They were, Banichi said, over the dessert course, I questioning the young man, and would have a report soon.
Jase looked entirely unhappy, and concentrated on the cream pastry with mintlike icing.
Pastries disappeared by twos and threes off atevi plates, and Bren poked at his with occasional glances at Jago, who returned not a look in his direction. Ilisidi had said nothing further; Cenedi wouldn't. Banichi wasn't communicating beyond what he'd said.
"The boy is a fool," Ilisidi said, out of no prior question, and added, "Do you know, lord Geigi invited us fishing, and offered to meet us with his boat on the southern reach by the airport. But I think this silliness may divert us to the north."
That brought a glance up from Jase, and Bren suffered a turn of the stomach. Nothing at this moment was chance, not Ilisidi's remark, not the boy's intrusion into a government reserve, not the mention of lord Geigi, and Bren recalled all too well the radio traffic to the north, which was to the north — of the island of Dur.
Which was not beyond reach of Mogari-nai and the earth station. Which was not beyond reach of the town of Saduri. Which was not beyond reach of the fortress where they were having holiday with a mostly invisible security with pipe and board scaffolding and an excess of dust in the shadows yonder.
Deana Hanks and her damned radio talk.
And her connections to Direiso and her ambitions to move against Tabini?
Direiso and her cat's-paw Saigimi, who was now dead, thanks to Tabini?
Direiso, who wished to be aiji in Shejidan, and who was a neighbor to Taiben?
Taiben was not only Tabini's habitual retreat and ancestral holding, but also the wintering-place for Tabini's aged and eastern-born grandmother who herself had twice nearly been aiji, but for the legislatures concluding her ascendancy would mean bloody retributions for past wrongs.
Their Ilisidi, their host tonight, sitting demolishing a third cream pastry.
The situation had so many angles one wanted tongs to handle it.
"So," Jase said, where angels and fools alike feared to tread. "Nand' dowager, but we are going fishing?"
Going fishing, Bren thought in disbelief. Going fishing? They had a young man under interrogation for invasion of a perimeter only slightly less touchy than that around Tabini himself, Ilisidi talking about lord Geigi joining them, and Deana Hanks talking to two atevi on radio who were probably Direiso's agents, and Jase asked were they going fishing?
His roommate, however, was neither clairvoyant nor briefed on matters, and the last statement he'd heard uttered regarded lord Geigi and a boat.
Ilisidi never batted an eye as she looked in Jase's direction and said, "Perhaps."
Oh, God, Bren thought, feeling that the conversation was going down by the stern. He tried to catch Jago's eye, or Banichi's, and got nothing but a stare from Cenedi as uninformative and sealed as Ilisidi's was. He looked the other direction down the table, at Algini, and Tano, and a cluster of the dowager's young men, as she called them, all Guild, all dangerous, all doubtless better informed than he was.
"I would like the Onondisi bay, nand' dowager," Jase said. "I've heard a great deal about the island. I saw it from the air." r
Ilisidi quirked that brow that could, were the Guild under such instructions, doom a man to die, and smiled at Jase.
"We may, I say, go north, nadi."
Bren dropped his knife onto the stone floor, necessitating a scramble by servants to retrieve it.
"Foolish of me," Bren said with a deep bow of his head, and allowed its replacement with a clean one without comment. "Perhaps it's the drink, nand' dowager. May I suggest my associate go to bed now."
"Early start tomorrow," Ilisidi said. "These young folk. Cenedi-ji, were we ever so easily exhausted?"
"I think not, aiji-ma," Cenedi said quietly.
"This modern reliance on machines." Ilisidi made a wave of her hand. "Go, go! No one should leave the table before he's done, but get to bed in good season, else I assure you you'll pay for it tomorrow!"
Jase at least comprehended it was a dismissal and, Tano and Algini clearing the bench for him, he was able to extricate himself. Bren worked his way out, having been similarly freed by two of Ilisidi's security. The two further benches rose in courtesy to the departing paidhiin.
