“Her visit to the station did that quite well,” Jago said.
“Yet something might be afoot in the east,” Banichi said. “Or something might be brewing closer to Shejidan.”
Never mind that atevi had no word for friendor love. Enemytranslated closely enough. One who threatens my interestsapplied on both sides of the strait.
What they thought of a human’s prolonged association with the dowager as well as Tabini—Well, atevi had an untranslatable word for a person who bridged a gap and created an association they’d rather see in hell. Troublemakerwas close. And that described him, for sure.
And Tabini made a point of having him down to the planet and then sending him back, dragging him like a lure past certain noses?
Half his primary security wasn’t on the planet—couldn’t therefore watch his computer, and Tabini’s security hadn’t wanted people carrying packets into the mausoleum, a situation Banichi and Jago had not, in fact, been warned of, not until two of Tabini’s staff showed up not only to assist and guard the baggage while the two of them guarded him, but to take charge of the offending object. On the one hand it could be simple indication they were being strict with the lords and didn’t want to make an exception in his case. On the other—his stomach reacted—it could have robbed him of one bodyguard or set a stranger with him, which Banichi and Jago wouldn’t allow, not even for Tabini’s men—or it could all be a ploy to get their hands on the computer. Banichi and Jago were as nervous as he had ever seen them and, when that was presented to them, about as put out as he had ever seen them. One rarely saw them vexed with the authority that ruled them all—but vexed they had been. They’d been a week on the planet, and suddenly and without warning, no, the computer couldn’t go with them into the service, even when they were told the service would run close to shuttle launch?
So here they were, having gotten through it, headed back to orbit with no more explanation than before, but at least back into his own security, back into the safety of a closed world, where such surprises wouldn’t come up. Much as he missed the world, much as he pined for blue sky and the heave of the deep sea under him, much as he missed the people he couldn’t take with him—he knew the world up there was safe. He ranhis own section of the world up there, and he knew what was going on in it.
Down here he’d had to take the computer back, not knowing what might have been done in two hours. And he wasn’twholly sure Algini, the best computer wizard on his staff, had the expertise or resources to find out quickly—not compared to the resources Tabini-aiji could draw on.
The tracks clicked at a rate now that told him the engineer had clearance all the way, and that they were doubtless inconveniencing trains all over the system. They were late. But they were going to get him off the planet. If they were rushing like this, they were going to make it.
The train took a hard right turn, the last. Jago got up and restored the juice glass to the rack, untroubled by the motion of the car.
They had made the airport spur with that turn, not destined for the public terminal, but to the far end of the airport, which handled diplomatic cargo, spacebound cargo, and occasionally explosives, curious juxtaposition.
They braked. “Plenty of time,” Banichi said.
Another exposure to daylight and the chance of assassins. Bren personally gathered up his computer, but willingly entrusted it to Jago’s offered hand. The body armor chafed. He tugged at it, straightened his cuffs and saw to his pockets—ready for a dash once the train stopped.
“The packages made it into baggage?” He even hesitated to ask, amid more serious difficulties his staff had had to track.
“Early this morning, nadi-ji. No worry.”
The video games for staff had made it, then, likewise Bindanda’s request for two particular spices. And the treats… those were his idea. He wished he’d been able to think of something appropriate for Jase—something that wouldn’t touch on Jase’s longing to be down here and cause more frustration than it cured.
The car’s doors opened on a daylight he had last seen from his apartment windows before the ceremony. The view beside the car was a vast tract of concrete, a clouded sky—blue-green foliage walled off by a high fence. A van was waiting for the train, but it would not be Tano and Algini backing Banichi and Jago up this time—no: two more of Tabini’s own, stationed there to swear to the van’s integrity.
He made the small jump down—a small atevi-scale jump that jolted his knees—to the siding. Jago brought all the hand-baggage, a trifle to her strength, and escorted him briskly to the waiting van—holding back just that small bit that let Banichi double-check that the driver and the guard were indeed Tabini’s agents. Members of the Assassins’ Guild knew one another socially, so to speak—shot at one another, under contract, that being their job, but exchanged pleasant words at other times.
Clearly everything did check. Banichi signaled them, and they boarded.
They weregoing to make it. Bren believed it now, heaved a long sigh as he hit the seat and the door shut. The van moved. Chain-link fence and blue-green scrub gave way to a wide panorama.
Then the shuttle came in view, on the runway.
Sleek and white: Shai-shan, oldest of the fleet, the first shuttle built and the one whose crew they knew best.
Fear of flying be damned, Bren thought—it was far safer than where he had just been. It was safer than the whole planet had become—in terms of schemes and plots, and those, in atevi society, were never without consequence.
They halted right at the bottom of the cargo lift… cargo lifts still serving for personnel, a minor economy in a program otherwise making progress hand over fist. They were in time. They exited the van in haste, walked up onto the platform.
One could hold a transcontinental airliner half an hour or so, but the calculations were made for Shai-shan: she rode favorable numbers, and her ground crew didn’t like to revise them. Stewards at the open hatch door above waved at them anxiously.
A wind was blowing cold as, with a bang and a jolt of the hydraulics, they rose up and up to the open hatch. Banichi spoke to someone on his pocket com, confirming their arrival.
They’d made it.
Chapter 2
Air inside was immediately warmer. “Have I time to shed the coat?” Bren asked, and the steward said there was at least that, yes, nadi.
Bren immediately peeled off the coat, with Jago’s help—slipped out of the heavy vest and let the stewards, who were well accustomed to such precautions, stow coat and vest discreetly in baggage.
Hand-baggage went, too. All but the computer. Jago had that, and kept it.
In the democracy of the space effort—and a single, rear-boarded aisle—they passed alongside atevi station workers bound for their jobs in orbit—most back from leave, a few first-timers. Bren knew no few names, and a few rose, bowing under the cramped overhead. “Thank you, nadiin,” Bren said. “Thank you.” He found himself exhausted, after very little exertion for days—very little exertion, and a great deal of tension. He wanted his seat, which was always up in the front, where the steward was waiting. He made what haste he could.
“Nandi.” The steward’s position marked his proposed seat, not quite the first row, this time, but close.