He made a dutifully sympathetic face.
“But just after I got aboard—the boat had a radio, and we got radio messages that went out of there to Geigi’s people and up north, and back to Shejidan, trying to rally help for Tabini. I wanted the boat to turn around. But the woman running it pretended she didn’t understand me—she spoke some kind of dialect I had trouble with—and we didn’t communicate, and I didn’t think I could take over the boat in the middle of all that water. I just had myself, and my com unit, but I couldn’t reach the ship, because Mogari-nai just shut down, and all I was getting was Jackson and Bretano.”
“They’d have been onto his heels fast, if he did appear at Mogari-nai. He wouldn’t have lingered there, only long enough to send out advisements to Ogun and Geigi and to his own supporters on the ground.”
“That’s what I told myself. That’s the reason I didn’t make a try to take over the boat. But there’s been nothing else like that since. And they’re claiming it wasn’t the aiji talking from Mogari-nai, that it was one of his staff, and they’re claiming the station has launched capsules down by parachute, to infiltrate the countryside, would you believe? That’s a complete lie. But they’ve hyped that to the skies and put a bounty on supposed foreigners. Which I think is their way of covering their people searching every barn and warehouse and arresting the individuals they’re looking for, all Tabini’s supporters. It’s not going to make it easy if you’re going over there.”
“Lovely,” he said. The countryside overrun with searchers after every vestige of Tabini’s administration, all transport become suspect, Assassins of the Kadigidi man’chi out on the hunt in the central regions and those of the Marid Tasigin in the south. He looked unintendedly at Banichi, and particularly at Jago, who understood far more of shipspeak and Mosphei’ than she commonly let on. She might have followed the gist of it much more closely than Banichi, and neither of them looked happy with what they heard.
“I wrote all the detail I know in that file,” Yolanda said. “I’ve had my evenings to sit and rehearse the whole mess, for months now. I think it’s complete. I was waiting for you. I’ve been waiting.”
He never could warm to Yolanda. He came as close as he had ever come, counting what she had done. That bit about turning the boat around to go back to the mainland he wasn’t sure he wholly believed, but then again, Yolanda was tough at unexpected moments, tough as nails, if she wanted something; and she might have gone back to rescue Tabini and Damiri—if her linguistic skills had been up to it. But with some of the north coast dialects, and maybe with the boat’s owner being deliberately obtuse, she had ample excuse for failing. Seasickness. Vertigo. Terror. Jase had gone green when he’d realized what a distance of water was under their feet, aboard a small boat.
“You’re of course welcome to stay here,” he said. “They’re clearly feeding us well. And you’re behind double security. You can relax.”
“First time, frankly, that I’ll sleep the night through.”
“Trouble here in Jackson?” He would be surprised. There were rabble-rousers, and Yolanda, solo, didn’t know to what extent she was protected.
A little diffidence. “The Heritage Party has surfaced again, causing all sorts of hell. Both our names have been tossed about, with no good intent.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“They’re demanding Mospheira’s officials up in orbit take over the station, which of course the captains aren’t going to have happen; and Lord Geigi isn’t going to have happen, and I doubt those people up there would even contemplate doing. But down here, you and I are representatives of the agencies the Heritagers think deprived them of their rights, that caused all this on the mainland. We’re the devils. They’re the light. Send ten cred to their fund to keep their message on the air and write your representative so the President, who’s in league with the enemy, doesn’t call up the home guard to shut down the program and arrest Gaylord Hanks.”
“God.” Gaylord Hanks, whose daughter Deana had gotten herself an appointment to the paidhi’s office and proceeded to create a small war on the mainland. She’d died in the effort to create absolute mayhem, one of the things which had surely contributed to the current situation—and Gaylord Hanks undoubtedly carried a personal grudge for his daughter’s fate.
“So I don’t open my mail,” Yolanda said with a deep, shaky sigh, “or maintain any office where I can be reached. I don’t feel safe in Jackson or Bretano. There’s no private apartment I can get where I feel safe, if you want the truth. And if you wouldn’t let me stay here, I’d get a room downstairs.”
It didn’t make him feel easier for his own family, or for his being in the news again.
“Well,” he said, “the fix for it all is on the mainland. Where I’ve got to go.”
“Anything I can do,” she said, not meeting his eyes.
“Take care of the shuttle. And count on the shuttle crew to support you.”
“I heard the dowager was with you. And Tabini’s son, too?”
“Both, yes. The dowager’s resting. Cajeiri’s gone to lie down, perforce. Exhausted, though he won’t admit it.”
“You look more than a little frayed around the edges yourself.”
“I’m fine.” That was a lie, too. But he didn’t at all do the physical work the crew and the staff had done, not to mention Ilisidi, or a boy whose high energy came in frenetic spurts. “I’ll brief the staff on what you’ve told me, particularly as soon as I have a chance to sit down and go through the notes. Is there anything but that bag you’d like to send after?”
“That’s all. I’ll take lunch, gladly enough. I’ve got my computer, I’ve got my com unit. I’ll trust if the crew’s here, they have some kind of a link up to the station, too.”
“They do. No problem with that.” He suddenly found himself flagging, done, physically exhausted at the thought of having to go over all the details again with Banichi and Jago. Which he probably should do, nonetheless. Events might come rushing down on them, leaving no leisure for explanations. He might forget things. But he wasn’t sure, now that he thought of it, that he had the energy to last another hour, or that he could make sense in either language. The dowager had had the right idea, heading for bed while there was a chance, and before the news spread.
He put a hand on the chair arm, pushing himself to his feet. Yolanda rose. “I’ll see to the things I can,” she said. “Don’t worry about what’s happening here.”
“My staff… they’re done in, themselves. Good thing we didn’t plunge off for a crossing forthwith… Nadiin-ji, have you followed any of what we said? Mercheson-paidhi felt more at ease in her native language, for precision of expression, and says she believes Tabini-aiji was warned only by a few hours, not knowing the threat was so close. She was supposed to precede him to Mogari-nai, was hastened out during a violent attack, sent on to Mogari-nai, and with no further explanation, she was hastened onto a boat. She heard then that Tabini-aiji had also arrived at Mogari-nai—but his few radio transmissions ceased from that source within a few hours and now she has no notion what may have happened there.”
“One did follow a certain few details, nandiin,” Jago admitted. “And if Mercheson-paidhi will repeat her information for us in Ragi, we shall take notes.”
“One will gladly do so,” Yolanda murmured, with commendable courtesies, “with apologies, Jago-ji.”
Maybe he looked as ready to fall on his face as he felt. He hated to leave his weary staff to endure one more briefing, but murmured a courtesy of his own and let Jago take Yolanda back down the hall, presumably to retrieve the duffle she had abandoned to the military guard near the lift.