Conspirator

He had thought their situation could not get worse. But the clouds were getting taller as the sun sank lower, and their wind was sinking as it became a reddish sky with purple clouds.

Sunset dyed the water orange where it was not gray. The sky looked thoroughly ill-omened.

They were not moving much, now: the sail flapped. And when he began to wish for a wind, he could only think how storms did come in, swept in on a lot of wind.

With that cloud building to the west, there would be a storm wind coming down on them, pushing them toward land, for certain. But rain was coming, almost certainly, and more water inside the boat meant less difference between the water outside and the water inside.

Which could mean, besides them being very wet and cold and exposed to lightning, that their boat could just fill up and sink. They could throw water out: they had a little metal cup that rolled around under the tiller seat, but if the waves got rough, their boat was very low to the water.

That was a scary thought.

It was very scary.

Chapter 8

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The Brighter Daysrode off to starboard of Jeishan, at the limit of vision, while the sun came down into rising clouds. The Najiminda headland showed as a dark rim on the lee side—a situation which afforded a little hope: that if the wind got up, the lee shore might receive a drifting boat.

Calls to the estate had turned up the information that, yes, the sailboat had oars aboard, as well as the two life preservers: the major domo was very sure of that. But whether the youngsters could row with any skill, or enough strength, was a question.

Fisherfolk had come out past the end of the bay, a fair-sized little fleet, and used their knowledge of the currents to scour the coastline and likely rocks. The wind, which had backed around once, had been fickle, but that cloud on the horizon would bring a driving wind as well as strong waves—two other forces that might push the little boat, this time shoreward and across the current. But waves could easily swamp the boat, in a moment if the youngsters let the boat go broadside to the waves. The boat could survive in the hands of an expert: but one mistake, one miscalculation, and they would just roll under and come ashore like those mysterious splinters of driftwood— from some boat, a long, long time ago.

They had to find them, was all—before the gust front got here.

The dowager’s plane should be landing soon—and now they had one search plane aloft, sca

Lord Baiji was out from Kajiminda in Geigi’s yacht, searching that outer coast, and all their people who had boats, no few, made a net as tight across Kajidami Bay as they had people to make. Therewas their greatest hope, because the main current ran as it ran, generally southward, and it swept inward right there, give or take what the storm did to the waves. Lord Baiji and the Edi folk were a vast catch-net, to prevent the strayed boat from getting out of their search area.

And if the young gentleman and his companions turned out, after all this, to be asleep under some hedgerow along the estate road—having lost the boat on launch—

Or if the tide had taken the boat, and the youngsters were out on some lark—

He would be outstandingly reasonable if that proved ultimately the case. If it was all a mistake, a missed communication— he would be so everlastingly grateful.

But as evening came on, as time elapsed with no word from the estate, the more likely their almost-worst fears became, that the youngsters were out here in the path of the storm— their worst fears being that the small boat had already capsized out here in rougher water and the youngsters were at the bottom of the bay.

But, he told himself, it was a wooden boat. It wouldn’t just sink. It would float along capsized, if the youngsters had sense enough to stay with it and cling to it and its balloon of trapped air—an overturned boat was a far, far easier thing to spot than one boy in all that water. The Taibeni youngsters would insist that Cajeiri should wear that bright yellow life vest. Cajeiri would, of course, insist otherwise.

This time Bren prayed the Taibeni overruled the young gentleman.

“The dowager has landed, nandi,” the estate called to report.

“Do as she asks in all particulars,” he said, knowing there wasn’t much his estate could do more than they had done. They had both boats out, every fisherman was out, Lord Geigi’s people were out, and there was nothing Ilisidi could do, except deploy her young men out along the roads where village folk were already searching, and look with whatever high-tech gear her bodyguard had brought with them—that was one hope she brought with her—that, and the fact that the aiji now knew, and would be deploying his own people, a presence that did not a

But now the light was fading fast, and lightning flickered in the clouds to the west, which loomed up taller and taller. The wind had not changed—yet. But that front was rolling in fast. Radar, they had, but the sailboat had no reflector, and radar thus far picked up nothing—because the boat was so low and so small—

That, or because the boat was not there to be found. But he refusedto think that.

Out on deck, Banichi and Tano and Algini relied on their night vision, having requested the ru

Ilisidi had not called: that was for security reasons, but he talked to the house, off and on, reporting indirectly about the “lost child.” If the aiji’s enemies could not put two and two together, with the aiji-dowager having landed at the local airport, they were asleep tonight. But things were as they were.

More lightning, this time with the rumble of thunder, and Bren cast a routine glance at the fuel gauge, thinking that the same wind blew both bad and good—both saved them fuel and made the location of the little boat an even chancier guess.

Big bolt, that split the sky end to end of the windshield, and threw the bow railing of the boat and his bodyguard into stark contrast to the darkening water.

Then a beep from the radio alerted him to a call, and he fumbled the headset up, keeping one hand on the wheel. “This is the paidhi-aiji. Go ahead.”

“This is Baiji out of Kajiminda, nand’ paidhi. Radar has picked up one brief anomaly.”

“Bearing?” he asked, white-knuckled on the wheel, and he absorbed it to memory and signed off abruptly, having no hand to spare to write it down in grease pencil on the chart until he had dropped the headset. He steered blind for a moment, trying to figure that location on the chart relative to Jeishan.

Baiji could only be approximate in location: it might have been a piece of flotsam. If he left the search pattern, it left a gap in their net, maybe a critical one.

But it was the first hope they had had.

He snatched up the headset again. Called Toby’s boat. Jago answered.