Tracker (28 page)

M
orning.

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.

“I am quite well, honored Father,” he said. “I shall follow instructions. I shall be very sensible, and I shall try to send a message back, if there is a way.”

“Salute Lord Geigi,” his father said.

“I shall, honored Father. And I shall be safe. I really shall be.”

“Behave,” his mother said, which was all she had said. He knew she was upset, and that it was not anger, this time: it was her worry about him.

“I shall, Mother. I truly shall.”

“See you do.” She gave him a little bow, and that was a dismissal. So he drew a deep breath and turned. The major d' opened the door for them, and Eisi and Liedi were standing right by the side of it, sad to be left behind, and wishing him and his aishid a good trip and a good return.

It was real. He was really going. And he
was
scared, as he walked out the door with just his bodyguard.

He was more scared, hearing that door shut behind him, the lonely echo ringing up and down the hall.

It was just himself and his bodyguard, now. He was fortunate nine, he stood nearly as tall as nand' Bren, he was nearly as strong as nand' Bren, and he was going to go help nand' Bren and mani do something no one else could do. He had his dictionary: Antaro was carrying it for him, in a shoulder bag. He had memorized it all. But he had it with him, in case; and he had it to write down new words.

He was sure Prakuyo an Tep would remember him. He certainly had never forgotten Prakuyo an Tep.

He had, he thought, been far braver when he was younger.

But two years or so ago, he had had far less understanding of what could go wrong.

 • • • 

The foyer was already crowded when the young gentleman signaled his arrival, and there was no more room there, now. So Bren gave the order. Koharu and Supani, acting in their new capacity, simply opened the door, and the foyer emptied into the hall for their good-byes: Bren, and his bodyguard, Narani and Jeladi, Bindanda and Asicho, and now Cajeiri and his four young bodyguards. There were good-byes and well-wishes, courtesies from those staying.

At the very last moment, Narani remembered the vacation schedules in his desk drawer. “Use those if we are delayed, nadiin-ji,” Narani said to Koharu and Supani.

“You shall not be, nadi!” Koharu said fervently. Koharu and Supani were not ordinarily superstitious. But they were quick to reverse the omen. “It will not be that long!”

“Nandi,” Bren said to Cajeiri, then; and to the rest—“Nadiin-ji. We shall go now.”

So they started off, fourteen in all, down the ornate hallway to the lifts.

“Your great-grandmother is already downstairs,” Bren said to Cajeiri. “Did you have a good breakfast?”

“I had toast,” Cajeiri confessed. “I brought fruit drops.”

“Well, well, there will be something on the train, too, one is certain.”

They barely fit into one car. Tano keyed them through as express, they packed themselves in, and the car started down and down the levels, familiar trip—familiar destination, if one thought of it only in bits.

Cajeiri gave a palpable shiver against Bren's arm. It
was
chill in the car. And the boy was in light dress, for traveling, and comfort—wise of his valets and his parents, but just a little thin for this hour of the morning.

“All of us are anxious,” Bren said quietly. “Except your great-grandmother, of course. She never is.”

Cajeiri flashed a grin. “Of course not,” he said, and laughed.

Reassuring to the soul, that grin. He didn't have an ordinary child in tow. He had a boy who'd absorbed his great-grandmother's training
and
his father's, and who had an increasingly Tabini-like head on his shoulders. The boy was old enough to be nervous. He had reason to be nervous.

But he was not likely to panic, either.

“You know the Guild is sending a new office up,” Bren said, by way of distraction. “Four observers are going with us, to make the arrangements.”

“A new Guild office, nandi?” Cajeiri asked. No, apparently he had not heard. And Bren explained.

“It has been agreed. The Guild has chosen four observers to understand the station. Banichi says they are good. And they will have a great deal to learn.”

The car dropped rapidly through the levels, then slowed to a stop, and let them out into the echoing vastness of the train station.

Beyond the concrete block of lifts, the Red Train waited. The passenger car door was open, a bright rectangle of gold light. Two of the dowager's men, armed, waited at the foot of those steps.

They crossed the intervening space, met the dowager's guards, and climbed up the steps of the Red Car.

Strangers were in the aisle, indeed, Guild, four of them, conversing with one man they knew very well, graying, Guild-uniformed, lean and tall: the dowager's chief bodyguard, Cenedi.

