Текст книги "Peacemaker"

Cajeiri waked, straightened in his seat, smoothed his coat, and saw that Jegari was awake, too, across the aisle. Nobody else was. Gene, Irene, and Artur had nodded off, Irene and Artur leaning against the wall of the car, Gene with his head on his arms on the table. Antaro, Lucasi, and Veijico were asleep, arms folded, heads down . . . one thought they were asleep.

The train had begun slowing down. That was a little scary . . . since that could mean all sorts of things, and they still could not raise the window shades to see what was outside.

“Where are we, Gari-ji?” he asked Jegari.

“One believes we are actually entering Shejidan, nandi. We should switch tracks soon.”

Shejidan. He had not thought he had possibly slept that long. “Is there any news?”

“We are still running dark, nandi, not communicating with anyone, not even using the locators. We have no news.”

“But we are still going to the Bujavid.”

“One believes that we are, yes.”

Others in the car were waking up, too, having felt the change in speed, and he saw no distress among the senior Guild. The rest of his aishid woke up calmly, and had a quiet word with Jegari.

Gene lifted his head, blinked, raked his hair back. “God,” Gene said in a low voice. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep.”

“So did everybody for a while. Jegari thinks we are coming into the city now. We definitely should not touch the shades.”

The others were stirring, Irene, then Artur, who wanted the accommodation, and got up and went to the back of the car.

“We are in the city now,” Cajeiri said. “Any moment now, we will switch tracks. Rene-ji, lend me your book and I shall show you where we are.”

She turned to a blank page and handed her notebook to him. He leaned forward to draw so they could see. He drew the hill of the Bujavid, and the Bujavid at the top, and he showed how the tunnel went through the hill, turning as it went.

“We will go slowly here,” he said, pointing at the hill itself. “And we shall climb to the train station. And then we shall take lifts up into the Bujavid itself.” There was a gap in his explanation, there, a big one, because he had no idea where they were going once they got into the Bujavid. But how to explain it did occur to him. “The Bujavid is a place like the ship. Like the station. Hallways. Passages. Quarters.”

“A ship on a mountain,” Gene said with a little laugh.

“A hill,” he said, measuring with his fingers. “Little mountain.”

“Hill,” Gene said, and everybody said it.

“With passages all inside,” Irene said.

“Indeed,” Cajeiri said. And then he thought he should explain other things. “There are a lot of storage rooms below.” He pointed on the diagram between the circle that was the train station and the Bujavid’s ground floor. “Here, stairs come up to the Bujavid from the bottom of the hill, on the street outside. Everybody can go on the first level of the Bujavid—they used to have to climb all those steps, but now there’s a tram from the street—a kind of train, very short track. Upper levels are restricted residency. Third level is us. Me. My parents. My great-grandmother, my great-uncle. Nand’ Bren, too.” He hesitated to promise them anything, when an order from his father could change every arrangement, so there was no good even thinking where they would end up, or even if they would be together. He was never to draw how the rooms in the Bujavid were laid out, anyway, his father had told him, because of security. So he just said, “I think we shall probably stay with nand’ Bren.” There was adult business going on and he decided his great-grandmother was likely not going to want children underfoot, hearing things they should not. He could not think his great-grandmother would send him and his guests to his father’s residence—with his mother on edge, about to have the baby. It was why his father had sent him out to Tirnamardi in the first place.

Though maybe he should send Boji and his cage to his own rooms, along with his servants. Boji’s cage was huge and he did not know how nand’ Bren was going to deal with all of them and nand’ Jase and Kaplan and Polano.

But that was a bad plan. He really did not want Boji shrieking out as he sometimes did, and disturbing his mother . . . which was why he had taken Boji with him.

He by no means wanted Boji disturbing Great-grandmother or Great-uncle, either. Nand’ Bren would probably take Boji in, because nand’ Bren tried to do everything he asked—but Boji was just a problem.

He had no idea what to do. His life was suddenly surrounded with problems. They were all little problems that he was supposed to be able to deal with himself, true, but they were big ones to his guests, who could not be happy locked in a room, however comfortable. The Bujavid could be miserably dull, if one were locked in a room with nothing to do.

