Inheritor (42 page)

Bren was still mad. And still didn't think Jase remotely understood him. And didn't want to get his adrenaline up any higher when he was trying to sleep.

"I've done the best I know how," he said to Jase finally. "I've tried to teach you."

The silence hung there a moment. From both sides.

Then Jase said, "I've tried to learn."

"I know that. You've done a brilliant job."

"Years left to get better at it," Jase said. "Got to. Ship's got to fly."

"Yeah," he said. It was disappointing, in his view, that he couldn't make Jase like life
here
, where he was. But whatever motivated Jase to study, whatever kept him wanting to go back, that was what he ought to encourage.

And Jase wanted to get back to his mother. He understood that part. Obligations. Divisions. Desperation.

He didn't know how his own was doing, or whether calls might have come in — if anything went wrong, surely Toby would call him.

"So what's going on out there?" Jase asked him.

Deep breath. "I think a number of vans or something came in." More motors than lights. He didn't mention that. One running with lights. The rest without. The electronic perimeter admitting them.

"So what did the guard say?"

"Supplies. Breakfast, maybe." He couldn't but think of the geography of the place — Mogari-nai, which was reachable by air and by a road up from the modern town of Saduri; and the town and the airport down one face of a steep rise on which this ancient fortress was posed, that faced Geigi on one side; and on the other side, the island of Dur.

Whose young heir was locked in for the night, he supposed. They didn't have keys for the bedrooms, but he'd about bet they'd found one for wherever they were keeping the boy.

What might be going on out there might involve calling the lord of Dur-wajran and informing him they now had a young idiot who could be reclaimed for suitable forthcoming information on the other side.

Politics. Tabini. The dowager. And those damned radio transmissions.

«
^
»

T
hey walked
out the front door and down the steps together, with the dawn coloring the sky, Ilisidi and Cenedi in the lead, and the rest of them, except the servants, all in casual hunting clothing, meaning heavy twill coats with the back button undone for riding, and trousers and boots that would withstand abuse far beyond that of the casual walk down a hallway. Jase, Bren had discovered early on, could wear his clothing and, their outing being on too short a notice for tailor-work, he'd contributed all his outdoor wardrobe to the adventure and packed for two.

Now, borrowed riding crops tucked beneath their arms, he and Jase walked down the steps in the middle of the company. Jago was walking with Banichi, just ahead of them, carrying the computer. Even in this event he didn't leave it.

He wished that he'd had a chance this morning to speak with either of them at length — he wished this morning that he'd not bolted last night, though he was still unsure it wasn't the wisest thing to have done — and now he wasn't certain that Jago hadn't intended to keep him busy and away from hearing and seeing whatever had gone on last night.

They'd not had a formal breakfast, and they'd had not a single hint what that noise had been last night. A lot of transport moving about. But no sign of it this morning. And as for breakfast — here in the open air came servants passing out cups and rolled sandwiches.

Bren took one, and when Jase didn't think he wanted a sandwich, Bren nudged him in the arm. "Yes, you do."

"They're fish!"

"Eat it," he said, and Jase took one and took the drink. So they had their breakfast standing there. Tea steamed and sent up clouds into the morning air all about the crowd at the foot of the steps.

Meanwhile he tried to catch Jago's eye, but she didn't look at him. On one level, probably not sensible, he feared he'd offended her last night by ducking out in such a hurry, or looked like a fool, or possibly he'd just amused or disappointed her.

But on another level common sense told him that the little business between himself and Jago last night
had
had no time to resolve the deeper questions between them, and that he'd been very sensible to be out the door before it became something else under what amounted to the dowager's roof. At the very worst that might have happened, he could have gotten himself into an adventure he was neither emotionally nor personally quite sure of — and possibly she'd invited him I;… in for the simple reason they needed to keep him away i from information. Ironically that reassured him that his own security was involved in whatever was going on. To them he would commit his life without a question.

Maybe they didn't know that.

