Inheritor

Ilisidi stopped on harborside against a weather-shelter. A sign by the water and another on the railing said Ferry, and gave a departure schedule, but there was no ferry there for them.

A boat was coming, however. Not a ferry, if one could judge who’d only seen them on television, but a fair-sized boat, just the same.

“Is that someone we want?” Jase asked faintly, having seen it too, as mechieti all around them breathed and blew and harness creaked. One could just make out the spreading disturbance of the boat’s wake, as, against a shadow of low hills well across the water, it made its way on a diagonal toward them.

“ Late,” Ilisidi breathed. “After all these years, every damned appointment, Geigi is still late, damn him!” She signaled Babsidi to extend a leg, and got down—a glistening dark trail was on her hand, and Cenedi wanted immediately to see to it, but: “It’s a damned plaster-chip,” she said. “The man’s revised his arrival time three times—half an hour more, he says, and he’s stilllate!”

Bren slid down and Haduni got down, but in the meanwhile Ilisidi was back among the mechieti, looking for more injuries.

One mechieta had taken a fairly extensive injury on the flank. Two riders had been hit, one a trivial matter, one man with a serious amount of bleeding and a broken arm, which by no means improved her mood.

“I want this woman,” Ilisidi said. “ Damnthis fool! Damn, damn, damn!—Can someone get this man to hospital?”

“Help is coming,” Jago said. They had risked the pocket coms, she and Banichi, so it seemed.

And indeed dark figures were moving on the street, figures that shouted to each other and brought timid ventures from the buildings along the way. More supporters joined them, townsfolk or maybe Guild. But by this time the victim was swearing that he could very well walk to the hospital, which was just down the street. They could see the lighted sign from here. People who called themselves local residents were offering respects to the aiji-dowager in an outpouring of support, loudly wishing to carry the wounded man and to take the injured mechieta to the doctors, too.

Haduni provided them answers and directions.

Cenedi and Banichi were giving orders to the ferry perso

In the meanwhile Jase was safely down and on two feet, and Ilisidi was muttering about the modern age and modern leaders sitting safely in estates and offices looking at computer screens, as lord Geigi’s boat cruised up to the ferry landing with a powerful slow thump of engines and a boil and wash of water.

For a fishing boat, Bren thought, it was pretty damned impressive.

Security came ashore first. Lord Geigi followed with an amazingly agile leap, as the ramp ma

“Late!” Ilisidi cried.

“The wind isup, nandi-ji! A hard west wind beyond the breakwater, which does make a difference! Was I to forecast intent to join you? The aijiwas late, so I was late, the whole countrysideis late, so the Kadigidi will be late, too!”

“You were to take the train and borrow the boats here!”

“Well, and the village of Kinsara has a carload of spring vegetables derailed on the grade on this side, so we had to take the boats all the way, and I’ve come to order boats out from Saduri, if I can get some of the good fisherfolk to give us a hand.—And good evening, paidhi-ji. Good evening to your associate. Come aboard! We’ve a cold supper if you’ve been in a hurry. It’s a good half hour back to the breakwater against the wind, ’Siri’s going to call in debts up and down the harborside. We’ll get boats out there tonight, as many as you like.”

Bren recognized Gesirimu among the handful who had come ashore, as shouts went out to get boats away and get the coastal road blocked.

“We have three boats out there holding off shore, but it’s a dark, wide sea,” Geigi said, “and I’ll not say we can keep the Kadigidi from getting a boat past us. If we can intercept the rascals on the water we’ll take fewer casualties.”

“Some Kadigidi arehere,” Banichi said, “in the township. If we’re unlucky we’ll just have chased them to positions up the shore to warn their allies.”

“Nothing for it,” Cenedi said. “Sitting here gains us nothing. With a west wind blowing, lord Geigi, where would a Mospheiran craft come in, between here and Aidin?”

“Is it only Hanks-paidhi, all this mysterious goings-on?”

“ OnlyHanks indeed,” Ilisidi said in disgust and, with Geigi, led the way to the heaving plank. The wind blew cold off the harbor, and the buffers squealed and groaned as the boat heaved against the shore.

“We’re going looking for Hanks,” Jase said faintly, at Bren’s side. It was a question. It was despair. “What about any other boat? Can you ask him—”

“Take your pills,” Bren said. “I’d take a double dose.”

“You don’t think she’d have survived the storm,” Jase said. “Do you?”

“I don’t know.” He had resolved not to lie to Jase, but Jase had a way of going head-on to questions with bad answers. “She might not have gone out with the weather threatening. There’ve been planes out, and boats, all up and down the middle of the strait. Somebody could have picked her up if she did try. I don’t give her up.”

“Neither do I,” Jase said resolutely. And added, with a desperate grip on the gangway rail. “But, Bren, the pills are gone.”

“You can’t have taken all of them!”

“I didn’t. The bottle fell out of my pocket.”

26

Geigi had been communicating delays since the derailment of vegetables, which had happened, Geigi said, while he was at the train station at the Elijiri ferry dock waiting to take the train over the hills to Saduri to keep his appointment. At that point, realizing the train co

Now, seated on soft cushioned chairs and couches, the dusty and sweaty company watched the lights of Saduri Township retreat from the stern windows. A strange way to go into a fight, Bren thought, as Geigi himself poured Ilisidi a small glass of cordial: the arm was, Ilisidi confessed, uncomfortable.

“I also have,” Geigi said, “the name of the resort manager of Mist Island Tours, who says if there is a need that serves the man’chi of Sarini Province, he will publish a need for boats. The seas are rough and I would hesitate to encourage small craft tonight, but there are the harbor tour boats and their crews would willingly bring them out. They lack onboard radar, but they do have radio. I have only to give the orders.”

“Do so,” Ilisidi said. “I don’t think we are operating in overmuch secrecy now. What the wind brings us, the wind will bring.”

“May one—” Bren said quietly, “may one also request we call Dur at this point? There ismore than Hanks. There’s some chance that Mercheson-paidhi has fled the island, and if she’s done so, it would be a very light craft. With the storm, as I remember the map—she’d be blown straight west.”

“Southeast, nadi.”

“I’ve heard how strong the current is,” Bren said. “But the wind—”