Pretender

“One is grateful, young sir.” He righted himself and took a grip on the seat back with his hand. They had swerved onto a stretch of gravel, actually keeping on the road all the way through the woods, the tail of the bus tending to slew somewhat on the turns. Then, with a last such skid, they definitively left the trees, and turned what Bren calculated was due west, and not that far from the rail station.

People standing in the aisle had crowded forward, blocking his view. There seemed some discussion in progress between Dur and the driver—he had no idea what the subject was, but the bus was already going at a reckless pace, and now the driver added speed.

Then a set of red gleams lit the crowd in silhouette: tail-lights from the several vehicles in front. Braking.

Jago worked her way up against his seat. “We are coming to the station now,” she said. “There will be a delay here, and we will try to find the car. We will force our way in as far as possible, but there is no surety the car will stop. It has a fair-sized tank, and utmost priority at the pump, if it does. We do not wish to discuss matters with the others on the radio. Banichi is going out when we get to the pump.”

He didn’t like the notion of Banichi leaving them. He didn’t like the odds the car might have kept going, with some destination of its own in mind, and, as Jago said, no recourse to radio possible.

Damn.

But Jago had immediately gone forward again, and the bus, moving more sanely behind the other vehicles, hit a much smoother track, still rolling through an enveloping cloud of dust that lights coming up behind them rendered entirely opaque. There was sand under the wheels now—there had been a lot of that around the train station, a typically soft surface for a fairly major road. If the driver could see anything at the moment but the taillights of the vehicle immediately in front, he would be surprised.

“Great-grandmother has a better driver,” Cajeiri commented glumly, which was not precisely fair to the driver they had, but it added up to the truth.

Buildings appeared through the haze. More red lights ahead of them. Red light and the hazy headlamps of vehicles behind them lit the interior of the bus as they slowed to an absolute stop near those ghostly buildings, and then their forward door opened. Several people got out of their bus, some likely to go investigate the fuel supply or consult the drivers in front of them, or argue their precedence in getting to what would surely be one fuel pump.

And Banichi, trying to locate the car among these buses.

“Are we looking for mani-ma?” Cajeiri asked, as his young bodyguard leaned over the seat to hear.

“One hopes so, young gentleman. We have reached the train station and no one has shot at us. This is good.”

“Guild would have been ahead of us, nandi,” Cajeiri said with a wave of his hand, “and taken care of any problems. Cenedi would see to that, too.”

“He would certainly do that,” Bren agreed. “But we do not take for granted we are safe here, young sir.”

Damned sure he didn’t. Cenedi might be out there somewhere.

Banichi was. But his view of seats in that car indicated Cenedi was the only one of her staff with her. He hoped Nawari at least was somewhere close in the uncertainty of this blinding dust and dark, and that she was not totally reliant on the competency of Tatiseigi’s long-suffering staff.

And, in the matter of unreliable staff, God knew where Ismini was at the moment. Certainly there was no room in the plane for more than three, if that, with the fuel bombs: Tabini, Rejiri, and someone. If the aiji’s bodyguard was cut loose to operate, they would not be happy about it, they were ignobly set on a bus somewhere in this mess, and whether they were reliable in man’chi or whether they were in fact gone soft—that lot, with or without Ismini, would be up ahead of the column, no question, demanding precedence for themselves, maybe in a position to move near the dowager, who knew? The whole train of thought made him extremely uneasy.

Their perso

Had it been Banichi? Or was he still out there?

“So have they found her? Are we going to the head of the line?”

As the universe ought to be ordered, in Cajeiri’s intentions, indeed. And it had not been Banichi boarding. They were moving up to fuel. They negotiated their way past ten to fifteen vehicles, including three cars, and made it to the single pump, where they stopped. The door opened. Several of their people got off to attend the mechanics of it. But there was no car.

Cajeiri immediately got up and began to force his way through the aisle. Bren flung himself out of his seat and caught the princely arm, only marginally ahead of Jegari and Antaro.

“The young gentleman should by no means get off the bus,” Bren said.

“We were not getting off,” Cajeiri said, indignantly freeing himself, and simultaneously managing a look out the other window.

“We are looking for great-grandmother out the front window. It is our right! And Jegari will go.”

“Jegari will not go,” Bren said, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “By no means. Banichi will be out there talking to Cenedi, if the dowager is here, and that is quite sufficient. A young man could as easily be left behind by accident, and this is no safe place to be walking about, young sir, not for you nor for your staff.”

The fuel cap was off, a great deal of clatter at the rear. He heard the nozzle go in, he thought, hoped they were fueling apace by now.

Adult privilege, he worked his own way forward to see what there was to see up by the door.

There Tano found him, in the press in the aisle. “The dowager has fueled and gone ahead,” was Tano’s unwelcome news. “It would be foolish not to top off fuel now that we are stopped, nandi. We do not know what the way ahead may present us. But we do have this station secure, and a team has gone up the line by rail to control the switching point up by Coagi. No train coming from Shejidan will get past that barrier.”

That was good news. The rail would be physically shunted over to divert any train coming toward them out of the south, not only from the direction of Shejidan, but, the way the rail lines branched, out of the extreme south, where Murini’s strongest support lay. And any such hostile train, once stopped, would be boarded and dealt with, no question.

“More,” Tano said, “we have been given maps of where more widely scattered fuel can be had, and they are passing these to the column. Certain of the rearmost of this column will fan out from here and use farm tanks and rejoin our route later. More are coming in to join us.”

“Do you know whether the Kadagidi are coming, Tano-ji?” Bren asked. “Will they attack Tirnamardi, or come after us?”

“They will not attack an empty house,” Tano answered him, confirming his own opinion. “But they have not been as forward to attack us as one might expect, nandi. And we have passed word of our movement to Guild in the capital.”

How? And meaning what? Bren asked himself, his heart skipping a beat. “To Guild officials?” he asked. “We blew up their leader, did we not? Forgive me, Tano-ji.” The last, because Guild affairs had fairly well spilled out of him, asking what he should by no means ask.

“We have advised certain Guild members, nandi. Forgive me.”

The radio was active again, a faint ti