Maybe they didn't understand how he
liked
Jago, that dreadful word, and was attracted, he began to admit it; and did wonder certain things which could only be resolved by trying them.

But last night hadn't been that time.

He handed over his cup as the servants passed back through collecting them. He kept near Jase.

Fact: they had a young atevi in detention in their midst, an uncertain situation on their hands with Ilisidi, and somebody had been rummaging about the hilltop last night in motorized transport of which there was no sign nor acknowledgement.

So their lives just might be at some risk, not an uncommon situation in the last year but a situation that didn't need the additional complication of his distraction with Jago.

He had caught Banichi for one fast question in the upstairs hall: "Is there a reason for this rush? What in hell was going on last night?" and Banichi had said, "None that I know, nothing I can say, but we're going with the dowager, nadi: what
dare
we say?"

Banichi had been in an extreme hurry at the time. And Jago had been ahead of both of them. Banichi had only caught up to her in the downstairs hall and then they were out the door.

Bren looked around now counting heads. Tano and Algini hadn't shown up yet, in the general flow of Ili-sidi's men outside. There were about twenty such men, in all, that he'd counted last night — doubtless a felicitous number, but one rarely saw all of Ilisidi's men on any occasion: the activity of communications and guard that surrounded her was the same as that around Tabini, and the number of them was just not something either Ilisidi or her guards freely unfolded to view.

He did see that the boy from Dur had come out with them, no longer in handcuffs, just a silent presence in that foolish and very dangerous black clothing he'd chosen, and closely escorted by two guards.

Presumably, in this outing, this proposed ride out to look at the countryside and to take the air, it was necessary that young Rejiri come along with them. That was very curious.

But something had Tano and Algini
not
meeting them out here,
not
already outside, and that was also curious.

Possibly Banichi had given them a job to do. A message to run down to the airport or, silly thought, up to Mogari-nai, which not only had the earth station that had monitored the space station for decades; but was the major link in a web of electronic communication.

It had the earth station and also a set of dishes aimed all along the coast toward Mospheira, as Mospheira aimed a similar array toward the mainland.

It was a nerve center, his security had informed him, which was run by the Messengers' Guild, which had not been outstandingly cooperative with him, or with Tabini.

Jase said, in a fit of depression over his father and the party and his own situation, I'd like to go to the ocean.
He'd
said to himself, foolish as he was, why not go to Geigi's estate for a little fishing, and catch that fabled yellowtail? And maybe a little riding. The mechieti hadn't gone back to Malguri for the summer.

So he'd gone to the dowager to see was she willing to back him up, with the notion
she
could teach Jase what he'd learned — and
she'd
said, well, of course it had made sense to come to the government reserve just across the bay rather than to go to Geigi's house asking hospitality — much more politically sound a move, Geigi could visit them here, by boat, an easy trip, the airport and van service lying just right on the water.

The hell! Bren thought to himself. He'd not appreciated the vertical scale, when Ilisidi had said the government site practically overlooked the airport.

He hadn't truly appreciated at all how close it was to Mogari-nai, whose situation atop high bluffs overlooking the sea he
did
know.

He hadn't appreciated the involvement of Dur, either, and
its
proximity to the illicit radio traffic in the north — saying that Dur was near the site was like saying Mospheira was. When you were on the coast there were islands, and nothing was that unreachably far from anywhere else if you wanted to derive trouble from it.

He
hadn't expected the boy from Dur to show up last night.

But neither had Ilisidi — at least — if she had, she'd pretended well.

Traffic in the night — that his own security had expected, or not been overly dismayed by, so either it was routine and it
was
kitchen supplies coming up for some surprise banquet tomorrow, or it was something that lay within their man'chi — and
that
came down to very few items.

Knowing Ilisidi's general penchant for intrigue, however, either they were being gotten out for the day so that the cooking aromas wouldn't betray the surprise, or something was damn sure going on. He looked out past the crowd at a vast rolling grassland, gravelly ground with tough clumps of vegetation that grew in what might be quite a fragile ecology, up here on the ocean bluffs.

