Conspirator

by C. J. Cherryh

  Antaro unbuckled her belt, then got on her knees and, steadied by her brother, grabbed the line, wrapped it about herself several times. It went taut and hauled her up.

  “You next, nandi!” Jegari called out. “Go!”

  That was reasonable. He and Jegari both had floatation vests. He lurched upright, grabbed Jegari and the rope came down again, and he wrapped it around and around himself and held onto the rope’s end.

  Immediately, he was yanked up like a fish on a line, dragged painfully over a small steel rail and dumped onto the deck.

  “Rope!” Banichi’s voice shouted next, and another man—it must be Algini—raked the rope off him and threw it down again, all the while the boats grated together and thumped and banged. Cajeiri clawed after the railing and clung to it trying to see, with the rain coming down and the spotlight bouncing up and down.

  In the next moment a hand seized him unceremoniously by the back of his life vest and jerked him up, hauled him around.

  “Banichi-ji!” he protested, but Banichi shoved him against the railing and shouted, “Hang on with both hands, young gentleman!”

  Hang on he did. He grabbed the rail and hung on with both arms, this time. He was cold as ice, and beginning to shiver, and sick at his stomach all at the same moment. He was aware of Antaro holding on beside him, and he had a good view as Jegari came over the rail, likewise hauled in like a fish and dumped on the deck.

  Last, Tano shouted up at the others and Banichi and Algini together hauled him up to his feet, dripping wet . . . Cajeiri had the reflected light off the superstructure to show him their faces, all desperate, all dripping and drowned in the rain, and immediately Banichi seized him around the ribs and just carried him, so tightly he was close to throwing up, he was so cold and so clenched up.

  He saw the doorway from his sideways vantage, the lighted white door. The lighted wooden floor—amazingly real—came up at him and righted itself as Banichi heaved him somewhat upright. The world had been all lightning-shot black, and now it had wonderful things like polished wood, and railings to hold to, and warmth.

  He saw nand’ Bren at the wheel, very relieved and very worried at once. “Is that all of you?” he asked, “is that everybody with you?”

  “Yes, nandi,” Cajeiri managed to say, teeth chattering. “We are all aboard.”

  “We are too close to shore,” Bren said. “Cast the tender free, ’Nichi-ji!”

  “Yes,” Banichi said, and was off, and the door shut again. Cajeiri saw a bench and got up and sank down on it, dripping wet. The big boat was so much more stable. The air was almost thick, it was so warm, compared to outside.

  He saw Bren turn the wheel furiously, and heard the boat’s engines labor as the deck pitched.

  They could not wreck nand’ Bren’s boat on the shore. They must not. Between Antaro and Jegari, Cajeiri clamped his teeth on his lip and clenched the edge of the white-painted bench, just holding on as Bren jammed the power on.

  Something scraped all down the hull of the boat, and was gone, and then the boat righted itself and the engine sounded different, freer, more powerful: buffets from the waves came at the bow of the boat, and these came faster and faster as the boat took another turn, increasing power.

  Then nand’ Bren looked easier, too, easing his grip on the wheel, concentrating on the view out the windows, and occasionally down at something Cajeiri could see lighted on the counter.

  “One is extremely sorry, nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri offered. “One is very extremely sorry.”

  Nand’ Bren did not speak to him, not immediately, and that meant nand’ Bren was probably framing an educational remark, something he might think adequate to the situation. It was taking a very, very long time to come out, or to organize itself, or possibly a long time for nand’ Bren to surmount his temper, and Cajeiri began to agonize about the adequacy of his response, right along with nand’ Bren.

  “Nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri said finally, breaking the deathly silence that hovered above the rumble of the boat engine and the noise of the thunder. “Nand’ Bren, one understands that our stupidity has exceeded all previous limits, and that we have exposed you to the displeasure of my house, which is entirely unjustified, and we shall tell our father so. We are all three extremely grateful to you and your guard for our rescue, because we could have been killed—though one was making the most earnest efforts to steer the boat and to reach the shore. We are most sorry. We shall obey all instructions from your staff. We shall ask funds from our father to pay your estate for the boat, which we in no way intended to destroy; and we shall pay for the damage to your boat. And we shall forever observe much, much better sense than we did in going out on the water. We shall be much wiser from now on, nand’ Bren.”

