Inheritor (41 page)

He walked in that direction. She did, and opened the door and let him in.

He stood while she lit a match, and a candle. It was a room no different from his, except for the stack of baggage in the corner, a stack of mostly black objects.

He shut the door. And Jago looked at him, her eyes reflecting a disconcerting shimmer of gold.

"Are we safe with the dowager?" he whispered.

"One believes so, nand' paidhi."

Nand' paidhi. He was vaguely disappointed. About what, he didn't know, and told himself he was a fool, but he couldn't but be conscious of her as someone he'd intimately trusted half a year ago; and he felt — he wasn't sure. Set aside. Something like that.

"The aiji is aware of the situation," Jago said, and then, straight-faced. "Should we whisper?"

At first he was moved to laugh and then thought of Jase next door.

"Our hearing isn't that acute," he said in a low voice. "What's going on, Jago-ji? As much as you can tell me. I'll rely on you to care for the rest."

"In brief, nadi, it's common knowledge the paidhiin are vacationing in the province. It was a news item yesterday evening, so the boy's appearance is far from amazing."

"Tabini is using us for hunting-bait."

"One would hesitate to put it so inelegantly."

"But true. Is it not?"

"True."

"Meaning persons of ill intent will flock here. — Mogari-nai and the earth station are right across the hill, nadi! We'll draw harm to it!"

A small pause. "Tabini-aiji has considered that proximity."

Not among things the paidhi should know, then. Gunshots on the lawn.

Or such a lawn as this fallen-down place had.

"Don't be out of countenance, nand' paidhi. There is a purpose."

"What purpose?" He tried not to become emotional, which only set atevi on the defensive with that, and not the issue. "I ask you, nadi, whom I greatly respect, are our interests protected?"

"By us, nadi."

"I always have confidence in that, but, nadi —" He didn't know what to say that Jago would understand. After all they'd been through they were back to that, and it was late, and he was not as sharp as he might have been an hour ago, or he was emotionally rattled and trying to think in too many different directions at once.

"What do you wish to say, nadi?" Jago asked.

He looked up at her, in the dark and the dim light that picked out the sparks of metal on her jacket, the gloss of her black skin, the gold shimmer of her steady gaze. And looked down and aside, because there just was no rational approach and the translator had no words. He wanted to ask what Tabini had in mind and he didn't. He found himself in emotional danger, was what, and he had every reason to be concerned for himself.

"I'd better go," he said, and reached back to the latch and ran into the door edge on his way out of this room.

"Nadi?" he heard behind him, quietly. Jago was confused, in itself a sign of the dangerous way he was dealing with things.

He went to his own room, and inside. The candle had burned down to half. Jase was in bed, a lump in the blankets, and didn't react to his coming in.

He stripped down to his underwear in the biting cold from the slit window, was a little conscious of the exposure to that window, and snipers, even as small as that exposure was, and then told himself that there was some kind of electronic perimeter that had warned them of the boy's approach, and that there was probably one of Ilisidi's men posted to guard all those windows, which were certainly too small for an adult ateva, so the hell with it, he said to himself. He had to trust the security. He had no choice.

He sighted a line between there and the end of the bed, and blew out the candle. He managed the transit most of the way, bashed his leg on the far corner post of the bed, and drew a deep breath from Jase.

"Is that you?"

"So far as I know," he muttered, settled from cold air to a cold bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. Jase was a warmth beside him. He shivered and tried not to.

"Find out anything?"

The brain wasn't primed to work. Other things had been in operation. He tried to recover where he'd left Jase in the information flow. "Kid's not a threat," he said. And remembered Jase didn't know anything about anything except they weren't at the beach and Jase wanted to go fishing.

God save them.

"I imagine we'll go riding tomorrow morning. Just be patient. We might ride down to the beach."

"Can you get there from here?"

C

"Far as I know. Or we might go up to Mogari-nai. It's near here. There's an old site there."

"Why are we visiting all these old things?"

