Protector

  “Pleased to meet you,” Gene said.

  “Nadiin,” Antaro said, with a polite little nod, Guild-fashion. “We go now.”

  “They speak ship!” Irene exclaimed.

  “A little, nadiin,” Antaro said with a second nod, pleased, and up front, people were getting off and they would have to catch up. “We go now. Up.”

  “We move fast now,” Cajeiri said. “Don’t stop.” Up front, two of mani’s bodyguards had lingered, and they had opened the baggage compartment of the bus, taking out what they had put on. Antaro and Jegari led out, and he followed with his guests, Lucasi and Veijico behind them. Tano got out ahead of them, and there were Kaplan and Polano, mirror-faced helmets on, which made them look like machines—scarily so. But that was what bodyguards did—look as forbidding as possible if there was any chance of a threat. Everybody else was already getting on the train, and Tano went ahead of them as they caught up.

  The steps were high, even for him, but very high for his guests. He made it in, and Gene, with a little jump, was right behind him. Veijico and Lucasi all but picked up Artur, setting him on the steps, and Gene hauled him up the next by the hand. Irene came next, lifted up gently by Lucasi.

  “Everything’s so big,” she said, staring all around her.

  “We’re just short,” Gene said, with his big grin. They were in the car, now, and being urged away from the door. All the bodyguards were still standing, but he caught a glimpse of mani and Great-uncle, and nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji through the sea of black uniforms, settling into the seats at the rear.

  One of the guards was Tano, who said, with a wave of his hand: “You and your guests may have the seats over there, with the let-down table. There will be lunch very soon.”

  “Thank you, Tano-nadi,” he said with a little bow, and now, finally, they were going to be on their way and everything was going to work. “Is mani happy, and Uncle? Is everything all right?”

  “Everything is perfectly fine, young gentleman.”

  He hoped it was, but some of the bodyguards were still outside. Finally Kaplan and Polano came up onto the train ahead of a few of mani’s guards, and the door shut.

  They were in, they were safe.

  And lunch was coming.

  He so wanted to introduce his guests, but it was not proper to do introductions of complete strangers to mani and Uncle in a crowded conveyance. It would have to be as if they were in two separate cars, the adults down there, and them here, at this end, and they had to be sure not to bother anybody.

  “Sit here,” he invited his guests. “Food. Soon.”

  “Food!” Gene said. “Excellent!”

  Their own table, and very quickly iced bottles of fruit juice. No servants were present—they were all in the other cars . . . with the baggage—so it was one of mani’s guards who set down the drinks.

  It was quiet, it was safe: the red car had excellent shielding—even the red velvet curtains that made it look as if there would be a window at the end of their table were for decoration only: there was no looking out. Not from this end of the car.

  “We’re moving!” Irene said, with a startled look, and grabbed her drink. “Oh, this is scary! How fast does it go?”

  “A little,” Cajeiri said. “Not like the ship.”

  “What’s that sound?”

  “Joints in the rail,” Cajeiri said.

  “The other sound.”

  “That’s the train. The machine.”

  “Neat,” Artur said. “You can hear it breathe, can’t you?”

  Breathe. He’d never thought of it like that, but Artur was right. It was neat. And they were happy. Nobody was sick or throwing up, which Bren had cautioned him could happen to them even without windows. They were eager for lunch, and the fruit drinks were fast disappearing.

  But, he realized suddenly, he had to teach them things, like not eating just anything. He had told them once about nand’ Bren having to be careful what he ate, but that was on the ship. He had to be sure nobody got sick now. Or dead. It could be really serious, with some dishes. And even some teas.

  And he had to present them to mani and Great-uncle, once they got to Tirnamardi, in a way Great-uncle would approve. Great-uncle was so touchy. He had to make them understand where to be and how to talk to lords and servants.

  And so many, many things there were Ragi words for, just Ragi words. Where did people born on a station far, far off from any world ever see a tree or a woods? There were words in the old archive, that they all knew. And there were vids. But not all of those words fit things and vids weren’t like standing next to a tree that towered over your head and dropped leaves into your hands.

