The particular beach, Naigi, was the recessed shore of a region where Toby had fished before, a stretch of small islands and stony reefs. Tano had been there. There was a consultation of maps, a discussion of neighboring villages.
It was not a place inviting to boats of deep draft, another good point.
Yolanda arrived in the conference. “I’ve provided a short list of names in that area,” she said. “I have no way of knowing whether they’re still reliable.”
“The worst thing,” Banichi said, “will be to make a move and hesitate. It would lose lives of those who may attempt to support us. We are here. We have transport, nandi. We should go.”
There was a simple way of looking at it: if anyone did attempt to organize anything on the mainland in their support, they could not leave them exposed and unsupported, and they dared not go asking for support in every possible place, for fear of Kadigidi assassins moving in on the situation.
“We should move as soon as possible,” Banichi said, “and get as far from our landing as possible. If the dowager agrees.”
Cenedi agreed, and went and waked the dowager, who, Cenedi quickly reported, ordered them to gather only their necessary baggage, and by all means, depart as soon as the night was dark enough.
Plenty of time, then, to reach Shawn, not by phone, but by the services of one of their marine guards, who simply went downstairs with a sealed note, got into a car and took the twenty-minute drive to the Presidential residence.
Shawn interrupted his supper with his wife to send a message back by the same courier:
The escort will act with all prudence and cooperation. The shuttle is under marine guard and will remain so around the clock, come what may. Give whatever orders you need regarding supplies and support. This man has his instructions, and the authority to do what you need. Good luck, Bren, to you and all those with you.
Meanwhile they had done their re-packing, unnecessary personal items stowed in Yolanda’s care, the shuttle crew briefed—and privately informed of Yolanda’s limits of authority.
The only remaining difficulty was getting over to the marina, and for that the marines were ready: four large vans and an escort turned up at the hotel service entrance, out between the trash bins. Marine guards stood by to assure their safety from the curious in the hotel— no few curtains parted on floors above, letting out seams of light, but they proceeded in the dark, except the lights of the vans, and they packed in as quickly as possible, Toby accompanying them and all their baggage piled aboard, for the brief transit from the hotel to the waterfront.
Masts stood like a winter forest beyond the dark glass as they turned in at the marina gate, the dockside floodlit, boats standing white on an invisible black surface, as if they floated in space. The vans ripped along past the ghostly shapes of yachts some of which Bren knew—the extravagant
Idler
was one, and the broad-beamed and somewhat elderly
Somerset
—the
Somerset
had used to take school children out on harbor tours, happy remembrance, incongruous on this nighttime and furtive mission.
The vans braked softly and smoothly, at the edge of a small floating dock.
Toby led the way out of the van, led the way down the heaving boards toward a smallish, smartly-kept vessel among the rich and extravagant, a boat rigged for blue water fishing, not cocktail gatherings. It was not the boat Toby had once had, Bren saw, but a new one. The
Brighter Days,
was the name on her stern. A ship’s boat rode behind her, at separate tie.
The dowager walked down the boards with Cajeiri and Cenedi, using her cane, but briskly, with a fierce and renewed energy—a curious sight for her, surely, to find such a large gathering of lordly boats: one or two was more the rule on the atevi coast, yachts tending to tie up at widely scattered estates. But for all that, it might have been one of the larger towns on the other side, with a working boat, a fisherman, bound out under lights, a freighter offloading on the shabbier side of the harbor, in the distance.
And the city lights, the high rises—nothing at all like that on the mainland, where tiled roofs gathered, all dull red, showing very little light at night except the corner lanterns on streets as winding and idiosyncratic as they had been for a thousand years.
Towers, glittering with lights. Streets laid out on a grid, relentless, as strange to atevi eyes as the architecture of a kyo ship.
A long journey, there and here. And another, in the dead of night.
Toby reached the boat first, ran aboard and ran out a little gangway, with a safety rope, no less—on the old boat it had been a thick, springy plank. Bren moved up close behind, not sure whether he would dare lay a hand on the aiji-dowager if she should falter, but ready to help if she did.
