Invader (50 page)

"She may well have been startled. She may even have been opposed to the attack. Then either overpowered or simply pragmatic, if their
man'chi
lies with the troublemakers. I suspect they went right down among the hotels, they went directly onto the public rail, and to a safe place somewhere in Shejidan, after which, with some less notice, they'll attempt to leave the city. Willing, she could pass as a child quite easily. A little large for a sleeping child. That's why I say, willing. A family group on holiday. What police would question them?"

"The Bu-javid could equally well have swallowed her. Some apartment, some lord sympathetic —"

'True. But less likely. Very few of the dissident lords would act openly against the aiji's declared interest, unless something happened that seemed to undermine the present order. It's a short list of those who would dare under other circumstances. It's even remotely possible someone seeking favor with Tabini misapprehended and thought disposing of the woman would quiet the waters. Certainly the list of those she's annoyed would be a much longer list."

He sat down on his bed, exhausted, to pull off his boots — and remembered, suddenly, and now that they were alone, the most critical question he had to account for. "Hanks' computer. Where is it? Do you know?"

"It apparently went with her. They've searched the apartment."

"Damn.
Damn
, Banichi."

"Indeed."

And one wished, earnestly wished, that one could exclude the searchers or even Banichi and Jago from those with a motive to take the computer and claim otherwise.

But one didn't ask. Instead, exhausted, he unfastened his shirt and peeled it off, with nothing to do with it, but Banichi took it and hung it on a chair.

"You'll make the trip with me to Taiben. Won't you? Won't Jago?"

"We certainly intend so."

He felt a little less shaky in that knowledge. Perhaps even willing to sleep once his head hit the bed — except the computer business told him he didn't have that luxury. He had to think what to do. What to report.

Or not.

"Tano and Algini are coming, too?"

"We purpose so."

Things on the mainland were as well handled as they could be, given the situation. As for Mospheira, he'd no notion what was happening there or what might be going on when the news of the landing and his treasonous assistance to Tabini spread across Mospheira — but coupling that with a warning that Hanks' computer was in foreign hands… God, how would
that
look? And what could they think?

Please believe me, Mr. Secretary, but it was some
other
atevi group mat snatched her?

Sorry about cutting you out of the landing, but I was preserving my credibility with the aiji?

Sorry
about Hanks. Sorry
for
Hanks. I wish I could help her. I wish I knew where she is.

He unfastened his pants, peeled out of the rest of his clothes while Banichi lingered — but he wasn't focused on Banichi: his brain was beginning to sort wildly through other matters he couldn't lay hands on — like Barb, like his mother and Toby and his family.

He personally couldn't protect them, if somebody reacting to his treason decided to break through a less than enthusiastic security and attack his relatives, but he had friends in the State Department all through Foreign Affairs, friends well enough in the information flow and maybe — sometimes he thought so — well enough organized against administrative actions that some of them, some who had security clearances and some who even had covert operations skills might see a problem developing for his family beyond the usual nuisance groups and quietly try to handle it for him, if for no other reason than to to prevent him receiving a "piece of news that might make him unstable in the field.

But, God, what could they really do? How fast could they realize it for a problem — and how thin could they stretch their confidence in him, when he'd gone step by step past the limits of their interests — at least, their interests as essentially supportive of the government.

His mother's letter the censors had reduced to lace. And his mother not returning phone calls. But Barb had talked to her. Barb said she was fine. Barb wouldn't lie to him about that. And his mother was as self-protective as Barb was. Took care of herself. First. Centrally.

Rely on her for that much, On friends in low places for the rest.

He lay down and pulled the covers over him, to look, at least, as if he were going to sleep.

Banichi, strange action, pulled the second coverlet up and lingered with a touch on his covered shoulder.

"Bren-ji," Banichi said, ''over all, it was well done."

"I wasn't too stupid?"

"You did quite well, considering. Just — please leave things to your security personnel."

