Deceiver: Foreigner #11 (41 page)

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Authors: C. J. Cherryh

BOOK: Deceiver: Foreigner #11
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Banichi and Jago were in the opposing seat. Tano and Algini and their gear were in the pair of seats across the aisle. And that considerable and formidable force, ten of Tabini’s finest, was with them.
Not to mention a very quiet young Guildsman sitting midway on the bus, allowed to be with them—but not included in the deliberations. Lucasi no longer had information to give—and he only entertained the hope that they might locate his sister, and Barb-daja, and maybe be in a good enough mood to give him another chance.
Had they had no more force than the paidhi’s own to carry on the search, they would have parked the bus still in Sarini province, on reaching that border region, and used their position to try to attract attention—and an approach from Barb’s kidnappers, a far, far more delicate operation.
With the aiji’s men supporting the operation—they were in a position to make a stronger demand in negotiation: give her back, or we open the doors of this bus and let ten Guild agents into Taisigi territory. The Taisigi at that point might see an advantage in restoring the status quo ante, meaning giving Barb back and getting a mobile Ragi base out of their territory.
It was going to be dicey, if it came to that. But added force, and the aiji’s already Filed Intent, offered a real chance of success, both in retrieving Barb, and Lucasi’s partner.
The bus rolled into motion, and jolted, and that was just the way the next number of hours were going to go, Bren said to himself. Jago and Banichi spread out a map, discussing it with Tano and Algini, who got up to have a look. Bren couldn’t personally see what they were talking about, which apparently involved points of hazard and potential ambush, and the point at which Sarini Province melded into the Marid lands.
At the moment he was content to breathe, and questioned his sanity being here.
Machigi did not have a reputation as a fool. There was that.
Machigi either knew by now or was going to find out very soon what had happened to a Marid operation in Targai.
And what happened next would be up to Tabini
and
Machigi: Machigi’s advantage, to conduct a cold war with impunity, was evaporating with every bus-length they advanced toward his district, and Machigi would be up against it—with four other Marid lords watching the outcome and measuring their own chances of making a power grab if Machigi went down.
Atevi politics at its finest behaved in a moderately human way.
He didn’t bet this action wouldn’t see someone
else
attack Machigi in this little window of opportunity they provided.
One shouldn’t bet on that at all.
 