  They came from a place that was all one building. Just doors and hallways and lifts and tunnels.

  It was just enormous, the mass of things he had to explain. He suddenly found nothing as easy as he thought it was, and it all was going to come at them in a few hours when they got to Tirnamardi.

  He swallowed a mouthful of fruit juice, and decided he should just tell them Ragi words for what they could see around them. It was, after all, the way he had learned ship-speak, when he had been in their world.

  • • •

  “They seem to be enjoying themselves,” Banichi said, having taken a short walk down the aisle and back, as they finished lunch. “They seem to be doing very well. No motion sickness.”

  “One is glad,” Bren said. “Thank you, Nichi-ji.” He and Jase had their lunch together, a little separated from Ilisidi and Tatiseigi, and bodyguards did their own rotation, catching lunch in the little galley. Jase was doing very well, had an appetite, had no problem with the rock and sway of the train.

  “Which of us is going to handle protocols?” he asked Jase. “How much have you told them?”

  “That the bodyguards mean business, and that you don’t touch people. Particularly people with bodyguards.”

  Bren laughed a little. “Children have latitude. Nobody would hurt them.”

  “The boy’s grown this year.”

  “Eight or nine, the kids shoot up fast. Big spurt between eight and twelve. All feet and elbows in a year or so—just like a human kid. The emotions are different—there’s adjustment, a little rebellious streak. Jago’s warned me.”

  “Sounds like us.”

  “But girls won’t be the focus. Man’chi will be. A push-pull with the parents. Rebelliousness. Quick temper.”

  “Sounds exactly like us, in that part,” Jase said. “I was a pain. My actual parents weren’t available to argue with, and I still argued with them—in the abstract. Wasn’t fair, them being so non-communicative.”

  Jase’s humor had a little biting edge to it. Jase was one of Taylor’s Children, stored genetic material, a special kid, harking back to the original crew. Ship aristocracy, in a manner of speaking. A living relic. A resource.

  Sometimes, Bren suspected, from what he had heard Jase say, those who had raised him had forgotten he was still a human being.

  “You turned out pretty well.”

  “Dare I say, thanks to you?” A narrow-eyed glance his way, then around the train. “Thanks to all of them. —When they decided to come back here, they decided to resurrect a few of us. Beginning a new era, I suppose. A marker. I wonder, sometimes, what they think of what they got. Yolanda’s gone philosophical. Meditates in a dark room. She scares me.”

  Yolanda was another of Taylor’s Children. Like Jase, but not like. Cold as a fish and as prickly, in Bren’s way of thinking. “Seriously?”

  “I think she’s in a career crisis. She didn’t like my promotion.” Jase heaved a sigh. “Authority problems. She’s always been a person who likes definitions. The planet bothered her. Translating bothered her. She’s got more realities in her head than she likes and she won’t go into the atevi section, won’t deal with Geigi. Geigi’s learned ship-spe
ak, since she’s resigned. She’s dropped linguistics. She’s gone over to research, records-keeping, history of the ship, that sort of thing. I think it’s a cocoon. It’s safe.” He shrugged. “She and I don’t talk.”

  “That’s too bad.” Yolanda had served as paidhi-aiji, translating directly for Tabini, during the time he, and Jase, had been away on the ship, settling the Reunion mess. She’d been there—when the coup came.

  The world she’d tended had blown up. At least the atevi side of it had, and stayed in chaos for most of two years, until the ship had gotten back from its mission and Tabini had retaken Shejidan. “You think she blamed herself for what happened?”

  “She wasn’t you. She knew that much. It’s my understanding that she made some mistakes.”

  The world she was trying to deal with had blown up. She’d failed, while Jase had been coopted into a captaincy, on a mission that succeeded brilliantly. So Yolanda was retreating into old records, which didn’t have ticking bombs in them. Another paidhi could somewhat figure that reaction. His own predecessor had come back from the mainland completely shut down, close-jawed. A very unhappy and strange man.

  “Suppose I could talk with her?”

