“Done,” Toby said, and disengaged from Barb to come and embrace him. Hard. “Bren, I know you take care of yourself. I know they take care of you. But for God’s sake, don’t take chances. My regards to the kid. Deepest. I’m so sorry this happened.”
“You be careful.” Barb put her arms around him and for once he didn’t flinch. Even hugged her back, even took a kiss on the cheek and hugged her tight. “Take care of yourself, Bren. Toby and I will be all right.”
“See to it,” he said, and slipped free and left, out into the hall, where one of Ilisidi’s young men was carrying a heavy bag toward the outer doors. The doors stood open, with Ramaso and several of the staff waiting there.
He made a brief trip to his room, delved into his top dresser drawer and drew out the gun staff always packed. He had not had it with him this morning. Now he did.
He went out into the hall and picked up Tano and Algini as he passed the dining room hallway. Banichi and Jago were already outside, loading gear on, and the tire had been replaced—the bus, battered as it was, was sitting more or less level. He was about to get on board when Ilisidi, Cenedi, and Nawari came out of the house.
He stopped, bowed, gave Ilisidi precedence in boarding, and delayed for an anxious look at Banichi.
“Jago and I shall ride with you to the village, first, Bren-ji,” Banichi said, “and from there, we shall take the village truck overland, along with Nawari and Kasari. The estate here is secure: two of the dowager’s men are on the roof, one inside, two standing guard over Baiji-nadi in the basement.”
He didn’t like it. He never liked knowing Banichi and Jago were going into action, but they were the hand-to-hand experts. Send Tano and Algini into a situation and things exploded—no asking what was in their gear at the moment, and God knew he didn’t want things blowing up with the youngsters unaccounted for. So Banichi and Jago were the ones for getting into the estate on a surgical strike, taking out just the enemy, and getting the kids to safety. . . .
But—
“You take care, ’Nichi-ji,” he said. One didn’t touch, ever, especially not here. His human instincts were rawedged at the moment, but Banichi’s and Jago’s minds had to be utterly on business. No distractions. Suggest they take Tano and Algini for backup? Twice divide their forces?
Neither half of that set would leave him without assurance the other would be protecting him. Wouldn’t. Banichi and Jago were free to do what they proposed to do because Tano and Algini were with him; and Bren just shut up and climbed onto the bus, taking his seat near Tano and Algini. He caught a glance from Tano that said “all business” and ready for anything.
The sun was touching the horizon—they’d have well and enough time to get to Kajiminda around dark, even with the detour to drop Banichi and Jago down at the village, but he had a notion, as the bus started to move, that they would hardly slow down at the village, that Banichi and Jago and Cenedi’s two were going to go out that door before the bus had quite stopped rolling, start up that waiting market truck, and they wouldn’t see anything from that team until this business was done.
Baiji, taking on marriages with the Marid, for God’s sake. If Ramaso had ever heard that tidbit of information and once, just once hinted of that dealing, he’d never have taken the boy over there, nor would the dowager have let her great-grandson come near a man even on the outskirts of such a bargain.
But nobody at Najida had been in regular contact with Baiji. Not even indirect contact . . . since the Troubles. He knew about the unpaid bills. He’d seen the unmown grass. He’d had a bad feeling about Baiji and let his relationship with Geigi rule his thinking.
The disappearance of the regular staff . . . God, that was thirty, forty people. At least. All missing, and no word of warning reached outside Kajiminda to alert his staff at Najida?
He had confidence in Ramaso. If information had been floating outside, village gossip, rumors from the train station, the airport, even clear to Dalaigi Township, they’d have picked it up. Ramaso would have warned him. But no, they had walked into a situation at the neighbor’s, a completely unwarned situation—but all ordinary methods of information-gathering had failed. The Southerners had been secretive—nothing new—and Baiji had been cooperating in that secrecy, keeping it even from his neighbors, with far more skill and thoroughness than Baiji radiated at other enterprises.
How long had the Tasaigi been setting up for a move against Najida? And what had they been aiming at?
And how the hell had Baiji kept the Edi he claimed were still on his staff from telling their relatives, who would have told relatives in Najida district? Would they not? Had threats kept them silent? The Edi tended to keep their own counsel, but not to have gotten any word out—
Oh, there were a dozen questions he had yet to ask Baiji when he got back.
And God, when Geigi did find out—good-natured, easy-going Geigi was not all sweetness and affability. No knowing what Geigi would do when he learned what had happened in his house, but coming down like a hammer on his nephew was head of the list.
And Geigi’s sister: another bad bit of business, and murder was a high likelihood: it was too convenient for the Marid. Geigi’s sister taken out, and her son, a fool, set in her place, last of a waning line and without relatives at hand to advise him. The Maschi remaining in Kajiminda—the last of the clan besides Baiji and Geigi’s niece—were two young men who’d gone to space to work with Geigi. Beyond that—
Beyond that—there were a few Maschi relatives in the Samiusi district, who, be it admitted, had been a problem in their dealings: Geigi’s former wife had gone to the Marid and married there: that was an old bit of business; and Geigi—
They relied on Geigi. They weren’t in the habit of questioning Geigi’s connections, because, up in space, Geigi had absolute control of his associates, and he was never exposed to problems. A security lapse up there just didn’t happen.
