Destroyer

by C. J. Cherryh

  “I do not believe I shall walk,” Ilisidi said.

  “This way,” Banichi said, and marked a destination with his flashlight, shining the beam along the waiting row of cars, onto the one fairly near their truck, with its door open.

  Nawari clambered into the dark boxcar and knelt on the edge. Cenedi handed Ilisidi up to him, and Tano flung baggage in and jumped aboard to the side, pulling Cajeiri up after him. Bren slid off the end of the truck and tried to help Algini with the baggage, but Jago took over that job. “Get aboard, Bren-ji, quickly.”

  He was the most conspicuous item in their company. He’d just spent two years where he was ordinary, and he found his protective instincts were dulled, rusted, right along with his wits. He moved quickly, made a try at getting up onto the waist-high deck of the car, computer and all. He couldn’t make it, and tried again. Tano hauled him aboard by the back of his coat.

  Scrambling out of the way on the wooden deck, leaning his back against the boxcar’s wall, he checked his pocket. He had not lost his gun. His eyes, accustomed to the dark, made out the surrounds, the source of a pervading chill. It was what they had expected, a wooden refrigerator car, stacked high with dim blocks of ice, with crates of, yes, another village’s fish, already loaded, on their way to morning market somewhere along the rail line.

  Banichi was last in, and slid the door to after him. Ruso helped shove it, brave girl.

  “Good luck, aijiin-ma,” she said fervently, and the door shut with a thump.

  Dark came with it, and persisted, until Cenedi produced a penlight and helped arrange seating for the dowager against the wall, on a pile of baggage.

  “It smells like fish in here,” Cajeiri complained.

  “They are fish,” Ilisidi said. “Hush.”

  “Mani-ma.” A pained whisper, next, which no one could fail to hear. “I have need of the convenience.”

  “That can be attended, young sir,” Cenedi said, and took the young lad toward a dark, opposite corner of the car, which, fortunately, had plenty of gaps between the boards.

  There was mortified silence after Cajeiri returned, silence except for a trembling sigh, as the youngster collapsed onto the wet and mildly fishy floor to sit against the wall, elbows on knees, hands wrapped about his head, a thoroughly miserable picture.

  Bren paid his own visit to that small corner. So did others. Life seemed a great deal more bearable, afterward.

  The train fired up and slowly, slowly, without the blast of a whistle to disturb the village in the dead of night, got itself into motion, gathering speed with a regular thump of wheels along the rails.

  “Ruso says the train will stop briefly for mail at Sidonin,” Banichi said, settling down with a sigh, “which should be just before dawn.”

  Sidonin. Next to the Ragi estate of Taiben. It wouldn’t have been a preferred strategy, in Bren’s reckoning of things, to go straight to the heart of the trouble.

  But staying aboard into full daylight, when the train reached some town market center, didn’t seem a good idea.

  There was a sort of breakfast by flashlight, if one counted Toby’s food bars, slightly crushed by sitting on them—they were glad to have them, even so, and washed them down with melted mouthfuls of fishy ice, to conserve the little left in their water-flasks. The train sounded like one of the old-fashioned sort, a steam-powered relic, which rocked along at a fairly sedate clip, whistling eerily at lonely points of hazard.

  The chill of the ice had come welcome after the truckbed, at first, but Bren found the chill seeping into his bones after an hour. He sat in near complete dark, now that necessary moving about was done. His hands and feet and backside grew increasingly numb, the faint taste of fish persisted in his mouth, and he was increasingly convinced those cereal bars would remind him of that fishy taste as long as he lived.

  Distaste wouldn’t survive the next pangs of hunger, he said to himself. An upset stomach was the least of his worries. A meal at all was better than none. And he had actually gotten a little sleep in the truck, and caught a little more, in the surreal spaces between blasts of the whistle. He found a way to pillow his head on his computer case, and hoped the fishy smell would not embed itself in his clothes.

