"I — hope to be, daja-ma."
"I may never get my staff back. They're quite besotted."
"I — hope I've done nothing improper, daja-ma."
"Bren-paidhi. They dreamnightly of you doing something improper. I've heard the reports."
"Daja-ma —"
Tabini rescued his arm and his hand and walked him a little distance away. "Atigeini internal politics be damned, the lily porcelains are notthe question, Hanks-paidhi is. The attack on your residence might have been quite serious, but I doubt they expected to succeed: it was likely intended as a diversion from the real objective, and my prospective wife's relatives will nottake this lightly, not the attack, certainly not the collateral damage, least of all the slight of such damage being a mere diversion, no matter how they've regarded your tenancy here on other principles. Have you any personal suspects in the kidnaping of Hanks-paidhi, Bren-ji?"
"I — no, aiji-ma, discounting that it was anyone of the Guild, no, all my suspects vanish. Except — someone who wanted revenge. Or someone who —" the thought nudged its way to the center of his apprehensions "— who wanted both: her in their hands and me dead — leaving no paidhi between you and Mospheira at this juncture. For whatever reason."
"If they could achieve that. Which they surely don't expect."
"I would not say," Damiri interjected, having overtaken them, "that this attempt evidences great intellect. Desperation. But not great intellect."
"Or carelessness of Atigeini disposition."
"Stupidity," Damiri said. "Aiji-ma."
"The fact that one doesn't care what your uncle thinks is not necessarily evidence of stupidity. — Daja-ji."
"The fact Iregard the lilies as myholding and the artist however dead as in my man'chishould have them sleep less at night. If my uncle demurs, I demand satisfaction!"
"One will have it, lily-daja, but the paidhi's safety is in my own, and you will notinitiate actions that jeopardize Bren orthat disagreeable woman whose life I foolishly agreed to protect."
"One has no wish to jeopardize Bren in any way." Damiri laid a hand on Bren's sore shoulder: a very gentle hand, of which he was glad. "Have I ever shown such an inclination?"
What did one do? Flinch from under the aiji's lady's hand? One stood still, aware of the double entendre, and said, solemnly, "By no means, nai-ma."
"Aiji-ma." It was Algini in the doorway, bidding for Tabini's attention, with: "The ship is asking for Bren-paidhi. Forgive the intrusion."
The mind — wasn't ready for one more extraneity, not for Mosphei', Mospheiran politics, or foreign negotiations. The mind was on shattered porcelain, Damiri's not-entirely joking threats, and the intricacies of atevi association: that, and Ilisidi, and the Guisi, and politics 11 and the disappearance of Hanks-paidhi, which, outside its atevi impact, was going to play very badly in certain Mospheiran circles — let alone aboard a ship contemplating sending personnel down to them.
The ship mustn't find out. The associations within the Association had already absorbed all the strain the bonds of man'chiwould bear. Tabini could notbear any reneging on the landing, no matter the reason for caution.
"If I could guess," Algini said, as he headed for the doorway, "it's a young man, nadi-ma."
"Jase," he said.
"The landing," Tabini said, tagging him close. "Possibly."
"Very possibly," he said, on his double train of thought, trying to gather up the lost threads of the Jase Graham affair: like why the ship hadn't called the mainland for two days, and what Mospheira had been trying to argue with the ship, latest, in the meantime, and what he had to say as a contingency to the ship trying to back out for reasons that might have nothing whatsoever to do with assassination attempts.
At least one answer to matters held in suspension — or news that another deal was collapsing — was waiting for him on the phone.
CHAPTER 19
" Hello ?" Jase's voice was cheerful, perhaps, Bren thought, to put the best face on a change of mind. " Bren? Is that you?"
He refused to be seduced. But answered the tone. "It better be, since nobody else here can talk to you. How are things up there?"
"Doing fine, actually. How are things below?"
"Oh, fine." He was taking the call in Damiri's office, standing, because otherwise the crowd overwhelmed him: Tabini, Damiri, Banichi, Naidiri, Saidin and two of Naidiri's aides. Which fairly well accounted for the wall space and all the standing room except the small area by the desk that he maintained, holding the phone. "Just kind of waiting for your call."
" Well, sorry about that. Things just proceeded slower than I thought. I hope I didn't worry anybody, but just getting through the notes you sent up and talking to the captains— meetings, chain-reaction meetings, I suppose it's no different where you are."
"No, no, unfortunately not. One of those things that seems to go with air-breathing biology. — So how's the process running?" He didn't wantto sound short of breath, he tried to keep his voice cheerful and light, and all of a sudden his hands were shaking so he feared he couldn't keep the tremor out of his voice, either. "Sorry. A little out of breath. Had a bit of rush to get here down the hall. Are we agreeing or disagreeing?"
"Agreeing, actually, pretty well. We've picked Taiben for a landing. What's your assessment?"
He cast a look across at Tabini before it dawned on his shock-numbed brain that Tabini didn't understand. "Taiben," he echoed, and looked in vain for a reaction. "It's convenient, easy to get to and from. Has a jet-port, wide, wide flat with no trees, no likely complications, at least." He got a sign from Tabini, finally, that told him that Tabini understood the choice and accepted it. "Fine with us."
" I've been practicing. How'sDai ghiyi-ma, aigi'ta amath-aiji, an Jase Graham?"
" Hamatha-aijijin, but that's real good." Ears around him had gone quite attentive, and he hoped Jase tried nothing with infelicitous variants. "I'm impressed. You puzzled that out of notes."
"I'm anxious for this to work. They don't just shoot, do they, if they don't recognize you? The island's been saying there's a chance of attacks. But Taiben is the aiji's estate."
"Public land, actually, in the way atevi reckon. But the people on the land are the aiji's staff. And, no, atevi don't go shooting at the aiji's invited visitors. They're trying to scare you."
"That's not difficult at this point. Tell me again the chute's going to open and this is all going to go without a glitch-up."
"Ninety-nine point nine percent of the pods worked." He'd no idea of the real statistic, but statistical accuracy wasn't the reassurance Jase was asking for. "The second that chute takes hold, you're all right, and I imagine you'll feel it; that's what they say in the old accounts. How's the pod look to your experts? That's the important question."
" They've substituted the heat shield. On your advice and our discussing it in committee, they didn't ever unpack the parachute. They're just providing a second one. If the drop— Ireally hate that word— doesn't slow after the original chute should have deployed, the second chute's supposed to blow open automatically. If they put the canister together right."