“We shall at least have a lot of time to talk,” he said, trying to find something cheerful about their situation. “And at least we shall not have to go down to the basement if we have a security alert.”

“That was interesting, though,” Gene said, meaning Great-uncle’s basement. “With the skeleton and all.”

Great-uncle had managed a little machimi for them in his basement. There had been rows and rows of books and brown pots, and them wondering all the while if an assassin was going to come at them out of the dark. Then Great-uncle had turned out the lights and shown them the scariest things by hand-torch.

But the scary things at Tirnamardi had not just been taxidermied beasts and a skeleton—since, despite all the precautions everybody had taken, there really had turned out to be Dojisigi Assassins in the house. . . .

His guests had no idea that what was going on could get as bad as it had gotten at Najida, when there had been shells coming at the house, and assassins in the basement who had no intention of apologizing for their actions. He had killed somebody. He had killed people. He was fairly sure he had, once almost a year ago, and another man this spring that still gave him nightmares. He was not proud of it. He was not sure he should be ashamed or not, but it upset the grown-ups, who had not been able to handle it themselves. So he was not sure at all whether he had done something good or bad, or even whether he should be having nightmares about it, or not. He had not even figured how to ask mani or nand’ Bren. He had not even wanted to ask his own bodyguard, who were not happy about it, because it was their job, and he had had to do it instead. He had no idea what he ought to feel, but it was nothing to talk about now, with his guests, who had already come close to a scary moment of that sort.

And he was supposed to keep all that sort of thing quiet. His guests were going back to the space station when his party was over, and he was not supposed to tell them anything detailed about the fighting, or the politics, or about the troubles grown-ups were trying to solve, or too much about which clans in the aishidi’tat were problems. Great-grandmother had said to him, privately, looking him right in the eye in a way she rarely did: “It is much more than keeping your young guests happy, Great-grandson. It is that, while we trust Jase-aiji and his bodyguard, and have confidence in his discretion—we are given to understand that the parents of your young guests represent a faction aboard the space station. Politics are in it. Understand that—and do not tell your young guests things that might upset their parents. Remember that humans do not really have man’chi, and that while you may believe you understand your guests, it is very doubtful you understand them as deeply as you may wish. We are not born equipped to understand them, and you should not bestow any information that may frighten them or be useful to our enemies. Let nand’ Bren communicate such things to nand’ Jase, where it may regard the nature of threats or danger to your father. And if your guests become distressed, refer them to nand’ Bren. Do you understand me, Great-grandson? This is extremely important.”

“Yes,” he had said. “Yes, mani.”

Politics was not his favorite word. It was, in fact, one of his most unfavorite words. Politics had his mother mad at his father, because politics had made his grandfather act like a fool and try to break into the apartment—and now his grandfather was dead. Politics had meant those scary moments in Najida’s basement, with Shadow Guild bent on killing him and mani and Great-uncle.

And politics meant they could not raise the window shades and see the city.

Deep inside, facing the necessity of lying to his guests, he longed to throw a tantrum the like of which he had not thrown since he was, well, much younger. Doing that, however, would definitely upset his guests and raise the very questions he was not supposed to answer.

It would also annoy his great-grandmother, and draw one of those troubled looks from nand’ Bren—which were almost as hard to face as Great-grandmother’s temper—and it would upset his great-uncle besides, who would just frown at him as if he were a stain on the carpet.

The thump of the wheels came slower and slower as the train began to climb that track he had sketched for his guests. Definitely they were entering the Bujavid tunnel now.

 · · ·

Bren came aware with a stiff neck, realizing he’d nodded off finally with his computer braced open in his lap, and the teacup beside his hand mostly empty—not, unfortunately, without contributing a stain to his coat, his lace cuff, and his trouser leg. Most all the Guild and the personal servants were on their feet getting hand-luggage and equipment. The train was climbing slowly, a familiar sound and motion that meant they were now in the Bujavid tunnel—and his bodyguard—including Banichi—were all on their feet, arming, preparing for arrival at the station.

