Tracker

C.J. CHERRYH

TRACKER

To Willow, especially Irene.

1

The sun touched the end of the bay, the end of a good day. A ragged streak of cloud lit up gold with a shadowy attempt at pink.

Jaishan ceased her leisurely tacking toward the sunset and turned for port with an experienced hand at the helm. Gold sunlight swept her deck, cast shadows down the planks as the massive boom swung over.

The sail thumped and filled with the shoreward wind, a purposeful course, now homeward bound for Najida estate.

“Fascinating system.” Jase Graham, spacefarer, turned and took a firm grip on the rail as water began to rush and foam under the bow.

Bren Cameron leaned easily beside him, elbows on the same rail. He loved the sound and the feel of the sea. They could have had a bit more speed, but that wasn’t what they wanted now. This was the last bit of sailing they’d get before Jase went back to the space station overhead, and good-byes were in the offing.

Tano was at the helm, enjoying the job—atevi, native to the world, as humans were not: black-skinned, golden-eyed, a head taller than most humans. Tano’s partner Algini was close by him; and their teammates, Banichi and Jago, were lounging on the equipment locker, against the rail, enjoying the wind and the absolute absence of threat.

Bren was glad to see it. Rare that his bodyguard got an hour off, let alone whole days, let alone a week of such days. His bodyguard was still in uniform—Assassins’ Guild black happened to be all they owned. But they had shed their heavy leather jackets in the sun today, and gotten in a little fishing.

Banichi was certainly moving far better than he had a week ago. He was zealously keeping up with the exercises on his arm and shoulder. He was also getting impatient with the rehab schedule and entirely ready, Banichi assured them all, to resume ordinary duty.

Being on the boat meant security enough that Banichi and the rest of them could relax. Ordinary duty out here in the wide bay need involve nothing more strenuous than watching the horizons and casting a line.

There was hardly anywhere on the planet more secure than where they’d been the last number of days. The aishidi’tat, the Western Association of the atevi, was at peace—still in shock from the loss of two lords, the investiture of an heir, and the return of the old leadership of the Assassins’ Guild—but at peace. Banichi, of that Guild, had been no little involved in the event—which was why he was under doctor’s orders not to push anything, and why it took being out in the middle of all this water, with a navy ship out across the bay—to make Banichi admit there was indeed leisure to relax.

Banichi laughed at something his partners had just said. That was a very good thing to hear. It unwound something in Bren’s own gut.

“First vacation in a long time,” Bren said to Jase, beside him. “You’ve got to come down to Earth more often. You’re good for us.”

“My duty-book’s going to be stacked and waiting for me,” Jase said with a sigh. “Anything the senior captains don’t want to handle, guess where it’ll go in my absence. Right to my desk. —But it’s worth it. I’ve enjoyed this.”

“Even the gunfire?”

“Well, I mostly missed that part.”

“Not all of it.”

“It was an experience,” Jase said. “And your own duty-book’s going to look like mine, I’m afraid. You’ve still got the chaff from that mess up north to deal with. Wish I could help with that.”

“Minor,” Bren said. It said something about recent months, that he could call the ruin of an historic atevi clan “minor.” But it was minor—now that the Kadagidi clan’s influence had diminished.

And diminish, yes, it had. The aishidi’tat, the Western Association, was in fact down two clan lords since the start of Jase’s visit, and politics was certain to surround the replacements, but Bren had some hope there would be a quick, sensible solution—as yet unthought-of—but it was not his job to think of it. The aiji in Shejidan, Tabini, was firmly in power. The Assassins’ Guild, the core of the judicial system, was functioning as it had not in years. And Bren, paidhi-aiji, translator to the court, intermediary-at-large, could now draw a deep breath and hope all the agreements he’d pinned down stayed put.

They were both human, he and Jase. Bren, born to the planet and Jase, to the starship Phoenix. Jase had been a special child—born of long-dead heroes, destined to be something a dead man had known and Jase had never learned. That he’d come early to a captaincy—one of the four who held that post—was destiny, maybe; genetics and politics, certainly—“But I don’t know what I was for,” Jase had put it.

“Does anybody, really?” Bren had answered that one, and Jase had thought about it and laughed.

So here they were—Jase a ship’s captain, visiting a planet that had so much history with his ship; and Bren himself—wielding a power he’d never remotely planned on holding, disconnected from Mospheira, and inextricably involved in Tabini-aiji’s affairs. But alike. Intermediaries, both, trained to mediate, to communicate—both of them grown into an authority neither of them had planned to hold and a job nobody had imagined would exist. Mediators. Negotiators. Translators not just of language, but of mindsets and cultures.

Humans were the cosmic accident on the planet, involving Phoenix and a desperate human colony, centuries ago. Phoenix had arrived at the Earth of the atevi, crew and passengers destitute and dying, an unknown world their last reachable hope.

But the world already had a population. Atevi had been chugging along in their steam age, having achieved railroads, having achieved a reasonably peaceful government long before humans had ever appeared in their heavens.

Phoenix built an orbiting station for a base, manned it, and left in search of another home for its colony. But the humans left behind saw what they wanted, and reached for it, flinging themselves earthward, desperately, on what atevi called the petal sails, one after another, until the station could no longer sustain itself, and the final handful left, shutting the station down, leaving it to drift silent, abandoned.

And the descendants of those desperate colonists now formed a terrestrial nation: Mospheira. The island of that name lay a day’s sail away, too far across the strait to spot from this vantage, even as a haze above the sea. It was a large island, tag-end of the massive monocontinent on which atevi dwelled, easily within reach of any determined individual with a rowboat and a mission.

But it was isolated by atevi law—excepting one appointee: the paidhi, the human interpreter to the atevi court.

These days, that would be him.

The paidhi’s original job, as Bren had undertaken it, had been, first, to assure an accurate flow of information between humans and atevi; and secondly to turn over human technology to atevi at a measured, studied rate, so as not to upset the peace of the world. That was how the original humans had bought their safety, having lost the War of the Landing.

And humans, Mospheirans now, had locked themselves in technological synchrony with the atevi of the mainland, turning over the safe parts of their precious Archive, not accelerating the pace of development, not pushing atevi into change that might turn dangerous, that might cause upheaval, and war.

Mostly the paidhi’s job had been to collect words—whatever atevi words the sitting paidhi judged humans could accurately and safely use, in the University-controlled interface. It was a glacially slow process. The paidhiin had handled the careful, meticulous phrasing of official communications, but held no control over the content.

That was what Bren had started out to be—a maker of dictionaries, a court functionary who sat on the steps of the aiji’s dais, when court was in session, and who spoke only rarely, on direct request. The utmost ambition of Bren’s life in the first year had been to avoid a second War of the Landing on his watch. He could not, in the beginning, even edit a document. He could only say: excuse me, sir, please, take no offense, but that word has a connotation . . .

But he’d had to deal with Tabini-aiji, who wanted to talk to him, and wanted verbal answers. Fast.

He’d slipped over into actively speaking the language the first week. Tabini had pushed that situation.

Pushed him until he’d begun to operate outside the rules—begun to speak the language. Now he primarily thought in it.

Tabini-aiji wanted more technology. Under Tabini, planes became jets, radio became television, and industry proliferated. Atevi took to computers and improved what they were handed, finding their own path, making their own discoveries.

Then Phoenix turned up, back from centuries of absence, bringing a wealth of old history, old human quarrels, and a single question: which government on Earth had the industrial power they needed? Cultural kinship linked the ship, for good or ill, to Mospheira. Need linked them to Tabini-aiji.

The job of the paidhi-aiji instantly changed. More, the ship appointed its own paidhi—Jase, who’d parachuted down the way the colonists had—to build a relationship with the continent, which had the range of earthly resources a space program needed. It had meant Jase learning Ragi. It had meant atevi building a space program while Mospheirans argued about it. And ultimately it had meant getting atevi and Mospheirans to cooperate—because control of half the orbiting station had been the price of Tabini-aiji’s cooperation.

Everything had changed, like so many snowballs headed downhill. Atevi were in space now, equal partners with Mospheirans on the station in a fifty-fifty arrangement which had two command centers and two stationmasters, cooperating together in a three-way arrangement with the four Phoenix captains—of whom Jase was now third-senior.

And Bren Cameron had ceased to represent Mospheira at all, in any regular way. His personal loyalty—his man’chi, in the atevi way of putting it—rested on the atevi side of the straits, and not just because that was the job he could do best. He represented Tabini-aiji’s interests not only to humans on Earth and aloft, but to atevi lords on the continent, and he held a district lord’s rank in order to do it.

So he’d come a long, long way from Mospheira, mentally speaking—a long way from human allegiances and human politics. He’d not visited the island in nearly four years—two of which he’d spent in deep space, remote from the world, one of which he’d spent down here, trying to patch the damage the push to space had done to the balance of power on Earth.

Of human contacts he still kept active, there was his brother Toby. There was Barb, who had been his lover, and now was Toby’s partner.

And there was Jase, now third-senior of the starship’s four captains—but still technically ship-paidhi, too. Jase knew atevi customs and he spoke Ragi, the principle atevi language, passably well.

And being ship-folk, a stranger to any planet, Jase’s mindset was not Mospheiran. Jase’s instincts might biologically match Mospheiran instincts, but his native accent was ship-folk, and he had never set foot on Mospheira, nor cared to go there.

Well, that was all right, in Bren’s thinking. There was still no one he had rather see in a position of influence among the ship-folk. Jase wanted the survival of Mospheira and the safety of the ship and the station aloft, and he wanted the survival of the atevi. They shared the same set of priorities.

And if there was one person on the planet who truly understood what he was and how he thought—it was Jase.

· · ·

That was why, in Jase’s company, at the rail of a moving boat, Bren could draw breath right now with an ease he didn’t feel with others, even the atevi lords whose survival he fought to ensure, or the Mospheiran president he tried to keep generally abreast of whatever atevi were doing—or, for that matter, with the aiji he served. They shared a job. They shared the same worries. They served the same interests.

So perhaps it was a little selfish of him to wish his area of the world could float along in the lazy way it had been going for a few more days, just one or two days more, before he had to go back to what Jase called his duty-book.

By tomorrow evening he’d be back in that highly securitied apartment in the privileged third floor of the Bujavid, the great fortress and legislative center above the capital city. There’d be no duty-book, no computer files waiting for him on his return, but there would certainly be a message bowl sitting in his apartment foyer, a bowl overflowing with cylinders from people wanting a slice of his attention—lords and department heads with agendas that had been suspended for the last few weeks while the Assassins’ Guild had a meltdown and the aiji’s son celebrated his fortunate ninth birthday.

Missing from that bowl, to be sure, would be the unwritten problems—a determined handful of people who wouldn’t write to the paidhi-aiji politely and officially advising him they wanted him dead, and who wouldn’t be Filing Intent with the Assassins’ Guild. Oh, no: a legal Filing would never pass muster with the Guild, let alone Tabini-aiji, and his enemies couldn’t gain any partisan following to demand it. So they couldn’t succeed above-board. That meant anything that might come at him would not follow the rules.

That problem went with the title, the estate, the boat. He’d gotten back to the world a year ago from a two-year voyage into deep space—to find the aishidi’tat in chaos and Mospheira bracing for war.

He and the aiji-dowager and the will of the people had set Tabini-aiji back in power, a movement carried on the shock of their arrival and the revelation that neither Tabini nor his young heir was dead.

Well, things were better. He’d actually been able to take a vacation—give or take a few stitches in his scalp, and Banichi’s need for rehab on that shoulder.

And now . . .

Now Jaishan had put her stern to the setting sun and her bow toward the end of the bay. Her sail had filled with a golden sunset, and the west wind was carrying her home with the hum of the rigging and the rush of water under her white hull.

And that was all he needed think of for the better part of an hour.

“Want to take the helm for a while?” he asked Jase.

Jase laughed. “They never let captains take the controls up there, you know. Helm won’t have it.”

“Well, there’s that island over there to port. That’s the only thing in this part of the bay you have to miss. Want to do it?”

“Love to,” Jase said, and they left the rail and crossed the deck. Tano was perfectly content to turn over the wheel and instruct a novice how to handle it. Easy job, with a perfect wind carrying them and not much to do but keep Jaishan’s bow headed for home.

She nodded a bit as Tano demonstrated how she was handling. Then she cut through the water with a steady rush, fast under sail, beautiful in her spread of canvas. And Jase had the helm now, delighted.

Perfect day. Perfect finish.

“You can feel the speed pick up,” Jase said. “Amazing how it feels in your hands.”

No readouts, no numbers here, no helmsman nor navigator, nothing like a starship’s bridge at all, just the wind aloft and salt water running under her keel. The sounds and vibrations all around them were like nothing else in the world, readout without a dial or a blinking light. Bren would have taken Jaishan in himself—he got few chances to enjoy it. But Jase should have this run, something to think back on when he got back to his own reality, up in space.

Maybe this last outing would be a lure sufficient to bring Jase back to the world. Jase hadn’t been so much for fishing. The notion that they were going to kill and immediately eat a creature was just more than Jase liked to inspect too closely, much as Jase appreciated fish when it appeared from a kitchen, spiced, plated, and sauced.

So they’d just sailed this day, skirted the picturesque if hazardous offshore rocks off the end of the peninsula, and at least gone far enough from shore to see the haze on the horizon that was the island of Mospheira.

His aishid, his personal bodyguard, had done all the fishing on the other side of the boat, and brought back a sizeable catch for Najida’s cook to deal with.

But the fatality to fish needn’t trouble Jase, who had happiness on his face and the wind in his hair.

They were dressed atevi-style: trousers, boots, and, since the sun had started down, warm outdoor coats. The bay could be chill. One wanted to keep hands in pockets when Jaishan was moving like this, and Jase’s bare hands would be quite cold, gripping the wheel, but the air was clean and good.

The wind played little tricks as they came past the jut of the Edi headland that sheltered the little fishing harbor there, and Tano anticipated it, turning up by Jase’s shoulder as the wind first fell off and then came back stronger. Jase coped without help. Jaishan steadied, a thing of beauty in the dying light, chasing her own shadow on the water.

And when the shore loomed up in the twilight, and the lights of Bren’s own estate at Najida showed on the hill above the landing, they had a feeling of real homecoming, a sense that they had indeed sailed away from the world today, and were coming back to a lingering fantasy of country life and rustic warmth.

They were arriving too late for dinner at the house, however: that had happened early, before sunset. Bren had asked the youngsters and Jase’s two-man bodyguard to pack for their return, and his staff had intended a special early supper for their guests, with all the youngsters’ favorite dishes.

Bren hoped that affair had come off well, and that the youngsters were having the time together he had intended. He and Jase had had their own light supper at the first of the twilight—sandwiches, nothing extravagant—and they were holding out for wine and dessert once they got in.

· · ·

They could have been out on the boat all day if he had really pitched a fit. Cajeiri knew that.

They could have been. But nand’ Bren had hinted, quietly and hopefully, that it would please him very much if he could have some time to talk to Jase. Nand’ Bren had offered Cajeiri and his guests a dinner party instead, just themselves as the sole focus of the Najida staff, and Cajeiri had not argued, because nand’ Bren was seeing his guest go home tomorrow, too, and of course he wanted some time. Nand’ Bren had done everything in his power to make their visit the best it could be, and nand’ Bren had taken them all out on the boat every day but this one.

So all in all, and largely thanks to nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji, the birthday had been excellent, and Cajeiri was sure his auspicious ninth year had had the very best beginning it could have. His guests were here from the space station and his baby sister was born safely and his father had named him officially his heir, in front of the whole aishidi’tat.

Not to mention the Guild had gotten rid of the people who were causing the trouble, and was now doing what it was supposed to do, which was to keep peace in the aishidi’tat. The Marid, the district to the south that had made war not so long ago, was peaceful, and that meant they were safe enough to be out at nand’ Bren’s estate, sailing whenever they wanted and without any great worry about enemies.

Everything would have been perfect this evening, if only there could be endless days in front of them.

But no, Gene and Artur and Irene were going back to the station, leaving on the shuttle tomorrow with Jase-aiji and his bodyguard.

That meant he would not see his guests for another year, and maybe longer than a year if stupid grown-ups got to feuding, again, as grown-ups were always apt to do.

Or if his mother got her way and his guests could never visit the Earth again.

But no feud and none of his mother’s objections was going to stop them meeting forever. He had made up his mind to that, and he was sure his father, the aiji of the whole aishidi’tat, was on his side this time.

Besides, his mother had his new sister to take care of. That meant she was spending less time worrying about him. And when she was not thinking about him, she was surely in a much better mood.

“This time you will have to write,” he said to his guests, as they were sitting in their suite, well-fed, with all their belongings and souvenirs strewn on the master bed. His valets and his bodyguard were doing the actual packing. They were better at it. Boji, small, furry, black, and large as a baby, was traveling with them, and he was bounding about his cage, keenly aware of the packing, and upset about it. He wanted to be out. And that would not be a good idea, in case the door should open.

“We will write,” Gene said in Ragi, and added: “I did write.”

“You did write,” Cajeiri agreed.

“We all tried,” Artur said.

“This time my father will give me the letters you send. I am sure he will. And I shall write as often as I have something to say.”

“My mother may not give me the letters,” Irene said, also in Ragi. “She can be happy. And then she is unhappy. One does not know what will happen when I am back. She will surely be angry that we stayed more time.”

Upset mothers were not in anybody’s control. Cajeiri understood that very well. “We shall meet next year. Don’t worry.”

It was conniving, that was what Great-grandmother would call it, and Irene would do what she promised she would do, no matter what Irene’s mother said. They could be sure of that. Irene was much braver than anybody might think.

So they connived together. And planned their next meeting.

It felt, on this last night, a little like the old association again, except that Bjorn was not with them—Bjorn had decided to stay with his tutor, or whatever people had up there: school was the ship-speak for it. Gene said Bjorn had had to stay in the program or he could have lost his place with his tutors, and his parents would have been really upset. A place in tutorage was not easy for a Reunioner to get—and Bjorn was smart, and older, and it was a program that, right at the start, just after they had arrived on the station, had let in just the best and smartest of the Reunioner young folk. And now that program was on the verge of being phased out. Cajeiri understood how desperate life was for Reunioners, how short supplies were, and how important it was that Bjorn stay where he was and not be dismissed and lose his chance.

His father being aiji, Cajeiri thought, might have negotiated something that would have let Bjorn come down and not lose his place—but his father had already been extraordinarily accommodating in allowing his guests at all, and he had wanted to create no extra problems with station politics.

They had resolved they were going to be sure that Bjorn could come next time.

And they had set up in detail how they were going to get around obstacles during the next year, arranging for messages to get where they needed to go, and when they should expect the first one, and how he was always going to mention a number in the ending that would tell them what the number of the letter was. That way they would always know whether all the messages were getting through.

