But Cenedi and Ilisidi together began to move quite slowly and the rest of the mechieti came with them, across the narrow runway, onto the natural grass of the building frontage.
Men slid down. Ilisidi signaled Babsidi to drop a shoulder, and stepped down from the saddle, retrieving her cane on the way as Cenedi swung down.
Bren tapped Nokhada's shoulder, nudged her with his foot and as she lowered her forequarters, swung off, keeping his grip on the rein until he was sure that was what he should have done. But everyone was getting down and while Banichi moved off to talk to Cenedi, Jago showed up, and called Jase and the boy in close.
"One expects no difficulty," Jago said. "But follow me."
They let the mechieti go, merely tying reins to the saddle ring, and Bren was acutely conscious of the gun he carried in the inside pocket of his jacket as more than a nuisance and a weight that thumped when
Nokhada hit her traveling gaits. He was armed and able at least to shoot back. Jase and the boy were not. He gave no odds on Ilisidi, who passed into the building surrounded by rifles and sidearms.
So did they, into a double-doored foyer and into a broadcast operations center, one side wall with two tiers of active television screens and six rows of consoles, some occupied and active despite the presence of armed guards.
An official had joined them, bowed, and offered courtesies, offering drinks and a supper, which the official swore were under the guard of Guild security.
"I'll see this place first," Ilisidi said and, walking with the aid of her cane, toured the long rows of counters and consoles with Cenedi beside her, with a handful of her young men around her, as others took up posts on all sides. The technicians couldn't quite remain oblivious to what was going on, or to the fact that guns were visible: nervous glances attended her movements and those of the men on guard.
There was, the dowager was informed, in a stillness so great there was no need of close eavesdropping, this central command center; and there were, down that hall, the offices, the rest areas, and through the door, the adjacent staff barracks. Her men had been there, one said, and they had posted a guard there and at the outlying service buildings.
"I assure you, aiji-ma," the director said, "everything is in order."
"And the paidhi's messages?"
"Nand' dowager?" The director seemed dismayed; and whack! went the dowager's cane on a console end. A score of workers jumped. One bent over in an aborted dive under the counter, which she turned into a search after an escaped pen, and quickly surfaced, placing the pen shamefacedly before her.
Scared people, the Messengers, with officers of their Guild trafficking with the other side, and the Assassins' Guild guarding the aiji-dowager, a gray eminence in the chanciest atevi politics. Ostensibly she was on a holiday tour including the old fortress, which this communications nerve center had to have known was coming, and the nature of that old fortress some here had to know.
They had to believe she was probably on the aiji's side at a moment when other things were going chancy, rapidly, in electronic messages sailing all over the continent.
"Where," Ilisidi asked, in that shocked silence, in which only Ilisidi moved, "where is the paidhi's mail and why has the communication run through this center gone repeatedly amiss? Is this the fault of individuals? Or is this a breakdown in equipment? Does fault lie in this place? Can anyone explain to me why messages lie in this place and do not move out of it in a timely manner? Is it a spontaneous fault of the equipment?"
"No, aiji-ma," the director said in a voice both faint and steady. "There is no fault of the equipment. I have taken charge of this facility in the absence of the senior director."
"You are?"
"Brosimi of Masiri Province, aiji-ma. Assistant director of Mogari-nai by appointment of my Guild."
One did not miss the aiji-ma, that was the address of someone at least nominally loyal; and Ilisidi, diminutive among her guards, was the towering presence in the room.
Ilisidi walked further, looked at one console and the next, and all the while Cenedi and Banichi were near her; but so was a man named Panida, whose talents and function in Ilisidi's household had always seemed to be very like Tano's. Panida was generally, in Ilisidi's apartment in the Bu-javid, near the surveillance station that was part of every lord's security. And now he paused here and there at certain idle and vacant consoles. Once he flipped a switch. Whether it had been on or off, Bren did not see.
"Nand' director," Ilisidi said. "This is a very thin staff I see. Are there ordinarily more on this shift?"
