Tracker (31 page)

Well, they had a problem. And they were about to have another, since the Mospheiran shuttle was entering the picture, with a need for their spot at the mast much sooner than they had ever asked of the technical crews.

But viewing that they had Tillington sitting in Central, he left that communication to ground control and Tillington.

“Everything is prepared,”
had been the end of Jase's communication just before dock.
“You can skip customs. Your lift will be routed to station nearest the residency. Lord Geigi will meet you.”

One hoped. He had quietly advised Ilisidi.

“We have the option to remain at the mast, docked,” he had said, regarding whether they should board the station or wait for atevi direction, “but this will become increasingly uncomfortable for us. We shall do better, one thinks, to go ahead.”

“Of course we shall go ahead,” was the dowager's answer. “Shall we be inconvenienced? We shall expect Lord Geigi has things in better order.”

So.

They had, among the few things they did carry, the black bags that remained in Guild hands. They had the atevi crew's communications with atevi ops should they have to call on any outside assistance—and they had the crew riding with them in the lift, inputting their destination.

Not to mention half the station in atevi hands and half the ship captains disposed to their side of an argument, if it came to that.

There were only Mospheiran numbers at the first of their journey, during the long trip up to the horizontal shift. At that point the lift moved sideways, like a train, and there began to be Ragi numbers, then Ragi names on the board: the Fortunate, the Auspicious, the Happy, the Healthy, the Wise and Creditable, and within them, East and West, North and South—such things flickered past in mad succession. Those were sections. They were in Ragi territory.

Until, amid the Celestial, in the North, the lift slowed and stopped, sanely, as tamely as a train coming into the station.

The separating bars retreated smoothly. The door opened.

And Lord Geigi himself, with his bodyguard and several station staff, was there to meet them—a very welcome sight, that round, smiling face, a vast relief.

Jase, however, was
not
there.

Bren took off his mask as others did, slipped the fastenings on the insulated coat and let it slide, stiff as it was with cold, glistening with melted frost. Beside him Ilisidi emerged from the insulated cloak looking as if she made this sort of trip daily. She leaned on her cane, not a hair out of place, and Cenedi took the thick garment over his arm. Tano took Bren's coat, and, as they exited, dropped it on the floor.

The sign on the wall said, in Ragi:
Please deposit your cold suits and masks carefully so as not to obstruct the doors. Station staff will return them.

“Welcome, twice welcome,” Geigi said, with a little bow, with open arms. “Aiji-ma, young aiji, nand' Bren. Welcome.”

“Our Geigi,” Ilisidi said, “is always a pleasant sight.” Thump went her cane on the decking. “We trust all is in reasonable order.”

“In reasonable order indeed, aiji-ma. Your staff is ready to welcome you. Our people are ready to welcome you.”

“And others?” Ilisidi asked sharply.

Geigi bowed slightly. “One regrets to say—there has been some little alarm on the Mospheiran side, which has caused Tillington-aiji to set himself in place, and to refuse to turn Central to us on schedule. We trust this can be remedied.”

“What alarm?” Ilisidi asked. “Have we frightened them?”

“News of the kyo, aiji-ma. There has been some continued concern.”

“Well, well, they are behaving irrationally.” Second thump of the cane, dismissing the matter. “Shall we go, then?”

“Have we heard from Jase?” Bren asked his aishid under his breath.

“No,” Jago said, close by him.

“Indeed,” Geigi said, answering the dowager. “And are these the Guild observers, aiji-ma?”

“Nandi,” Ruheso said, in the sorting-out. The car had since closed and left, but there were still people to arrive, more of the dowager's young men, and the staff, who would have taken shelter in the baggage discharge area, to supervise and identify baggage and bring up the contents of the carrels.

“We have an apartment ready,” Geigi said. “Near my own. Be welcome!” Geigi, with a gesture, indicated a door beyond, where they should all move.

“Geigi-ji,” Bren said quietly. “I have promised to talk to Ogun. What is going on?”