“Nandiin,” Cenedi said with a little bow, and proceeded to introduce the four newcomers, themselves a bit grayed; two men, two women, and one of the women, Bren noted, lacking her right arm, the jacket sleeve folded and tucked.

“Ruheso, Deno, Hanidi, and Sisui, nandiin,” Cenedi said. “The Guild Council's representatives.”

Nods defined them, and the order of introduction gave seniority. The one-armed woman was Ruheso, Guild-senior. Deno was her partner. Guild-second was Hanidi, younger, maybe, but not by much. Sisui was missing half an ear. Field work. A lot of it, Banichi had indicated, in some very hard places.

Cajeiri, without prompting, gave a little bow. “Nadiin.”

“Young aiji,” the immediate response was, from all four. Bren gave a bow of his own.

“Nadiin. We had not planned to have you arrive in a state of crisis, but we shall keep you briefed at all points, and answer questions where we can, in whatever detail we can. You are very welcome with us.”

“Nand' paidhi.”

Another exchange of bows, and the appropriate title for the aiji's representative in the field. It was his first meeting with the team, and he was relieved to detect no reserve of expressions, nothing but intense attention to his position, not his humanity.

That
spoke volumes. Smart. Sensible, able to absorb new things and take advice.

“Please assume inclusion to all conferences, nadiin,” he said to the four, and escorted the young gentleman toward the back of the car, to that long red velvet bench seat under golden lamplight where Ilisidi sat waiting for them.

“Aiji-ma.”

“Paidhi.” Ilisidi held out a hand sparkling with ruby and topaz rings. “Great-grandson. Sit.”

They sat. Everyone had risen in respect, staff having distributed themselves in seats along the way. Now everyone settled, bodyguards taking the seats reserved near their lords.

The door thumped shut. The train began to move out at its usual sedate rate.

And the dowager's staff, alone rising to tend the small galley, provided tea in fine porcelain cups, steaming and welcome for jangled nerves. Tea went from there to the bodyguards, to the observers, to all the staff, followed by small sweet cakes.

And the Red Train chuffed down the long winding track that would exit the Bujavid hill and take them across the city.

They were on their way.

I
t was strange, Cajeiri thought. Up in the Bujavid hallway, and going down in the lift, he had been so scared his teeth were almost chattering. Now he felt strangely eager to go. The train, headed for the spaceport, was a place he'd been very recently, and when he thought of that, and the parting from his associates, all the fear left him. His three associates had gone where he was going now, and they had made the trip safely. So would he.

And even if he had business to do up there, and very important business, being what he was, he would surely get a chance to see them before he came back down again.

Even if they were holding meetings on into the evenings, there had to be suppers and some hours of rest.

And there had to be a little time for them to pay courtesies before they came back to Earth. It seemed only fair.

His arriving there would likely surprise them, unless nand' Geigi had already told them he was coming. He envisioned a fine dinner, with crystal and porcelain, and flowers—well, probably not flowers—but a proper dinner, with everyone in court clothes.

Well, except probably the parents, supposing Lord Geigi had invited them.

But that would be a problem. Lord Geigi might trust his three associates, on his word, to tell them what was going on—but not the parents.

No, Lord Geigi would leave that to Jase to explain.

And Jase-aiji probably would not tell them. Jase-aiji would not trust the parents either. He rather well had that feeling.

He hoped his associates had gotten a chance to come visit Lord Geigi. Even if the mail had had a problem.

But a lot had been going on. Tillington had messed everything up. And very probably
Tillington
was the problem with the mail.

He was personally upset with Tillington-aiji, in that suspicion. But there were far more important reasons nand' Bren and Jase-aiji were upset with Tillington, and that forecast there was going to be trouble, at least for a while.

He could not imagine Tillington clearly, who he was, how he looked. He kept imagining an atevi lord, specifically Lord Aseida, who had made all sorts of trouble, but Tillington would not look like that, would not dress like that, and probably—a good thing—would not have a bodyguard to make trouble.

He hoped nand' Bren would just tell Tillington to be quiet and go pack, that was what.

Then
they could meet with Prakuyo an Tep, and find out why the kyo were here, and then he could get to have the dinner party he imagined, well, maybe without any parents. Maybe with mani and nand' Bren and Lord Geigi and Jase-aiji.

And maybe he could even get a few days, just to walk around the station with his associates and see what there was to see.

His last trip through the station, they had been running. Literally, in places, which was remarkable, with mani. It had all been a jumble of halls and the docking area and the yellow tubes and then the shuttle, and with everybody hurrying so that somehow their enemies on the ground would not expect them.

