And once the outer door had shut, and they were in mani’s apartment, he found he was indeed included in that invitation to tea, and very quickly then sitting in a chair in a triangular arrangement, mani, and him, and Lord Geigi. He was served his cup of tea, much nicer than what they had had on the shuttle, where the air made their noses sore, and dulled tastes. He sipped his cup carefully, at mani’s pace, wondering all the while how nand’ Bren was doing, and what information Cenedi was getting from the man who had gone with nand’ Bren, and if they were going to hear anything at all.
But if information from nand’ Bren had not been coming, Cajeiri told himself, Cenedi would not be standing so quietly at mani’s shoulder.
So he hoped nand’ Bren was safe and that everything was all right. And he hoped the same for his associates, off across the station, with the locked doors that still made him mad even to think about.
He wondered if they had heard he was here, and wondered whether, just possibly, once everything calmed down and nand’ Bren came back safely, Lord Geigi might answer a private question and tell him what might have happened to his mail.
There was nothing but idle talk, with tea. Talk about production schedules, about weather on the coast. He sat and sipped tea while baggage carts rumbled in the depths of the hall and staff back there began to sort things out. Clothes would be going into closets and belongings would be set where they should be. They were settling in—and it was still uncertain what was going on over on the human side of things, or up where nand’ Bren was.
Jase-aiji was watching Tillington. That was a good thing. Jase-aiji and Sabin-aiji, who was almost as fierce as Great-grandmother. Tillington would feel her staring at his back, whatever he did.
And his aishid, standing with the senior Guild outside the door, would be asking questions he could not ask. They would be talking to Lord Geigi’s bodyguard, right along with mani’s young men, and mani’s men would be asking questions his aishid did not know enough to ask, finding out things, so his aishid could tell him what was happening without his breaking promises.
Clearly some people, including Tillington-aiji, were not being smart. People were acting as if only their way mattered, while people as dangerous as the kyo were arriving.
Reunioners knew firsthand what the kyo could do. And he knew. And all the fuss among themselves was just stupid. But no one was interested in hearing a boy say so.
The kyo will come someday, he had said to his associates two years ago, when he was much younger, when they were all sitting together in the dark of the ship-tunnels, and he had told them about meeting the kyo face to face. But we will know what to do when that happens.
Nand’ Bren will know what to do.
He still believed that. He truly did.
Cenedi went out to the foyer and came in again, gave a little nod to mani and another to Lord Geigi, and a little one to him, too.
“Nand’ Bren is returning,” Cenedi said. “He has gained Ogun-aiji’s agreement on some matters of import, but they have not yet resolved the situation in Central.”
“At least there is progress,” mani said.
But it was not agreement on everything that was going on, and people were still being stupid.
Maybe tomorrow nand’ Bren would work the rest of it out.
But Cenedi said, too, “Nand’ Bren pleads he is quite tired, and wishes leave to deal with his staff.”
That was a disappointment. He wished he could go across the hall.
But likely nand’ Bren said that because he wanted to think.
“As he should,” mani said with a wave of her hand. “Advise him so.”
17
There was at least, Bren thought, the hope of a quiet transition—granted Ogun didn’t, the moment the door was shut, call Tillington in for conference and create a worse mess.
Bren personally hoped for better from Ogun. He hoped they had made headway on more than one front. And a double-cross didn’t make sense, given what was truly in Ogun’s own best interests—unless there was an emotional side to the question, and there was certainly emotion in Ogun’s dislike of Sabin.
But one didn’t get to be Senior Captain by being a fool. And in playing the one piece of advantage he’d had, the disposition of the Reunioners, he’d given Ogun a path that led in a better direction for everybody, Ogun included. If Ogun saw it.
Or believed it. There’d been a long history of deception, all along the ship’s course.
He couldn’t undo that. He had to keep on Ogun’s good side. He also had to stick by his own allies, including Sabin, and he had to do it without making trouble for Jase in the process. Sabin was all the fallback they had, if Ogun turned unreliable.
He’d been unspeakably glad to put the ship-folk’s stationside administrative section behind him.
He was gladder still to be in the lift headed back to atevi territory, and when he and his escort passed the door into the aishidi’tat’s executive residency, it was as if he’d finally found breathable air.
The corridor was quiet and deserted as he and his escort entered. His own door was across the hall from the dowager’s apartment doors, down the hall from Geigi’s. Cenedi’s man, with a parting courtesy, went across to Ilisidi’s door, and the fact that Geigi’s men, also leaving him, likewise went over to the dowager’s door, said that there must be a meeting still going on.
But he had too much going on at the moment, and to his advisory message, the dowager had relayed a gracious encouragement to go settle in and rest.
Which was a great relief. Right now he wanted no more input, nothing that would require a defense or even an explanation of what he had just done—because there was no answer until Ogun did whatever he decided to do, and he had so many pieces and particles suspended in his head. He needed to take notes. He needed to remember just how the argument had flowed, and everything, every nuance, every hint of Ogun’s guarded expression.
He reached his own door with only his aishid, and without them so much as pushing the button, it opened.
The spicy smell of pizza wafted out. Narani and Jeladi were there to meet him, with Kandana and Sabiso, with Asicho and Maruno, and people he had not seen in far too long. It was celebration. It was his staff. His people.
“Nandi! Nand’ Bren!”
Faces beamed with happiness. There were more people in the hall, Bindanda, the whole staff turned out.
He found a smile, an expansive gesture of thanks, least he could do. There had been conspiracy about this welcome, one was quite certain: pizza could not have happened on station commons. There were a few faces sensibly a little worried—seeking some hint of the situation in his demeanor, but he could not spread fear in his own staff, either. He gathered up his energy and broadened the smile, and found their happiness pouring strength into him. Granted one did not seize on Kandana and Sabiso and the rest and hug them bodily, his gesture won smiles all around, happiness from one side of the little foyer to the other, and back into the hall.
“Nandi!” Kandana said. “Welcome! Three times welcome! Are things well?”
“They are indeed improved,” he said, shedding the traveling coat, itself a vast relief. He was offered another, a soft, favorite coat he had not seen literally in years, and such was the stress of recent weeks, the coat still fit. That was a surprise. All around him, familiar faces beamed warmth and welcome. He found himself energized, surrounded by people who, far from ordinary atevi reserve, touched his arm or his shoulder as family might, in sheer happiness to see him.