"Go, go," Ilisidi said to the offered bows, and gave another wave. "In the morning, gather at the front steps."
"Nand' dowager," Jase said with a further bow, and not a thing else. Bren escorted him from the hall, up the steps, to their room, and inside, into the candle-lit dark and chill of an unheated room.
Jase turned. Bren shut the door.
Jase said, humanwise: "Trust you, is it?"
"What's the matter with you? Were you trying to foul things up or was it your lucky night?"
At least Jase shut up, whether in temper or the mild realization that things might be more complicated than he thought.
"Do me a great favor, if you please, nadi. Go to bed."
"Are you coming back?"
"I assure you. Take whichever side you wish, nadi, and I will gladly take the other."
"Where are you going?"
"To try to patch up the dowager's good regard and find out what the boy from Dur is doing here, at the real risk of his life."
He might have been mistaken by candlelight; but there was a little reckoning of that latter statement on Jase's part, and maybe a prudent decision not to ask a question he had in mind.
"Will they tell you that?" Jase asked.
"They'd have told you if you hadn't set the evening on its ear. You do not question the dowager and you do not question her arrangements! Jase, what in hell's the matter with you? This is your associate here, me! This is the person with an equal interest in seeing that ship fly! What are we fighting about?"
He expected an explosion at least of equivalent magnitude. "Nadi," Jase began in Ragi, and then again, "What do I have to do to have you on my side, nadi?"
"I am on your side!" He dropped his voice, moved close and seized Jase by the lapels long enough to bring his lips to Jase's ear. "Bug," was all he whispered, and Jase went wooden in his grip and very quiet.
"Just stay here," Bren said aloud and let go.
And left.
Downstairs again, toward their makeshift banquet hall, where nothing had much changed except most of the security was on their feet, the servants were cleaning up, and Ilisidi was still seated, her cane, however, in her hands, and her chair angled at forty-five degrees to the table.
"Well," Ilisidi said, as if he satisfied expectations by appearing.
"Tano-ji," he said in passing, though it was an act of temerity to give orders to Tano, or to give orders to anyone in Ilisidi's hall, "keep an eye on Jase, please."
"Yes," Tano said as Bren came to Ilisidi.
"Dowager-ji," Bren said, "first, forgive my associate his lack of understanding."
There was a nod, with amiable quiet.
"And forgive me mine. But, nand' dowager, is there anything I may ask in confidence?"
"What do you wish to know, nand' paidhi?"
"Why is that boy here, aiji-ma?"
Ilisidi braced the ferrule of her cane against the irregular stones of the floor and leaned forward. "A good question. Cenedi-ji, why is this boy here?"
"He is young, he is intemperate, he lacks all finesse, and he believes he alone holds vital information about a threat to global peace."
He guessed, then, what that information might concern: a dweller on the island, near the runaway transmissions.
"Well-intentioned, then," he said.
"One believes so."
"Nandiin," Algini said quietly, Algini, who tended to pick up the small details, "he has repeatedly attempted to reach the paidhi — or the aiji. He seems not at all particular."
"Well, well," Ilisidi said. "Let's have a look at him. Nand' paidhi, do you wish to hear the matter, or not?"
"I shall gladly hear it," he murmured, "aiji-ma." His brain was racing meanwhile and he had Jago but not Banichi or Tano within the field of his vision. He thought that if there were a problem developing between him and Ilisidi he would see Jago's signal to withdraw once Ilisidi said that.
But at a certain point he had to rely on them and their man'chi to Tabini. He had never quite so much realized what it might be to stand in the middle of a sort-out of atevi loyalties, blind in his human heart of hearts to what might be going on in atevi; but knowing emotionally, human-fashion, that his heart was with Banichi and Jago, that his duty insisted on Tabini, and that friendship, yes, friendship, wanted Tabini and Ilisidi both to listen to him and not tear the world apart.
Stupid, stupid, to have it any other way, and he would not believe that Ilisidi was ready to make such moves, or that Tabini had so misread his grandmother in sending them out here.
