Inheritor

It had the earth station and also a set of dishes aimed all along the coast toward Mospheira, as Mospheira aimed a similar array toward the mainland.

It was a nerve center, his security had informed him, which was run by the Messengers’ Guild, which had not been outstandingly cooperative with him, or with Tabini.

Jase said, in a fit of depression over his father and the party and his own situation, I’d like to go to the ocean. He’dsaid to himself, foolish as he was, why not go to Geigi’s estate for a little fishing, and catch that fabled yellowtail? And maybe a little riding. The mechieti hadn’t gone back to Malguri for the summer.

So he’d gone to the dowager to see was she willing to back him up, with the notion shecould teach Jase what he’d learned—and she’dsaid, well, of course it had made sense to come to the government reserve just across the bay rather than to go to Geigi’s house asking hospitality—much more politically sound a move, Geigi could visit them here, by boat, an easy trip, the airport and van service lying just right on the water.

The hell! Bren thought to himself. He’d not appreciated the vertical scale, when Ilisidi had said the government site practically overlooked the airport.

He hadn’t truly appreciated at all how close it was to Mogari-nai, whose situation atop high bluffs overlooking the sea he didknow.

He hadn’t appreciated the involvement of Dur, either, and itsproximity to the illicit radio traffic in the north—saying that Dur was near the site was like saying Mospheira was. When you were on the coast there were islands, and nothing was that unreachably far from anywhere else if you wanted to derive trouble from it.

Hehadn’t expected the boy from Dur to show up last night.

But neither had Ilisidi—at least—if she had, she’d pretended well.

Traffic in the night—that his own security had expected, or not been overly dismayed by, so either it was routine and it waskitchen supplies coming up for some surprise banquet tomorrow, or it was something that lay within their man’chi—and thatcame down to very few items.

Knowing Ilisidi’s general penchant for intrigue, however, either they were being gotten out for the day so that the cooking aromas wouldn’t betray the surprise, or something was damn sure going on. He looked out past the crowd at a vast rolling grassland, gravelly ground with tough clumps of vegetation that grew in what might be quite a fragile ecology, up here on the ocean bluffs.

One of those national hunting reserves, to look at it. Atevi wouldn’t eat commercially produced meat. There were immense tracts where no one built, no rail crossed, no one disturbed the land.

Perimeter alarms. Electronic fences. This place.

Had they ever notified the boy’s parents, Bren asked himself, shortening his focus to the crowd ahead. Had anyonewho might worry any idea the boy was with them?

He doubted it, the way he began to be concerned that there was something specifically afoot that had taken away Tano and Algini. From the steps, a head count turned up fourteen of Ilisidi’s young men besides hissmall party.

He had brought in his luggage the gun he very illegally owned—under Treaty law that forbade the paidhi to carry a weapon, a gun that wasTabini’s gift—and Banichi’s. He hadn’t dared leave it in the apartment with uncle Tatiseigi staying there; finding that in the bureau drawer would have sent the old man through the highly ornate ceiling. But he had tucked it into his baggage for safe-keeping, knowing his luggage never had to go through a security check. He’d never believed he’d need it on this outing and now he wished he dared go back inside to get it from his luggage, not that he knew what he’d want it for, but everybody else but himself and Jase, the boy from Dur, and the dowager herself, was armed.

Wind battered them, sweeping off the sea, across heights broken not even by a fence. Jase was cold, clearly, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. The wind whipped his hair. He looked up and scowled into the gusts with the cheerfulness with which he might gaze into an enemy’s face.

As a snort and a squall broke out from around the corner of the building.

Mechieti.

The huge, black creatures came around the corner, high-shouldered, massive in the forequarters.

Mechieti, the riding beasts that had carried atevi across the continent, that had carried them into war and on their explorations. Mechieti were vegetarian, mostly. But Jase stepped back up on the porch steps, and he thought about his own safety for the space of a heartbeat before pride made him stand his ground. They were a herd into which only their regular riders walked with assurance. Ilisidi’s men started sorting the throng out, as the riders, three in number, who had brought the herd around to the steps added to the company of Ilisidi’s men.

“You’ll have the same mechieta as last time, I think,” he said to Jase, who was glum and apprehensive of the whole affair. “Watch the nose. Remember?” Those blunt teeth on the lower jaw, the length of a human hand, could kill a man quite messily, or knock a novice stupidly flat on his back if he was fool enough to press down on the nose of an animal that regularly rooted up its food.

He counted himself still fortunate to have survived his own initial mistake with the beasts unscarred, and he had warned Jase half a year ago: those rooting tusks were blunt-capped to protect potential riders from being disemboweled in their ordinary herd behavior.

And if they fought, and this band had, a different kind of cap, war-brass, went on those tusks to make them sharp as knives.

“Nand’ paidhi.” One of Ilisidi’s young men came to the steps to take charge of Jase, specifically. “Please come with me. Follow closely.”

“Remember to keep your foot back,” Bren called after him. Some mechieti learned that feet were in reach of a bite. Jase’s mount the last time had come close to succeeding; and he never gave odds that his own twice-upon-a-time mount, Nokhada (his own, by generous gift of the dowager) would disdain such a nasty trick.

But he was excited. He had looked forward to a ride during this trip as his own enjoyment, far more than any fishing trip, and he was prepared to enjoy it if he could keep Jase from mortal injury. He was anxious to find Nokhada and renew acquaintances, and, thinking he’d spotted her, he went a little into the herd and whistled.

“Nokhada!” he called out, as riders called to their mounts. “Hada, hada, hada!”

The head turned, an eye observed, and with the surly inevitability of a landslide the neck followed, the body turned, and the whole beast moved—checked for a moment by another moving mountain.

Then, with an ill-tempered squeal that thundered against the eardrums, Nokhada didremember him and shoved her way through the others with such energy that one of Ilisidi’s men had to pull his mechieta back to avoid a fight.

Prudence might have said to go for the steps. He stood his ground and Nokhada shoved and butted him in the chest, smelled him over and then rubbed her poll against his shoulder, prompting a human who’d been laid out flat and stu

The head came up, which indeed would have knocked him a body-length away if not sent him to the hospital, and then as the whole herd shifted, he was in danger of being squeezed between Nokhada and Cenedi’s mount. He instantly lifted his riding crop, putting it end-on between Nokhada’s shoulder and the oncoming mass. The steel-centered, braided leather crop stood the impact and shied the two apart again: it was a trick he’d learned his last trip out, it worked; and he jerked on the long, loose rein, which had one end fastened on Nokhada’s jaw-piece and the other end slip-tied to a ring on the saddle, to get Nokhada to lower her body for a mount-up in the bawling chaos that was their setting-forth.