  “Maybe,” Jase said. And again: “Maybe.”

  He put it on the agenda. When he found a way. Granted the world didn’t explode again, because of three human kids.

  “So . . . who does handle the protocol explanation?” he asked.

  “You know the twists and turns. I’m a student. You do it. I’m interested in not offending the other end of this bench.”

  Truth—Ilisidi had found humans an unexpectedly interesting experience, and enjoyed her position among ship-humans. Tatiseigi was a man atevi rated as difficult and volatile, a proud old conservative with no good opinion of human-induced changes in the world. . . . But now the old man seemed to be undergoing a sudden and strange transformation in his attitudes—inviting the human paidhi to dinner. Having his collection televised. Inviting human children under his roof and accepting Jase’s appearance with two armored, other-worldly bodyguards, all without a visible flicker of dismay.

  Something had changed in the old man’s attitude. Bren didn’t know whether it was Ilisidi’s doing, through persuasion, or the events of last spring, when Tatiseigi’s beloved Tirnamardi had taken shellfire in Tabini’s cause, and the people in villages and towns had turned out cheering Tabini’s return and all of them that had helped bring him back, all the way to Shejidan. That had been an event. Tatiseigi had never been exposed to popularity.

  Tatiseigi had generously lent Bren his apartment in the Bujavid during Tirnamardi’s repairs—until Tabini could find an excuse to throw a last nest of interlopers out of Bren’s own residence. And certainly Tatiseigi had been overjoyed to get Ilisidi back in the world—was happy beyond measure to have Cajeiri back safely—and he was delighted this year to know his niece Damiri was going to produce another baby.

  A daughter that wouldn’t inherit the aishidi’tat. Cajeiri would.

  But there was Tirnamardi. And Tatiseigi, heirless, had become downright reckless in his support of the dowager’s adventurism in the Marid, in Cajeiri’s, regarding his shipboard associates—

  One saw a glimmering of logic in it all. The old man had a sudden wealth of prospects.

  “Tatiseigi seems quite happy,” he said, “happy to have Ilisidi home safe, happy to have the aiji back, happy with the way things are going. The one thorn in his side got pitched out of the aiji’s court with no likelihood of coming back any time soon.”

  “The way things are going? Seems to me you’ve still got some troubles rattling about the continent.”

  The sense of ease grew just a little less. There were things he probably needed to explain to Jase. But they could wait.

  “We have some serious ones,” he said. “But we’ve hardened the security considerably. Very considerably. Kaplan and Polano—” He shifted a glance over to the seats across the car. “I hope they get to enjoy their visit. I hope they won’t need to use that gear. Actually—I hope this visit leads to others. Maybe we can arrange that fishing trip.”

  “I’d enjoy that,” Jase said. “I’d really enjoy that. You keep the world quiet. I’ll work on calming down the station.”

  “We’ll get through this mess. Maybe the next birthday.” A dark figure approached. Bren looked up, finding Algini in front of him. “Gini-ji?”

  Algini squatted beside the bench seat. “There is a small security concern, Bren-ji. We have moved in some additional Taibeni assets, with the cooperation of Lord Tatiseigi’s aishid. He may not be entirely pleased, but we prefer to be safe.”

  Damn. “Ajuri?” Bren asked. No need to translate for Jase. Jase could understand it.

  Algini said: “There is a movement of Ajuri Guild forces toward their perimeter. Lord Komaji is with them. We have not yet warned Lord Tatiseigi. We see no reason, at present, to concern him. We are working with his aishid.” Tatiseigi’s bodyguards were midway down the aisle, with, he saw, Banichi and Jago. “We have prepared for this eventuality, nandi. We are simply putting contingency plans into operation. Everything is prearranged, and the lord’s aishid is in full agreement. They will talk to him.”

  Ajuri making a move toward Atageini territory put Ajuri Guild, give or take the small territories of two very small affiliated clans, right adjacent to Atageini territory.

  “So our cover is not holding,” he said to Algini.

