He still couldn’t see anything but grass and a little trace of previous wheel ruts beyond the foglights and what might be a few sprinkles of rain on the windshield. He sat still, not asking pointless questions, composing what he could say if they did get him a civilian phone. It probably, he thought, didn’t matter that much what he didsay: the reaction his voice got was going to get them protection or it was going to bring every enemy on the west coast howling in pursuit.
He didn’t know what they were going toward, but he hoped for luck—baji-naji, when it got down to it, blind luck to hold out just a little longer. There was less of value out here in a hunting preserve to encourage hordes of enemies to set up roadblocks. There was scant reason for the occupants of a hunting station to expect an armed invasion.
But there was no reason for an ordinary hunting-range road to have been well maintained, either.
And a hunting station probably constituted the most heavily armed, resourceful sort of citizen populace they were likely to meet, well, give or take the Edi.
That meant hemight have to get out, talk to the locals, risk another shot to the torso or worse—he could hardly contemplate it without flinching—and look like the degree of authority that private citizens had no business shooting at. Even if the locals viewed him as trouble, or an outright enemy, they would most likely just want him to get out of their district as fast as possible and not have him draw fire or damage their property.
He felt his collar lace and straightened it, straightened out his cuffs, which were a disgrace—
he had to pick grass seeds out of the lacework.
The road climbed, then descended. There was a little flickering of lightning out the south side of the van.
“There,” Jago said, and Bren saw nothingc which by no means surprised him.
“Let us out, Nichi-ji,” Algini said, and the van immediately slowed.
The sound of one lonely engine out here might catch someone’s attention. And he knew what Algini and Tano were doing, even before Banichi slowed to a stop and those two got out.
They were exhausted. All of them were exhausted. They sat a time with the engine pinging in the chill night air, waiting.
Look it over, figure what they were dealing with. Signal. One of them had to go off passive recept if they were going to do that. That was a risk.
So was driving blindly into an enemy outpost.
It was a long wait. Jago slept, catnapping. Lucasi slept. Bren tried to and succeeded intermittently. At his third or fourth waking, Jago was awake, and Banichi was catching a little sleep, his arms folded on the steering wheel.
Tano and Algini were out there somewhere on a cold, increasingly rainy night, looking the situation over.
“Ah,” Jago said suddenly and nudged Banichi. “A come-ahead,” she said.
Banichi just started the engine and drove, not breakneck but at a fair clip, with the fog lights on.
It was about a kilometer farther on that the lights picked out a distant set of log buildings at the edge of a stand of trees. An open-sided equipment shed: There was the tractor and mower; a small open-bed truck, and a fuel tank. Thatwas what they were looking for. A few buildings, one the typical barracks for the seasonal commercial operation of the center, one the manager’s residence, one larger building—a processing center, again, for use in its season.
Banichi pulled into the center of the cluster and parked near the porch of what looked like the manager’s residence.
Jago opened her door and stepped out. Bren clutched his gun in his pocket and watched as Jago went up the steps.
“Attention the house!” Jago called out as she rapped on the door. “Assassins’ Guild, on other business!”
No shot came. That was encouraging.
A machine growled out of the dark. Bren’s heart jumped. But it was a generator cutting on.
Floodlights slowly brightened. A light came on inside the house.
The door opened. A man wearing only trousers came out into the cold and spoke to Jago, quietly. Bren couldn’t make it out. The man’s stance looked anxious. But unless he knew someone, an angry ex-wife or business partner, had Filed Intent on him, a citizen should have nothing to fear from legitimate Guild.
Lucasi waked, sat up, looked around him. And asked no questions.
Jago walked back toward the van, down the short steps. Then another figure, in Guild black, showed beside the house.
“Banichi,” Bren said in alarm.
“Tano,” Banichi said calmly, and as Jago walked up to the van, he rolled his window down.
“There is a radio in the office,” she said. “We have agreed not to drain the tank. The manager has a wife and children, one an infant.”
“Let me go out, nadi,” Bren said quietly and got up, no one hindering him this time. Lucasi opened the side door, and Bren climbed down as the man came down off the low porch.
“The paidhi-aiji,” the man said.
It was hard to be mistaken in that point of identification. Bren gave a little nod.
“At the moment, nadi,” Bren said, “I am on official business. Is your man’chi to Lord Machigi?”
“Yes, nandi.”
A second nod. “Have you had news from Tanaja?”
Hesitation. An answering nod.
“Would you be so good as to inform us, nadi?”
“One hears there is a Guild action in Tanaja,” the man said. “There are five of us here, two children. This is our livelihood, nandi.”
Bren bowed. “My aishid operates under strictest Guild rules, nadi. Be assured you will have compensation. We need fuel. Is there a key for the office? We need the radio.”
“We have no keys here. The door is unlocked.”
Tano had come into view. Algini hadn’t. Tano stood by him, rifle at rest, while Jago went up onto the other porch and carefully opened the door.
The inside light came on and brightened. Bren gave a courteous bow to the manager, then went over to the other porch, all the while feeling extremely exposed in the floodlights that bathed the yard.
He went in. Jago flipped switches and initiated their call to Najida estate.
It took a bit. “Stand by,” she said, then handed Bren the microphone and the headset, which Bren held to one ear.
“This is Bren-paidhi;” he said. “Who is speaking?”
“ Nandi?” came the answer.
“Is this Nawari?”
“ Yes. We are under attack, nandi. So is the airport.”
Just a little uncharacteristically rattled, for Nawari. It was a good thing, he thought, that Banichi hadn’t taken them down the main road past the airport. But he couldn’t ask questions that might betray Najida’s situation.
“We are about to enter into Sarini province.”
“ Nandi, one begs you observe caution!”
“How is Kajiminda faring, nadi?”
“ Kajiminda has not come under attack, nandi. Najida and the airport are both under assault.”
“Call Shejidan,” he said. “Advise them I am on the border and on my way toward Najida.”
“ Yes, nandi.”
He nodded to Jago. Jago flipped off the power, rifle in the crook of her other arm, and led the way out, where Tano waited.
The manager still stood on the porch, shirtless in the cold wind.
“Nadi,” Jago said to him. “If anyone asks you where we went, do not hesitate to tell them we are headed toward Kajiminda. And tell them we toldyou to tell them.”