Mani seemed to put the second advisor in difficulty.
And after a number of moments of silence, there came a soft booming from Matuanu.
Was it laughter, Cajeiri wondered.
And the more he looked at the situation, the more he saw there was a dilemma ahead.
“Good,” Matuanu said. “See.”
He directed Hakuut to make a move. Hakuut set down the piece.
Instantly mani ordered the consort moved.
Matuanu instantly directed the countermove.
The dowager immediately directed the aiji moved from the sideline.
Slow hiss. And then a triple boom. A nod from Matuanu.
Stalemate. There were no moves from here. A lightning-fast, reckless game—and a rapid, ruthless end.
And no one won.
He had worked long and hard, and he had gotten mani to stalemate twice this last year, but he was never sure it was by his skill. He suspected it was mani’s.
He suspected it right now.
“Perhaps our guests would like to have the set,” mani said, “if they enjoy it.”
Cajeiri gathered up the pieces and quickly put them in their case, in the traditional array. He folded the lid shut, got up, and offered the set to Matuanu, with a little bow.
Hakuut took it in both hands, likewise with a bow, and gave it to Matuanu, who took possession of it, stroking the leather case.
“Thank the aiji-dowager,” Matuanu said, and Hakuut made a much deeper bow.
“Thank you,” Hakuut said. “Thank you, aiji-dowager. Good.”
Play sharpened instincts, kept suspicion quick and deep and focused on a small reality, a single narrow set of pieces, and all their capabilities.
Matuanu is aiji, he thought: aiji, aiji-dowager, or aiji-consort. Hakuut is clan lord, certainly not the fortress.
What is Prakuyo, he wondered. Is he aiji—or advisor?
• • •
The lift settled and thumped into its place, back at their beginnings, undamaged, undismayed, and, Bren hoped, relieved of some suspicions. But in front of the foyer door with that door open to receive them—
Prakuyo stopped.
“Talk,” Prakuyo said. “Talk to Bren.”
Nothing about Jase. Bren took in a breath. Jase said, quietly, “I’ll go on inside.”
Jase did that. Jeladi, inside, shut the door, leaving Bren, his aishid, and Prakuyo alone in the corridor.
“Talk,” Bren said.
“Prakuyo come station. Come human station. Come atevi station. Bren come ship.”
Second slow, deep breath. Fair. He couldn’t say it wasn’t.
“Yes,” he said.
“Nandi,” Banichi said. “The aiji will not let you go without your aishid. The paidhi-aiji, nandi, does not go anywhere without his aishid.”
God. It was what he had dreaded, what he assuredly didn’t want, and effectively—he had to.
He could not have Ilisidi or Cajeiri with him—that was utterly out of the question. But Prakuyo hadn’t asked that.
Bring his bodyguard?
Bring the four people he cherished most—into a situation that might, conceivably—be a question of no return?
Man’chi—had to be his thinking. Leave them? It was too great a betrayal—nothing about leaving them could be for their own good. He couldn’t do that to them.
“Bren. Come.”
“If I come—I have to ask the aiji-dowager. If I come—my aishid comes. They come with me.”
“Yes,” Prakuyo said, pulling the last prop from under any argument. For persuading the kyo to peace—would he? He had to.
Would they go with him? That, too. They had to.
• • •
“Aiji-ma.” The dowager and Cajeiri sat with Matuanu and Hakuut, still. The tablets were in evidence, on the table in the midst. Bren bowed, keeping his face pleasant. “We had a productive excursion and Prakuyo has seen atevi and humans working in parallel and in harmony. Prakuyo now has asked a reciprocal visit. He wishes the paidhi-aiji to visit the kyo ship, and one believes the pattern of reciprocity . . . as he has visited alone in the upper station . . .”
Ilisidi cut him off, hand lifted from the chair arm, and for a moment, just a moment, a flicker of chilling coldness, before her expression turned as casually gentle as if she were dealing with household staff. “Well,” she said, smiling, “well. We shall continue to afford all possible hospitality to Matuanu and Hakuut, while the paidhi-aiji tours the ship. How long do we estimate this to be?”