  “Possibly,” Algini said. “Or possibly the move has relevance to Lord Tatiseigi’s exhibit in Shejidan. It may be designed to get Lord Tatiseigi’s attention. Lord Komaji remains technically within his associational territory and within his rights. It is possible this is wholly designed to annoy Lord Tatiseigi and embarrass him while he has public attention. But Komaji is not serving himself well by this move, if that is the case. He may have no idea that the dowager and the heir are in the path of his actions. That is one interpretation. Of course there is the chance he does know and is making a deliberate move to interfere.”

  “Is there danger in continuing this trip, Gini-ji? Should we reassess it?”

  “In my estimate,” Algini said, “the risk is much greater in going back to Shejidan, and moving assets to cover us there. We have people and equipment positioned to protect us in Tirnamardi. If we rearrange things, our positions may become evident, and it might expose Lord Komaji’s move in such a way as to bring far more tension to this situation.”

  “I hate to nudge the Kadagidi, either.”

  “If they should make any gesture of hostility toward the Atageini while we are there, it would be a serious mistake on their part. They have no motive to be that foolish—granted no change in circumstances. I told you once about the Kadagidi lord’s aishid. About the Guild senior.”

  “Haikuti.” There was no forgetting that. High-level, dangerous, and possibly a holdover from Murini’s regime, serving the current lord, Aseida.

  “Aseida is taking his advice from Haikuti, and Haikuti cannot benefit from making a move toward Tirnamardi. With the aiji’s son and grandmother at issue, Tabini-aiji would have absolute justification to act without Filing. Once they do find out the nature of Lord Tatiseigi’s guests, they should worry that we are setting up exactly such a situation.”

  He felt a chill. Algini rarely looked anyone straight in the eyes. Algini didn’t, at the moment, head down, as he kept the conversation very, very low. And Algini just didn’t blurt out extraneous information. He had to ask. “Would Haikuti be right?”

  “Say that we have already hardened the defenses at Tirnamardi,” Algini said. “And are about to assume an outward posture of alert, which should warn the Kadagidi that we are completely serious, and that the openness of Tirnamardi to their threat is ended. More, that preparedness will not go away when we do. We are not attempting to provoke a situation with either clan, Bren-ji.” A slight hes
itation, a shift of the eyes, gesturing toward Ilisidi. “One does not, however, know that that statement extends to all of us.”

  Cenedi? More, the dowager.

  Did he mean—?

  Damn. The cold feeling hadn’t gone away. It grew, with a fast mental sort through prior discussions of the Kadagidi, and Ajuri, and a very prime target they were going to deal with one of these days. Eliminating Murini had just been clipping the head off a poisonous weed. The roots remained—buried deeply, they believed, in the Kadagidi.

  And they had, on this train, the highest-value targets in current politics, except Tabini himself.

  Ilisidi was capable of a dice-roll like that. She was entirely capable, if the stakes were high enough.

  “One understands,” he said, and as Algini got up and went back to Tano, down the aisle:

  “Jase, did you follow that?”

  “Most of it,” Jase said, and then, after a deep breath, and very quietly: “Geigi and I had a conversation.”

  Geigi. Whose aishid had had a personal briefing before he went back to space.

  “What did Geigi tell you?”

  “I know the Kadagidi, from my own experience. I know that relationship. I know there’s some trouble in the aiji’s household. I know about the grandfather. And I know there’s a problem inside the Guild that’s ongoing, and that it’s a matter of great concern. Geigi asked me—personally—to advise the captains this is going on.”

  Geigi would not have done that uninstructed. There were two people who could give Geigi that kind of instruction. “What did they say about it?”

  “The conclusion was that you could handle it. Go ahead with the visit. Bring my own protection. They know your bodyguards prioritize.”

  “I’m glad of their confidence, but—”

  “In their view, there’s a risk if this isn’t dealt with. In their view, Tabini, and you, and the dowager, and the boy—are irreplaceable. I agree with that.”

  He worked with risks. He dealt with cold equations day in, day out, and the concept that an eight-year-old boy could be a target was a given.