He was tired and dull-witted. God, he hadn’t been able to sleep at all on the train, except at the last, and now he wanted nothing more than just to shut his eyes and wake up in his own bed—but that wasn’t going to happen. The next half hour or so might present more hellish problems than where they’d been, if their linking into Bujavid communications turned up trouble in the capital: they had had no word of such, but then, successful conspiracy didn’t advertise its moves. They just had to hope the situation in the Bujavid was business as usual.

He put his computer away. It was a question how long the story they’d given the Transportation Guild would hold—which might tell them whether or not the Bujavid was under an active alert. The ordinary process that brought in an upbound train from the provinces was far from speedy these days. Security had grown incredibly meticulous since the coup. There would be a query. The question was how far to maintain the cover, and whether to invoke Bujavid security to secure the platform.

It was not his decision, however. The dowager’s Guild senior, Cenedi, in charge of their prisoners in the next car, would make the call to tell certain people in the Bujavid station office who they really were—and granted the Bujavid station office was operating without problems, they would make adjustments and get reliable people into position to assure they could disembark smoothly, without, say, meeting a random work crew or other waiting passengers. Cenedi might have made that call as they switched onto the Bujavid spur, but if not, it would come very soon.

The operation came down, now, to hoping they were informing the right people, and hoping the Bujavid was serenely unaffected by the dust-up up in the Padi Valley. It was all riding on Cenedi’s judgment.

Banichi was talking to Jago, nearby, discussing the situation. Banichi ought to have been lying down the entire trip. Banichi had refused, and insisted on staying armed and on active duty.

“Is everything in order?” Bren asked Tano, who was nearest him.

“Everything is in order, nandi,” Tano said. “We are still not using the locators, not even our short-range communications. We shall run dark until we are in the lifts. But we are on passive reception, and our story seems to be holding up. We seem not to have roused any questions yet.”

Security-wise, they were story within story within story—within story, since they were all supposed to be at the dowager’s estate across the continent. It was still a little worrisome that they were arriving in the most secure building on Earth, blithely breaching their own security . . . but when they did lie, they could at least do it from inside knowledge.

Someone eventually had to advise Tabini-aiji, too, that they and his eight-year-old son were back—and Tabini would have to make a decision to let them go on hosting a collection of bright-eyed young humans, or take the youngsters himself. Natural, that a father would take custody of his own son—but the aiji-consort, who had just lost her father, was about to give birth, didn’t approve of humans, and the marriage was in trouble, politically.

It was one mundane problem, in the midst of others not so mundane. But it was a large problem. They had to put the youngsters somewhere. Somebody had to make a decision, and it had to be one that calmed, rather than exacerbated, Tabini-aiji’s domestic problems. God knew whether Tabini had told the aiji-consort the public story—or the truth about where her son had been staying.

There was at least time, in that slow climb, for everybody to get organized. “I am perfectly well-arranged, nadiin-ji,” Bren said to his two valets, when they came to assist him. He needed a change of coats, at very least, but they had not packed with that in mind. “Kindly help any of the heir’s guests who need assistance. We are not going to delay for precedence once the doors open. Our intention is to get off the platform as quickly as possible until we know the situation here. Help keep them in good order.”

They moved immediately to do that, quietly assisting Jase to lift his duffle down, for starters, from an atevi-scale storage rack. The dowager’s own servants had gone to the other end of the car, assisting with the fair lot of hand baggage the human party had with them—a significant amount of it belonging to Jase, equipment that they had not wanted to leave behind for later shipment.

Their personal wardrobes and such, two very large crates, were due to arrive with one of Lord Tatiseigi’s staff and security, on another train. They had not wanted anything to delay their boarding or hold the train any longer at the local station than absolutely necessary. On the official records, that train might not even have stopped, for all he knew.

They had, however, transported Cajeiri’s pet, Boji, a parid’ja, in an ornate, antique cage the size of a small dining set. It, with staff baggage, was in the car ahead of them, with Cenedi and certain of the dowager’s men, with Kaplan and Polano, and all their gear. Boji had somewhat earned special consideration, as much of a headache as he had been last evening. The black-furred little imp, of a species fairly rare on the continent except in Taiben and the foothills of the continental divide, was noisy, escape-prone, and hard to catch, but he had been of service, and if they had had to leave Cajeiri’s principal present behind in the stables, they had resolved not to leave Cajeiri’s little egg-thief behind if they could possibly avoid it.