  Eventually, at one waking, there seemed a ghostly gray light coming in the seam of the door, and they were still thumping along. Banichi and Jago had gotten back into uniform. Ilisidi had bestirred herself, and gotten up onto her feet in the brisk cold. She walked about, relying on her stick for balance, waving off Cajeiri’s well-meaning assistance and Cenedi’s offered arm. Cenedi had arranged a sort of a chair for her, consisting of their waterproof luggage atop blocks of ice of suitable height, and she had rested in the best arrangement of all of them. He was heartened to see her up and moving steadily, if slowly. What it cost the dowager in pain he had no idea, but she was on her feet, and refusing to give up. And if she could, no one else could complain. He began to rub life back into knees and ribs and elbows, and thought about hot tea, which was as remote as the space station.

  Squeal of iron wheels. The train began to slow gradually, braking, with attendant squeak and thump and rattle. Cenedi leapt up immediately to steady the dowager, who allowed him to see her to her seat.

  “Are we supposed to stop, nadiin?” Cajeiri asked worriedly.

  “Likely,” Nawari said, extremely curt, and shushed the question.

  The dowager had settled and perched braced with her cane as the train slowed to a stop.

  Sidonin, one hoped, the mail stop, edge of the Central Association.

  In Sidonin, there was more than a chance of a hostile constable. In the territory of the Central Association, an hour or so by rail from Kadigidi territory, their opposition would have set up shop in far more elaborate fashion than in Adaran, on the coast. Not only a constable, but likely the town authorities as well.

  Banichi and Tano heaved the door back while the train was still slowing to a stop. It was the faintest of dawn light, and a lantern showed, when Bren took a quick look outside.

  No chance that they could jump out before the train reached the station and avoid the possibility of being spotted. It was a long way down, next to the hazard of the track. Ilisidi couldn’t do it. Cajeiri couldn’t. He didn’t know if he could. For the dowager’s sake—at least for hers, they had to wait for a full stop and get down in better order.

  Guns were a real likelihood, in that case. Bren patted his pocket and drew a deep breath. Slower. Slower. Slower. Thump-thump-thump.

  Wheeze and stop. Banichi and Jago jumped down onto the graveled slant. Nawari and his mate followed.

  And any employees of the rail line who saw Assassins’ Guild black suddenly in evidence beside their train at this hour of the morning were likely to be looking for cover, fast. Bystanders were safe during a Guild operation—if they ducked fast and avoided involvement. Things had to be finessed, Banichi’s favorite word, and that meant delicacy, and avoiding the simply feckless and unfortunate.

  Two more of Ilisidi’s men heaved baggage down. Bren passed his computer down to Jago, who shouldered it and held up her arms to steady him as he jumped.

  He landed hard. Needles lanced pain through every bone in his cold feet, and he collided with her. He bit his lip, apologized, trying not to fold in pain, and to walk on the edges of his feet, simultaneously looking around and orienting himself on the railroad siding, a steep, gravelly bank, a cluster of small buildings with a faint electric light on the porch. People moved in that light, people they didn’t want to notice them.

  They lifted the dowager down gently, silently. Cajeiri simply scrambled over the threshold of the doorway and lit on the gravel on young, strong feet.

  The people down there didn’t look to have seen them. Better still, off to the rear of that building there was a small bus parked, one of the sort that served train passengers, to reach town center and other means of transport.

  Tano signed in that direction, and Banichi waved them on. Tano and Algini sprinte
d silently across that dirt yard, and had the door of the bus open in a few seconds, whether or not it had been locked. Before the rest of them could cross the intervening distance, Nawari carrying the dowager at a near run, Algini had gotten under the hood and had the bus started, a startlingly loud noise.

  Cenedi helped them get Ilisidi aboard, shoved Cajeiri after, and then shoved Bren up the steps, following after. Nawari heaved baggage into the back door. Two of Cenedi’s men got up onto the roof rack, a great deal of bumping and thumping—carrying rifles, Bren suspected, settling into a bench seat, watching for his own team to come aboard before someone down at the station came to investigate. Or opened fire.

  Jago got in. Banichi followed, Tano and Algini followed, Tano closed the door and Algini slid behind the wheel. Jago remained standing, hanging with her elbow about the protective rail next to Algini, who floored it and turned the wheel vigorously. Banichi braced himself with a wide stance in mid-aisle, watching the rear view.

