“How did it go?” Genley asked.
“Got him,” Jin said, meaning a man was dead. Maybe more than one. A band would have gone with him. The women. Jin unlaced his breeches, sat down on the earthen ledge to strip off his muddy boots. Women helped him, took the boots away. He stood up and stripped off the breeches, gave them to the women too, and dipped up water in the offered basin, carrying it to his face. It ran down in muddy rivulets. He dipped up a second and a third double handful. The water pooled about his feet. More women brought another basin, and cloths, and dipped up water in cups while he stood there letting them wash the mud off, starting with his hair. It became a lake.
“You here for a while?” Genley asked.
Jin waved off further washing, reached for a blanket a woman held and wound it about himself.
“A bath’s ready,” Parm’s sister said.
He waved them off again. Held out his hand from beneath the blanket. A cup arrived in it; he never looked to see, but carried it to his lips and drank, looking up at Genley the while. He was not easy. Gen‑ley read that mood. Beyond him Thorn rested, only half relaxed.
“Like Parm Tower?” Jin asked him.
“It’s wet here.”
Jin failed to laugh. Just stared at him.
“Didn’t think it would take this long,” Genley ventured, still pushing, judging he had to push. And pay the young bastard a compliment, if he took it that way.
It halfway pleased Jin. Genley saw the blink. The mouth never changed. Jin gestured with the cup. Sit. Jin took the ledge. The floor was damp from what had not run down the slant to the drain. Genley ignored the invitation, not liking looking up, but stood easier, and that was all right: it had not been an order. Jin puffed his cheeks, let out a long, slow breath.
“The Styx is cold,” Jin said.
“Cold here too. No women here.”
Jin looked up, nonplussed.
“Didn’t have that matter taken care of here,” Genley said.
Jin blinked, blinked again, and a small wicked smile started at the corners of his mouth. “Forgot that. That old sod Parm.” It became a laugh, a silent shaking of the shoulders. “O my father, all this time. Poor Genley.” He wiped his eyes. “No women.” He laughed again, gestured with the cup. “We fix that.”
Genley regarded him with touchy humor. There were other things about Parm he would have wished to say, but a list seemed risky. He folded his arms and looked down at Jin. “Mostly,” he said, “I fished. Hunted a bit along the banks. In the bog. Didn’t hear anything, didn’t get any news. So you settled with that Mes bastard.”
“Yes.”
“Want to talk to you when you’ve got time.”
“About what?”
“When you’ve got time.”
The brows came down, instant frown. “But I always have time,” Jin said, “if its news.”
“Told you I had none of that. That’s what about. There’s a point past which the Base is going to be asking questions.”
“Let them ask.”
“They’ll know there was fighting up north. They see things like that. They’ll make up the answers.”
“Let them make them up. What will they do?”
“I don’t know what they’ll do.”
“But they don’t interfere outside the Wire.”
Genley thought about that suddenly, in sudden caution. That was a question, posed hunter‑style, flatly.
“Up to a point,” he hedged it. “I don’t know what they’d do. There’s no need to stir things up with them.”
“Tell me, Gen‑ley. Who are they like? You–or Mannin? Like Kim?”
Genley frowned, perceiving he was being pressed, backed up on this, step and step and step, and Jin was choosing the direction. “You’re asking what the Base might do about it if they didn’t hear from us.”
“Maybe we found that out?”
“What’s that mean?”
The dark eyes rested on him, redirected to the wall. Jin took a drink, pursed his lips. “They’re Mannins.”
“Some are. Some aren’t.” He squatted, arms on knees, to meet Jin’s eyes. “You listen to me. There’s a point past which. There always is. I tell you what’s good. You want advice, I give you advice. You’ve got the Styx in your hand; got roads; got stone; got ways to get yourself written down as the man that made this collection of towers into something star‑men have to respect, you hear me? You have it all in your hand. But you don’t deal with Base the way you deal with that petty tower lord up north. I’m telling you. Think of a tower as large as the whole Base, in the sky, over your head: that’s what the Station is, and it watches the whole world; it has other watching posts strung out round the world, so nothing moves but what they see it. Imagine beyond that a hundred towers like that, imagine half a dozen places as big as all Gehenna itself where millions of towers stand–you reckon in millions, Jin? That’s a lot more than thousands. Towers beyond counting. You pick a fight with Base, Jin, that’s what you’ve got. You want to deal with Base, they’ll deal, but not yet.”
Jin’s face was rigid. “When,” he said in a quiet, quiet voice, “when is the time?”
“Maybe next year. Maybe you go to the Wire. I’ll set it up. I’ll talk to them. It’ll take some time. But they’ll listen to me sooner or later if nothing happens to foul it up. We get them to talk. That first. Beyond that, we start making them understand that they have to deal with you. We can do that. But you don’t get anywhere by going against the Base. It’s not just the Base you see. There’s more of it you don’t see. They’re not weak. They know you’re not. You listen to me and they’ll hear of you all across the territories the starmen have. They’ll know you.”
Something glittered in the depth of Jin’s eyes, something dark. The frown gathered. He set the cup down, gathered the blanket between his knees and leaned forward. “Then why do they send MaGee?”
“MaGee doesn’t matter.”
“They send this woman. This woman. Ma‑Gee.” Jin drew a breath. It shuddered, going in. “ Talk, you say. Tell me this, Gen‑ley. What does this MaGee say to Elai down there on the Cloud? Tells her starmen will talk to her–is that what this MaGee says?”
“It doesn’t matter what McGee says. Elai’s nothing. They’ve got nothing to what you’ve got. Don’t lose it.”
“They make me a fool. They make me a fool, Gen‑ley.” The veins stood out on his neck, on his temples. “I gut one man, his band, his women–but there’s others. You know why, Gen‑ley? This woman. This woman on the Cloud. Wait, you say. Talk to the Base. My men say something else. My men have waited. They see me make roads, make fields–they hear their enemy gets stronger, that this MaGee is in First Tower, like you, here. Wait, you say. No, my father.”
“Don’t be a fool.” Wrong word. Genley caught it, seized Jin’s wrist in the hardest grip he had. “Don’t be one. You don’t let those women plan what you do, do you? McGee’s nothing. Elai’s not worth your time. Let them be. You can deal with Base without involving them. They don’t matter.”
“It’s you who are the fool, Genley. No. This MaGee, this Elai, there’s enough of them. It’s winter, my father.”
A chill came on him that had nothing to do with the weather. “Listen to me.”
“There are men coming,” Jin said, “from across the Styx. Thousands. What I did to Mes–will be double on the Cloud. Before this woman’s eyes.”
“You listen. This isn’t the way to settle this.”
“Yes, it is,” said Jin.
“Or to have the Base on your side.”
“I know where the Base is,” Jin said. “And you can go with me, Genley. You hear? You ride with us. You. Those men of yours. I want you with me.”
“No. I’m not getting into this.”
The dark eyes bore into his. “But you are. On my side. In case this MaGee has something. And your Base, they won’t interfere. They’ll deal with me, all the same. There won’t be anybody else to deal with. Will there?”
“Where’s the com?”
“Somewhere,” Jin said. “Not here. If you called them–what would they do?”