Geigi dropped the official mask on the instant, and lowered his voice as staff opened the door. “Tillington-aiji, Bren-ji. Jase-aiji intended to be here, but neither he nor Sabin has left Central since the news broke. Tillington will not permit the handoff to us, and Jase and Sabin will not leave him unattended while he maintains his hold on Central.”

Ilisidi had stopped to hear, and her brow quirked, the dangerous one. “What is this problem?”

“Aiji-ma,” Geigi said. “The station is calm. There is no disorder. The ship imposed restrictions on all movement in the first hour after the signal arrived. But—”

“But,”
Ilisidi said, impatient, while noise in the system forecast another car en route.

“Tillington-aiji is now overtired and refusing to reason. I have asked Jase-aiji to relay my request to stand aside, and my assurances I would keep him informed, but he will not hear either captain, and Ogun-aiji has issued no order.”

“Indeed,” Ilisidi said frostily.

“One is aware this cannot continue. I have ordered our technicians and our security to stand ready to assume posts, in our own center, but without the active station switching control over to our boards, we are in a difficult situation, and it seems of no profit to overtire our personnel by having them stay. Since your arrival was imminent, aiji-ma, one decided to wait. So, we believe, Ogun-aiji is also waiting. He has made no official statement to us. We believe he is at odds with Jase-aiji, and will not speak through him; and Mercheson-paidhi does not speak to us.”

“So,” Ilisidi said. “Force and threats sit in the heart of operations, with Ogun-aiji's tacit approval.”

“I urgently need to talk to Ogun, aiji-ma,” Bren said. “Before anything else. I promised this. I have some hope I can deal with him.”

“You should know, paidhi,” Geigi said, “that Tillington locked all the great doors in the first hour. He opened them again for the Mospheiran areas, but not the Reunioner sections. Ogun-aiji has ordered ship security to the great doors and order is preserved there, but,” Geigi drew a breath. “The supposition seems to be that the Reunioners will be in a state of panic, because of the kyo presence, and will take violent action.”

“I shall talk to Ogun,” Bren said. “I shall try at least to get Central control passed.”

Ilisidi set her jaw and gave him a direct, cold stare, or what might have passed for one. There was one muscle, one little angle of the eyelid that said, Yes.

“Go,” she said.

He'd wanted to change coats, contact his staff—wait for his staffers who were still in transit. He was chilled through, still shivering, but whether from the residual chill or the news from Geigi, he was no longer certain.

They had the Mospheiran shuttle on the way. An upset, irrational director in charge of Mospheiran Central was one thing—they might wait and let Shawn's representative sort it out. But the doors still shut? Guards?

Jase and Sabin, keeping uninterrupted watch in human Central, with the kyo approaching?

Damn. No. The standoff couldn't go on. Endurance was going to play out. Emotions were going to come more and more to the fore.

He didn't get to change coats.

He didn't get to stop to consult with Jase and Sabin, in Mospheiran Central, or try to reason with Tillington.

No. Ogun was the one who had to do something.

 • • • 

Clearly there was trouble, and Cajeiri had
not
guessed it on the way. Everybody had been tense back on the shuttle, but that was, he had thought, because they had procedures to remember, and business, and scary cold to confront. And in the lift everybody had been bundled up, showing nothing.

But when they had met Lord Geigi,
then
he had begun to read something else, and then he heard about the doors, and Tillington.

Then, with hardly a word, nand' Bren collected half of Lord Geigi's bodyguard, and his own, and two of mani's, and called another lift.

Nand' Bren had made three trips to the cockpit, in the hours before they docked, and the grown-ups had been talking quietly, and frowning a lot, but that was not unusual, and one had supposed it all regarded their docking and their meeting people, and maybe some things about Tillington.

The car arrived. Nand' Bren headed off to talk to Ogun-aiji, and Cajeiri watched the door shut, feeling his stomach upset.

Are my associates safe? he wanted to ask. But he had promised not to ask about them.

