But sleep had thus far eluded him, and he wanted warmth against a slight inner chill, and an exhaustion that, this afternoon, seemed to have no cure.
They’d killed people, this morning.
He’d set up the attack. He, Bren Cameron, clearly no longer working for the Mospheiran State Department, no longer just the aiji’s translator—he’d presided over a scene of devastation.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a firefight. But never one that so unexpectedly shook the ground, still reverberated in his bones, so out of place, so alien, in a place that never ought to have seen violence at all.
Lord Bren of Najida, it was, now. Paidhi-aiji, the aiji’s mediator. Lord of the Najida Peninsula. Lord of the Heavens—Tabini had had only the vaguest idea what was above the atmosphere when he’d conferred that title, but he’d sent the paidhi-aiji up there to deal with humans and he’d wanted to make damned sure the paidhi had whatever power it took to put him in charge of whatever he could lay claim to—in Tabini’s name, of course.
In one sense the title only amounted to a name, a piece of starry black ribbon on the rare occasions he chose to wear it; but in another sense it was Tabini-aiji’s declaration that atevi were a permanent presence up there in space, that they meant to have a say in what went on up there, and that their representative was going to have all the respect and backing Tabini could throw behind him.
Three some years ago, that had turned out to mean Tabini’s presence was going to go with humans out to deep space and back and find out whether what humans had told them about their situation as refugees was true—or not.
It had been a two-year voyage, one year out, one year back—and in their return they had brought thousands of colonists forcibly removed from their station, to be relocated on the space station above the Earth of the atevi. That was one problem.
And during their absence from the world, his, the heir’s, and the aiji-dowager’s—they had immediately met a bigger one: the situation back home had completely gone to hell and the government had come into the hands of Tabini’s enemies.
They hadn’t really had to right that situation at the outset: with a little encouragement, the people had set Tabini back in power.
Their investigation in the year since Tabini had resumed his place as aiji was only now uncovering what had really happened, and it hadn’t been what they had first thought—what he and most people had believed as fact as late as a few weeks ago: that the coup which had driven Tabini from power for two years had involved a discontented Kadagidi lord with Marid backing, who had somehow gotten together a band of malcontent lords and their bodyguards, penetrated the aiji’s security, seized the shuttles on the ground, and been able to throw the government into chaos, all because Tabini’s sliding public approval had hit rock bottom.
Wrong. Completely wrong. It hadn’t been in any sense public discontent with the economy—or with Tabini’s governance—that had overthrown his government and set Murini in charge.
It hadn’t even been Murini who’d actually plotted Tabini’s overthrow.
They’d assumed it had been Murini. There had indeed been a public approval crisis, in the economic upheaval of the push to get to space.
But none of these problems had really launched the attack on Tabini.
He’d been surprised, really shocked, how bravely and in what numbers ordinary people had turned out in droves to support Tabini’s return to power. Evidently, he’d thought at the time, the populace had had their fill of Murini. They’d changed their minds. They’d seen the dowager and the heir come back from space and they’d understood that humans had been telling the truth and dealing fairly with atevi, against all doomsaying opinions to the contrary.
That had brought the people out to support Tabini’s return. Mostly, he’d thought then—it had been a return to normalcy the crowds had cheered for, after things under Murini had gone so massively wrong.
There’d been discontent before Tabini’s fall, but no, it had not been lords riding a popular movement that had organized the coup.
It had not even been a small group of malcontent lords acting on their own, though one of them had been glad to take over, not understanding, himself, that he was only a figurehead.
No, it hadn’t been Murini who’d done it.
He and his bodyguard had gradually understood that, and begun to look for what was behind the coup.
His own bodyguard and the dowager’s, working together, had been pulling in intelligence very quietly, intelligence that required careful sifting—old associates making contact from retirement, giving them, as he now knew, a story completely at variance with the account they were still getting from other sources. Some individuals that they might have wanted to consult—Tabini’s bodyguard—were dead, replaced twice since. And every inquiry they made had, he knew now, run up against rules of procedure—within the closely held secrecy of the Assassins, the most secretive of Guilds.
His bodyguard, and the dowager’s, had protected him, protected the aiji, and protected the heir through some very dicey situations, including misinformation that had nearly gotten him killed out on the peninsula.
They’d survived that. They’d tested their channels. They’d quietly worked to ascertain who could be trusted . . . and who, either because they were following the rules, or because they were part of the problem . . . could not be relied on.
Geigi coming down to the world had been a major break. Geigi, resident on the space station during the whole interval, observing from orbit, had filled in some informational gaps; and he was sure Geigi had gotten an earful of information from his own bodyguard when he’d gone back up there.
So now Geigi had sent them the three children, a ship-captain, and two ship’s security with a bagful of gear they weren’t supposed to have, and in which his own bodyguard had to take rapid instruction.
It was a good thing. Their opposition, finding pieces of their organization being stripped away, was making moves of their own.
The Kadagidi setup—was major.
Done was done, now. The lid was off, or was coming off, even while this train rolled across the landscape. Those of them that opposed the Shadow Guild dared not rely on orders going only where they were intended. They could not rely on discretion. They could not trust Guild communications, or rely on any personnel whose man’chi his bodyguard or the dowager’s didn’t know and believe. The matter at the Kadagidi estate this morning had been Guild against Guild—they’d exposed the Shadow Guild’s plot to assassinate Lord Tatiseigi. But they’d also hit right at the heart of Shadow Guild operations inside Assassins’ Guild Headquarters.
The Shadow Guild, wounded, might think it was blind luck and an old feud that had guided the strike. It wasn’t. And whatever the Shadow Guild believed, it could figure their enemies had just gotten their hands on records. Whether or not the Shadow Guild believed they’d delivered an intentional blow straight at them—it was time for the rest of the Shadow Guild operation to move. Fast.
From their own view—the Assassins’ Guild might have seemed on the verge of fatal fracture, infiltrated at its highest levels, still shaken by fighting in the field against Southern Guild forces. People who guarded the aiji already felt themselves unable to rely on Guild lines of communication . . .
One assessing the aiji’s chances of survival might think that the infiltration might be pervasive, and fatal.