Cenedi had made a call on his pocket com, and in not very long black-uniformed security came in from the front door, among them Banichi and several of their own, among Ilisidi's; and with them, a figure in black — the fool, Bren thought — handcuffed and disheveled, and looking for all the world like a scared kid.
"Nand' paidhi!" the boy said.
"Young fool," Ilisidi said, and had his attention — at which point said young fool seemed to realize (surely he'd known the paidhi was here when he invaded the place) that he was in far deeper trouble. The boy grew quiet, and bowed as respectfully as one could in handcuffs and being restrained by two of the largest of Ilisidi's young men.
"The paidhi-aiji has a question for you," Ilisidi said. "Perhaps you will give him the courtesy of an answer?"
"Aiji-ma, yes, if it please your ladyship."
"Nand' paidhi?"
"Nand' Rejiri of Dur-wajran?"
"Yes, nand' paidhi."
"Why did you — ?" Attempt to fly into my plane? That was surely not the intent. That was just a pilot inexperienced at that airport. "— come to Shejidan?"
"To tell the aiji there's treason."
"Then why pursue me?"
"Because your lordship could tell the aiji I wasn't a fool!"
There was a circular argument.
"I truly never expressed to the aiji that you were one." But the case was clear to him, now: the boy, humiliated, his plane impounded after near collision with the aiji's own plane, couldn't even hope for a hearing that wouldn't involve a plane, the ATC, and his father, a lord of the Association.
And this was a very upset young man, as shaken and as distraught as he'd ever seen an ateva become. "So," he said to the young man, "the aiji-dowager is listening to every word. What will you say, regarding this treason?"
And hope to God the treason wasn't something Ilisidi was involved in. The boy couldn't know, any more than he could, unless his information accidentally involved Ilisidi's associates or activities, which he truly didn't think.
"Radios," the boy said. "And humans, nand' dowager. I'm not making it up."
"Go on about these radios and humans," Ilisidi said, seated like an aiji in court, indeed, with her silver-headed cane in her wrinkled hands and her yellow eyes sharp and absolutely uncommunicative. "What do you say, nadi?"
"That —" Having gotten permission, the young man lost all control over his breathing. "That a plane keeps going out and flying over the ocean, aiji-ma, and you can hear it talking with somebody who speaks Ragi, but who sounds like a human."
"Female, nadi?" Bren asked.
"On the radio — I don't know. I think it might be, nand' paidhi. One — one would hesitate to say —"
Bang! went the cane on the paving-stones. "And you were where, when you heard these things?"
"In my father's plane, aiji-ma."
"So you immediately flew to Shejidan and scared hell out of the aiji's pilot."
"Aiji-ma —" The young man was rattled. Badly.
"Could you not have made a phone call?"
"I was afraid — I was afraid it had to go through somewhere —"
"You could have told your father, young man."
There was a flicker of fear, real fear, in the young man's expression. "I stole the plane, aiji-ma."
"Keeping your father out of the notoriety, are you, nadi? The hell you stole it!"
"Aiji-ma, I stole his plane."
The paidhi himself would not like to have been the recipient of that look, in that position; and he had been, both.
"So," Ilisidi said, "what else do you know? Not from this plane. From your own sense and the gossip of your elders, what do you know?"
"The man'chi of my house is to the descendants of Barjida, nand' dowager."
That was a neat piece of evasion — to the Barjidi, meaning Tabini's line at the time of the War. Ilisidi was married into that line, not born to it, and it was a man'chi predating the present Ragi aiji but including him. He was in a damned machimi play and the kid was doing a piece of footwork either his father regularly did or that he'd seen on television, the classic cousin-to-the-line who turned out to have a knife on his person.
But it wasn't television, and the smile Ilisidi gave him was a dangerous, dangerous thing, while — the human tumbled to the fact slowly, being dead to atevi emotions — he was in exactly the same position, appointed and protected by the Barjida's descendant, Tabini-aiji.
Who had sent him here. Who had sent — God! Banichi and Jago — here.