  He ran entirely out of breath: his teeth were chattering so he had had trouble getting that much out. But he added, because he had to know: “Have you told my father, nandi?”

  “Yes. And the aiji-dowager is aware. You should know, young gentleman, that she had turned back to Shejidan after the incident of your freight train. She started home a second time and has now turned around a second time in mid-flight, hearing you were lost, and come here. She will be arriving at the estate, and one is about to call her to inform her you are safe, now that we are somewhat on even keel.”

  Great-grandmother. Two flights turned around. He was in great difficulty.

  He sat absolutely still while Bren took up the handset, punched buttons, and made a call, first to nand’ Toby, and to Jago aboard nand’ Toby’s boat, telling them to come about, that he had them all; and next to a Lord Baiji, which seemed to be another boat, thanking him very much for his assistance in locating them.

  And then nand’ Bren called the estate, which took several tries before he succeeded.

  “Nadi,” he said to the person who answered, “inform the grandmother that the lost is found and securely aboard. Request of the grandmother that she inform the relatives. You are breaking up, nadi.”

  At last he put down the handset and remarked, “One hopes they heard all of that.”

  “One is very, very sorry, nandi.” Cajeiri found himself shivering, and where he and the others sat was now the source of a very large puddle, which was running across the deck, this way and that according to the pitch of the boat. It went here, it went there. It was a large puddle, augmented by what had run off Banichi and Tano and Algini, who were almost as soaked.

  “There is weather gear in the locker,” nand’ Bren said. “Put it on for warmth.”

  “Yes,” Antaro said, and got up and brought back two raincoats. She wrapped one around him and put the other around her and Jegari despite the boat pitching about. It was warmer, very much warmer, already, and Cajeiri began to shiver.

  “I gather,” nand’ Bren said, “that you attempted to go out to the boat.”

  “We did, nandi. And one thought one could sail back, but every time we tried, we went further out.”

  “First, sailing against the wind is not an easy skill. It can be done. But when the moon pulls on the water, young gentleman, it and everything sitting on it move out to sea—in the case of bays along this coast, quite rapidly so.”

  “Is that what happened?” He was amazed. He knew about tides. But he had gotten caught, all the same, and never realized what was happening to them. “Nandi, we meant only to go out and see the boat.”

  “No excuses, young gentleman. You should have sailed straight across the harbor when you realized you were in trouble. You would have reached land before the tide pulled you out.”

  “We were trying to go faster, nandi, and use the speed to go against the wind.”

  “That will never work. Given time, and if you do not drown yourself, young gentleman, one will be pleased to show you how to sail against the wind. It is a case of patience and subtlety. One recommends both.”

  “One offers no excuses for our behavior, nandi,” he said very meekly. “One accepts all responsibility. My companions urged us not to
do it.”

  “Nandi,” Jegari said, “you are not obliged to say so. It is our responsibility.”

  “It is my fault,” Cajeiri said, angry, and upset. “And we choose to take the responsibility.”

  “One dares say you will. Antaro.”

  “Nandi?”

  “There is a dry life vest in that bench over against the wall. Go get it and put it on.”

  “Are we going to sink, nandi?” Cajeiri asked.

  “You will notice we wear them in these seas.”

  That was so.

  “Put it on,” nand’ Bren said. “And next time you steal a boat, young gentleman, be sure you have oars and enough life preservers.”

  “Yes, nandi.”

  He knew he had to hear very stern rebukes from his father, his mother, Great-grandmother, and eventually Great-uncle Tatiseigi. It made it worse that he had, this time, richly deserved it.

  But it was, after all, interesting that they had gotten caught by the tides, which was a mysterious thing, and not something he had ever been specifically warned against . . .