Boji was going to have to come up the freight elevator, however, with Cajeiri’s valets, who were traveling in attendance on it. And in yet another car were certain of the dowager’s bodyguard, Jase’s two men, in armor, and with their gear; and the three prisoners they were bringing back with them. One almost hoped, regarding Aseida, the Kadagidi lord, now in deep difficulty with the dowager and Lord Tatiseigi, that Boji pitched one of his prolonged screaming fits. One did not, however, wish it on Cenedi—or on their other prisoners, two Dojisigi Assassins who were also going to have to be put somewhere. Those two honorable and sensible men did not deserve a bare cell in the Bujavid’s detention station. Lord Aseida himself, who deserved the bleakest lodging they could find—was too sensitive a case to put into ordinary care, and one wondered what the dowager was going to do with the three of them.

But it was not his decision.

Bren slung his computer strap to his shoulder—Jago usually helped him with it, but Jago had her several weapons with her. They all did. There was enough firepower in this car and the next to take the entire Bujavid by storm, if that had been their intent . . . or to have defended the train, if they’d come under attack. One earnestly hoped not to have to do that.

The train ran level now, and though he’d lost track of the switches, Bren was sure he knew on what track they would arrive, and that they would face a short walk to the end of the track. He stood ready to debark. Jase did. And at the other end of the car, the youngsters surged to their feet, all gathering up their personal bags, with Bren’s valet attempting to bring order to chaos. The aiji-dowager and Lord Tatiseigi alone stayed seated as the train, somewhat past the little bump at its switching-point, came to a stop. Then Tatiseigi got up, not too obviously with the assistance of his chief bodyguard, and gallantly offered his hand to Ilisidi, who used the other hand for her black cane.

The movement of senior Guild outward up the aisle displaced the youngsters, who crowded back into their seats, clearing passage, but that door was not going to open until Cenedi and their people from the car in front had deployed on the platform and signaled them it was safe.

“Nandi.” Bren gave place to Ilisidi and Lord Tatiseigi. And to Jase, Jase happening to outrank him, at least in the protocols of the heavens: “Just keep in front of me. Cajeiri and the youngsters are your problem. Don’t lose me. We’re all going to the same floor.”

“Got it,” Jase said.

The right-hand doors opened at the end of the car, and Bren’s heartbeat picked up as their company began to disembark. Ilisidi’s bodyguard exited first, all business, and quickly formed up. Then half of Tatiseigi’s bodyguard.

Ilisidi and Tatiseigi went out together, the rest of Tatiseigi’s bodyguard followed, and then Jase and the youngsters, with Cajeiri and his young bodyguard. Bren exited behind Banichi and Jago, hindmost of the principals, out into the echoing dim chill of the station, with Tano, Algini, and his two valets right at his back.

Down the platform, Cenedi headed toward them, from where two of the dowager’s men and Kaplan and Polano, conspicuous in their white armor, guarded the open baggage car door. Cenedi joined the dowager, and they and the rest of the party headed off with no delay for the baggage, Jase’s bodyguards, their prisoners, or the parid’ja in its cage.

They had arrived not quite in the situation Bren had envisioned: they were on track one, instead of three, which usually took provincial arrivals. Their engine faced the Red Train’s venerable engine nose to nose. So the station authority had had the word, and shunted them over to the reserved track, saving them, and particularly the dowager and Lord Tatiseigi, a trek down the concrete platforms to the end of the line, and another exposed trek over to reach the lift columns.

That was a relief. If there was going to be a problem it should manifest now, on the short way across that concrete expanse to the lifts. Their bodyguards walked between them and the likeliest vantages for snipers, and they did not linger a moment to look about. Polano and Kaplan were going to have to rely on the dowager’s men to direct them to the lifts—but they had the prisoners to bring up. Jase’s guards had about enough Ragi for go and stop, fire and hold fire, but that was another problem, in someone else’s hands. The overriding concern was getting the primary targets—the dowager and Tatiseigi—and himself and Jase and the youngsters—out of view and under cover.

