“The Taibeni riding through,” Gene said.
“The storm,” Irene said on a deep breath. “The lightning was amazing. That was just amazing!”
4
Bren poured himself another half cup of tea, timing it to the gentle rock of the rails. The clack and rumble, that sound that was bringing them closer and closer to the capital, should be soporific. His body-servants were dozing, like almost everybody else on the train. The tea, however, didn’t in the least help him toward sleep.
But sleep had thus far eluded him, and he wanted warmth against a slight inner chill, and an exhaustion that, this afternoon, seemed to have no cure.
They’d killed people, this morning.
He’d set up the attack. He, Bren Cameron, clearly no longer working for the Mospheiran State Department, no longer just the aiji’s translator—he’d presided over a scene of devastation.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a firefight. But never one that so unexpectedly shook the ground, still reverberated in his bones, so out of place, so alien, in a place that never ought to have seen violence at all.
Lord Bren of Najida, it was, now. Paidhi-aiji, the aiji’s mediator. Lord of the Najida Peninsula. Lord of the Heavens—Tabini had had only the vaguest idea what was above the atmosphere when he’d conferred that title, but he’d sent the paidhi-aiji up there to deal with humans and he’d wanted to make damned sure the paidhi had whatever power it took to put him in charge of whatever he could lay claim to—in Tabini’s name, of course.
In one sense the title only amounted to a name, a piece of starry black ribbon on the rare occasions he chose to wear it; but in another sense it was Tabini-aiji’s declaration that atevi were a permanent presence up there in space, that they meant to have a say in what went on up there, and that their representative was going to have all the respect and backing Tabini could throw behind him.
Three some years ago, that had turned out to mean Tabini’s presence was going to go with humans out to deep space and back and find out whether what humans had told them about their situation as refugees was true—or not.
It had been a two-year voyage, one year out, one year back—and in their return they had brought thousands of colonists forcibly removed from their station, to be relocated on the space station above the Earth of the atevi. That was one problem.
And during their absence from the world, his, the heir’s, and the aiji-dowager’s—they had immediately met a bigger one: the situation back home had completely gone to hell and the government had come into the hands of Tabini’s enemies.
They hadn’t really had to right that situation at the outset: with a little encouragement, the people had set Tabini back in power.
Their investigation in the year since Tabini had resumed his place as aiji was only now uncovering what had really happened, and it hadn’t been what they had first thought—what he and most people had believed as fact as late as a few weeks ago: that the coup which had driven Tabini from power for two years had involved a discontented Kadagidi lord with Marid backing, who had somehow gotten together a band of malcontent lords and their bodyguards, penetrated the aiji’s security, seized the shuttles on the ground, and been able to throw the government into chaos, all because Tabini’s sliding public approval had hit rock bottom.
Wrong. Completely wrong. It hadn’t been in any sense public discontent with the economy—or with Tabini’s governance—that had overthrown his government and set Murini in charge.
It hadn’t even been Murini who’d actually plotted Tabini’s overthrow.
They’d assumed it had been Murini. There had indeed been a public approval crisis, in the economic upheaval of the push to get to space.
But none of these problems had really launched the attack on Tabini.
He’d been surprised, really shocked, how bravely and in what numbers ordinary people had turned out in droves to support Tabini’s return to power. Evidently, he’d thought at the time, the populace had had their fill of Murini. They’d changed their minds. They’d seen the dowager and the heir come back from space and they’d understood that humans had been telling the truth and dealing fairly with atevi, against all doomsaying opinions to the contrary.
That had brought the people out to support Tabini’s return. Mostly, he’d thought then—it had been a return to normalcy the crowds had cheered for, after things under Murini had gone so massively wrong.
There’d been discontent before Tabini’s fall, but no, it had not been lords riding a popular movement that had organized the coup.
It had not even been a small group of malcontent lords acting on their own, though one of them had been glad to take over, not understanding, himself, that he was only a figurehead.
No, it hadn’t been Murini who’d done it.
He and his bodyguard had gradually understood that, and begun to look for what was behind the coup.
His own bodyguard and the dowager’s, working together, had been pulling in intelligence very quietly, intelligence that required careful sifting—old associates making contact from retirement, giving them, as he now knew, a story completely at variance with the account they were still getting from other sources. Some individuals that they might have wanted to consult—Tabini’s bodyguard—were dead, replaced twice since. And every inquiry they made had, he knew now, run up against rules of procedure—within the closely held secrecy of the Assassins, the most secretive of Guilds.
His bodyguard, and the dowager’s, had protected him, protected the aiji, and protected the heir through some very dicey situations, including misinformation that had nearly gotten him killed out on the peninsula.
They’d survived that. They’d tested their channels. They’d quietly worked to ascertain who could be trusted . . . and who, either because they were following the rules, or because they were part of the problem . . . could not be relied on.
Geigi coming down to the world had been a major break. Geigi, resident on the space station during the whole interval, observing from orbit, had filled in some informational gaps; and he was sure Geigi had gotten an earful of information from his own bodyguard when he’d gone back up there.
