She stood fast, jaw set, stubbornly refusing assistance, even from Cenedi. Cajeiri caught her arm, clever lad. The platform shuddered and descended.
Vehicles came into their view, airport emergency vehicles, and with them was a gray limousine with the presidential seal, along with its own entourage of black security cars. Emergency crews waited near their vehicles, and a cluster of suits and uniforms stood to the fore. Bren spied Shawn’s familiar face, saw with a little shock that he’d gone gray, in so short a time in the presidency.
The lift bumped to the ground. Cenedi put himself at Ilisidi’s side as they walked off the edge, Ilisidi using the cane carefully but decisively, Cajeiri on her left, as they reached the tarmac. Bren followed, set himself decorously to the side, bowed.
“Aiji-ma, allow me to present Shawn Tyers, Presidenta of Mospheira.” Change of languages. “Mr. President, the aiji-dowager and her great-grandson Cajeiri, son of Tabini-aiji.”
Shawn gave a measured little nod of his head, a meeting of equals—Shawn had spent his days in the State Department and no one could have a firmer grasp of the protocols, the little dance of who was introduced to whom first and to what degree heads nodded or eyes lowered. Host nation for the island enclave, atevi took slight precedence in any encounter—few encounters as there had ever been on this soil, since the War of the Landing.
“Welcome, nandiin,” Shawn said, in Ragi—carefully, and fortunate in number. He had run State, and the paidhi’s office. Then in Mosphei’: “Tell the dowager that that’s the safe limit of my command of the language, but the delegation is most cordially welcome for as long as they choose to stay. We have safe and appropriate quarters at the airport hotel, should she wish, and cars to take them there.”
He rendered that: “The Presidenta most happily welcomes you and offers transport. Will the dowager, he asks, be pleased to accept his hospitality and refreshment in appropriately arranged quarters nearby, for however long his guests may please to advantage themselves of his hospitality?”
Ilisidi considered the offering—Ilisidi, whose aged bones were doubtless aching with earthly gravity. “Tell him this is our shuttle. Let him by no means mistake that fact.”
He bowed. And rendered it: “The dowager accepts with utmost gratitude, and requests Mospheira set a round-the-clock guard over the shuttle, which she regards as a vital atevi asset. Only crew should have access, at their pleasure, also round-the-clock. Crew will attend us to the hotel, along with our security. They will lodge there and come and go as they please, escorted by your security as far as the shuttle perimeter.”
Shawn understood exactly what the dowager meant. He smiled, graciously enough, and gave a slight nod. “Understood.” He swept a gesture at his own bodyguard, toward the waiting cars. “Everybody.”
Everybody was not so easily rendered, when it came to fitting tall atevi into human-sized conveyances, along with their carefully-watched baggage and equipment. There was the bus for the airport crew, and that also went into service for baggage and shuttle crew transport, accompanied by two of Ilisidi’s young men.
The rest of them eased into Shawn’s limousine—no great problem for himself and Ilisidi and Cajeiri, near human sized, but only Cenedi could get in besides, in the facing seats. He settled beside Shawn himself, leaving his aide to ride beside the driver. Banichi and Jago, Tano and Algini, together with the rest of Cenedi’s men, all parceled themselves out into other cars, having to duck their heads uncomfortably, and the vehicles whipped off at considerable speed down the frontage of airport buildings and onto a road leading outward.
“Most happy to have you safe,” Shawn ventured, filling an awkward silence in the crowded vehicle.
Bren translated, improving it to: “He expresses all possible felicitations on the dowager’s safe return.”
Ilisidi frowned and muttered, “Has he any useful news?”
“She asks news,” he rendered that surly utterance. “I fear she won’t consent to stay here more than the night. She wants transport to the mainland, and information that can set her on the other shore as well-prepared as possible. I have to concur. Our enemies won’t waste time setting up opposition to a landing.”
Shawn absorbed that. More than the gray hair—he’d added a few lines in his face in the last two years.
“Does she intend to confront Murini-aiji militarily?”
“Not aiji,” Ilisidi said sharply.
Shawn quickly inclined his head, a slight apology. “Pardon.”
“She doesn’t acknowledge Murini’s claim,” Bren said quietly. “No offense on either side. The dowager will do what makes sense in atevi terms. I doubt she knows yet exactly what, though contacting allies figures somewhere in the plan. Crossing, preferably by boat. Quietly. Inserting our group onto the mainland. Quietly. Then all hell may break loose as we secure a foothold, or we may proceed more quietly. We don’t know. That’s where information would come in very handy. Have you possibly heard from Tabini-aiji?”
“No. Unhappily, no. Ms. Mercheson made it here. I’m sure she’ll want to report, but I don’t think she knows any more than I do.”
“What of the central provinces, the Atageini?”
“We don’t know the details of who’s allied to whom,” Shawn said. “We only know who’s come out in public as supporting Murini—mostly southerners, and the Kadigidi in the central association. For the rest, we don’t know who’s fence-sitting and who’s biding their time.”
“We have Lord Geigi’s information, which we’ll share with you, but it’s not current.”
“I have a file for you,” Shawn said. “And our current codes.” Shawn hadn’t entrusted this item to an aide. He reached into his own inner coat pocket and handed him a small data reader. “I don’t trust your old accesses. Don’t use them. This is up to date. Accesses that can get that computer of yours into whatever it needs. Guard it with your life.”
“Runs by itself?”
“D-socket. If it can get a phone connection, it can get to Red Level. Your new codes are activated as of this hour. I trust you haven’t let the old ones loose in any unreliable places.”
“No. I haven’t.” It was far better than he’d hoped for. A profound trust, when he’d technically stopped working for Shawn years ago. “And won’t. The file is in it?”
“Yes. The information we have is thin, from a couple of north shore sources. For God’s sake, protect it. The recessed point on the back—that’s the security wipe. Punch that and everything’s gone.”
“Just thank God it’s got one.” He put the small black unit into his pocket. Miniaturized to a marvel. “The Presidenta has given us a great courtesy, extreme access and all his best information, nand’ dowager, contained in this small item which will connect us to him through my computer.”
That drew a deep inclination, a regal bow of the head. “Say to him that we shall remember this great courtesy, nand’ paidhi.”
“She is—” He began to say grateful, and, with a little coldness at heart, hesitated on that word. “Very favorably impressed.”
The car braked outside the service entry to the airport hotel—the utilitarian service entry, pavement spotted with grease and a couple of trash bins brimming over, was not where he would have presented the aiji-dowager and the heir, but there they were, the human notion of security, and not that far off atevi requirements. He hastened to get out, wanting everyone under cover as quickly as possible.