They would do the same for messages to him.

He was too young to use the Messengers’ Guild on his own, and there was a scarcity of paper for printing things on the station, so the messages he sent would be real letters on paper, which would go up in packets on the shuttle missions. That meant his packets would go first to Lord Geigi, on the atevi side of the station—that was how it would work. And their answers would all come in the same packets as Lord Geigi’s reports home, on stationery that was part of the souvenirs going with them.

Along with his own little packets he could send any little light thing, if his father allowed and if it fit within regulations. So he decided he would always pack in some fruit sweets for Lord Geigi. He was sure Lord Geigi would appreciate the gift, and send the letters on to the human side of the station. Lord Geigi knew very well how his mail had gotten held forever, this last year. And Lord Geigi was on their side, and he would do it, and make sure things happened.

“Tell Bjorn, too,” he said. “Tell him to write to me. Often. One wishes to hear about his program.”

“We tell him,” Irene said. “I see him sometimes. Not often. But I shall tell him everything we did. He will be—” She changed to ship-speak. “He wanted so much to come. But the rules say no. He cannot be absent.”

“Next year,” Gene said. “Next year for sure. And you keep in touch with me, Reni, do you hear?”

Irene lived in a different section than Gene and Artur. Reunioners were divided up in residencies by sections, and Gene was not allowed to go where Irene and Bjorn lived, which was some sort of special place.

But they had set up their ways to deal with that, the same that they had had on the starship—tunnels, just like on the starship, that ran beside the public corridors, or over or under them. They had mapped them on the ship. They had mapped them on the station, and Gene had explored all the way to the place atevi authority started. They had made maps together, and added a whole new section to the little notebook that Cajeiri always kept close—the little notebook that had always helped him remember, and now helped him imagine places he’d never seen.

He could imagine now where they lived, and how their place related to the atevi side. And before, all last year, politics had gotten in the way of their even getting letters to each other. But now they had an ally, and if someone tried to keep them from writing, the tunnels meant ways they could get to the atevi side, where atevi made the rules.

“Lord Geigi will definitely always help us,” Cajeiri said. “And if people try to stop us from writing to each other, just get to the atevi side. Just walk right up to the doors and say my father said so and they should let you in.”

“Did he say so?”

“Well, he will,” he said, and they all laughed a little, which was disrespectful, but he was also determined it would be true. “And do not tell your parents any sort of things that may scare them!” Humans and atevi might be different, so very different they could have very dangerous misunderstandings. And if one added parents into the numbers, one could only imagine what sort of misunderstanding could happen. “Whatever your parents ask about the trouble, always say, That was very far from us, or . . .” He put on his most innocent face. “Was there something going on?”

Artur laughed, and they all did.

“We never saw the gunfire,” Gene said with his most innocent expression.

“Never!” Irene said. “We just had nice food and pretty clothes and we went to parties and met your parents. How could there possibly be a problem?”

They laughed. There had been scary moments, particularly at Tirnamardi, when nand’ Bren and nand’ Jase had gone to deal with Lord Tatiseigi’s neighbor; and that had been a scary time. They had ashes drifting down onto Lord Tatiseigi’s driveway, and there had been bullet holes in the bus when nand’ Bren and nand’ Jase had come back.

It had been even worse, when Great-grandmother had had to send nand’ Bren right into the heart of the Assassins’ Guild to take down the Shadow Guild. They had had to pretend everything was perfectly normal that evening. But they had not known whether they might all be running for their lives before morning.

That had been an extremely scary night, and nand’ Bren and Banichi and several of Great-grandmother’s guard had come back wounded. But Father had had Cajeiri and his guests inside the tightest protection, and they had had Jase-aiji and his bodyguards with them as well as Father’s and Great-grandmother’s bodyguards around them. Jase-aiji’s bodyguards had weapons that could take out half the apartment and maybe the floor under them, and he was very glad those had never come into question.

So, no, they had never been in that much danger.

And right after that, while everything was still in confusion, his father had turned his birthday into a public Festivity and he had had to make a public speech and be named, officially, his father’s heir.

His associates had been there when he had become “young aiji,” not just “young gentleman,” so they knew what had happened, and how everything had changed. And so far the title had not been a great inconvenience, but that was, Cajeiri feared, only because he still had his foreign guests. When they left, tomorrow—when they left—

He feared there were going to be duties, and more appearances in court dress, and that his life for the next whole year and forever after was going to be just gruesome.

But he would do it.

He would do it because behaving badly could mean his guests could not come back. Priorities, his great-grandmother called it.

He would definitely have to go back to living in his suite, inside his father’s apartment, with his mother—and his very new sister, who was a baby, and who was going to cry a lot.

He would have his bodyguard for company. And he would have his valets, who were grown men, but they understood him and they were patient. His little household was his, and no one would take that away.

He was sure he was going to have to go back to regular lessons. His latest tutor was not a bad one—even interesting sometimes, so it was not too awful. And he was coming back with a lot of things to ask about.

But he had still rather be out at Najida or Tirnamardi.

He would not get to ride his mecheita until the next holiday, and that only if he could get an invitation from Great-uncle Tatiseigi and if he could get permission from his father to go out to Tirnamardi. And all that depended on whether there were troubles anywhere near. It might be next year before he could go, because there were currently troubles in the north. During the whole year, there was still going to be the question of the succession to the lordship of the Ajuri and the lordship of the Kadagidi, either one of which could break into gunfire or worse and just mess everything up in Tirnamardi, where his mecheita was.

Worse, Ajuri was his mother’s clan, and the upset in Ajuri was going to keep her upset all year.

But maybe being “young aiji” meant even his father would be more inclined to listen to what he wanted.

And what he wanted was to go riding for days and days; and what he wanted even more than that was his guests back again—before next year if he could somehow manage it.

But third, and what he wanted most of all, and had no power at all to arrange—he wanted his guests to live safe from politics up on the station. The situation up there, the Mospheirans feuding with the Reunioners—that quarrel really, really worried him.

There were over twice as many humans on the station as there were supposed to be, and the half of them, who had come up from the island of Mospheira, hated the other half, who had arrived last year from Reunion, out in deep space. There was not enough room. So things had become crowded and difficult.

More, a treaty said that there would always be as many atevi up there as there were humans—and that agreement was thrown out of balance, with the Reunioners arriving. Now there were twice as many humans as there ought to be, but only the same number of atevi. Maybe it would have been kind for atevi to give up some of their room to make things better, but for some reason they were not doing that. He had to ask his father why. It was possibly because they did not want the Reunioners staying there and fussing with the Mospheirans. Or possibly just that they did not want to interfere in a human feud.

And then there was the accident with one of the big tanks that grew fish and such that fed the station—when the station had already had trouble feeding everybody before the Reunioners had come. Atevi were not willing for humans to be short of food, however. So they had helped with that, with workers and metal to repair the damaged tank. And Lord Geigi had sent workers and materials that modified a number of public areas into living spaces. But it was all still a mess.

And there was no easy way to fix it. The ancestors of the Mospheirans had had a disagreement with the ancestors of the Reunioners, and now, just when the Mospheirans had gotten themselves through a very scary and dangerous time, and built everything to make themselves comfortable and well-fed again—the Reunioners showed up to overcrowd them.

Mospheiran humans on the station wanted to pack up all the Reunioners and send them out to go build a completely new station at the barren ball of rock that was Maudit, far across the solar system. Mospheirans wanted never to see them again.

He did not agree. His three guests were Reunioners, and he did not want them sent out to Maudit.

So if the Mospheiran stationers won and the Reunioners were set to leave, he intended to get his guests and their parents over into the atevi section of the station, under Lord Geigi’s authority, where no human order could reach them. He had not gotten his father’s agreement that that was what they would do—but that was his intention, and he intended to do what he could to arrange that, quietly, so as not to upset adults.

He intended to write to Lord Geigi, for one thing, and get Lord Geigi to agree to protect his guests. And their parents. He would ask it in principle, first. That was one of his great-grandmother’s words. In principle. Nand’ Bren would say, getting one’s foot in the door.

And once he knew that was set up, and given that they could reach Lord Geigi by the secret passages Gene had mapped, then he could at least feel easier about his guests. They might have to go back tomorrow. But tomorrow he would set about getting them back down to Earth for his next birthday.

Nobody was going to take them away. Nobody was going to threaten them because of some stupid quarrel their ancestors had had.

Nobody was going to stop him.

If being heir of the aishidi’tat meant anything—he was going to get his guests back and keep them safe from stupid people.

2

Three people waited on the dock as Jaishan came in: Saidaro, who cared for Jaishan most of the year, and Saidaro’s two assistants, elderly fishermen from Najida village, the Edi community just down the hill from the estate.

On an ordinary day, Bren would have stayed to shut down the boat and talk and do whatever maintenance might have come up, but not this evening. Jaishan was going to be rejoining Lord Geigi’s yacht, going back to her ongoing task of ferrying passengers and supplies to a new construction going on, a new Edi center on Lord Geigi’s peninsula, keeping a promise to the Edi people. The sea offered the best and most direct access to the site, for heavy loads, of which there were several waiting.

So Saidaro would be at work late into the night preparing her for that run, putting up buffers to shield her paint and brightwork from the loads of lumber and stone, coils of wire and pieces of pipe that would be her routine cargo through the rest of the good weather.

And by fall—the new Edi administration would have a focal point, a place where the Edi people were the law.

The sail came in as they passed the point, and Jase surrendered the helm. Tano could bring her in on sail alone, but the current was tricky here, and it was far easier to turn on the motor for the approach to dock, and not rely on a slightly fickle wind. Jaishan motored in sedately under Tano’s hand, and as they neared the buffers, Jago tossed the mooring loop.

Saidaro, on shore, caught it and dropped it neatly over the post. The two old fishermen waited aft to catch a second line from Algini. Banichi usually did that cast, but Banichi, under strict orders to protect the arm, simply cradled it and stood frowning but compliant.

And with Jaishan snugged in, Saidaro and his helpers ran out the rustic gangway to its buffered catching-point.

From there, Jase and Bren could walk down to the steady, weathered boards of the dockside, with Jago and the rest to gather gear and follow . . . they would not let Banichi carry a thing.

“My feet always expect the dock to move,” Jase said with a laugh.

“We’ll probably both feel the sea moving all night,” Bren said. “I know I will.” He gave a nod to Saidaro and his crew. “Daro-ji, thank you! She is in your hands!”

“Nandi.” Saidaro bowed, the fishermen bowed, and Bren collected his bodyguard and his guest and headed down the few steps from the wooden dock to the flagstone path.

Three of the staff from the house were coming down the zigzag path among the low evergreens, hurrying to assist them with such baggage as there was. Banichi and the rest became all business ashore, even here at Najida, even on this easy walk up the winding path to the driveway. Banichi and Jago went in front and Tano and Algini walked behind, leaving the local lads to gather up the catch from the onboard storage and bring along the smaller baggage. Tano carried only one sizeable case personally—the black leather bag that non-Guild were never supposed to touch. But the mood was easy, all the same.

They walked up a turn, and the beautiful, restored window—recent gift of the aiji-dowager—shone in the twilight above a dark row of evergreen shrubs, red and blue and gold glass lit from within the hall.

The aiji-dowager, who had weathered a serious attack at Najida, did nothing by halves. She had ordered, additionally, two stained-glass windows for the new dining room, a frame for the central window that would look out on the setting sun. It would be a defiant expanse of bright-colored glass, surrounding a window that would give that room the most glorious view on the coast. The windows were a security hazard, but they had their defenses.

And the world they would overlook, one hoped, was more peaceful now than it had been in living memory.

Three and four bends of the path brought them up beyond sight of the window, up to the drive and the portico—an area likewise restored from recent disaster. Construction there was finished. The new west wing’s roof, a skeletal shadow beyond the portico, out where the old garage and the old garden gate had used to be, was actively under construction. The crew wanted to have the complex roof sound and the interior protected before the good season ended, so even with guests in residence, there had been constant hammering during the day, with workmen from Najida village coming and going on the graveled road.

The Reunioner youngsters, who had never seen wood and stone in their lives before their visit, had been fascinated by the process. So had Jase been. They had gone out more than once to watch the work . . . even climbed up to see how the structure was made.

But the crew had gone home to their suppers, down in the village. Hammering had ceased for the night, and would not resume before they left, early, early in the morning.

“You’ll remember to send me pictures when it’s all done,” Jase said as they headed toward the door.

“Deal,” Bren said.

The house door opened for them unasked. Najida’s major domo, Ramaso, welcomed them in, staff waited to take their outdoor coats, and to provide their indoor ones. Other servants deftly took away the day’s catch from those following, and whisked it off to the kitchen—it would likely reappear as the staff breakfast in the morning, once the lord and his offworld guests were safely out the door and away.

“A pleasant trip, nandiin?” Ramaso asked.

“Entirely, Rama-ji,” Bren said. “The young gentleman and his guests have retired?”

“They are still awake in their suite, nandi,” Ramaso said, “well-fed and happy, by all report. Do you still wish only the cakes?”

“Jase-ji?”

“Certainly that will be enough for me,” Jase said. The sandwiches they had had for supper had been more than they could eat. “A glass of wine, the cakes, and I shall be very content.”

“The sitting room, then,” Bren said, and led the way, Banichi and Jago attending. Tano and Algini went on toward their own quarters, there being a little packing yet to do.

· · ·

He and Jase had their dessert, wine chilled so that moisture frosted the glasses, and a plate of spice cakes still so warm from the oven that the icing melted.

Banichi and Jago took cakes, too, but not the wine, and after sending an order to the kitchen, uncharacteristically informal in this very safe house, they took a second plate of little cakes with them and retired to quarters to help Tano and Algini pack up. Jase’s bodyguard, Kaplan and Polano, were likewise off in Jase’s suite, packing for a much longer trip.

So he and Jase had this one last evening to themselves, no duties to think of . . . locally speaking.

“My hindbrain’s already starting to add up what’s waiting for me,” Jase said ruefully, feet propped on a footstool, and a second glass of wine in hand. “And top of the stack is my report to the captains. And to Lord Geigi.” A lengthy pause. Then: “And Tillington. Bren, we two need to talk about Tillington.”

“In what regard?”

Tillington was the Mospheiran-side stationmaster, human counterpart to Lord Geigi.

Tillington had been all right, in Bren’s estimation: Tillington had kept his half of the station running fairly well—cooperating, generally, with Lord Geigi, getting along well with Ogun, who ran the ship’s affairs on station.

Tillington had had a hard situation. Phoenix, under Captain Sabin and Jase, with Ilisidi, Cajeiri, and Bren aboard, had gone off on its voyage to deal with a remote station in deep space, a lone human outpost that had been supposed to be dead—but which had been left with records they didn’t want lying there for any other entity to find: those, the human Archive, needed to be destroyed. That was the mission. Ogun, senior captain, had stayed behind, with half the crew, to maintain the ship’s authority on the station.

Then, no fault of anyone aloft, so far as he knew, the disasters had multiplied.

A conspiracy on the mainland had unseated Tabini-aiji, seized the spaceport, grounded all but the one shuttle which had happened to be at the space station. The paidhi-aiji and the ship-paidhi being absent on the mission had meant translation between humans and atevi was down to Yolanda Mercheson, who suffered a breakdown. The shuttles no longer flew and pilots and crews went missing. Supply to the space station stopped.

Geigi had refused to move the one shuttle he had left from its station berth. Geigi had kept it ready against the return of the ship—with the paidhiin, the aiji-dowager, and Tabini’s heir.

Tillington had argued long and hard about that shuttle. He had wanted to use it to build up Mospheiran technology and launch a human force to unseat the conspirators on the mainland—not a happy prospect on the atevi side of the station, and Geigi, who had the shuttle and the only crew able to fly it, said a firm no.

Geigi, meanwhile, had launched his own program to deal with the mainland’s new rulers. He had shut down construction on the atevi starship, diverted all its labor and resources to the construction of a satellite communications network, hitherto lacking, and to the production of sufficient food in orbit, which would render the station independent of Earth.

Tillington had cooperated with that—not happy, no, but cooperating, while the Mospheiran government had pushed its own shuttle program into production. They pushed training pilots of their own—and struggled with supply delays. The mainland, in hostile hands, no longer supplied certain materials, and the Mospheiran space program made progress only slowly.

In the midst of it all, Phoenix made it back—bringing in five thousand Reunioner refugees—when the station had thought at most there might be a hundred or so.

The aiji-dowager lost not an hour. Geigi, discovering Phoenix was coming in, had the shuttle and crew up and ready, and Bren, and the aiji-dowager, and Tabini’s son—had headed straight for the shuttle dock. They’d landed on Mospheira, and crossed the strait to deal with the conspirators in a way a human invasion never could.

The ship, in the exigencies of prolonged dock, and with supplies at rock bottom, refused to house the refugees any longer. It began disembarking the refugees—five thousand souls, all turned out onto the station, skilled workers, without jobs, without housing, and with no prospects, in a station with no jobs, not enough housing, and no plan for their numbers to double. The ultimate issue was—what voice should these new people have in anything? What were they going to demand, if they were given any vote at all?

And if they had to increase atevi presence to balance the numbers of humans—the newcomers would still be a majority of humans aloft, and they included people with children. They were going to increase in numbers, and they didn’t have to pass screening to get into orbit—they were born there.

On Earth, things were much better. Murini’s regime, the conspiracy, had held power on the continent only by force and assassination. Now Tabini was back in power, Murini was dead, and there was peace on the continent.

Mospheira likewise prospered. Trade resumed, and their shuttle program now regularly sent a vehicle into orbit. Atevi shuttles were in regular service. Vital supplies reached the station, so one had assumed there was progress on the situation aloft. Geigi had said nothing negative about Tillington, except the complaint that the man always sided with the senior captain, and that humans had dithered along with a decision about the refugees. But then—well-bred atevi were not inclined to complain until they were ready to call on the Assassins’ Guild. So to speak.

Evidently—it was not all under control up there.

“So what’s going on up there?” he asked Jase. “What’s Tillington doing—or not doing? I understand his workers aren’t happy. I know somebody’s got to make his mind up and find a solution for the refugees, and they’ve been divided as to what. But is it worse than we know?”

Jase took a deep breath. “As of five days ago, it turned decidedly worse. I talked to Sabin last night, and I have clearance to say this. From her. Not from Ogun.”

Secrets and division between the two senior captains. That didn’t sound good.

“Here’s the problem,” Jase said. “Tillington’s been agitating to get the Reunioners to go to a new construction at Maudit. You know that. But when the news got out three Reunioner kids were coming down here, the rhetoric got significantly nastier. And apparently when we called asking the kids’ time down here be extended, Tillington stepped over the edge. He’s now claiming that Sabin and Braddock made a deal so Braddock would agree to evacuate Reunion Station.”

