There was no knowing where the Guild might have laid traps or put sensors.
But there was no time for looking. No more time for plans. They just had to get out of reach.
Fast.
The bus reached the intersection with Lord Geigi’s estate roadc and there the dowager’s man stopped and cut the motor off, and Cenedi got out and walked a little up the road. There was a woods some distance down the road, a finger of the peninsula’s woodlands that ran up beside the house.
They had packed the bus with the dowager’s men, and with equipment. When Banichi and Jago and the dowager’s two men had left and picked up the village truck, that had given them a little breathing room, but no more seating; and Bren had no view of the dowager, or anything else: Tano sat by him, next to the window—between him and the unarmored side of the bus: Bren knew exactly why Tano had insisted on that seat. Algini stood in the aisle, holding to the overhead rail, and it was shoulder to shoulder. They talked. Tano and Algini listened to what he had to say, but offered no suggestion of their own.
Their bus had stopped. And the door opened, in the middle of grassy nowhere, the bus in plain view, if not of the house, at least of somebody watching for trouble to come down the road.
Algini shifted into a now-vacant seat behind him as the dowager’s men piled off, taking gear with them, pulling gear down off the roof rack. Most dispersed into the tall grass and the brush, so far as Bren could see. Tano and Algini sat near him, now, both with rifles and sidearms. The dowager was across the aisle, and two of her young man were right behind her with a massive lot of firepower.
Cenedi climbed back aboard the bus and came back to her to report: “We have a perimeter set up.”
“We shall wait,” the dowager said. Cenedi left. And Bren drew a deep breath.
“Aiji-ma,” he said, and got up to speak quietly. “Thoughts occur—that these people will be moving assets in. If they have your great-grandson—they will not hold him here. There may be a base in Dalaigi.”
Ilisidi looked at him in the diminishing daylight, a sidelong and upward glance. “The paidhi-aiji now gives military counsel.”
“The paidhi-aiji is concerned, aiji-ma. Desperately concerned. This was not Baiji’s idea.”
“We have advised my grandson,” Ilisidi said with a dismissive move of her fingers. “What happens in Dalaigi is outside our reach. What happens hereis within our concern.”
“Aiji-ma,” he said quietly, took the hint and went back to his seat.
She had advised Tabini. Tabini was taking care of Dalaigi— one hoped—if there was anything he could lay hands on. They were on the same wavelength, at least.
From here on until disaster, Bren thought, here was their only job. They were going to prick what was here, and see what came out.
He wanted Banichi and Jago back unscathed. He wanted the boy back and both the Taibeni kids unharmed.
He just hoped to hell the boy, in his dive into the bushes by the front door, had found a hole and stayed there, waiting for exactly this development—they were canny kids.
But asking an eight-year-old with the power to give orders to a couple of sixteen-year-olds to stay put and not move at all for hours and hours and hours—that was asking more than most eight-year-olds or even sixteen-year-olds could bear. It was worse, even, that Antaro and Jegari had had a littleGuild training. They’d tried to protect Cajeiri and gotten in Banichi’s way, or they might not be out here now. They had training— and might think they were called on to use it, and that could be disastrous. Guild that the Tasaigin Marid had sent to keep Baiji under control was one thing. Guild that they might move into a higher-stakes and messed-up operation weren’t going to be house guards. They would bring in serious, serious opposition, and the time that would take might be measured in days—or, if they hadsomething down in Dalaigi Township—it might be here by now.
It was totally dark now, at least to human vision. It was deep twilight for everyone else. A kid, even one who’d eluded capture, might now think it approaching time to do something. And one hoped the Taibeni youngsters’ Guild training had included night scopes, listening devices, and wires.
Banichi had tried to hammer basic principles of self-defense into Cajeiri himself. Cenedi had had a go at it. They all had tried—Remember you are not adult, young gentleman. You cannot take on Guild. Nor should your companions ever try it.
Young aiji. Born leader. Literally. Whether it was genetic or subtly trained or God knew what, he’d gone his own way.
And he, if he were ateva, might have felt an atevi urge and followed the kid into the bushes, which at least would have kept them together. If not for their man’chi to him, Banichi and Jago would have followed the boy, and everything would have been all right.
Machimi plays had an expression for it. Katiena ba’aijiin notai’i. A situation with two leaders. A real screwed-up mess. And this one was that.
It also meant, right now, that if the enemy had expected the boy to do what the average atevi boy would do, they’d been taken by surprise, too, when Cajeiri headed sideways. If only, if only they’d assumed he’d gotten on the bus. The portico might have shielded them from view. The attackers had been on the roof. The rest of the staff had been in the hall. They hadn’t been in a position to see, either.
Maybe they weren’t even looking for the youngsters. Most unlikely of all—maybe the people running the operation—not the ones in the immediate area, who had heard everything— were already planning their next move.
Maybe Tabini-aiji, who was very certainly involved, could take out their communications.
But they were moving closer and closer to widespread action, and civil war.
And he wished he could have persuaded Ilisidi to stay put and let the Guild sort it out—before they had worse trouble.
If the youngsters were now hostages, they would stay alive: the enemy would be outright idiots to waste that advantage. But damned sure the enemy would want to get them to some more secure place than a flat and open villa. Considering who the enemy likely was, that would mean getting any hostages southward as fast as they could—
For their part, he supposed they would leave any possible escape routes to the aiji’s men.
But getting in therec
That boiled down to four people. Banichi and Jago, backed by Nawari and Kasari.
Sorrowfully, Lord Geigi’s yacht might go to the bottom of the harbor. Banichi and Jago would not leave the sea as an escape route, and that boat had to be taken care of, among first targets.
God, he should have told Toby to get down the coast, block any boat coming out if he had to call in the whole Mospheiran navy to help him.
Thinking too much.
Banichi and Jago knew what they were doing. They knew their list of priorities, and they were very much the same as hisc exceptc
Except they themselves were his priority, and they wouldn’t see things that way. Not when it came to a mission of this importance.
God, he wanted them back in one piece.
Chapter 13
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It wasn’t, unfortunately, a large or deep woodsc except in the seaward direction.
And that, Cajeiri thought, might still have been the best way to go, staying under cover the whole way to reach Edi fishermen or farmers.
But associations among the neighbors, given the goings-on here at nand’ Geigi’s estate were not clear to him; and Antaro had done what she had done, and Jegari had led off in this directionc which could be smarter. Nand’ Bren himself had gotten surprised, so that was a big indication that ordinarily reliable people in this place were lying.
Especially nand’ Baiji had been somewhere involved and guilty of something, whatever it was. And that meant there was no knowing which of the neighbors down toward the coast or anywhere, for that matter, was reliable. He knew that; but his side hurt from running, and it was a long, long way to Najida, and they were going to run out of trees before long.