Inheritor

Jago made a face and shot her senior partner a look. And knowing these two, Bren recognized a tossed topic when it sailed by him. “A woman may be more in Direiso’s confidence. Naturally.”

“I don’t think the junior member of the Hagrani clan is on Direiso’s intellectual level,” Banichi muttered. “And she will see herself eaten without salt.”

Quickly, that idiom meant. The two had fallen to discussion in front of him, but played it out forhim, quite knowledgeably so.

“But considers herself to be Direiso’s intellectual heir-apparent,” Jago said.

“Oh, small chance.”

“An earnest student—capable of flattery.”

“I thought discerning women saw through such frivolity.”

Clearly it was a jibe. Bren failed to know where. But Jago wasn’t daunted.

“They receive thatkind of flattery so rarely, nadi.”

Banichi’s brow lifted. “What, praise? Admiration? I pay it when due.”

Banichi evidently scored. Or came out even.

Jago shot him a sidelong look, and was otherwise expressionless.

“Jago believes she saved my life,” Banichi said. “And will notdecently forget it.”

“Is thatit?” Bren asked. “I at least am grateful, Jago-ji, that you saved his life. I would have been very sad if you hadn’t.”

“I did raise that point,” Jago said, still straight-faced. “He of course was in no danger.”

“None,” Banichi said with an airy wave.

“Guild etiquette does not permit me to state he is a fool, Bren-ji, but he risked himself attempting to preempt mein a position of better vantage.—And I did notrequire help, nandi!”

A wise human sat very still. And ducked his head and bit his lip, because he knew it was a performance for his benefit.

He was appalled to think, then, like a lightning-stroke, that he was hearing details from this morning, regarding a death for which, dammit, yes, these two were directly responsible.

So who had fired? At whom?

Jago? To save Banichi? Jago had killed someone?

Lord Saigimi?

Or his security? That would lack finesse. Banichi would never joke about such an event as that. And did Tabini want such matters communicated to him?

Banichi took a casual pose, legs extended, and had a sip of the liqueur.

“Bren-ji, just take care.”

“I am very glad you’re both safe.”

“So are we,” Banichi said, and gave a quiet smile. “We only said to ourselves, ‘What does it lack now?’ And Jago said, ‘Our lives are too quiet. Let’s find nadi Bren.’ So we climbed back over the wall and took the first plane to Shejidan.”

Not from the Marid airport, Bren was willing to bet.

“One is very glad,” Bren said, “to have you both back. One hopes you’ll stay a while.”

“One hopes.” Banichi kicked a footstool into reach and propped his feet toward the fire, then leaned back, glass in hand.

“They won’t—come after you here, will they?”

A totally i

“The—” One was being stupid, even to ask. “The owners of the wall.”

“Ah, that.”

“No,” Jago said primly. “One ca

“Needless to say, however,” Banichi added, “if one isone of those points of stability on which other stability rests, it’s always well to take precautions.”

Him, Banichi meant. Or Tabini.

“The project.” He could only think of those remote, scattered facilities. “Has one accounted the safety of that? Even my eyes see possible vulnerabilities in the small plants.”

“Oh, yes,” Banichi said. “Carefully. Constantly. Although it hasn’t been ourdirect concern.”

“But it is at risk.” He had cold chills even thinking of a flaw—deliberately induced. “Nadiin-ji, we have so very much at risk in that project. I don’t know—I don’t know if I can explain enough to the Guild how small a problem can be fatal. I’m the translator. And some things I know by being from the island and having the history humans have—but it’s so important. It’s soimportant, nadiin-ji, and I haven’t succeeded in making enough people understand. All the lives of all the paidhiin before me come down to two things: the peace, and this project. This is what we were always aiming at, in everything we did, in all the advice we gave to atevi—the peace, and this project, was all to give us all the capacity that we lost in the War and in the failure of the station up there. And one act of sabotage, one well-concealed piece of bad work—and the ship we build is gone, lost, perhaps not to be built again. The humans aloft—they can’t build your future, nadiin-ji. They won’t. Atevi could lose everything.”

There was something a little less relaxed in Banichi’s pose. In Jago’s.

“At least,” Banichi said, “one perceives distress. Why, nand’ paidhi? Why are you concerned? Is it a specific threat? Is it a general one?”

“Because if this spaceship fails, Banichi, I can’t call that chance back again. There’s so much at stake. Your governance over your own future is at risk. This is why I stayed and why I wouldn’t go back to Mospheira when my government wished me recalled. I won’t go even for my family’s sake.” He realized he’d reprised at least the feeling of his speech to the workers—that fear was working at the back of his brain, and it had been there since before he’d heard of the assassination of lord Saigimi. Perhaps—perhaps it had been there since he’d seen the ship lying in pieces at his feet, and seen all that devoted effort in those upturned faces.

There was so much good will, and so much desire in so many people; and it was so vulnerable to the vicissitudes of fortune—and a few ill-wishers.

Baji-naji. Chance and Fortune, the interlocked design in the carpetoutside the dining room, the demon and the force that overwhelmed the best of numbers and improved the worst.

“Have you some specific reason to fear?” Jago asked: Jago, who would fling her body between any of her charges and harm; but who was trained to do things far more lethally useful for those within her man’chi.

“Just—nadiin-ji, a single act of sabotage, undetected, might set the program so far behind Mospheira we’d never catch up. And I saw so many plants where people from the towns came in without security checks, where lords’ families had access. And shouldn’t. Not that I want to be rude to these honest people—things are going so well. I think it makes me irrationally fearful.”

“Not irrationally.” Banichi let go an easier breath. “We areaware of the hazards—trust me in this. This is an immensely complex project, with many exposures. But without being specific, let me reassure the paidhi, we are not off our guard.”

Banichi would notsay Guild. This was, again, the man who hadn’t known the sun was a star—nor cared. But what he did care about, he knew about in greater detail and with more forethought than most men could keep up with.

“And,” Jago said with a quirk of the mouth, “lord Geigi has the number-counters contained. Or occupied.”

“One hopes.”

The decanter was on the small table near Banichi. Banichi reached over and poured a finger more; and one for Jago, who leaned forward to present her glass. “Nadi?” Banichi said, offering to him next.

He considered. He’d had one with Jase. But if Banichi was offering information, and it came on such skids, he’d have another: he let Banichi add a bit.

“Did I do foolishly to take lord Geigi’s hospitality?” he asked them.

“Evidently not.”

“I didn’t ask was I lucky? I asked—”

Banichi gri

“Lord Geigi’s philosophical persuasion is one of the most rigorous,” Jago said. “Most, understand, follow less rigorous systems, saying that there is no assurance that anyone has yet come up with right answers. But here are Geigi and his Determinist numerologists actually matching up answers with the universe ashuman numbers also perceive it, and the Rational Absolutists are prowling around this new set of ideas trying to find a problem it doesn’t solve. This folded space business has acquired great credibility, Bren-ji. The numerologists are still gnawing the bone of the faster-than-light idea Deana-ji threw them—” That Deana-jiwas certainly barbed. “But no one dares challenge folded space until they’ve posed certain classic problems—which keeps the ’counters and the Absolutists both out of mischief, at least until they’ve worked out their numbers. A challenge to folded space will be hard, by what I hear.”