They passed the aiji’s temporary residence, where the aiji’s guards stood. They went on to their own quarters, on the opposite side of the hall and down some distance, where the only one on guard was Banichi, a looming shadow by the door.
They entered the apartment together, and Bren surrendered his formal coat to Madam Saidin, who took one look at their faces and asked no immediate questions. Her staff provided him the less formal house coat, and immediately, at her signal, left them in discreet silence.
Even so, he waited until they had reached the study and shut the doors.
“One is extremely distressed,” Bren said, “to have been an utter fool, Banichi-ji. The Messenger’s presence—”
“That man has passed clearances to deal with the aiji’s messages,” Banichi said. “But we take nothing for granted, Bren-ji.
Your boat is awaiting orders. Tano and Algini are already at the airport. Our immediate plan is for them to go out and bring nand’ Toby in to your estate quietly if at all possible, and not have him exposed in the long crossing.”
He drew an easier breath. “Nadiin-ji, words cannot express—”
“Tano and Algini will use the young aiji’s fish for a code word.”
That lethal catch of Cajeiri’s, that had flown all about the vicinity on a wildly swaying line. Only someone who had been on that deck would know that reference.
“Excellent.” Tano and Algini could function in Mosphei’, at least, and he hoped fish was among the words they knew: Toby’s grasp of Ragi was limited. But he was immensely relieved, all the same.
“We updated the estate staff’s codes four days ago,” Jago said very quietly.
And they could communicate with less prospect of having their code cracked. Such efficiency was like them. He could only wish he had matched their precautions.
Soft-headedness. Too much reliance on staff to think of things. A steel environment that simply didn’t change, while the universe ripped past at mind-blurring speed.
“One is immensely grateful,” he said. “Well covered, nadiin-ji.
Well covered.”
Jago quietly poured a brandy at the sideboard and offered it to him.
He took it. His lapse had taken his innermost staff down to two, again, and settled work on their shoulders. He owed it to them to sit down and accept that they had things in hand.
“Sit with me,” he asked them, “if I have given you the leisure to do so, nadiin-ji.”
They settled, Banichi with an unreadable expression—one had the faintest notion it was tolerant amusement.
“Brandy if you wish,” he said.
“We remain on duty, Bren-ji,” Jago said.
“And I have immensely complicated your problems,” he said. “You know where he is.”
“With reasonable accuracy, given Jase-aiji’s information,” Banichi said. “But well that we do know, and well that we move quickly.
We shall reach him, Bren-ji. We shall use every persuasion to bring him to the coast.”
“Every persuasion,” Jago echoed, meaning, he was sure, a modicum of force, if need be, to overcome Toby’s presidential orders.
Toby knew Tano and Algini, once they were face-to-face. He would trust them. So it would be all right—better that they learned where Toby was than to let some dissident faction find out and set out after him, them and Toby none the wiser: seeing what Banichi meant in that well that we do know, Bren let the brandy warm his stomach, and let go a pent breath.
“One trusts,” he said, “one trusts, then, that everything possible is being done. My gratitude, nadiin-ji, my gratitude to Tano and Algini, and please express it to them, if you can. One also understands,” he added, because the amount of distress his security would bear if anything did go wrong at this point was beyond easy expression, “one clearly understands that Toby’s position is fraught with hazards by no means within our control. Baji-naji, we will win this throw.”
“We are closer,” Banichi pointed out, “than any potential enemy in the south. And we have the estate staff already at hand.”
“True,” he said, and had a second sip, feeling better. “What a morning, nadiin-ji! But the young gentleman is behind doors, we are fairly well toward reaching my brother, and one is extremely glad to have the dish up again.—May one ask, nadiin-ji, what Jase-aiji meant? What is this, dropping equipment?”
There were looks, a little reserve. That was unusual.
“Are these things the paidhi-aiji needs to know?” Bren asked, “And are these matters the aiji himself does not know?”
“Possibly he does not,” Banichi said judiciously. “We do not know, ourselves, the nature of these devices dropped. The equipment came with Tano and Algini. We have carried it throughout, but not turned it on—on their advice, not relying on any outside gift, and not having any assurance of all its capabilities, in the haste of our departure, and in an uncertain situation. We do not trust without knowledge.”
“It is much the same as location on the ship,” Jago said, “but we are told they can locate a position for the user anywhere in the world, relative to a map. If it had seemed useful at any point, for the ship to know precisely where we were, we understand we might have provided that location. But we never used it. We have no knowledge how they have tracked Murini, or if they have means to do so, but until we have heard nand’ Jase’s voice, we have had no assurance how things stand aboard the station, or whether nand’ Sabin has resumed authority. That is the sum of it, Bren-ji. Since we have never doubted where we were, we have never used them.”
Understandable that his security, with enough on their hands, was not relying on some untested system handed by authorities aloftc not when, until now, they had had no way to be sure who was in charge up there.
“Are they with you now, nadiin-ji? Or did they go with Tano and Algini?”
“Tano and Algini have two. We have three.”
Three. “And the landings?”
“We have no knowledge of those,” Banichi said, “nor have Tano and Algini mentioned any such thing, Bren-ji. We do not believe they would have failed to say if they had any such information.”
Considering the sieve that was Tatiseigi’s security net, and the way their communications had fed into the enemy’s, entirely understandable his security had wanted to trust only what they knewc knowing there was very little the station could do to assist them, without some dramatic action that might scare off the people that were moved to rejoin Tabini-aijic Thank God they hadn’t dropped anything in on Tatiseigi’s estate.
Half the force gathered there would have run for the hills.
But they were a different issue than this equipment Tano and Algini had brought with themc like the locators they’d used on the station and the ship.
The network that would have to support it—if not the landed devices—was a staggering implication. Satellites. A grid all over the globe.
“Do you suppose Presidenta Tyers has such devices provided him,” he asked, thoughts cascading through his mind on various tracks, “and that he provided the same to Toby? Were we tracked?”
“Certainly we did not have any knowledge of it,” Banichi said, “but did not the Presidenta have access to the shuttle crew?
Clearly, he might have received such equipment at that time, and he might have had some understanding with nand’ Toby—which we were not told, for reasons of security.”
“If the Presidenta involved my household in some dangerous enterprise, he could have told me,” Bren muttered, and added: “But so could my brother have told me, nadiin-ji.”
“Toby-nandi surely knows what you and we would say to his involvement, Bren-ji,” Jago said, not without dark humor. “But one doubts he would be dissuaded by the Presidenta or by the paidhi-aiji.”