The same team the aiji had sent to kill Saigimi — here, inside Ilisidi's defenses. He'd seen this game before, the extreme gesture, this insertion of someone deadly dangerous as Banichi and Jago along with the very vulnerable paidhi inside Ilisidi's defenses — challenging the dowager to make an overt move against him.
Or to take his pledge of alliance.
It was hard to keep his calm. But he stood there expressionless, having realized exactly what he'd been playing with when he'd taken Jase to Ilisidi.
He'd walked right into an operation of some kind, a thorn-patch where atevi could feel their way and he had to find it by sheer logic.
Did it feel right to Banichi and Jago right now? Did it feel right to Ilisidi and Cenedi? Or were atevi on one side or the other reaching some pitch of decision that would come crashing down?
Hadn't he said it? The ship would send another one. So would the island.
No. No. Tabini couldn't count on anyone more on his side than he was if he shot Deana and demanded the backup to her. Which might say something about his own sanity — but it was an atevi consideration, for a species that felt something about man'chi and its direction: a lord didn't attack his own — ask them to die, yes, send them to die, yes, but not without gain to him and his partisans.
Either Tabini was very sure of Ilisidi — now — or ready to take a loss that would not be inconsiderable to his power, a sacrifice of a very major piece for no gain commensurate with the loss.
"So," Ilisidi said in a tone of restrained anger. "If your man'chi is to the Barjidi, if you have sought the paidhi-aiji, perhaps you will deliver your information to the paidhi."
The boy's glance at him was instant and distraught. "I wish you to deliver what you have to say to the aiji-dowager," Bren said, "as a lord in whom I have confidence."
Clearly the boy looked marginally relieved. But scared. And going through layers upon layers in his mind, surely. He bowed one more time."I heard people plotting against the aiji, nand' dowager. I haven't lied, nand' dowager."
"Young and foolish," Ilisidi said. "What have you observed?"
"This human person. These pilots. Radios that move about the countryside and operate on the trains."
On the trains, Bren thought in surprise. Of course that would be one way to get a broadcast into some remote village, trains passing through, radios operating on the public bands, on or off by turns.
But Tabini had to be aware of such things going on.
So must Ilisidi.
"Who would do such things?" Ilisidi asked.
"People who say the aiji is turning us over to humans."
"Oh, and one day, one certain day some internal computer chip will make all our machines fail as the ship rains death-rays down on us and the humans pour off the island to ruin us — have you heard that one, nand' paidhi?"
"No, aiji-ma, I have not."
"More rational ones say that the ship itself is meant to fail, to bring down the government by that failure, and that the means will be a technical fault introduced through the designs themselves."
He had heard that argued soberly in the council rooms of the legislature. "There are numerous reasons that's not the case, nand' dowager."
"One has confidence in your confidence, nand' paidhi. But you are so persuasive. — What do you say, young man?"
"About —"
The cane banged the pavement. "Your wits, boy! What were we talking about?"
"About the aiji turning us over to humans, nand' dowager."
Ilisidi leaned forward, her hands clasped on the cane. "Do you believe it?"
"No, nand' dowager."
"Does your father the lord of Dur-wajran believe it?"
"No, nand' dowager. We are —"
"— in the man'chi of the Barjidi."
"And to all who support the aiji, nand' dowager."
"Does birthing the ingrate's father settle me in the Barjidi man'chi?"
"If you will it to, nand' dowager."
Clearly the boy was losing his composure but not necessarily his wits. But a game of wits with the dowager was not one any boy could win.
"Say that my ingrate grandson and I should have the same interest," Ilisidi said, leaning back, carefully skirting the question of whether she had an overlord, which was private and privileged information, but she admitted, for the first time he had ever heard, to association with Tabini. After years living among atevi a human could begin to hope he had the straight of it. "And say that your father, within the man'chi of the Barjidi, has sent his son to Shejidan —"
"My father never sent me —"
Bang! went the cane. "The hell, boy! Your father sent you when the assassination of lord Saigimi shook the inattentive out of bed from here to Malguri! You flew immediately to Shejidan, accidentally arriving in the flight path of the aiji's plane, and were involved with the tightened security so you could by no means deliver your message, which you have regularly attempted to inflict upon the paidhi! Am I correct!"