“We had to haul him out by force. That’s ridiculous.”

“The alleged deal puts five thousand refugees, some of them with knowledge of critical systems, behind Sabin taking over the human side of the station, putting station operation entirely in Reunioner hands, and Sabin taking over as senior captain.”

An ugly scenario unfolded instantly. If one wanted to view Sabin in Mospheiran terms, with the knee-jerk Mospheiran assumption of self-interest and territorial interests over all, Sabin had been, for the last two years, in a position to dictate life and death for the Reunioners, and five thousand refugees constituted a large potential subversive force, on that scale.

The fact was—if Sabin had wanted, last year, to take Phoenix and all five thousand Reunioners and go establish another station somewhere, she could have done it with no hardship to herself and no permission from anyone. If she were aboard Phoenix, as she had been, nobody could have stopped her, and the world might never have seen the ship again.

But Sabin had done as she had proposed to do. She’d lifted off all survivors from the station, even Braddock—she’d destroyed the problematic human Archive and brought the refugees—numbering vastly more than anyone thought—safely to Alpha Station.

True, she’d put them off the ship and onto the station as beyond the ship’s ability to sustain any longer. That would have upset Tillington, but the ship would not attach itself as a permanent hotel for residency. None of the captains would agree to that.

That had suddenly made the refugees a Mospheiran problem—Tillington’s problem and Captain Ogun’s problem.

No, Sabin hadn’t made herself highly popular with Mospheiran stationers, and hadn’t been high on Ogun’s list of favorite people before she’d taken the ship to Reunion. Ramirez, who had been senior captain, was dead. Ogun had been second-senior, Sabin third, when an alien species had come down on Reunion ten years and more ago. And there remained, behind Sabin’s voyage back to Reunion, deep questions about command decisions and why the possibility of survivors had been hushed up. Captain Ramirez’ deathbed confession about Reunion had left nothing safe or sure between Ogun and Sabin.

But the fact was, despite the personal differences that had arisen between Ogun and Sabin, Ogun had stood by while Sabin took the most precious thing ship-folk had, Phoenix itself, and headed out where (one now suspected) Ogun damned well understood there was an extreme danger.

Had Ogun ever fully briefed Sabin about what had really happened out there?

Two hundred years ago, human beings had planted their space station in territory an alien species claimed—had evidently passed unnoticed—until Phoenix had poked deeper into that species’ territory and triggered alarms.

That species, the kyo, had blown Reunion Station half to ruin—then vanished, only to pop out of the dark again when Sabin arrived.

Monstrous expediency might at that point have said to hell with human survivors and the Archive: save our own skins—but Sabin hadn’t done that. Sabin had calmly stood her ground with the kyo and gotten all the survivors off.

Sabin might have promised the Reunioners any sort of thing while they were in transit, just to keep peace aboard.

But Sabin hadn’t done that, either. Bren had been there. Jase had been there, second in command. So Bren knew with certainty that Sabin had never made a deal, never made promises of power—never given the refugees anything but adequate food and a way to survive.

“All right,” he said to Jase. “Lay it out for me. Who stands where in this mess? Who’s on whose side and why?”

“One.” Jase held up his first finger. “Sabin and I. We backed these three kids coming down here. Ogun didn’t want that. It wasn’t going to happen. You saw what happened to me when I landed—sick as hell for weeks when I came down. All sorts of theories as to why, with me as the living proof of why spacers don’t adapt. The medics had their notions. But taking Reunioner children down there and having them sick was not a popular idea, politically speaking. Then Tabini-aiji insisted on it. Sabin and I—and the senior medic—won the argument once atevi politics weighed in.” Jase held up a second finger. “Two. From the moment the Reunioners walked onto the station deck, Tillington has wanted to send the Reunioners off to mine Maudit and build a separate station where he never has to see them again.” Third finger. “Some Reunioners, notably Braddock, actually want to go do that. You can guess why.”

No question there. Braddock, accustomed for years to being absolute authority on Reunion, had new ambitions.

Fourth finger. “Sabin wants them landed on the planet where they’ll be swallowed up forever in a sea of Mospheirans.” Thumb. “The majority of Reunioners want to build new space onto this station and integrate with the Mospheirans, who don’t want them to be there.”

“Six,” Bren said, holding up his own thumb. “Mospheira has an opinion in this affair. Mind, I haven’t consulted on this one—I’m a long way from representing Mospheira at all, these days—but Mospheira won’t want a rival government setting up out at Maudit any more than they’ll want Mospheiran-born workers outnumbered and outvoted by Reunioners on the station. They won’t want Reunioners settling in atevi territory, which atevi would never permit, anyway. But they also know, like it or not, that five thousand Reunioners aren’t going to go away.”

“Whatever happens,” Jase said, “however we resolve the question, disposition of the Reunioners can’t wait another year. It can’t. The station had to surrender three entire sections to their residency, piecemeal, and jury-rigged. We have people living in what used to be workshops, partitioned-up, but extremely bare bones. Singles are still in barracks—that’s a minor problem. But no jobs. No cooking facilities: you get food at kitchens, just like on the voyage. There’s a flourishing black market, and theft we haven’t had to cope with on the Mospheiran side. Fights break out, and Braddock’s people swagger about attempting to say they run things, even holding trials. It’s not tolerable long-term. And Tillington’s just gone over the edge, accusing Sabin of conspiracy, stirring things up on the Mospheiran side. So this is a quiet request, just an advisement. Can you do something about Tillington—move him out, move him up or down, no preference, but get him somewhere he can’t cause more trouble? And is there any way to look at getting the Mospheiran legislature to bring the Reunioners downworld?”

Bren drew a deep breath. It was a sane proposal. With the new med, the fact there’d been no such sickness as Jase had experienced before, either in Jase or the children—yes. It became possible. That didn’t mean it was going to be an easy proposal to advance in the Mospheiran legislature. But yes, if the ship had come up with something to enable an easier transition to the planet—if it had found a way to prove the Reunioners could live and thrive down here—

“I’m doing all right down here,” Jase said. “I’m adjusting. Those Reunioner kids have no problems. Nothing. They’ve skipped pills. Two have been off them more I suspect than they admit. They’re not sick, so they forget. So Reunioners can adjust to being down here. We supply the population with meds for a few months . . . and their way of looking at the world will adjust. Maybe a few will have to go back, for medical reasons that haven’t turned up yet. But right now—if the Mospheiran legislature hasn’t been getting the word from their constituents up there—we’re still fragile. Damned fragile. We’ve got water, we’ve got basic protein and carbohydrate, but there are shortages of things we need. Diet’s not what it was. And I waited to bring this up now because I didn’t want to be debating it while we were trying to deal with the kids and everything else that was going on. Then the Sabin and Tillington matter blew up, making it impossible to put the problem off any longer. I’m sorry to tie the two together. But they tie themselves together, unfortunately. Tillington doesn’t want the Reunioners, and he apparently doesn’t want any Reunioner kids on the planet.”

“Landing does become possible.” They’d been consistently hearing only two solutions for the refugees . . . Maudit, or a station expansion. There were serious objections to both. Now . . . “Where do the captains stand? You want me to propose this as a program?”

“It’s Sabin’s position. And mine.”

“Not Ogun’s?”

“Ogun wouldn’t be unhappy to be rid of the problem.”

“The logistics are impossible. Five thousand people, going down by shuttle, between cargo runs.”

“Easier down than up.”

“It still takes the passenger modules.”

“There’s light freight you could pack into that config on the return.”

“That’s still a lot of shuttle loads, while you’re having shortages.”

“The more people we shed, the less pressure on the system. Mospheira’s program’s looking to launch a second shuttle next year. And we can build a second shuttle dock, granted Geigi will give us the resources. That doubles our ability to handle freight.”

“We can’t double the shuttle schedule—they take the time they take.”

“We could build more shuttles. In space. So no unneeded ground time.”

Resources and construction gear tagged for the starship under construction had already been diverted to Geigi’s robot landers and the satellite system. Resources would have to be diverted to a Maudit expedition or a station expansion: that the Reunioner problem was going to absorb resources was a given. And a second dock was safer, did conceivably speed turnover . . . increased options. There were ground holds because of a problem in orbit.

“Have you mentioned the idea to Geigi?”

“Not yet. But he’s already contributed supplies, just in housing the refugees. He did say—which I certainly relayed to the Council—that the aiji will not permit the station to increase permanent human occupancy space without a corresponding increase in atevi population; and that if there is a decision to build a station out at Maudit, the same principle will apply.”

“That would be correct.”

“Tillington’s also said he’d demand a Mospheiran presence at Maudit, whether or not he’s gotten an official position on that, which also slows down any movement of the Reunioners elsewhere, because if we don’t have shuttle space to spare, we definitely don’t have transport for three different construction crews going to Maudit, let alone materials and habitat. I tell you, Bren, the damned thing just accretes parts and pieces, and most of them add to the problems rather than solving them. Everybody wants to control it. Nobody wants to actually do it. Whatever it is. And we can’t go putting it off. This last year’s been difficult. We’re entering a second year with these people in temporary housing, on a diet that’s bland beyond description and supplemented with pills. We’ve got to do something. And the anti-nausea med works. And human senses adjust. It’s our best option, Bren. It’s entirely possible.”

“It does change the picture. I agree. The logistics remain a problem.”

“The politics are a problem. And they’re becoming a worse one. It’s not anything analogous to the old situation, but both sides, at least at the administrative level, are treating it as if the old feud is alive and well.”

Mospheirans had fled to the planet in the first place because they’d fallen out with the ship and station administration. And Reunioners were the descendants of the old admin and the loyalists who had taken off and deserted the Mospheirans, only to return in this century, tail between their legs, having stirred up a worse mess than the War of the Landing.

Reunioners, in the person of Louis Baynes Braddock, wanted to dictate the future of humanity in space?

Packing the lot down to Earth became an increasingly attractive solution. Possibly it was going to be more attractive to the majority of the Reunioners.

“They’ve never experienced a planet. It won’t be the same for them.”

“The kids had no trouble,” Jase said. “And these people aren’t their ancestors. Reunion was gravity-anchored to a lump of rock and ice, not really a planet: there was no attraction there. But there is a natural attraction to this planet. The past isn’t the present. Once you tell the Reunioners that the planet is a possibility for them—minds will change. And those kids just proved they can live down here. That’s the point.”

“It’s a better alternative than we have had.”

“Economically and logistically.”

“And politically. Mospheirans can make controversy out of siting a shuttle port they do want. Room for five thousand people they envision as the ancestors—”

“Versus an expansion of the station that’s going to upset the Treaty. Or a separate state with a history of hostility.”

“The Reunioners won’t all favor it,” Bren said.

“Braddock chief among that number. He wants his own station, out there, out of reach, with his hand-picked officers running things again.”

“He can still cause trouble. God knows, Mospheirans are always ready for issues.”

“Up there—there’s no shortage of issues. Being short of food and living space is productive of issues.”

“Mospheirans down here don’t know Braddock’s name,” Bren conceded. “Most don’t have a clue about the Pilots’ Guild. Nor, for that matter, do we actually care.”

A slight grim laugh. “The fact Louis Baynes Braddock still thinks he should order the Captains’ Council doesn’t impress them?”

“Not in the least.”

“Maybe we can bring Tillington on board, get him behind the notion of landing all the Reunioners, setting things back the way they were. . . .”

“I sincerely doubt it. For other reasons. Bren, the man poses a problem apart from the Reunioner issue.”

“He was a good administrator through the Troubles. He and Geigi worked out a system to communicate without us . . .”

“Which has become a problem. He doesn’t want me involved and he certainly doesn’t want Sabin. He’s all snug with Ogun. And so far as his great achievement—that neat little system that doesn’t require humans to communicate with atevi in anything but code, it’s just a longer list of the code the shuttle program worked out, and Tillington’s so devoted to it he doesn’t call on me at all, or ask me to interpret the soft tissue of the answer. Geigi will ask me in depth. I have a good relationship with Lord Geigi. But with Tillington—no. With him, yes is yes, that’s the end, and he’ll read it according to what he thinks yes means. And if it later doesn’t turn out to be the precise yes he wanted, then he says Geigi broke his promise. Communication staff to staff is cordial, accurate, and makes things run. Communication between the two stationmasters is another matter.”

It was a complete right turn from the information he’d gotten from Geigi, even in prolonged exchanges. But—dealing with atevi—sometimes silence was another kind of information. Atevi completely avoided problematic humans, rather than collapse a useful situation. Humans didn’t always figure that out.

They’d gone to war, humans and atevi, as an outgrowth of such a situation.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“He doesn’t like Reunioners,” Jase said. “And yes, the shortages and the crowding are a problem, but it wasn’t the personal choice of the Reunioners. He complains to his subordinates and crew chiefs, sympathizes with their problems, blames the Reunioners for all of it. He was massively upset about the kids’ visit, called it special privilege for the Reunioners, didn’t want it to happen, said they were short of supplies and the kids’ visit was taking up a shuttle flight—an exaggeration. We used the smallest passenger module and we’ll carry cargo both ways. Ogun wasn’t in favor of it—he was siding with Tillington’s view until the aiji’s request came through. But that wasn’t the end of it. He said Tabini’s government was still unstable, he said the children would be in danger and if anything happened the Reunioners would riot. Well, Sabin fixed that. She proposed I go down as interpreter and run security. So that happened, and we came down. But when we called up to the station to advise the kids were going to stay through another shuttle rotation—Tillington started saying he had information that the kids were a setup, that they’d always been a setup, and that Sabin had arranged their meeting the young gentleman on the ship.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It gets better. According to Tillington, Sabin’s plan was to get Reunioner kids linked to the young gentleman, to get in tight with the atevi, to get an agreement with Braddock and the Reunioners, that she was going to be their ally. That it was all cooked up on the voyage back.”

Bren’s pulse ticked up a notch. Two notches. “He actually said that.”

“That’s as Sabin reported the statement to me, which she had from Ogun—who usually doesn’t restructure information. Ogun asked her what the truth was. She naturally said hell, no, it was entirely atevi business what the young gentleman did. She didn’t stop it, because atevi security was watching over the situation. She said she’d as soon space Braddock, given a choice; she’d done everything she’d promised Ogun she’d do, and she’d handled a refugee situation they hadn’t planned for. And she’d brought the ship back, what more proof than that could he want?”

“Saying the aiji-dowager might have an ulterior motive is like saying the sea has tides. But involving her as your captain’s ally in a special deal, as putting emotional pressure on the aiji’s son, in her care—at his age—and to take—” Neither ship-speak nor Mosphei’ had a word for it. He changed to Ragi. “—to institute a new aijinate aboard that ship, far from the aishidi’tat, to involve herself and the aiji’s son in foreign politics and foreign ambition— No.” He dropped back into ship-speak, for another logic. “First, you and I know it didn’t in fact happen. The aiji-dowager deals from her own hand. No one else’s. And certainly she wouldn’t use her great-grandson as anybody’s ally in some human power game. No. First, it’s false. She allowed the association with the Reunioner children for her great-grandson’s sake—a boy who’d scarcely seen another child—of any sort. And secondly, if word of this accusation reached her, she might well File Intent on Tillington. Mind, she does have Guild personnel on the station. He’d better not repeat this theory, anywhere outside Ogun’s office.”

“We have no way to stop him. It’s not mutiny. It’s opinion, and, all said, he’s your official. In the Mospheiran sense.”

“No question he’s Mospheiran,” Bren said. “But he’s not on Mospheira.”

“He’s opened a wide gulf with Sabin. I don’t know how he can retreat from this.”

“I don’t know how he can retreat from it either, given the situation. I’m serious about the dowager’s position. She will be serious, if she takes notice of it. If Geigi hears it, Geigi won’t work with him.”

“Geigi already won’t work with him. I know Geigi can speak a little Mosphei’. It doesn’t happen.”

True. Basically true, during all their absence from the solar system and all the troubles, with all the building, Geigi had been communicating using the supply system codes they’d developed for that interface in the space program, in shuttle guidance, in all the places where numbers and codes could carry a meaning.

“So he’s become a liability. A serious liability, driving a program that’s going to divert materials for years. And the Reunioners remain a problem driving every decision we make. If we propose moving the Reunioners down, that process is going to take time, and new construction, with politics all the way. If we remove Tillington now, he’ll have an opinion. If it’s political power he’s courting, I can foresee which party will back him. Damn. Is nothing ever simple?”

“We’ve got Tillington on one side, Braddock on the other, up there, and theoretically we’re not in charge of Braddock, Tillington is. Tell the President this: when you chose the crews to come up to the station, you screened people you sent. They’re all certified sane. The Reunioners were all born on Reunion. They’ve been through hell in the last ten years. And we took all the survivors. There was nothing like screening. There still hasn’t been. We’ve got theft we never had to deal with. We have a shadow market we never had to deal with. You wouldn’t believe what you can turn into alcohol. We’ve likely got some seriously confused head cases in that population. And we’ve got Braddock, who thinks the Pilots’ Guild is in charge of the universe. We’re one psych problem short of a security nightmare. And we’re fragile. Phoenix is. Tillington’s politicking between Sabin and Ogun is bringing live our old issues. My people still haven’t answered all the questions about why Ramirez pulled us away from Reunion and stranded those people out there in the first place. It’s not a dead issue with the crew or with the Reunioners. It may never be. Damned sure nobody in the crew is on the side of the old Pilots’ Guild, and Braddock’s claims to speak for that ancient organization get no handhold with us. But now Tillington’s shooting sparks into a volatile atmosphere. I don’t think he understands how what he’s saying translates to us or to atevi. But he’s the wrong man in the wrong place right now.”

He’d been busy since he’d gotten back. He’d been fighting for Tabini’s return, fighting to keep Tabini in office, fighting to defuse issues that had nearly taken the aishidi’tat apart. Tillington had been a name to him, and he’d trusted Geigi to tell him if there were things that needed attention. Of course there were disputes. There were issues. Those had seemed distant, someone else’s problem.

Then three kids wanted to come down to the planet for a birthday party, and three political systems exploded?

“Understand,” he said, “I have no standing with the Mospheiran government any longer. I haven’t been back there since before we left the planet.”

“The President is still an old friend of yours.”

“He is. And I can still talk to him, on that basis—and as what I am on the atevi side of the strait. I will try to talk to him. But, damn, Jase. I wasn’t paying attention up there. I let this one get past me.”

