It didn’t take a gift of prophecy to figure Braddock’s intentions once the kyo showed up and the pressure was on.
He’d already shifted his priorities long enough to deal with Tillington. Conscience on one side said no, the kyo problem had to take over his attention at this point. Let Jase deal with getting the kids out. Let Gin. Let people who didn’t have a unique skill on which all their safety depended.
The kid’s hand clenched his, chill and desperate. He didn’t find the resolve to look down at her as the door opened in their outside hallway. He was telling himself it was damnably irresponsible to involve himself in Braddock’s moves, that the kids’ lives weren’t likely in danger.
Their sense of justice might be.
And Cajeiri’s.
And the value of Tabini-aiji’s protection.
Damn it.
Promise this kid? He couldn’t.
But try his damnedest in the time he had left, before things went critical? He could do that, at least.
· · ·
Irene was coming. Cajeiri sat, dressed in his second-best coat, waiting. And mani was waiting. Mani had ordered tea, but Cajeiri was too anxious to drink more than a sip.
Only Irene was coming. Irene was the last of them he would expect to try to reach them. Irene was scared of things. Irene was terrified of flying. Her mother was the strictest, besides, and supervised everything Irene did.
And where were Gene and Artur? And Bjorn, for that matter? Bjorn hadn’t been allowed to come down to visit. But he was trapped with the others, likely, on the other side of the locked doors.
And only Irene had escaped?
He heard the sound of the main door opening, and he heard an exchange in several voices, Jase-aiji and nand’ Bren among them. And what sounded like Lord Geigi. That door shut.
The quiet disturbance reached the door of the sitting room, and Cajeiri stood up as first nand’ Geigi came in, and then nand’ Bren, and a dark-haired human boy in fashionable riding clothes, with Jase-aiji behind.
Except it was not a boy. It was Irene—who was not gold-haired any longer. Irene had not very much hair at all, and what she had was stained dark, still looking damp, and plastered very close to her head. The clothes were the coat and trousers and boots she had worn when she boarded the shuttle.
“Reni-ji,” he said, and stood up.
Irene drew in a deep breath, then flicked a glance at mani and bowed very, very properly before she said anything.
Then it was: “Nandi. Nand’ dowager.”
“What is this?” mani asked sharply. “Paidhi, what has happened?”
“Braddock,” nand’ Bren said, “has taken up residence in Irene-nadi’s apartment, aiji-ma, with her mother. Irene-nadi disguised herself and slipped out during twilight. She approached the ship-folk guards, speaking only Ragi. They suspected she was not atevi, surely, but they had no way to solve the puzzle she posed, so they brought her through and called Jase-aiji, who told nand’ Geigi. She has no knowledge where Gene and Artur may be. She says the third boy, Bjorn, was at his lessons when the doors shut and he has not come home.”
“Clever girl,” mani said. “Clever. Come here, child.”
“Nand’ dowager,” Irene said very faintly, and came closer—scared, Cajeiri could see it. But proper. Proper, with everything she had learned in Lord Tatiseigi’s house.
“Excellently done,” mani said, looking her up and down. “What shall we do for you, child?”
“Find Gene and Artur and Bjorn, nand’ dowager. Please.”
Mani heard that, and took on that look that said she was truly calculating now, not just politicking, and Cajeiri took in his breath, prepared to go take hold of Irene’s arm if he must, to moderate whatever she did when mani spoke.
“The tunnels the youngsters have used are locked, aiji-ma,” nand’ Bren said. “The boys may be together in the locked sections, or not. Bjorn’s father came to Irene’s apartment to ask whether Irene knew where he was, but Irene was not permitted to answer.”
Irene nodded. “Yes.”
“We have the ship-folk for allies,” mani said. “We hear the stationmaster will be Gin-nandi.”
“Yes,” nand’ Bren said, “she is, aiji-ma. Gin-nandi has already taken over.”
