Cajeiri tried to communicate all the detail. He had not used his ship-speak this much in most of a year. Mosphei’ had a different accent and put in pieces ship-speak left out, so he kept having to correct himself. And when nand’ Toby had something to say, he had to ask nand’
Toby several times to get things straight, and then find a time to break into what mani and Lord Geigi were saying to get it across, whispering.
Nand’ Toby had been working for the Presidenta of Mospheira all during the Troubles, and he understood just how everything was laid out along the whole west coast, and who was where, and who was allied, and who was trouble. So that at least made explaining mani’s answers easier in the other direction.
The one fact he gathered from mani and Cenedi was what they had already found out, that the Guild was acting on its own in the Marid. Guild who had man’chi only to the Guild were running things at the moment, and Cenedi was not reliably informed, the way Cenedi put it.
Cenedi was angry about that, Cajeiri thought, but even as high as Cenedi’s rank was, not to mention mani’s, there seemed to be nothing he could do to get the Guild to obey and get people to Najida. Going into the Marid and, as Toby put it, knocking heads, was probably a good idea on the Guild’s part. But mani had rushed into action, a situation neither she nor Cenedi liked, because this second power, this other outlawed Guild, had tried to get Guild action focused on Machigic which mani believed meant they were going to kill him.
Now here they sat.
And Cajeiri thought his father in Shejidan was probably doing just what mani was doing: sitting. And it was probably what even the Presidenta over on Mospheira was doing: getting his people into protective positions until it was clear exactly where the Guild was operating and what they were doing, and sitting in his office asking sharp questions and listening to reports. It was all these powerful people could do—because the Guild, which had always taken orders, was obstinately not taking orders or giving out information.
And it was not just the Maschi and the Edi and the Marid involved. Mani in fact had told nand’ Geigi that when the Edi had appealed to the Gan for help, the lord of Dur had found out; and everybody speculated that Dur, of all their allies, might do something—being far enough from the renegade’s territory that he was not directly in danger. Cajeiri was excited and encouraged to hear that; Dur was one of his father’s staunchest allies, and particularly the young lord of that district, who was incredibly brave and reckless and had an airplane. A yellow one.
Dur had boats. And planes. And if they came down, things would be a lot better.
But in either case, the bad news was that the help from the north was going to take time getting here.
And now the Guildsmen who had come in on the bus had disappeared, and Cenedi would not talk about it or answer mani’s questions, which probably meant Cenedi knew where they were.
Probably, Cajeiri thought, they had headed back into Targai district, which definitely had trouble; or maybe they had gone down into Separti Township or over to Kajiminda to give Guild help to the Edi who were protecting it. It still all added up to the fact that they might be on their own for a while, and what was blowing up larger and larger in the Marid was like a storm coming up way too fast. There just was not time, now, Cenedi said, to expect any help.
They were going to have to get through the night, and possibly a few days longer than that, on their own.
Meanwhile, mani’s bodyguard wasputting booby traps in place. A lot of them. Really interesting ones. Cajeiri had wanted to see in detail what they were, but nobody would let him.
So they were getting ready, with mani’s young men posted on the roof and elsewhere as they had been.
Nand’ Toby said, too, that if they wanted, he could phone the Presidenta of Mospheira and get help, and Geigi said that the station would provide intelligence to Shejidan.
“We shall just keep behind our walls, nadiin-ji,” she said, in that tone of voice that ended argument. “We shall defend ourselves.”
“I don’t understand why,” Cajeiri said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja, “but mani says no.”
Then Cenedi’s chin lifted, and he sent an attentive look into nowhere, as if he were hearing something from that earpiece he had.
He said, quietly, “Aiji-ma, nandiin, there is movement out of Senji, bypassing Targai. It has reached the airport. It will likely come this way.”
The airport. That was close. That was just about an hour away. Whatever was going to happen had started.
***
It was difficult to be bored to tears while being terrified, but given a whole day hiding in a hole in the rocks, it was possible, Bren decided. He shifted position to keep his legs from going to sleep, but his backside was beyond numb.
It had gotten dark. Darker than dark. Clouds had moved in, and there was not even starlight to help. And the strain of listening for hours had taken its toll on mental acuteness.
He wasn’t listening as well as he had. He actually grew increasingly sleepy and dull-witted with exhaustion, and he leaned his head back and shut his eyes, just reassuring himself with the faint night sounds—telling himself that if those creatures were stirring, nobody was near.
He came closer to sleep. Felt the slight movement of a breezec
A very light breeze. The waft of a white, sheer curtain. The smell of flowers. The shadow of the lattice.
The garden apartment. That was where he had joined up with Banichi and Jago, a different world ago.
It was the night he’d started carrying an illegal gun in the first place. If he let this dream continue, in the next moment he’d see a shadow beyond that lattice. A gun would go off.
He’d begun another life, that night, on the chain of events that had led him to Ilisidi.
And a close association with Tabini, who’d taken him target shooting up at Taiben, in days when he’d been far more innocent.
Best not sleep. Keep awake. Keep alert. He’d be embarrassed when Jago got back and scared hell out of him.
Had to move. His leg had a cramp.
Damn, he wished he’d hear from Jago. Or Banichi. Or somebody.
Was that the breeze stirring the grass?
God. The other night sounds had stopped. He just realized that.
His heart rate picked up. Calm, Banichi had told him. A rapid heartbeat never improved one’s aim. Think of the problem, not the emotional context. And Jago had advised him that it was generally wiser to watch an approaching enemy from cover and find out the number involved before doing anything, including running.
He couldn’t stand sitting in a hole and waiting, however. He wanted to get up onto his feet.
But he had to manage that without scuffing a foot or moving a pebble. Which meant deciding it was going to hurt his chest and that he was going to lever himself straight up anyway, without minding the pain.
He could do it.
He’d damned well betterdo it.
He did. Control the breathing, Banichi would say. Keep balanced, Jago would say.
He tried. Poking his head out of his little nook just wasn’t bright. As best he could judge, he was in deep shadow.
And there was, please God, the chance it was Jago coming back. He couldn’t just fire blindly at whatever came.
He eased the safety off the pistol, however. He looked at the ground, judged the slight difference of shadow and deeper shadow that his human eyes could barely make out, and decided it was best just to stay absolutely still and hope. He wasn’t the one to take on trouble, and his bodyguard didn’t need his warning.
Whoever it was, he had the impression they were moving on or near the track he and Jago had laid down.
The sound was coming toward his rocky nook, in all this emptiness. In grass, there was no help for it: there was the vestige of a trailc just not much likelihood of anybody happening onto it by total chance.
Closer. God, he didn’t want to have to shoot. If some stranger came in here, setting that pistol off would echo like doom, from one end of these hills to the other, and would bring all sorts of trouble he couldn’t outrun.