Deceiver

Outside of the local market traffic between Najida and Najida estate, or either of those places and Kajiminda, or on down to Separti and Dalaigi, there were, in fact, very few roads in all the province, except those that went to the railhead or airport— and those were mostly mowed strips in the grass, with a few persistently bad spots graveled and the local streams bridged. You wanted to go to Separti? You went to Kajiminda, and took the road on from there. You wanted to go to the Maschi estate inland? You went to the train station, then took the train station road to the airport, and then drove across the end of the airstrip to pick up the Maschi Road.

Any people and baggage that had to go long distances on the continent moved by air or by train. And today, as happened, the morning, crack-of-dawn train originating in the capital was bringing them that fancy new bus, specially loaded onto a flat-car, to arrive a few hours before the airport would bring them Geigi.

That was about as tight scheduling as one could imagine, but just in time. There was a small fuel depot at the train station. That would get the bus rolling. Painting the Najida emblem on the new bus door? That would just have to wait, since it had its first job immediately after arrival, and had to pick up the welcoming committee and U-turn back up the road to the airport.

So everyone was up early as the new acquisition came purring nicely down the road and onto the drive. It pulled up under the portico with—Bren winced, watching it skin just under the portico roof—barely enough clearance—which he was sure staff hadchecked. There was not, thank goodness, a central light fixture under the portico: light came from fixtures on the five stonework pillars. And it missed them, too.

It stopped with much less fuss than the old bus, no wheeze or cough, and when it opened its doors, it exuded a new smell, an impressive sense of prosperity. It was a rich red and black— Tabini’s colors, not what one would have wished in this province, but there it was. It was red, it was shiny, it was—staff reported happily—very elegant inside.

Bren stood at the house door with Banichi and Jago and watched the proceedings in lordly dignity. The dowager had entirely declined to come outside, saying she trusted the bus would be everything it was promised to be, and that she would felicitate the acquisition from her warm fireside.

Cajeiri, however, with his whole bodyguard, was outside. Cajeiri managed to get right up to the bus doors, trying for a peek inside, obviously itching to go aboard and look it over.

The young lord did, however, defer to the owner, and came back to ask. “May one go aboard?” Cajeiri made a diffident, proper request, all but vibrating with restraint, and Bren indulged him with a laugh and a beneficent smile. He was curious about the interior himself, but dignity insisted he wait, and he simply stood and looked at it, and awaited his staff’s prior assessment of its fitness.

“It is very fine, nandi,” Ramaso reported to him. “The seats are gray leather, and the carpeting is gray.”

Not quite in harmony with local dust and mud, he thought. He hadn’t expressed a preference on color. He’d left that to staff and chance, willing to take any color that happened to be ready to roll onto a train car, roll off at Najida Station, and provide him and his staff with some transport that was not the sniper opportunity of an open truckbed. Red. Hardly inconspicuous, either.

“Stock it for a proper reception of our arriving guest,” he said to Ramaso. “Fruit juice, at this hour. The traditional things. And the bar. The space station’s time is not our time, so one has no idea what our guest will desire. One understands there will be a call advising us when Lord Geigi’s plane is about to land, not before then.”

That arrangement was for security’s sake. Geigi, they now knew, was coming in at Najida’s airport, which was hardly more than a grass strip and a wind sock—and from what prior landing they had had no information, for just the same reason of security. Separti Township, which had a much larger, round-the-clock airport, was not a thoroughly safe place, and one thought it just possible Geigi was coming in direct, taking a prop plane clear from Shejidan Airport. One was sure that if he did land at Separti, it would be with the aiji’s security in place to assure the safety of any plane he boarded therec but one had still had no word where exactly Geigi was, even yet.

Such grim thoughts kept the paidhi-aiji from quite enjoying the novelty of his big new bus. And upon Ramaso’s report, and without so much as a personal look inside, in proper lordly form, he retreated to his office to deal with the invoice that came with the bus, a thick bundle of papers which a servant brought him on a silver tray. The invoice, in six figures, debited his personal finances, not the estate—the bill would have upset the a

At that point, Banichi and Jago traded off their duty with Tano and Algini—the latter reporting, as they arrived in the office, that the security office had finished the move to the library, and were set up there.

So he did the accounts and filed the papers while staff loaded the bus with necessary things. At a very small side table, Tano and Algini settled down to a quiet card game—a variant of poker had made its way to the mainland a decade ago, and atevi were quite good at it. Superstitious atevi put far too much ominous freight on its nuances, but atevi who weren’t at all superstitious about numbers were frighteningly adept. When those two played, it was a spectator sport.

And just a little distracting from the far more important numbers he was dealing with.

But he had ample business to occupy him: the finances regarding the bus were one account. Plus the estate needed to order in a delivery of fuel, what with all the recent coming and goingc and that delivery was, under current circumstances, a high security risk. The fueling station for the whole peninsula was in the village, a supply the village truck and the fishing boats and the estate bus all used. He wrote out orders for the fuel purchases, too, to be billed to his personal account. And he made a note to staff to consult security all the way on that delivery and to have several of the dowager’s staff overseeing it from the depot in Separti all the way to Najida.

He was not in the habit of spending money in such massive amounts. He generally let his finances accumulate, had let them ride for the last number of years, and was shocked to find the bus did notput a cautionary dent in his personal accounts. He only needed to move money from one account to another.

He had to do something with that personal excess. New harvesting machinery for Najida village. A modern fire truck, to serve Najida and Kajiminda. Maybe even a new wing on Najida that wouldallow more guests. Construction of that sort would employ more Najida folk. The estate occupied all the land there was on its little rocky knoll, without disturbing the beautiful rock-lined walk down to the shore, but the estate couldspread out to the west, by creating a new wing, along the village road.

Thatwould solve a problem. He had thought about expansion before; had considered siting the garage across the roadc but that would require a walkover arch for the road, which would require a second level on any structure to meet it on this side of the road, which would destroy the felicitious symmetry of the ancient housec Not to mention, it would impose a part of the house between Najida and their market. And thatwas an unwarranted disturbance in the people’s daily lives.

But by putting a whole new wing where the garage was, with no walkover, just the pleasant walk through the gardenc