“I shall certainly approve it, if it does that.”
“We are quite interested in seeing it applied, not only on the East Coast. You will explain it to my grandson.”
“With the greatest enthusiasm, aiji-ma. I shall need to ask Lord Geigi, clearly.”
“And with this inducement, you, nand’ paidhi, are going to prepare arguments to convince fishermen who need their sons and daughters to follow their trade to let the youngest go to pursue this new technology.”
Preventing technology was easy: ignorance, poverty, and prevalent disease did that very effectively. Directing it by stages was what the paidhi’s office had been established to docwithout disrupting the social structure or ripping the old trades and the old customs away indiscriminately. “One entirely understands the mission, aiji-ma. And I shall take pleasure in it.”
Give or take two death threats in one morning. But he’d had those ever since he’d left off building dictionaries and had begun to build a space program.
So Machigi was coming. No wonder the death threats.
That meant the Guild was shifting things into motion, possibly because of more credible than usual death threats; they hadn’t forewarned his aishid, damn themc
On the other hand, they were in position now to know exactly the state of readiness. The dowager had the documents, he had laid the groundwork with critical committees, Siodi-daja had set the de facto Taisigi trade office near the Bujavid, where Machigi could safely lodge and from which he could safely reach the Bujavid.
And Ilisidi had a notion she was going to set up a media event.
They were in it. The Guild might tweak circumstances. But the event was about to become a juggernaut.
It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at a program he’d launched with Ilisidi and had misgivings.
But this one—
He saw in it a real possibility that he and Ilisidi andTabini could go down, along with the aishidi’tat, if it all blew up.
At very least, the paidhi-aiji might be called upon to take all blame.
God, he hoped this worked.
There was no sign of Boji. Nothing. Cajeiri had stood guard inside the sitting room while Antaro stood guard outside, and Veijico and Lucasi and Jegari had turned over every chair and looked in every vase and moved every heavy item to discover any Boji-sized hole.
“He can get through anything his head can get through,” Jegari said, “and that is a very small hole.”
It was beyond exasperating. “He will need food,” Cajeiri said. “He will need water sooner. What will he do, nadiin-ji? Shall we keep our apartment door ajar?”
“Just a crack would be enough for him,” Jegari said. “He can move the door. They’re quite strong.”
“One knows he is strong, nadi!” Cajeiri said in frustration. “One could not hold him! And he can hide in the smallest space! What have we not thought to search?”
“Any hall beyond any opened door, or any door that may have opened since,” Veijico said unhappily. “Perhaps you should advise your father, Jeri-ji, so he can alert the staff. He can go on moving every time an entry is left unwatched.”
“No,” he said. “We shall not.”He had just gotten permission to invite his associates down from the ship. And that could go away if his father was angry with him. Every good thing could go away, just like that. “We cannot make my father mad, nadiin-ji. Let us try to get him back on our own. He may come back for food and water. Let us set an egg in the cage. With the door open. And then one of us will watch there.”
“There is the bath, nandi,” Lucasi said. “That often has water standing. Or simply condensation. It will smell of water.”
“One of us can watch there,” Jegari said, “even all night. He is most active at twilight. When the house lights are mostly out, then he may come out.”
“We shall do that. Eggs. Fruit. He loves fruit. And we have two servants we can trust, and that woman, who is supposed to be lookingchave you heard from her?”
“She has reported on two doors,” Lucasi said, “which she closed, which are no help.”
“He will not have gone into the office. My father was there. Nor the security station, with people there. Nor the kitchen, too likely—wherever there are people, he will avoid.”
“The closets,” Jegari said. “We should look in the cleaning closets, Jeri-ji, in the servant hallways. He will want dark places. You should stay in the apartment and watch for him to come back, and let us search.”
He was not supposed to be alone. That was his father’s standing order. But he could stand watch all night near Boji’s cage if he had to.
And they would have to. He was not going to have his father forbid his associates again.
It was not even his fault. It was all the servant’s fault.
Except handling Boji without his leash. He had done that, and it was stupid. So he could hardly blame the servant, except for coming into a part of the apartment she had no permission to be in. And that just made him mad. Really mad.
“Nadiin-ji,” he said once they were in the hall again and had Antaro in their midst. “Only two servants were ever supposed to come into our rooms! This was agreed. Whydid this person come in? Go tell Jaidiri that an unauthorized servant came into my room, when we had asked to have only particularservants tend our rooms! And that we wish him to know we want to have it as we ordered!”
Jaidiri was the head of his father’s bodyguard. It was scary to talk about involving Jaidiri in the mess, because things could go immediately to his father. But now that he had thought it through, dealing with it as a security matter seemed a sensible thing to do. Jaidiri would ask his father’s head of staff and find out who had ordered the woman to come into his room, because all the women were his mother’s, and theyhad no right nor reason to be meddling with his room. Jaidiri might mention it to his father in passing, but only as a matter of fact. It was going through channels. His father had constantly told him to go through channels. And he would feel better if he knew why someone else was coming into his apartment.
Lucasi said, smartly, “Yes.”
“Do,” he said, making it an order, and Lucasi went off at that very moment.
“I shall go set up to watch for Boji in the apartment,” he said. “Keep searching.”
They agreed, and he went back to set up with a pen to block the door just slightly open, and have the cage open, with water in the cage, and most of all, just inside the door, an egg.
It was going to be a long wait, and he could not even take his eyes off the door to read. He just had to sit and watch, because Boji was very clever, very quick, and very sneaky. Trapping him was not going to be easy.