The question astonished him. But professional judgment cut in and informed him that it might be ship-culture at work.

And where was Jase to learn the value of anything historic, if his world was the ship?

And where was Jase to derive the value of rare species? Or the concept of saving the ecology, if Jase's view was that of a steel ship and lights that kept a computer's schedule?

Where did one start?

"Understand," he said calmly, into the dark above his head, "that the preservation of all life on this planet is of great value, the animals, the plants, all valuable. So is the record of what lies in the past. Accept that this is valuable, not only to the dowager, but to me. Can you imagine that? They're not just old places."

"I —" Jase said. "I found it very strange to handle the descent pod. To walk in the station corridors. It was — a very lonely place. Very old."

"Atevi feel the same about such places as this. Only add a thousand years to the account. On Mospheira, when you walk into the old earth base command center, and you see all the clocks stopped, on the minute the power went — in the War — Mospheirans feel something like that. So don't call it 'old places.' They're more than that. And you know more than that. Clearly you do."

There was a long silence. Just a living presence in the dark.

"We anticipated — a great deal —" Jase said in a quiet voice, in the human language, "getting here. We didn't know what we'd find. We imagined there'd be changes. But when the station didn't answer our hail, we feared everyone had died."

He tried to imagine that. "It must have been a frightening moment."

"Frightening for a long time, while we were moving in. The systems wouldn't respond. Shut down, on con serve, was what we found. But we didn't know. We were really glad when we found there were human beings alive down here."

"And when you knew atevi had advanced so far?" It was amazing that they hadn't had this conversation already, but they hadn't. "How did you feel?"

"Hopeful," Jase said. "Really hopeful. We were
glad
of it, Bren, I swear to you."

"I think I believe that." He did. "Unfortunately it's not a hundred percent that way on Mospheira."

"The resources," Jase said, "are on
this
side of the strait."

"There are powers on both sides," Bren said, "that want something besides atevi in space." He took a chance. "What does the ship want?"

A little silence there, just a little silence. "The ship wants
somebody
up there that can repair what's broken."

"Wasn't that why the colonists and the crew went separate ways at the beginning? Colonists wouldn't
be
a cheap labor force?"

"It's not like that," Jase said. "It won't
be
like that."

"Damn right," Bren said, "it won't
be
like that."

But they meant, he was sure, different things.

There was silence, then. Maybe Jase thought the topic was getting too dangerous. Maybe, and it was his own notion, there was just nothing they could say to each other until that ship flew, and until they had options.

His mother might have had surgery by now, he thought. He didn't know. He thought, hell, he was within driving distance of the biggest communications post in the world, and he couldn't get a damn telephone? The communications his security had was instant and connected to everywhere but Mospheira. He should have asked for a phone.

He had the whole weight of the atevi government if he wanted to try to extract information, but the whole weight of the atevi government had to be used for atevi purposes and affairs of state, not, dammit, news from his family.

He stared at the dark above him and asked himself what kind of an impression he'd made on Jago, bolting from the room the way he'd done.

He'd have been warmer, distracted from his other problems, at least.

But Banichi would have come in for the night.

He didn't know what he'd have done, or said, or what he'd have explained. Likely Jago and Banichi both would have been amused. He wasn't sure he was capable of laughing at the joke. Not tonight, not now, not as things were.

He heard a quiet snoring beside him. Jase at least was tired enough to sleep. He thought of elbowing Jase in the ribs so
he
could rest; but he decided it wasn't that likely he would for a while.

Rest, however, just lying on his back on a surface that didn't move, piled high with blankets in a bed that was getting warm in air that was almost cold enough for frost…

He heard an engine.

Distant, but clearly an engine where none belonged.

No reason to be alarmed. There was a perimeter set.

His security was not going to allow anything to slip up on them. Neither was Ilisidi's.

But what in hell? he wondered.

He heard it come closer, and closer, and finally saw the faintest hint of light touch the wall and vanish.