Mani was not budging. Mani’s guard on the roof said that the explosion they had heard had been out on the main road, and they said it involved a truck, far up toward the intersection with the Najida road, and she did not need to go downstairs.
Cenedi was not happy with mani not budging from upstairs.
Cenedi was not at all happy, either, with three young fools being upstairs finding out what was going on. And Cajeiri felt guilty about leaving nand’ Toby downstairs just with the doctor, seeing nand’ Toby could not talk to the doctor, but it was clear
something
was going on—something that had mani upset and Cenedi furious.
Cenedi had sent men outside and up the road to find out what was going on, and evidently some of the Edi who were guarding the road had gone out to find out what had happened, because then there was a phone call from the village. Najida was sending the village truck up to the accident, and Cenedi told them drive overland and stay off the road.
Then Cenedi headed for the operations center and shut the door right in their faces, so
that
was unusual.
It was clear no information was coming out of there.
And they had none even when Cenedi stormed out and down the hall to meet the returning truck under the portico. Villagers showed up at the door with injured people from the accident.
Cenedi whirled about. “Escort your lord downstairs,” Cenedi said to Antaro and Jegari, with no courtesy at all. “And tell nand’ Siegi we need him up here immediately.”
“Please,” Jegari said, tugging at Cajeiri’s sleeve. “Please, nandi.”
“Now!” Cenedi said.
It was time to move, and upstairs
did
need nand’ Siegi, urgently. Cajeiri headed for the stairs without argument, ahead of Antaro and Jegari, and ran the distance to nand’ Toby’s room, to pass that word to nand’ Siegi: “Nandi, there are injured people. Cenedi asks you come. Quickly. We will be with nand’ Toby.”
“He should sleep, young gentleman. Keep silence here.” Nand’ Siegi was on his way out the door, and shut it.
And there they were. Something had blown up on the road, and Guild and non-Guild were hurt. And nand’ Bren was out there somewhere, and mani was upset and Cenedi was acting as tense and upset as Cajeiri had ever seen him, not even when bullets were flying.
It was more than a little scary, and it seemed like things were not going at all well. Cajeiri looked about him, somewhat at a loss, and then did take the chair by nand’ Toby’s bed, and Jegari and Antaro sat down in the other two chairs, and there they stayed in silence for a moment.
Then Cajeiri signed, Guild-sign, “Go upstairs, Taro-ji, and find out.”
“Yes,” she signed back, and was up and out the door.
Toby stirred, and opened his eyes a bit as the door shut.
“It’s all right,” Cajeiri said. “Hush, go back to sleep, nandi. Everything is fine.”
“Heard an explosion.” That was what he thought Toby had said.
“No problem.” Cajeiri lied as cheerfully as he could. “All finished. Cenedi took care of it.”
“Where’s Bren?”
“With Geigi-nandi. All safe. All fine. You sleep.”
“Doctor gave me something,” Toby said, and his eyes drifted shut again.
Which was evidently what nand’ Siegi intended, and probably nand’ Siegi had given him something to make that happen. But nand’ Siegi was busy upstairs, and there were wounded people and they had no information at all.
It took forever before Antaro came back and opened the door very quietly. She signaled them to come outside to hear, and Cajeiri beckoned Jegari to confirm that he should come, too. So they all three stood outside the door and Jegari shut it very carefully behind him.
“It was some of the aiji’s men coming up the Kajiminda road in a truck with some of the local people,” Antaro said in a low voice, “and somebody put explosives in the road where anybody could hit it, which is illegal. And there is an Edi camp over in Kajiminda, and Guild in uniform came in with guns and kidnapped a five-year-old boy. Cenedi has called the Guild and asked them to call a Guild Council meeting.”
“So can they
do
anything about it?” Cajeiri asked.
“He is asking the Guild to outlaw these Guildsmen.”
“File Intent on them?”
“Outlawry is worse than Intent,” Antaro said in a voice that all but vibrated with shock. “Much worse.”
“If you are outlawed from the Guild, nandi,” Jegari said, “the Guild will hunt you down. The illegal Guild used this, in their time in power. They outlawed any Guildsmen that supported your father, during the Troubles. And they would hunt them down and in any shelter, even places they had no business going.”
“None of the hunters that got into
Taiben
got out again,” Antaro said. “Taibeni took care of them. Our woods are our woods.”
“Some of your father’s Guild who were outlawed came to us,” Jegari said, “and we got them safely to the north, and to the mountains. We young people are not supposed to know that,” Jegari added. “But we did know.”
“So if they outlaw these people, Guild will go into the Marid to get these people? How is that different than Intent?”
“It is different,” Antaro said, “because it is not just
our
Guild against
their
Guild. It will be the whole Guild.
Everybody
against the lord of the Taisigin Marid
and
his Guildsmen.
”
That was a scary concept. The lord and everybody.
“But what about Lucasi and Veijico
?
” he asked. “One needs to know where Lucasi and Veijico went! I no longer trust them, but maybe
they
were kidnapped, too! And one needs to know who is out there blowing up trucks, nadiin-ji!” His voice had risen somewhat and he quickly lowered it. “Cenedi will get angry, Taro-ji, if
you
go on asking. So Jegari and I will go up. He will have to start all over with being mad if he catches us. Stay with nand’ Toby. If he wakes and asks a question, say this: ‘Cajeiri is upstairs asking questions.’ ”
“Cajeiri is up-stairs. Ask-ing—”
“Questions.” That was not an easy word to pronounce. Cajeiri paused on one foot. “Just say ‘asking.’ He will know.”
He left, then, with Jegari hurrying close behind him. It was important to get upstairs and, if they could manage it, into mani’s suite, before things changed upstairs. And with Cenedi in a bad frame of mind, and mani upset, things upstairs could change in the blink of an eye.
They reached the top of the stairs. There was a trail of blood right down the hall, and nobody had cleaned it up, though there were servants hurrying the other way. Guards stood at mani’s door—but one was Nawari, so he just walked up, said, “Nadi,” bowed, and grabbed the latch before Nawari could say a thing.
He got through. Jegari did not.
And mani was in the room with a young Edi villager, clearly doing business, which was not good to walk in on.
He stopped still and bowed, Great-grandmother paying him no attention whatsoever, and after a second Nawari let Jegari on through to stand by him.
“You shall do so, nadi,” mani said to the young man, who bowed deeply and took his leave, passing Cajeiri with a bow.
Not a good moment. Great-grandmother picked up a teacup and had a sip of tea, not even looking at him.
So probably the better part of common sense was to quietly inch back out that door and disappear for hours. But the second best thing to do was to stand very, very still until Great-grandmother, quite slowly, had finished that cup of tea and the servant, standing near the fireplace, had poured her another.
Then Great-grandmother lifted her hand and crooked her forefinger. Just that. There was no escape, and there were very many ways to go wrong.
Cajeiri moved. Jegari hesitated a heartbeat, and moved with him. Cajeiri came right in front of Great-grandmother and bowed deeply, without a single notion of what he was going to say, except that he had better not start with a question, which often enough annoyed mani. Mani was clearly not in a mood to be annoyed right now.
He kept his voice low. “You have not yet come down to safety, mani, and we are—” No regal airs with mani. Not now. “One is concerned. There is blood on the hall floor.”
Great-grandmother fixed him with a stare he had rarely gotten, not even from his father. But it seemed not quite to focus on him, rather on the general surrounds, and on a host of general problems.
“Barbaric ideas,” she said darkly, “this kidnapping, from a region which has long flouted Guild rules.
We
are old-fashioned, Great-grandson. But we are
not
barbaric! We in the East have long viewed the aishidi’tat with suspicion, and to this day the Guild has been scant in the East—but we are
civilized,
all on our own. We have
needed
no Guild to enforce basic civility. We had laws before the Guild arrived, and before we were signatory to the Association! The Marid, however, has a piratical history
long
before humans ever landed on this world and before the Edi ever came to this shore, so they cannot claim they were provoked into bad behavior!”
“What have they done, mani?”
“Done? They have set traps on a public road and like the meanest of cowards have kidnapped an Edi child, a common citizen, from the camp at Kajiminda. Your father’s Guildsmen were on the way back from recovering the child when they met an infernal device, and two are dead and relatives of the child are injured. The child, fortunately, was not in that vehicle.”

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