Текст книги "Deceiver "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Banichi-nadi.” Antaro bowed a degree lower than protocol, and so, immediately, did Jegari. Both faces looked shocked.

“You have gotten used to your young lord,” Banichi said, “have you not, nadiin? Andyou are Taibeni.”

“One does not understand, Banichi-nadi,” Cajeiri said in distress; and there stood the paidhi-aiji and an eight-year-old child, both left in the dark on that one. “Are we in the wrong?”

“They are from the mountains, nandiin,” Banichi said, “and they are not Ragi. They are extraordinarily gifted, but they have been called out by their superiors in the Guild no few times for independent actions, and have not mended their faults. They entered their adulthood in the Guild during the Troubles, when Guild leadership did nottake them in hand and when they were notattached to that leadership. This was the beginning of their fault. Second, they have seen the aiji restored, but they reached their adulthood outsidethe surety of his man’chi. One is relatively certain they did not attach to the Usurper. There is that. They could not have passed the Guild’s security check, else. But they have not attached to the restored regime, either, nandiin. One has feared this. Algini and Cenedi alike have attempted to sound them out and have received indefinite answers. Thereforewe have maintained some distance from them, which may have worked harm in itself. They reasonably expected high honor and considerable latitude here—they attempted to exert rank with us—and instead met a far stricter discipline in this household of humans and Edi and a far lower rank than they expected. If they were mature in mind, they might have applied to the aiji, who assigned them, and ask for transfer into his household. They did not. They flared off.”

“Then what are they doing, Banichi-ji?”

“It is an important question, nandi, whether they requested nand’ Toby and Barb-daja to go out—or whether your brother conceived the notion through misunderstanding. Certainly this pair did not consult Cenedi before opening the house door onto an area under watch. Thatwas a serious breach of rules.”

“One does not understand,” Cajeiri protested with a shake of his head. “ Arethey traitors?”

“They are confused at this moment,” Banichi said. “ Theydo not know. That is the point.”

“One is quite helpless,” Bren said in frustration, “to grasp the logic in this. Did theyshoot Toby, do you think?”

“One doubts it,” Banichi said. “But there was a state of alert declared on the grounds just before they went out that doorc with nand’ Toby and Barb-daja. They were in receipt of that information. They knew they were running into fire. If they invited nand’ Toby out there, it was in that knowledge.”

“A panicked decision—with the young gentleman missing?”

“Perhaps,” Banichi said. “That would be a generous interpretation. But panic has not been characteristic of their misdeeds in the Guild. They are separated from their own clan. They have done a desperate thing. The answer to that question I posed, nandi, will say a lot. Did they themselves ask nand’ Toby for help?”

“Perhaps Toby can remember that,” Bren said, laying a hand on the door.

“Tell him, nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri said fervently, “tell him we are sorry. It is our fault. It is at least our fault that brought this on.”

It was a great deal for a young aristocrat to say. And a great burden for a young boy to carry—in what might be a great deal of confusion to come, over the next number of hours. “Come in with me,” Bren said. “You may be able to say so yourself. But do not say more than that, young gentleman. He may not remember that Barb-daja is missing.”

“Yes,” Cajeiri said firmly. “ Yes, nand’ Bren. One wishes to see him. One wishes very much.”

A pair of servants rose and bowed as Bren brought Cajeiri into the suite, and stood aside as Bren, with Cajeiri, entered the bedroom, along with Banichi and the two Taibeni youngsters.

Toby’s eyes were shut. Two others of the house servants attended him, and retreated as Bren moved a chair closer to the bed and sat down, Cajeiri standing next to him.

“Brother. Toby,” Bren said quietly, laying a hand on Toby’s shoulder. There was a tube draining the wound, running down off the side of the bed. A saline drip. “Toby. It’s Bren.”

Eyelids twitched, just slightly.

“I think he hears you,” Cajeiri said.

“One is certain he does,” Bren said, and squeezed Toby’s hand. “Brother, don’t panic. It’s going to hurt like hell if you twitch. You’re in Najida. In your bedroom. I’m here. So is Cajeiri. You’re going to be all right.”

