Conspirator

The boat came right by their bow, towering over them with a loud racket of the engine, and fought to stay there. Their boat bumped into that pristine white hull and turned and grated against it.

Two men then. One flung out a rope with a weight on the end of it, and shouted, “Make that fast!”

Jegari and Antaro scrambled to do that, wrapping it about the middle seat, that being what they could reach. Another weighted line came down to them, and Cajeiri let go the tiller and grabbed it.

Smack! They ran into the side of the big boat. He fell off his seat, and held to the rope, and scrambled in freezing water to tie the rope somewhere, anywhere, which turned out to be the bar across the tiller opening.

“Are you attached?” a big voice shouted. It was Banichi. Surely it was Banichi; and he shouted, “Yes, nadi-ji! Both lines now!”

“Who has no vest?” he heard, above, and then saw, in the wandering and bobbing of the spotlight, another rope come down to them. “Tie that around you!”

“Antaro, go!” Cajeiri yelled out. “Now! Hurry! Get loose and clear the way!”

Antaro unbuckled her belt, then got on her knees and, steadied by her brother, grabbed the line, wrapped it about herself several times. It went taut and hauled her up.

“You next, nandi!” Jegari called out. “Go!”

That was reasonable. He and Jegari both had floatation vests. He lurched upright, grabbed Jegari and the rope came down again, and he wrapped it around and around himself and held onto the rope’s end.

Immediately, he was yanked up like a fish on a line, dragged painfully over a small steel rail and dumped onto the deck.

“Rope!” Banichi’s voice shouted next, and another man— it must be Algini—raked the rope off him and threw it down again, all the while the boats grated together and thumped and banged. Cajeiri clawed after the railing and clung to it trying to see, with the rain coming down and the spotlight bouncing up and down.

In the next moment a hand seized him unceremoniously by the back of his life vest and jerked him up, hauled him around.

“Banichi-ji!” he protested, but Banichi shoved him against the railing and shouted, “Hang on with both hands, young gentleman!”

Hang on he did. He grabbed the rail and hung on with both arms, this time. He was cold as ice, and begi

Last, Tano shouted up at the others and Banichi and Algini together hauled him up to his feet, dripping wetc Cajeiri had the reflected light off the superstructure to show him their faces, all desperate, all dripping and drowned in the rain, and immediately Banichi seized him around the ribs and just carried him, so tightly he was close to throwing up, he was so cold and so clenched up.

He saw the doorway from his sideways vantage, the lighted white door. The lighted wooden floor—amazingly real—came up at him and righted itself as Banichi heaved him somewhat upright. The world had been all lightning-shot black, and now it had wonderful things like polished wood, and railings to hold to, and warmth.

He saw nand’ Bren at the wheel, very relieved and very worried at once. “Is that all of you?” he asked, “is that everybody with you?”

“Yes, nandi,” Cajeiri managed to say, teeth chattering. “We are all aboard.”

“We are too close to shore,” Bren said. “Cast the tender free, ’Nichi-ji!”

“Yes,” Banichi said, and was off, and the door shut again.

Cajeiri saw a bench and got up and sank down on it, dripping wet. The big boat was so much more stable. The air was almost thick, it was so warm, compared to outside.

He saw Bren turn the wheel furiously, and heard the boat’s engines labor as the deck pitched.

They could not wreck nand’ Bren’s boat on the shore. They must not. Between Antaro and Jegari, Cajeiri clamped his teeth on his lip and clenched the edge of the white-painted bench, just holding on as Bren jammed the power on.

Something scraped all down the hull of the boat, and was gone, and then the boat righted itself and the engine sounded different, freer, more powerful: buffets from the waves came at the bow of the boat, and these came faster and faster as the boat took another turn, increasing power.

Then nand’ Bren looked easier, too, easing his grip on the wheel, concentrating on the view out the windows, and occasionally down at something Cajeiri could see lighted on the counter.

“One is extremely sorry, nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri offered. “One is very extremely sorry.”

Nand’ Bren did not speak to him, not immediately, and that meant nand’ Bren was probably framing an educational remark, something he might think adequate to the situation. It was taking a very, very long time to come out, or to organize itself, or possibly a long time for nand’ Bren to surmount his temper, and Cajeiri began to agonize about the adequacy of his response, right along with nand’ Bren.

“Nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri said finally, breaking the deathly silence that hovered above the rumble of the boat engine and the noise of the thunder. “Nand’ Bren, one understands that our stupidity has exceeded all previous limits, and that we have exposed you to the displeasure of my house, which is entirely unjustified, and we shall tell our father so. We are all three extremely grateful to you and your guard for our rescue, because we could have been killed—though one was making the most earnest efforts to steer the boat and to reach the shore. We are most sorry. We shall obey all instructions from your staff. We shall ask funds from our father to pay your estate for the boat, which we in no way intended to destroy; and we shall pay for the damage to your boat. And we shall forever observe much, much better sense than we did in going out on the water. We shall be much wiser from now on, nand’ Bren.”

He ran entirely out of breath: his teeth were chattering so he had had trouble getting that much out. But he added, because he had to know: “Have you told my father, nandi?”

“Yes. And the aiji-dowager is aware. You should know, young gentleman, that she had turned back to Shejidan after the incident of your freight train. She started home a second time and has now turned around a second time in mid-flight, hearing you were lost, and come here. She will be arriving at the estate, and one is about to call her to inform her you are safe, now that we are somewhat on even keel.”

Great-grandmother. Two flights turned around. He wasin great difficulty.

He sat absolutely still while Bren took up the handset, punched buttons, and made a call, first to nand’ Toby, and to Jago aboard nand’ Toby’s boat, telling them to come about, that he had them all; and next to a Lord Baiji, which seemed to be another boat, thanking him very much for his assistance in locating them.

And then nand’ Bren called the estate, which took several tries before he succeeded.

“Nadi,” he said to the person who answered, “inform the grandmother that the lost is found and securely aboard. Request of the grandmother that she inform the relatives. You are breaking up, nadi.”

At last he put down the handset and remarked, “One hopes they heard all of that.”

“One is very, very sorry, nandi.” Cajeiri found himself shivering, and where he and the others sat was now the source of a very large puddle, which was ru

“There is weather gear in the locker,” nand’ Bren said. “Put it on for warmth.”

“Yes,” Antaro said, and got up and brought back two raincoats. She wrapped one around him and put the other around her and Jegari despite the boat pitching about. It was warmer, very much warmer, already, and Cajeiri began to shiver.