"Yes, aiji-ma. But they went down to Saduri Township."
"Well, well, and will that improve the efficiency of this staff?"
"I assure the dowager such will be the case." The director made surreptitious signals to his staff, who uncertainly rose from their seats and, almost as a body, bowed in respect.
"Nadiin." Ilisidi nodded, and said, by way of introduction: "Bren-paidhi. Jase-paidhi. And their devoted escort, the heir of the lord of Dur."
"Nand' director," Bren said as faces turned toward them. "Nadiin."
A second round of bows and nods of heads. And the hasty but respectful movement of a young woman who gathered up a heavy stack of paper and proclaimed it, "Nand' dowager, here are all the messages routed through this station in the last ten days. With great respect, aiji-ma."
"And the messages for the paidhiin?"
A middle-aged man moved to a desk and carefully, with an anxious eye on the behavior of security, gathered up a smaller handful of printout. "This is the phonetic log and transcript, aiji-ma, during the same period, but the translators have all left."
"One assures you, nadi, the paidhiin do not need translators." Ilisidi with a casual backhand waved the man in their direction, and the man brought the log and bowed.
The dowager wanted the record read, Bren said to himself. "Thank you, nadi," he said to the anxious technician, took the thin volume, and set it down. It was the end of the record he wanted, and he was accustomed to the phonetic transcription. He sat down and flipped the pages over to the latest messages.
There were Deana's transmissions, as late as this morning, included in the limited transcript although they were in Ragi. A cursory glance proved them more grammatical and careful than her conversation in the language — but then, on Mospheira, Deana had her dictionaries at her elbow.
Deana, however, could wait for a moment. For a moment he was on a search for things not necessarily on government matters, things personal to him, which, if he could find while doing his job —
He was aware of Jase leaning on the counter, reading over his shoulder.
He was aware of his hand trembling as he turned the pages back and on a deep intake of breath he discovered the fear he'd not let surface since he'd failed to get through on the phones was still very much alive.
More of Deana's junk. It made up the bulk of the stack and it made him mad. He wanted his own messages. He wanted answers from Toby, what had happened, how his family fared.
He found it.
It said, Bren, mother's out of surgery. They said it was worse than they thought. But she's going to be all right. I tried to call. The lines went down. I hope…
The line blurred and he blinked it clear.
… hope you get this. I hope you're all right. I was sorry we were cut off. I shouldn't have said the things I did, and I knew it, and all that other crap came out. I wanted to say I love you, brother. And I said that nonsense.
His hand shook uncontrollably. He couldn't see. He couldn't think for a moment, except that it wasn't allowable for him to show disturbance in front of a roomful of atevi, in the service of the dowager. Too much was at issue. He had too much to do. He shoved his way out of the seat, told himself a restroom might give him a moment to get himself together without anyone being the wiser if he just moved slowly and showed no distress. Lives rode on his composure. He couldn't become the subject of gossip or disgrace to the dowager.
; "Jago-ji," he said. His eyes were brimming and he tried not to blink. "It's a little warm. Where's a restroom, please?"
"Nandi." Jago moved past Jase and, thank God, between him and the rest of the room. "This way."
"Bren?" Jase asked him.
"Stay there!" he said to Jase, and found he could talk, and if he could get privacy enough to clear his eyes without making a fool of himself, he'd be fine and back before anyone questioned his reactions.
Jago, meanwhile, brought him to the side hall, and to a restroom door, and inside, all the while one could have heard a pin drop outside.
"Bren-ji?"
"It's all right." There was a wall basin, and he ran cold water and splashed it into his face. Jago handed him a towel. Atevi restrooms had no mirrors. He trusted he hadn't soaked his hair. He'd gotten his eyes clear but his gut was still in a knot. "Jago-ji, I'm sorry. I'm fine. How do I look?"
"Ill," Jago said. "What did you read, Bren-ji?"
He tried to frame an answer. Good news seemed a little extravagant. He truly wasn't doing well.
