Intruder (14 page)

Now he put them in for where he had allies.

He put a black pin in Dur, up in the northern Isles, and a second one for the Gan people who lived next to them—he had met the Grandmother of the Gan at Najida, when she had been visiting the Edi, and she had been very interested in him.

He put a black pin in the mountains where Lucasi and Veijico came from; another in Port Jackson, clear across the strait on Mospheira, for nand’ Toby and Barb-daja.

He put a black pin in Najida estate, which was Lord Bren and all his staff. He put one in Najida village, where he had met the Grandmother of the Edi and all her people, and was sure they favored him.

He put a pin at Kajiminda for Lord Geigi, who was especially nice to him, and another near Kajiminda, where the Edi were building a new estate, which had to be counted in the future.

And another black pin at Taiben, to the north of Shejidan, for Antaro and Jegari’s relatives and his father’s relatives, too. Taiben was as sure as it was possible to be.

Then there were his other relatives: a reluctant black pin in Ajuri territory, northwest of Taiben, where his mother’s father was lord. One very certain pin way across the continental divide, in Malguri, which was Great-grandmother, and one just next to it, that was Lady Drien, who was Great-grandmother’s cousin and a close ally through Great-grandmother. She was old, and old-fashioned, but she was influential.

One important one went just north of Shejidan, in Atageini clan territory, and next to Taiben: that was Tirnamardi, for Great-uncle Tatiseigi of the Atageini clan.

There was no way to get a pin that represented the space station, but he set one in the margin, for five associates up in orbit—and for Lord Geigi.

That was thirteen pins, a felicitous number, but he decided to be honest and not to stop counting. He stuck another, number fourteen, in the margin. That was for Jase-aiji, up on the station;
Jase-aiji was one of the ship-captains, and Jase-aiji would stand by him.

Fourteen, however, was infelicitous and full of omens of division. Fifteen was not much better, and sixteen was infelicity stacked on infelicity. Seventeen was the most stable felicity until nineteen, and he did not know how to reach it unless he counted some pairs separately, and that had infelicities in itself.

Doggedly then, and with confidence in Lord Bren, he stuck a second pin right in the left coast of the Marid for Lord Machigi. He had never met Lord Machigi, but he would meet him, he was certain; when he did, he would get Lord Machigi on his side somehow.

Well, that bettered the count, but he desperately needed two more pins. Two more to felicity and stability, and he did not know where to get them.

Two more, and the numbers might make him safe from the impending baby. And he could not think where to get them, in the heavens or on earth.

Right now the numbers were unstable: fourteen was fortunate sevens, multiplied and divisible by two: the omen was bad, especially counting the second offspring due in the house.

But his relationships covered all the continent and extended onto Mospheira and clear up to the space station, including humans and two tribes and six clans. The new baby was going to have Ajuri and Taiben and Atageini by birth, but the rest were not so easy to get.

He might get the Atageini even more to his side if he was particularly nice to Uncle Tatiseigi. A younger brother was bound to make mistakes that would make Uncle mad. He had begun badly with Uncle, but he was sure he looked better to Uncle Tatiseigi right now than any runny-nosed baby would look for years and years. Uncle was not that fond of babies.

And he could put adult manners on whenever he wanted to. He had had Great-grandmother for a teacher. He knew how to impress anybody he wanted to impress.

He put in white pins for the baby’s sure interests. Taiben, for Father; Ajuri for Mother; Tirnamardi for Uncle; and a white one in Malguri, too, he supposed, which made an infelicity of four…and then he thought: the baby will not have grown up being taught by Great-grandmother. So she will always prefer
me.
If she ever has to choose, she will prefer
me.

There is his first infelicity. I am first, I was on the ship with mani, she thumped me on the ear—a lot—and Mother and Father will never let her teach him in anything like that way.

There were many, many more black pins than white. Both counts ended on infelicity—but the baby’s far more so.

Could the baby possibly get a five, for nand’ Bren? That was a worry. Nand’ Bren was softhearted toward everybody. But nand’ Bren would not prefer the baby: nand’ Bren did not turn away from his associates. That meant no fifth pin. He was
first.
The baby would be born with only four.