“You’ve been just a bit busy. Sabin knows that. It’s why we’ve said nothing until now. So Tillington doesn’t like Reunioners. His wanting to ship the Reunioners out to Maudit was understandable. Everything was understandable—down to the point where he decided he still wanted Ogun’s ear all to himself, everything the way it had been—and Sabin and me out of his way. That’s my theory. He doesn’t want Sabin back any more than he wants the Reunioners. In his head, it’s all one event that’s messed up his little world.”

“Damn, Jase.” He looked into the half-empty glass, as if it held an answer. Jase said he wasn’t as good at persuasion. But this was beyond persuasion. Massive changes had to be set in motion. “I hope the kids are safe going back up there.”

“They’ll be safe. I have no question of that. All the official craziness has been behind official doors. And best we keep it that way.”

“I hope so. I’ll get on this. I may need to fly over to the island, see if I can get a quiet meeting. Limit the number of outlets for this information, if you can. Last thing I want is Tillington’s theory of what happened debated in the legislature. One thing I will send up with you. Tabini-aiji wants those kids officially protected, by ship command. Wants them kept out of station politics. In any sense. He demands their free access to the planet, protection from political exploitation or political mention, and if that is threatened, he wants them on the atevi side of the wall up there. I have the wording. It’s that treaty clause—persons under protection of the aishidi’tat to be treated as citizens of the aishidi’tat.”

Jase drew in a breath. “I don’t think it was ever envisioned as three kids from Reunion.”

“The wording stands. As associates of the young gentleman, they have standing with the aiji. You don’t need to publicize the document. It’s just there if the Captains should need it. And it will be here if Tabini decides he needs to invoke it.”

Jase nodded. “Got it.”

“My personal seal as the aiji’s voice is no problem. I’ll have the document for you tomorrow, in case there’s any problem. I’ll get the aiji’s official seal on a more specific document to follow, shipped up to Geigi’s office by the next shuttle after yours. Keep them under lock and key, so to speak. But know they’re there.”

Jase stared into his own barely touched glass for a moment. Then:

“Come up there, Bren.”

“I’m up to my ears. Negotiations are at a make-or-break point . . . things we’ve been working on all year, that have to work. Things that can make the peace last.”

“Your help—would be invaluable.”

“I’m out of touch. I haven’t had time—”

“One shuttle cycle. You could make a difference.”

“Is this from Sabin?”

Jase shook his head. “From me. I’m asking you. None of the rest of the potential problems want a compromise. But trying to find a solution, convincing the Senior Captain to take it . . .”

“Down here, I know the issues. Down here, I have a role. Up there—I risk becoming one more issue. I’m not a Mospheiran official anymore.”

“You’ve been up there. You were part of it. I’m asking, Bren. Calling in a favor.”

Favor.

Gut-deep, he hated the ride up and down.

He needed to call the President—Shawn Tyers was an old friend, an old ally. He could be frank and honest with Shawn, make him understand, tell him the situation . . .

Shawn, who’d come up through the State Department, dealing with atevi—Shawn would understand it was serious. That something urgent had to be done, before atevi had to take notice of Tillington’s statements.

But what Jase said . . . what Jase described . . . was not one problem. Was not one man. There were problems up there. There were five thousand problems, outnumbering the Mospheirans on their own half of the station.

Five thousand problems and a situation that had gone unaddressed for the last year he’d been trying to pull the threads of the aishidi’tat together, and keep Tabini alive and the shuttles flying and the system functioning . . .

He’d left problems aloft to the four Phoenix captains and the two stationmasters—and knew they’d had troubles.

Geigi and he had been in close contact, and Geigi hadn’t complained—but Geigi’s priorities had been, the same as his, the survival of the aishidi’tat. Up on the station, Geigi held most of the robotics, and the construction stockpiles, controlled all but one of the shuttles that supplied the station, and kept order, presumably, on his side of the station.

On the Mospheiran side, however, there had been a year of stress, a year of overcrowding and some shortages and a stationmaster who wasn’t bearing up under the load—a year when there’d been planning to ship the Reunioners out to another construction, as yet only blueprints, even for the transport to get them there.

Nobody had committed money to the plan. Nobody had laid supplies on the table. A full year, now, and nothing had advanced except more blueprints, and Reunioners themselves were divided, some wanting to stay, some wanting to go. Braddock had inserted himself into the argument and pushed to go start the building, with himself in charge.

That had stalled things. Nobody outside the Reunioners wanted Braddock in charge. Most of the Reunioners didn’t want Braddock in charge, but there weren’t any others stepping forward.

Go up there?

Talk to people?

Get Tillington and Braddock out of the picture?

He was tired. He was exhausted. He had the tag ends of the year’s work lying on his foyer table back in the Bujavid, things that enabled the solution to the aishidi’tat’s problems. He’d taken a couple of weeks off to handle four kids and a birthday party.

“All right,” he said to Jase. “All right. I’ll come. I’ll get started on the Tillington matter as soon as I get to Shejidan. And when I do get up there, I’m not coming in on Sabin’s side, understand. I’m far more help that way.”

“Understood. I know how you work.”

“But I’ll get there. Soon as I can get the decks cleared down here. A few weeks.”

“You take care of yourself doing it. No more taking on the Guild bare-handed. None of that sort of thing.”

“No more,” Bren agreed fervently. Stitches notwithstanding, the back of his head still gave a phantom ache when he thought about it, and his valets feared he would have a lasting scar. “I’m confining my near-term activities to the legislature. Paper cuts will be my only hazard. And committee meetings. Not my favorite thing, but they’ll be the limit of my travels for the next few weeks.”

“Definite, however, that you’re coming?”

“I’ll be there. Don’t break the news yet. But tell Sabin I’ll get Tillington out of there, one way or the other. And in that matter—do me a personal favor, will you?”

“Sure.”

“Pay a visit to Lord Geigi for me, would you, among first priorities? Tell him I didn’t have time to get over to his estate, this trip, but I do have his staff reports. I could computerize them. Or you could hand-deliver them. And polish the contact. Just in case other routes get political.”

“No problem with that. I happen to like Geigi—I know, I know, not a word to use. But I like the man. He’s good company. I like his cook, too.”

“You’ve gotten a taste for the food, have you?”

“Kaplan and Polano even like the eggs. We don’t get enough flavors in our diet. Nicely balanced, all the right vitamins. But, God, send us up some pepper sauce.”

Bren laughed. “I can manage that tonight. Personal stock. If we expand the shuttle fleet—we can consider exporting some. Tell Geigi, too, that the Edi manor now has walls. They’re racing to finish the roof before the autumn rains. Same here at Najida.” The servant, long statue-still, offered another round of spice cakes. “Thank you, nadi-ji,” Bren said, declining. “One has had sufficient of the teacakes.”

“Indeed,” Jase said in Ragi, likewise declining. “One more glass, however.” And in ship-speak. “I’m not constrained to be responsible tonight. My head’s stuffed with agendas I don’t want to sleep with.”

“The same,” Bren asked the servant, to match his guest. “Thank you, nadi-ji.”

The servant poured, one and the other.

Jase gazed at him, and lifted the refilled glass. “To fixing this.”

3

The bus was coming. Standing in the foyer, with staff and baggage all about them, Cajeiri could hear the tires rumbling down the gravel road, and all too soon he could hear the bus turning onto the cobbles of the portico.

There was no way to stop it and no way to gain another hour at Najida. Nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji and their bodyguards were saying their good-byes to the major domo, Ramaso; and the house staff who had come to see the guests off had now started to move their baggage out into the dark, at the edge of the cobbled drive. That included, with both the big house doors now open, Boji’s rolling cage. That cage, ancient brass bars and filigree, made an enormous racket on the stone, which set Boji to jumping about and screaming. A truck would be coming behind the bus to take the big items, like the wardrobe crates, and Boji. And his valets were going to ride the truck and the baggage car both to keep Boji calm.

Cajeiri had no personal luggage to carry. House staff did that, and would not let his bodyguard or his guests carry luggage, either. The bus, the very same red and black bus that had served them up north in Tirnamardi, at Great-uncle’s estate, entered the drive and pulled up under the lights—a beautiful huge bus, red and black, his father’s clan colors, though it belonged to nand’ Bren; and they had patched the bullet holes before they had shipped it to Najida.

He was usually very glad to see it.

But not this morning. He wished he and his guests could run away to the hills, or out to the forest, or most anywhere they could gain another day down here. But that was not the way things were going to be. The baggage truck pulled up under the portico light, right behind the huge bus, and the servants rolled Boji’s cage out to it as the lift-gate lowered with a racket of its own. One attempted conversation with one’s guests. One tried to keep conversation light and happy.

Meanwhile servants loaded Boji and his cage onto the lift-gate and got him aboard. Their big clothing crates trundled out on their carts. Behind those, nearer the door, smaller bags piled up. Most of that size belonged to their guests, and staff would stow those in the luggage compartment under the bus.

Their belongings went aboard far too fast.

Then it was their turn.

“Thank you very much, nadi,” Cajeiri said, correctly bowing a good-bye to Ramaso as they filed toward the bus. “Thank you for taking care of my guests.”

Gene and Irene and Artur likewise made little bows, and thanked Ramaso, as they should.

Then while nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji waited, they boarded the bus, Irene and Artur being helped a little up the tall steps.

He and his guests and his own bodyguard had the whole back of the bus to themselves, and nand’ Bren’s two valets followed them back a moment later, immediately asking whether they wanted cold drinks or hot tea this morning.

Nand’ Bren had said there was going to be breakfast on the train. Cajeiri was not sure he could eat breakfast, and he had no desire for hot tea at the moment. They had all stayed up late, since no one had come to ask them to go to bed, and it had been their last night together. So late into the night they had laid all their plans and made all their arrangements to get together again. And his stomach was upset now.

He wished that Gene, hindmost in boarding the bus, and who had the most initiative of all his friends, had just bolted for the open land, dashed off across the fields and lost himself in the woods for a few days. In his wildest imagination he told himself if Gene just decided he was not going, then they might all miss the shuttle and have to stay and find him.

Or if Artur and Irene absolutely had to go back to their parents and only Gene ran and missed the shuttle, the staff would just have to send Gene to Shejidan once he turned up. And maybe Gene’s mother would just say it was all right and Gene could just stay for a while. Gene said his mother never cared what he did, and anything he did was all right.

Gene could survive in the woods until he was found—Gene knew how to dodge searches.

But even before they had landed on the planet, Artur had said, Jase-aiji had warned them all that he and his bodyguards had the means to track them, and that if they broke one little rule or got into trouble—he would have to report it officially.

So if Gene ran now—they might never get permission to come down again.

It was a little mean, to tell them they could not make a move without the ship tracking them.

But he understood. His own situation had begun to be exactly like that. He knew his aishid would have to find him. He knew their lives could be at risk if he misbehaved.

So the notion of any one of them running now was just an empty dream. His guests all had to go back to the station when they promised, to prove they could, and would.

And once they got home, they had to tell the right story to everyone who asked, assuring them that everything on Earth was perfectly safe, and never admitting there had been a danger of any sort.

So they all settled, obedient and quiet on the bus; and Cajeiri’s bodyguard sat in the seats across the aisle.

They waited, with no choice now, no wild escape possible. They had been lucky once: they had had one extension of their visit, which was probably because of technical stuff with the shuttle, though grown-ups could claim it was a favor to them.

He hoped he was going to get his guests back, next year at least, because they had done well.

Let them come every year until they were all just about grown—Irene being the oldest. He and his guests would behave so well, and they would not do anything against the rules next year, or the one after that—

But when it was the right year, if Irene could just wait until they all were of age, they could all just refuse to go back. And if he supported them in their request to stay, they could win. Three humans would never be welcome living in the Bujavid: there was too much jealousy over those apartments. But they could very easily live here at Najida. Najida had hosted nand’ Bren’s brother when he was here; and he was sure nand’ Bren would agree if he asked.

They might do that—when they were grown.

It seemed a very long time of behaving.

But his guests were a favor that he could always lose, to politics, or to his father’s displeasure.

When you get back to the world, Great-grandmother had told him, just last year, when you are back among atevi, among people who act properly, you will find atevi feelings in yourself, and you will have a much surer compass than you do right now.

That meant a needle would swing to the world’s north, no matter how one tried to turn it somewhere else. That was what mani had meant when she said that.

And sometimes his feelings really were like that: he did feel an attraction. He felt it toward mani, of course, and toward his parents. But he did not think mani had ever expected he would have such a strong swing of that compass toward three humans, who, as mani had explained it, had compasses of their own, which might eventually swing to a very different place.

Mani had said his internal compass would get stronger and surer as he grew.

Well, it had done that.

It had done it, even during this visit of his three guests. He had gotten far more determined about his own future, and he had thought matters through. He had no question at all that his internal compass swung to his father, and to mani, and to nand’ Bren and even to Great-uncle Tatiseigi, who had really surprised him; but there was no question either that Gene and Irene and Artur had a very necessary place in that arrangement, and he was not going to lose them.

Humans can change loyalty, nand’ Bren had told him once.

“Will you change, nandi?” he had asked nand’ Bren right back, and nand’ Bren had looked a little distressed.

“I could not,” nand’ Bren had said. “No. I would not.”

He thought about that, as the bus began to roll.

If nand’ Bren could be so absolutely certain of himself, could not these three?

And if it was a feeling nand’ Bren had, could not these three have it?

Gene wanted to come back. Artur worried about his parents, and tried to find what made everybody happy—which was why Artur was so quiet, and thought so much; but at some time in the future Artur had to make himself happy, and Artur was going to find that out. He was sure Artur could be happy here, with things to investigate, like rocks, and thunderstorms—

Irene, now—

Irene was the one who was not going into a happy situation, back on the station.

Irene and her mother—like Gene, Irene had no father—did not agree. He certainly understood not agreeing with parental rules, but Irene followed them only because she had to. That was what Irene said.

Gene had gotten arrested by security and gotten a bad mark on station. He did not so much defy the rules as ignore the ones that inconvenienced him. Cajeiri understood that.

Artur would ask permission and then try to reason his way through the rules. Artur was fairly timid-acting, but that was because Artur was thinking how to get past the problem and still not break any rules.

But if Artur ran out of time, Artur would do what he felt he had to.

Irene, however—he feared Irene would just explode someday. That was what he always felt, dealing with her. Irene would reach a point she would just explode. She had changed her hair before she came down, gone from dark as atevi to fair as Bren, and her frown when they asked said they were not to ask about it. She had cut up most of her station clothes with scissors the second morning in Tirnamardi, and thrown the pieces away, very upset with them, saying only that she needed room in her baggage. She had been collecting writing paper, even scraps, and he had given her whole fresh packets of it, so there was a lot of stationery in her personal luggage right now, along with two picture books he had given her, and her prettiest clothes from his birthday festivity. She was going to wear her riding clothes to go to the spaceport. Irene was very, very smart, smarter than any of them, he suspected. She was certainly the best at languages, and she was, of all of them, a little scary, possibly because Irene herself was always a little scared. What she was scared of, Cajeiri was not sure—maybe she was scared of her own questions. She was a little unlike the others. Her skin was brown. Her eyes were dark. Her frown was like a sky clouding over. And she was so scared of flying she got sick and probably would again.

He so wished he could help her.

He’d said that to Gene, last night, about Irene needing the rest of them, about Irene just exploding someday, and Gene had understood him.

“We can’t always get to her apartment,” Gene said, and tried to explain, saying, “Like the Bujavid. Like the third floor. Not everybody comes there. Security zone, where Irene is.”

So Irene’s mother had to be somebody more important than Gene’s mother and Artur’s parents. And if Irene lived in a security zone, then he was worried for her. Irene’s mother had been against her coming down until the very last moment. And then Irene’s mother had changed her mind for no reason they really understood. If Irene herself knew why, she had not told them; but at least she had gotten to come.

There could be a problem, a very big problem with Irene, on the next visit.

If her mother was important, then politics was involved.

And he knew what that meant.

· · ·

It was a fair long road from Najida to the train station, one Bren had traveled more often than most roads—and it was a faster trip these days, thanks to peace in the district. Najida cooperated nowadays in road maintenance with the township to the south, with Geigi’s estate, and with the township to the north, so Bren had found himself the unlikely owner of, to date, a fire truck, a yacht, an ambulance, a road grader, a large truck, a dump truck, and a formidable earthmover that could variously hammer a large rock or pick it up in a bin. Combined with other districts, Najida could do substantial jobs for the district, like road repair, employing no few locals in the process.

So he was somewhat proud of the local road. Not so fine as some, but good enough for market traffic, all the way to the township in the south, and again to Geigi’s estate.

Najida district was his home, in a sense. It had become that. He cared about the people. He cared for them. Whenever he was here, he heard their problems and solved them if he could, whether with application of his personal income or by hearing both sides of an argument and sorting it out as fairly and sensibly as he knew how. He maintained the few roads, he lent transport at need. He paid medical bills. And when he was not here, the Najidi could write to him in the capital, and he would do what he could for the district from the Bujavid—which very often was enough to handle the difficulty. It made him extraordinarily happy, being able to do that.

But now he was traveling back to a different existence, to do a wider job, while Najida disappeared behind them in a cloud of dust. In that other job, there was far less thanks, but it mattered far more to the outside world.

And now Jase wanted him to expand that endeavor.

He and Jase sat and talked while the sun rose and the dawn landscape ripped past the unshielded windows of the bus.

They weren’t using the window shades this morning. The youngsters and Jase had so little time left to see the world, and it was an hour void of other traffic. Trucks might come later today, picking up or delivering goods or, rarely, passengers. But now the road was vacant and they had an unobstructed view of grasslands and small groves of trees.

It was a special train they were meeting, at a very early hour, and indeed that old-fashioned train was waiting as the bus climbed the barely perceptible rise. The engine sat steaming a plume into the pink morning light, ready to roll.

The station where it waited was a modest and rustic place. There was a newly painted little office, next to a small plank-sided warehouse, a wooden loading platform and the requisite water and sand towers of more modern vintage. The venerable and elegant steam engine had only two cars at the moment—one a standard baggage car, the other an old-fashioned passenger car with windows that only looked like windows.

In point of fact—it was the elegant Red Train, the aiji’s own, with the baggage car that usually attended it. Tabini routinely lent it to the paidhi-aiji on official business—and in this case it was here to convey honored guests to the spaceport and bring the aiji’s son back home. It had run from Shejidan, crossed the Southern mountains and the chancy district of the Senjin Marid last night to be here this morning.

It would not be taking the same route home.

The bus rolled slowly to a halt alongside the platform and opened the doors.

Tano and Algini were first out onto the platform, and other armed, black-uniformed Guild appeared from both train cars. Those would be the aiji’s men, who would have ridden out from the capital, and who now would ride back in the baggage car.

Clearly, from the easy manner on both sides, they were people Tano and Algini knew, and Bren himself recognized two who served in the aiji’s own apartment.

