Other lords and representatives were amenable to human technology as far as it benefited their districts but hostile to Tabini as an overlord for historic and ethnic reasons.
And there were a handful of atevi both lordly and common who were bitterly opposed to both.
In all, it was an uneasy pedestal for a government that had generally kept its equilibrium only by Tabini’s skill at balancing threat and reward. Geigi was a good instance: Geigi had very possibly started in the camp of the lords hostile to Tabini for reasons that had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with ethnic divisions among atevi.
But when Geigi had gotten himself in over his head, financially, politically, and by association, Tabini had not only refrained from removing him or humiliating him, Tabini had acknowledged that the peninsula had been on the short end of government appointments and contracts for some time (no accident, counting the presence of Tabini’s bitterest enemies in control of the peninsula) and agreed that Geigi, honest, honorable lord Geigi, was justified in his complaints.
Now Geigi, who’d had the only large aircraft manufacturing plant in the world in his province, which couldhave been replaced, out-competed, even moved out of the district by order of the aiji, owed his very life and the prosperity of his local association to his joining Tabini’s side.
So now director Borujiri was firmly on Tabini’s side, and so were those workers. If atevi were going to space faster than planned, it was a windfall for Patinandi Aerospace, the chance of a lifetime for Borujiri, prosperity for a locally depressed job market, and a dazzling rise to prominence for a quiet, honest lord who’d invested his money in the Tasigin Marid oilfields and lost nearly everything—no help from Saigimi, whose chiseling relatives were in charge of the platforms that failed.
What promises Saigimi might have obtained from Geigi and then called due in the attempt last year to replace the paidhi with the paidhi-successor, he could only guess. Geigi had never alluded to that part of the story.
And how dismayed Geigi and Saigimi alike had been when the paidhi-successor rewarded her atevi supporters by dropping information on them that had as well have been a nuclear device—all of that was likely lost in Geigi’s immaculate discretion and now in Saigimi’s demise. No one might ever know the whole tale of that adventure.
And, damn, but he wished he did, for purely vulgar curiosity, if nothing else.
But clearly the Saigimi matter had either stayed hotter longer than he would have believed that last year’s assassination attempt could remain an issue with Tabini—or it had heated up again very suddenly and for reasons that he’d failed to detect in planning this trip.
That was granting Tabini had in fact done in Saigimi.
In the convoluted logic he’d learned to tread in atevi motivations, if Tabini haddone it, perhaps Saigimi’s assassination had been timed preciselyfor the hour he was with Geigi on public view and thereby reassuring Geigi of the aiji’s good wilclass="underline" if the news had come in the middle of the night and on any ordinary day, Geigi might have concluded the aiji was beginning a purge of enemies.
Then Geigi might have done something disastrous, like running to lady Direiso, far more dangerous an enemy than Saigimi, and that might have led to Geigi’s death—if Geigi misread Direiso. Or, potentially, though he himself doubted it, it could have led to Direiso rallying the rest of her band of conspirators, drawing Geigi back to her man’chi, and setting him against Tabini, a realignment that would hold that ship back there hostage to all kinds of demands.
Tabini preferred not to provoke terror. In atevi terms, only a fool made his enemies nervous; and a far, far greater fool frightened his potential allies. Tabini rarely resorted to such an extreme measure as assassination, preferring to leave old and well-known problems holding power in certain places rather than elevating unknown successors who might be up to God knew what without such good and detailed reports coming back to him. That tendency to let a situation float if he had good intelligence coming back to him was a consideration which ought to disturb lady Direiso’s sleep.
And in that consideration, either something had happened sufficient to top Saigimi’s last offenses, demanding his removal or, it was even possible—the assassination of Saigimi had in fact been simply a warning aimed at Direiso, who was the principal opposition to Tabini.
Certainly it was possible that Direiso was the real target.
He certainly hadn’t been moved to discuss that question with Geigi; and as for Tano and Algini, in the one careful question he had put to them as they boarded: “Is this something you know about, nadiin, and is the aiji well?” they had professed not to know the agency that had done it, but had assured him with what sounded like certain knowledge that Tabini was safe.
They were usually more forthcoming.
And now that he began thinking about it—neglecting the business of collating his notes, the paidhi’s proper job—the news of Saigimi’s death was eerily like a letter from an absent—
Friend.
Oh, a badmental slip, that was.
But Banichi was infallibly Banichi as Jago was Jago, his own security for part of the last year, as close to him as any atevi had ever been. And of the very few assassins of the Guild to whom Tabini might entrust something so delicate as the removal of a high lord of the Association, Banichi and his partner surely topped the list.
Banichi and Jago, both of whom he regarded in that spot humans kept soft and warm and vulnerable in their hearts; and both of whom had been on assignment somewhere, absent from Shejidan, unlocatable to his troubled inquiries for months.
Tano and Algini, fellow members of the Guild, had assured him all winter that Banichi and Jago were well and busy about something. He sent letters to them. He thought they were sent, at least. But nothing came back.
And, no, neither Tano nor Algini knew whether or not Banichi and Jago might return. He’d asked them whenever something came up that provided a remotely plausible excuse for his asking: Banichi and Jago both outranked Tano and Algini, and he never, ever wanted to make Tano and Algini doubt his appreciation of their service to him—but—he wondered. He worried about the pair of them.
Dammit, he missed them.
And that wasn’t fair to the staff he did have, who were skilled, and very devoted, and who offered him all the support and protection and devotion that atevi of their Guild could possibly offer, including a roster of Tano’s relatives, one of whom headed the paidhi’s clerical staff and some of whom, technical writers in offices across the mainland, sent him messages through Tano, whose clan seemed prolific, all very good and very solid people.
And Algini, God, Algini, who seemed to come solo except for his long attachment to his partner. Algini had been much longer unbending and had been far more standoffish than Tano had ever been, but Algini was a quiet, good man, who could throw a knife with truly uncanny accuracy, who had gotten (Tano hinted) two very bad assignments from which he had suffered great personal distress; and who had, Tano had said, been so quiet within the Guild they’d lost track of him for two years and dropped him from the rolls as dead until Tano had pointed out he’d been voting consistently and that he could vouch for his identity—they’d been partners for two years on the same assignments—and it was the aiji’s request for them as personal security that had pulled up the information that Algini was listed as dead. Algini thought it a joke quite as funny as Tano did, but the paidhi understood it was a joke that had never gotten beyond the very clandestine walls of their Guild, and it was an embarrassment to the Guild never, ever meant for public knowledge.