If he were down here, however . . .
There would be problems. Clearly there were problems, and the staunch loyalty Geigi felt to the aiji in Shejidan, that they treated as dependable as the sunshine—the lines of man’chi that ought to have made the nephew cling tightly to his uncle’s commitments—were not reliable at all.
The Marid, Tabini’s old enemies, didn’t do things without a purpose. The Farai had gotten into the Bujavid. Others had gotten into Baiji’s house, in the heart of Sarini province. His coming here—the Farai were clearly in a position to find that out, and he had a strong suspicion there had been a phone call or a courier. Dalaigi Township was a sprawling hub of transport, boats going in and out, rail, air—all kinds of things could go in Dalaigi. All sorts of people could be in Dalaigi—the missing Edi. Their relatives. Or a small cabal of Marid folk trying to look like locals. It was not a comforting prospect, not for the peace of this district—not for the Edi—not for his own estate, or Geigi’s.
Or for the Western Association, for that matter. Tabini was newly restored to power: the usurper Murini was dead. But the issues that had driven the attack on Tabini’s power were still there, old as the aishidi’tat itself. The matter of local rule. The ambitions of the Marid for power. The old issues of the displacement of whole populations from Mospheira, when it became a human island. All those things were still rattling loose, and nothing that had ever happened had settled them.
An impromptu move against the paidhi?
Oh, far from a single move. It was a movement he had stumbled into. The Farai might be bitterly regretting now that they had taken the paidhi’s apartment—that a chain of events had moved the paidhi to the other old Maladesi estate, the one the Farai hadn’t dared claim.
He had come out here, the Marid had made a fast move to be sure Baiji didn’t pay a visit to Najida, Toby’s daughter broke her leg—three bored kids had decided to take to the water in a sailboat. And when he’d come over to do the socially correct thing, a handful of local trouble trying to contain Baiji had decided they had a chance at taking o
ut the paidhi-aiji.
Maybe they’d been misinformed as to the identity of the youngsters, or just—as the dowager seemed to think—counted the aiji’s son inconsequential, if they could take out the aiji’s advisor.
He thought about that. And his heart rate got up. He was, he decided, mad. Damned mad about that.
Count on it—if low-level agents had blown their secrecy, the Marid was probably moving assets from wherever it had situated them, maybe in Dalaigi, maybe in Separti—because an operation intending to spread Marid influence onto the coast wasn’t going to rely on a handful of agents holding Baiji silent. There was more out there. There could be a lot more out there.
God, he hoped Tabini had read between the lines. Ilisidi had made the call; protocol had dissuaded him from following up with a call of his own, and now, on a bus headed into the thick of it, he had second thoughts. Not about getting the kids out—that was increasingly imperative. But about what they were dealing with.
They needed help out here. They might need a lot of help, very soon, and if they didn’t move quietly, they could see events blow up in a major way—a little action spiraling out of control, into major armament, movement of forces—
It could get very, very nasty. He needed to talk plainly to Ilisidi—who wasn’t talking, at the moment. Nobody was, among her group. All he could do was put Tano and Algini into the current of his thinking, and trust if there was information flowing down Guild channels, they could be sure at least that Cenedi was thinking about it.
Dark was coming fast. It was just light enough for the whitewashed wall to glow a little in the twilight. For the windows of the house to show light.
And Cajeiri’s legs were asleep, a fierce kink getting worse in his back. Jegari and Antaro did not complain, but one was sure they were in more discomfort, being larger.
There was still no sign of nand’ Bren or Banichi or a rescue. That was getting scary.
Pain.
Excuse me, he signed, and had to wriggle about to his knees on the concrete floor, just for relief.
“Are we going to go, nandi?” Antaro signed back. And that was getting to be another trouble. They signed, to stay quiet. But it would reach a point soon when that would hardly work.
“If we go over the wall,” Jegari whispered, right against his ear, “we are bound to make some noise. Those are Guild, nandi, they are real Guild! We cannot take a chance.”
Noise.
Noise.
He had had an idea which had been simmering a long while, considering present resources, and with the lights in the house more or less indicating where people actually were—except the man on the roof, who must be getting very tired up there, and probably bored. . . .
There was printing on the side of the fertilizer canister.
It said: fertilizer stakes.
It was just worth curiosity. He wriggled around where he could get into the canister, pried up the lid, and found curious hard sticks of smelly stuff. He tried breaking it.
It broke. It broke into nice pieces. It belonged in a garden, did it not?
So if they missed a few shots and somebody looked down, that somebody would only see fertilizer bits. Right? He thought he might just lob a few pellets into the trees. Hitting the windows . . . that would bring another search of the garden, and maybe their patio, which he did not at all want . . . but if he could get enough range, if he could get a clear shot . . . And nobody would see anything but fertilizer for the plants.
There was that gap in that very white garden wall. There was that black gap, which was the potentially noisy metal gate.
That was a fair-sized target. He could risk it. And that would get a lot of attention, and maybe show them how many enemies were out there.