  “Hot tea?” Tano suggested, and, indeed, from further back in the cabin, Tano brought a big tray of mugs. Algini was nursing a sore hand—the swelling looked very nasty; and Banichi was soaked and grim, and very gladly took a cup. So did nand’ Bren, and they three did.

  Hot tea helped. It warmed all the way down. Cajeiri drank half the mug and sat contemplating the scope of the disaster around him. And then curiosity about what Bren kept looking at on the table propelled him to his feet, though everybody else had sat down. He staggered a little on the heaving deck, but he came close, and saw it was a chart on a lighted table.

  “Where are we?” he asked nand’ Bren, and Bren pointed to a place just off Najida Peninsula.

  “We have to go wide into the bay,” nand’ Bren said, “because those are rocks. They lie beneath the water at high tide, and have taken the bottom out of boats.”

  It was all more complicated than he had thought. He had known the starship—well, not how to run it, but how to run most everything he met, and to open most any door, and he had always known where things were kept.

  The planet was just big and full of surprises. And tides. Surprises got you even when you already knew about them, if you failed to use your head. And when you needed something, it might be clear back in Shejidan.

  “One is very sorry about the boat,” he said. “Nand’ Bren, we tried to row back, but we lost the oars.”

  “It can easily happen, young lord,” nand’ Bren said. He was less busy now. He managed the wheel with one hand and held his tea mug with the other. “Did you know how to secure them through the oarlocks?”

  “No, nandi,” he said, since, whatever that was, he had not secured the oars at all.

  “Well, young gentleman, I shall also show you how to row a boat, if the aiji-dowager permits the time.”

  “One would be most grateful, nandi.” He was thoroughly miserable. And he squished when he moved, even if the raincoat made him much warmer. He looked down at his feet, and saw he was still adding to the puddle that was wandering back and forth across the deck. “We shall never, ever take a boat that is not ours again.”

  “That would be wise, young lord,” nand’ Bren said calmly. Nand’ Bren was always calm, no matter what. He wished he could be as calm. And nand’ Bren said: “Not taking anything that is not yours, except, of course, should there should be an emergency, would be a very good policy, young gentleman.”

  “One hopes never to do such a thing again, nandi.”

  “My household accepts the sentiment,” nand’ Bren said, and Cajeiri found he hurt in very many places. He would hurt in more places than that once mani laid hands on him, he feared.

  This time he was very glad to have only lost a boat, and not his companions. For a while out there it had been very, very serious, and they had all thought about drowning, and that would certainly have been a sorry end to all he wanted to do and to all the questions he wanted to ask.

  He was so exhausted he went back to sit down, and Tano poured him another mug of tea. He rested and drank his tea, and found all the energy flowing right out of him.

  He had yet to answer to mani, who was going to be very upset with him. He decided not to mention buying nand’ Bren a new boat immediately. But it might be easier to ask mani than to ask his father.

  He was going to have to think how to explain it all to his father.

  It was a far faster trip back than the trip they had made out, searching all the shoreline. The young rascals slept the rest of the way, all of them folded over together, three dark heads bowed, three young bodies making one sodden bundle.

  Bren sent his bodyguard below to change to dry clothes, one after another. He was the only one aboard who didn’t leave a puddle where he stood, and he managed the wheel easily, downing more than one cup of hot tea. He had turned on the running lights from the time they had begun to use the searchlight, and now through the dark and the rain he saw a red running light, Toby’s Brighter Days easily keeping pace with Jeishan now as they motored down the center of the bay, running fairly fast, in the interests of getting the youngsters safely ashore and into a protective security envelope as soon as possible.

  They hadn’t heard a word, for instance, from Tabini—but bet that there were forces landed.

  And Tabini was likely going to be damned mad—he’d let the elusive young rascal get loose, Bren said to himself. He did not deserve credit for a rescue when his caretaking had let the boy steal a boat and go floating off unattended, except by two central district kids who couldn’t swim and had never seen a major body of water.