Blink.

A grimace. “Barb.”

Well, then he knew. “Toby, it’s Bren, here. We’ve got a problem. Come on. Wake up. Talk to me. I know it’s an effort. I know it hurts.”

Toby’s eyes slitted open, just ever so slightly. “I’m hearing you. Where’s Barb?”

Bren tightened his grip on Toby’s hand. “Alive, we’re pretty sure, but she’s not here, and good people are out looking. Just stay still. We’ll get her back. I don’t know how yet, but don’t panic yet, either. When this sort of thing happens, it’s usually a political move. It’ll play itself out in politics, and we’re good at that game. We’re better than they are. Believe me.”

Toby didn’t say anything for a moment. But he was tracking. His lips clamped down to a straight seam. The eyes stayed aware and fixed on the ceiling a moment, then on him, and on Cajeiri.

“You got himback,” Toby mumbled. “Good.” He started to lift his head, and Bren put a hand on his brow and stopped that.

“Stay put. You’re full of tubes.”

“Have I got all my pieces?”

“Far as appears to me.” He rested his hand on Toby’s arm, which appeared undamaged. “What happened? What in hell were you doing out there?”

Vague frown. “I remember—something popped. Hurt. Barb couldn’t lift me. I said run and get help. She ran. And at the turn up the walk, this guy, total shadow—Guild, maybe—he just grabbed her up, gone so fast—so fast I couldn’t see. Just nothing there. People were shooting. I remember thinking– don’t hit Barb—”

Toby’s self-control faltered. Bren squeezed his hand. “We’ll take care of it. We just have to do this the careful way. We’re already calling in reinforcements. They’ll want to get her out of the territory fast, likely going all the way to the Marid, before they send us any demands, if that’s who’s got her, and we think it is.”

“What are my chances of getting out of this bed and being useful?”

“In the next twenty-four hours, zero. Our people are throwing a wide net, interdicting the port and the airport at Separti and Dalaigi, checking every plane and ship and truck and tracking it. Standard, during an incident. This isn’t a private problem. The aiji-dowager has been on the phone with her grandson. Believe it. We are not alone out here. Shejidan knows what happened, and they’re on it.”

A momentary silence while Toby absorbed that. “Barb’s not that important on their scale, is she? She’s going to fall through the cracks of what’s going on here. She’s not that important to anybody but me.”

“She’s gottenimportant to the whole aishidi’tat. The attack was an attack on the aiji. He’ll take it damned personally.”

“That doesn’t make her exactly safe, does it?”

“Safer. It’s a test of wills and capabilities. Frankly, they probably mistook you for me, hoped they’d killed you, and didn’t have enough people on the grounds to make sure of anything. They had a chance to take Barb, and they’re sure any human here is connected to me somehow. But they’ll find out fast she can’t speak Ragi. That will mean she’s useless to them here, but valuable enough to send on to their home district. Which is exactly what we’re going to try to stop them from doing. Listen. I have one other question for you, and don’t take this amiss. Why were you out there? Whydid you go outside? This is an important quetion.”

“The kid was lost. They said—”

“What ‘they,’ Toby? This is important. Was it your own idea, going out there? Or did they ask you to help search?”

“The kid’s guard—said he’d gone to the boat. I—thought—I thought—I didn’t think—enough. I thought—they don’t know the dockside. I thought—”

“They lied,” Cajeiri said in ship-speak. “They lied, nand’ Toby. It was my fault. I was mad at them. I deliberately lost them in the hall. And they went to you and lied. I was downstairs!”

“Downstairs,” Toby said, growing a little muzzy. “They said—the boat. I couldn’t understand the rest. Too many words.”

“It was my fault.” Cajeiri looked thoroughly upset, and blurted out in Ragi: “You are not to die, nandi! My great-grandmother will get a plane and send you to the hospital if need be! You are not to die!”

Toby looked entirely confused. He hadn’t followed that last, likely.