He remembered flying in the shuttle just over a year ago, and landing on Earth—he knew for a fact that he had ridden the shuttle up to the station in the first place, but all the memory he had of that was a vague recollection of things floating about the cabin, and mani telling him to get back into his seat.

He had been a
lot
younger then.

Now, while the joints in the track clicked past, nand' Bren and mani and he all sat having tea, and the four strangers from the Guild stood back by the rear door talking with Nawari and Banichi and Algini. And despite the kyo arriving and all the troubles with Tillington, it was just
business,
back there. None of them were afraid. They were sharing details of where they were going and how things stood. Occasionally they even laughed.

But for once he was sure he knew a lot more about their problem than the four who had joined them—because
he
knew where he was going, and what he was going to do, and who he was going to meet, and why it was dangerous.

“You have not asked where you will stay when we are on the station,” mani said, distracting him onto a very different track.

“No, mani.” He remembered how it had been on the ship. In his head, he had confused his memory of the ship with the station, himself with one little room behind mani's several rooms connected together, with all the odd doors. He realized now he could hardly
remember
the station apartment.

“One thought—one expects one will stay with you, mani.”

“Indeed. And there have been changes in the apartment. There is now a real guest quarters, which is, one is informed, simply an adjacent set of rooms with a door connecting. It lacks a sitting room, but has an arrangement for your aishid and servants. One understands you did not bring your valets, in favor of the Guild delegation.”

“Indeed, mani. But Jeladi and Lucasi can keep my clothes in order.”

“They may pass items for attention to my staff,” mani said, in that tone that said that was how things would be. “Ask my staff for anything you need. Your aishid has no experience up there. They must ask Cenedi for a thorough briefing. Regarding this outside door, it is to remain locked, and all callers should go through
our
main door. Do we adequately agree that this is no place for misbehaviors and rule-breaking?”

“Mani, yes. One understands.”

“You will
promise
us. Station politics is highly unstable at the moment, and there is danger. I shall expect you to keep that in mind.”

“Mani, I do promise.”

“Excellent,” mani said, in that tone that made it law.

So that was where he would stay. It was all right. He would stay where he was told. He would do everything right. He would deserve favors. That was his plan, to get things
he
wanted. And he watched the tea service go around again. There was no convenient way to go sit with his bodyguard. One did not fidget in great-grandmother's presence.

And present company was not just people they knew. The Guild observers were observing, one supposed, things to report to the Guild and his father—such as how his father's heir behaved.

He sat and sipped tea while nand' Bren and mani invited the Guild representatives over, and told them things about the kyo and about station politics—which was worth hearing. Nand' Bren warned the representatives about things that were no surprise at all: that extreme options were not open to the ship-aijiin, and that Lord Geigi could not use them without authorization, and authorization could only come from Father.

Nand' Bren also warned them about Stationmaster Tillington and said that once Tillington was replaced, then the ship-aijiin could get rid of Braddock. That was an interesting plan.

If they could get rid of Braddock, then maybe there was much less likelihood of shipping the Reunioners out to Maudit. He was definitely in favor of getting rid of Braddock.

Things he had heard only in bits and pieces began to make sense. He sat there saying nothing, not moving a muscle except to drink his tea, and to accept another cup.

He had brought his kyo dictionary. He had brought his Mosphei' dictionary. And he had brought his Ragi dictionary, because he had thought that was going to be useful, too.

He was right. He was not even at the spaceport yet and he was gathering a basketful just of Ragi words to look up.

 • • • 

The Guild observers made complete sense: a senior unit who had been in the field, serving in the southwest, in a Tajidi Township clan, until Ruheso's injury. They had served in and out of Guild Headquarters between Ruheso's injury and the coup, as investigators—a variety of police work unique to the Guild, where a Filing of Intent and a counter-Filing both involved charges of illegal activity, or where an appeal to Tabini-aiji for justice raised issues that needed sorting out in a certain district.

A number of years ago, Bren thought, he might not have quite appreciated what this unit was, and what their job was, but they were indeed no fools. They asked questions, they sifted statements, and asked other questions. They were
far
more outgoing than most Guild, and, battle-scarred as they were, they smiled a great deal—which was, one was sure, part of their skill. They encouraged trust, and confidences, and probably read very well between the lines.