So now Geigi had sent them the three children, a ship-captain, and two ship’s security with a bagful of gear they weren’t supposed to have, and in which his own bodyguard had to take rapid instruction.
It was a good thing. Their opposition, finding pieces of their organization being stripped away, was making moves of their own.
The Kadagidi setup—was major.
Done was done, now. The lid was off, or was coming off, even while this train rolled across the landscape. Those of them that opposed the Shadow Guild dared not rely on orders going only where they were intended. They could not rely on discretion. They could not trust Guild communications, or rely on any personnel whose man’chi his bodyguard or the dowager’s didn’t know and believe. The matter at the Kadagidi estate this morning had been Guild against Guild—they’d exposed the Shadow Guild’s plot to assassinate Lord Tatiseigi. But they’d also hit right at the heart of Shadow Guild operations inside Assassins’ Guild Headquarters.
The Shadow Guild, wounded, might think it was blind luck and an old feud that had guided the strike. It wasn’t. And whatever the Shadow Guild believed, it could figure their enemies had just gotten their hands on records. Whether or not the Shadow Guild believed they’d delivered an intentional blow straight at them—it was time for the rest of the Shadow Guild operation to move. Fast.
From their own view—the Assassins’ Guild might have seemed on the verge of fatal fracture, infiltrated at its highest levels, still shaken by fighting in the field against Southern Guild forces. People who guarded the aiji already felt themselves unable to rely on Guild lines of communication . . .
One assessing the aiji’s chances of survival might think that the infiltration might be pervasive, and fatal.
>
But now they knew it was not that the infiltration was pervasive through the Guild, no. It was that it was that high up. It was not the rank and file who could no longer be trusted, and it was not a widespread disaffection within Guild ranks. It was a problem in the upper levels that had been able to set a handful of people in convenient places, that had sown a little disinformation in more than one operation—and done an immense lot of damage over a very long period of time.
Now they knew names. The dowager’s bodyguard, and his own, were increasingly sure they knew names, both good and bad. And the dowager intended a fix for the problem—granted they got to Shejidan in one piece, granted they could muster the right people in the next critical hours, and granted they did not muster up one wrong name among the others, or bet their lives and the aiji’s safety on a piece of misdirection.
They finally knew the Name behind the other names. They knew how he had worked. He was not an extraordinarily adept agent in the field, but a little old man at a desk.
His bodyguard months ago had reported the problem of tarnished names that deserved clearing—some living, some dead. A large number of senior Guild had retired two years ago, some of whom had dereliction of duty, medically unfit, and, in some cases, he was informed, even the word treason attached to their records. Some notations had landed there as a result of their resignations during Murini’s investigation, some had been added as a result of Tabini’s investigation into the coup and their refusal to be contacted. It had been disturbing—but credible—that persons who had never felt attached to Tabini and who were approaching retirement might just neglect to report back and go through the paperwork and the process after his return to power. Perhaps, the thought had been, these individuals had never appealed the matter or shown up in Shejidan to answer questions and have their records cleared . . . because they were just disaffected from the Guild itself, disillusioned and still angry over the handling of the whole matter.
Senior officers of the Guild had deserted in droves when Murini had taken over the government; they remained, his bodyguard had said, disaffected from current Guild leadership, opposing changes in policy. There was also old business, a lengthy list of Missing still on the Requests for Action which pertained to every Guildsman in the field: if one happened to find such a person, one was to report the location, ascertain the status if possible, request the individual to contact Guild Headquarters and fill out the paperwork—so Algini said. But there was, since Tabini’s return, no urgency on that item, Algini also said, and in the feeling that there might be some faults some of these members were worried about, there was a tacit understanding that nobody was really going to carry out that order. Some junior might, if he was a fool, but otherwise that list just existed, and nobody was going to knock on a door and insist a former member report himself and accept what might be disciplinary action. Certain members had left to pursue private lives under changed names.
A message had come from two former Guild Council members, stating that, in a new age of cooperation with humans and atevi presence on the space station, the old senior leadership felt themselves at the end of their usefulness. It was a new world. Let the young ones sit in council. With marks against their names, with records tainted, who knew what was true, or which of them to trust? They were not anxious to come back to hunt down other Guild. The idea disgusted them. They disapproved of the investigation and refused to submit to a Guild inquiry.
That was the only quasi-official answer to the demands of the infamous list that the Guild referred to as the Missing and the Dead.
The stalemate still continued. Those on the list would not answer a summons or account for their movements during the coup. The list was a farce and an insult. The reconstituted records, they said, were corrupt. They would not divulge information that might reveal contacts or the location of fellow Missing.
And, no, they would not come back. And they would not ask Tabini to be included in the amnesty afforded other guilds and given on a case-by-case basis to the Assassins. They maintained the executive branch had no authority to intervene in the guilds and that the list violated that principle. It was principle.