"If security personnel would keep me briefed in future where they are and what they're doing — it would relieve my anxieties, Banichi-ji. And make my targets much easier to identify."

"Not a bad notion."

"Please," he said, and let his head sink into the pillow, let his eyes drift shut to what he wished were a totally numb and night-lasting dark.

"In respect of security," Banichi said, "you should bear in mind that a chief suspect in the attack is Damiri herself."

The eyes came open. He couldn't prevent it.

"The aiji," Banichi said, "favors Damiri of the Atigeini. This doesn't mean he can rely on her."

The eyes still wanted to slide shut, as if he'd been slipped a tranquilizer he couldn't fight. On one level, Banichi could have said the building was afire, and he would have asked himself if he could possibly wait till the next alarm.

But the thinking brain said, Ask. There won't be another chance. Banichi wants to talk.

"So? Where does Tabini stand?"

"He doesn't rely on Damiri. In my own estimation, perhaps in his, Damiri-daja is testing the currents and trying to decide forJier own association how powerful Tabini is and what an alliance with him is worth — pragmatically and historically. The Atigeini official position is against him."

"I know that — but this business of shooting in among your own servants —"

"The uncle she named, Tatiseigi, happens to be senior in the family and officially opposes her alliance to him. She, we
think
, favors it, being quite strongly attracted to Tabini, who is —" Banichi seemed to search for a word "— a man of some natural favor with various women."

"One understands."

"Tatiseigi might have decided that Damiri's gone much too far, and Damiri might be in extreme danger from within her own staff."

"And mine."

"Just so. In moving to Tabini's apartment she's abandoned her own security as a sign of affiliation with Tabini. On one level her personal security may back what she's doing. And certain ones might be offended. If she has offended her security — they'd immediately fall under Tatiseigi's
man'chi
, to her great danger. If they're not there already."

"Are they here?"

"At least one."

"An assassin? Of the Guild?"

"Saidin."

"Good — God." He was waking up faster and faster.

"One would have thought you'd suspect so."

In a lordly house. In the Bu-javid. In an apartment clearly under potential threat conspicuously lacking in Guild presence, except those Tabini provided. It
was &
reasonable question to have asked, Banichi was right, and he — had no excuse.

"But you," he asked Banichi, "personally think Damiri to be telling the truth to Tabini?"

"What I think is little relevant. One doesn't know. I do believe someone exceeded orders in the destruction of the antiquities of that room. I believe Damiri's anger is real. I suspect Tatiseigi won't be pleased — whoever ordered the attack. The aiji's jet leaves within the hour, taking security to Taiben — and a lily porcelain on a side trip, to the Atigeini estates not so far distant."

"I appreciate the nature of speculation. And how little you dare do it, Banichi-ji. But what of Ilisidi's involvement?"

"One doesn't know. One frankly doesn't know whether you've persuaded her. That's a major point at issue. Clearly she leaned to your side once. Now one has to ask you where Ilisidi stands."

"I might have failed. I might well have failed."

"Even Tabini, who knows her very well, does not think he penetrates the dowager's reserve."

A clear enough warning —
for
a human astute enough to take it. "Emotionally speaking, Banichi, I confess I'd rather it not be Ilisidi behind this."

"Certainly a formidable individual."

"More than that, I think her a pleasant conversationalist. An antidote to my isolation. This is perhaps foolish on my part."

"Perhaps a human who flings himself down mountains for recreation could think her a challenge. But one cautions you, most earnestly, nadi, this is not without risk, this flirtation with the aiji-dowager."

"Oh — damn."

"Bren-ji?"

"I need to send her word about the attack and the landing. I promised her, Banichi, to keep her briefed. No matter what. This isn't a time to break promises to her. And I have."

"The dowager has left, nand' paidhi."

"Left?"

"An hour before the attack."

He felt mildly sick at his stomach. Mildly, numbly — chilled to the core. "Damn," he said again.

"It could be prudence," Banichi said. "But one can't rely on such gracious supposition."

