"There's a fairly long list, including neighboring estates."
"But the message. Was it the dowager's doing?"
"One doesn't know. If —"
"Nand' paidhi," a member of Tabini's staff was in the doorway. "A human is calling."
"I'm coming." He was instantly out of the chair, and with Tano and Algini who had come from that wing, which they'd devoted to operations, he followed the man to the nearest phone.
"This is Bren Cameron. Hello?"
" Jase Graham. Got a real small window here. Closer we get…" There was breakup. " Everything on schedule?"
"We're fine. How are you?"
"I lost that. Where are you?"
"Fifty kilometers from the landing site. I'll bethere, do you hear?"
"We're… board the lander. Systems… can you…?"
"Repeat, please."
There was just static. Then: " See you. You copy?"
"Yes! I get that! I'll be there!"
The communication faded out in static, tantalizing in what he didn't know, reassuring in what he could hear.
And what could they say? Watch out for hikers? We hope nobody shoots at the lander?
"They're on schedule," he said. "When are we going out there?"
"One hasn't heard that you were going, nand' paidhi," Tano said.
That was a possibility he hadn't even considered. If he was at Taiben, he'd damn sure be at the landing in the morning. He wasn't leaving two humans to be scared out of their minds or to make some risky misassumption before they reached the lodge.
"Where's Tabini?" he asked. "I need to talk to him."
"Nand' paidhi," Algini said, "we'll make that request."
"No talking through relays. I want to talk to him."
He was being, perhaps, unreasonable. But if the tourist emergency had hauled Tabini off where he couldn't get to Tabini before they arranged details that left him out, he was damned mad, andsurprised, andfrustrated.
"Yes, nand' paidhi," Algini said, and a certain part of Taiben's whole communications diverted itself, probably not operationally wise, probably an obstruction of operations and possibly a dangerous betrayal of the fact Tabini wasn't under Taiben's roof at the moment.
"Don't make noise about it," he said. "Just — I need this straightened out. They could come down in need of medical help. They could need a translator. Or first aid. Which I can give — at least have a good guess. There's a chance of a rough landing. And I don't want a mistake."
"I'll find the aiji," Tano said.
"Thank you, nadi."
Which meant Tano hiking out through the dark himself.
He was sorry about it. But the reasons that came to him were real reasons.
Dammit.
So he went back to the central hall and paced and repositioned bric-a-brac, and waited, in general, until, short of breath, Tano came in with, "Paidhi-ma. Banichi confirms you're to be picked up with the rest, two hours before dawn."
" Thankyou, Tano-ji," he said, and felt foolish, having had Tano run all over the estate, in the dark, but it eased his mind enough he at least lost his urge to pace the floor.
And after that, he decided it might be wise at least to go to bed, get what rest he could without sleeping — he refused to sleep, for fear something would happen and they wouldleave him behind — and be ready to go in the morning.
So he went down the hall into the guest wing, dismissed the servants who were determined to be of help, and began, alone, to lay out the clothes he wanted for what might end up being a hike.
But the jacket he regularly wore for hiking had the brilliant red stripe down the sleeve that warned hunters he wasn't a target — and he wasn't sure, counting the problems with the neighbors, that he wanted to be that conspicuous an object in the brush.
He laid down the plain brown one he was wearing, instead — leather, and comfortable for Taiben's hall, seeing that end-of-season evenings often turned cold, and human bones chilled faster than atevi's.
"Bren-ji? One heard you were questioning arrangements?"
Jago's voice. He turned, stood there with the jacket in his hands — Jago — was different to him. He wasn't seeing her the way he'd always seen her, not a hair different, not a hint of impropriety in her being here, or in her appearance, or his, but suddenly the room was too close, the air was too warm, and a human brain with too much to do was all of a sudden trying to think about details in the circuits left over from a very stupid whiteout in the fore-brain.
"I — uh, I wanted to know what time we were leaving. In the morning." The paidhi, the source of international communications, wasn't doing well. "Tano found my answer."
"There was a phone call?"
"I — uh, yes. There was."
"Bren-ji — is something wrong?"
"I — no. No. Everything's on schedule."
Jago stood there a moment. Then shut the door, shutting them both in.
He felt a sense of panic. And knew it showed. He wasn't about to throw Jago out. Or to request a good friend to leave.
Which wasn'twhat she was, dammit, he wasn't thinking.
"I've made you uneasy," Jago said. "Bren-paidhi, I was stupidly mistaken. I apologize. I most sincerely apologize."
He didn't know what to say. He stood there. And Jago said, with great correctness, "Excuse the intrusion, nand' paidhi," and turned quietly to go.
"I —" he said, in all the fluency he had. "Jago."
"Nand' paidhi?" She had her hand on the latch. He wanted and didn't want. He relied on Banichi and Jago for life and death. But Jago had touched off something — so tangled in his psyche he didn't know what to do with it, didn't know where to take hold of it, even what to call it.
"Jago —"
She was still waiting. He didn't know how many I's he'd started with, but he knew it was far too many for anyone's patience.
"Nothing," he said desperately, "nothing could make me distrust you, in any way. You —" Breath was not coming easily. "You affected me very profoundly — that's all I know how to say. I'm not sure what you think. I'm not sure what I think. I can'tthink at the moment, there's just too much, too much going on. There will be for a while. — Do I make any sense at all? It's not you. It's me. I'm not — just not at my most stable, Jago."
He ran out of words. Jago didn't seem to find any immediately, and the silence went on, so deep he could all but hear his heart beat.
"Have I angered you?" Jago asked then.
"No." A vehement shake of his head. But it wasn't an atevi gesture. "In no way. Most emphatically not."
"Disturbed you?"
"Yes."
Jago bowed her head and seemed to take that for dismissal.
"Jago." He was floundering. Clinical was all he knew how to be, to save them both. "It's the friendbusiness. It's that word. We say we love. Even when we need. When we need, it's something not very productive. It's a lot of human damn wiring, Jago-ji. Expectations. — Like man'chi. How do you stop it logically? — And I can't know — maybe you're just curious. Maybe just — nothing more than that. Maybe a lot more serious than that. I don't know."
"One meant well," Jago said, still with that unbreakable control. "Evidently one was very wrong."
"No. I just — Jago, God, I'm embarrassed as hell. I just want you back. The way things were. For a while. Just that — if that doesn't offend you."
"No," she said.