He had Jegari’s and Antaro’s curiosity. He stuffed the pieces in his pocket, kept one, handed them a stake apiece to break up, and took the slingshota out of the other.
Then they understood him.
“Nandi,” Jegari whispered, not against his ear, but very, very softly. “Please be careful.”
“Pardon,” he said, took his piece of a stick and the slingshota, and worked his way out, very low, behind the little stucco wall beside the downward steps, putting his head up very, very slowly. His dark face and hair were going to show against the white stucco, no question, if he got up above the level of the wall. But from the far angle the steps offered, he had a good view of the iron gate.
He put his missle in the slingshota, having the other two ready. He had just one perfect alley, right between two trees that would block the shot.
He let fly.
Damn. Hit the branches. Rustled them. He didn’t stop to see whether the man on the roof had noticed. He fished more pieces out of his pocket, laid them down in front of him, and fired the first. Muted clang, where it hit the gate. Third. Clang.
He ducked down immediately. Then scrambled back on the miniature landing, behind the little wall.
“The man has gone from the roof,” Jegari hissed.
The best outcome. He had planned to peg whoever came to investigate the noise. But that was the best.
“Now, now, now,” Cajeiri hissed, giving a shove of his knee to Jegari. “Over! We are going!”
They had prearranged, that when they did go, Jegari would go first, to test the distance, then Antaro, then himself, with them to help break his fall. He saw Jegari go over the wall, saw that Antaro had picked up the rusty garden claw. She was supposed to be counting: thirty-two the sweep of the sensor to the left, thirty-two to the right. But she solved it. She jammed the garden claw into the track. Hard. And slithered out along the walkway and went over the wall.
The man had reappeared. He came out onto the tiles. He was looking their way just as Antaro went over the edge.
Cajeiri snatched up the last missile and shot it straight across the gap. Hit. The man fell back, hit the tiles, tiles came loose, and slid, and Cajeiri did not watch a heartbeat longer: he stuffed the slingshota into his shirt, then he flung himself astride the battlement and spotted Antaro and Jegari with upheld hands below.
He got half a handhold and slid around and off: the handhold failed on the rounded surface. He scraped his cheek on the rough stucco, raked coat buttons on the way down. His companions’ hands broke his fall, snatched him around, and all of a sudden they were running for the woods, exactly what they had agreed not to do. They were supposed to run along the wall, sheltered from the sensor-units.
But Antaro had jammed this one. There was a hole in the net. And they were going straight through it, into the trees, Jegari and Antaro half-carrying him in their breakneck haste to get to deeper cover.
They had made a lot of noise when he hit the man on the roof—tiles sliding, what sounded like a lot of tiles sliding and hitting the ground, and whether the man had gotten clear—whether he was in shape to report them—he had no guarantee they had not been spotted. He had not planned to shoot anyone; Antaro had been supposed to count the sweep. They were supposed to have followed the wall back away from the road to stay out of the sensors and then get into the woods, and now the plan had unraveled, and they were just running as fast and as far as they could, dodging among the trees, avoiding branches, no matter the noise they made.
There was no knowing where the Guild might have laid traps or put sensors.
But there was no time for looking. No more time for plans. They just had to get out of reach.
Fast.
The bus reached the intersection with Lord Geigi’s estate road . . . and there the dowager’s man stopped and cut the motor off, and Cenedi got out and walked a little up the road. There was a woods some distance down the road, a finger of the peninsula’s woodlands that ran up beside the house.
They had packed the bus with the dowager’s men, and with equipment. When Banichi and Jago and the dowager’s two men had left and picked up the village truck, that had given them a little breathing room, but no more seating; and Bren had no view of the dowager, or anything
else: Tano sat by him, next to the window—between him and the unarmored side of the bus: Bren knew exactly why Tano had insisted on that seat. Algini stood in the aisle, holding to the overhead rail, and it was shoulder to shoulder. They talked. Tano and Algini listened to what he had to say, but offered no suggestion of their own.
Their bus had stopped. And the door opened, in the middle of grassy nowhere, the bus in plain view, if not of the house, at least of somebody watching for trouble to come down the road.
Algini shifted into a now-vacant seat behind him as the dowager’s men piled off, taking gear with them, pulling gear down off the roof rack. Most dispersed into the tall grass and the brush, so far as Bren could see. Tano and Algini sat near him, now, both with rifles and sidearms. The dowager was across the aisle, and two of her young man were right behind her with a massive lot of firepower.
Cenedi climbed back aboard the bus and came back to her to report: “We have a perimeter set up.”
“We shall wait,” the dowager said. Cenedi left. And Bren drew a deep breath.
“Aiji-ma,” he said, and got up to speak quietly. “Thoughts occur—that these people will be moving assets in. If they have your great-grandson—they will not hold him here. There may be a base in Dalaigi.”
Ilisidi looked at him in the diminishing daylight, a sidelong and upward glance. “The paidhi-aiji now gives military counsel.”
“The paidhi-aiji is concerned, aiji-ma. Desperately concerned. This was not Baiji’s idea.”
“We have advised my grandson,” Ilisidi said with a dismissive move of her fingers. “What happens in Dalaigi is outside our reach. What happens here is within our concern.”