There was a small silence, a chastened demeanor. "Yes, nand' dowager."
"Why now? Why not earlier?"
"Because we didn't know the aiji might not know. Because if it was important, the aiji should know, nand' dowager."
"Going quickly and by stealth through the skies."
"Yes, nand' dowager." The boy bowed his head. "I broke the law. I knew I broke it."
"And broke it again coming here!"
"No, nand' dowager. I took the train."
Rarely did anyone get a reaction from the dowager when she was in this mood. The brows went up and crashed down, hard. "I mean coming through the barriers, young man! How did you know to come here!"
"It's all over —" The boy took a breath. "All over the province, all over the country, I think, nand' dowager."
"You, young man, will go with my security, you will stay in your room, and in the stead of your father, who is in the man'chi of my ungrateful grandson, you will take orders from me, do you hear, or I will shoot you with my own hand."
"Yes, nand' dowager."
"Take him elsewhere!" Ilisidi said, and members of her staff collected the young man. "See he gets supper."
The boy put up no argument about it. And Ilisidi, leaning on her cane, rose with a frown on her face.
"By train, indeed. Before we took off this morning, the boy left the capital. And changed trains. — Nand' paidhi."
"Aiji-ma."
"Radios. Radios, do you understand?"
"I have heard the rumor."
A wave of Ilisidi's hand. "To bed, to bed. Don't concern yourself with tomorrow. We'll go riding. Perhaps we'll have a look at the sea and satisfy this intemperate young man you've brought me. He's beginning to be interesting."
He hesitated, then thought better of questioning Ilisidi.
"Aiji-ma," he said, and turned and went for the steps, thinking that he had to get a few minutes alone with his security.
He heard someone behind him. He didn't want to look and find out until he reached the privacy of the floor above.
Then he turned.
"Jago-ji."
"Nand' paidhi."
"Nand' paidhi," he echoed, in not-quite-mock despair. "Talk to me, Jago-ji."
"My room," Jago said.
He wasn't eager, now, to get himself into interpersonal maneuverings. But he had a roommate. So did she, but Banichi was downstairs. Jase was in bed, and not, besides, the person he wanted to overhear a frank talk between himself and the aiji's security about the aiji's grandmother — besides, twice, his room was probably bugged.
He walked in that direction. She did, and opened the door and let him in.
He stood while she lit a match, and a candle. It was a room no different from his, except for the stack of baggage in the corner, a stack of mostly black objects.
He shut the door. And Jago looked at him, her eyes reflecting a disconcerting shimmer of gold.
"Are we safe with the dowager?" he whispered.
"One believes so, nand' paidhi."
Nand' paidhi. He was vaguely disappointed. About what, he didn't know, and told himself he was a fool, but he couldn't but be conscious of her as someone he'd intimately trusted half a year ago; and he felt — he wasn't sure. Set aside. Something like that.
"The aiji is aware of the situation," Jago said, and then, straight-faced. "Should we whisper?"
At first he was moved to laugh and then thought of Jase next door.
"Our hearing isn't that acute," he said in a low voice. "What's going on, Jago-ji? As much as you can tell me. I'll rely on you to care for the rest."
"In brief, nadi, it's common knowledge the paidhiin are vacationing in the province. It was a news item yesterday evening, so the boy's appearance is far from amazing."
"Tabini is using us for hunting-bait."
"One would hesitate to put it so inelegantly."
"But true. Is it not?"
"True."
"Meaning persons of ill intent will flock here. — Mogari-nai and the earth station are right across the hill, nadi! We'll draw harm to it!"
A small pause. "Tabini-aiji has considered that proximity."
Not among things the paidhi should know, then. Gunshots on the lawn.