He was, he realized, too entirely rattled to render that in any reasonable fluency. He bit his lip, hauled his wits back into order, and saw Cajeiri’s face, likewise, absent any enthusiasm, any questions, any request to go along. No, Cajeiri understood the situation.
Prakuyo, likewise, had spoken to his fellows, very quietly.
Tano and Algini had left him to go advise Jase, to advise the staff, and to pack.
Take their sidearms? Guild did not give those up without an order. But there were alternatives, not as visible.
“The aiji-dowager,” Bren said in kyo, “sends the paidhi-aiji to see the kyo ship. The aiji-dowager and the young gentleman ask Matuanu and Hakuut sit, eat, talk this place.”
There was rapid discussion, a great deal of thumping and booming—no threat, but an underlying impression of disquiet with the idea.
“All come,” Prakuyo said, then.
“No. Prakuyo one, go station. Now Bren-paidhi one, go ship. Aiji-dowager has many, many years. Young gentleman is child, not many years. Dark, cold not good. Bren-paidhi go. Bren-paidhi aishid go. Go on ship, sit, talk, good.”
Prakuyo looked at him, he looked at Prakuyo, Matuanu had something to say about it, about as much as he had ever heard Matuanu say and not a word of it understandable except human and atevi. Hakuut had a comment, something about stay or stop.
“Bren-paidhi come ship,” Prakuyo said then, which, if one was any judge, didn’t entirely please the other two.
“Bren-paidhi come ship. Aishid come ship.”
“Yes,” Prakuyo said.
So they had a deal.
• • •
Change of clothes, heavier coat, lighter coat: the kyo tended to keep things warm. Shaving kit, toiletries, the sort of thing that could support a day trip, maybe an overnight trip, if there was negotiation. One didn’t want to show up with evident provision for a long trip, God, no. If nothing else, absence of such provision might give him the excuse to send one of his aishid back to report the situation.
But a long trip was what he most feared. What he feared for himself. What he feared for his aishid.
Jase had found out, too.
“I could go,” Jase said very quietly, meeting him in the front room, amid all the equipment.
“No.”
“You’re essential. I’m one of four.”
Bren shook his head. “No. I can deal with this. But thanks, Jase.”
“You’ve got a brother . . . you have obligations.”
“I have several brothers. You’re one.”
“Bren,—”
“You are. My younger brother. So I take care of you. And I go. Take care of Toby, take care of everything, if things don’t go well. Get the dowager and the heir to safety. Take her advice. Protect Tabini if you can. That’s all I know.”
Jase didn’t say a thing, just stood there, while Narani and Jeladi arranged the lightweight coat, made sure their lord was as presentable as a trip in a cold suit could allow.
“See you,” Bren said lightly. “Soon, with an agreement. At least maybe more information. We brought Prakuyo back safely. We have a history of that with them. Maybe he’ll reciprocate. That is the pattern we hope we’ve set up.”
• • •
Prakuyo exited t
he apartment fully suited up, protection against what was, for him, the unbearable cold of the core. The rest of them would put on cold suits on the way down. Polano met them at the lift. Ship security had taken complete control of the core berth that ordinarily belonged to Phoenix. It might be the kyo ship attached out there at the moment, but Phoenix crew guarded the access, and it was, Jase had said, ship personnel that were there to work safety, so they would be, until the very last moment, within ship territory and within reach of intervention, if they suddenly didn’t like the tone of things.
But what could they do? Bren asked himself. The kyo were hardly likely to attack the paidhi-aiji while he was outside the kyo ship, especially with their own representative beside him, and once within— At what point, except gunfire coming in their direction, or kyo interference with his bodyguard—or even then—could the paidhi-aiji refuse a venture that aimed at the very heart of his job, a venture that stood the primary chance of solving the situation before it escalated to what had happened at Reunion?
