“That might be,” Jago conceded. “But, nadi, he would leave me word.”
“One more day,” he said. “Jago-ji, I request it. I believe that’s what he wishes.”
“One more day,” she said. “Then. Then I will advise you send me to search for him, nandi.”
Tano and Algini, standing near, said nothing, nor did Jago look at them.
Nojana, separated from his own partner, who had left on a shuttle about which they had heard nothing, likewise bore a somber look.
The lack of information was hell on all of them.
Chapter 23
Jago did not come to bed, rather hovered gloomily about the security station, watching every tick of the instruments that he knew now monitored the smallest sounds, even the flow of water through the pipes: she listened to everything.
Bren tried to sleep, hovered near it a long while.
Then the outer door did open, and he leaped up, snatched a robe…
And confronted a shut door, utterly in dark.
He groped for the lights. Either the station had sealed him in by remote control or his own security had. He found the wall panel.
The door opened by remote, as it had shut, and he heard voices outside, his security, and a human voice: Kaplan’s.
He went out to confront the scene, his armed and nervous security, Kaplan… and Narani and Bindanda. Everyonewas out, everyonehad pounced on Kaplan, who looked scared, small wonder.
“Sir,” Kaplan said. “Sir!”
“Allow him, Nadiin,” Bren said, and his security let Kaplan come closer, Kaplan looking anxiously over his shoulder, down a stretch of hallway with numerous doors, any one of which might house monitoring equipment. We need to take that, Bren said to himself, and shortened his vision to Kaplan, who was without his usual gear, in nothing but a coat.
“I heard what you said,” Kaplan began shakily, “and a friend of yours said the situation’s better, and he wants to move it here, if he can, if he can get through, which is scary. I don’t think he ought to try, but he’s going to, and he needs help.”
“Is Banichi with him?”
“The big guy. I don’t know. I can’t stay here. I’ve got to go. I can take you there, and I’ve got to get back where I belong or I’m cooked.”
“Jago,” Bren said, and had a dilemma on his hands, Jago’s imperfect command of Mosphei, Kaplan’s accent, and Jase’s and Banichi’s safety. He couldn’t take protection from the place, not with all their chance of holding out until the shuttle got back vested in these few rooms. “Jago and I will go. Now.”
“Bren-ji,” Tano protested. “At least take one more.”
“Jago,” Bren said for good or for ill. It was Banichi they were looking for as much as Jase and Ramirez, and Jago knew the halls best. “Two seconds,” he said, and ducked into his room and took his gun from his computer case.
Bindanda followed him, dressed in frantic haste, assisted, and gave him a small packet tied up with cord. “Food,” Bindanda said. “Medicines.”
Was there nothinghis staff failed to anticipate? “You are amazing, nadi-ji,” he said, and hurried out into the hall, where, second wonder from the same source, Kaplan had come into possession of a gilt-and-flowered box, which he clutched anxiously. Keep the fellow bribed, Bren thought, and hoped the supply held out.
Jago was ready; Jago had been ready for days.
“Let’s go,” he said to Kaplan, and they moved out quickly down the hall. “What chance we’re monitored?”
“Don’t think so, sir. They keep putting it in and your guys keep taking it out.”
Whether or not she understood, Jago didn’t say a thing; and he was alarmed to think Banichi had been quietly disposing of station monitoring where he found it. Warfare had been going on, unannounced, things the station failed to say, things Banichi failed to say… even to him.
Now Banichi was off on his own recognizance, and he knewBanichi received some instructions not from him, but from Tabini, and likewise from his Guild.
“He says Banichi has removed station surveillance,” he said to Jago. “Is this so?”
“Occasionally,” Jago admitted.
“And didn’t tell me? This might affect negotiations!”
“So might its presence, nandi,” Jago said as they walked, and that was the plain truth, one he couldn’t deny. What were the spies on the other side to say? You destroyed our bugs?
No, they attempted to replant them, and to assure…
God, what might Banichi have planted in the rest of the station?
Was thathow Jago claimed to know where Banichi was? It couldn’t be clear radio transmission. Surely they’d locate that. But something was going on.
Were they tapping on the damned water pipes? Knocking on the walls?
Kaplan had stuffed a candy in his mouth and hastened along with a bulge in his cheek, the box tucked in his jacket.
And now Kaplan led them down one corridor and through one and the other doors, and, with fearful looks, led them into a recess and a dogged-down door.
“It’s cold,” Kaplan said around the candy, “but it’s pressurized. Next level down. You want to tuck your hands in your sleeves.”
It was a fast climb, the cold all but numbing the lungs and face and hands. And damned right he wanted to tuck hands into his sleeves to hold onto the ladder. He descended above Jago, Kaplan last above him, and Kaplan shut the door again before coming down in a darkness absolute except for a light Jago produced. There was another door in this tube, and a small platform, and Jago stood astride the ladder and platform to open it into light, onto another level.
The passage went on and on into depth.
“How far?” he asked. “All over?”
“ ‘Case the lifts fail,” Kaplan said. “There’s pressure seals below. You don’t open a pressure seal. Blow the whole damn section. Tell her that.”
“He says there are pressure seals below and if we open them we will have a fatal decompression, Jago-ji.”
“One understands,” Jago said.
And seized her gun, and scrambled up the rungs as if stung.
“One damned well does,” Banichi’s voice said out of the dark below them. “Nadiin-ji. One is very glad to see you.”
“See,” Bren scoffed, in near dark, and addressing the darkness itself. His heart was beating so he had trouble holding his grip, and Kaplan had let out a yelp that still seemed to echo through the tunnels.
“We have Ramirez safe, and improved,” Banichi said. “Where we have him, we don’t wish known. So we make noise within the system. Oblige us all by going back by the next passage, Nadiin. We are safe. How do you fare?”
“Well,” he said, “though as yet we’ve had no knowledge of the shuttle.”
“It landed safely,” Banichi said, a fact which, indeed, Kaplan might have told them, Bren was chagrined to realize. “Have you brought medicines?”
“I have them,” Bren said, and passed them to Jago, who climbed down on the ladder and passed the packet down.
Banichi took them.
“I’m losing my grip,” Bren was forced to say. “The cold’s numbed my fingers.”
Jago moved upward at once and took a grip on his arm. That Jago could climb hauling him up he halfway believed.
“Take him to safety,” Banichi said. “Rely on us.”
“Yes,” Jago said, and shoved him upward.
He moved, Jago moved, Kaplan moved… whether Kaplan had gloves or whether Kaplan’s coat was better insulated, he had no idea, but he literally could not maintain his grip much longer. He shoved himself upward with his legs and tried to give Kaplan relief the same way Jago supported him, but it was a damned dangerous maneuver, he was all too aware.
Kaplan managed to get them into the upper corridor, and they startled one stray odd-hours walker, but Kaplan high-signed that woman, who stood stark still. “Ramirez!” Kaplan hissed at her.