Destroyer (20 page)

“I regret to say,” he said quietly, “the shuttle is grounded. We have to get the mainland not to shoot at it. We have to get it prepped, and crew alone can’t do it. We consider ourselves lucky to have gotten down in one piece.”

A little compression of her lower lip. A crease between the eyebrows. “I understand that.” When it was the dearest wish she had, to be on that shuttle homebound as fast as they could possibly turn it around.
I’m not a fool,
that tone said. “But by your leave—and the President’s, and Captain Ogun’s—I’d like to take up residency on this floor, next to the shuttle crew. To translate for them. To be here, with a military guard, to make sure the shuttle stays safe. I have my luggage.”
To be on that shuttle when first it lifts,
he read her intention. He didn’t disagree with that. And it was fait accompli. She nodded back to the lift, where, indeed, a single bag stood.

Living on a world for two years, and that was the sum of what she’d accumulated. The sum of what she valued on the planet, he surmised uncharitably.

He’d brought down an entire entourage, with enough baggage for a small war; but then, Yolanda had always been a solitary sort. She had formed a liaison with Jase and broken it off, bitterly, when Jase got an appointment she wanted. And that was it, socially, for Yolanda. Pity the atevi shuttle crew.

“We won’t be here,” he said. “But if you could get a communications system set up in this place, something between us and Ogun, if you talk to the crew and make sure the local authorities keep the shuttle under guard, that would be extraordinarily helpful.”

“No problem. I’m gathering the President gave orders. I can be eyes-on for the immediate area.”

Good, he said to himself. Yolanda cooperative could be useful. He dared the harder question. “What happened, with Tabini? What do you think triggered it?”

Her lips went to a thin line. “There was no one trigger, that I was able to figure. No reason, but Murini’s ambition, and a public brouhaha over funding and districts. I think it was a long-running plot. It organized, got people into position over a period of months . . . maybe starting with your leaving, when they could talk a bit more freely about human influence. When the blowup came, like I said, we were already in the country. I was all packed to get to Mogari-nai. I was to leave in the morning, just to go out there, as if somehow I was supposed to get some special message from Ogun, or be in position to pass him something. But I woke up in the middle of the night with shooting going on in the hallways. The staff—your staff—threw me into atevi-style clothes, got me into a stairwell, and got me out into the garden, then to another stairs, and down to the outside. After that it was a lot of dodging and clambering around in the woods. The two men I was with got me as far as the garage, passed me to a woman who drove me off through the woods—I wasn’t trusting her much, but she got me to a farm, and a service truck, which drove all night into the country. And after that, after that, it was just a succession of farm trucks and small waystops.” A deep breath. Roads were far from extensive in the open country. There would have been detours, roundabout approaches. “At a certain point,” she said, “at a certain point the driver left the truck and didn’t show up for hours, and I just pulled my hood up and walked down the road. I walked three more days before I got to the coast, mostly walking at night. Trying to be mistaken for a kid, if anyone spotted me. Finally I stole a truck that was unattended at a rail depot. Learned to drive the thing in a few klicks. I got to Mogari-nai, and they told me Tabini and Damiri had disappeared, that Murini was claiming they were dead, and he was setting up as aiji in Shejidan.”

Yolanda hadn’t had an easy time of it. No question. He couldn’t blame her in the least.

“Any evidence what did happen?”

Shake of the head. “The contact got me down to the harbor, and put me in a boat with a woman to run it, and that was all. Later I gathered from independent radio and shortwave, that Ragi atevi were in confusion, certain lords assassinated, or claimed to be assassinated . . .”

“Who’s gone?”

“Parigi. Celaso.”

Two stalwarts of Tabini’s court.

“Others had scattered from Shejidan to their estates,” Yolanda said, “which was probably how I got away—that they were tracking everybody at once, and I wasn’t the most dangerous to them. Instead of following me, they were probably chasing Tabini, and he was probably leading them in circles in the woods. Me, I just opted for Mospheira and made it. Once we lost sight of land I was seasick.”

He made a dutifully sympathetic face.