He couldn’t refuse, no matter what met them on the kyo side of the airlock. Whatever lay behind this invitation, he had to find a way to deal with it. That was the nightmare, all the way down, while they prepared, with the little baggage they did carry, to go out on the lines.
The front safety man went. Prakuyo followed directly, a vanishing spark in the dark.
They were alone, without the possibility of the kyo overhearing, for the first time since Prakuyo had set foot among them.
“One has not had the opportunity to consult,” he said. “One has no idea how long this venture might be or even where it might take us.”
“We are here,” Banichi said. “Man’chi holds, Bren-ji, and in this, the Guild does not advise. We shall protect you.”
So long as any of them had breath. He knew that. It was on him not to bring things to conflict—wherever it required him going. Whether he was back and safe in three hours. Six years. Or never.
He was out here. He was about to grab that line. And then he was going to do—what? A reciprocal tour of the kyo premises? That might be all it was.
He somehow didn’t think so. Prakuyo had pointedly avoided certain questions. Prakuyo was, whatever else, canny, capable of trickery, and motivated by something other than nostalgia for past favors.
He took a deep breath of dry, freezing air.
“We shall go,” he said, and Banichi and Jago went out on the lines, to be first in, whatever awaited them in the kyo ship’s airlock. Bren launched himself, with Polano’s small assist, and felt Tano and Algini hit the line behind him.
Passage through the dark and biting cold toward a distant point of light.
It assumed a surreal character. Fear? Oh, abundant. Trust? Only in the four around him. They had done something as scary as this—himself, the dowager, and Cajeiri together—but then the stakes had been Phoenix and five thousand refugees.
Now it was Phoenix, five thousand refugees, Alpha Station, and the planet atevi and humans lived on, and it was cold as hell.
The entry tube gaped like a yellow flower bell, receiving them into its safe confinement, and the safety man saw them in, where they had to let go of the traveling line. Banichi and Jago secured handholds inside the tube and took hold of his arms, steadying him as Tano and Algini came in behind him. There was no immediate sight of Prakuyo.
All right? the safety man queried them with a gesture.
All right, he answered with the same signal, and the safety man made a gesture toward the curve ahead, which was lighted, and where Prakuyo was not.
That way. That was where Prakuyo had gone. Without them. He tried to ignore the alarms that disappearance raised.
The safety man showed them two buttons on the turnaround stanchion for the line. One stopped it. One started it . . . by implication, if they needed to come back.
Bren signaled understanding. So did Banichi, for the rest of them. And the safety man punched the green button, took the available handgrip, and left them, returning to the station lift, dwindling into dark, one star moving away.
Bren turned toward the interior of the tube, carefully, because rebound here was dangerous; but Banichi established a gentle hold on him, and with mutual help, they made fast progress along the hand rigging, into the lock.
No Prakuyo. The lock cycled, agreed that the tube was pressurized, green-lighted the opposing door, and opened it on a similar stretch of corridor, a long, twisting passage.
With no Prakuyo.
“We go,” Bren said, fighting for breath, shivering in a longer than usual exposure to core conditions.
But now it was not the core. They were technically outside the station, making their way along a long, temporarily pressurized tube to a kyo airlock for a ship that rode above them.
That airlock, far ahead, opened as they rounded a slight curve, revealing a small shadow within a misty cloud of escaping air—a shadow one hoped was Prakuyo.
The parka wasn’t adequate for the cold out here. Prakuyo’s suit was by far the better idea—especially, he suddenly realized, for the heat-loving kyo. Which made one wonder, was Prakuyo’s disappearance that simple? Had he rushed ahead simply to escape the cold?
“Freezing,” he managed to say, and his aishid took the cue and carried him along faster than his chilled muscles could manage.
The small figure became, indeed, Prakuyo waiting for them, beckoning them in.
The lock thumped shut. Warm, moist air blasted into the lock, and the inner door opened.