Algini gave the all-clear. Banichi and Jago got to their feet; Bren and Jase did, and they exited first.

Then the young folk came out, joined them in crossing to the waiting train, a short walk with a living shield of Guild bodies, to a second, assisted climb into the waiting train car.

Inside that car was red velvet from a prior century, fake windows with fake shades that didn’t work but looked elegant—two areas of small tables, ordinary seats, then a bench seat at the rear, near the galley. The youngsters took the reverse of their seating on the bus. Bren and Jase and their bodyguards went to the rear where there was a bench seat and galley, while the youngsters and Cajeiri’s young bodyguard stayed at the two table and bench arrangements nearest the door.

“Tea?” Bren’s senior valet asked as they settled in. The water in the tea service was already hot, no surprise there. The containers with their breakfast arrived aboard from the bus, handed up by the aiji’s men, who were out on the platform seeing to the baggage.

There was the sound of another vehicle outside: their baggage truck had arrived, with the young gentleman’s baggage, and his. Jase’s bulkier baggage, and the youngsters’ one large case, had gone to the port last night.

They would take tea while the crates loaded, he and Jase. The youngsters declined.

Boji’s screech was audible even with the car door shut. No question he was part of the operation, first loaded, last off.

And toward the end of the first cup, came the thump of the baggage car door slamming shut.

In a moment more, the Red Train began to move, a barely perceptible motion.

Bren’s valets, Koharu and Supani, began the breakfast service with a professional flair. Ramaso and Cook had provided absolutely everything they could ask, hot and chill, and spicy and sweet and savory, from the insulated cases. A liquid storage held an abundance of iced fruit juice.

Even the youngsters stayed in a cheerful mood so long as the fruit juice held out.

But as Koharu and Supani cleared the service away, a glum quiet descended on the young company at that end of the car. Heads came close together up there, secrets exchanged.

“They’re exhausted,” Jase said quietly, over a last cup of tea. “They were up all night. They’re running entirely on nerves this morning. Irene’s scared of flying. Absolutely terrified.”

“Poor kid,” Bren said. And added: “They’ve been running hard for days. And it was a given they wouldn’t sleep last night until they fell over.”

“If they did sleep at all, it was about an hour toward dawn.”

He and Jase shared a second pot of tea. Banichi and the others, in rare relaxation, sat at the other end of the bench, in their own conversation. Jase’s bodyguards, Kaplan and Polano, in green fatigues, had the side bench seat, backs to the false windows, talking together as the valets cleaned up and put the dishes away.

Jase, like the youngsters, had opted for atevi dress all the way to the spaceport. Just when they’d change clothes, or whether they’d all change before the launch, Bren hadn’t asked.

Maybe the clothing choice was a courtesy to their hosts. Maybe it was a way of not saying good-bye yet.

But Jase, Bren thought, was already mentally going home, already thinking about problems aloft, business that had to be done—and Jase was clearly less happy this morning.

Truthfully, he was going through exactly the same process. He’d have liked to have more days at Najida.

He’d have liked to have time to handle some local matters.

He’d have liked to make a personal visit to Kajiminda, Geigi’s estate, just down the main road, to take a leisurely walk through Kajiminda’s ancient orchard. He’d have liked to take the bus out to the new construction the Edi were building at the end of that peninsula.

He’d even more have liked to have a week to himself on his yacht, to feel the sea under him. He dreamed of four or five days to pretend to fish, but he absolutely couldn’t afford any more time away from the capital.

And he found himself, in the quiet moments this morning, already thinking about the legislature: already thinking about the dowager’s agreement with the Marid, and about the next things that had to be done.

He wasn’t thinking, quite yet, about the problems on the station.

He was doggedly not thinking about that.

That resolve failed. He urgently had to do something about Tillington. A letter to Mospheira was a start. The President, Shawn Tyers, was indeed an old friend. And he had to make that letter say what needed saying. He might have to go to Mospheira, to say what needed saying. He just didn’t know.

He’d been up well before dawn composing one document—in two languages.

Now he quietly picked up his briefcase, opened it, and handed them to Jase.

“What I promised,” he said. “Take the copies for your own files. I have a translation for the aiji.”

“Exactly what I need,” Jase said, as he read, and gave a deep sigh. “Excellent. Thank you.”

“There’ll be a statement with the aiji’s own seal, next shuttle.”

Jase drew his own traveling case from the floor near his seat. “There was a little lingering question up there, whether Tabini-aiji would stay in office or whether, if he did, his power would ever be what it was. I have no doubts now that it’s probably greater than it ever was. And I’ll convey that impression to the Council.”

“I’ll report to the aiji, in turn, that Sabin remains his ally.”

“Ogun isn’t the aiji’s enemy, understand, if I’ve given any other impression. Ogun’s just keeping all the connections polished. And right now, and since Yolande’s resigned, he thinks he needs Tillington. So he gives him maneuvering room, and tries to encourage the right maneuver. Does he know the man is flawed? Probably. Ogun’s no fool.”

“I’ll be thinking about Tillington. I’ll do something.”

“To the great relief of all of us.”

“Given what you said last night,” Bren said, and let that trail off in very dark thoughts. “God. God. Why can’t people get along? We—meaning you and I—right now—we two could sort out the Reunioner business and get everybody half of what they want—if we could get one hour of honest compromise out of both sides.”

“I’d settle for five minutes. But we have done good things on this trip, the two of us.”

“We should arrange an annual Official Fact-finding,” Bren said. “Bring the kids.”

Jase laughed. “I’ll use that argument.”

“Next year. The official birthday.”

“Another Festivity?”

“Ten is a less felicitous year for the young gentleman, so there’ll be no public celebration entailed. A much quieter event. No public access. You’ve never seen the mountains. We could take that train trip to Malguri. With the window shades up. Snowy mountains. Glaciers.”

“The kids would like that,” Jase said. “I would.”

Came a burst of laughter from the front of the car, where the youngsters gathered, laughter far louder than usual, and not involving Cajeiri’s bodyguard.

Nervous laughter. Desperate laughter. The kids were trying their best to compress everything good into a last few hours.

It was like that with him and Jase—tense. Keenly aware of imminent parting. They’d had weeks to say everything they could think of. They’d cleaned up the loose ends last night.

But they would be seeing each other in the immediate future, in a much more serious context—and he didn’t know how he was going to exclude Cajeiri from that trip, on the one hand.

Or get permission from his parents, on the other.

It would be an excuse for Cajeiri to get access to the kids.

But did he want the boy to become a presence in station politics?

The Red Train gave a little jolt as they shunted onto the northern route, bound for the spaceport.

4

It would have been a lot smoother, at the spaceport train station, just to say their good-byes at the door of the Red Car, let their guests cross the rustic wooden platform to the waiting bus, and let the train continue on to Shejidan with no more delay.

But that just wasn’t going to be satisfactory for the kids, and Bren didn’t even suggest it. The Red Train could safely sit where it was for an hour: the spaceport spur, off the main north-south line, didn’t have anything incoming or outgoing for at least two hours.

So they all—excepting Tano and Algini, who stayed with the train for security—walked out onto the platform, where uniformed spaceport personnel were offloading the few pieces of carry-on baggage from the baggage car—Boji’s shrieks of protest about that process were loud and frequent.

The spaceport bus was waiting alongside the baggage truck—but this time the kids delayed crossing the platform, gazing at the horizons all about them, sweeping from the high metal fence of the spaceport, to the rolling hills and grasslands that surrounded the train station in the other directions.

Trees. Grass. Everything had been a miracle to them. Artur was taking home his little collection of pebbles, little brown and gray rocks from every place he’d visited. A spaceborn child from a metal and plastics world, he’d never handled bare rock before.

Never seen a sky cloud up and rain.

None of them had.

The kids needed to move on and board the bus now. And Cajeiri wasn’t urging them and he wasn’t watching the scenery, either. He was watching them, utterly ignoring Boji’s muffled shrieks from the baggage car. Bren gave them all a minute more, in the relative security of the place.

“Got to move, kids,” Jase said then. “Sorry. Have to go.”

They did move, not without looks back. They dutifully boarded the bus and went all the way to the seats in the back—where they immediately took peeks under the drawn window shades.

Bren, standing in the aisle, said to Jago, “Tell them they may raise the shades, Jago-ji.”

It was more of a risk here, but it was still a very small risk, now, counting an area with security all about. And if raising the shades made the youngsters feel less confined and compelled in their leaving—he judged it worth it.

So they all settled, leaving their hand luggage to the spaceport crew, all of it set aboard the bus, down in baggage.

The bus door sealed. As the bus startled to roll, the youngsters scrambled to raise the window shades on both sides of the bus, seeking a panoramic view. The driver turned the bus about on the broad graveled parking area, then took the gravel road along the security fence at a brisk clip.

Bren tried to think of any last moment thing he needed to say to Jase, something he might have forgotten.

Likely Jase was thinking just as desperately, going down a mental checklist. They’d reached their agreements. They’d planned their course. Matters belonging to the world were rapidly leaving Jase’s interest.

Matters on the space station, Bren thought, were invading Jase’s agenda hand over fist.

Jase’s security team, Kaplan and Polano, were talking idly behind them, saying they’d be glad to get back to friends in the crew, and wondering if there would ever be an atevi restaurant on the human side of the station.

The kids—there was noise back there. There was nervous laughter. There were periods of heavy silence.

Leave the boy behind, when he made his own promised trip up to the station?

That wasn’t going to be easy.

But there was the matter of domestic peace, too—and the boy had new ties to Earth. A new baby had arrived in the aiji’s household, and Cajeiri needed to bond with his new sister, and needed to firm up the bonds with his parents.

That bond mattered, to the atevi psyche. It mattered desperately. And they’d disrupted that, in the boy’s life. Two years of separation at a young and vulnerable age. And Cajeiri was just getting over it, finding his parents again, with his emotions all fragile with being parted from his associations on the ship and being forced to find what he had lost on the planet.

No. Not a good idea, a trip up to the station right now, with hard politics potentially at issue up there.

But how on earth did one tell the boy no?

The final turn. They pulled up at the guarded gate, and port security let them right on through, the armored doors yawning open on another, more modern world.

In the front windows now, the shuttle—it happened to be Shai-shan—rested sleek and white, looking like a visitor from the world’s future in a gathering of mundane trucks and tankers of this present age, the whole area blinking with red warning lights and blue perimeter flashers.

Closer sat the administrative and storage buildings. The freight warehouse and preparation area loomed on the right, and, low and inconspicuous in the heart of the complex, sat the passenger terminal—a modest two-story building, of which shuttle passengers generally saw no more than the sparsely furnished lounge.

But they didn’t go to the terminal. The bus drove past the blue flashers, straight for the edge of the runway, and there the bus stopped.

They would board directly: Jase’s prerogative. That was the word from the port. A starship captain could waive customs for himself and his companions, where it came to personal items. And Jase had done it.

· · ·

There was no more time. Cajeiri got up, and his bodyguard did, and his guests did. He looked at them all—he looked hard, trying to remember every detail of their faces, their relative height—that was going to change. By their next visit, and forever after, he would very likely be the tallest of them, and the tallest by quite a lot, once they were all grown.

The bus doors opened, and it was time.

They had to behave now. They had to follow all the regulations. Most of all things in the world, they had to keep nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji firmly on their side.

Cajeiri had only one immediately chancy intention, however: to go just as far as he could with his guests, and not to have to say good-bye at the bus door. He led the way up the aisle, up to the door, as Jase-aiji’s bodyguards were going out, and as Jase-aiji was taking his own leave of nand’ Bren. If he got onto the steps, he had to go down them to let his guests out, and his bodyguard had to go out, and he would be outside with them.

But Jase-aiji and nand’ Bren went on out ahead of him. So he was able to go outside with his guests, just behind Kaplan and Polano, and stand with them under the open sky. They were so close to the runway they could hear the address system from trucks attending the shuttle, voices talking about numbers, and technical things.

Jase-aiji had lingered to talk with nand’ Bren and their security. But nand’ Bren was going no farther, so this, now, was where they had to say good-bye, having gotten at least this far together.

His guests understood, too. Irene’s eyes started watering, and she kept trying to stop the flood, and trying to make her face calm.

“One regrets,” Irene said in good Ragi, wiping at her face. “One tried not to do this, Jeri-ji. It’s stupid.”

“You have to go,” Cajeiri said, “but remember what we said last night. We are associates. Forever. And I will get you back, so long as you want to come back. If everything goes well—I shall get you back for my next birthday. Maybe sooner.”

“We stay connected,” Gene said.

“I have my notebook,” Irene said. She sniffed and her voice shook.

“Just be careful what you say to everybody,” Cajeiri said. That was his greatest worry. “Tell only the good things. Be careful. And remember you should not have to pay anything to send letters or to call me on the phone. Do not let anybody say you have to pay. Nand’ Geigi will send the letters for you if you cannot reach nand’ Jase. Just get the letters to him if you have any trouble. And go to him first if anything goes wrong.”

“We shall write,” Gene said. “A lot.”

“Come along, kids,” Jase-aiji said, waiting with his bodyguard. “Sorry. They want us aboard. They’re going into an unscheduled hold for us.”

A moment of panic came down then. They looked at each other. Irene took a deep breath and managed to steady herself. Artur and Gene gave a little bow, very proper.

Then they walked away, all three.

· · ·

The youngsters all three were very polite, very proper in their leaving, bowing as they passed on their way to Jase, and Bren returned the bows very gravely, in silence.

Irene was the last.

“Nandi,” she said properly.

“Reni-daja,” Bren said. That was Cajeiri’s name for her. “Have a very good flight.”

“Get me back!” she whispered suddenly in ship-speak, looking up at him. “Please get me back, sir!”

Then she spun around and ran the few steps to catch up with Jase and the two boys, wiping tears as she went.

God, Bren thought, a little shaken by that. He stood watching as Jase and the kids walked on their way to the shuttle, along the safety corridor painted on the pavement. Jase had his hand on Gene’s shoulder, and the boys had Irene between them, holding her hands.

He turned then to see how Cajeiri was taking the departure, and saw a forlorn figure, as tall as he was, back already turned, boarding the bus with his own bodyguard waiting.

Damn, he thought as he headed back to the bus. He wasn’t sure whether Cajeiri had seen or prompted that exchange with Irene, but he was relatively sure Cajeiri’s young bodyguard had seen it.

When he boarded, Cajeiri had gone to the rear of the bus with his bodyguard, and they were all talking to him, heads close together.

The adult world that made good-bye necessary just wasn’t going to have any welcome advice for the boy right now. And he and Jase had planned as much as they could plan to be sure the kids would come back next year.

It was bound to hurt.

It had to hurt. But it was part of the boy’s growing up.

He settled behind the driver with Banichi and Jago for the trip back, sighed sadly, and leaned back. The driver started the bus, took a broad turn, and headed back the way they had come.

“How is the schedule, nadiin-ji?” he asked them.

“We are well within the window,” Banichi said. “One freight is inbound for the port, but we have plenty of time.”

They would have no trouble getting off the spaceport spur before then. The shuttle would launch before then.

And it was significant that Cajeiri hadn’t asked to stay and see it go.

“One cannot read the young gentleman at the moment,” he said to his aishid. “One is concerned for him.”

“He is making every effort,” Jago said, “to bear this in a dignified way. He has done very well today.”

So Jago thought the boy was handling it well enough.

But making the boy happy to go back to the confines of his life in the capital, making him content, there—

That was not going to happen.

· · ·

They reached the platform, they left the bus in silence and crossed to the train. Tano and Algini waited for them at the steps.

The boy, first inside, with his bodyguard, just settled where he and his guests had sat, in the empty seats, at the now lonely little table. His young aishid stood, uniformly long-faced, in the nook beside him.

“Young aiji,” Bren said, pausing by the table, “if you should wish to join me at the rear of the car, you would be welcome. One does not insist, however.”

A muscle jumped in Cajeiri’s jaw, a little effort at self-control. The boy looked up. “I shall prefer to sit here, nandi. Thank you.”

Fragile. And so wishing not to give way right now. Bren gave a little bow and with a movement of his eyes, advised his valets, who were in charge of service on the train, and poised to offer tea or anything else desired, also to let the boy be. The boy’s own bodyguard would do anything the boy wanted. Cajeiri just asked to be alone, and one had to respect that, in a boy who had, overall, done very, very well and behaved bravely in recent weeks.

So Bren went back to the bench seat at the rear of the car, with his bodyguard, and with his valets following closely.

“The household might have tea, nadi,” he told his valet quietly, including Supani and his partner Koharu in the suggestion—and he settled into his place on the corner of the bench seat, where he habitually sat. His bodyguard settled with him, and the train began to roll.

Quiet again. Devastatingly quiet. No Jase. No kids’ laughter.

In another half hour he had the word from Tano that the shuttle had started its takeoff.

Within the hour he had the word that the shuttle had cleared the atmosphere and was in space, safely past the most dangerous part of its return.

“Advise the young gentleman’s aishid,” Bren said and Tano did that, via Guild communications, just the length of the car.

The young gentleman settled after that, over against the wall, head down, arms folded, apparently asleep.

Despite the adrenaline from the launch and the climb to orbit, the youngsters on the shuttle would soon be ready to fall asleep, too, seatbelts fastened, for the next few hours.

They’d certainly earned it.

They’d all earned it. Jase and his bodyguard, too.

· · ·

The paidhi-aiji, however, who had been up before dawn composing documents for Jase, had two reports to outline while the details were fresh in his mind, and another set of documents to translate.

The train was headed home, on an eastward route right back around to the Central Station. They would come into the capital, then take the ordinary route along the edge of the city, to the Bujavid train station.

Tatiseigi had returned to the capital some three days ago. Ilisidi was back from business in the East.

And the letters waiting for him in his Bujavid residence were surely overflowing the message bowl by now, business postponed as long as it could be.

Aiji-ma, Bren wrote to Tabini, the guests have gone home with many expressions of gratitude for their visit. The young gentleman is exhausted, and sleeping as I write. His comportment was exemplary in these last days. I am very glad to have had him as my guest at Najida and he is welcome at any time to return. He is a great favorite of my staff.

I had opportunity to speak with Jase-aiji at some length. Last night he conveyed a request that I visit the station in the near future, to become acquainted with the station’s current situation and more specifically with the performance of Tillington, the human station-aiji, Lord Geigi’s counterpart. Lord Geigi himself has not, in my hearing, complained of Tillington, but I am alarmed at recent statements, which are problematic for our political allies on the station.

The difficulty springs from an ancient disagreement, in which the Reunioners, who were the aijiin of the station in past times, lost the man’chi of the population, and then left the world to pursue settlement elsewhere.