Are we safe? He wanted to ask that, too. But that lift door had hardly shut before the lift beside it opened. Mani's staff, mostly, and a few of nand' Bren's came out, shedding cold suits as they had to do, happy at first, delighted to be arriving—they all had been at first.

But they caught that something serious had happened—they caught it very quickly. Nand' Bren's staff looked about, a little worried, a little confused.

Mani herself told them that nand' Bren had gone off to settle a small emergency. That was what she called it. But mani always understated when she was mad.

And she was. Cajeiri had no doubt of that. Lord Geigi was all seriousness now, and the arriving staff went about shedding their coats into the pile on the floor, looking worried and attentive to business.

If nand' Bren needed help, they would hear it. He was sure of that.

And over to the side, more confused than anybody, even staff, he saw the four Guild observers, not expressive at all, just watching, full of questions they had no way to answer, and with no one specially telling them.

Those were dangerous people, he thought, if there should be trouble. They might be older, and one with only one arm, but they were dangerous people. In those black bags the Guild carried were weapons. They had not taken them out, and nand' Bren's escort had just taken their sidearms and left the Guild baggage to mani's bodyguard, but Cajeiri began to be just a little scared Cenedi might open up those bags, and so might the Observers. If the Guild decided they were under threat, if mani were in danger, the Guild could very quickly become its own law.

They had only just arrived. And the kyo had not even shown up. And already grown-ups in charge were being fools.

“The paidhi-aiji will do his job,” mani said then, with a sharp thump of her cane. “We are all here. We are all secure. Our remaining baggage will arrive in due order. We could well do now with tea in a proper cup, and a chair that does not insist upon safety belts.”

“Indeed, aiji-ma,” Lord Geigi said, and guided them away from the lift, and toward a set of doors, which opened at a touch of his hand. A hallway with four doors was beyond, a short hall, and another door.

So mani wanted them to go on as if nothing had happened.

Ship security had their own terrible weapons, if it came to shooting. Cajeiri had never seen the white guns fired, but he had stood on the driveway of Lord Tatiseigi's estate and seen ash coming down from fires they had created.

“Remember the way, Taro-ji,” he muttered to Antaro the moment the doors closed at their backs. “Map the corridors we use getting to the apartment, in case we have to get back here on our own.”

He
was good at mapping places, himself. He had learned to remember his way in the dark and cold of the ship-tunnels; and if things went very badly, they could very well need to know their way back to the lifts.

But if that happened—there was still no place for them to go without a shuttle, was there? And none of them could operate a shuttle—even if it had gone through all the refueling and sat ready to move.

They could not get off the station without the pilots, who would be finding their way up to a special residency, too.

They had no way off. And he urgently wanted to understand what was going on.

Another door opened, and the place beyond was huge, upcurving as long hallways had to be, with people going and coming. It was a corridor of offices and even what looked like shops and restaurants, wide as a city street. There were hundreds of people. A scary lot of people. But all atevi.

Their people. Who stopped still, and moved to the sides of the corridor and bowed politely.

Word evidently spread; suddenly there were even more people coming out into the corridor, emerging from places that were, he thought,
shops,
just like a street in Shejidan, except for the ridged decking instead of paving.

Regular people, he thought. People who ran the station, who lived here.

Not dangerous people.

People such as he saw from his father's balcony. People who moved, very small and far below, in the street at the foot of the Bujavid hill. One of his earliest, strangest memories of all was his father holding him on the rail of that balcony, with all the city at his feet, and the streets and the city below the hill.

And he had stood at that rail again this year, years older, wondering, just wondering what it would be like to go down there and walk on a public street.

Geigi had surely had a private way to take them to their residence.

But Geigi had taken them out where people were, where people lived, people who seemed respectful, if excited, and
glad
to see mani and Lord Geigi.

And maybe, he thought, glad to see
him
. Because he was, like mani, official. Things had been scary, and still were, and Lord Geigi was doing a demonstration, letting people
see
that they were here, taking care of them. He saw mani glancing from side to side as she walked, nodding politely to people who bowed, just as if it were a court appearance, and these were lords invited to the festivity.