This part he remembered. They entered into a smaller chamber, the lock closed behind them, and the chamber began to move, much like the core lift, in a way that caught them up with the ship’s internal parts. Feet found the floor, numb as they were. Prakuyo released his helmet, drew in a breath of the warm, moist air.
“Good, good,” Prakuyo said, unsealing his suit: “Safe.”
The parkas were cold enough to freeze the moisture, a shining skin that crinkled and shed ice crystals with movement, with no warmth to offer comparable to the air. Bren began to shed his, with Jago’s assistance, while his aishid shed their own. There was no sign of others in this kyo version of the station’s lift, just a row of large storage containers. Prakuyo touched a plate on one of those containers, and the top slid back, affording a place to put the chilled cold suits. Another touch, this time to the wall, and a door slid back on a more upright closet for Prakuyo’s helmet and Prakuyo’s suit, which fairly well stuck to the surface inside.
A third touch, to the opposite wall, and another door opened on a dim, brown metal corridor. They followed Prakuyo out and down that corridor on removable grating that showed conduits and pipes below their feet, likely to do with the airlock. Weight a little greater than Alpha, though not as different as he remembered. Heavy, damp air that challenged his lungs, and twilight lighting. Detail was shadowed in that dim light, but Banichi and the others doubtless saw better than he did, heard more than he did.
The curious thing, after living with three kyo for a day—was the silence. There were machine sounds, low hum of fans, something starting up, but no sound of life other than their own steps on the grating.
Another doorway. The grating gave way to brown tilework, and the bare walls to hanging drapery. This—he remembered. His aishid would remember—not the same ship, he thought: not the same ship, or they had changed the drapery. Greens, browns, here. Angular geometric designs and occasionally a drapery of curving lines. Aesthetics? He wondered. Or . . . on a sudden thought as he began to see repetition of design . . . writing? Signs?
“Come,” Prakuyo said, pausing a moment, and opened another door, this one on a downward spiraling ramp. Though attached to the station, the ship stood active, maintaining walkability in all its levels—not so large a ship as Phoenix. Its curves were more extreme.
The ramp led into a level below the airlock, a darker, sl
ightly cooler, dryer place, another hallway, but barren. And a chair where another kyo sat. That one extended legs and rose, with a little flutter of booms.
“Stay,” Prakuyo said, and that person gave a little bob and sank back again, crosslegged, in the curious bowl-like seat.
“Bren,” Prakuyo said, and paused. “Not aishid. Safe. You come.”
Safe? And asking his aishid to stand back? Not reassuring.
But Prakuyo advanced only a little distance, then stopped near a recessed area in the wall.
“Wait, nadiin-ji,” he said to his aishid, and joined Prakuyo.
In that slight recess beside Prakuyo was a clear door with ventilation slits, and beyond, a huddled gray shape on a bowl-shaped bench.
He was looking into a cell.
“Up,” Prakuyo said sharply, from where they stood, and the dim shape moved, turned a shoulder, achieved ragged hair and a glimpse of glaring dark eyes in a bearded, shaggy human face.
Reunioner, Bren thought. Some survivor who hadn’t come to the exit, who hadn’t been willing to be evacuated.
Who might, all this time, have been questioned by the kyo and might have told them God knew what . . . granted they had gotten past the language barrier. He’d always suspected Prakuyo understood more ship-speak than he had admitted to. Could Prakuyo have questioned this man, gotten information that made him doubt the truth of what they’d told him? Perhaps that accounted for the hint of distrust that lay beneath his affability.
Or was the problem that they’d gotten nothing out of this man?
Was this the purpose of the kyo’s visit? That he should lend his skill to—whatever they wanted with this man? Who on Reunion could be worth so much effort, to bring him all this distance?
“Who are you?” Bren asked in ship-speak, the safest, most obvious question. And: “Are you all right?”
The man got up—he was dressed kyo-style, in thin robes. Hair and beard, a great deal of both, were matted and snarled. But the stare . . .
The stare was that of a man seeing a ghost. A step forward in the dim light. And another. A hand lifted . . . and those staring eyes looked past him, widened—