During the two years of the recent Troubles, Mospheirans on the station, in anticipation of a much smaller number of Reunioners returning, worked hard to enlarge the living space and also to repair damages done to the food production factory by a stray piece of rock, this during our mission to Reunion, and during the two years when Murini, of unfortunate memory, had grounded the shuttles.

The arrival of a much larger than expected number of Reunioners has crowded the human section of the station and shortened supply. The station is divided into two territories. And the Reunioners came with families. Mospheiran workers, for whom families are forbidden, have been crowded into less space, and have a very limited ability to return to Earth for family visits. For various reasons, including scarcity of employment, the ancient antipathy of Mospheirans toward Reunioners has resurfaced, creating tensions.

The Mospheiran folk wish to be rid of the Reunioners who have disrupted their lives, and indeed, the population of the station is oversupplied with humans so long as the Reunioners remain. But any plan to have the Reunioners go apart and build another station risks the eventual rise of an opposition group of humans. I most strongly discourage that as a solution, aiji-ma. First of all, there is the treaty requirement of numerical parity, which would require atevi presence in equal numbers. It is likely that if the Reunioners stay on the station under current conditions of shortage and overcrowding, there will be conflict. It seems clear that if they cannot stay where they are and we cannot send them elsewhere, the Mospheiran government has it incumbent on them to bring the Reunioners down to Earth. In the general population of Mospheira, five thousand Reunioners will become a minority population and they can be integrated into Mospheiran society.

Unfortunately two human aijiin have risen in opposition to each other, station-aiji Tillington, appointed by the Presidenta of Mospheira; and Braddock, about whom I have previously reported, who has appointed himself aiji of the Reunioners, though currently unrecognized by the Mospheirans.

Tillington’s activities in promoting a new station for the Reunioners have produced a division of policy even among the ship-aijiin, with Ogun-aiji favoring Tillington and Sabin opposed to his proposals.

Lately, however, Tillington has made false statements regarding Sabin-aiji, which are destructive of the peace and which cannot be tolerated.

Jase-aiji has asked me first to contact the Presidenta by letter regarding Tillington’s behavior and seek his dismissal and replacement. He has also asked me to come up to the station to acquaint myself with the current situation. I shall contact the Presidenta. I hope to see the appointment of a new official who will work toward a settlement of the Reunioners and a relief of pressures on the station. Of course I cannot go aloft without your permission, aiji-ma, but it seems to me that peace in the heavens does well serve your administration, and I hope you will grant me leave to do this, so I may bring back useful information.

I have several urgent Earthly matters before me in the meanwhile, and I shall be working on those with a view to settling all issues in the current legislative session before I undertake anything else.

I look forward to a meeting and discussion at your leisure, aiji-ma. I am happy to report I bring you no other crises whatever, and that our guests are now safely in space again.

To Ilisidi he wrote:

Aiji-ma, the guests are safely in space and by the time this letter reaches you, your great-grandson will be safely home with his parents as well.

I was greatly surprised to see the magnificent windows at Najida, and to see the first one in its permanent place in the main hall. They are extraordinary, and I by no means expected such an extravagant honor. They will be treasured not only by myself, but also treasured by the people of the region.

I remain indebted to you as well for your continued support, and notably to Lord Tatiseigi for his gracious hospitality on his estate.

I shall immediately address myself to the matter of the railroad, and hope for an early conclusion favoring all your plans.

I look forward to giving a more detailed report at your convenience, but I can safely report there is no urgency involved on any matter involving our guests or your grandson, whose deportment was impeccable throughout.

He is now at home with his parents and new sister and I hope will enjoy the memories of an extraordinary visit.

He was, he began to realize, exhausted. And he had just kept silent, in the dowager’s letter, about a very dangerous situation, and glossed it over in his report to Tabini. He didn’t like the position he was in.

He sat there, staring at nothing at all, and hoped for an early night, his own bed, maybe the chance to sleep in tomorrow.

It wasn’t altogether likely, but one could hope.

5

Cajeiri drew a breath, waking. The train was making that strange sound it did, slowly puffing up the incline in the tunnel under the Bujavid, a sound he had heard, oh, many times before in his life, on good occasions and bad.

His bodyguard was near him.

But his guests were not.

He knew it just in the air, before moving. His guests had a kind of perfume about them that was not atevi, and that was gone. They were gone and their belongings were gone, as if they had never been here at all.

He had had so strong an impression in his sleep that everything was all right and they were with him—that he had thought things should be that way when he waked.

And he knew now they were not.

He did not lift his head immediately. He composed himself, carefully settled his expression, decided how he should behave—as if nothing in the world were wrong—and began to do that, waking, and stretching, and saying, conversationally, to his aishid:

“I believe we are about two turns from the platform, nadiin-ji. Are we ready?”

“Yes, nandi,” Jegari said, and added: “Nand’ Bren says the shuttle is now safely in space.”

That was good. He was glad to know it. But the sympathetic look his aishid gave him nearly unraveled him.

They knew how upset and how sad he was. They absolutely knew it.

He gave his head that little jerk his father used when he was giving a silent order to behave, and kept his face expressionless. They knew that gesture, too. He meant to give no acknowledgment of his distress, no outward admission, not even for nand’ Bren.

And he desperately hoped nand’ Bren would not shake his composure with any expression of regret.

He could not avoid nand’ Bren’s company, however. He just said, when the train had stopped, and nand’ Bren came down the aisle— “I am doing quite well, nandi.”

“You are indeed, young aiji,” nand’ Bren said, giving his greater title, very courteously, and, to his relief, not treating him at all as a child.

“Mind,” nand’ Bren added, “that your parents will be anxious about your impressions of your guests, and their influence on you. They will be forming their opinions about the effects of their visit. Trust that I shall be giving them a very favorable report, as Jase-aiji will give to his associates.”

Practicalities. Politics. That was a relief. That was what he had to think about. Nand’ Bren was very sensibly warning him to think clearly.

“And well done, young aiji.”

That—jarred him a little.

“Nandi.” He gave a little bow. He already knew his parents would be judging him, and listening to those reports—and to some reports less favorable, probably, by busybodies he could not control. Any bad report worried him. But there could not be too many of those. “I shall be very careful,” he managed to say. “Thank you, nandi.”

He was to leave the train first, these days, being his father’s heir.

Being no longer just a child.

Tano and Algini went forward and opened the door, and stepped down to the platform first—senior Guild, as his aishid was not. Cajeiri followed, disembarked under their guard.

And everything was ordinary. The train was at its ordinary spot. Some of his father’s household staff were on the platform to meet them and handle baggage, and likewise some of nand’ Bren’s staff stood by as the baggage car began to open up. He heard Boji give a shriek. It echoed eerily and lost itself in the high darkness of the station.

But his valets, and nand’ Bren’s, would be taking care of all that detail, so they need not be delayed by that.

Should not be. Dared not be. He had learned that from infancy, that he was not safe standing anywhere in a public place for too long, because some people, probably including, at the moment, his mother’s own clan, wanted to kill him.

They crossed the platform, he, and nand’ Bren and their bodyguards, a much smaller party on their return. They reached the lift in company with nand’ Bren, and Tano keyed them in.

The familiar ride up was not an easy few moments. Cajeiri stood and looked at the lights on the panel, and tried to clear the lump in his throat as the car rose up, up, up through all the levels of the Bujavid’s sub-basements.

When the car reached the third floor above ground, and the doors opened on their own hallway, he exited the car with his bodyguard, turned and bowed to nand’ Bren, and said, with good control: “Nandi, thank you very much. One is very grateful.”

“One thanks you, young aiji. Well done. Well done, today.”

Oh, if that today were not there, he might have held it better. Today was not a happy word.

But nand’ Bren simply bowed and said not another word, just headed off toward his apartment, regardless of precedent.

Cajeiri was grateful for that. Nand’ Bren’s was a door that he must pass to reach his own, one apartment farther down the hall. But he could concentrate now on gathering his dignity.

He would not, at least, have to face his father immediately; he could say hello to the servants, change coats, get to his own suite, then report to his father. He could do that.

He stood there a breath or two, then quietly nodded to his aishid, and Jegari and Antaro, each with letters to carry, departed in the opposite direction.

He and Veijico and Lucasi walked on, as nand’ Bren reached his own apartment door.

Antaro was carrying a letter he had written to his great-grandmother; and Jegari carried a similar letter to his great-uncle Tatiseigi—both resident just up the broad, ornate hallway, with its plinths, its vases, its antique silk carpets.

His guests had thought it very beautiful. He had never noticed so many things until they had marveled at them.

He did not want to talk to his great-grandmother or his great-uncle yet. He had no wish to talk to his parents, either—but they were a duty he could find no way to escape.

I am well, he had written in those notes to mani and to Great-uncle. Thank you very much for entertaining us. My guests were very happy and they thank you very much. I thank you for the wonderful things we enjoyed and also thank you very much for my presents. I look forward to the next time I can ride.

I am going back into my parents’ apartment now. I understand that I have new responsibilities to my father and I am very grateful that I have had more time with my guests than I expected.

Thank you very much.

And to both letters he had added another line, in hope that there would be an interruption in his boredom—or a safe place, should his mother and father be having one of their arguments.

Should you wish to invite me to dinner or lunch or breakfast soon, I would be very honored.

· · ·

Narani was waiting at Bren’s door to open it as they arrived—of course Narani was waiting, alerted long since to their arrival at the train station, and having been in contact with Banichi or Jago all the way up.

And, standing now in his own apartment foyer, with household staff crowding the inner hall and the smell of fresh baking and festive pizza in the air, Bren gladly handed off his outdoor coat and the bulletproof vest—Jago had insisted he wear the heavy, hot garment today, just in case.

Now he could wear a comfortable light coat; his bodyguard could shed their own armored duty jackets for more comfortable light leather, likewise offered in staff hands.

Here was safety and very familiar faces. Narani was beaming. So was Narani’s assistant and understudy Jeladi, while the staff farther back in the hall was all but standing on tiptoe to get a view and their share in the homecoming. They had a personal stake in recent events, after so many weeks of upset and absence, and their personal efforts in caring for young humans.

“Everything went well with the young visitors, nandi?”

“Very well, Rani-ji. Nand’ Jase and the young people are now safely up in space, and it will be an easy journey home for them now. The young gentleman is bound for his own door, at the moment, safe and well. We have finished our mission with honor.”

“Excellent,” Narani said. “Truly excellent, nandi. There is pizza. There is every delicacy. And chilled wine.”

Home. He was definitely home, and safe, with all obligations discharged.

It had been a while since he had been home with no guests, no emergencies, no crisis. The staff had justly declared itself a party in celebration of the event, and there in the doorway, like a barge making its way through crowded waters, came stout Bindanda, the master of the kitchen, his dark arms dusted with flour, clearly fresh from work, very dignified and very happy.

There stood, on the table beside Bindanda, a less welcome sight—the overflowing message bowl, a sight almost obscured by the press of bodies in the hall. Message cylinders not only filled the figured porcelain bowl; a second, less elegant brass bowl held the unprecedented overflow.

Oh, not everything therein could possibly be felicitous—or simple. Simple letters his secretarial staff handled. They sent up the problems, the puzzles, the security threats, and the high-ranking ones. And all those were waiting for him.

It was, however, a homecoming party, Bindanda and Narani could not be denied, and his staff, who had coped with their comings and goings and their emergencies and communications throughout a chain of problems, certainly had earned it. His valets, still laboring with the baggage downstairs; and most of all his bodyguard, who had been more than once under fire and on duty with only scant letup—they certainly deserved it.

The mail could wait.

· · ·

It was expected and ordinary that the major domo should meet Cajeiri at the door.

It was not expected or ordinary that his father and mother did.

That was entirely disconcerting. He was not ready for them. He was not ready to be questioned or required to report. He froze in place, too tired, too confused to know what to say or do first.

Then Great-grandmother’s teaching took over. Manners. Manners gained a person time. Manners let one gather one’s wits, decide what to do, and above all, calm down.

“Honored Father,” he said, bowing once and again. “Honored Mother. Thank you.”

“Welcome back, son of ours,” his father said. “I trust it was an enjoyable trip.”

“It was.” He was being examined for signs of distress: he knew he was. “The train was on time. Thank you very much for sending it.”

“Was it a pleasant stay at Najida?”

“Very pleasant, honored Father.” That was entirely true. “We went out on the boat three times.”

“One would think,” his mother said, “that your guests would be missing their families by now.”

That was a test, too. His mother had not been one to miss her family. She had run away from her father, then run away from Great-uncle, then had another feud with her father and run away again, and lately she had had another feud with Great-uncle and Father both—but she had not run away.

She was still difficult and quick-tempered, and she challenged him with that question. What she was really wanting to know right now was whether his guests were traditional, proper people who had proper respect for their parents.

Or whether they were foreigners with, as she was already sure, defective upbringing and no proper respect.

Nobody could win, with his mother.

“We were busy,” he said. “We were all busy all the time. We went out on the boat and we walked down to the village, and everything—” He was running off his train of thought, going nowhere useful. He was exhausted, and control was difficult, especially dealing with his mother. A servant stood behind him. He slipped his coat buttons and slid it off his arms. The waiting servant took it, and the major domo slipped another on, the bronze brocade, one of his three better ones that he had not taken with him. “Thank you, nadi.”

It was a better coat than someone ought to choose, who was simply going to go to his room, take it off again, and take off his boots and rest. So the major d’ knew something.

“Staff has made a special supper,” his mother said.

He could hardly bear the thought of food. His stomach was empty, except for breakfast. He had wanted to throw up, all the way from the lift to the apartment.

But he was suddenly on the edge of mad, now. He was not entirely sure what he was mad at. His father seemed to be on his side, and stood there to defend him. His mother was being nice, at least on the surface. Everybody was being nice. But his temper surged up, the instant his mother said supper—not that there was a thing he could do about it, because everybody had made their plans, Cook had made dinner, and that was the way it would be. He hoped there were no invited guests he had to please—but there usually were when there was any formal supper.

“A private supper,” his father said. “Just the three of us.”

Well, that was better.

And maybe the bronze brocade coat just meant they were treating it as a sort of occasion: himself, his mother, his father—

He belatedly remembered there were four of them now, and suddenly guessed what would be very politic to ask his mother on his homecoming.

“How is my sister, honored Mother?”

“Very well,” his mother said, and looked pleased, as if he had guessed right and finally done the right thing.

“Go wash,” his father said. “Supper is about to be served.”

“Yes,” he said. He thought about saying that his servants were coming upstairs with crates—but they were also coming with Boji, who was going to be upset and probably loud about it, and he really hoped Eisi and Liedi could get Boji quietly into his room before dinner started.

Boji, however, was definitely not a happy topic with his mother, and he had no wish to forecast trouble before it happened. “I shall wash and be right back,” he said, and bowed again: bowing was always a way to change the subject without having to look at anyone.

And washing gave him a chance to give private orders to his aishid.

He escaped down the hall with them in attendance. He was so tired, so very tired he was shaking. But he had told himself all the way home that his best way to get his guests back next year was to make his parents happy, and the best way to do that was to go back into the household and follow all the rules.

And he was doing that, so far.

But before he even could reach the bath, there was a rattle and rumble down the outside hall that would be his valets bringing the baggage to the door, and bringing Boji back. One of Boji’s earsplitting shrieks echoed in the huge hall outside. He looked back toward the door.

His mother had come back into the foyer, looking upset.

“Nadiin-ji.” He appealed to his bodyguard, who were right behind him. “Help them. Please keep Boji quiet. Hurry!”

Antaro and Jegari were best with Boji. They headed back to the foyer and Veijico headed down the side hall—to the kitchen, he could guess, urgently looking for an egg, boiled or otherwise, in case his valets should have run out.

That left just Lucasi to attend him, and they went down the hall to wash, both of them. He reached the washroom, heard the outer door open as Boji’s cage came rattling in.

Lucasi properly should not leave him alone right now, but he said, “Go be sure,” and Lucasi went to have a look and be sure Boji got to his suite.

Cajeiri washed his hands, splashed water into his face, wiped back the stray wisps of hair about his face, and headed for the dining room as Veijico passed him, headed out to the foyer, carrying an egg. Boji was setting up a loud fuss out there despite all his staff’s efforts, and they were still bringing in baggage, which involved noisy crate trolleys.

He let all that happen as it had to, trusting his bodyguard and his valets, who knew as well as he did how to handle Boji. He slipped into the dining room alone, sat down, as his father was seated, and listened, worried.

A closed door did not entirely muffle the sound of Boji’s cage rolling across the mosaic floor of the foyer.

And it did not at all muffle the sound of Boji shrieking out— or of a baby crying far back in the apartment, where his mother had her rooms.

The racket of Boji’s arrival reached a high pitch, then quieted.

“One is very sorry,” he said. His stomach was upset. He heard his mother chiding staff in the hall outside.

“Are you well?” his father asked, a clear diversion of topic.

“Yes,” he said, doggedly determined not to look around. “Everyone was well. Nand’ Bren is well.”

The baby’s crying came clear for a moment. A door had opened and closed. Likely his mother was going back to see to his sister. It was hard to think of anything but that.

“One very much regrets the racket, honored Father.”

“One trusts Boji will settle soon,” his father said. “And were your guests glad to go home?”

He thought about politely lying, and decided on the actual truth. “No, honored Father. We were all sad.”

“Indeed,” his father said, but offered not a clue what he thought about it. His father picked up his spoon. “We may as well have the soup.”

The polite thing was to ask all the courteous questions. And he should want to ask. But he was afraid of the answers. Two more sips of a tasteless soup and he gathered up his courage and did ask: “And are you and Mother well? And the baby?”

“We have all been very well,” his father said, as if they were at some official function with hundreds of witnesses, and they were obliged to give only felicitous answers.

But unlike his human guests’ habit of saying absolutely everything and anything at dinner—manners insisted there be no unpleasant talk and no business discussed at his parents’ proper table. He pretended to eat. He wished he just could go to his suite and go to bed.

His father laid his spoon down with his soup half-finished, and servants hastened to remove that dish, and hovered over Cajeiri’s. Cajeiri carefully laid his spoon down on the spoon-rest, and his soup likewise went away, replaced by a dish of pickle.

His father made no move. He made none.

The servants left the room.

“Did your guests enjoy their visit?” his father asked.

“Very much,” he managed to say. “Truly very much, honored Father. Thank you.”

“You will want them to visit again, I suppose.”

“Yes,” he said. There was a knot in his throat so extreme he could hardly keep his voice steady. “Yes, honored Father. I do.”

His father nodded.

“One promises,” he said desperately, and then thought that tying one thing to another immediately might not be the best idea, and maybe the subject was too close to discussing business at the table. “One wishes.”

His father said, wryly, “We shall make a judgment closer to the time, and for reasons of the time, son of mine. Please make your mother happy, and do not let Boji escape near the baby.”

