And if it did happen, if they failed in this mad venture, someone else would make a power grab, to be sure, name himself or herself aiji and cut Murini’s throat in the process—give it two weeks, at maximum.
Meanwhile Mospheira would lose no time stabilizing the situation by appointing Yolanda Mercheson his replacement. There was an idea worth staying alive to prevent.
And they had visitors coming in from space who expected to deal with a stable, reasonable authority down here.
God, if only Ilisidi had consulted him. He would have flung himself bodily in the way of her getting in that car. He would have argued with her that they—he, the dowager, and the heir—should run for it if Tabini had the notion of going back for a frontal assault on Shejidan. Run for the hills, hell. They should just go back to the coast, go to Mospheira, get back into space and use technological means, like a meaningful near-earth-orbit satellite system and broadcasts and even weapons they controlled, to become an unassailable nuisance to any usurper— But he hadn’t had a chance to pose that argument to her.
Security staffs had separated their assets, and right now there was no way in hell this overloaded bus was going to overtake that touring car on rough ground—not until their refueling, presumably at the train station.
Then he had to dive off this bus, try to get hold of the dowager and talk sense into her in precisely those terms—appealing to technology which she and her household could understand, alone of atevi within his reach.
If he could reason with her at all at this point. If she hadn’t taken some damned public stand from which she couldn’t back downc He would send Banichi to talk to Cenedi. That was the one agency that could persuade the dowager—get Cenedi to take his side. With reason. With logic. And a concrete plan.
First thing in the plan, they had to overtake that car.
The estate road joined the general provincial road at the southern estate gateway. The bus rolled through broad open gates, still not foremost among the buses that had set out— notably not the foremost, Bren thought, seeing how the lights went on up the curve their column made, and he would bet the dowager’s car was up in the lead by now. He heard the tinny radio advisements that someone near him, perhaps Dur’s security, picked up from other members of the column—it was, thank God, a verbal code that he could not penetrate, but then, blood-chilling, he heard a voice speaking clear Ragi: “The aiji-dowager has returned in triumph over foreign connivance and calls on every village to rise and take back Shejidan from the usurper! The aiji-dowager is at this moment on the move, with all the true numbers of the heavens in her hands! Rise up, arm, and join her! This is the fortunate moment!”
My God, my God, he thought, feeling that chill run down his back. She’s challenging Murini head-on, no question. She’s using Tatiseigi’s communications system. If that doesn’t bring airplanes down on us with bombs, nothing will. Does she want that?
If Tabini starts dropping those illegal gas-bombs himself, all restraint goes on their side and oursc but he’s the liberaclass="underline" he can conceivably do things like that, can’t he? Murini, with his conservative claims—he can’t. He daren’t. And it’s exactly the sort of thing the dowager wouldn’t stick at, not in this situation, even if all hell breaks loose.
No phones at the station that will let me get through to Mospheira, no radio that won’t be monitored. Shawn can’t order an intervention without going to the legislature and the legislature won’t move in time. No way I can stop this, not once that call to the tashrid has gone public, and Mospheiran military intervention wouldn’t help Tabini’s cause, anyway.
We’re in it. We’re in it for sure.
He had his pistol in his pocket. Tano had told him he should take better care of it. Clean it more often. Truth was, he hated carrying it, hated thinking he had it, hated ever needing it, treasure it as he did because of the source from which it came. Now he thought he should follow Tano’s advice and clean the thing before he had to fire it, if he didn’t set it off by accident in all this bouncing about.
He didn’t have a cleaning kit. Needed a brush. He didn’t want to be handling it with the boy next to him.
He didn’t want it to fail him, either. He got up again, made his way as far as Algini’s seat, which he and Tano shared by turns, the bus having many more people than seats. “Gini-ji.” He passed Algini the weapon, holding on with his elbow around a pole. “This needs cleaning, if you would do me the kindness, Gini-ji.”
Algini took it, ejected the clip and the shell in chamber, not even thinking of the motion, one was sure. Natural as breathing. An occupation for his hands. And Bren took a less painful grip on the seat back railing, held on as the bus lurched and bounced.
“Is there a chance we may overtake the dowager at the refueling stop, Gini-ji? Is there a chance Banichi can reach Cenedi?”
“We shall see what we do there. We may lose certain vehicles, as this assemblage drinks the fuel up, nandi. It will be a difficult matter to get so many vehicles to the capital, all with fuel. And some will not withstand the trip, mechanically.”
Clearly they could go stringing dead vehicles and stranded people from here to Shejidan, and it was no good fate awaiting those thus stranded, if their advance failed or stalled. “One has had an unpleasant thought. What if they figure out our path, and start blowing the fueling stations in front of us, Gini-ji?”
“This is our gravest concern, nandi,” Algini said, and blew through the open barrel before he added. “Certain fast-moving private cars are going ahead of the column. We hope to take fuel stations in advance. We hope, too, that certain local folk in favor of us will think of our needs and guard their own premises from destruction, such as they can.”
“Against Guild?” Ordinary folk contesting the Assassins’ Guild seemed the weakest link in their whole plan, even ahead of the vulnerability of the fuel supply, and the sheer mass of all these hungry vehicles. It seemed uncharacteristically fragile, this threat they mounted, even with the support of lords and professional Guild: Most of their supporters were farmers and shopkeepers, completely untrained except in hunting. “They can stall us out, Gini-ji, can they not? They can strand us in the middle of the countryside.”
Algini rarely met a direct question, or returned a direct gaze from anyone. In the dark, fitfully lit by bouncing headlamps from other vehicles, he not only gazed back, but did so with uncommon earnestness. “That they can do, Bren-ji.”
“What, then, shall we do? Are we to fight, wherever we run out and stop? Or have we a plan to get to cover?”
“The vehicles of high priority will refuel more often than absolute need, and if we are stopped—indeed we may have to fight, nandi, but one trusts a number of measures are being taken in advance of us.”
Algini lapsed into the passive voice precisely where the critical who would logically be other Guild, as clearly as if he had shouted it. Guild or operatives of the aiji, which would still be Guild—were implied to be taking those measures, out in front of the column.
That answered his query as to whether the aiji and his supporters had taken leave of their senses.
“We killed the Guild officers, Gini-ji.” Implying that the rest of the Guild might not be favorable to such action, and fishing for information.
“We did,” Algini said, clearly unwilling to disburse too much information to anyone. And then he added: “But do not by any means take Gegini-nadi as the Guild, Bren-ji. He elected himself.”