“The dowager was back in Shejidan?”
“One apprehends that she had stayed there the night, Bren-ji, after the last incident, had resumed her flight to Malguri today and is now turning the plane around a second time, and coming here. They did not give an estimated time, doubtless a security concern.”
“One is by no means sorry to have her assistance,” Bren said. He could only imagine the dowager’s state of mind after twoaborted flights. And he could only imagine Tabini’s state of mind dealing with the dowager and his son’s second disappearance, this time into real danger. But Tabini’s guard were all new men, since the failed coup, the dowager’s were not, and they had worked with Banichi and Jago extensively. Bren was himself very glad to know Ilisidi was bringing in her resourcesc upset as he was to be the cause of the problem. He only hoped they could find the young rascals before she got here and end the day with a phone call to Tabini and the dowager presiding over a family dinner party up at the house.
The light, meanwhile, hurt the eyes, glancing off the water. The sun was headed down the sky, now, into afternoon, and the far distance was obscured in white haze.
Banichi surrendered the radio to Tano, and went out with Algini to watch the shorelinec but by now certain other boats showed on the northern expanse of water. None of them were the sailboat. They were fishermen from the village and the neighboring district, all spreading themselves out in the bay and sweeping the area they had already crossed, a precaution for which Bren was very grateful.
Tano listened to something on the radio, then said, “Nand’ Baiji is launching his boats and Lord Geigi’s personal yacht, nandi. They are going out to meet the coastal current. Nand’ Baiji is going out personally.”
“Good,” Bren said. That was the most important thing, to get boats into position to catch the youngsters if they had been swept out into that southerly flow—a current strong enough in some seasons that even larger boats had to take notice of it. It was very, very easy to assume one was making progress northerly, unless one had a shoreline for reference.
More than one fishing boat had been lost when that treacherous current met a contrary wind and the waves turned chaotic. And that was not a situation he wanted to contemplate.
The peninsula that divided Najidami Bay from Kajidami Bay, where Kajiminda sat in much the same position as Najida, had a hellish set of rocks at low tide.
“What does the weather report predict?” he asked Tano, and Tano checked and reported.
“A front will arrive by morning, nandi, with southerly winds and overcast, rain in the afternoon.”
Not as bad as could be: winds blowing with the current, not cross-grained, but it would speed the little boat along. And rain and rising wind could swamp a little sailboat, not even mentioning hypothermia.
He wished that the tender had been equipped with a locator. Or a radio. Or—he had to admit it—the detested wireless phone. Any sort of communication. If the youngsters had the presence of mind to use the sun, and a shiny object. Anything.
But there was so much light out there, and his eyes burned with the effort. No sunglasses, no protection, nothing of the like turned up in the bin by the wheel. Damn it all. He wasn’t sure he wanted to come back if he couldn’t find the kidsc didn’t want to face Tabini and Damiri, or the Taibeni kids’ parents. Or the dowager. God knew he’d tried to keep up with the kids. He’d gotten distracted. He’d failed for one miserable hour to post a guard on the kids, even his aishid had been distracted for that hour, under his orders, and they’d just—been kids. The eight-year-old steered the group, the other two didn’t have the fortitude to tell Cajeiri no, or didn’t think they had the authority to fling themselves on him bodily and stop him. Adults had fallen into the same trap with the boy. A long string of adults.
“Nothing,” he said to Tano, beside him. “Has Toby’s boat left yet, nadi-ji?”
“They are away and coming up the opposite side of the bay, nandi, in case they went straight across.”
“One fears they have been swept out to sea.” He didn’t trust himself to find the current. They were out far enough now to avoid the rocks. He throttled way back as they nosed into the offshore current and let the current take the boat, just reading that and the shifting wind as best he could. If the wind had kept up as it had been off the point, the youngsters would have been swept northerly. But after a brief lull as they had been outbound, it was shifting to carry them southerly, increasingly so. The change in wind direction meant smoother water for the little craft—but a far, far faster passage, and it was continuing to shift. Tacking against the wind—that wasn’t something they likely knew how to manage; and that rocky coast was not their friend. “Get up atop and look out as best you can, Tano-ji. Trade with Banichi and Algini when the cold gets too much.”
“Yes,” Tano said, and went out, admitting a gust of cold air. His footfalls resounded on the ladder as he went up with the various antennae and the dish—he wouldn’t improve reception, but it was the best vantage they had, and that, at the moment, was everything.
The current had them now, and Bren throttled up just a little, hoping desperately that a boat moving under power would not just run past the kids.
Hoping for a sight of a very, very small object, in all the sheet of white light that was the Mospheiran Strait.
The sun was warm, at least, though the wind was biting cold, and they had wrung out Jegari’s pants and coat, as hard as they could, even putting the oar handle into the loop of cloth and twisting with all their strength to wring out the last drops of moisture: that was Antaro’s idea, which Cajeiri thought was outstandingly clever. They had found two floatation vests, and putting one of those on Jegari offered him some protection from the wind. Cajeiri thought Antaro should wear the other, since she could not swim at all, but both of them insisted he put it on, so he did that, and made them happier, uncomfortable though it was: he and Jegari agreed they would keep Antaro afloat should they have an accident.
The situation they were in, however, was worse and worse, and the water that splashed aboard was cold as ice. They tried again to row in toward shore, and worked at it, but got nowhere: they let the sail down and just tried not to go too far. Then Cajeiri remembered he had read about swimming that if you were caught in a current you should swim hard with it and get speed enough to swim across it.
So they put the sail up again and tried to do that. They rowed with their single oar in the bow—Antaro doing much of the rowing, since she was the only one not encumbered by a vest; but that was no good, and then Cajeiri tried to turn the boat in toward the rocks, but that was a worse mistake: the tiller went over, but when Jegari put in the oar hard, straight down, and tried to pull on it, it twisted in his hands and then broke right in two. The end went floating right away from them.
Jegari was terribly embarrassed at that, but not half as embarrassed as Cajeiri felt for the whole situation.
Still, mani had taught him not to make excuses when it was really bad, and it was. It was very, very bad. He was so sorry his gut hurt. But that meant his companions were really, truly owed an apology for his bad leadership. And it hurt his conscience that Jegari was doing all the apologizing.
“One accepts all blame for this unfortunate situation,” he said to his two companions, “and you should forget the oars.”
“We are equally to blame, nandi,” Antaro cried.
“We are older,” Jegari said. “We saw danger in it. We should not have agreed.”
“You are not to say no to me!” Cajeiri snapped. He was determined on that. “Or we willdisagree.” But his associates on the ship, Gene and Artur, had argued with him. They had also agreed with more than these two would ever agree to. “This time perhaps would have been a good time to say no and argue,” he acknowledged unhappily, as the waves tossed their little boat in a little space of calm, and the wide, sunlit ocean sparkled fiercely around them. “We have no water to drink. Sea water would kill us. I know that. And we have no food.”