“You’re under orders,” Bren said, “to lie here, do what you’re told, and relax, that’s what he just said. I know restis a ridiculous suggestion at this point, but I’ve personally got a list of people to contact. And if you don’t stay flat and take orders, Barb’s going to let me hear about it when she does get back.” Deep breath. He set his hand on Toby’s. “She willget back, Toby. Hear me?”

“Double swear?”

Kid stuff, between them. “Double swear, brother. You mind your doctor’s orders. And don’t make trouble. Got it?”

“Got it,” Toby said. His eyes drifted shut. Gone. Out cold, or verging on it. He still had the anaesthetic in his system. Bren got up and steered Cajeiri out into the other room, then out into the hall, where their separate bodyguard waited.

“Best go back to your room, young gentleman. Or better yet, to your great-grandmother’s suite. Things are not safe.”

“One wishes to do something, nandi!” Cajeiri said, and gave a deep bow. “They are my aishid! I could not manage them! I am at fault!”

At fault, for failing with two damned crazed fools on a mission to be heroes. There was no word for that in Ragi, but that seemed the sum of it. Cajeiri was not faultless, but he was, for God’s sake, a kid who’d finally, once in his life, obeyed his instructions to stay in the house. And after all he’d been through—

Leaving this kid unassigned and going out that door was a guaranteed way to make this boy at least think about doing something stupid.

“I am about to make a request, young gentleman, a very serious request of you.”

“What is it?” Cajeiri asked, bluntly as Mosphei’ could phrase it. Young eyes gazed at him in desperate earnest.

“This: that while I am gone, and I may be gone some time, on a mission with nand’ Geigi—you must take charge with my staff and take care of nand’ Toby. Help nand’ Toby even with getting a cup of water to drink, and translate what he says for the staff, because he cannot speak for himself. Stay with him. Speak for him. And keep your ears open to danger and report to Cenedi or your great-grandmother anything you think out of the ordinary about the house. We have Baiji. Theyhave Barb-daja. The Marid would like to get their hands on Baiji before he says everything he knowsc certainly before what he knows can be entered into a legal record. And I intend to find out what that might bec before the people who have Barb-daja, whoever they are, ask for a trade. Can I rely on you, young gentleman?”

Cajeiri’s eyes were huge. “Yes!” he said. “We shall do that!”

“Then go get a pillow and a blanket, and you may have that chair by nand’ Toby’s bedside. I am going downstairs,” he said quietly to Banichi, “the moment I have paid my respects to the dowager, if she is awake. I am going to talk to Baiji about one particular detail. Personally.”

Banichi looked entirely, grimly satisfied with that proposal. “Jago is coming,” Banichi said. “She will meet us downstairs.”

“Good,” he said, and made one side trip.

He led the way up the hall and received news from the servant attending the door that the aiji-dowager was still awake, but on the phone, and had given strict instructions to admit no one.

One could easily imagine who in Shejidan the aiji-dowager might be calling at this hour of the night, probably not for the first time, and one had, he assured the servant, no desire to intervene in that conversation.

“Advise the aiji-dowager, when she appears, that the young gentleman is in attendance on nand’ Toby, with his bodyguard attending, at my request. Do not bother her otherwise.”

With which he headed straight down the stairs with Banichi. Jago was waiting at the bottom of the steps, and silently fell in with them. Doubtless she had had a briefing from Banichi, and knew at least the essentials. She was also carrying a sidearm in plain sight.

It was dawn. He had had no sleep. But sleep was very far from his mind as he reached Baiji’s guarded door.

“You may take a small rest, nadi-ji,” he said to Ilisidi’s man, with whom they had shared many a journey in the last three years. “Go take a cup of tea if you wish. About a quarter of an hour should suffice.”

“Nandi,” the young man said, and left Baiji to him and Banichi and Jago.

Banichi opened the door on a darkened room. Baiji was peacefully sleeping, snoring away.

Until Banichi turned on the lights.

Baiji struggled bolt upright, blinking in alarm and tangled in the blankets.

There was, in the white glare of electric lights, the bed, a table, one chair, a scattered lot of paper, and writing implements—of which Baiji had made some further use, by the evidence of the papers.

