“I should be forever grateful to go, nandi,” Jegari said.
The dowager traveled, always, with her physician. On that plane, inbound with Ilisidi, there was medical attention.
And Jago was right. The boy was indeed a witness. Where the boy was now determined to go—answered to man’chi. And he was—dammit—not a human kid. There were obligations, questions of honor, of emotional ties in which he did well to take his staff’s advice, for the boy’s own sake.
He cast Jago a troubled look, all the same, then grabbed the seat back rail as the van made a turn, and dropped into his own seat rather than fight for balance. He wanted the kids in this wretched business all safe, not one more boy in risk of his life. He wanted a clear deck so people old enough to know what they risked could do what they had to do without more innocent parties getting hurt.
But he had clearly landed right in the middle of that territory to which atevi had never invited humans: the manner in which they dealt with their children. He’d had what he thought an intimate view with Cajeiri and the dowager on the ship—he’d winced whenever the dowager came down harshly on the boy, and he’d kept his mouth shut, and never intervened, though he had suspected it was just the dowager’s way and she was never inclined to take prisonersc not when she expected perfection.
But how did he go back to Jegari’s father and mother if they lost or crippled this boy? What would he say to them then?
Your son seemed useful to us?
Point of fact, it wasn’t his decision. Not ultimately. He kept his mouth shut.
A floodlit building veered across their path, succeeded by dark, as the van swung full about toward the view of a plane parked amid fuel trucks. The aircraft was in a secure area, with armed Guild security dotted here and there about it. A second plane, smaller, taxied slowly to a stop as they braked.
That, he thought with a habitual surge of relief, that had to be the dowager’s plane. She was down. Safe. They were one force again. Questions, doubts, seemed suddenly less reasonable. The unity between them was the way it had been, had been obliged to be, for the last two years.
Their van swung in toward the first, larger plane and began to slow to a stop. By the fact that no one shot out their tires, and that Cenedi was staring out the side door and actively using his com, the dowager’s other security clearly knew their leader was aboard, and that their van was not full of lunatics bent on ramming the now-departing fuel truck.
That hazardous vehicle trundled across their path. They rolled near to the boarding ladder, and stopped, as their other van, that with the baggage, rolled past them and toward the cargo hatch.
Their door opened, and Bren gathered up his computer, waiting as Banichi and Cenedi took the boy between them and helped him carefully down the steps. The boy descended as if it was the last strength he had in him, his knees almost failing as he stepped down to the ground, but he stayed upright and walked between them.
Bren followed, as Jago inserted herself between him and the adjacent hangar, then seized his arm discreetly and hurried him on toward the ladder. He was surely one of any enemy’s chief targets, a worry to his staff, and he applied all haste as Jago increased her pace and headed him up the steps to the boarding platform at a breathless rate.
Inside the aircraft, then, the dizzyingly ordinary sight of seats all prepared for passengers, as the ladder rang with footsteps behind them. He kept moving forward, with Jago. The compartment could be any airplane, with commercial seating, most of it vacant. He passed through that, meeting no objection from the two stern young men on guard at the bulkhead. He and Jago passed through a substantial door into the private sitting area forward of the wings, with its serving bar, and comfortable chairs. This was a transcontinental passenger plane. Lords traveled in such splendor, nowadays. The small adjacent accommodation, the bedroom nook that took nearly half the space, had private doors. Ahead of that, the pilots, behind their closed door. A lord’s spare security enjoyed the seats behind the bulkhead, the galley and accommodation hindmost. He had reached a sort of privileged safety. Jago shut the door.
The boy had not made it through to this compartment. Bren disapproved; but he was not the lord in question, on this plane. He had no power down here on the planet, arranged nothing. Cenedi did, in the dowager’s name, and Jago was probably listening to Banichi in her choices, in electronic communication— she had that abstracted look, one hand covering her ear to shut out noise.
Bren just stood, frowning, waiting while Jago ducked ahead to investigate the cockpit, and then, passing through, she ducked quickly back through the bulkhead door to check on matters back in the main cabin.
He had no desire to sit down while all this went on. The windows were shuttered. A glance at his watch informed him the sun was probably coming up now, just touching the horizon. A lord’s dignity—and everything rode on that, far more than usual—precluded his going back and interfering in whatever Banichi and Jago and Cenedi were doing about the boy.
They were asking the lad questions, likely, sharp and difficult questions, maybe getting him bandages, maybe seeing to him after a Guildsman’s fashion, very competent field medicine, making him at least tolerably comfortable. He hoped so.
He wanted to go over to a window and lift a shade to know what was going on outside, and whether his watch was right, but the lights were on full in the cabin, and he could make himself a target if there was any hostile presence out there in the dark. If there was—if there was—there must be quiet action going on apart from anything he would see. Guild in the dowager’s service and maybe Tabini’s would be moving out there, securing the area, dealing with anyone who opposed the plane taking off.
The engines whined into life. He sat down, waited. Listened to the sounds of activity on the back ramp. There was a small delay after what he took for an arrival aft.
Then from the bulkhead door Ilisidi walked in, in a dark brocade coat and with her cane in hand. Cenedi escorted her, and Jago came into the compartment and shut the door again.
Bren rose and bowed. Ilisidi walked to the centermost chair and sat down, both hands on the cane.
“Aiji-ma,” he said—he had not planned how he would meet her.
He had not even thought of the awkwardness of being assigned here by her grandson, under present circumstances. She sat now, grim and determined, and it seemed to be one of those rare occasions where staff had not passed word to staff as to what he was doing here or why he had inserted himself into a situation from which he had been—with considerable thoroughness—dismissed.
“Aiji-ma,” he said, above the sound of the engines, “your grandson the aiji sent me, urging me to assist you.”
“To assist me,” she echoed him. “Assist me to do what, paidhi? To kidnap my own great-grandson?”
Anger was in her voice. Anger, and, apparently, indignation, in a display of emotion rare except among intimates. And he was shaken in his convictions, not knowing was that indignation an act—she was that good—or whether it was real. Either case was extremely dangerous.
“A plane has left the city, aiji-ma, forgive my forwardness, probably carrying your recent dinner guests Eastward. They had not left the city before now. They left their hotel in the middle of the night, and one believes they may have the young gentleman with them.”
“Caiti,” she said bitterly. “And who of my staff and my grandson’s is dead, nand’ paidhi?”
“No one that I know, aiji-ma.”
“Yet my great-grandson is taken, nand’ paidhi!”
“His young guards were struck down, aiji-ma. Jegari is out there—” He gave a shrug to the compartment at his right, beyond the bulkhead. “His sister they left. Jegari was taken along with the young lord and escaped, trying to get help. He very much needs medical attention.”