“Then arrest Braddock,” mani said with a flick of her hand.
Everybody took in breath. Except mani. Except Irene, who stood there expecting just that. And there was Cenedi, who, right along with nand’ Bren’s aishid, would arrest Braddock this instant if they had Braddock near at hand.
“This man has been a nuisance long enough,” mani said. “Now we know where he is. And is not this station, like the ship, penetrated with service passages which you say are locked. Surely we can unlock them.”
Bren-nandi and Jase-aiji were not immediately against it, Cajeiri saw it in their faces. But there was sober consideration there, too.
“If it is an atevi operation with Gin-nandi’s consent,” Jase said, “my governing consideration is not leaving hostages, or having damage. I may not have heard about this in any timely way to prevent the move. Once it begins, I shall back the ship’s allies.”
Sometimes Jase-aiji’s Ragi was a little confusing. But not this time, Cajeiri thought. He understood perfectly that Jase was standing back and saying mani and Gin-nandi could do what they liked. Cajeiri had his hands clenched behind him, trying to restrain himself from saying anything that would set things wrong. But:
“I have maps,” he said.
“You,” mani said immediately, “are not going.”
He understood that. He longed to go. He desperately longed to do something. But he understood. If they were concerned about Gene and Artur and Bjorn being hostages, they would certainly not want him in Braddock’s reach, in any sense. And he could not impress them by saying otherwise.
“Yes,” he said, “but I have the maps, mani. All the places. All the routes. Irene-nadi helped me draw them.”
“Nand’ Bren has my map, too,” Irene said. “With my section. Where my mother’s apartment is.”
· · ·
The notebook was indeed in code. A fairly effective code, at least to Bren’s eyes, as they clustered around the dowager’s dining table.
“Freight tunnel. F24-01,” Cajeiri said. “Is that not how Bjorn would go, Reni-ji?”
“Yes,” Irene said. Proprieties or not, they had hot tea and cakes at the formal dining table, which had become the center of business, with Cajeiri’s notebook and Irene’s folded notes spread out. Lord Geigi sat consulting a handheld device with a station schematic, which provided the precise location and address, given the children’s notes. Bren translated, where vocabulary met gaps, in either direction. Jase simply observed, officially not seeing a thing.
“If he was trying to get home from his lessons,” Irene said in ship-speak, which they had insisted was the best for the purpose, F24-09 is where we all would meet. And M298 is how you get between 23 and 24.”
“M298,” Geigi said in Ragi, “is an old and generally unused maintenance tunnel from the original station construction. Even a tall human must guard his head in such places. They are rarely inspected.”
“But they retain pressure,” Tano said.
“Yes,” Geigi said. “When the doors shut, likewise the section’s tunnels are locked and sealed. Heat and pressure continue, as with the rest of the section: they fare as it does.”
“And, Reni-nadi,” Cenedi said. “Your apartment.”
The dowager had retired to her office, having made her demands. Guild—his aishid, the dowager’s, Geigi’s, and the Guild observers, as well as Cajeiri and Irene—clustered about the dining table which the dowager had not hesitated to provide. They took notes from Geigi’s diagrams and from Cajeiri’s notebook and Irene’s . . . quickly so, in the theory, as Banichi put it, that they had an unguessably short time before Braddock woke up, realized his first hostage had fled the apartment, and sent his people to look for Irene in the logical places—notably Artur’s apartment and Gene’s, over in 24, which was not sealed from 23. Braddock’s people might have already taken Artur: they had not asked about him. They might have taken Bjorn. There was no knowing. Moving himself and his lieutenants closer to the section 23 door, only a hallway away from that vital checkpoint, Braddock had put himself in a prime position to assemble a mob, make his demands by way of the ship-folk guards at the doors, who had communication with exactly the people Braddock would want to reach, and in the same move, he had had Irene under lock and key, secure, with no fuss—until Irene had stolen the key and finessed her way into ship-folk hands.