No need to worry. The dowager waved all of them off and crossed onto the deck quite handily. It was Cajeiri that had to make a grab for the rope, and Cenedi grabbed him instantly and pulled him aboard.
“New boat,” Bren said to Toby in going aboard.
“My great indulgence,” Toby said. “The marriage was going. We split the investments.”
“Very nice.” The whole of Toby’s finance. Everything was in this boat. And Toby lent it to a hazardous effort that could get it shot up, could take him and all of them to the bottom. He walked the afterdeck, looking apprehensively around him—and, next to the boom, had a sudden thought of Cajeiri and that lethal item. “Young sir.” He snagged the heir unceremoniously—the boy seemed a little dazed. “This large horizontal timber is the boom. When the ship maneuvers, this may sweep across the deck very fast without warning. You may not hear it. It might sweep an unwary person right overboard or do him mortal injury. Kindly keep an eye to it at all times and stay out of its path.”
“Shall we spread the sails now, nandi?” Cajeiri asked, bright-eyed in the dark, with a whole boatload of unfamiliarity about him—but he had seen all those movies. “Do we have cannon?”
“We have no cannon. We have our bodyguards’ pistols. And whether we spread the sails—there are two—that depends on the winds, young sir. We have an engine as well.” Then he lost his train of thought completely, seeing Barb come up the dark companionway onto the dimly lit deck, a trim and casual Barb, with her formerly shoulder-length hair in bouncy short curls. She wore cut-off denims and a striped sweater—every inch the Saturday boater.
She saw him. And stopped cold.
“Good to see you,” he said as they confronted each other, a lie, but he was trying to be civil. “Toby told me you were here.”
“Bren.” As if she didn’t know what to say beyond that. Meanwhile Toby was trying to communicate in sign language and mangled Ragi where things had to be stowed, and Bren gratefully realized he had a job to do, directing duffles into bins and nooks, explaining where life-preservers were located, where the emergency supplies were, all the regulation things—and indicating to Ilisidi the stairs down to a comfortable bunk, a cabin of her own.
“A seat,” Ilisidi said, contrarily, “on the deck, nand’ paidhi. We enjoy the sea air.”
And the foreign goings-on, he thought. Those sharp eyes missed nothing, not even in the dark, where, one had to recall, atevi eyes were very able. They shimmered gold in the indirect light of the deck lantern, like the eyes of a mask, and the fire died and resumed again as she swung a glance to her great-grandson. “Boy! Stay away from the rail. Find a place and sit down!”
A sheltered bench beside the companionway, against the wall, a blanket for a wrap against the wind that would be fierce and cold once they started moving, although, Bren recalled, the dowager favored breakfasts on the balcony in Malguri’s ice-cold winds. She inhaled deeply as he settled her into that seat, her cane nestled between her knees, pleased, he thought, pleased and somber in the occasion. He had no wish to intrude into those thoughts, and went to help Toby.
No chance. Toby bounded ashore to unmoor them, tossed in the buffers as Barb started up the engine, a deep thunder and a rush of water. Toby hopped aboard, hauled in the gangway with an economy of motion and took the wheel as the boat began to drift away from the dock, bringing them away with a smooth, easy authority.
A team. Clearly. Bren stood against the rail, watched the water in front of them, the white curl of a little bow-wave, the space between the moored yachts reflecting a slight sheen of the few marina lights as they moved down the clear center of the aisle. Masts shifted past them, lines against the light.
Their own running lights flicked on. The bow light. There were rules, and they didn’t make themselves conspicuous by the breach of them, though their own lights blinded them and it would have been easier to steer by starlight. Barb had moved forward, past the deckhouse, to take up watch in the bows, and stayed there until they nosed into the open waterway.
Now Toby throttled up, and they ran the outward channel, just a fishing boat getting an early start, to any casually inquisitive eye.
They passed the breakwater, a tumbled mass of broken city pavings, and now Toby kicked the speed up full, getting them well away from the marina, well out into the dark. Wind swept over the deck, cold as winter ice.