Interesting, Bren thought. His aishid and the dowager's had both urged a little caution with them. Yet on one level he
did
know exactly what they were doing: he knew the techniques himself.

Banichi said quietly, when they were close to the spaceport, and when everybody was moving about collecting luggage, “They are hearing, Bren-ji. They are impressed.”

That was good to hear. But this battle-scarred unit had only met one human in their lives and never had to cope with them en masse. Where they were going was a very different place than they had ever planned.

 • • • 

The same bus waited at the station, with the same security personnel, and a similar exchange of codes—but this time there was no baggage truck. All that had already gone aboard. There was just the hand luggage. Bren allowed Jago to take the computer as they walked across the platform to the bus, and she would stow it—the one thing he would keep by him. His bodyguard had their single bag apiece, and Narani and the others had each a very small personal kit. Cajeiri's four—had a bit more, but they would manage.

There was the long dusty drive up to the gate, and through, then the smooth, slow movement up to the yellow hazard line. Their shuttle waited out on the runway, in a cluster of service vehicles.

This time
they
walked between the painted lines and boarded by the personnel lift, which raised up and let them out into a pale modern interior. The baji-naji symbol of the space program was blazoned on every seat back and on the bulkhead door. The flight deck lay just beyond that thick bulkhead connection.

It might have been any modern airliner, except for the complete lack of windows, except for that unusual bulkhead door.

There were active screens at every seat, and what they showed as they settled in was the preparation going on around the shuttle, the movement of trucks and personnel.

They secured their luggage, such as it was. Ilisidi beckoned Cajeiri to sit by her, with Cenedi and the rest of the bodyguard and staff directly behind.

Bren and company took seats opposite, and the Guild observers sat behind them. Behind them, domestic staff settled in, most of them veterans of previous flights, able to instruct the novices.

The seat backs had a written admonition to use the provided tethers and clip to the rails when moving fore or aft. The interior was far more refined these days, the rules more defined, polished by experience over the years, and he knew the incidents where some of the rules had originated. Moving workers up to the station, the problems had echoed to his desk in the early years.

A different set of priorities was on their horizon. A different set of worries and problems. There was no longer a need for security from assassination, not here, not now, not until the shuttle let them out in what was definitely another world—and even then, the problems Tillington posed were of a different sort.

So just as well to shut the door on Earth for a while. The rest of the planet, in learning that they had visitors coming, would get a further bit of news—that the dowager, the heir, and the paidhi-aiji were all going up to deal with these expected visitors, further developments to follow. And that meant that the station necessarily would find it out. They'd advised Geigi the news was going to break on Earth. Tillington, where the news had already broken, would be aware an atevi shuttle was coming express. Presumably he would learn the Mospheiran shuttle was launching uncommonly close behind it, which in Tillington's mind would immediately suggest both were related to the emergency, and that there was going to be a conflict of scheduling at the station's single personnel dock . . . among other complications.

The orderly conduct of the Mospheiran side, and coordinating the unprecedented situation of an atevi shuttle and a Mospheiran shuttle en route that close together was the last reliance they hoped to place on Tillington.

Tillington should naturally conclude under the circumstances that the Mospheiran shuttle was bringing some sort of Presidential response, to which he would have to answer.

Maybe Tillington would conclude in his own head that he should get things in good administrative order and not roil the waters.

They settled in, disposed items where they had to be for safety as well as convenience. The special routing would shave a good twelve hours off their flight—but there would still be a very long time spent in these seats, a long time under acceleration and an equally long and generally uncomfortable braking at the end, after the body had been some time in weightlessness. He didn't sleep on the shuttle, excepting catnaps, and he was particularly concerned for the dowager.

Cajeiri was out of his seat: that was predictable. But he was leaning on the seat back, constructively pointing out things in the safety instructions for his young aishid—it being their first trip into space—and being very restrained. Cajeiri and his bodyguard had all been very quiet, very by-the-book from the time they'd left the Bujavid.

Exemplary level of attention in the youngsters, all through the train ride. The shuttle was preparing for launch and they were still being very quiet.

It was more than an excess of good behavior. Distractingly more. The dowager's presence could account for it. But Bren thought not. Likely the dowager herself thought not.

This extremely adult behavior? This complete lack of fidgeting?

There's something he wants more than he wants anything on Earth, something recently given to him, and taken away, and now threatened by the kyo, up there.

This is Tabini's son. The dowager's great-grandson. With the stubborn will of both.