Bren drew back the chair, sat down, gathered the papers into three stacks that seemed indicated by position, sat down with no reference at all to Baiji, and flipped through the first stack.

Baiji said not a thing to him, only sat on the edge of the bed.

The first stack—excepting one stray paper Bren incorporated into the third stack, a list of names—was a lengthy letter full of courtesies and blandishments, addressed to Geigi.

Bren laid it aside, remarking, “This one will do you little good. Geigi is quite resolved in the opinion he has of you. One hopes you have produced something of greater value than the last lot of paper you gave me.”

“Nandi, I—What does this mean? Is it daylight?”

“It is dawn and someone, attempting an assassination in this house, has kidnapped my brother’s lady. It may mean they hope to exchange a member of my household for you. Do you wonder why these attackers would be so concerned for your freedom? Would the reason for that concern possibly lie within these papers? Or have you been that honest with us? One doubts it.”

Baiji struggled to his feet, dragging the blanket about his ample middle. Banichi set a hand on his shoulder and shoved him right back down to sit on the bed. Jago took up her station in front of the door, hand on sidearm.

Bren hardly looked at the man, being at the moment occupied in the second stack of paper. Freeing two sheets which represented the opening of a letter to Tabini, full of blandishments and assurances, he crumpled them in his fist.

“Useless. The aiji will not be your ally against his grandmother. Be grateful. I have just saved you from offending him. You are a fool.”

“Nandi!”

The third stack, the further list, contained all unremarkable names, names he would expect to be there, many of which duplicated the prior list. He swung the chair around with a scrape of wood on stone.

“You do not truly intendto be a fool, do you, Baiji-nadi? You surely do not entertain the notion that your arguments against my keeping you here will be heard by the aiji, the aiji-dowager, or—least of all—by your uncle. The aiji-dowager has offered you your sole escape. Surelyyou do not plan to reject it.”

“No. No, nandi. We have accepted the aiji-dowager’s offer. We do accept it!”

One did not detect sufficient humility in a young, arrogant brat who had grown into an adult, arrogant fool.

“You do not half understand,” Bren said, “the situation in which you now find yourself. There are names I now know that I have not seen on the other list, or on this. A member of my household, my brother of the same parentage, was shottonight, by someone possibly believing he was shooting at me. A member of his household has been kidnapped by persons who themselves are likely to be shot if the aiji’s power over this coast survives—while the inhabitants of this coast and all the rest of the continent are entirely determined to shoot them on sight. So the fools who have attacked my household are in great danger. And the lord who sent them is in much greater danger. The Guild is involved. Are you following this? Are you understanding, finally, that your Marid allies do not want you to survive to tell us everything you know—that, in fact, they will be quite interested in killing you—partly in case you have notyet told us all you know, and for another reason—simply because you have become such a great embarrassment to their side. They will blot you from the face of the earthc an absolute, extravagant failureof their plans to marry their way into your house so that thenthey could kill you and inherit your post! Have you really understood that, this far? Do you believe it?”

Lips stammered: “One believes it, nand’ paidhi.”

“So believe this: very few people care about your survival tonight. I have never asked my aishid to eliminate a man, but you and the mess you have created are fast approaching the limit of my patience, Baiji nephew of my ally.”

Hatred stared back at him. Anger. And fear. “My uncle—”

“Your uncle will not preserve you in the face of the dowager’s anger. Or mine. Oh, I am indeed your enemy, Baiji-nadi. I have very many who consider metheir enemy—of whom I can be tolerant, since I look to change their minds. But I have twothat I consider my enemies in the world right now. The Marid aiji who directed this attack is one. And the other? Before I met you, and listened to you argue your case, I would have said there was only one.”

Baiji was not the swiftest. Parsing that took a moment, and he screwed up his face and protested, “Nandi, you surely cannot equate me with—”

Bren got to his feet. “You protect Machigi of the Taisigin Marid with your silence and you protect his plans by your reluctance to admit your own part in the whole business.”

“I had none! I was an innocent bystander!”

“Do not mistake me! I shall walk out of this room and leave others to persuade you to tell me—not the first truths that occur to you, but the deepest of the truths you own about this affair and those you even imagine! Do we understand each other? Who else in this district is helping Machigi? Who are his associates?”