There had been a few resignations since the events out at Najida. The list had grown a bit.
Angry resignations, his aishid said.
And his aishid, and the dowager’s, had kept investigating . . . month after month. Tabini’s aishid, however, couldn’t. The current Guild Council refused to grant those four, who were Taibeni clan, Tabini’s remote cousins, any higher rank or a security clearance, because Tabini, of the executive of the aishidi’tat, had ignored the Guild’s recommendation for his bodyguard, and chosen his own, who were not classified as having a security clearance, or even advanced training.
It had been more than inconvenient. It had been damned dangerous . . . so much so that the aiji-dowager had finally ordered part of her own bodyguard to go into Tabini’s service and back up and train the four Tabini had appointed. The Guild knew about the four new bodyguards: nobody had officially mentioned the training part of the arrangement, which was, under Guild rules, illegal.
Things had gotten that bad.
Then, even as they’d sent Geigi aloft and into safety—Algini had come to him with information that made it all make sense.
So he knew things that no outsider to the Guild was supposed to know: he knew, the dowager knew, and Lord Tatiseigi knew. Young Cajeiri also knew—at least on his level—since his bodyguard meshed with theirs, and they all were under fire, so to speak, all of them and Tabini-aiji at once . . .
Because they knew exactly where the origin of the coup was, now. It had been no conspiracy of the lords, no dissent among the people. It was within the Assassins’ Guild. In effect, the guild that served as the law enforcement agency had fractured, and part of it had seized the government, setting it in the hands of a man who never should have held office.
The aiji-dowager and Tabini-aiji had started to correct matters by hunting down Murini; but after they’d taken down Murini, the problems had continued. They’d found themselves fighting against a splinter of the Guild they had naturally taken for Murini’s die-hard supporters. But defeating the Shadow Guild in the field had turned up a simple fact: the majority of those fighting Tabini in that action had been lied to, misled, and deceived. They might not have been innocent of wrongdoing, perhaps—there were orders they never should have followed. But their attack against the aiji’s forces had been under orders which turned out to have been forgeries, with no name that proved accurate, or that could be proven accurate.
That was when the dowager had known for certain that not everything wrong in the aishidi’tat had Murini’s name on it.
The legitimate Assassins’ Guild held its own secrets close as always—and, apart from its problem with disaffected senior officers refusing to debrief, or even to report in, their relations with the aiji had gone along at standoff regarding his personal bodyguard. It had seemed business as usual with the Guild.
And to this very hour Tabini-aiji was having to get his high-level information from his grandmother, who had the most senior team in the Guild—and Tabini still had to inform his own young bodyguard of what they should have been able to tell him.
To this hour, even a year after Tabini had regained power, they were still working to reconstruct what had happened the day of the coup, hour by hour, inside Guild headquarters and down their lines of communication . . . trying to find out where the problems still might be entrenched.
They had gathered information, they hoped, without triggering alarms.
This much they had been able to find out, and to stamp as true and reliable.
The day of the coup, a quarter hour after the attack on Tabini’s Bujavid residence, an odd gathering. . . . the lord of the Senjin Marid, the lord of little Bura clan from the west coast, the head of Tosuri clan, from the southern mountains, and four elderly Conservatives who s
hould have known better . . . had officially declared man’chi to Murini and set him in Tabini’s place. It was exactly that sequence of events, that particular assemblage of individuals, and the rapid flow of information that had gotten them to the point of declaring Tabini dead, that had begun to provide their own investigation the first clues, the first chink in the monolith of non-information.
Those individuals—three scoundrels and four well-intentioned old men of the traditional persuasion—had probably all believed what they were told by a certain Assassins’ Guild officer, who had gotten his information from a source who credibly denied he had given it. These seven were told, the Conservative lords all swore to it, that Tabini was dead and that a widespread conspiracy was underway, a cabal of Liberal lords that would throw the continent into chaos and expose them to whatever mischief humans up in space intended.
These gentlemen were told that they had to subscribe to the new regime quickly and publicly, and make a statement backing Murini of the Kadagidi as aiji, in order to forestall a total collapse of the government.
It had certainly been a little embarrassing to them when the announcement had turned out to be premature: Tabini was alive. But the second attack, out in forested Taiben, was supposed to have taken care of that problem within the hour. That attack cost Tabini his original bodyguard, but it failed to kill him—and no one had told the honest elderly gentlemen who had backed Murini that fact, either.
Where did anyone later check out the facts of an event like . . . who was behind an assassination? One naturally asked the Assassins’ Guild.
The splinter group that they had come to call the Shadow Guild—to distinguish it from the legitimate Assassins’ Guild—had violated every one of those centuries-old rules of procedure and law that Wilson had written about in his essay. And down to this hour of the coup, the legitimate Guild, trying to preserve the lives of the lords who were the backbone and structure of the aishidi’tat, were still devoutly following the rulebook, as a case of—as Mospheirans would put it: if we violate the rules trying to take down the violators—what do we have left?
Peacemaker Page 4