"The ones who took Hanks — what do they likely want with her? Stupid question, Banichi, I know. But do you see something I might not?"

"Certainly no suitors for marriage," Banichi said dryly. "I'd say — the obvious things. Her skills. — Her computer."

"She's not a bad woman," he found himself saying — never would have credited he'd be pleading Hanks' case. But it wasn't Deana as a hostage: atevi didn't quite understand hostages in the human sense of personal value; the conservatives she most appealed to for reasons of opposition to Tabini were the very atevi not long on patience with human manners — some of them not long on patience with human existence.

If it was those, as best he could think, it wasn't a live human they wanted. It was information on human activities and on secrets Tabini might hold.

Or they wanted words from Deana that might inflame popular feeling against Tabini. God, he knew the position Hanks had gotten herself into. He felt it, personally, in the pain that nagged at his shoulder and his ribs.

Behind his eyes, another pain, a stinging, angry pain, that a man in his job shouldn't feel, shouldn't entertain — not — not regret for Ilisidi's behavior. Attaching affections to atevi was a foolish, personally and professionally dangerous mistake.

One could be like Wilson. One could forget how to love anyone. One could stop doing it.

Or one could take the pain, and try to stand it, and steadfastly, professionally, refuse to be surprised or self-accusatory when atevi answered to their own urges and ran roughshod over human sentiment.

"Thank you," he said to Banichi. "Did I say thank you? I meant to."

"My —"

"— job. Yes, dammit. I know that. But prefer me just adequately, Banichi-ji, to Hanks-paidhi."

"Fervently so, Bren-ji."

"Still too little," he said. "Still too little, Banichi. I'd have let you shoot me before I took a chance it wasn't you tonight. Does that reassure you?"

"Far from it."

"Then you worry about it, Banichi-ji. I'm far too tired to."

"It's my job," Banichi said, infallibly, reliably numb to human feelings, missing the point. "You're quite right. We should keep you better informed."

The knot in his throat didn't go down. But there wasn't a solution. There wasn't a translation. Not in the paidhi's vocabulary. Not in the dictionary.

Banichi turned out the lights with, "If there are alarms tonight, trust I'll answer them, Bren-ji. And stay in bed."

Atevi asked what
he
couldn't feel, either. He supposed it might bother them just as much. Atevi hadn't a word for lonely.

There was something like orphan.

There was something like renegade.

Otherwise they couldn't
be
alone — and knew, better than humans, he supposed, why they did things. Psychiatry was a science they hadn't practiced, and still didn't, possibly because no atevi would confide outside his
man'chi
, possibly because, among them, there was just pathology.

And, ever popular, solving all possible mental health problems — bloodfeud.

Or whatever atevi actually felt that answered to that ancient human word.

Possibly he'd troubled Banichi's sleep tonight. Possibly he'd made Banichi ask himself questions for which Banichi had fewer words than he did. If there was indeed some secret atevi dictionary of human language, Banichi might be consulting it tonight and asking himself what the paidhi had meant.

He'd kept after Banichi until he knew not only that everyone he cared for was safe — but as far as he could, until he knew to his satisfaction,
where
they were; which possibly wasn't love, just a neurotic desire to have them all in a predictable place for the night so he could shut his eyes.

But he couldn't shake the punched-in-the-gut feeling he'd felt when he and Banichi started talking about loyalties, and he'd seen how far he'd gone from safety in his dealings, how much, God help him, he
needed
, and kept telling himself wasn't — ever — going to be there for him. He'd known it when he'd gone into the job, and he'd known in the unscarred, unmuddied wisdom of youth that he'd one day meet the emotional wall, of whatever nature, in whatever remote time of his career, and remember where he'd been heading and why.

Need
was such a seductive, dangerous word.
Need
was the vacancies.
Need
wasn't, dammit, love, not in any sense. If love was giving, it was the opposite of love, it drank love dry, it sucked logic after it, and it didn't ever output. Barb was need. She'd tried to become
his
need, and he'd seen that shipwreck coming.