Protector

But the Kadagidi reaction stopped on those steps. Whatthe Guildsmen saw facing them beside that bus door, the world had never seen. That was certain. Kaplan and Polano had taken up position, mirror-faced, tall, and bulky, atevi-scale and then some.

“Bren-ji, come,” Banichi said, from beside Bren’s seat.

He didn’t stop to analyze. He flung himself up and went behind Banichi and Jago as they passed, with Tano and Algini bringing up the rear. Jase himself might be visible to those on the steps, through the front window—but the rest of their company stayed out of sight, crouched among the rear seats . . . he had seen that as he got up.

Banichi and Jago alighted on the gravel drive. Bren grabbed the assisting rail and landed beside them, followed by Tano and Algini, all behind the white wall that was Kaplan and Polano.

Banichi, rifle in the crook of his arm, stepped out from cover alone.

“Are those alive?” the senior confronting them called out from the porch steps.

“These are the ship-aiji’s personal bodyguard,” Banichi answered. “And the ship-aiji is present on the bus. Be warned. These two ship-folk understand very little Ragi. Make no move that they might misinterpret. The paidhi-aiji and the ship-aiji have come to talk to your lord, and request he come outdoors for the meeting.”

“Our lord will protest this trespass!”

“Your lord will be free to do that at his pleasure,” Banichi retorted. “But advise him that the paidhi-aiji is here on behalf of Tabini-aiji, speaking for his minor son and for the aiji-dowager, the ship-aiji, and his son’s foreign guests, minor children, all of whom were disturbed last night by Guild Assassins who have named your estate as their route into Lord Tatiseigi’s house.”

Banichi had them. Legally. There was a decided pause on the other side, a consultation.

“We will relay the matter to our lord,” the Kadagidi said. “Wait.”

A man left, through the door to the inside of the house. That left the unit on the steps facing them, but without direct threat, rifles down, and there seemed some remote chance of getting Lord Aseida out here on the steps—in which case there would be some use for the paidhi-aiji, and some chance, if Haikuti was not here, to argue the Kadagidi lord into an act of common sense— ifthere was a chance Lord Aseida wanted to get out of the predicament he was in.

Cast himself and his clan on the aiji’s mercy—if there was any way he dared walk away from the guards on the steps and board the bus. If they could detach Aseida from his bodyguards and get him under the dowager’s protection, they mighthave a source of information, a sure bet in any legislative hearing, andthey could stabilize the Kadagidi for—at least a few years, so long as the fear lasted. That was what they could do if Aseida would walk out here and tell his guards to go back inside.

Beyond that remote chance—if Aseida refused the request to talk, the paidhi-aiji still had a job to do: take charge, and keep the company on the porch distracted and arguing, while Nawari probed the house defenses and found out whether the Kadagidi intended the Dojisigi to survive their return to the Kadagidi house—or not.

He was overshadowed on every hand, too short, behind Kaplan and Polano, in their white, faceless suits, to get a good look at the company on the porch. His bodyguard loomed head and shoulders above him.

They waited.

Another Guild unit came out that door and brusquely joined the first—a unit which could beAseida’s personal bodyguard. The senior of that group exuded a force of presence and, God! an angerforeign to the Guild, a hard-faced man, absolute and furious as he had ever seen any man—except Tabini.

Aiji, was what the nerves said.

Haikuti. He had never seen so much as a photo of the man—but he had no doubt.

“Banichi!” that man shouted, swinging his rifle upward.

Banichi moved. In a time-stretched instant, Haikuti went backward, Banichi spun and went down, bullets hit the bus, and a buffeting shock went through the ground. Grenade, Bren thought, finding himself falling. It had all gone wrong. Banichi was on the ground right in front of him, moving, but dazedly.

Bren lurched forward, grabbed Banichi’s jacket, and pulled with everything he had, dragging Banichi back toward cover, aware that Jago and Tano and Algini had gone past him.

In the next moment the dowager’s men poured out of the bus past him, dodging him and Banichi as they charged past Kaplan and Polano. Gunfire went off inside the building. And Banichi moved, got a hand on the bus step and started to get up, while Bren was sitting on the ground.

Other pale hands arrived to help haul Banichi up. Jase had come to help, and was giving orders to Kaplan and Polano to stand fast. Banichi got a knee under him.

“Stay down, stay down,” Bren said, with a hand on Banichi’s arm.

Banichi took a breath, got one hand on the communications earpiece that had fallen from his ear and put it back, listened, on one knee, and said something in code, the three of them sheltered behind Jase’s steadfast bodyguard.

“Get aboard the bus,” Banichi said. There was a hole blown in Banichi’s jacket, exposing the bulletproof fabric, and blood.

“ Youget aboard,” Bren said. “You were hit,Banichi.”

“He,” Banichi said, looking toward the stone steps of the porch. Bren looked, past armor-cased legs. The stonework was shattered and black-uniformed bodies lay every which way.

“ Hewent down,” Bren said, looking back at Banichi. “You hit him. They fired. Jase’s guard fired, and if anything else came from our direction it was ricochets.” If Banichi had to ask the sequence of events, he had been hit hard, and he did notwant Banichi to get up and go staggering into the house.

“If it got him,” Banichi said, “good.” He did gain his feet, grabbed Bren’s hand and hauled him up as if he weighed nothing. Then he leaned back against the bus to check the bracelet and listen to communications. “Nawari’s group is arriving,” Banichi said. “Jase. Allies to the west. Tell Kaplan and Polano.”

Bren repeated that in ship-speak, to be sure—east and west were not concepts Kaplan and Polano knew operationally, and Jase relayed it in ship-speak and coordinates.

“They understand,” Jase said. “They’ve adjusted their autofire to that fact.”

Gunfire broke out somewhere beyond the house. He heard servos whine as Kaplan and Polano simultaneously reoriented.

“Ours,” Banichi said instantly.

Jase said, “Hold fire, hold fire. Rules of engagement still hold. Fire only if fired on.”

“Stay here,” Banichi said. “Get on the bus, Bren-ji, Jase-nandi. Now.”

They had become a distraction. Banichi was linking the operations together, Nawari’s group coming in overland, the ones that were behind the house, and inthe house.

“Get aboard,” Bren said to Jase. “Keep Kaplan and Polano where they are—Guild can tell each other apart. We can’t. And they can’t.”

The bus was still ru

Bren put his hand in his pocket, felt the gun in place. He planted a knee in the seat and looked outward. Banichi was on the steps, taking a closer look at one of the fallen.

“That was the one you were after?” Jase asked. “The one Banichi got?”

“If we’re lucky,” Bren said.

Banichi!that one had said and fired.

So had Banichi.

They’d known each other by sight, at least. But that anger . . . that instant reaction . . .