“We shall be one boat among many,” was Tano’s summation of the matter.
One boat among many. They would be relatively unarmed, vulnerable to spies and ambush both on the approach and after they landed, but that would be their situation wherever they went on the mainland.
The particular beach, Naigi, was the recessed shore of a region where Toby had fished before, a stretch of small islands and stony reefs. Tano had been there. There was a consultation of maps, a discussion of neighboring villages.
It was not a place inviting to boats of deep draft, another good point.
Yolanda arrived in the conference. “I’ve provided a short list of names in that area,” she said. “I have no way of knowing whether they’re still reliable.”
“The worst thing,” Banichi said, “will be to make a move and hesitate. It would lose lives of those who may attempt to support us. We are here. We have transport, nandi. We should go.”
There was a simple way of looking at it: if anyone did attempt to organize anything on the mainland in their support, they could not leave them exposed and unsupported, and they dared not go asking for support in every possible place, for fear of Kadigidi assassins moving in on the situation.
“We should move as soon as possible,” Banichi said, “and get as far from our landing as possible. If the dowager agrees.”
Cenedi agreed, and went and waked the dowager, who, Cenedi quickly reported, ordered them to gather only their necessary baggage, and by all means, depart as soon as the night was dark enough.
Plenty of time, then, to reach Shawn, not by phone, but by the services of one of their marine guards, who simply went downstairs with a sealed note, got into a car and took the twenty-minute drive to the Presidential residence.
Shawn interrupted his supper with his wife to send a message back by the same courier: The escort will act with all prudence and cooperation. The shuttle is under marine guard and will remain so around the clock, come what may. Give whatever orders you need regarding supplies and support. This man has his instructions, and the authority to do what you need. Good luck, Bren, to you and all those with you.
Meanwhile they had done their re-packing, unnecessary personal items stowed in Yolanda’s care, the shuttle crew briefed—and privately informed of Yolanda’s limits of authority.
The only remaining difficulty was getting over to the marina, and for that the marines were ready: four large vans and an escort turned up at the hotel service entrance, out between the trash bins. Marine guards stood by to assure their safety from the curious in the hotel—no few curtains parted on floors above, letting out seams of light, but they proceeded in the dark, except the lights of the vans, and they packed in as quickly as possible, Toby accompanying them and all their baggage piled aboard, for the brief transit from the hotel to the waterfront.
Masts stood like a winter forest beyond the dark glass as they turned in at the marina gate, the dockside floodlit, boats standing white on an invisible black surface, as if they floated in space. The vans ripped along past the ghostly shapes of yachts some of which Bren knew—the extravagant Idler was one, and the broad-beamed and somewhat elderly Somerset—the Somerset had used to take school children out on harbor tours, happy remembrance, incongruous on this nighttime and furtive mission.
The vans braked softly and smoothly, at the edge of a small floating dock.
Toby led the way out of the van, led the way down the heaving boards toward a smallish, smartly-kept vessel among the rich and extravagant, a boat rigged for blue water fishing, not cocktail gatherings. It was not the boat Toby had once had, Bren saw, but a new one. The Brighter Days, was the name on her stern. A ship’s boat rode behind her, at separate tie.
The dowager walked down the boards with Cajeiri and Cenedi, using her cane, but briskly, with a fierce and renewed energy—a curious sight for her, surely, to find such a large gathering of lordly boats: one or two was more the rule on the atevi coast, yachts tending to tie up at widely scattered estates. But for all that, it might have been one of the larger towns on the other side, with a working boat, a fisherman, bound out under lights, a freighter offloading on the shabbier side of the harbor, in the distance.
And the city lights, the high rises—nothing at all like that on the mainland, where tiled roofs gathered, all dull red, showing very little light at night except the corner lanterns on streets as winding and idiosyncratic as they had been for a thousand years.
Towers, glittering with lights. Streets laid out on a grid, relentless, as strange to atevi eyes as the architecture of a kyo ship.
A long journey, there and here. And another, in the dead of night.
Toby reached the boat first, ran aboard and ran out a little gangway, with a safety rope, no less—on the old boat it had been a thick, springy plank. Bren moved up close behind, not sure whether he would dare lay a hand on the aiji-dowager if she should falter, but ready to help if she did.
No need to worry. The dowager waved all of them off and crossed onto the deck quite handily. It was Cajeiri that had to make a grab for the rope, and Cenedi grabbed him instantly and pulled him aboard.
“New boat,” Bren said to Toby in going aboard.
“My great indulgence,” Toby said. “The marriage was going. We split the investments.”
“Very nice.” The whole of Toby’s finance. Everything was in this boat. And Toby lent it to a hazardous effort that could get it shot up, could take him and all of them to the bottom. He walked the afterdeck, looking apprehensively around him—and, next to the boom, had a sudden thought of Cajeiri and that lethal item. “Young sir.” He snagged the heir unceremoniously—the boy seemed a little dazed. “This large horizontal timber is the boom. When the ship maneuvers, this may sweep across the deck very fast without warning. You may not hear it. It might sweep an unwary person right overboard or do him mortal injury. Kindly keep an eye to it at all times and stay out of its path.”
“Shall we spread the sails now, nandi?” Cajeiri asked, bright-eyed in the dark, with a whole boatload of unfamiliarity about him—but he had seen all those movies. “Do we have cannon?”
“We have no cannon. We have our bodyguards’ pistols. And whether we spread the sails—there are two—that depends on the winds, young sir. We have an engine as well.” Then he lost his train of thought completely, seeing Barb come up the dark companionway onto the dimly lit deck, a trim and casual Barb, with her formerly shoulder-length hair in bouncy short curls. She wore cut-off denims and a striped sweater—every inch the Saturday boater.
She saw him. And stopped cold.
“Good to see you,” he said as they confronted each other, a lie, but he was trying to be civil. “Toby told me you were here.”
“Bren.” As if she didn’t know what to say beyond that. Meanwhile Toby was trying to communicate in sign language and mangled Ragi where things had to be stowed, and Bren gratefully realized he had a job to do, directing duffles into bins and nooks, explaining where life-preservers were located, where the emergency supplies were, all the regulation things—and indicating to Ilisidi the stairs down to a comfortable bunk, a cabin of her own.
“A seat,” Ilisidi said, contrarily, “on the deck, nand’ paidhi. We enjoy the sea air.”