“He—”—would not hurt her, was instant to his lips, but Great-grandmother would say, Never stand surety for a scoundrel, and Boji was, admittedly, a scoundrel when it came to escapes. “I shall be very careful.”

“Excellently done, on your part, these last days,” his father said. “And your mother also says so. Eat your pickle. Or had you rather have the meat course?”

His stomach was beyond uneasy. The knot would not go away. “I think I had rather the meat course, honored Father. We were up all night. No one could sleep.”

“In such distress?”

“It was the last time we would be sure to have, honored Father. We wanted to talk.”

“One understands,” his father said, and tapped his bowl with his knife, summoning the servants. “We shall have the meat course,” he said, “and a little carbonated juice with it.”

Fruit juice was all that sounded good. He was glad to see the strong-smelling pickle go away. He never wanted to smell it again. The seasonal meat arrived: fish, and bland. The fruit juice was the best thing.

“Very good,” his father said, and just then Mother came back in. It was, one was glad to note, quiet in the hall, from the direction of his own suite, and quiet from the farther hall, where his sister was.

Mother settled quietly into place, saying nothing about the two courses missed. A servant provided the meat course, and the fruit juice, and she took both.

“Our son was just saying,” Father said, “that he had a very good time. His guests were sad to leave, and that, being as young and impractical as youngsters may be, they stayed up all last night talking. I believe our son will wish to go to bed soon.”

“Will you wish to see your sister first?” his mother asked, and oh, he was not his great-grandmother’s great-grandson for nothing.

“Oh, yes,” he managed to say, though by now everything sounded distant to his ears, and he only wanted to lie down. “Thank you, honored Mother. Father.” He drank all the juice, and ate two bites of the meat dish; and managed a spill of gravy onto his collar lace.

“One regrets,” he said, mortified.

“No matter,” his father said. “I think our son may better do with rest than food, daja-ma. Shall we not all have our dessert and then go visit Seimiro?”

“We shall,” his mother said.

There was a light dessert, frothy and tart. That tasted good. Cajeiri had that, all of it, and as his father signaled an end to the service, and thanked the cook, he pushed himself up from the table, and went with his father and his mother to see his baby sister.

Seimiro’s crib was in the room with the windows he so envied, with the windows all shut and curtained. She was darker than he remembered, a much healthier color, and tightly wrapped in blankets. She looked content, asleep with her thumb in her mouth.

“She is very pretty.” It was not a lie, but it was certainly an exaggeration. She was a baby. Nobody knew what she would look like. But there she was, all new and the object of Mother’s attention. There he was, with a spot of gravy on his collar lace.

But he was indisputably his father’s heir. His father had seen to that, just an hour before Seimiro was born. And Seimiro had years and years to go before she would be any threat to him at all.

He felt no strong man’chi to her. He noted that in himself. When he had parted from his guests, he had felt as if some piece of him were torn away. For Seimiro, he had only the dimmest of feelings—simply an awareness that she was his mother’s baby; and relief that, because Seimiro existed, he was not obliged to belong that closely to his mother and not obliged to feel strongly attached. He had honestly hoped to feel something a little more for his sister than he did, one way or the other. He had thought he felt something the night Seimiro was born, but all that had faded now, strange to say. He was exhausted, fresh from company he deeply cared about, that he could not have—and she was just this sleepy little lump that, in possession of a room he would like to have, kept her eyes shut and her thumb in her mouth, and ignored him.

Disappointing. Great-grandmother said he would waken to certain feelings, and that right feelings would be automatic because he was atevi.

So—why did he feel robbed of his human associates? And why did he have no proper feeling right now where it regarded his sister-of-the-same-parents?

Was he angry that she existed?

He thought not.

Was he disappointed that she turned out to be just a baby, who would be a baby for years, and probably live in this room with the windows he coveted, getting favors his mother would not give him, until she was older than he was.

That was stupid. There was no way she could be anything other than a baby—though before she was born he had imagined teaching her and running about with her, and showing her all the fun things to do. He had felt very warm and good about that Seimiro, who in his head had been something like eight.

Well, there she was, and there she would be for months and months, just a blanket-wrapped lump, who would grow very slowly into Somebody who probably would take his mother’s side whenever there was an argument.

Eight was years away. And by the time Seimiro was old enough to do stupid things with anybody—he himself would be too old and responsible to do them.

Time worked far too slowly at Seimiro’s end of things and far too fast at his.

“Very pretty,” he said sadly, and put out his hand to touch his sister’s tiny hand. “When she can play games I shall be too old for them.”

There was a little silence around that. He had been very stupid to say it.

“Your life will not end with your fifteenth birthday,” his father said, seeming amused. “Believe me.”

Seimiro wriggled about and clenched her other fist, eyes still tightly shut.

He finally felt something toward her, then. He felt sorry for her, because she was going to be far more lonely than he had ever been, certainly having no chance of flying on a starship and meeting other children. Nobody unauthorized would ever approach Seimiro—unless she somehow got the chance to escape and travel with Great-grandmother. Or with him.

Mother was telling him how strong Seimiro was, and how she had to be watched, because she could wriggle right off her blanket, and how even now she was trying to turn over.

It was a very small beginning on misbehavior. Maybe she was doing her best.

But it was going to be forever until she could break free.

She was going to need encouragement.

And that would not make his mother happy. But it might rescue his sister, and make her much happier in her life.

“To bed, young gentleman,” his father said, which was, given the way he was thinking, a very welcome escape.

· · ·

Bren had barely had the chance to change his coat for an old favorite, and his traveling boots for comfortable house wear.

Staff, absent any order to restrain themselves on his return, had prepared a meal from which nobody had to refrain, not even his bodyguard, on this rare occasion of universal peace and celebration. Supani and Koharu arrived with the luggage cart and, on orders, the cart and its crates simply stood blocking the foyer, while the hard-working pair mingled and exchanged gossip they’d brought from Najida and Kajiminda. Bren was glad to see it.

Staff asked no questions of him personally. But one felt obliged to render some sort of account about recent events, the young gentleman’s guests, and about nand’ Jase—since they had all been guests on the premises at one time and another.

“The children,” Bren said, “are very grateful for their visit. They are back in space, headed for the station. They learned how to ride, they sailed out into the straits, they visited Najida village. They did everything we could think of for them to do.” He realized the staff had not heard about the new window at Najida, they had not seen the new wing about to be roofed—so he made a far longer report than he had intended, finding his voice a little thready by the time he finished. But staff provided him another glass of wine to keep him going, and it was very pleasant to sum up a thoroughly happy several weeks.

“And there are letters,” he remembered to say: he had brought a whole bundle of them, from the families and neighbors of most of his staff—letters that would make the rounds to everybody, because those who were not from Najida village or estate still had ties there. Letters from home began to go the rounds: a wedding, the birth of a new cousin, a trip to the Township—

And once the letters came out, then there was the gift crate to open. Staff at Najida had sent various items to staff here in the Bujavid. There were gifts, sweets of all sorts, shared all around.

“Rani-ji,” Bren said quietly to Narani, in a breathing space, “is there any word from the aiji? Should I go there this evening?”

“The aiji has just sent word that you may rest, nandi, and he will see you tomorrow, unless there is some urgent news.”

“None.” He was vastly relieved. He wanted to get his thoughts organized on paper before he forgot some important detail, and, God, the prospect of sleeping a little late in the morning was—

“The aiji-dowager,” Narani added, “has invited the paidhi-aiji to breakfast.”

The dowager’s breakfasts were crack-of-dawn.

“Thank you, Rani-ji.”

Well, his staff would have gotten him to the dowager’s breakfast somehow, even if he had not asked that fatal question. Staffs managed such things and essential people turned up where they needed to be, on time, appropriately dressed.

But with that appointment in the morning, one more glass of wine tonight was not going to be a good idea.

“Beyond that matter,” Narani said, “there seems nothing unexpected. Lord Topari is surely out of message cylinders: he has used five. Most people know you have not been in the capital. So does he, one is certain, but he keeps sending.”

Topari, the mountain lord. The railroad matter Ilisidi was promoting. Lord Topari had a way of writing, sending, then thinking of an amendment. It was almost worth reading the letters in reverse order, if the letters themselves weren’t as internally confusing as they tended to be, each referring to those preceding.

“No actual emergencies?”

“One thinks not, nandi.”

The rest of the messages, then, were just ordinary business awaiting his return. And he trusted Narani’s assessment. Message cylinders bore clan heraldry and personal seals. Narani would have done a good sorting of them. Narani would have notified him and read him a particular message by phone or couriered it to him at Najida had anything truly earthshaking come in.

Breakfast. At dawn. God.

He wondered if he should go to his office and try to put together the initial report for the dowager.

But he decided otherwise. Tomorrow before breakfast. Which meant getting up well before the crack of dawn.

More pizza appeared. Wine flowed. And gossip did, with every scrap of news from those letters out of Najida and Tirnamardi.

His valets entertained the company with accounts of the children’s doings.

And there was, here in the Bujavid, a new rumor as of yesterday—that, while the lordship of the Kadagidi was still unfilled, Aseida, the former lord, had just taken a new appointment, as assistant manager in a spinning mill in Hasjuran—Lord Topari’s holding—in the mountains, at the ragged edge of civilization.

No power. Definitely a chance to use his managerial skills on the independent-minded Hasjurani. A work schedule with very long hours. And no place to spend any graft if he could come by it.

That was fairly satisfying. It was the dowager’s doing, he very strongly suspected, and very likely would find mention at breakfast.

He did need to warn Topari off that acquaintance, no matter how Aseida might try to leverage a meeting.

If Aseida himself had any sense, he could still redeem his mistakes. He was young. He had an education surpassing any in Hasjuran. By the time he had gray in his hair, he might have realized he had once had other choices, and should have taken them. He would have a life of should-have and could-have, and one had very little faith he would someday achieve awareness of should and could.

He might, however, develop useful skills at maintaining looms.

· · ·

Bren meditated on his own should-haves, abed, in the dark, on that one glass of wine to the worse, that one last measure of self-indulgence before duty cut in.

He definitely should not have courted a hangover for the morning. He should have said no.

But he had gotten involved in conversation. It was so pleasant to be home.

He’d written reports that worried him.

But sometimes it was his job to keep secrets, to do the worrying. And think of solutions.

The door opened, admitting a sliver of light from the hall. And a shadow.

Welcome. Very welcome, too, that intrusion. He and Jago had been lovers for years. Being just down the hall from a number of youngsters with their own very alert junior security team had curtailed any getting together in the last month.

They were back home.

With no youngsters.

At long last.

6

Breakfast with the aiji-dowager was, even in warm weather, a chilly proposition, and nerves didn’t help. Ilisidi’s apartment not only had a row of windows, scarce luxury in the historic Bujavid—it had a balcony adjoining the breakfast room, and the dowager, an Easterner from the high mountains, always preferred to breakfast on that balcony in any conditions short of a blizzard.

It meant wearing a well-insulated coat, and one of the bullet-proof vests, not for fear of incidents on this particular morning, but because the vest was another way of keeping one’s core warm.

So Bren sat opposite the dowager, with the sun risen only halfway above the hills and the steam of hot tea tending to fly bannerlike from the cups. The ancient fortress that was the Bujavid loomed high on its hill above the busy streets of Shejidan, but there was none of the city visible from this side—only the foothills of the mountains to the south. And even in summer, those mountain heights and the small glaciers thereupon lent a slightly frosty edge to the breeze.

A servant ladled eggs in sauce onto the dowager’s plate. The dowager used a toasted wafer to herd the eggs onto her spoon.

Bren preferred the grilled fish, and toast, sauces generally being the lethal aspect of alkaloid-laced atevi cuisine.

Much of the breakfast service passed in discussion of the weather in Malguri, and hunting in the highlands.

The dowager did discuss the new mill manager in Hasjuran. So far had Aseida fallen that he was not reckoned any longer as business, just as a tidy and satisfying bit of gossip.

One was properly appreciative.

Then the dowager asked, not quite casually, “So all our visitors are safely back in space.”

“Indeed,” he said.

“Did they enjoy Najida?”

“Very much so, aiji-ma.”

“And you escorted them to the shuttle yourself?”

“Yes, aiji-ma.”

“And what was my great-grandson’s mood, so doing?”

There was the question.

“Sadness, aiji-ma. All the youngsters were sad. The young gentleman wished not to speak at all once they had gone. He slept most of the way to the city.”

“He did not protest?”

“No, aiji-ma.”

Ilisidi took a satisfied sip of tea that curled steam in the wind. “Excellent. Now that his guests have departed, he must show their visit to have had an extremely good influence. He must be cheerful, whatever the provocation, particularly with his mother. One trusts he observed our advice throughout.”

The dowager favored a human connection for her great-grandson. That was not sentiment. It was purposeful, it was thought out, it was policy—and one didn’t know precisely when she had taken that decision. But decision it clearly was, and would be.

He supposed he should be flattered. There had been a time the dowager would have been passionately against it.

“They were all exceedingly mannerly, aiji-ma. One believes indeed he observed your advice. And passed it to his guests.”

“Well, well, he wants them back, does he not?”

A stiff gust challenged the weights on the tablecloth. They held.

And Bren thought, deeply troubled, of Irene’s parting wish.

“He does want them, very much so, aiji-ma. And I believe they wish to come back.”

“We shall support him,” Ilisidi said, and immediately, irrevocably, shifted the topic elsewhere. “And how are things at Najida?”

“The windows you provided us, aiji-ma, are extravagantly beautiful. The first, the largest, is installed.”

“Since they were my enemies who destroyed its predecessor, it seemed just.”

“One hopes you may find some season to view it soon, aiji-ma. And the other windows, when they are installed. We have not yet roofed the new wing. But we shall have that done before the fall.”

“Alas, my time away from the capital must be devoted to the East this year. And one hears you will be visiting the station. —Come, paidhi. You are shivering. Let us go inside.”

Breakfast was entirely sufficient; and the wind was persistent, becoming a nuisance—he found it necessary to pin his napkin with a full water glass as he laid it by.

Inside, after hot, sweet tea with a touch of orangelle, plain business became allowable, even necessary, and the dowager had implied her central question—the thing she wanted to hear, and understand.

There was reason for question. She had laid out her agenda, things he had to do.

“A problem has arisen on the station, aiji-ma, and I fear I shall indeed need to go up there, at least briefly, to settle a human issue.”

“Regarding.”

“The Mospheiran stationmaster is uncooperative regarding the disposition of the Reunioners, and Sabin-aiji thinks I can be of service. Certainly I need to assess the situation.” He saw the dowager arch a brow and his pulse kicked up. Did she know? Had she possibly gotten wind of Tillington’s indiscretion? God, he hoped not.

The question, if it was a question, stayed unasked.

She asked, instead, “How long shall we miss your presence?”

“One shuttle rotation, one hopes. I do not wish it to be two. But I shall not leave on any other business until I have seen to every necessity now pending in your affairs, aiji-ma. I am determined on that, and I have told Jase-aiji so. I shall pursue everything as rapidly as possible here. I shall be meeting personally with Lord Topari on the routing matter. He seems to have found a new objection. Or a new request.”

“That man!” the dowager said. “One hardly knows whether he is resolved to be difficult by stages, or whether he simply does not know how to organize his proposals.”

“I have every hope it will be some very small matter. It usually is. There were five letters waiting for me. The fifth discovered his actual objection.”

“What, were you at correspondence last night?”

“Early this morning aiji-ma.”

“Earlier than I?” Again the arched brow.

“One had to know what was in the bowl. Curiosity overwhelmed me. And his letters were the reward of it.”

“Well, well, I leave him to you, paidhi-ji, with gratitude. We shall deal with the Toparis of the East—of which I assure you there are several.”

“Is it going well there, aiji-ma?”

“Oh, we have utterly amazed our neighbors. I have ordered the harbor channel dredged and a large pier built, where nothing larger than a trawler has ever docked, and this you may imagine provides great amusement about the region. These same neighbors will be pleading for access and jealous of every advantage once Machigi’s ships arrive. —But in order to move Machigi to risk his ships on the southern passage, we need a demonstration from Lord Geigi of the accuracy of his weather forecasts. We have no doubt he will provide it, and we are working with the Messengers to assure the entire affair goes smoothly. But should there be a problem, and if you happen to be on the station, you will surely work out any difficulties of that sort. So your presence there may prove a convenience.”

“I would certainly undertake to attend that, aiji-ma.”

In the Southern Ocean, circumpolar storms ran unchecked and came round again increased in fury. The sea route between east and west coast had historically been impossible for shipping. There had once and very long ago been a diagonal traffic between the west and the Southern Island, at least from its northern shore, and that one approachable sea lane southward had been important—but cataclysm had overtaken that harbor and the civilization that had thrived there. A great wave had destroyed the port at the height of its prosperity, and made the survivors refugees in the Marid, that little nook of calm seas and rugged peninsulas on the southern edge of the mainland.

It had all happened more than a thousand years before humans ever had arrived in the skies, and sea trade now skirted the western coast, no more.

But the space station provided a hope that modern ship-building and space-based weather advice could make possible that southern passage by sea—at least during part of the year. That would link Lord Machigi, the dowager’s new ally down in the Marid, to her own little fishing ports in the East.

So two of the poorest districts in the aishidi’tat looked to combine forces and improve their situations outside the thriving economy of Shejidan, which ruled in the center and west.

The East had mineral wealth and fisheries, and the Marid had textiles, leather, glass, ceramics and foodstuffs of more delicate sort—for starters. And though rail and air linked the capital at Shejidan and the mountainous heartland of the East, the rail and air network excluded the Marid—as it excluded the coastal areas of the East.

Joining the two orphans of the aishidi’tat by a wild and stormy sea was an ambitious plan. The Shejidani lords who understood it were betting most heavily on the new railroad linking the once-hostile Marid to the capital; and they were laying all their money there. They predicted that the sea venture would be all show, for the political effect, but that the real flow of goods would be the new rail line, and that it would be moderately profitable.

The dowager in fact had other plans, not that the Shejidani lords were going to lose money on their venture, but they would, in the dowager’s intentions, not get all the gain. The dowager, champion of endangered species and threatened handcrafts, patroness of village systems and ancient traditions—had the very modern atevi stationmaster in space, Lord Geigi, for a close ally. She had, moreover, flown on Phoenix on the Reunion mission, and she understood what could be done from space. She understood it far better and with more imagination than most of the learned technical advisors who counseled her grandson Tabini-aiji.

Bet against her claim that a profitable sea route could link these two forgotten and marginalized districts?