Or such a lawn as this fallen-down place had.
"Don't be out of countenance, nand' paidhi. There is a purpose."
"What purpose?" He tried not to become emotional, which only set atevi on the defensive with that, and not the issue. "I ask you, nadi, whom I greatly respect, are our interests protected?"
"By us, nadi."
"I always have confidence in that, but, nadi —" He didn't know what to say that Jago would understand. After all they'd been through they were back to that, and it was late, and he was not as sharp as he might have been an hour ago, or he was emotionally rattled and trying to think in too many different directions at once.
"What do you wish to say, nadi?" Jago asked.
He looked up at her, in the dark and the dim light that picked out the sparks of metal on her jacket, the gloss of her black skin, the gold shimmer of her steady gaze. And looked down and aside, because there just was no rational approach and the translator had no words. He wanted to ask what Tabini had in mind and he didn't. He found himself in emotional danger, was what, and he had every reason to be concerned for himself.
"I'd better go," he said, and reached back to the latch and ran into the door edge on his way out of this room.
"Nadi?" he heard behind him, quietly. Jago was confused, in itself a sign of the dangerous way he was dealing with things.
He went to his own room, and inside. The candle had burned down to half. Jase was in bed, a lump in the blankets, and didn't react to his coming in.
He stripped down to his underwear in the biting cold from the slit window, was a little conscious of the exposure to that window, and snipers, even as small as that exposure was, and then told himself that there was some kind of electronic perimeter that had warned them of the boy's approach, and that there was probably one of Ilisidi's men posted to guard all those windows, which were certainly too small for an adult ateva, so the hell with it, he said to himself. He had to trust the security. He had no choice.
He sighted a line between there and the end of the bed, and blew out the candle. He managed the transit most of the way, bashed his leg on the far corner post of the bed, and drew a deep breath from Jase.
"Is that you?"
"So far as I know," he muttered, settled from cold air to a cold bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. Jase was a warmth beside him. He shivered and tried not to.
"Find out anything?"
The brain wasn't primed to work. Other things had been in operation. He tried to recover where he'd left Jase in the information flow. "Kid's not a threat," he said. And remembered Jase didn't know anything about anything except they weren't at the beach and Jase wanted to go fishing.
God save them.
"I imagine we'll go riding tomorrow morning. Just be patient. We might ride down to the beach."
"Can you get there from here?"
C
"Far as I know. Or we might go up to Mogari-nai. It's near here. There's an old site there."
"Why are we visiting all these old things?"
The question astonished him. But professional judgment cut in and informed him that it might be ship-culture at work.
And where was Jase to learn the value of anything historic, if his world was the ship?
And where was Jase to derive the value of rare species? Or the concept of saving the ecology, if Jase's view was that of a steel ship and lights that kept a computer's schedule?
Where did one start?
"Understand," he said calmly, into the dark above his head, "that the preservation of all life on this planet is of great value, the animals, the plants, all valuable. So is the record of what lies in the past. Accept that this is valuable, not only to the dowager, but to me. Can you imagine that? They're not just old places."
"I —" Jase said. "I found it very strange to handle the descent pod. To walk in the station corridors. It was — a very lonely place. Very old."
"Atevi feel the same about such places as this. Only add a thousand years to the account. On Mospheira, when you walk into the old earth base command center, and you see all the clocks stopped, on the minute the power went — in the War — Mospheirans feel something like that. So don't call it 'old places.' They're more than that. And you know more than that. Clearly you do."
There was a long silence. Just a living presence in the dark.
"We anticipated — a great deal —" Jase said in a quiet voice, in the human language, "getting here. We didn't know what we'd find. We imagined there'd be changes. But when the station didn't answer our hail, we feared everyone had died."
He tried to imagine that. "It must have been a frightening moment."
"Frightening for a long time, while we were moving in. The systems wouldn't respond. Shut down, on con serve, was what we found. But we didn't know. We were really glad when we found there were human beings alive down here."