“But just after I got aboard—the boat had a radio, and we got radio messages that went out of there to Geigi’s people and up north, and back to Shejidan, trying to rally help for Tabini. I wanted the boat to turn around. But the woman running it pretended she didn’t understand me—she spoke some kind of dialect I had trouble with—and we didn’t communicate, and I didn’t think I could take over the boat in the middle of all that water. I just had myself, and my com unit, but I couldn’t reach the ship, because Mogari-nai just shut down, and all I was getting was Jackson and Bretano.”

“They’d have been onto his heels fast, if he did appear at Mogari-nai. He wouldn’t have lingered there, only long enough to send out advisements to Ogun and Geigi and to his own supporters on the ground.”

“That’s what I told myself. That’s the reason I didn’t make a try to take over the boat. But there’s been nothing else like that since. And they’re claiming it wasn’t the aiji talking from Mogari-nai, that it was one of his staff, and they’re claiming the station has launched capsules down by parachute, to infiltrate the countryside, would you believe? That’s a complete lie. But they’ve hyped that to the skies and put a bounty on supposed foreigners. Which I think is their way of covering their people searching every barn and warehouse and arresting the individuals they’re looking for, all Tabini’s supporters. It’s not going to make it easy if you’re going over there.”

“Lovely,” he said. The countryside overrun with searchers after every vestige of Tabini’s administration, all transport become suspect, Assassins of the Kadigidi man’chi out on the hunt in the central regions and those of the Marid Tasigin in the south. He looked unintendedly at Banichi, and particularly at Jago, who understood far more of shipspeak and Mosphei’ than she commonly let on. She might have followed the gist of it much more closely than Banichi, and neither of them looked happy with what they heard.

“I wrote all the detail I know in that file,” Yolanda said. “I’ve had my evenings to sit and rehearse the whole mess, for months now. I think it’s complete. I was waiting for you. I’ve been waiting.”

He never could warm to Yolanda. He came as close as he had ever come, counting what she
had
done. That bit about turning the boat around to go back to the mainland he wasn’t sure he wholly believed, but then again, Yolanda was tough at unexpected moments, tough as nails, if she wanted something; and she might have gone back to rescue Tabini and Damiri—if her linguistic skills had been up to it. But with some of the north coast dialects, and maybe with the boat’s owner being deliberately obtuse, she had ample excuse for failing. Seasickness. Vertigo. Terror. Jase had gone green when he’d realized what a distance of water was under their feet, aboard a small boat.

“You’re of course welcome to stay here,” he said. “They’re clearly feeding us well. And you’re behind double security. You can relax.”

“First time, frankly, that I’ll sleep the night through.”

“Trouble here in Jackson?” He would be surprised. There were rabble-rousers, and Yolanda, solo, didn’t know to what extent she was protected.

A little diffidence. “The Heritage Party has surfaced again, causing all sorts of hell. Both our names have been tossed about, with no good intent.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“They’re demanding Mospheira’s officials up in orbit take over the station, which of course the captains aren’t going to have happen; and Lord Geigi isn’t going to have happen, and I doubt those people up there would even contemplate doing. But down here, you and I are representatives of the agencies the Heritagers think deprived them of their rights, that caused all this on the mainland. We’re the devils. They’re the light. Send ten cred to their fund to keep their message on the air and write your representative so the President, who’s in league with the enemy, doesn’t call up the home guard to shut down the program and arrest Gaylord Hanks.”

“God.” Gaylord Hanks, whose daughter Deana had gotten herself an appointment to the paidhi’s office and proceeded to create a small war on the mainland. She’d died in the effort to create absolute mayhem, one of the things which had surely contributed to the current situation—and Gaylord Hanks undoubtedly carried a personal grudge for his daughter’s fate.

“So I don’t open my mail,” Yolanda said with a deep, shaky sigh, “or maintain any office where I can be reached. I don’t feel safe in Jackson or Bretano. There’s no private apartment I can get where I feel safe, if you want the truth. And if you wouldn’t let me stay here, I’d get a room downstairs.”

It didn’t make him feel easier for his own family, or for his being in the news again.

