and slid downslope, rattling all the way. “Hide, nandi, and I shall lead them off.”

  “You shall do nothing of the kind, nadi!”

  “Forgive me, but Guild cannot accept civilian orders in a combat situation . . .”

  “This is not a combat situation unless—” His foot skidded on the sandstone dome. He recovered, and Lucasi rescued him from pitching over in the other direction. “—unless I say it is, nadi!”

  “One begs understanding, nandi. Banichi left me in charge of your safety.”

  “Banichi could have taken a rifle to the halls in Tanaja, and he refrained, because there are other answers in this world than Guild policy, nadi! At this moment I am at the end of my patience with Guild policy, when it would be perfectly possible—” Another difficult sideways step. “—to settle this directly with the lords involved—” Slip. “—without blowing things up.”

  “The lord of the Dojisigi only thinks he is using the Guild who have taken residence with him . . .”

  “The paidhi-aiji, however, is better-served, better-protected, and less a fool than the lord of the Dojisigi, who is probably deceased, nadi. I tell you that you are not to fire that rifle!”

  “But,” Lucasi said.

  “This is an order, nadi! If you fire, we shall both be dead, instantly. If I have my way, I can at least gain us a day. Obey my order!”

  “Yes, nandi.” A desperate maneuver for balance as they hit level ground. “But best hide and not be in such a position in the first place.”

  “Just—” Bren half-turned to assist Lucasi, and caught movement at the top of the ridge.

  Three uniformed Guild appeared at the top, an instant before one of them yelled,

  “Halt!”

  “Obey them,” Bren said, and held up empty hands. “Put down the rifle, nadi. Let me deal with them.”

  There seemed to be four of them. Their enemies came down the sandstone slope in better order than the two of them had just done, and Lucasi held his rifle aimed at the ground.

  “Nadiin,” Bren said, keeping his hands in sight. “My bodyguard is under my orders, so you may rest easy; and I trust you know—”

  He didn’t know what had hit him. He went sideways, and fire sprayed the sandstone and came back. The whole world flashed black and red, and he was lying on the ground under Lucasi’s weight with an automatic rifle going off just over his head.

  “Get to cover, nandi!” Lucasi yelled, over another three-shot burst, and got his weight off him. “Go!”

  “Nadi,” he protested, outraged, but there seemed nothing for it. There was a lump of rock half a body length away, and he rolled downslope to get there, tangled in the damned long dress coat and trying to get all of him into cover. Lucasi aimed another burst up the hill, on which there was one man down and no sign of the others. In the next second, Lucasi came rolling downhill into the same inadequate shelter. Lucasi, being considerably larger, needed more of the rock, which Bren tried to give him.

  There was a moment of no-sound, which made Bren think he had gone deaf; but he heard Lucasi moving around. He heard the scrape of a rock under his knee.

  “Nadi,” he began, exasperated.

  “He would have fired,” Lucasi said. “Forgive me, nandi, but he moved to fire.”

  And did the civilian second-guess Guild instincts? If it had been Banichi, he never would have questioned the judgement. It wasn’t Banichi, by a long shot. And he had lied to that dead man about having control of the situation. Clearly. He was upset about that.

  But the fact was, they were alive and under cover. He didn’t know how they were going to get out of this nook, and he didn’t know how many rounds Lucasi had left. He could hope maybe the pair w
ho had fled back up over the hill were waiting for reinforcements, but he had the unhappy suspicion they were just working around to a better vantage, to come at them from behind their rock.

  “He would have fired,” Lucasi said again.

  “One believes you, nadi.”

  “One regrets shoving you so hard.”

  “Since I am alive, I by no means take offense. You have actually done very well, nadi.”

  It was a young face, struggling with distress and imminent failure. And they were in one hell of a mess.

  “I have a gun,” Bren said. “One rather expects they will come around the hill and up. Might one suggest you bring the rifle to bear on that situation, and I will watch for anyone to come over the hill, at a range that will give me time to miss at least once.”

  “Yes,” Lucasi said, and shifted about to do exactly that, while Bren took the pistol from his pocket and tried to still his racing pulse. He had, unfortunately, their precision weapon, and he was long out of practice.

  They waited. There was a sound at one point, a thump, the shift of a light rock from somewhere over the hill. And then a rock sailed over the crest and rolled down the sandstone dome.

  Do them both credit, neither of them was fool enough to fire at it. They sat pat.

  They waited.

  Then after a considerable time, a second sound, from their right. The rock they were hiding behind obscured the source of it.

  “They are coming downhill,” Bren said.

  “I have a signal!” Lucasi whispered, suddenly twisting about to show him the blinking green light. “Nandi, our signal. Your bodyguard is out there.”

  From the certainty of disaster to a different kind of fear. They’d made enough racket and had enough guns going off to alert the surrounding countryside. His bodyguard knew he was in trouble and had surely gone from a stealthy approach to a desperate haste, maneuvering to take the opposition out.