“One should remember them,” Cajeiri said solemnly, with no one prompting.
“Indeed,” Bren said.
Two more contingents added to the vulnerable lot already sitting here, a target for Kadagidi mayhem as the sun declined in the sky.
Brave folk, as they had already proved. He was far from easy in his mind. Finesse, Jago had said. But there might be gunfire at the train station in very short order, and there might be ambush on the way—God knew where it would end up. Rejiri had apparently scouted things out, including, perhaps, the position of forces trying to control access to the Atageini train station, and then opted to ground the plane and go back by bus—a good move, Bren thought.
If he had appeared over Kadagidi forces, they might have claimed illicit attack, and that could escalate what was already in progress.
So while Jago instructed three eager youngsters in the meticulous details of avoiding disaster—and specifically cautioned them against trying to bypass Algini’s black box device, which involved skills the Guild did not divulge to novice security and an inquisitive princeling—Bren found no further use for himself at all, except to get out his computer and attempt to condense a report, paring thousands of pages down to essentials, in the hopes that if they did have a quiet night, and if Cajeiri did get his great-grandmother’s ear, Tabini might have time to look at it this evening.
No phone connnections to Mosphiera, not from this house. He had his modem, but without the landlines, it was no use to him; he mortally regretted that the communication network had never gotten beyond Mogari-nai’s solitary dish. He wondered how good the informal network was, the illicit radio traffic across the straits, whether that had maintained any mainland contacts, and consequently whether President Shawn Tyers knew what kind of a mess he was in, and that Tabini had knowingly put himself in a target zone? Yolanda Mercheson, his liaison with the spacefarers, was sitting over there on the island, in a hotel beside the landed shuttle, perhaps having been clever enough during his absence to have tried to create such links, but she had not made contact with him if they existed. At the moment, she was still waiting to relay information to the station, and he couldn’t tell her what was going on, either—though the increasingly massive traffic jam out there might by now be seen in orbit, who knew? The station had been on the verge of deploying observation satellites with very good optics, but that project, once certain hidebound humans and atevi had gotten wind of it, had bogged it down in security concerns on both mainland and island. Had it ever happened? One assumed if it had gotten into operation the captains up there would have given him suitable equipment, knowing the situation on the mainland. One assumed— Well, what the station knew or could see or gather from clandestine networks or doggedly determined spies in rowboats was not his problem, at the moment. Tabini was. Tabini’s gathering force was.
Tabini’s highly protective guard was.
“What has the dowager’s staff been able to tell Tabini’s guard?”
he asked Tano, as the one of his staff who at least looked unoccupied. “What success have you had passing information to them?”
But Tano answered: “Algini would know better, nandi,” and quietly replaced Algini in control of the black box, freeing Algini to come and confer with Bren.
“What information has Cenedi relayed to Tabini’s staff on our mission?” he asked, for starters. “And what are they saying?”
Algini hunkered down by his chair and, staring into space in the manner of a man recalling minute detail, spilled the essentials, an amazing flow, almost a chant.
And all coherently organized, more the marvel, carrying the agreements, the persons present at the negotiations, the representations made on both sides, exactly as he would have outlined it—though not the reassuring content he would have wished. The aiji’s guard had given no reaction to news that there were more foreigners out in space, and as to what the dowager had said to Tabini himself, only Tabini’s staff had witnessed that—and Tabini’s security staff was not talking to them.
After all these years, he was still amazed at the detail, the precise picture of who had been standing where and overheard what. He began, in some despair, to fold his computer away. The essentials had come out. Tabini had not wanted his report.
His movement interrupted the flow. Algini, rare gesture, touched his hand, preventing him. “Our accounts are necessarily missing some detail, nandi.”
“Clearly it misses very little,” he said, and decided to consult Algini, who rarely talked but who seemed communicative at the moment. “The aiji has men about him who seem commendably protective of him, Gini-ji. But Cenedi is not pleased. What would his former guard have said?”
“We are meeting obstacles in communication,” Algini said bluntly. “One cannot speak for the dead. But these men are different.”
“Their man’chi?”
“One detects very faint ties to the hills, and perhaps to the south.”
“To the south.” Alarming. “And the aiji has accepted that knowingly?”
“Certain of us question, Bren-nandi, how much the aiji knows of those ties.”
Twice alarming. “Who truly knows these men, Gini-ji?”
A very slight hesitation, half a breath, if that. Algini’s gold eyes flicked into rare direct contact at so blunt a question. “Various of us have formed independent impressions of the situation. Certainly the aiji and the consort have slept safely under their guard.”
“So their objective, whatever it may be, is consonant with the aiji recovering Shejidan.”
“One believes they do oppose Murini, and the aiji has continually been the strongest opposition available. Your return and the dowager’s have created somewhat of a stir: Your renewed influence challenges them.”
Clearer and clearer. “There is no likelihood this opinion of me will improve.”
“The paidhi and the dowager represent an arrangement of new numbers,” Algini said, “bringing in Lord Geigi and the establishment in space, as well as other coastal folk, who are now arriving here in considerable number to add their voice to the discussion.”
The coast and the hills had never been united before the aishidi’tat. There was still conflict of interest. The middle south and Lord Geigi, up on the station, had never been allies in policy except, again, as the aisihdi’tat united them.
“It would seem then,” he paraphrased the subtext, “that the elements of the aishidi’tat who are against the Kadagidi, but who have not been favorable to me or the dowager, have been the primary refuge of the aiji in this time of need, and they are greatly dismayed to see us returning easily and moving back into our former position, snatching away the influence they feel they have justly earned.”
Algini’s gaze flickered just slightly. “That would be one theory, nandi, and generously phrased.”
“Would they ultimately mean the aiji ill?”
“The elements we suspect have never favored the aishidi’tat’s establishment, and may use it now only as a convenience. To see all central organization fall apart would well suit some of the hill lords, and some of the south.”
“Disaster, in dealing with the ship-humans.”
“Your staff thinks so. The dowager thinks so. But the aiji’s staff is limiting what information reaches him.”
“Painting a picture in which their advice is wise and politically safer.”
“Exactly so, nandi. And the Ajuri themselves are seeking a position of more importance through their connections. They may be northerners, but they represent a certain discontent up to the north, a minority—they have been a minor force throughout, but the news that the aiji is here, again, under Lord Tatiseigi’s roof—and that you and the dowager are back—has galvanized them and filled their eyes with great expectations. They are a hinge-point, on which other borderline elements may base their reactions.”