A peaceful approach. Banichi had said that was her intent, at least.
23
A prop plane, a four-seater, sat beyond the dish of the earth station, marking the location of the airstrip, and beyond it, a low-lying, modern building, was the single-story sprawl of the operations center.
The vast dish passed behind them, the dusk deepened to near dark, and the company stayed close around the dowager as they rode. Bren eyed the roof ahead of them and had his own apprehensions of that long flat expanse, and the chance of an ambushing shot from that convenient height. He was anxious about their safety and hoped Banichi and Jago in particular wouldn’t draw the job of checking out the place. It looked like very chancy business to him, and chancier than his security usually let him meet.
They stopped. A good thing, he thought.
But the mechieti had scarcely gotten their heads down for a few stolen mouthfuls of grass when the door to the place opened, bringing every mechieta head up and bringing a low rumble and a snort from the mechiet’-aiji, Babsidi, who was smelling the wind and was poised like a statue, one that inclined toward forward motion.
“Babs,” Ilisidi cautioned him. One atevi figure had left the doorway and walked toward them at an easy pace, nothing of hostility about the sight, except the black clothing, and the fact that the man—it wasa man—was armed with a rifle which he carried in hand.
But about the point that Bren was ready to take alarm, the man lifted a hand in a signal and one of Ilisidi’s men rode forward to meet him.
Not even of Tabini’s man’chi, Bren thought, though Banichi had said Tabini was moving; it seemed to be all Ilisidi’s operation. But it was reassuring, at least, that they had had someone on site; perhaps, as Banichi had also said, preparing security for Ilisidi’s tour, much as Tabini’s security had prepared the way for him on tour.
There was some few moments of discussion between the two, then a hand signal, and a few more of Ilisidi’s security went up to the door.
A shiver began in Nokhada’s right foreleg and ran up the shoulder under Bren’s knee. Otherwise the mechieti were stock still. Creatures that had been interested only in grazing at other breaks were staring steadily toward the building, nostrils wide, ears swiveling. They had not put on the war-brass, the sharp tusk-caps that armed the mechieti with worse than nature gave them; but the attitude was that of creatures that might take any signal on the instant and move very suddenly.
But Cenedi and Ilisidi together began to move quite slowly and the rest of the mechieti came with them, across the narrow runway, onto the natural grass of the building frontage.
Men slid down. Ilisidi signaled Babsidi to drop a shoulder, and stepped down from the saddle, retrieving her cane on the way as Cenedi swung down.
Bren tapped Nokhada’s shoulder, nudged her with his foot and as she lowered her forequarters, swung off, keeping his grip on the rein until he was sure that was what he should have done. But everyone was getting down and while Banichi moved off to talk to Cenedi, Jago showed up, and called Jase and the boy in close.
“One expects no difficulty,” Jago said. “But follow me.”
They let the mechieti go, merely tying reins to the saddle ring, and Bren was acutely conscious of the gun he carried in the inside pocket of his jacket as more than a nuisance and a weight that thumped when Nokhada hit her traveling gaits. He was armed and able at least to shoot back. Jase and the boy were not. He gave no odds on Ilisidi, who passed into the building surrounded by rifles and sidearms.
So did they, into a double-doored foyer and into a broadcast operations center, one side wall with two tiers of active television screens and six rows of consoles, some occupied and active despite the presence of armed guards.
An official had joined them, bowed, and offered courtesies, offering drinks and a supper, which the official swore were under the guard of Guild security.
“I’ll see this place first,” Ilisidi said and, walking with the aid of her cane, toured the long rows of counters and consoles with Cenedi beside her, with a handful of her young men around her, as others took up posts on all sides. The technicians couldn’t quite remain oblivious to what was going on, or to the fact that guns were visible: nervous glances attended her movements and those of the men on guard.
There was, the dowager was informed, in a stillness so great there was no need of close eavesdropping, this central command center; and there were, down that hall, the offices, the rest areas, and through the door, the adjacent staff barracks. Her men had been there, one said, and they had posted a guard there and at the outlying service buildings.
“I assure you, aiji-ma,” the director said, “everything is in order.”
“And the paidhi’s messages?”
“Nand’ dowager?” The director seemed dismayed; and whack! went the dowager’s cane on a console end. A score of workers jumped. One bent over in an aborted dive under the counter, which she turned into a search after an escaped pen, and quickly surfaced, placing the pen shamefacedly before her.
Scared people, the Messengers, with officers of their Guild trafficking with the other side, and the Assassins’ Guild guarding the aiji-dowager, a gray eminence in the chanciest atevi politics. Ostensibly she was on a holiday tour including the old fortress, which this communications nerve center had to have known was coming, and the nature of that old fortress some here had to know.
They had to believe she was probablyon the aiji’s side at a moment when other things were going chancy, rapidly, in electronic messages sailing all over the continent.
“Where,” Ilisidi asked, in that shocked silence, in which only Ilisidi moved, “ whereis the paidhi’s mail and whyhas the communication run through this centergone repeatedly amiss? Is this the fault of individuals? Or is this a breakdown in equipment? Does fault lie in this place? Can anyone explain to me why messages lie in this place and do not move out of it in a timely manner? Is it a spontaneous fault of the equipment?”
“No, aiji-ma,” the director said in a voice both faint and steady. “There is no fault of the equipment. I have taken charge of this facility in the absence of the senior director.”
“You are?”
“Brosimi of Masiri Province, aiji-ma. Assistant director of Mogari-nai by appointment of my Guild.”
One did not miss the aiji-ma, that was the address of someone at least nominally loyal; and Ilisidi, diminutive among her guards, was the towering presence in the room.
Ilisidi walked further, looked at one console and the next, and all the while Cenedi and Banichi were near her; but so was a man named Panida, whose talents and function in Ilisidi’s household had always seemed to be very like Tano’s. Panida was generally, in Ilisidi’s apartment in the Bu-javid, near the surveillance station that was part of every lord’s security. And now he paused here and there at certain idle and vacant consoles. Once he flipped a switch. Whether it had been on or off, Bren did not see.
“Nand’ director,” Ilisidi said. “This is a very thin staff I see. Are there ordinarily more on this shift?”
“Yes, aiji-ma. But they went down to Saduri Township.”
“Well, well, and will that improve the efficiency of this staff?”
“I assure the dowager such will be the case.” The director made surreptitious signals to his staff, who uncertainly rose from their seats and, almost as a body, bowed in respect.