Would thisone suit Tabini—to get a force aboard, outright takethe ship for himself?
God, no. There was the boy. Would Tabini send his only child into an arena of conflict?
Damned right, if it set his enemies off their guard, he thought, not wanting to think it: yes, Tabini would, and he would do it without many second thoughts, expecting success andthe boy’s survival, because Tabini expected extravagant things of the extraordinary people he gathered from all across the world. Tabini routinely sent his grandmotherinto situations like that—granted his grandmother was the greatest threat available.
It was possible.
Not advisable, not what he wanted to think about—but possible.
“If we need to get out of here in a hurry,” he said to Jago as she drifted by, “do you have account of the route?”
“Always, Bren-ji,” was Jago’s answer. She anchored herself by a hand against the ceiling, a very easy reach. “Shall we plan?”
“Possible,” he said. “Remotely possible. I’ll do all I can to assure it doesn’t happen.”
“Yes,” Jago said fervently.
“You’re in touch with Cenedi?”
“Constantly,” Jago said. His staff, ordinarily entirely independent, had attached themselves and him to the dowager’s—convenient, until it came to him doing anything independent, or establishing his own priorities. Like preventing a war. Or theft of a starship.
Which, God, he wasn’t sure he wanted to prevent. How could they runit, without Sabin?
“I have every confidence in Cenedi,” he said to her. “But I have utmost confidence in you and Banichi, nadi. Utmost. You are not to accept a rear guard position, or to desert me at any time.”
He conflicted man’chiin in that statement, and knew it. Theirs flowed up to Tabini himself, and by small detours, to him in the main, and to the dowager as Tabini’s representative: there was no time at which that man’chi to Tabini wavered.
“I knowthis place, these humans, and these circumstances,” he said, revealing his logic in the statement. “And the dowager ought to take my advice, but, infelicitous pair: may not. I fear a move to take the ship itself. And I will notlose from the household the two of your Guild I most trust to know and understand and defend the interests of the house, all to save some other man of the dowager’s household. I will not, Jago-ji. If any such infelicitous thing should come about, I most assuredly will need my most experienced staff around me.”
That at least occasioned Jago a moment’s consideration… possibly because the paidhi was an utter, forgetful fool and the communications she wore was live and directed to Cenedi’s staff; but it was late to moderate that statement, impossible to call it back, and, on a third thought, if it penetrated Cenedi’s consciousness of a dangerous situation, good.
He touched his own coat, in the same position in which his bodyguard wore their electronics. It was a question.
Jago touched the same spot. “It isn’t,” she said. “We don’t communicate with their staff, when we’re inside. Paidhi-ji, we would tell you.”
That was a relief. And in itself, that statement told him where man’chi lay.
“I will protect the dowager,” he said, to ease their uneasiness, “but will notsacrifice myself or my guard or my staff that I have trained up here for very important work. I feel no call to do that. And if they were to attempt to take the ship—I don’t know what we would do with it, nadi-ji.”
“We completely agree, paidhi-ji.”
This was notJago off-duty, who slept with him. No, this was Jago in official relationship, and for atevi officers, instinct-driven to take such orders from the highest in the household, it was a profound, a revolutionary statement, with implications for the rest of the voyage—if they had a voyage.
“I’m sorry to have placed you in such a position. But in my estimation, we have no choice but to maintain my independent judgment.”
“The aiji gave you very great authority. I speak for Banichi as well,” Jago said. “And our man’chi flows through youto the aiji, nandi; it takes no detours. I think I speak for the staff, except Bindanda. And hisis more aligned with us than otherwise.”
Revolution, indeed.
A paper lordship.
Or was it? His staff had read it. And theytook it seriously.
A lord in his own province—and his was the heavens themselves—could say no to very high-rank.
He was astonished. Appalled. “Jago-ji, keep me from foolishness. Say so to Banichi, Jago-ji.”
“Oh, he knows,” Jago said. “But I will tell him, nandi.”
She went on her way. He folded up his computer, finding his lands trembling.
Absolute novice’s mistake, that with the possibility of interconnected communications, and he’d made it. But gut-level, too, he’d relied on his staff, and wasn’t disappointed.
Lord of the heavens?
A rival to Ilisidi?
From a carefully insulated center of his brain that might be mostly atevi, or mostly human—he honestly didn’t know what he thought.
He’d been blindsided. He’d made one mistake. From now on he had to be flawless.
He had to think, was what Tabini expected of him. To keep the tempers on this ship in check he had to be neither-side and both-sides for at least this evening, examining everything, taking nothing for granted.
He didn’t need a computer for that preparation. The tools he needed were inside himself: calm, and ice-cold, experienced analysis of motives.
Those things, and complete, professional objectivity in his view of participants.
There was a hard one. He didn’t likeSabin.
And how was he going to keep everything restrained and reasonable at thattable?
He stowed his computer inside a locker where he knew it would be safe when down became down again. He had no intention of having a literal crash.
Tabini hadn’tset him up on this mission with Ilisidi without the cachet to go with it. His staff answered the situation, and made him put on this coat and take up the authority.
So thatwas what Jago and Narani and his whole staff had been saying when they scoured up starch and an iron? When only the best would do for Bren-paidhi?
He was a reasonably smart mender-of-the-interface. It had only taken him a half an hour to figure it out.
Near time to go down the hall and do his job.
Near time for them to go down there and try to prevent the calamity that thus far was headed for them.
His escort appeared in the door, Banichi and Jago in their court finery, shining silver and polished black leather. Their Guild remained efficient, while the lords rendered themselves incredibly baroque.
“A moment, nadiin-ji,” Bren said, settling on one preliminary item. He was near a communications unit, in major points like the one he’d had on station, and he punched in the same authority he’d always contacted for people behind the ship-folk’s communications firewall. “C1?”
“ This is C1. Is this Mr. Cameron, on five?”
“It is.” Clearly C1 had some indication where the call originated. “Contact Captain Graham. He has an appointment. Tell him call me regarding that.”
There was a pause. It would be complete calamity, if Sabin decided at the last moment not to show, and to keep Jase incommunicado. More, if he was serving as diplomatic safety net, he had to avoid mistakes and missed appointments, and his heartbeat began a slow climb to panic as the silence on the other end stretched out longer than an ordinary transfer of communications.
“ Captain Graham is en route,” C1 reported, “ and says he’ll see you in 5 B.”
That was their sector. Thank God.
“Thank you, C1.” He broke the connection and drifted gently toward his security.
So things wereon track, Sabin hadn’t thrown Jase in the brig yet, and the situation at least wouldn’t blow up before they even got started.