He was much, much happier with that thought.

And he had no fear anyone was going to come in here and read the calculations of his map. It was not that evident what it represented, that was one thing, and he had just secured his rooms, with the loyalty of two servants whose future—it was not stupid to think—lay most securely with
him,
even if he was only infelicitous eight.

He was so soon to be nine, probably before his sib was born; he absolutely refused to share his birthday.

The plane touched down and rolled to a stop in the dark, the blue field lights obscuring any view of Shejidan. They were almost home. For luggage, there were only the carry-bags for classified Guild equipment, a little extra luggage of Bren’s, and the two fair-sized crates Machigi had sent. Airport security staff and workers under their supervision moved up carts to manage the crates and get them into the waiting van. Jago carried Bren’s bag as well as her own, and they all descended from the plane and
boarded the van with the efficiency and speed of a routine arrangement.

It was a fast trip across the field, over to the open-air airport train station, then into a small enclosed platform where a Special waited—only one passenger car was attached, this trip, and plus the baggage car, and Guild security held both ready for their boarding.

The crates had to be loaded to baggage; Algini stayed to supervise that, while the rest of them climbed aboard the passenger car—Tabini-aiji’s own car, with dark red velvet curtains making the inside much nicer than the all but windowless outside. It was the same bench seat at the rear that Bren always took, and it was like any return from Mospheira. Any visit to Malguri. Any visit to Taiben—going back for years and years of service to Tabini-aiji.

At the start of it, he’d flown where they could find room for him and hung about reading and doing work in a cubbyhole, waiting for some train from the Bujavid hill to pick up groceries and afford the paidhi-aiji a seat somewhere.

Bren let go a slow sigh, as, without even asking, Jago handed him a fruit drink from the well-stocked little fridge this luxury car afforded. It was innocent of alcohol—a good call. God, he was tired. Physically tired, but not so much as mentally tired.

And he was finally past the point of needing his wits about him. That was a relief. His wits had had all the exercise they could stand.

He felt he was already home as the train began to move. He knew every turn in the track from here on, and he saw relaxation slowly set into his bodyguard as well, everything became as predictable and as safe as it ever could be.

Not to depend on, however. The news was probably leaking out about the Marid contact.
That
would racket through the rumor mill. It would touch off crazy people. And animate sane ones who had opposing interests.

The bullet-shield curtains were drawn on the one window that actually was a window; they almost always were drawn. If they hadn’t been, at about this turn, one could have seen the Bujavid on its hilltop, rising up and taking with it some of the mazy tiled roofs of the city. At the bottom, one would see one little spark of outrageous neon at the limit of the classic Old City neighborhoods—and he’d just as soon not see it. He’d been wanting to get that neon display in the hotel district outlawed for years, but he’d never quite found it worth the fight with the very party that generally supported him—the innovators, those who favored human tech and humans, and happened to think neon light was a great tourist attraction.

Another familiar turn about the hill and the train diverted onto the track that only a few trains, and mostly this engine, ever took, the line which led into the tunnel of the Bujavid hill itself.

Still more turns—he was down to the bottom of the fruit juice now. One could tell by the sound and by the reduction in speed, exactly where they were, every detail of the system as they slowly climbed toward the Bujavid train station.

Algini and Banichi silently got up and went back to the hand baggage. Tano, one arm still somewhat impaired, made a move in that direction, pure habit; but Jago got up, put a hand on Tano’s good shoulder, and went back in his stead to help Algini and Banichi. Tano settled again, looking annoyed.

“How is it, Tano-ji,” Bren asked him, “after the flight? Was the pressure change a problem?”

The frown persisted. “Nothing of consequence, Bren-ji.”

“Hurts, then.”

“Not much,” Tano said, moving the shoulder. “It needs exercise.”

“Prescribed exercise,” Bren said staunchly. “And sleeping in your own bed tonight, Tano-ji.”

“Indeed,” Tano said more cheerfully. “And you in yours, Bren-ji. Well-deserved, in your instance.”

The train slowed and slowed further, coming to a halt at a platform Bren could see in his mind. They stopped. The door of the car opened.

