But that was the thought of a human heart. He reminded himself of a certain hillside, and mechieti, and how angry they’d been when he ran the wrong direction, as if he’d suddenly, under fire, lost his wits.
He was the lord, and under fire they would rally to him instinctively, all but blindly, with that devotion with which humans would run for spouses and children and sacred objects. They would run through fire to reach him, and only the exertion of extreme discipline could deaden that instinct. If Banichi was not here, it was againstthat instinct for him. Banichi wantedto be here.
That was a terrible responsibility, to know that one’s protectors had no choice but to feel that, and that a word from him could move them to utter, fatal effort. It was that precariously poised, and so hard, so morally hard to say: let Banichi solve his own problems.
But in that interspecies cross-wiring it was the wisest thing.
“He’s moved during their night,” he murmured. “Is there a reason for this? I would have expected equal distribution of the shifts. It’s traditional.”
“There also is a curious pattern,” Algini said, “since before the outage, the traffic in the corridors was more or less evenly distributed in frequency, and now there seems a cluster of movement last night just after our second watch and their first, then a great falling off. This is a nightly occurrence, as if a group of people moved.”
“Is it likely the ship-folk have this sort of surveillance?”
“We have no information,” Tano said, “but Jasi-ji confided to us that he knew of very little surveillance in the corridors. We failed to press him on the matter: it was Banichi’s judgment we exceeded our authority to ask him.”
It was understandable that Tano had. Anything to do with security involved their Guild and interested their Guild, and Tano had doubtless passed that information to the head of Tabini’s security, too. On one level, the human one, Bren found himself distressed that Tano had asked after such things secretly; on another, the atevi-acclimated one, he perfectly understood it was his security’s job to know everything that touched on the national business.
“Was Jase angry that you asked?” he asked, a human question, seeking the human degree of truth.
“No,” Tano said, who, of the security staff, was closest to Jase. “And he knew I would report it to the aiji’s staff. But one felt it was dangerous to ask too closely, to make Jasi-ji aware of the capacities of the equipment we prepared.”
“Yet we needed to know certain things,” Algini said, “to know how to design this console, and how to take best advantage, and what we needed defend against. And Jasi-ji knew some things, but others he was simply unaware of. One believes, nandi, that the ship itself has some internal surveillance to defend operations centers but that the general corridors of the station and the general corridors of the ship have very little. There are portable units, to be sure, but to a certain extent one suspects inbuilt security is bound to be outmoded and worked around far too rapidly; one would be continually delving into the walls to make changes. We do suspect the light installations in the corridors, as readily available power taps, but thus far, in this section, we turn up nothing.”
Algini spoke very little, except on his favorite topic, security technology. And what he said, and what his security had been finding out from Jase over the last several years, was far more extensive than he’d hoped.
“I suppose that encouraged Banichi to think he could take so long a walk,” Bren said.
“He has the means to operate these doors,” Jago admitted, “and might do so if spotted.”
“But it’s damned cold where the heat’s off,” Bren objected. “Damned cold! And there’s no guarantee of air flow.”
“We chill less readily,” Jago said. “Air is a problem.”
“Yes,” Bren said, hoping his staff would restrain its operations. “Air is a problem. And I don’twant you to go out there looking for him, and if they’ve caught him, I have some confidence I’ll hear about it. But please, Nadiin-ji, don’t surprise me like this!”
He met an absolute, impervious wall of respectful stares.
“You’ll do what you know to do” he said more quietly, in retreat, “but I beg you be careful.”
“One will be careful,” Jago said. “During certain hours there’s less movement in the corridors. One expects my partner will use his excellent sense and wait.”
“Concealed in some airless compartment!”
“He has some resources,” Jago said. “Don’t worry. It’s not your job to worry.”
He had to take himself to his own room and sit down with the computer, to lose himself in reports and letters. There was no other way to avoid thinking about Banichi and disasters.
There was still no word from Toby, there was nothing from his mother… a silence from the island, and nothing from Tabini, only a handful of committee letters acknowledging his previous letters, a dismal lot of mail, none of it informative, none of it engaging.
That his mother hadn’t written back was in pattern, too: when she was offended, she didn’t speak, didn’t reason, didn’t argue, didn’t give anyone a handle to seize that might be any use at all.
I hope you’re seeing your doctor, he wrote her, in a three-page missive. I hope Barb’s improving.
It wasn’t the most inspired of letters.
He wrote Toby, too. I know you’re not in any position to answer, and I don’t expect an answer. Just touching bases to let you know you’re my brother and I’m concerned. He started to write that he hadn’t heard from their mother, but that was the way he and Toby had gotten into the situation they were in: that he’d used Toby for eyes and ears where it regarded their mother, and a pair of feet and hands, too. And if Toby and Jill had a chance, it meant just shutting that channel down and not using it anymore, not even if it put their mother in danger. It was at least a self-chosen danger.
He sent-and-received, and the second round of mail was sparser than the first.
“Cl,” he said. “Can you put me through to Kroger?” He was down to wishing for another human voice, but Cl answered:
“Kroger is not receiving at the moment. There’s a communications problem in that area, sir. Sorry.”
A communicationsproblem.
He signed off and went to report thatto his security.
“It’s not on Banichi’s route, is it?” he asked.
“No,” Tano said. “It should not be.”
“Do you suppose,” Bren asked, “that there’s nothing wrong where Banichi is, that Nojana raninto trouble and just hasn’t gotten to him?”
“We have considered that possibility,” Algini said. “But we have emergency notification, a very noisy transmitter. We have not heard it.”
That was reassuring. Another small feature of his security that no one had told him.
“How many other surprises are there?” he asked.
“Not many,” Jago said. It was clear she wished there were more surprises available. She was worried, and by now he suspected the man’chi that held her to Banichi and that man’chi which held her on duty here, with him, were in painful conflict.
“Come with me,” he said to her, not wishing emotion to make his security’s decisions, and they sat in his room, and he offered her a drink, which she declined in favor of a cup of tea, on duty and remaining alert. They shared a small, out-of-appetite supper, served by a silent, commiserating staff.
It passed midnight of their clock.
And very quietly, with the opening of a door, someone entered the section.
Jago leaped up, and he did. By the time they reached the hall, the whole staff was converging from servants’ quarters, Tano and Algini coming out of their station.
Banichi looked quite unruffled, not a hair out of place.
But to a practiced eye, Banichi had a worried look.