  Bren, clinging to the seat in front of him, behind Cajeiri and the dowager, looked back and saw lights bouncing in the rear window, people running, shadows in the night. Red and blue lights flashed, emergency vehicles.

  Algini swerved onto a gravel road that paralleled the tracks, throwing Bren hard against the window-side. Swerved again, up and over the rails behind the rear of the train, then dived down the other side of the tracks, skidded onto a service road in a spatter of gravel—whatever track they followed would follow the railroad, no likelier than roads along the coast to persist for very far, but it got them out of there, and kept them going, and a second look back showed dark behind them, no sign of red lights, just a light at the rear of the train.

  The bus ran flat out on the rutted road, bouncing over potholes and sending gravel flying where it took a turn—the men up on the roof must be clinging for their lives.

  Somebody back there at the station had to have made a phone call to higher authority, getting instructions, calling for reinforcements, maybe light aircraft.

  Jago had a map. That was the paper. She held on with an elbow, tilted the paper to the dim light from the instrument panel, gave instructions, and Algini took a turn to the right, onto a track rougher than the last.

  Right. Where did a right turn lead them? He’d remembered where Sidonin was, near the edge of its association, and the rail here served several provinces, skimming along the hazy join that was the atevi concept of a border. They were maybe within forty k of that area of hazy authority, within fifty or sixty, possibly, of Taiben district, which ought to offer safety, maybe a hope of finding Tabini—or run them right into an occupying presence, Taiben being the heart of Ragi territory, and the Ragi Association being the very center of Tabini’s power . . .

  Logically the Kadigidi might have posted observers and controls and guards along this very road, which began to have all the look of a farm-to-market route, maybe one that got Taiben goods to Sidonin’s rail station, and vice versa—he didn’t know. When they’d come to the lodge, they’d come in from the south and east, never the west.

  Daylight had begun to fill in some details in the landscape. He saw tall grass, scrub, occasional deciduous growth. Taiben was forest intermittent with sweeping grassland. Hunting territory, with the aiji’s own hunting lodge deep in its territory, a rustic former hall sometimes converted for tourists and ordinary hunters, what time the aiji was not in residence. The place was a warren of hunting trails, abundant in game, with rugged hills, areas where no one lived, rugged terrain and rolling meadow where no one was allowed to hunt or to enter at all, no one but Taiben rangers, overseeing the heart and core of the district, or Tabini-aiji himself, who never fired a gun there.

  Good memories, good memories thrown into jeopardy on this rough and half-lit road. A fool had to know where they’d gone. And the Kadigidi had to have watchers out . . . whether or not they’d be strong enough to interfere with a Taiben move or one from the railway at Sidonin, they’d know, they’d be set up with guns . . .

  As long as no one got aircraft up looking for them . . . as long as nobody started dropping grenades. They made a very conspicuous target; and if there was an ounce of speed to be gotten out of the bus, Algini was looking for it.

  He clung to the seat as they swerved, saw Cajeiri actually trying to sleep in the seat ahead, head against the window, and bouncing from time to time as they hit a particularly deep pothole, but wedging in the tighter the harder the bumps. The dowager, beside him, had Banichi in the aisle, quietly bracing her in the worst stretches But the boy beside her fell asleep, mouth open—Cajeiri was that tired, and the motion of the bus finally did it, maybe the illusion of having gotten away, when nothing else had lulled him.

  Bren gazed at him, the momentary focus of very worried thoughts. Felt sorry for him.

  Hell of a birthday, kid. Hell of a few days.

  And what the boy didn’t know about their present situation had the paidhi’s stomach in an upheaval. Speed over stealth. Speed, over the chance of bogging down in a sniper war while their opposition called for air support, and them with the dowager, afoot in rough terrain . . . he had enough of an idea of the reasoning in their security’s choices to keep his stomach in a knot, and his eyes sweeping what he could see of the road past Banichi, dreading the sight of a roadblock, the moment at which their two on the roof might open fire.

