“Yet,” Jago said, “did the kyo not indicate that an association can never be broken?”
“They did,” he said. It was not a comforting thought. “But it can have a happier interpretation. And perhaps a closer association can be postponed.”
“One certainly hopes so,” Jago said.
13
It was ungodly early to be up and about. But lights were on, staff turned out, and the kitchen had swung into action this morning under Bindanda’s assistant, while Bindanda was going over his checklists.
Acknowledgements came in.
From Ilisidi: We shall keep the agreed schedule.
From Tabini: We have confirmed all orders you have issued. Our son will join you at the appointed time tomorrow.
And from the Guild, through Tano: The Guild unit will join us at the train station. They are advised about baggage and security requirements. They will carry only hand baggage. They will rely on Lord Geigi for supply, and he is preparing a residence for them near his own.
Matters he hadn’t personally overseen were being handled. Baggage had gone out last night. The Red Train was undergoing preparation to take them to the port before tomorrow dawn, and that preparation would be guarded, and closely supervised.
Now the nerves started. Breakfast sat uneasily on the stomach. And Bren found himself looking at familiar faces, familiar things in the apartment, telling himself he would be back, and all these people would be safe if he could just quit the dark train of thought that kept intruding and concentrate on business at hand. Staff knew what to do. His bodyguard did. They were in close communication now with Cenedi, Ilisidi’s Guild-senior; and with Tabini’s. They were giving orders to Cajeiri’s young bodyguard, and that unit was being overseen by Tabini’s bodyguard. Everything was happening as it ought to.
He sat down in his office to have one more cup of tea, review the dictionary one more time, seeking insights, and think through everything he had on his own list.
A very illicit little Guild communications unit was going with him. They were not telling the Guild observers about that item. His handgun, however, was staying on Earth. If he turned out to need a weapon, his bodyguard would provide it. They were amply armed, and understood far better than the unit from Headquarters what they could and couldn’t do in that fragile environment, and where they could and couldn’t do it.
Trust that the unit from Headquarters was going to be a quick study on such points, and that they would grasp the problems of using weapons on the station. It left them a wide array of things they could do—and shouldn’t have to.
And they would also be dealing with ship security, whose personal armament could blow the side off an earthly building.
He sat. He studied.
“The news is now broadcast to the public,” Jago arrived to inform him. “There is, on the part of some, alarm; and of course the rumor has begun to circulate that the kyo will land as humans did, though the report directly denied this will happen. Lord Machigi has sent an inquiry through staff to his Trade Ministry asking whether there is more to know on that matter. The dowager has responded that we had no means to predict the timing of this visit, but that there is no such landing contemplated, that the kyo are most probably here to confirm what we told them, and that we are going up there to conduct a diplomatic meeting.”
“Indeed,” he said.
So their close allies were asking reasonable questions and getting one small piece of truth more than the public was yet getting. The world was in acceptable order.
“I shall draft a similar letter to Dur and the Atageini.”
It was something to do. It was a function he normally had. It avoided thinking of more troublesome details.
And when he had done it, he wrote an advisement for his secretarial office: he customarily received direct communications from citizens, even atevi children, asking for explanations, and his secretarial office needed a list of prepared statements that could answer those questions.
It was now down to pure time-filling. He had done everything he could do. The baggage was out of their hands, the shuttle was loading and fueling, and everything was starting to roll downhill with a dreadful inevitability. All that was left was asking himself over and over if there was possibly anything he had forgotten, any item he was going to need, any instruction he had failed to give, or any letter he ought to have sent.
Topari. God. Topari.
He wrote, briefly: Please be assured, nandi, that everything we have discussed will go forward without interruption. The heavens have other residents, and one of these, as you will have heard, has come on a courtesy call which must be addressed in due form and with proper ceremony. We believe this will be a brief visit concluded with the departure of these visitors. But I have arranged for business to be conducted as usual in my brief absence.
I am confident of a good outcome. It should not in any wise delay the fulfillment of agreements between yourself and the aiji-dowager.
God, one earnestly hoped it worked out that way.
14
Morning.
Mother was upset, and trying not to show it. One was very grateful for that. Father was being official, and expected his son to stand straight and show well in front of staff and family. Most of all, Father expected his son to be brave.
Cajeiri kept his face calm, though indeed he found himself scared—just a little scared. He had a fluttery feeling in the stomach, as the whole staff and everybody turned out to bid him good-bye. Only his sister was missing from the event, and she had slept through all the coming and going in the halls this morning in perfect serenity.
Was it an omen?
He was no longer a little child. He did not hold with omens. Omens were the number-counters’ way of scaring clients into hiring them, that was what his father said. Aijiin had to be smart enough to know what superstitious people believed—and never scare people by seeming to disregard it—but they should never be scared by the numbers.
Still—
There was one courtesy not done.
“Please wait,” Cajeiri said, and dived past his mother and father back through the servants and the bodyguards, all the way back to his mother’s apartment, and opened the unlocked door without a knock.
His sister was asleep in her crib. He thought he might have his mother on his track at any moment. His mother’s maid came in, from the archway, but it was no surprise she should be here. He went to his sister, looked down at her, reached out and shook her tiny shoulder. “Sei-ji,” he said. “I shall be back before very long. Be good.”
He was making everybody wait.
But he felt as if now he had tied off all the loose ends. For superstitious luck. He went out into the hall, gathered up Jegari and Antaro, who had followed him, and hurried back through the crowd in the foyer.
He reached his parents, bowed for his father and again for his mother.
“Are you all right?” his father asked. Probably his parents thought he had had to go to the accommodation. Probably everybody thought it.