The door cracked. Jago held it with her hand, protective of him. Jase said, "Bren?"
"In a moment, Jase." Adrenaline surged up, annoyance, anger, he didn't know what. But Jase persisted.
"I have to talk to him, nand' Jago. Please."
"Let him in, nadi-ji," Bren said, thinking by the tone of Jase's voice he might have found something urgent in the record. Jago let the door open and Jase slipped in, while he knew the room outside would be concluding something was direly wrong.
"I need to talk to you," Jase said. "I read the message. I need to talk to you. Alone."
He didn't understand. He damned sure didn't want to discuss his personal life. He had a great deal else weighing on him.
But part of that great deal else was Jase's cooperation.
"Jago," he said.
"I will not leave you, Bren-ji."
Nor should. Jago took herself to the side, however, and back a pace to the wall.
That left Jase as alone as he could manage in a tiny space; and Jase ducked his head and took a breath in the manner of a man with an unpleasant task in front of him. "Bren," Jase said in a low voice, and went on in his own language, "Yolanda's trying to get away. She's coming here. She's going to try."
That took several heartbeats to listen to. And a few more to try to figure. Yolanda Mercheson, Jase's partner from the ship, was going to leave Mospheira?
"Why?" was the only thing he could say, not When? Not How? which were backed up and waiting, but at that point, Cenedi opened the door.
"Nandiin. Is there a problem?"
"We're all right," Bren said. His nerves were still wound tight, and he realized that the dowager was being kept waiting. "A moment, Cenedi-ji. Please excuse me to the dowager for just a moment." One didn't do such a thing; but he did. "Jase. Why? What's going on?"
"I don't know the details. I just know she's coming here. It's her judgment she can't work with the island."
Giving up on Mospheira? The ship was writing off the human population.
"I don't understand," he said. "And we're going to have to explain this to the dowager. When is she doing * this?" Jase's sudden passion for the seashore began to
»j nag at the back of a mind grown suspicious, over the years, of every anomaly. "Where did you make contact? When?"
"On the phone," Jase said in a faint voice; and Jase was white-faced and sweating. "We had it arranged before we came down, that if one of us found the place we were in impossible, if demands were being put on us that we couldn't accept, we'd cross the water somehow. And she — called me on the phone and that was how I knew. I knew I had to come at least to the coast. And then if she made it I was bound to find out about it if I was with you, so I could get her — get her to the capital. But I didn't know it was so big out here. I didn't know it —"
"Jase, that story's got so many holes in it —"
"I'm not lying."
"You were just going to flit over to the coast and pick her up — on what? A boat? A plane? Or is she going to hike over?" He was too shaken right now to be reasonable. Temper was very close to the surface. "How did you know? And don't tell me you made a f?
phone call I don't know about. Anything that came into the apartment I do know about, unless it walked in on two legs."
"No. It didn't. We had it arranged, Bren, we didn't know what we were putting ourselves into, and we knew there was a potential for problems with the atevi side; we knew there was a potential for problems on the island, too, but we really thought if things broke down they'd break down here, not there. So we said — if we had to signal trouble — one of us would say — would say there was a family emergency. We figured it was the one thing even atevi might understand and let one of us reach the other. And whoever — whoever had to run for it, it was going to be the other one who had somebody get sick. Or die, if it was a life and death situation. She said my father died, Bren. She's in real trouble."
He might have let expression to his face. He wasn't entirely sure. He was angry. He was embarrassed, and angry, and had a clear idea Jago followed most of it. He'd been through the entire government with Jase's lie. He'd intervened in an already touchy situation with a Guild half of whose local members had fled the site they were standing in.