“Well,” he said, “the fix for it all is on the mainland. Where I’ve got to go.”

“Anything I can do,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

“Take care of the shuttle. And count on the shuttle crew to support you.”

“I heard the dowager was with you. And Tabini’s son, too?”

“Both, yes. The dowager’s resting. Cajeiri’s gone to lie down, perforce. Exhausted, though he won’t admit it.”

“You look more than a little frayed around the edges yourself.”

“I’m fine.” That was a lie, too. But he didn’t at all do the physical work the crew and the staff had done, not to mention Ilisidi, or a boy whose high energy came in frenetic spurts. “I’ll brief the staff on what you’ve told me, particularly as soon as I have a chance to sit down and go through the notes. Is there anything but that bag you’d like to send after?”

“That’s all. I’ll take lunch, gladly enough. I’ve got my computer, I’ve got my com unit. I’ll trust if the crew’s here, they have some kind of a link up to the station, too.”

“They do. No problem with that.” He suddenly found himself flagging, done, physically exhausted at the thought of having to go over all the details again with Banichi and Jago. Which he probably should do, nonetheless. Events might come rushing down on them, leaving no leisure for explanations. He might forget things. But he wasn’t sure, now that he thought of it, that he had the energy to last another hour, or that he could make sense in either language. The dowager had had the right idea, heading for bed while there was a chance, and before the news spread.

He put a hand on the chair arm, pushing himself to his feet. Yolanda rose. “I’ll see to the things I can,” she said. “Don’t worry about what’s happening here.”

“My staff . . . they’re done in, themselves. Good thing we didn’t plunge off for a crossing forthwith . . . Nadiin-ji, have you followed any of what we said? Mercheson-paidhi felt more at ease in her native language, for precision of expression, and says she believes Tabini-aiji was warned only by a few hours, not knowing the threat was so close. She was supposed to precede him to Mogari-nai, was hastened out during a violent attack, sent on to Mogari-nai, and with no further explanation, she was hastened onto a boat. She heard then that Tabini-aiji had also arrived at Mogari-nai—but his few radio transmissions ceased from that source within a few hours and now she has no notion what may have happened there.”

“One did follow a certain few details, nandiin,” Jago admitted. “And if Mercheson-paidhi will repeat her information for us in Ragi, we shall take notes.”

“One will gladly do so,” Yolanda murmured, with commendable courtesies, “with apologies, Jago-ji.”

Maybe he looked as ready to fall on his face as he felt. He hated to leave his weary staff to endure one more briefing, but murmured a courtesy of his own and let Jago take Yolanda back down the hall, presumably to retrieve the duffle she had abandoned to the military guard near the lift.

“One might sleep,” Banichi said, touching his arm. “One observes you have not slept much on the flight, Bren-ji.”

“I never sleep on airplanes,” Bren muttered. Which was not quite true. But it wasn’t restful sleep. Banichi could sleep under the most amazing circumstances, and doubtless had, at least for an intermittent hour or so. So, likely, had the rest of them. And it was true they looked fresher than he felt. “An hour or so,” he conceded. “I take it as good sense.”

“Undoubtedly good sense, nandi,” Banichi said, as alert and bright as he was not.

But it was not bed he had first on his mind. He picked the other suite that had a view of the mountains and betook himself to that, immediately to the phone.

He knew his mother’s number. He both longed to call it and dreaded the call, not knowing what might have been the outcome of her last trip to hospital, two years past, not knowing if she had lived through that crisis. He had a choice of her number, or his brother Toby’s, up the coast, on the North Shore.

He decided on fortitude, and called his mother’s number, not even trying to think what he would say to her after his desertion, beyond hello, I’m back.

But the number, the lifelong number, was no longer working.

He clicked the button down, severing the connection, desolate. Even if she’d gone to some care facility, she’d have retained that lifelong number. And now it was just silence on the other end. And he knew he’d failed her. She was gone. Just gone. And he wouldn’t blame Toby for not speaking to him.

There was a lump in his throat. But he didn’t take for granted, ever again, that there would be time, that there would be a second chance. He rang Toby’s number. And it at least rang. And rang. And rang.