Defender

“I’ll weigh the matter, certainly, Danda-ji. You’re of extraordinary value in either place.”

Listening staff. Worried staff. They hadn’t foreknown, at least, no more than he.

And he still hadn’t personally absorbed the shocks of the day—he proceeded on automatic, doing what he thought had to be done, but he knew he shouldn’t be deciding things on the fly, disposing of people’s lives like that, treating their loyalty as something to pack or leave…

But given three days, God, what could he do?

He stood there in the foyer, having shed his coat, and felt a distinct chill—the ship secretly prepared to move, Tabini aware of the mission for months, years, and bypassing him—

He questioned his situation, and realized he was looking at Bindanda, knowing at base level that his own household, like any household, had leaks to certain ears. He had to take the distress in stride. It was inevitable Tatiseigi and the conservatives would hear any faltering, any hint of weakness.

And did an ordinary human, however honored—set up for a decoy, perhaps—expect Tabini to tell him everything, once Tabini had gained a certain fluency in the language?

No. Not even reasonable. Everything in Tabini’s character had advised him to watch himself.

And Ramirez.

Dared he say his human feelings were, personally, hurt?

That hefelt cast aside?

So he made similar decisions regarding his own staff. Could he forget that?

“Your service,” he said to Narani, when, immediately after, he caught Narani alone in the hallway, “your service, Rani-ji, is of inestimable value to me, either here—or going with me. I spoke just now in what I thought your best interest, in proper honor, and knowing the household will need a skilled hand. Or, Rani-ji, if it were your wish, you might also retire—with a handsome pension, I might add, and my profound gratitude. But—”

“Retire I shall not, nand’ paidhi.” Rare that Narani ever interrupted him. This was extreme passion.

“One hardly did ever think so,” Bren assured him in a low voice. “But despite all I said, I urge you choose, Rani-ji, and settle the household either with yourself or another of the staff, and I trust that choice absolutely. I do want you to choose staff to go with me, to the number of four or five servants: I leave the fortunate numbers to your discretion. Security will be Banichi and Jago. I do think Bindanda might be of great use.”

“Then if the choice is mine, nandi, I shall go with you, myself, for one, and I shall prefer Bindanda, if you agree.”

He was not sure he had ever quite, quite broached the subject of Bindanda with Narani. He considered, then took the plunge. “One knows, surely, Rani-ji, that he isGuild.”

Narani lowered his gaze ever so slightly and looked up again with the most clear-eyed, sober look. “So am I, nandi.”

He was absolutely astonished.

“In my man’chi, dare I ask, Rani-ji?” He almost asked now if there was anyone on his staff who wasn’tin the Assassins’ Guild. But he politely refrained from requiring Narani to lie.

The good gentleman lowered his eyes and bowed, ever so slightly. “As tightly so as your security is.”

Dual, then, one of Tabini’s own—it made perfect sense. As Bindanda was within Damiri-daja’s man’chi, and within Tatiseigi’s. And thatbound up within his household the same potent alliance as bound very important elements of the Western Association.

“Who will be your third?” he asked.

“Asicho,” Narani said, naming the young woman who attended Jago, at need. This was not the first young woman—and ask, Bren thought, in what merciless school Asicho had had her training, and to whom she was apprenticed.

“Accepted,” he said, not even asking to what other power Asicho might belong; and he wished he had Tano’s and Algini’s technical expertise, but in the field, and this was, he rather relied on Banichi’s. “Do as needful with the numbers. You have my complete approval, Rani-ji. You’re impeccable.”

“Nand’ paidhi,” the old man said, and gave a little bow and went to do what he knew how to do.

Absolute loyalty within the walls.

Betrayal straight from the top, from the aiji, it might be… and yet he was embraced by those in the aiji’s man’chi, who didn’t know they were betrayed. He tried to make that column of figures add, standing there like a fool in the hallway, and he couldn’t.

Because, dammit, he was feeling, not thinking. Standing between species as he did, thinkingwas a survival skill, feelingwas a useful barometric reading, and the job, the important thing wasn’t the survival of Bren Cameron—it was the accurate reading of situations that enabled Shejidan and Mospheira to survive.

And whatever the ship did or arranged, he couldn’t let it sell out those interests.

He took himself to the study to gather his wits, while his staff dealt with less abstract matters.

And, one world touching the other, a servant appeared, regular as clockwork, asking amid the necessary confusion whether he wished tea—he often did, when he ended the day.

“Yes,” he said. A little routine was good for him—reassuring to the staff. So he agreed to the tea, and sat, and stared at the walls, the familiar shelves, the environment he had designed, he himself, with his own hand.

His place. His creation. It wasn’t for him to resent being ripped out of it, sent off into danger as casually as he dealt with the servants.

Barometric reading? Betrayal was something he’d personally felt more than once with atevi. It was an emotion he’d most specifically learned to turn loose and forget, because the equations of behavior just weren’t the same, and a human couldn’t feel the tugs and pulls that made some decisions, for an ateva, logical and reasonable—even automatic, lest he forget. He’d been locked in Ilisidi’s basement and beaten black and blue, and he’d forgiven that; he’d been handed over to an enemy, and set up for assassination, and he understood that. Forgiveness didn’t matter a thing to an ateva who thought the decisions logical. Man’chi was man’chi and actions within it were all reasonable, when a lord needed something.

But there were puzzles.

Why would Tabini call him down to the planet for a completely empty mission? Why call him down for a small private talk that only discussed court gossip and then send him back again with not a word of what was coming?

Why, why, and why, when Ramirez was at death’s door and events were sliding toward the brink?

Granted Tabini had known that, in specific—was the whole ceremony down there only cover? A way for the dowager to get to Shejidan and then board a shuttle—but for some reason not the shuttle that carried him, though he had become inconsequential to the aiji’s plans?

Had his trip down and back been diversion, to attract the news services and raise empty questions, keeping the news away from Ilisidi? His presence was far more unusual than hers—and it had attracted notice.

Possible. Entirely possible. He could accept being used in that sense. It made perfect sense, and didn’t at all hurt his feelings.

But the timing—right before Ramirez’s death. Rightbefore the news broke.

No. Cancel that thought. Assassination wasn’t likely. The one thing, the one unintended event that let the cat out of the bag had been that worker with the injured hand, the one who’d overheard Ramirez giving Jase an emergency briefing. That had thrown everything public before the captains could move: thathad brought the acceleration in the program, when a couple of thousand crew found out they’d been deceived, tricked, delayed, and lied to. If not for that one accident, the surviving captains could have had a year or more to plan the mission.

Kroger had just arrived up here with the robots and the promise of an accelerated program, that was pla