"I didn't know the atevi," Jase said. "I didn't understand the way things are set up here. I didn't know you had real problems yourself, and then I did know and I didn't know how I was going to make it work and get her to the mainland when you had far worse troubles than I could claim to and you weren't getting your family out. I knew it wasn't going to work the way we'd planned, and I felt like hell about your situation, and I didn't know what to do except get over here somehow and get to the shore and know if she made it I'd be here —"
"You know," Bren said, with far better control of his voice than he thought he'd have, "you know I could take about any of it, piece at a time. I could understand your lying to me. I could accept you had to. But you took after me about lying, Jase. You went all high and holy about my lying, and you wanted me to apologize to you, when you damned well knew it was the other way around, Jase, that's what I can't understand."
"I didn't know I could believe you!"
"And now you can."
"Now I do," Jase said.
"Wasn't the plan that we'd send for her? Or was this something else, Jase? Are we hearing one more story?"
"I didn't want to call for her to come over here into something worse than she was in. And I didn't dare give her a come-ahead. I was with strange security. I couldn't get you for four days, Bren. I couldn't ask the staff. You said be careful with them. By then it was too late. My call to my mother — the ship hadn't heard from Yolanda. Not in four days. And I didn't know what to do."
"So you want to come out here. And it's not what you expected. And now you trust me."
"Everything you've told me," Jase began, but now his voice was shaking. "Everything so far makes sense. I believe Yolanda's leaving the island is tied to what Deana Hanks is doing, it's tied to everything you've told me. I've been trying all the way out here to find a way to tell you what was going on, but every time I tried I ran into something else that wasn't what you'd led me to think. I didn't know but what Yolanda was leaving the island with Hanks. But I don't think so, now. By everything I've heard, I don't think so. These people outside don't make me think so. The business in the apartment didn't make me think so. The dowager doesn't. But I just haven't known what to do, Bren. I tried to find out the truth — and at the first you were lying to me, and you work for the Mospheiran government, and for the aiji, and I didn't know where you stood, and everything was coming apart."
That made sense. The fishing trip. The damned fishing trip. Every lie they'd told each other, every difference of perceptions two hundred years of separation made in two sets of humans.
And if Yolanda Mercheson was pulling out of Mospheira, there were going to be some angry and desperate
people on the island, who were only going to make matters more tense and more desperate for all of them remotely involved.
Forces on various sides of atevi concerns were moving on the mainland. Everything that had been going forward was still in motion and now human troubles were linked into it.
"You and I had better level with the dowager, is what we'd better do," Bren said. "There are operations going on all over the coast. It may be a hostile reaction Hanks means to stir up, if your partner's given away her intentions. If she and Hanks have had a falling-out, it could be why Hanks is doing what she's doing in the first place, trying to start a war here so the ship won't deal with us. Or it may be as simple and stupid as I think it is: she doesn't know what in hell she's messing with. Years in the program and a week being with atevi and she still doesn't figure it. — Jago-ji, nadi." He changed languages, and went for the door, concerned at the time slipping away from them. "How would Yolanda come, Jasi-ji? By boat? By plane?"
"She can't fly. That's certain. She could steal a boat. But the storm —"
"Handling a boat's no given, either. Stay with me." He walked into the communications center, walked past concerned technicians and the boy and the dowager's security to speak to Ilisidi herself. "Nand' dowager," he said, "my partner says that the other ship-paidhi has quit her post."
"Quit."
"And is leaving the island and coming to the mainland for refuge. Likeliest by boat. We don't know when. We don't know where."
"And that is in these messages you read?"
"No, nand' dowager," Jase said for himself. "I knew by a phone call days ago. Nand' Bren had no knowledge of it. I wished finally —" Jase's voice was trembling, and steadied. "I wished to tell it before now. I apologize, nand' dowager."
"It was a code by conversation," Bren interjected, "aiji-ma. Security couldn't possibly detect it. I didn't."
"Well," Ilisidi said, and while a foul temper was possible, when it was entirely justified, in fact, it didn't happen, though nerves all around were drawn tight. "Well." Ilisidi stood leaning on her cane. "And in this night of human secrets, in this night with serious consequences on every hand and fools attempting to overthrow all established order, what will happen on the island, nand' paidhi? What has happened? Disasters? Or better news."
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