  The only harm done, thank God, were scratches to Jeishan’s hull, and the loss of an aged little sailboat, very minor damage, on the cosmic scale.

  The young rascals were still sleeping off their adventure, when he carefully put Jeishan into her berth at the dock and turned the controls over to Saidaro, one of his own staff, who waited on the dock in a driving rain, beneath the sole and lonely light, and who caught their mooring line.

  “How are we to manage this?” Bren asked him when he had come into the cabin—at the waft of cold stormy air from the door, the youngsters began to stir and blink and realize they were at dock. “There’s no room for Brighter Days behind us.”

  “We have help, nandi. One will anchor in harbor, and one of the fishing boats will get me back to dock, after nand’ Toby comes in.”

  Wonderfully managed. He would owe the fishing boat captain, as well as Saidaro. He found himself exhausted, and glad to gather up the youngsters and herd them back onto the deck. He was done in—and the exhaustion of his long-suffering bodyguard was apparent. Estate staff came aboard to see to things—he had been pumping out all the way from the mouth of the bay, considering all the slosh and the rain that had poured into the well, but he left the shutdown to Saidaro, who tended Jeishan in ordinary times. He simply joined his bodyguard in getting the young rascals safely off the deck and onto the steady, very welcome dockside.

  They waited there, just a little, as Saidaro pulled Jeishan out and Toby brought the Brighter Days in. The heavens cracked with lightning and water sheeted down as Jago joined them, first off that boat. She also looked exhausted, her ordinarily immaculate hair stringing a bit loosely about the ears.

  The rain pelted down, cold, numbing cold, as they trudged up the long terraced climb to the house, and the shelter of the portico and the welcoming light of their own front door was a beautiful sight. Staff was waiting to take coats and whisk them to hot baths the moment they arrived . . . almost.

  The aiji-dowager, with her cane, walked out into the entry hall to meet them, to bend a disapproving look on her great-grandson, and lastly to nod slowly at Bren, and at his aishid. “Well,” she said, “nand’ paidhi, will you take a brandy after your bath?”

  “Very gladly,” he said, “aiji-ma.” It was very courteous of her, all things considered—it was beyond courteous: it wa
s magnanimous, addressed to the author of her second aborted flight, the caretaker of her great-grandson. Physically, he would rather have fallen into bed. Mentally—he would not turn that honor down, even if it came with a stern warning.

  He took a quick, almost a scandalously quick dip and scrub in the large marble tub: he came out steaming, and still feeling chill at the core, while menservants wrapped him in towels, and stood ready with a dressing gown. Jago awaited the other bath—Toby and Barb had come up to the house, and were using it, directly after the youngsters, who had taken it in sequence.

  “Nand’ Toby and Barb-daja—together?” he had asked Supani, and received an affirmative.

  At least it would speed Jago’s access to hot water, he thought. Banichi and Tano and Algini meanwhile had insisted on waiting their turn for the tub—Algini had been icing his bruised hand; and he insisted now that they go on in and stay there. “Please have your bath and take your time about it, nadiin-ji,” he said wryly. “The youngsters have had their bath. My brother and his lady will be out soon, Jago will finally have her turn, and if the aiji-dowager intends a justified assassination, I should have known by now.”

  “Nandi,” Tano protested.

  “A joke, Tano-ji, a joke. One promises to tell you every detail of the meeting.”

  “Yes,” Banichi said, the simple weary yes of an order taken, mission accepted. “But if you will hear counsel, Bren-ji, do not accept blame. It was your bodyguard that failed you.”

  “My bodyguard never failed me, ’Nichi-ji, though one appreciates the motive of the suggestion. Naively assuming the boy was where he should have been, I gave orders that brought you to me in the very confusion our young scoundrel used in his escape, and one will report that fact as it stands. Patience in our young guest was not likely, given the promise, and the circumstances. The servant I posted in the hall had naturally run to see to the lady. And I do not wish to express, at the moment, my vexation with the lady. So no more of this. Into the bath with you. Koharu!”

  The servant, waiting at the door, held his dressing gown.