Destroyer

“An extreme inconvenience,” Ilisidi muttered, frustrated and doubtless feeling the change of gravity in all her arthritic joints, not to mention added labor for her heart. “Sit down to wait, great-grandson. Cease fidgeting.”

“Mani-ma.” Cajeiri sat.

Bren found his way aft, where staffs were in last-moment conference, where he could pass on his own immediate information to Jago, who turned up to gather it.

“The dowager is not in favor of long delay,” he said quietly, speaking frankly. “Nor am I. But we must acclimate to the world, if only for a few hours, and get some sleep, and I hope for a great deal of organized information that may be useful to us, from the local government. The Presidenta, Shawn Tyers, is meeting us. One would not be surprised to have Yolanda Mercheson pay us a visit, she being on this side of the strait, and likely very interested in a return flight.” He glanced anxiously toward Cenedi, who represented the dowager’s interests and rarely disputed her opinions or her wishes. “I very much fear for the dowager’s well-being if we attempt to ignore our physical limits and press ahead too fast. I know we risk losing the advantage of surprise, but if we risk her health—we risk everything.”

Jago nodded, leaning on the seat, eye to eye with him. “This is in his mind, too, Bren-ji, be assured. That, and we all entertain the hope you mention, of resources here.”

“We shall sleep in a secure place, I have no doubt of the Presidenta’s hospitality. They have had enough domestic stress that they are no strangers to security requirements.”

“I shall inform the others,” she said.

So that was handled. Bren went back up the aisle to gather up his small amount of luggage, his computer, his duffle with changes of clothes and other items Narani had packed for him. The rest of their luggage was back in the cargo compartment, and there was a fair amount of it, their staffs’ gear, not to mention the clothes and items the dowager had brought.

“Nandiin,” the pilot said, appearing in the doorway, “they are moving a scissor-lift to the hatch. One believes they intend us to debark.”

The language barrier persisted. But they were cooled down sufficiently, it seemed, and checked for hazardous leaks. He gathered up the baggage he would handle and piled it in his seat, then went forward to attend Ilisidi and allow her the proper precedence down the aisle to the hatch.

“About time,” she said. Cenedi had also gone forward, and attended her, offering his arm, but the notion that the dowager was about to meet human notions of hospitality… that was daunting. He was in charge of that, he feared. Every courtesy would necessarily come through translation.

The steward moved aft to open the outer hatch. Banichi and four of Ilisidi’s young men had stayed back there, two of the latter to see to the baggage, the rest to attend the door when it opened, Bren was sure.

Ilisidi walked down the aisle, with Cenedi, lips tight, and young Cajeiri came close behind, with two others of her bodyguard carrying her personal baggage.

So Bren fell in, carrying his own bags. Tano snatched them as he passed, and fell in behind him, with Jago and Algini.

The hatch opened. Air wafted in. The dowager and her party exited onto the quaking lift platform, and he followed, flinching at the flat world. A wave of malodorous heat from the shuttle walls warred with cool and fresh wind off the sea, air as moist as the shuttle’s atmosphere was dry and cold. The side nearest the shuttle felt like the breath of an oven, baking their backs.

And the blue and gray horizons dizzily went on forever, with Mt. Adam Thomas drifting like a vision above a haze in the distance, real, and solid, in flat perspective that warred with recent reality and yet quickly seemed right to memory, if not the i

She stood fast, jaw set, stubbornly refusing assistance, even from Cenedi. Cajeiri caught her arm, clever lad. The platform shuddered and descended.

Vehicles came into their view, airport emergency vehicles, and with them was a gray limousine with the presidential seal, along with its own entourage of black security cars. Emergency crews waited near their vehicles, and a cluster of suits and uniforms stood to the fore. Bren spied Shawn’s familiar face, saw with a little shock that he’d gone gray, in so short a time in the presidency.

The lift bumped to the ground. Cenedi put himself at Ilisidi’s side as they walked off the edge, Ilisidi using the cane carefully but decisively, Cajeiri on her left, as they reached the tarmac. Bren followed, set himself decorously to the side, bowed.

“Aiji-ma, allow me to present Shawn Tyers, Presidenta of Mospheira.” Change of languages. “Mr. President, the aiji-dowager and her great-grandson Cajeiri, son of Tabini-aiji.”

Shawn gave a measured little nod of his head, a meeting of equals—Shawn had spent his days in the State Department and no one could have a firmer grasp of the protocols, the little dance of who was introduced to whom first and to what degree heads nodded or eyes lowered. Host nation for the island enclave, atevi took slight precedence in any encounter—few encounters as there had ever been on this soil, since the War of the Landing.

“Welcome, nandiin,” Shawn said, in Ragi—carefully, and fortunate in number. He had run State, and the paidhi’s office. Then in Mosphei’: “Tell the dowager that that’s the safe limit of my command of the language, but the delegation is most cordially welcome for as long as they choose to stay. We have safe and appropriate quarters at the airport hotel, should she wish, and cars to take them there.”

He rendered that: “The Presidenta most happily welcomes you and offers transport. Will the dowager, he asks, be pleased to accept his hospitality and refreshment in appropriately arranged quarters nearby, for however long his guests may please to advantage themselves of his hospitality?”

Ilisidi considered the offering—Ilisidi, whose aged bones were doubtless aching with earthly gravity. “Tell him this is our shuttle. Let him by no means mistake that fact.”

He bowed. And rendered it: “The dowager accepts with utmost gratitude, and requests Mospheira set a round-the-clock guard over the shuttle, which she regards as a vital atevi asset. Only crew should have access, at their pleasure, also round-the-clock. Crew will attend us to the hotel, along with our security. They will lodge there and come and go as they please, escorted by your security as far as the shuttle perimeter.”

Shawn understood exactly what the dowager meant. He smiled, graciously enough, and gave a slight nod. “Understood.” He swept a gesture at his own bodyguard, toward the waiting cars. “Everybody.”

Everybody was not so easily rendered, when it came to fitting tall atevi into human-sized conveyances, along with their carefully-watched baggage and equipment. There was the bus for the airport crew, and that also went into service for baggage and shuttle crew transport, accompanied by two of Ilisidi’s young men.

The rest of them eased into Shawn’s limousine—no great problem for himself and Ilisidi and Cajeiri, near human sized, but only Cenedi could get in besides, in the facing seats. He settled beside Shawn himself, leaving his aide to ride beside the driver. Banichi and Jago, Tano and Algini, together with the rest of Cenedi’s men, all parceled themselves out into other cars, having to duck their heads uncomfortably, and the vehicles whipped off at considerable speed down the frontage of airport buildings and onto a road leading outward.

“Most happy to have you safe,” Shawn ventured, filling an awkward silence in the crowded vehicle.