Dur had boats. And planes. And if they came down, things would be a lot better.
But in either case, the bad news was that the help from the north was going to take time getting here.
And now the Guildsmen who had come in on the bus had disappeared, and Cenedi would not talk about it or answer mani’s questions, which probably meant Cenedi knew where they were.
Probably, Cajeiri thought, they had headed back into Targai district, which definitely had trouble; or maybe they had gone down into Separti Township or over to Kajiminda to give Guild help to the Edi who were protecting it. It still all added up to the fact that they might be on their own for a while, and what was blowing up larger and larger in the Marid was like a storm coming up way too fast. There just was not time, now, Cenedi said, to expect any help.
They were going to have to get through the night, and possibly a few days longer than that, on their own.
Meanwhile, mani’s bodyguard wasputting booby traps in place. A lot of them. Really interesting ones. Cajeiri had wanted to see in detail what they were, but nobody would let him.
So they were getting ready, with mani’s young men posted on the roof and elsewhere as they had been.
Nand’ Toby said, too, that if they wanted, he could phone the Presidenta of Mospheira and get help, and Geigi said that the station would provide intelligence to Shejidan.
“We shall just keep behind our walls, nadiin-ji,” she said, in that tone of voice that ended argument. “We shall defend ourselves.”
“I don’t understand why,” Cajeiri said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja, “but mani says no.”
Then Cenedi’s chin lifted, and he sent an attentive look into nowhere, as if he were hearing something from that earpiece he had.
He said, quietly, “Aiji-ma, nandiin, there is movement out of Senji, bypassing Targai. It has reached the airport. It will likely come this way.”
The airport. That was close. That was just about an hour away. Whatever was going to happen had started.
***
It was difficult to be bored to tears while being terrified, but given a whole day hiding in a hole in the rocks, it was possible, Bren decided. He shifted position to keep his legs from going to sleep, but his backside was beyond numb.
It had gotten dark. Darker than dark. Clouds had moved in, and there was not even starlight to help. And the strain of listening for hours had taken its toll on mental acuteness.
He wasn’t listening as well as he had. He actually grew increasingly sleepy and dull-witted with exhaustion, and he leaned his head back and shut his eyes, just reassuring himself with the faint night sounds—telling himself that if those creatures were stirring, nobody was near.
He came closer to sleep. Felt the slight movement of a breezec
A very light breeze. The waft of a white, sheer curtain. The smell of flowers. The shadow of the lattice.
The garden apartment. That was where he had joined up with Banichi and Jago, a different world ago.
It was the night he’d started carrying an illegal gun in the first place. If he let this dream continue, in the next moment he’d see a shadow beyond that lattice. A gun would go off.
He’d begun another life, that night, on the chain of events that had led him to Ilisidi.
And a close association with Tabini, who’d taken him target shooting up at Taiben, in days when he’d been far more innocent.
Best not sleep. Keep awake. Keep alert. He’d be embarrassed when Jago got back and scared hell out of him.
Had to move. His leg had a cramp.
Damn, he wished he’d hear from Jago. Or Banichi. Or somebody.
Was that the breeze stirring the grass?
God. The other night sounds had stopped. He just realized that.
His heart rate picked up. Calm, Banichi had told him. A rapid heartbeat never improved one’s aim. Think of the problem, not the emotional context. And Jago had advised him that it was generally wiser to watch an approaching enemy from cover and find out the number involved before doing anything, including running.
He couldn’t stand sitting in a hole and waiting, however. He wanted to get up onto his feet.
But he had to manage that without scuffing a foot or moving a pebble. Which meant deciding it was going to hurt his chest and that he was going to lever himself straight up anyway, without minding the pain.
He could do it.
He’d damned well betterdo it.
He did. Control the breathing, Banichi would say. Keep balanced, Jago would say.
He tried. Poking his head out of his little nook just wasn’t bright. As best he could judge, he was in deep shadow.
And there was, please God, the chance it was Jago coming back. He couldn’t just fire blindly at whatever came.
He eased the safety off the pistol, however. He looked at the ground, judged the slight difference of shadow and deeper shadow that his human eyes could barely make out, and decided it was best just to stay absolutely still and hope. He wasn’t the one to take on trouble, and his bodyguard didn’t need his warning.
Whoever it was, he had the impression they were moving on or near the track he and Jago had laid down.
The sound was coming toward his rocky nook, in all this emptiness. In grass, there was no help for it: there was the vestige of a trailc just not much likelihood of anybody happening onto it by total chance.
Closer. God, he didn’t want to have to shoot. If some stranger came in here, setting that pistol off would echo like doom, from one end of these hills to the other, and would bring all sorts of trouble he couldn’t outrun.
But no choice, he thought, hearing a step in the grass outside.
“Bren-ji,” a whisper said.
It wasn’t Jago. It was Tano or Algini, one or the other, and he felt the blood drain from his head. “Here,” he whispered back, and a shadow slipped in between the rocks.
Algini, he decided, feeling the aftermath of the adrenaline rush.
“Jago’s been gone all day,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Algini said. “We have contact.”
God, that was a relief.
“Banichi?”
“No,” Algini said, and relief plunged right back into worry.
But there was no chance to ask extensive questions. Algini moved, and he went too, out into the clear. “Tano?” he whispered, outside.
“He is coming,” Algini said, and Bren tucked the gun into his pocket and went with Algini, moving as quietly as he could, in Algini’s footprints, or as close as a human stride could make it.
He was quickly out of breath, his mouth was parched, and blisters made walking painful; Algini had to slow down, and finally to rest, hunkered down next to a line of brush.
“Tano will catch up with us,” Algini said.
“Banichi?”
“Possibly switched off,” Algini said. “Possibly out of range.”
Jago might know. Wherever she was. Bren found himself chilling in the wind and tried not to shiver. Algini was never a fount of sympathy: his mind worked otherwise, on facts and necessities, and one decided it was far better to let Algini think and listen and not to be nattering away with questions to which Algini had no answer. Whatever had happened, had already happened, and at this point they were headed, he hoped, as directly as possible toward Targai, where they could reach Geigi and, if they were lucky, signal the bus to come get them. They were on flatter groundc which could mean they had reached deep into the uplands and maybe were approaching one of the few roads that ran through Maschi lands.
“Water, if you will, nadi,” was his one request of Algini. Algini passed him a small flask, and he held the water in his mouth a long time on each small swallow. It was stale, but it was the best thing in hours. He started to hand the flask back.