Bren took his case in hand and got up. Tano did. They walked back to the door as Banichi opened it, and, behind Algini and Jago and Banichi handling the baggage, Bren stepped down to the platform—a fair hop for a tired human. Just as automatically, Tano reached out his good hand and steadied him in his landing beside the baggage.

“To the lift,” Banichi said, indicating he should not wait about. It was an area crowded with idle carts, offering only freight lifts, not the ordinary passenger siding. Freight had come in recently on another train; crates of seasonal vegetables, probably eggs, and sacks of flour sat on the other side of the platform, at the other freight dock. Their own engine would be in motion again once it had given up its last baggage, moving to stand ready, though reversed on the track, for Tabini’s own occasional use. There was no other inbound traffic at the moment, just a stack of personal crates on the passenger platform indicating that someone else had arrived in the residencies, bringing furniture with them, by the size of the crates—not an uncommon event with the legislature about to go into session.

They left Algini and Tano to arrange things with the crates. Banichi and Jago took their own hand baggage, a light load for them, and they headed toward the quieter area of the platforms, where the lift shafts made a vast pillar, the spine of the hill, going up and up from here. There were the lifts, a bank of them, along with the pipes and conduits, the veins and arteries that carried everything that came from or went into the Bujavid.

There were not many passenger lifts, and none these days went above the main floor or the offices. Banichi and Jago held the door of the one waiting—no lift was going to budge with Banichi in the doorway—and Bren walked in.

Banichi got in. The doors shut. The car went up and up, a considerable rise to the floor of offices above the legislative halls.
There, observed and recognized by the guards on duty, they took themselves and their baggage across to another lift and rode up to the third residential level.

The doors opened quietly and let them out into an elegant hallway of antique carpet runners, porcelains on pedestals, crystal chandeliers, and a sparse choice of individual doors on either hand…among which, to the right, was, finally, his own apartment, a direction he hadn’t taken all year, not since he’d come back from space.

Home. No more Farai clan holding the place hostage. And no more making do as a resident with someone else’s staff—well, there would be a little making-do, for a few days yet, since they hadn’t a master cook, hadn’t all the furniture back, and hadn’t full staffing yet. But that was coming.

And Najida staff was waiting for him, some of whom, including his valets, Supani and Koharu, had a permanent appointment. For the rest, which he very much looked forward to, the very next shuttle flight would bring staff from the apartment on the station—people sorely missed, some who’d flown to deep space with him; and who hadn’t found it possible to get a flight down to meet their own kin on
their
return, nor for the whole year since.

Oh, one could
so
gratefully do with a little dull tranquility and normalcy…at least as much as one could find in an apartment right next door to Tabini’s, and not that far from Lord Tatiseigi and the aiji-dowager, not to mention just upstairs from the legislature, the aiji’s audience hall, the committee offices—

And not to mention, upstairs from his own clerical office, which had reconstituted itself in the last year and was again swamped with correspondence.

Plus he’d have the news services to deal with by tomorrow—but the news people couldn’t get access to the Bujavid train station or the upstairs of the Bujavid.

Maybe he could manage a few days’ respite. Sleep. Sleep would be
good. Sleep under his own roof, so to speak, and with no pressing emergency.

They carried their baggage to their own front door, and they had not even to knock. The ornate doors swung inward from the center, both leaves, and let him and his travel-weary bodyguard all in at once.

Staff waited in the foyer, people from whom they had parted only a few days ago—but all in new jobs and a new place, with smiling faces and happy enthusiasm.

“Nandi.” Supani, his major d’ pro tem, immediately helped him off with the traveling coat. Koharu took that garment from Supani and handed it on to Husaro, who whisked it out of sight for cleaning, to be ready if needed in the morning. And immediately there was a simpler, lighter coat for indoors.

Thus clad, he went doggedly through the company, naming names down to the very young chambermaid, meeting each, thanking them for coming. To the lot, then and especially to the girl, who was only fourteen, he said, “Do advantage yourself of the post whenever you wish, nadi. Send as many cards as you need. One understands several of you are for the first time in the city. So you all must take hours off and go take tours. Go as several together.”