Bren personally bet that she had never given up her decades-old plan to develop the southwest coast of the mainland, and that the Marid trade link was only one step on a lifelong path—her design for the aishidi’tat, which she had maintained through three aijinates and her own regencies. Shejidan had long been the well into which all goods went, and what came out was, in the dowager’s view, not quite equitable—in terms of districts and ethnicities.

“Notably,” Ilisidi said, “we have just had a success in the Guild problem. The change of administration in the Assassins’ Guild has helped us in more than one way. We may have brought back the old intransigent and inconvenient masters of that Guild, but these officers have returned to their posts with a new appreciation of our reasoning. They now admit themselves very glad that the East and the Marid have maintained their own Guild offices separate of Shejidan. They are now listening to Cenedi. They are respecting his advice, and this they would not do before.”

Cenedi was the dowager’s chief bodyguard, head of her security, and his absence right now, along with Banichi’s, said that there was some intense conversation going on between the dowager’s bodyguard and his own. The Eastern Guild out of which the dowager drew her over-sized bodyguard was differently organized than the Assassins’ Guild in Shejidan. Most notably, it drew from local applicants without completely divorcing them from their local culture and their clans of birth.

When Ilisidi’s marriage contract joined the Eastern and Western Associations the Shejidan Guild had been forced to acknowledge the authority of Cenedi’s organization in the East, but that didn’t mean they trusted it or even respected it. And now they applied to Cenedi for advice? They were considering the principle of local Guild as opposed to centralized Guild as something that might have advantages? The changes indeed represented a tectonic shift.

“One would hesitate to believe the leadership has completely abandoned their resentment of the regional Guilds,” Ilisidi said, “but change is coming. We are privately assured the Assassins’ Guild is drawing up a rule change to acknowledge our training center in Malguri Township, and once that principle is admitted, it will very readily extend to Lord Machigi’s training center in the Taisigin Marid.”

“Indeed!” He was beyond surprised.

“And where the Assassins’ Guild goes, the Merchants, the Physicians, and others troubled by the matter of regional offices—will find their way. There may be a cost, however.”

“There would have to be,” he said. “What are the Assassins asking?”

“This, and in this consideration, your trip to the station may well prove a convenience. The Assassins wish to establish an office on the space station, as a condition to their recognizing the regional offices. So while you are preparing to deal with matters up there—that matter may well arise.”

Deep breath. Half a year ago he would have been appalled, with a kneejerk no, absolutely not. Never let the Assassins’ Guild up into Lord Geigi’s domain—within reach of humans.

Now, in circumstances the dowager herself had created, with his help, it did not appear to be such a bad idea.

If the Guild sent the right people. The Assassins’ Guild, effectively the justice structure of the aishidi’tat, needed direct access to accurate, unfiltered information—information which would help them guide opinions in Shejidan about situations the ground-based Guild could not readily imagine. Cenedi and Banichi—and Algini—had the ear of the Guild leadership. They might influence the choice of agents.

Having an informed opinion advising the Guild about Geigi’s security up there could also be very helpful.

All this—granting what he never would have granted before: that the oldest of all Guilds was actually in a process of adapting and changing.

There was Tillington to explain to them. That underlying issue flickered like lightning on the horizon, illuminating a very scary landscape.

There was Tillington, there was Louis Baynes Braddock, and there were all the old quarrels that lay in human politics.

But those were the very matters the Guild needed to understand. The way humans dealt with their own and solved problems—they had to learn that, too, among very important considerations. High-level Guild were not fools.

And there was no better person on the atevi side to explain a situation to the Guild than Lord Geigi, who understood, for one principal difference, that human leaders were far more replaceable than atevi aijiin—and that a problematic opinion therefore tended to be an ephemeral condition that could change with a new appointment—short of the need for an assassination. And he hoped to illustrate that fact very quickly regarding the current human stationmaster.

“One does not foresee Lord Geigi objecting to that proposition, aiji-ma, though one is certain he will have some adjustments and observations.”

“To say the least. And this human stationmaster. Tillington.”

She knew the name. God, that was disturbing.

“Tillington,” he said carefully. “Yes, aiji-ma.”

“One hears he is inconvenient.”

“Exceedingly. But a word from the Presidenta can remove him. He is an appointed official, not elected.”

“Well, well,” Ilisidi said, bypassing the entire situation with a wave of her hand, “one understands you will have various matters to deal with up there. The man seems singularly useless. I leave him to you.”

God, did she know? He still couldn’t tell. If she did know—she’d just posed a question. And he had to answer it.

“I shall deal with the matter of Tillington in the next few days, aiji-ma. I think he has become quite inconvenient. I shall begin, as I now intend, by asking the Presidenta to call him home for consultation, which may settle the entire problem with minimal fuss—at least as soon as we can secure a shuttle berth. When I do go up to the station, perhaps the Assassins should indeed send their mission with me and stay in close contact as I work—granted only they will agree to work with me and bring me their questions. Certainly they should develop a close association with Lord Geigi, and respect his good advice.”

“It might indeed be wise,” Ilisidi said, “to have the Guild receive an accurate interpretation regarding the human administration. And one wishes to be sure this new leadership in the Guild develops the proper sources of information regarding affairs in Geigi’s lordship, as well. The Guild may seek information by clandestine means as a check, but they need guidance. Ah, well, well, one trusts you will find a satisfactory conclusion to all this business.” Ilisidi waved the servants away. “We are relieved, paidhi. We shall see our great-grandson settled in peace and quiet in his household. Then we shall fly back to Malguri to enjoy the rest of the summer and threaten a few fools. Lord Tatiseigi may even join us there for a few days. We have absolutely no doubt Lord Topari will keep you entertained in our absence.”

That was a joke. He was expected to take it as such. To hand it back.

“I shall conclude an agreement as quickly as I can, aiji-ma, and one trusts an escape to the space station will be far enough once I am done.”

Ilisidi laughed quietly. She had said what she wanted to say, and the paidhi-aiji had received his priorities, one of them handling a very scary situation, where it regarded the Guild’s arrival on the station. And another—on which he still had no idea what she knew.

In his immediate path, then, he had the groundbound problems, which the travel schedule made a priority. He might serve the aiji, but the aiji-dowager borrowed his services as often as she pleased. The railroad matter was the most urgent, in terms of the dowager’s objectives. He was not exactly working on Tabini-aiji’s orders in devoting so much time to the dowager’s affairs. But between the railroad and Ilisidi’s eastern port, they were about to conclude a peace that had eluded the mainland for two hundred years, a state of affairs definitely in Tabini’s interests.

Tabini clearly thought that move convenient, too, or he would have put roadblocks in its path, including finding occasion to send the paidhi-aiji somewhere remote, and out of the aiji-dowager’s reach.

The space station was about as remote as one could get. And he would have to work both situations up there with what diplomacy he could manage: human politics and the Assassins’ Guild were both headed for Geigi’s doorstep.

Maybe if Tillington were compelled to explain the human problems to the Guild it would make Tillington think twice about what he was stirring up.

If only that were likely.

He had a delicate letter to write to Mospheira, and best he get that entire business underway at the soonest. Along with that, he needed to phone Shawn and ask for a courier to be flown in on the next commercial flight. He wasn’t willing to trust the Messengers’ Guild with such a communication, even in Mosphei’: they were the other problem among the guilds, one that no side ever trusted that far.

So he had to ask Mospheira for a courier to come pick up the letter, since despite all the improvements in relations, it still wasn’t politic to send a unit of the Assassins’ Guild to call on the Mospheiran President.

· · ·

Dear Mr. President:

He didn’t use Dear Shawn on official correspondence. And this was, above all else, official, designed to be quotable—useable as far as Shawn wanted to take it.

I hope my writing finds you well. I can assure you that the situation is vastly improved on the mainland. Tabini-aiji has very recently revised the leadership of the Assassins’ Guild. This has corrected a long-standing problem.

He has invested Cajeiri as his official heir, which as you know must be approved by the legislature, but there will be no problem with that when the day comes, and there is general happiness to have that matter settled.

The young gentleman, on the occasion of his birthday, received a visit from three of the Reunioner children he met aboard the ship, as you are surely aware. A relationship has formed which may mature well.

The children also fared very well medically in their visit. There were no complaints of illness in the adjustment, and this is a situation that has acquired immense political implications, as you may imagine, considering the situation aboard the space station.

The presence of the Reunioners aboard the station, as you may have heard, is stressing station capacity. They are, I am informed, closely confined, have less than comfortable living arrangements, very few gain passes for special purposes, and fewer still have jobs. Mospheiran officials are reluctant to fill posts with Reunioner applicants.

This unhappy situation cannot continue indefinitely. I had a chance to speak frankly and at length with Captain Jason Graham, who accompanied the children in their visit, and I am now convinced that finding a solution for the Reunioner problem is beyond urgent.

Coupled with that, I received troubling news yesterday from Captain Graham regarding statements made by Stationmaster Tillington, who, as I am sure you know, favors the removal of the Reunioners to a new station at Maudit.

He has vehemently opposed the children’s visit here as signaling a change in policy regarding the Reunioners.

As a statement of opinion and policy, this might have been tolerable, but it has now been joined to the explicit charge, as reported to me by Captain Graham, that Sabin engineered the original meeting of the aiji’s son with these children aboard the ship, and that Sabin is pursuing a private agenda with the deposed Reunioner Stationmaster, Louis Baynes Braddock.

There is, first, no truth in this. I witnessed what happened on the voyage between the aiji’s son and the Reunioner children. I also was in a position to observe the state of affairs aboard the ship and can attest there was no love lost between Sabin and Braddock.

Stationmaster Tillington’s statement is a reckless attack on the integrity of two of the four captains, Graham and Sabin; it also touches me and my office, but far more seriously, it touches on the honor of the aiji-dowager, who was supervising the aiji’s son. The repercussions of that must be dire, if this is ever known.

The implication of the statement translated into an atevi context is extremely serious and damaging—and while Tillington himself may not have understood how it would translate to atevi, it exists: he has said it. And while it has not been publicized as yet, I am extremely worried that the statement will find a way to the atevi side of the station before some action can be taken on the human side absolutely to disown it.

I have not relayed the statement in question to the aiji-dowager or to the aiji and I hope it will not be repeated on the station. I hope to settle this quietly and quickly and head off any consequences, but I have some reason to fear the dowager may privately be aware of it. If this is the case, her patience is extremely limited—and must be. Should such charges reach other ears—a situation very likely, given that Stationmaster Geigi understands more Mosphei’ than he speaks; and so do some of his staff—there must be severe repercussions, including the bringing of capital charges against Tillington. The dignity and integrity of the aijinate is at issue.

I have no choice now but to urge that Stationmaster Tillington be relieved of duty and replaced with all possible speed and that his successor be strongly cautioned against any statement which, whether intentionally or otherwise, could be interpreted to question the integrity of the aijinate or the ship’s officers.

Should the current statement become public with Tillington still in office, the aijinate would be forced to demand the delivery of Tillington and his aides to the mainland, with no likelihood of their return. The damage to relations and agreements between Mospheira and the aishidi’tat at that point would be extreme.

There can be no remedy by apology. The atevi administration cannot excuse such a reckless charge.

As a second point, in the official view of the aishidi’tat, the disposition of the Reunioners is not solely a station issue, but an international issue, to be settled at Presidential level and at the level of the aijinate, in consultation with the Ship, and in no way at the level of the Stationmaster.

We now know, as a result of the recent visit, and thanks to a medication easily available to the ship-folk, that this spaceborn population can adjust to life on the planet. This adds a new choice. In my own view, the best solution for the Reunioners is movement toward permanent residency on Mospheira. These are skilled workers whose technical expertise can easily be applied on the planet. The Mospheirans on the station may be joined one at a time by Reunioners who have cleared the same screening they passed, but for the majority, including families with children, the planet offers the best answer.

I hope in all good will for your quick assistance in these matters. I cannot stress enough the urgency involved.

Damn, he didn’t want to send that letter cold. He wanted it to sit for at least four hours for several reviews of the wording.

Shawn Tyers, multiple times President, past head of the Department of State, and, in the early years, his direct boss—had been his friend and sometime sounding board in years since.

But for various reasons—his own mother’s death, Toby’s role as go-between during the years he’d been gone—he hadn’t talked with Shawn all that often since he’d landed amid the troubles of the aishidi’tat. So glad you’re safe. Very glad to hear from you.

He hadn’t communicated officially with the Mospheiran government even to ascertain whether he currently held any official position within it. No one had ever withdrawn his appointment, true. But no one but Shawn in this entire last year had so much as asked him a direct question—and he had never asked in what capacity Shawn had asked him.

So now, out of the blue, he asked Shawn to use Presidential power to fire a very high level appointee, one who probably had political clout that could come back to haunt Shawn’s party.

Then he had to urge Shawn to take in the Reunioners, against strong objection likely from various interests inside Mospheira—and that led to the knotty question of where Reunioners might be settled with least problem. He wished he’d kept the contact with Shawn a little more current—though he didn’t know when in the last frantic year he’d have found the time.

Well, a personal phone call to precede that unpleasant letter was at least a start on patching the relationship and figuring out what his position officially was, these days.

He called for the phone, and for a line to the Presidential residency across the channel.

Narani brought the phone—and at least a connection to the residency. Beyond that point, it became a problem in Mosphei’, and Narani never attempted to translate.

“This is a member of the Presidenta’s staff, nandi,” Narani said. “At least one surmises him to be such.”

It was, as turned out, indeed, the President’s staff—but a secretary to the head of staff.

“This is Bren Cameron,” he said, “in Shejidan. I need to talk to the President. Personally.”

That took a bit. Three separate senior secretaries were sure they needed to talk to him instead.

“This is classified and this is urgent,” he said. “Advise the President.”

He definitely needed to have called Shawn before now. He didn’t know any of these people.

The President was at breakfast. Fine. The President could take five of his minutes away from the table and get on the phone. Urgently.

The President had been told he was calling. The President was coming to his office. Please wait.

He waited.

In the old days there was no likelihood of anybody successfully eavesdropping on the call. Nowadays it was a certainty there would be such people all along the physical route of the call. The Assassins’ Guild had a few members who could get the gist of a conversation, he was near certain. The Messengers’ Guild he was sure cultivated the same talents, and those people were likely working very hard to improve their linguistic skills. The longer the call waited, the more likely eavesdroppers could get into position.

Fifteen minutes. He took a few notes on other matters, with the handset braced against his shoulder.

“Bren?” Shawn asked.

“Shawn. Good to hear your voice.”

“Problem?”

“There is. I need you to get a courier to Shejidan on the afternoon flight. I’ll have one of my bodyguard run the document out to the airport, deliver it straight into your courier’s hands, and stay there ’til the plane takes off again.”

“Understood.” Shawn didn’t ask the subject or the urgency that demanded such precautions. The last completely couriered exchange had been his report to Shawn on the voyage, and on Tabini’s return to power, a report which had massed more than five hundred pages. Back had come Shawn’s answer, also in writing, and classified, and in four words. Thank God. Stay well.

Beyond that—he’d sent a few reports over by courier, usually to relieve worry. The recent assassinations in the north—that had required a routine advisory note from the aiji’s office to the President’s, to assure Mospheira that everything was under control and that the young visitors were safe—should the station ask corroboration.

But the most recent and critical situation—the profound change in the Guild—he hadn’t had a clear enough picture to deliver a final report to Shawn.

Now events got ahead of him.

“How are you doing?” Shawn asked.

“Really very well. Had a great visit with Jase Graham and the kids.” Dead certainty that Shawn knew whatever details of the visit the human side of the space station knew, but with what slant in Tillington’s report was uncertain. “They did marvelously. Nobody was sick. The kids were outdoors, running all over the place, no problems. They had a great time, I’m glad to report.”

“Glad to hear it. I hear the aiji’s named an heir and now has a new daughter.”

“He has, both. Everybody’s happy, the baby’s doing fine—the aishidi’tat is very happy with the situation. I’m glad to report everything over here is in great shape.”

That slid rapidly across two topics in the letter the courier had to pick up, and the kids’ visit and the new daughter might have Shawn thinking down other problematic paths as the possible subject of the letter—the changes in Tabini’s family, the appointment of an heir, and all the upheaval and assassination inside the aishidi’tat.

All those matters—and that Jase had paid a visit.

One of those items was certainly dead on. And if anybody in the information chain was going to leak information up to Tillington, he didn’t want to explain it was Jase’s visit that now occasioned a couriered message. Tillington might well add two and two.

“How are you getting along?” Bren asked.

Code for: is there a circumstance I should know that’s going to complicate the situation on your side?

“Pretty well,” Shawn said—freighted with the current situation in the Mospheiran legislature, Bren was sure, applying to Shawn’s health, the prevailing weather, and the stability of current politics. It began to feel like their conversations before the voyage, the polite inquiries, the subtexts they both knew, the fact that the courier that came to the mainland to carry back the letter he was sending was very likely to bring an answering letter from Shawn. “Typical weather for the season. Fairly pleasant in the capital, however.”

“Same here,” Bren said. “I’m very delighted to report. Wife and kids?”

“All fine.”

“That’s great.”

“Congratulations to the aiji and the consort. I trust that’s appropriate.”

“Entirely appropriate. I’ll relay the good wishes.”

“Really good to talk to you.”

That was a sign-off. And it was time to get off the phone, before they stumbled into the wrong territory. Specific topics could trip over things the courier ought to carry. Shawn would get the letter. Then they’d talk again.

“Same,” he said. “Really good. Thanks.”

Shawn broke the connection from his end. Bren hung up and re-read what he had written.

It still said what needed saying and implied everything that needed implying. He put a salutation on it. He put a wax seal on the paper, his own, which made it official. He separately added his notes on the Assassins’ Guild situation—I have no concrete reason to use the word ‘optimistic’ in this case, but I am cautiously inclined to hope—

He finished it. And he called Banichi.

“I’ve asked Shawn for a courier to fly in this afternoon,” he said, and Banichi gave a single nod.

The words Tillington had let fly, if spoken on the mainland, would engage the Guild, no question. There was no way to insert that awareness past the barriers that existed in Mospheiran thinking: right and wrong and personal rights and personal entitlements were in the way.

He wasn’t entirely sure Shawn himself was going to feel in his gut what Tillington’s statement would do, if it ever reached the atevi public. But Tillington had just, no question, made a career-ending mistake.

And for what?

Resentment for the crowding and the rationing and the discomfort? Maybe. But being Mospheiran—one didn’t think another Mospheiran population would have met that kind of anger. No. One could sacrifice comforts. Mospheirans had a tradition of helping their own, doing without, making do. Historically, they’d had hard times, and had always found a way of getting through to a better life.

Besides, granted there had been rationing, it hadn’t been rationing of everything. There were comforts. Atevi and humans alike had done everything possible from the ground to ease the strain, especially regarding foodstuffs.