Defender

And could they eliminate some random lunatic in the work force, some individual from whom the Assassins’ Guild would never take a contract, some lunatic Mospheiran of clever bent and demented purpose?

The thought, foolish as it might be, U-turned him from the study back to the security station, where now Banichi had turned up, with Jago—discussing the communications silence, it might well be: did they have another crisis occupying their attention?

“Nadiin,” Bren said from the doorway, “I know it would be possible someone assassinated Ramirez.” Assassination, for some of their enemies, was an art form, and infinitely various and subtle. “But what if Tabinidid it?” He could see it happening if Tabini felt betrayed in his arrangement with Ramirez. And if thathappened, there were two agencies besides Tabini’s own that might carry out the order.

He was talking to one of them.

“An interesting theory,” Banichi said.

“We have had assurances from the Guild as late as this day,” Jago said, breaking that secretive Guild’s rules left and right, “that no Guild member is here without our knowledge.”

Unprecedented straightforwardness. He was glad someonegave him truth enough to work with.

No Guild member outside his staff.

And Geigi’s.

But that didn’tanswer the central question. He was back down the hall toward the study before he sorted that out. For all he knew, the Assassins’ Guild had established a regional office on the station, one his staff knew about. Once he thought of it he could not imagine the all-seeing Assassins’ Guild failing to take that step.

Damn, of coursethat Guild was here. But how long they had been here and what their activity had been—or how closely his own staff had been in touch with such an entity—there was no use retracing his steps to ask that second question, which would only make his staff uncomfortable. There were some degrees of truth he simply could not expect.

He knew, for instance, that Bindanda was Assassins’ Guild, one of uncle Tatiseigi’s men, with him for years. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Geigi’s staff held such small, known, surprises. Such infiltrations kept the great houses informed, and man’chi stable.

But it was downright stupid of him not to foresee. He’d experienced the increase in number of workers and the increase in complexity of worker management so slowly that the increasing possibility of various atevi institutions making their way up here too just never had taken shape in his overloaded human brain.

Of course, of course, of course—his own security never had told him. If he were ever under duress, would they wish him to know everythingthey could do and allthe resources they had?

But damned certain there would never be another Tamun rebellion, no more instances where the station dissolved in chaos and bloodshed.

So the paidhi shut up and asked no more questions, but he didn’t think it likely Ramirez had died of Guild action. That wasn’t the signal he was getting from a staff that wouldsignal him if they thought he did need to know.

It still didn’t answer the question of Tabini’s silence.

Defeat. Just defeat. He wasn’t accustomed to ru

He sat down at his desk, started to key on his computer.

Quick footsteps sounded in the hall.

“Bren-ji.” Jago signaled him with a hand-motion from the doorway. “Toby-nadi. On the phone.”

His brother. Finally. Thank God. He went to the nearest wall-unit and punched in on the lit button. “Toby?” His heart was beating triple-time. “Hello?” He tried to reorganize his thoughts into Mosphei’, his mind into a different universe, and far more personal problems.

“ I take it by the location I’ve just reached that you’re not coming.”

Oh, Toby was not happy with him. Not at all.

“I can’t come. Toby, how’s mother?”

“ Dicey. Really dicey. I don’t honestly know.”

“Hospital?”

“ Hospital? Intensive care since midweek. Since you were down here, damn it, and didn’t call, or answer your mail.”

It wasn’t cause and effect, his presence on the planet, their mother’s crisis. Intensive care didn’t take maybes, didn’t take mothers assuring their sons were in reach.

And a weak, years-chancy heart did what it did for medical, not karmic, reasons.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Toby.”

“ Sorry?”

“I want to be there. Toby, I wantto be there, and I can’t, the way things are.” Incredibly, one co

“ Bren, Bren, it’s not me. I’m not the issue. Have you possibly got that picture? Mother’s really bad. Really bad. She’s asking for you and I’m sorry, right nowI won’t do. She wants you here, andI can’t deliver.”

Toby didn’t say, You’re her favorite son, but that accusation was in there, right along with, I’ve given her all I can give, and I haven’t got any more.

“What she says, Toby, is all well and good, but when I was there, youwere the perfect son and Iwas the vagrant.”

“ That’s not the point, Bren! She needs you, she needssomebody and she won’t be content with me!”

“If you were the one out of reach, she’d be asking for you. That is the issue. It’s always been the issue, and when you’ve had any sleep at all you’ll know that fact of the universe. I know what you’re going through—”

“ I don’t care what the issue is, Bren. I don’t care about those games and I don’t care about mainland politics. It doesn’t change. It’s always something, and I’m not playing. The plain fact is, she’s really sick, and she’s not faking it. She’s not faking, this time. You think I’d call you with a lie?”

Toby was losing his self-control. And in that realization the negotiator who dealt between Tabini and the ship-humans sucked in a breath and made himself hard and cold as ice. “That may be. It may be true. But you listen to me, Toby. You say you’re not playing. I’m convinced. I believe she’s not. But you listen to me. She has a way of getting all you can give. When she’s well, she wants her way. When she’s sick she shuts down to just one priority, and that’s getting everyone she wants as close as she can get us. No, I’m nother favorite son when I’m there. Then you’re the best and I’mthe son that ought to quit my job, get a haircut, and settle down in reach—and you know that’s the truth. Toby, brother, you know it’s never going to be perfect and you can’t ever make her happy. If you need that to satisfy you, you’re in for a big hurt. She’s just the way she is, and we do what we can, but there’s a limit.”

“ Bren, I’ve given her my wife and my family. What more is there?”

Bad news. Repeated bad news. “Where’s Jill?”

“ I don’t know.” Toby’s voice conveyed utter misery. “ At a certain point I don’t give a damn. Some hotel somewhere. With friends. I don’t know.”

“Damn. Go find her.” He didn’t belong in Toby’s private life, but he’d had a front row seat for this disaster for the last ten years. And this time he said it. “Mother doesn’t have a right. She doesn’t have a damned right to your life. Let Barb take care of Mother. You get out of there. Go find Jill.”

“ If Jill wants to go off in a fit, that’s her choice.”

“Jill’s had plenty of provocation, brother.”