“One is grateful,” she said properly. “Thank you all.” She made the bow of someone departing, but Narani hesitated in opening the door for her—alone, no security, no escort. That was the way Yolanda had been moving about the station, and that wouldn’t do, not at all.
“Banichi-ji, can you draw someone from atevi general security to attach to her? She needs her belongings. Landa-ji, I’d rather you just stayed here and let us collect your belongings. Is there anything you urgently have to have from your quarters?”
“Not that’s a security rush, but yes, keepsakes. And my mother—” She was starting to think of consequences.
He was grateful for that. And had no good news. “We can provide reasonable security for your mother outside our perimeter. Within atevi protection, with a human staff—you can arrange that set-up, paidhi-aiji. You have the authority. You can authorize, you can build, you can order. It’s up to you how deeply you need to pull her into this.“
“I’ll write a message for her. I don’t know whether she’s going with the ship, or not. We don’t talk that often—but—”
“Frankly, I’d suggest she go. There’ll be fewer potential enemies, and there she doesn’t know anything, and can’t pressure you with personal demands. Here, there’s a danger, however remote, of hostage-taking, for someone else to pressure you.”
Yolanda looked as if she needed to sit down.
“There are two reliable persons in general security, nandiin-ji,” Banichi said, having been in communion with his personal electronics. “I have the names. By your order, we can assign them to bring the paidhi’s belongings.”
“Do so,” Bren said, and to Yolanda: “We now have two agents to attach to you, to this household, as Tano and Algini won’t be at your orders, nor should you ask. No matter the temptation, never stray out of this door without the two agents we assign to you. Same level of security as in the Bu-javid. No less hazard.”
“Nandi,” she said, the respectful form, and seemed utterly lost.
“The guest quarters,” he said. It happened to be the library, at other times; but there were beds at need.
“I have a meeting with Ogun,” she remembered, and added, gathering her scattered manners, “nandi.”
“Advise your staff of your needs when they arrive,” he said. “Go to your meeting on schedule, as you and they deem needful. But go with atevi security. Feldman and Shugart will assist her, too,” he said to Narani. “They’re Tyers’ people. One believes one can trust their word, too. We’ll want to provide them with residency here in the section. Notunder this roof, however. They remain Mospheiran. Landa-paidhi’s become paidhi-aiji, and she will stay here. Her staff will stay where she disposes them, in this household, starting now, if you can find a moment to advise her.”
“Perfectly understood, nandi,” Narani said. “We will make the arrangements.”
In the midst of packing and everything else Narani had to do. Thank God for his staff.
Late evening. Long evening. They had a guest tucked in toward the kitchen end of the apartment. They had a new pair of guards, formerly attached to general security, undergoing a rapid briefing in what was for them a vast career advancement, and two servants with Tano and Algini quietly retrieving a teddy bear and the contents of Yolanda’s closet from her on-station apartment. She had atevi-style clothing in her size, legacy of her days at court—a few years out of the mode, but adequate until the staff could manufacture something more current.
Yolanda had gone to her quarters with the look of a woman in shock by now, just too much change, too many decisions—the aftershock of too many secrets. She’d arranged certain matters and wandered off to her room, and the servants Narani had assigned her reported her asleep in her clothing, to their deep chagrin.
Bren knew… knew, he fancied, everything she was going through, alone: ultimately, alone, no matter how many people came and went; alone, the way each of the paidhiin was alone, in that sense, and maybe relieved to hear from another paidhi that the isolation had a name and a reason and a set of rules.
There’d come a time for him when he hadn’t found the island safe, or comfortable, either. And he’d—not bullied her into the choice, but maybe narrowed the path on either hand, accelerated the choice, given it a shape for her. He felt guilty about that, or sorry for her, or relieved for her sake, or relieved because she was safer than she would have been—the forgotten paidhi, the paidhi who hadn’t wanted the planet at all. He’d done the best thing.
Jase, now—Jase might or might not know where she was. Ogun did by now. She’d ended up postponing her meeting with the senior captain—informed Ogun she’d taken Tabini’s request to heart, officially, and needed a few hours to rest, and by the way, was no longer functioning under Ogun’s orders.
She’d already informed the aiji, the aiji-dowager, and Lord Geigi, officially and in order of protocol—he’d helped her with the wording:
I have most gratefully accepted the aiji’s summons to duty and accept Bren-paidhi’s hospitality until such time as felicitous long-term adjustments can be made. I await the aiji’s instruction, etc., etc…
He was as tired as she was. It was a decent letter. He knew he had to add his own. He wasn’t, tonight, up to it.
The apartment was quietly, constantly, depressingly astir with servants packing and rearranging. He didn’t ask special favors, not even tea near bedtime.
But Jago came while he was undressing for bed, to his great surprise. “News?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“Welcome,” he said, and she lay down beside him. She was as tired as he was, he was well sure, but there was brief love-making, a release of nerves, a little rest for both of them.
The thoughts, the problems, however, wouldn’t leave him alone. He slept briefly, then waked, fearing that that was all the sleep he could get. His mind traveled upstream doggedly, vexingly, back to complete awareness and a new assault on yesterday’s problems.
Jago stirred beside him. Sighed. Drew a knee up, to judge by the motion of the bedclothes.
“Are you awake?” he asked.
“Yes,” she.
“Is there trouble with Cenedi? I never did ask, nadi.”
“No, Bren-ji. It was routine.” She kept things from him—she and Banichi did, being charitably aware that the paidhi’s mind approached overload. The interview with Cenedi might encompass a good many things that would worry him, if he asked too closely.
Today there’d been a good many changes. Worrisome changes. And information shifted value. And he hadn’t thought through the new configurations as far as he wished he had time to do.
“Have I done well with Mercheson-paidhi?”
“Indeed.”
“Once she contacted us—she did contact us?”
“Yes.”
“Once she did that, it seemed a good thing. Far safer for her to be here. I don’t think her own people would move to restrict her. Or understand how to protect her. I amworried about Mospheiran influences. More—I’m worried about her own captains. I know I’m right to break her out of the crew.”
“One does agree.”
“You heard about the tape.”
“Yes.”
The conversation with Mercheson kept nagging at him. Her worries about Jase—worries approaching serious doubts—nagged at him.
And more…
“When I went down to the planet,” he said, “that trip drew our concentrated attention there. Did it not, nadi-ji?”
She was a greater than usual warmth beside him—or he was colder than usual. There was only the least hint of light, to his eyes—but to hers, quite enough.