Banichi and Jago had found a place to sit, on the life-jacket locker. Tano and Algini had gone forward, likewise some of Ilisidi’s men, and Cajeiri, leaving the bench seat near the companionway, immediately worked his way forward, too, into the teeth of the wind and the chill, staggering a little, this child who had grown accustomed to dice games in free fall and tumbling about like a
wi’itikin
in flight—he had yet to find his land legs again, let alone take his first boat trip and find sea legs, and Ilisidi’s bodyguard was watching him closely everywhere he went. Cenedi got to his feet and quietly signaled one of his men to stay close to him.
Then Toby shut the engine down, walked over and began to hoist the sail. Bren twitched, almost moved to help his brother, old, old teamwork, that—he had taken a step in that direction, full of enthusiasm. But Barb turned up out of the dark, got in before him, working with Toby, all their moves coordinated—laughter passing between them, laughter which belonged to them, together.
A lot had happened. A great lot had happened, while he’d been gone.
The sail snapped taut—Cajeiri had run back to marvel at it, staggering hazardously against the rail in the process. The boat leaned, steadied to a different motion. The wind began to sing to them.
No right, he said to himself, no right to say a thing, or to insinuate himself into that partnership of Toby’s and Barb’s, not so early in his return, not while things were still fragile and both Toby and Barb were still defensive. He knew Barb, knew there was a streak of jealousy, sensed she’d moved particularly fast to get back and lend Toby a hand, nothing chance or unthought about it. He only sat and watched, letting Barb have her way, wishing his brother had twigged to that move, a little glad, on the other hand, if he hadn’t. He didn’t want to foul them up, didn’t want Barb’s worse qualities to get to the fore, things Toby might never yet have seen. Might never see. At the breakup, when it came, they’d both brought their worst attributes to the fray, he and Barb both. They’d seen behaviors in each other he hoped the world would never see again.
A feeling meanwhile crept up from the deck, that familiar thrumming sound of the wind in the rigging. The vibration carried into the bones, the gut, bringing him memories of past trips, past expeditions, fishing on the coast, a wealth of smells and sounds and sensations—it might have been a decade ago. The whole world might have been different, pristine, less complicated.
The wind moved, and the sea moved, and they moved over it, reestablishing a connection to the planet itself. Home, he told himself. Everything could be solved, in a breath of that cold air.
Had there been a voyage? Was there a space station and a ship swinging overhead? Was the whole world changed? He was back. He had never left. Nothing had changed.
Except him. Except what he knew, and what he had on his shoulders to do.
He drew a deep breath and hung isolated, between worlds, waiting for the sunrise to come over a planetary rim. Then his eyes shut, once, twice. He wrapped his arms about himself and slept his way to dawn.
6
S
unrise still held a favorable breeze—indicative of weather moving toward the continent, in this season, and the
Brighter Days
ran before the wind with a continual hum of rigging and hull. It was a glorious motion, an enveloping rush of water.
And it was impossible to keep Cajeiri out of the works: Algini, taking his turn at Cajeiri-watch, took the young rascal in charge before breakfast, assuring he stayed aboard and uninjured, explaining the tackle and the working of the sail, explaining—Algini having once lived near the sea—how a wind not exactly aft drove the boat forward, and the mathematics of it all. Cajeiri sopped it up like a sponge—his other guards had not been so knowledgeable—and dogged Algini’s steps like a worshipful shadow.
Breakfast—chili hot from the galley—met universal approval, even from the dowager, who thought this strange spicy offering might go well on eggs, if they had had any.
Afterward Algini put out a line, baited it, set Cajeiri in charge of it, and the boy promised fish for lunch.
It was tight quarters, over all: everyone wanted to be on deck at all times, and atevi even trying to watch their elbows took up more room than the ten humans who might have been quite comfortable on the boat. Bren was constantly cold—Jago and Banichi found occasion to stand close to him, warming him and blocking the wind.
But the dowager, who had sailed often enough in her youth in Malguri, left her bench, and rose and walked about the tilting deck, to everyone’s acute concern, no one but Cenedi daring to keep close to her.