  Fifty k to a dubious safety in which they couldn’t even guarantee the heart of Taiben was still in allied hands. This whole desperate venture could come to grief in the next five minutes.

  The road passed trees, passed trees on either hand, and by now the dawn showed more than one tree or two deep, a thicket, a forest. Their road bounced, rolled, pitched, and swerved left and right. Branches raked the overhead, hazarding their pair on the roof.

  And with a soft gasp of brakes, Algini slowed the bus, and stopped.

  The men on the roof got down. Tano opened the door, Banichi got off the bus and did not get back aboard, conferring out in the dim dawn with the two from the roof.

  Then those two boarded and Banichi did not. Banichi wasn’t there. Bren looked left and right out the windows.

  Where has he gone? Bren wondered. But maybe it was as simple as a call of nature.

  In front of him, Cajeiri moaned and turned sideways in the seat, seeking more room for his limbs. The dowager sat still, waiting.

  Then the bus started to move again, and Banichi was not aboard. Nawari had gotten up and moved into position to brace the dowager.

  It was too much. Bren stood up, using the seat safety grips as he edged past Nawari to one he could ask, to Jago, who was still hanging with her map, at Algini’s side.

  “Are we onto Taiben’s lands, Jago-ji?” he asked.

  “Well onto them,” Jago said. “Unfortunately . . . the tank is nearing bottom. It was only half full when we left.”

  “At least they’re not on top of us,” he said, just glad to be alive and in something like daylight. “Where did Banichi go?”

  Jago stooped and gave a look out the windshield. “A short hike, to a message drop. We shall pick him up when the trail winds back across the hill.”

  “A message drop?” How in reason had they arranged that? And with whom?

  “We have no great reason to hope it is active, nandi,” Jago said, “but if anyone has escaped into the woods, there are such places. There always have been. We were in the aiji’s service, before we came to yours.”

  In Tabini’s personal service, and likely in and out of Taiben and perhaps privy to its defensive secrets . . . neither of them had ever alluded to that knowledge, not even in crisis.

  Which meant Banichi took the lead here. Cenedi was, like Ilisidi, from the east, from across the continental divide . . . and might know many things . . . but maybe not Taiben.

  “You are not supposed to know where these places are, Bren-ji. Not even all the Taiben folk do, but the lodge director, his assistant, the aiji’s personal guard. As we were, previously, of cours
e, in that number. If the lodge staff has escaped, and gotten to the drops, they will leave word, and break into cells, and use the drops to communicate between cells, avoiding any transmissions that might be traced. We shall see if the system is active.”

  The road turned, the bus exiting the woods and running along the grassy side of the hill. Forest fire had denuded the farther slopes. But that was old damage. Young trees were coming back, a thick bluegreen growth half a man’s height.

  Brush scraped the fenders, and grass brushed the undercarriage. Their road might lead to one of the villages, but it had not been much used this season.

  A figure popped out of the brush at the next turn, and Bren’s heart thumped. But it was Banichi, waiting for them, and the bus slowed.

  Banichi waved at them, signed for them to turn, and there was no place to turn, but in among the trees, deep into brush.

  Algini did it, and Bren steadied himself by a grip on Jago’s rail. Brush scraped the windows. Algini drove it in solidly, plowing down undergrowth, breaking his way through until the bus was enmeshed in brush. Algini reached and opened the door, which Banichi had to pry open, breaking a branch.

  Another man appeared in the woods, at Banichi’s back. “Look out!” Bren called out, heart in his mouth, and then felt foolish, because there were two more, and then a fourth, and Banichi seemed quite easy in their presence.

  “Allies, Bren-ji,” Jago said, patting his arm, folded her map in a few practiced moves, and climbed down. Cenedi was ready to follow.

  Bren negotiated the steps after Cenedi, having to cling to the rail, on tall, tall steps, to be sure his weary legs stayed under him. The ground seemed to be pitching and rolling, and he was hungry, and dizzy, thirsty, and absolutely exhausted from sheer worry.

  “Keimi-nadi,” Banichi said, “I present Cenedi, chief of security to the aiji-dowager.”