"And when you knew atevi had advanced so far?" It was amazing that they hadn't had this conversation already, but they hadn't. "How did you feel?"
"Hopeful," Jase said. "Really hopeful. We were glad of it, Bren, I swear to you."
"I think I believe that." He did. "Unfortunately it's not a hundred percent that way on Mospheira."
"The resources," Jase said, "are on this side of the strait."
"There are powers on both sides," Bren said, "that want something besides atevi in space." He took a chance. "What does the ship want?"
A little silence there, just a little silence. "The ship wants somebody up there that can repair what's broken."
"Wasn't that why the colonists and the crew went separate ways at the beginning? Colonists wouldn't be a cheap labor force?"
"It's not like that," Jase said. "It won't be like that."
"Damn right," Bren said, "it won't be like that."
But they meant, he was sure, different things.
There was silence, then. Maybe Jase thought the topic was getting too dangerous. Maybe, and it was his own notion, there was just nothing they could say to each other until that ship flew, and until they had options.
His mother might have had surgery by now, he thought. He didn't know. He thought, hell, he was within driving distance of the biggest communications post in the world, and he couldn't get a damn telephone? The communications his security had was instant and connected to everywhere but Mospheira. He should have asked for a phone.
He had the whole weight of the atevi government if he wanted to try to extract information, but the whole weight of the atevi government had to be used for atevi purposes and affairs of state, not, dammit, news from his family.
He stared at the dark above him and asked himself what kind of an impression he'd made on Jago, bolting from the room the way he'd done.
He'd have been warmer, distracted from his other problems, at least.
But Banichi would have come in for the night.
He didn't know what he'd have done, or said, or what he'd have explained. Likely Jago and Banichi both would have been amused. He wasn't sure he was capable of laughing at the joke. Not tonight, not now, not as things were.
He heard a quiet snoring beside him. Jase at least was tired enough to sleep. He thought of elbowing Jase in the ribs so he could rest; but he decided it wasn't that likely he would for a while.
Rest, however, just lying on his back on a surface that didn't move, piled high with blankets in a bed that was getting warm in air that was almost cold enough for frost…
He heard an engine.
Distant, but clearly an engine where none belonged.
No reason to be alarmed. There was a perimeter set.
His security was not going to allow anything to slip up on them. Neither was Ilisidi's.
But what in hell? he wondered.
He heard it come closer, and closer, and finally saw the faintest hint of light touch the wall and vanish.
More engines — than lights.
Vehicles were moving about inside the perimeter.
The snoring had stopped.
"What's that?" Jase asked. In Ragi.
"I don't know." He flung the blankets aside and got up, barefoot, in his underwear, and felt his way around the end of the bed. He went to the window, in the cold draft, as Jase got up on his side of the bed and joined him in looking out.
"Security, maybe?" Jase asked.
"I don't know. Nothing Jago made me aware of."
"You suppose everything's all right?"
It was on a side of the building not exposed to their view. The back side, he thought. As the vehicles had come up from that side.
There was a time he'd have run to Jago a couple of doors down and asked for explanation. But this time the conspiracy was of his arranging, and he still didn't know the extent of it.
He had a sinking feeling if he asked Jago she wouldn't know, either. And that if anything were wrong he'd hear about it from Jago and from Banichi.
Hell, he hadn't survived this long by leaving assumptions lie.
"Stay here," he said to Jase and, numb beyond feeling, snatched a blanket for decency and went out into the hall.
It was dark, excepting the candles.
And one of Ilisidi's young men, who stood in the shadows, whose eyes cast back the light.
"What is it?" he asked the man.
"Supplies and such," the man said. "Sleep peacefully, nand' paidhi."
"Banichi," he called out, worried that the mere opening of his door hadn't brought his security out of the soundest sleep. "Jago?"
"One believes they're helping below, nand' paidhi."
"I'll talk to them," he said. "You have communications."
"Yes, nand' paidhi." The man drew the pocket com out and flicked the switch. "Nandi. The paidhi would wish to speak to his security."
