Precursor

“Very good” Bren said. “There’ll be another if we have time. These are the essentials.”

“Does the paidhi have concerns for security here, or on the ground?” Nojana dared ask.

“Here, primarily. But take care, and ask for immediate escort once you land; I don’t fancy you’ll have to ask twice.” He said that and asked, sensing a man who might have secrets, “Do youhave concerns about which my security should know?”

“I have informed them of essentials, nadi.”

“Inform us all,” he said. “I want to hear it directly, and ask questions.”

“Yes, nandi,” Nojana said, and over at least three cups of tea which Algini made himself, not asking the servant staff, and within the security post, Nojana informed them of what he knew.

“Certain of the crew have become familiar with us,” Nojana said, “and we do speak outside the bounds of our duty. We share food with them, some small extra sweets which they greatly favor, and we gain their goodwill. They mention their recreation and their associations, which we know, and which I can tell you.”

“Do so,” Jago said, and Narana did, mapping out all those individuals whose names or work they knew, and every name associated with them, and where they had complained or praised someone: Narana had a very good memory of such things, second nature to atevi… significant among humans, but not by patterns Narana might suspect.

“Very, very good,” Bren said, having a clear picture from that and from Jase, a tendency to form families of sorts, even lineages and households, all with the tradition of marriage, but without its frequent practice. “You know Jasi-ji. You met him.”

“Yes, nadi, I had that honor.”

“His mother is resident here, perhaps other associates. We’ve been unable to contact him: the captains have given orders to the contrary. If I send word, might you use one of your more i

“Cl for communications and Ql for dock communications; but we know a few more numbers.”

“You’ve had no difficulty reaching them.”

“None that I know. I speak enough Mosphei’, nandi, that if a worker needs to reach us, I often receive the call, and if one might be late he calls, and on occasion we provide them small excuse, as if they were at work, but not so.”

“You mean they ask you to conceal their tardiness and absences.”

“They make up deficits quite willingly. We’ve never found it a detriment, nandi. Are we wrong?”

“Not at all,” Bren said. “By no means.” That the crew found occasion to play off on duty was within human pattern; that they made up the work was the pattern of a crew that understood the schedule and would meet it, all of which the atevi working with them had learned. And it might be unwise to use that route to reach Jase’s mother… yet. It might trigger suspicion of malevolent intent, the contact might be rejected at the other end, and there was not quite the urgent need to do it. “But which human would you ask to contact someone outside your area if you had to do it?”

“Kelly. A young woman.” Nojana had no hesitation. “She has a lover. She meets him at times. She knows Jase very well.”

“Has the subject arisen? We’ve been unable to establish contact with Jase; I’m somewhat worried, nadi. Has she expressed concern?”

“She has tried to tell me something regarding Jase, but the words elude me. She seems to express that Jase is associated with Ramirez-aiji.”

“He is. That much is true. Ramirez functions as hisaiji, or his father.”

“Indeed. Kelly has said Jase-nandi is withRamirez.”

Nojana had used the Mospheiran word.

“ Withmeans very many things. Ask if Jase is in danger.”

“I know this word. Shall I ask nadi Kelly?”

“If you can do so discreetly.”

“One will attempt discretion.”

“Report the result of that inquiry to Tabini-aiji when you take him the dispatch. I doubt it would be safe to send word to me, unless I make the flight… as my staff seems to believe I should. I remain doubtful.”

“I shall,” Nojana said. “Indeed I shall, nand’ paidhi.”

They conversed; Nojana slept and waked with the servants, another day, received more files, enjoyed meals with them.

“How long will he stay?” Bren asked Jago directly.

“Not long,” was Jago’s answer. “Tonight perhaps.”

“How did he know his way in the first place?” Bren wondered, because that thought had begun to nag him.

“Banichi sent him with that instruction” Jago said. “I’m very sure. And Banichi won’t have missed a thing.”

“What in hell do you do if you meet guards?”

“One will endeavor not to meet guards,” Jago said.

Some things there was just no disputing; and in some arguments there was simply nothing left to say. Banichi would come back. He believed that implicitly. Banichi would come back.

And true to his instruction, Nojana reported his intention to depart at midnight, enjoyed a cup of tea with him and the security staff, thanked the servants for their attentions, and stood ready to walk back down the corridors to take a lift to the core, with no more baggage than he’d arrived with… to the outward eye.

And could a human observer miss a tall shadow of an atevi in a pale yellow corridor, where there was no place to take cover?

Atevi hearing was good; but that good? He was doubtful. Banichi was armed, and needed no weapons against unarmed humans; but the very last thing he wanted was harm to the crew, even of a minor sort.

“I have all you’ve entrusted to me,” Nojana said, “nand’ paidhi.”

“I have no doubt,” Bren said. Nojana seemed to read his worry as a lack of confidence in him, and he had no wish to convey that at all. “I know Banichi has none.”

“Nandi,” Nojana said.

Then Tano quite deftly opened the door and let him out, one more time to trace his way through foreign corridors.

Chapter 19

They expected Banichi to arrive sometime after midnight. “Wake me” he said to Jago, who shared the bed with him that night. He knew her hearing, and her light sleeping, that she would in no wise sleep through Banichi’s arrival.

“Don’t be angry,” she asked of him.

“I shan’t be,” he said, lying close beside her. When he thought about it, he knew he was disturbed, and wished Banichi had asked before he did such a thing; but anger was too strong a word. Banichi was rarely wrong, never wrong, that he could immediately recall.

“Has he ever made a mistake?” he asked her, and Jago gave a soft laugh.

“Oh, a few,” Jago said, Jago, who knew Banichi better, he suspected, than anyone in the world or off it. “There was the matter of a rooftop, in the south. There was the matter of believing a certain human would take orders.”

“A certain human has his own notions,” Bren said. “And one of them is not to have my staff wandering the halls and me not knowing.”

“In the aiji’s service,” Jago said, “we overrule the paidhi. And the aiji’s orders involve the paidhi’s safe return.”

“The aiji’s orders also involve the paidhi’s success in his mission.”

“Just so, but caution. Caution.”

“Caution doesn’t get the job done.” She distracted him. Jago was good at that. He outright lost track of his argument.

Besides, he intended it for Banichi, when Banichi got back, after midnight.

But he waked in the morning first aware that Jago was not beside him, that the lights in the corridor were bright, and that breakfast was in the offing, all at one heartbeat.