They reached the bank of lifts in safety. Cenedi quickened pace slightly to reach the second lift, opened the door not by the ordinary means—but using a Guild key that not only opened the door, but took the car temporarily out of service, under a senior bodyguard’s control.

That was how deeply the Guild’s access was embedded in the Bujavid’s systems. Units serving lords resident in the Bujavid were authorized; and to what extent their electronics could reach into systems, and whether a key like that could be locked out at a higher level, were not matters for non-Guild to know. A lord was not used to questioning how such things worked. A lord was used to trusting the people who used those accesses, and trusting that they were going to work when needed.

Today it was a great relief that it did work. Bren and his bodyguard boarded last, and as he turned toward the open lift door, his two valets, still outside, signaled they would wait for the next car.

The door shut. In the center of the car, next to him, were the dowager, Jase and Cajeiri, who were his height, and the youngsters, who were shorter, enclosed in a circle of Guild uniforms. Cenedi stood next to the control panel. The car immediately started to move, rising rapidly through all the many stories of warehouses and mechanicals that served the above-ground floors, not buttons available on their panel. The first number they reached was ground level, where the public had access. But nothing could stop a car under security lock. It kept rising past the second floor, slowed and stopped sedately at third level.

Home.

The doors opened. Cenedi nodded, Tano and Algini stepped out, and Bren did, into a tranquil place of antique, figured carpet runners, a broad hall with plinths and porcelains, tapestry hangings and rococo moldings, and more decorative niches and display nooks than there were doors. Luxury—and security interwoven. There were untraditional cameras that answered only to the residents’ security, and fed images to security stations inside the four apartments. Above that figured porcelain opposite was one.

And they could finally draw an easier breath. Bren waited as the rest of the party exited.

“Are we in a house?” young Irene asked in a subdued voice.

“This is just a hallway,” Cajeiri answered her quietly, and the dowager briskly tapped her cane for attention.

“Great-grandson, you and your guests will lodge with Lord Tatiseigi. You and your guests may walk easily now. We are out of danger. —Paidhi-ji, you can surely host Jase-aiji comfortably.”

“Aiji-ma.” Bren gave a sketch of a bow. Jase and his bodyguard he could manage easily, and Jase’s company would be more than welcome.

“We are quite exhausted,” the dowager said, paused for a moment, and brought her cane down smartly on a bare patch of marble floor, which sent echoes ringing. “So. We shall recover ourselves for the rest of the day. Individual staffs can see to our needs, shall they not, nandiin-ji? My grandson is aware, now, that we are here, and that a briefing will be forthcoming, such as we can arrange, but it will come from my junior bodyguard. One is certain one will come, too, from the paidhi-aiji. We shall not be offended if the paidhi-aiji should anticipate us in that matter.”

“Aiji-ma,” Bren said, and bowed a second time, pure reflex, while the thought went sailing through his head that the briefing was not necessarily to inform Tabini on things that Tabini had rather be able to deny. There might be action coming, and the dowager might use her rest to sit and give orders that might span the continent—but whatever they did in the next few hours, the operation would not involve the aiji’s very junior bodyguard. And the orders the dowager would give, involving forces here and there across the continent, might not be orders her grandson would hear about, until they had an outcome.

The members of her own staff that Ilisidi had stationed inside Tabini’s apartment—right down to the hairdresser the aiji-consort had requested—were another matter. Doubtless someone from that staff would find occasion to visit the aiji-dowager’s apartment in the next hour or so, bring the dowager current on questions it might not be politic for the dowager to ask Tabini-aiji, and receive instructions about which it might not be politic to tell Tabini-aiji, either.

He had his own questions about the part of their operation still hanging fire. And if there had been any conversation between the dowager and Lord Tatiseigi about lodging the children, he must have slept through it—but that was not a question he needed ask, now, either. He had his orders and a set of problems—Jase’s lodging, and Tabini’s information—in whatever order he could manage. Ilisidi held out her cane sideways, herding everyone in her own party toward the left, up-hall, and leaving Bren with his own aishid and with Jase.

“This way,” he said to Jase, and, with his bodyguard, led off toward his own door, down a considerable length of ornate and empty hallway.

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