Invader

Not the last. Far from the last. Far from the most fuss. He surveyed a burning landscape from a height at which a rider was lord of most everything around him and a threat to the rest, and looked out at a sea of grass below the ridge.

A line of fire was eating away at the edge of that sea. He heard Hanks talking to him, demanding he get her loose.

He said, quietly, to lord Geigi, "Nand' Geigi, would you possibly have an idea where Hanks-paidhi's computer is?"

Geigi patted the case slung from the pad-rings on the left side. "One thought this machine might have some importance."

"Thank you," he said fervently. He saw Algini from his vantage. He'd been searching for him since he'd gotten up, and that was the last of his little household at risk — they were all safe, they'd come through without no more than the smell of smoke.

Ilisidi was vastly pleased with herself. Babsidi was fidgeting about, anxious in the fire, and the last of their party, two of Tabini's security, were still trying to get aboard when Ilisidi set Babsidi at the downward slope, straight out for the threatened grassland.

He looked back, not sure the last two were going to get up at all, but they'd made it, scarcely — drivers were getting back in the cars to pull them out, so far as he could tell, safe from the fires.

But he had the slope in front of him and his hands full — cut off abruptly as Cenedi's mecheita insisted on maintaining second-rank position with Ilisidi's, that being the established order, and Nokhada fought with one thought in her mecheita brain: getting up there and taking a piece out of any mecheita in her way to Babsidi, which he wasn't going to allow, dammit. He thumped her on the shoulder with his foot, held on with a sore arm, and held her back to give precedence to Tabini's beast as they moved out.

It wasn't the way the mecheiti understood the precedence to be, and it necessitated fits of temper, nips, squalls, kicks and threats as they reached a place to spread out.

It wasn't the way Hanks would have had it, either — she yelled after him, until someone must have told her her life was in danger.

Himself, he kept Nokhada back from Ilisidi and Tabini as they rode, Nokhada having ideas of fighting her way up there.

But Cenedi dropped back and rode beside him a moment.

"These were members of an opposition," Cenedi found it incumbent on him to say. "Those that surrendered go home. Tabini's men will see to it. We were aware 'Sidi-ji was under suspicion."

"I knew it wasn't you," he said. "Cenedi-ji, you have far more finesse. You wouldn't have shot up the porcelains."

"The lily," Cenedi said, "the lily that Damiri-daja sent. That was a dire mistake on their part. Not to say we hadn't almost persuaded Tatiseigi." Cenedi's mecheita was starting to fret, wanting to move forward in the column, and Nokhada gave a dangerously close toss of her head, nose much too near the other mecheita's shoulder, but Cenedi was looking back at the moment. "Fire's spreading. Damn, where are those planes?"

"They're sending firefighting equipment?"

"Too much is diverted because of the trouble," Cenedi said. "Which does us no service now. Hope the wind holds to the west."

One devoutly did hope so. Cenedi moved back up with Ilisidi and Tabini, and Bren cast a look back — the stench of smoke was in his nostrils, but that was only what he carried on his clothes. The wind was still in their faces, retarding the fire so far.

But he became aware he could see the leaders — the light had grown that much. The grassland stretched out in front of them, a pale, colorless color, like mist or empty air, through which the foremost mecheiti struck their staying pace. When he looked back, the same no-color was there, too, with the shadows of riders following, but the east was a contrast of dark and a fiery seam across the night that would obscure any dawn behind the ridge.

Banichi overtook him. Jago also did, from the other side, company Nokhada tolerated.

"Algini's all right," was the first thing he thought to tell them. "I saw him."

"We were talking to him, nadi," Banichi said. "Tano was."

He couldn't always tell voices on the pocket-coms. He was relieved, all the same. Hanks had settled down, damned unhappy — his computer was a melted mess, he was sure of it.

Until Jago passed it across to him.

"It took one bullet," Jago said. "I don't know if it works."

It might, at least, be made to. He slung its strap over his head, under his good arm.

He said, "Geigi's got Hanks'. I need it. I'll try just asking."

"One believes the man wants your good will," Banichi said. "A partisan of Geigi's knew where she was. Geigi's security simply walked in last night and took her — having credence with the opposition. And a very good Guild member also on his side."

"Who?" he asked.

"Cenedi," Jago said. "Of course."

"But Ilisidi wasn't responsible." What they said upset his sense of who stood where. "She was on Tabini's side. She is, isn't she?"

"Lords have no man'chi," Jago reminded him — the great 'of course' in any atevi dealing. "The dowager is for her own interests. And fools threatened them. Fools went much too far."

"Fools attacked you," Banichi said, "elevated Hanks, broke Tatiseigi's porcelains and threatened what could be a very advantageous move for Tatiseigi, granted Tabini's desire actually to have an Atigeini in the line. Fools doubted Tatiseigi's commitment and thought, I believe, they might scare him."

"I don't think they did."

"One doesn't think so." Banichi set his knees against the riding-pad and rose up slightly, taking a look behind and skyward.

"Not quite yet," Bren said. "By the time the light is full. Then we can look. These things are very precise."

"I was looking for planes," Banichi said. Then: "The wind's changing. Do you feel it?"

It was. He saw the stillness in the grass around them, which had been bending toward the fire.

"It's not just when the lander comes down," he said, with a rising sense of anxiety. "It's where and when, in the firefront."

"Naidiri's carrying the chart," Banichi said, and put his mecheita to a faster pace, leaving the two of them.

"How fast can it burn?" he asked. He'd seen the grasslands fires on the news. They happened. A front of fire, making its own weather as it went, creating its own wind.

"Not as fast as mecheiti can run," Jago said. "But longer. They try to stop them."

Dumping chemicals from the air.

The planes that hadn't shown up. The cars that had left them had radio. The rangers had to be doing something.

God, they had hikers out. Tourists, out to see the lander parachute down.

The rangers already had their hands full. Picnic parties. Overland trekkers.

The light was growing more and more. The wind was decidedly out of the southeast, now, the grass starting to bend.

The smell of smoke came with it, distinct from that about his clothing. The mecheiti were growing anxious, and the ranks closed up. The seam of fire was very, very evident behind them.

But Disidi, astride Babs, held the lead and kept the pace. No mecheita would pass Babs — pull even, maybe, but not pass.

And the talk up there was…

"You could have said," Tabini was saying. "You could have left a message."

"Pish," Ilisidi said. "Anyone would leave a message. I made no secret where I was going."