One of those national hunting reserves, to look at it. Atevi wouldn't eat commercially produced meat. There were immense tracts where no one built, no rail crossed, no one disturbed the land.

Perimeter alarms. Electronic fences. This place.

Had they ever notified the boy's parents, Bren asked himself, shortening his focus to the crowd ahead. Had
anyone
who might worry any idea the boy was with them?

He doubted it, the way he began to be concerned that there was something specifically afoot that had taken away Tano and Algini. From the steps, a head count turned up fourteen of Ilisidi's young men besides
his
small party.

He had brought in his luggage the gun he very illegally owned — under Treaty law that forbade the paidhi to carry a weapon, a gun that
was
Tabini's gift — and Banichi's. He hadn't dared leave it in the apartment with uncle Tatiseigi staying there; finding that in the bureau drawer would have sent the old man through the highly ornate ceiling. But he had tucked it into his baggage for safe-keeping, knowing his luggage never had to go through a security check. He'd never believed he'd need it on this outing and now he wished he dared go back inside to get it from his luggage, not that he knew what he'd want it for, but everybody else but himself and Jase, the boy from Dur, and the dowager herself, was armed.

Wind battered them, sweeping off the sea, across heights broken not even by a fence. Jase was cold, clearly, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. The wind whipped his hair. He looked up and scowled into the gusts with the cheerfulness with which he might gaze into an enemy's face.

As a snort and a squall broke out from around the corner of the building.

Mechieti.

The huge, black creatures came around the corner, high-shouldered, massive in the forequarters.

Mechieti, the riding beasts that had carried atevi across the continent, that had carried them into war and on their explorations. Mechieti were vegetarian, mostly. But Jase stepped back up on the porch steps, and he thought about his own safety for the space of a heartbeat before pride made him stand his ground. They were a herd into which only their regular riders walked with assurance. Ilisidi's men started sorting the throng out, as the riders, three in number, who had brought the herd around to the steps added to the company of Ilisidi's men.

"You'll have the same mechieta as last time, I think," he said to Jase, who was glum and apprehensive of the whole affair. "Watch the nose. Remember?" Those blunt teeth on the lower jaw, the length of a human hand, could kill a man quite messily, or knock a novice stupidly flat on his back if he was fool enough to press down on the nose of an animal that regularly rooted up its food.

He counted himself still fortunate to have survived his own initial mistake with the beasts unscarred, and he had warned Jase half a year ago: those rooting tusks were blunt-capped to protect potential riders from being disemboweled in their ordinary herd behavior.

And if they fought, and this band had, a different kind of cap, war-brass, went on those tusks to make them sharp as knives.

"Nand' paidhi." One of Ilisidi's young men came to the steps to take charge of Jase, specifically. "Please come with me. Follow closely."

"Remember to keep your foot back," Bren called after him. Some mechieti learned that feet were in reach of a bite. Jase's mount the last time had come close to succeeding; and he never gave odds that his own twice-upon-a-time mount, Nokhada (his own, by generous gift of the dowager) would disdain such a nasty trick.

But he was excited. He had looked forward to a ride during this trip as his own enjoyment, far more than any fishing trip, and he was prepared to enjoy it if he could keep Jase from mortal injury. He was anxious to find Nokhada and renew acquaintances, and, thinking he'd spotted her, he went a little into the herd and whistled.

"Nokhada!" he called out, as riders called to their mounts. "Hada, hada, hada!"

The head turned, an eye observed, and with the surly inevitability of a landslide the neck followed, the body turned, and the whole beast moved — checked for a moment by another moving mountain.

Then, with an ill-tempered squeal that thundered against the eardrums, Nokhada
did
remember him and shoved her way through the others with such energy that one of Ilisidi's men had to pull his mechieta back to avoid a fight.