More engines — than lights.

Vehicles were moving about inside the perimeter.

The snoring had stopped.

"What's that?" Jase asked. In Ragi.

"I don't know." He flung the blankets aside and got up, barefoot, in his underwear, and felt his way around the end of the bed. He went to the window, in the cold draft, as Jase got up on his side of the bed and joined him in looking out.

"Security, maybe?" Jase asked.

"I don't know. Nothing Jago made me aware of."

"You suppose everything's all right?"

It was on a side of the building not exposed to their view. The back side, he thought. As the vehicles had come up from that side.

There was a time he'd have run to Jago a couple of doors down and asked for explanation. But this time the conspiracy was of his arranging, and he still didn't know the extent of it.

He had a sinking feeling if he asked Jago she wouldn't know, either. And that if anything were wrong he'd hear about it from Jago and from Banichi.

Hell, he
hadn't
survived this long by leaving assumptions lie.

"Stay here," he said to Jase and, numb beyond feeling, snatched a blanket for decency and went out into the hall.

It was dark, excepting the candles.

And one of Ilisidi's young men, who stood in the shadows, whose eyes cast back the light.

"What is it?" he asked the man.

"Supplies and such," the man said. "Sleep peacefully, nand' paidhi."

"Banichi," he called out, worried that the mere opening of his door hadn't brought his security out of the soundest sleep. "Jago?"

"One believes they're helping below, nand' paidhi."

"I'll talk to them," he said. "You have communications."

"Yes, nand' paidhi." The man drew the pocket com out and flicked the switch. "Nandi. The paidhi would wish to speak to his security."

There was a reply he couldn't hear: the man had it against his ear. But he gave it to Bren.

"Banichi-ji?" he asked.

"
Bren-ji
?" It was Banichi, he had no doubt of that voice. "
Is there a problem
?"

"Is there reason for us to get dressed and come down?"

"No, nodi. Go to sleep. Everything is fine. We'll be early to rise."

"Well enough, then. Good night. Take care, nadi-ji." He handed the com back to its owner, feeling foolish on the one hand, himself with frozen feet and one fc" frozen shoulder, and gave a courteous sketch of a bow, having doubted the man's authority, before going back to the room.

Jase had lit a candle. It was something Jase had seen servants do. From him, it was a piece of ingenuity. Jase stood there holding it, in his underwear, shielding the light from the gust produced by the door and the window.

"What's happening?" Jase whispered.

"It's all right." He didn't whisper. He whisked the blanket off and put it back on the bed. Tucked the foot of it in.

And got in. Jase said, "I hurt my leg getting the matches."

Jase had. He could see the skinned knee. Jase had taken a fall in the dark and he was mad.

"Sorry. Want a bandage? I'm sure the man outside can get one."

"No," Jase said, brought the candle to bed and then went back after something, probably the matches. It wasn't natural to think of both. Not in Jase's world.

Jase blew the light out and, Bren guessed, set the candle and the matches on the floor beside the bed and got in, half frozen, Bren was sure. He felt Jase's silence as a reproach. He'd deceived Jase too often, too long, and now Jase took for granted that was the final answer: it wasn't just Jase's rules-following soul.

"I'm a little worried," he said to Jase.

There was no answer. Jase
was
mad; and shivering beside him, which might be the cold sheets; and might be the situation.

"I don't think they want us to know everything that's happening," Bren said. "Jase, I'm telling you the truth, things may be all right. But there's been a lot going on in the world, and it's just possible things are a bit more complicated than seemed."

"You want me to ask."

He didn't even know what he was trying to say. "I just want you to know — I asked the dowager to show you the old ways. I wanted to help you. I wanted you to have the advantage I've had — in learning about atevi."

"So I won't make a fool of myself?"

It was his turn to be quiet. Jase had a knack, as he supposed he did, for taking the most delicately offered sentiment, and turning it inside out.

"Thanks," Jase said after a while. "Thanks for the thought."