He should talk to—
A rap at the door interrupted both the card game, and his daydream of easy, sweeping solutions.
Jago opened the door and slipped inside. “Lord Geigi’s staff has just contacted us, Bren-ji. He is in the air at Mori, and will land here, we estimate, within the hour. The new bus is fueled and stocked and in order. The guest quarters are available now, and furnished with linens. The truck is on its way up from the village. We are ready.”
“Excellent.” He looked at the wall clock. So Lord Geigi, having landed at Shejidan, had come into an airport near the Isles by jet, and was coming down the coast from the Isles by prop planec inventive route, possibly with time for contact with old allies on the northern coast. “We should be moving, then.”
The card game had ended, unfinished. Jago gave a single hand sign to Tano and Algini that simply amounted to, “Banichi and I will go with Bren,” and that was that: all arrangements made. Tano and Algini would stay with the monitoring, along with Cenedi and his men, and Banichi and Jago would go with him to the airstrip.
Certain house staff would go with them, too, particularly to handle the luggage, additional of which might be coming in a second plane—one would not be at all surprised at that arrangement. Personal baggage could go into the underside of the fancy new bus; but the village truck would be a prudent backup, so as not to leave any of Lord Geigi’s belongings exposed at the little airstrip, begging the kind of michief they had had.
Moving an atevi lord anywhere was an exercise in complex logistics, but what a lord saw generally went smoothly—thanks to staff.
And all he needed do was go to his bedroom, put on a nicer coat—Koharu and Supani helped him with the lace and the pigtail and the fresh white ribbon, the white of neutrality being the paidhi-aiji’s heraldry and sign of office. That was his choice for the meeting, a politic choice considering the color choice of the bus.
Then he walked out and down the hall toward the front door, picking up Jago and Banichi along the way, along with four of the dowager’s guard, for a little extra security. One of the dowager’s men would drive, this trip—Banichi and Jago were, on his orders, taking it a little easy the last several days.
It was a wonderful bus, on the inside—new-smelling, modern, and clean, with very comfortable seats, its own lavatory, and a well-stocked galley. NowBren finally got to enjoy it, and enjoy it he did, in a seat of atevi scale, plenty of room for a human, new upholstery, and deeply cushioned, responsive even to a human’s lighter weight, and with a place for his feet. “No, nadiin-ji,” he said, to the staff’s offer of fruit juice. “I shall enjoy it with Lord Geigi when he arrives. Kindly serve it once he is aboard.”
The bus had, besides the luxury of a galley, air conditioning and the very nice protection of windows that appeared black to the outside, even without using the pull-down shutters.
The engine positively purred with power.
And the front seats were arranged by opposing pairs, so that he and a guest, or, at least on the way out, Banichi and Jago, could sit facing one another. There were pull-out trays in the arm-rests, like those on a transcontinental jet. And footrests— the paidhi was particularly happy with that arrangement, usually having his feet dangling in atevi-scale transport. He settled back in utter comfort and watched the slightly shaded landscape go past in backwards order, while Banichi and Jago, similarly comfortable, and armed to the teeth, casually watched for trouble on the road ahead.
None developed. They crossed the tracks at the station and kept going on a reasonably maintained gravel road—thank Najida village for that convenience—which led to, one and a half fairly smooth kilometers from the train station, a small, flat-roofed building with a fueling station, a recently mowed grass strip, and a single windsock.
They parked and waited.
And in time, delayed a little, perhaps, by the soundproofing, one of Ilisidi’s young men thought he heard a plane.
The driver opened the bus door for that young man to listen. Everyone else agreed they heard it.
Finally Bren didc by which time the sharp-eyed young men, gathered at those side windows, said they actually saw it coming. Atevi were just that much keener of hearing and sight—night-sight, in particular. The only area in which humans had the physical advantage was in spotting things when the sun was at its brightest.
In this case, the sound grew until, yes, the human heard it, too. And sure enough, what appeared in approach was a fair-sized plane, a twin prop, a model that served the smaller towns and the outlying islands, where short strips and high winds were the rule. It wasn’t the sleekest of craft that came in, fat-bodied, with high-mounted wings and a blunt, broad nose, but it managed the single strip handily, even in the mild crosswind. Landing gear came down, and it touched down reasonably smoothly, then taxied about and maneuvered back toward the small building and their waiting bus.
The engine slowed to a lazy rotation of the props. The plane’s door opened, lowering as a set of steps. Two of the dowager’s men from the bus and two Guildsmen from inside the plane stepped out—numbers mattered in a situation, and what that read was not an infelicity of two on either side, but an implied felicity of three: they each represented someone protected by their immediate company.
Now it was for one more of them on the bus to create a new felicitous number.
He didn’t need to say so. Jago got up and went out, down the steps, solo, felicitous seventh in the arrangement; and hers was a face and form that Lord Geigi’s guard would recognize in an instant.
Lord Geigi was indeed the arriving party. His considerable bulk immediately appeared in the doorway—which demanded a response.
Bren got up and went out himself, quicker on the short descent from the bus than Lord Geigi, who had further to go, and whose rotund shape needed a little caution on the narrow steps. Two more of Geigi’s men came out. Banichi and one of the dowager’s men followed Bren.
Beyond that, once lordly feet were on the ground, superstition went by the wayside, neither he nor Geigi doing more than observing the forms; and now numbers ceased to matter. Staff poured out on both sides in brisk application to business. Baggage compartments opened up on the plane and the bus. The truck, which had also pulled up behind the bus, started up and trundled closer to take its own share of whatever was not to go on the bus.
None of which activity was at all the lords’ business. Bren walked forward and bowed, Geigi bowed, and then they bowed again, in lieu of hugging one another, which would have been the human response to the meeting.
Broad smiles, however, were definitely in common. They were old allies.
“Geigi-ji,” Bren said. “One is delighted to offer transport.”
“Bren-ji,” Geigi said, “one is ever so pleased at such personal courtesy. One delights to see you well despite all the to-do I hear of.”
“Will you come aboard, nandi, and accept the hospitality of my house tonight?”
“Gladly, nandi. Very gladly, my own house being, I understand, in some disarray. One also understands Najida has a relative of mine imposing on its patience, in consequence. One very earnestly apologizes for that necessity.”
They had started walking toward the bus steps.
And Bren nodded acknowledgement of the courtesy. “One is gratified, however, to see Kajiminda safe in allied hands. The aiji’s men have things there in good order, as I understand. But do postpone such stressful business, Geigi-ji, in favor of a pleasant ride and a leisurely reception and dinner under my roof. My staff will be delighted to make your visit an occasion in the household tonight and as long as you wish. And the aiji-dowager would never forgive me if I let you say no to it.”