There was a reply he couldn't hear: the man had it against his ear. But he gave it to Bren.
"Banichi-ji?" he asked.
"Bren-ji?" It was Banichi, he had no doubt of that voice. "Is there a problem?"
"Is there reason for us to get dressed and come down?"
"No, nodi. Go to sleep. Everything is fine. We'll be early to rise."
"Well enough, then. Good night. Take care, nadi-ji." He handed the com back to its owner, feeling foolish on the one hand, himself with frozen feet and one fc" frozen shoulder, and gave a courteous sketch of a bow, having doubted the man's authority, before going back to the room.
Jase had lit a candle. It was something Jase had seen servants do. From him, it was a piece of ingenuity. Jase stood there holding it, in his underwear, shielding the light from the gust produced by the door and the window.
"What's happening?" Jase whispered.
"It's all right." He didn't whisper. He whisked the blanket off and put it back on the bed. Tucked the foot of it in.
And got in. Jase said, "I hurt my leg getting the matches."
Jase had. He could see the skinned knee. Jase had taken a fall in the dark and he was mad.
"Sorry. Want a bandage? I'm sure the man outside can get one."
"No," Jase said, brought the candle to bed and then went back after something, probably the matches. It wasn't natural to think of both. Not in Jase's world.
Jase blew the light out and, Bren guessed, set the candle and the matches on the floor beside the bed and got in, half frozen, Bren was sure. He felt Jase's silence as a reproach. He'd deceived Jase too often, too long, and now Jase took for granted that was the final answer: it wasn't just Jase's rules-following soul.
"I'm a little worried," he said to Jase.
There was no answer. Jase was mad; and shivering beside him, which might be the cold sheets; and might be the situation.
"I don't think they want us to know everything that's happening," Bren said. "Jase, I'm telling you the truth, things may be all right. But there's been a lot going on in the world, and it's just possible things are a bit more complicated than seemed."
"You want me to ask."
He didn't even know what he was trying to say. "I just want you to know — I asked the dowager to show you the old ways. I wanted to help you. I wanted you to have the advantage I've had — in learning about atevi."
"So I won't make a fool of myself?"
It was his turn to be quiet. Jase had a knack, as he supposed he did, for taking the most delicately offered sentiment, and turning it inside out.
"Thanks," Jase said after a while. "Thanks for the thought."
Bren was still mad. And still didn't think Jase remotely understood him. And didn't want to get his adrenaline up any higher when he was trying to sleep.
"I've done the best I know how," he said to Jase finally. "I've tried to teach you."
The silence hung there a moment. From both sides.
Then Jase said, "I've tried to learn."
"I know that. You've done a brilliant job."
"Years left to get better at it," Jase said. "Got to. Ship's got to fly."
"Yeah," he said. It was disappointing, in his view, that he couldn't make Jase like life here, where he was. But whatever motivated Jase to study, whatever kept him wanting to go back, that was what he ought to encourage.
And Jase wanted to get back to his mother. He understood that part. Obligations. Divisions. Desperation.
He didn't know how his own was doing, or whether calls might have come in — if anything went wrong, surely Toby would call him.
"So what's going on out there?" Jase asked him.
Deep breath. "I think a number of vans or something came in." More motors than lights. He didn't mention that. One running with lights. The rest without. The electronic perimeter admitting them.
"So what did the guard say?"
"Supplies. Breakfast, maybe." He couldn't but think of the geography of the place — Mogari-nai, which was reachable by air and by a road up from the modern town of Saduri; and the town and the airport down one face of a steep rise on which this ancient fortress was posed, that faced Geigi on one side; and on the other side, the island of Dur.
Whose young heir was locked in for the night, he supposed. They didn't have keys for the bedrooms, but he'd about bet they'd found one for wherever they were keeping the boy.
What might be going on out there might involve calling the lord of Dur-wajran and informing him they now had a young idiot who could be reclaimed for suitable forthcoming information on the other side.
Politics. Tabini. The dowager. And those damned radio transmissions.