“I have told you everything, nandi! I have written it down in those papers—”

Baiji started to get up and Banichi slammed him right back down.

“I have no doubt these papers are as carefully crafted as those letters of yours in my office upstairs. I have seen your answers. And the effrontery of your writing a letter to the aiji under these circumstances tells me I am dealing with someone too convinced of his own cleverness to everbelieve he can be brought down permanently. You are down here laying plans for a future in which you hope to deceive everyone all over again and protect your remaining places of influence. You are so very clever, are you not?”

No answer. No answer became sullen defiance, more than Baiji had yet shown.

“Now I believe you,” Bren said. “Now you show me your real face, and not a pretty one. You had your own plan for the future of this coast. Tell me howyou planned to stay alive, granting you had the least inkling that you were bedding down with very dangerous people. Whowas the support you counted on? There was someone else, was there not?”

Baiji sweated. His face was a curious shade. He towered over Bren, but Bren had the all but overwhelming desire to seize him by the throat and strangle him.

“There was someone who supported you,” Bren said, “and one doubts this moral support was among the Edi. Who were your other recourses?”

“I—”

So, Bren thought—he was right. And considering Baiji’s natural resources, ones he owned by birthright, there were not that many.

“This person should have been at the top of the list, should he not?”

Baiji did not well conceal his discomfort.

Baiji stared at him. Just stared, grimly saying nothing, but sweating.

“Jago-ji,” he said, looking to the side, “you and I will go inform nand’ Geigi we have no more doubts. It would be well, nadi,” he added, addressing Baiji, “for you to dress. One believes you will get no more sleep tonight.”

“Do not leave me with him!” Baiji cried, with a glance upward at Banichi. “Nand’ paidhi!”

“Banichi-ji, would you ever harm this person?”

Banichi smiled darkly. “Never against your orders, nandi.”

“So,” he said, silently collected Baiji’s documents, then left by the door Jago opened, and headed upstairs.

Upstairs was not calm, despite the hour that should have seen only the household assembling for breakfast.

There was a small turmoil, a little gathering of the staff at the front door—a gathering in which Cenedi himself was involved.

Jago said, quietly, in communication with operations. “The Grandmother of Najida has just arrived, Bren-ji. She asks to speak with the aiji-dowager. Cenedi is agreeing.”

Ramaso was involved at the doors, and spotting them, cast a worried and querying look Bren’s way. Bren signed yes, and Ramaso ordered the doors opened, which admitted a small crowd of persons into their secure hall.

The Grandmother of Najida it was, indeed, a little out of breath, and flanked by two of her older men. Others crowded about. Bren made his way in that direction, walked up to the situation quietly, and gave a little bow.

The Edi were, at depth, a matriarchy, when it came to negotiation. They were fortunate to have the dowager accessible– and in no wise was the paidhi-aiji going to intrude into that arrangement.

“Please accept the hospitality of this house, honored Grandmother, ” he murmured with a little bow, and heaved a deep sigh of relief as Cenedi showed the lady on toward Ilisidi’s suitec and one problem, at least, landed on someone else’s desk.

He wantedto go sit by Toby, continually to reassure himself the only kin he owned—excepting a no-contact father somewhere on Mospheira—was still breathing at this hour. He wanted to stay there for days, until Toby was better, and he could get Toby onto his boat, call in a continental navy escort and get Toby the hell home.

But Shejidan’s largest train station had less traffic than Najida estate at this hour, he thought glumly. The Edi were not going to be happy to have failed in their guarantees—and fail, they had, conspicuouslyc which was probably why the Grandmother had come up here personally to speak to the dowager, if the dowager had not called her here in the first place.

Tano and Algini and Geigi’s four bodyguards were still over in Kajiminda, meanwhile, relying on Edi to hold the perimeters if another attack came, and he, at Najida, was about to pass an order to allGuild components under his control and Geigi’s to come back to undertake a mission eastward—and that was going to leave the Edi in Kajiminda on their own, against God knew what. Kajiminda would be completely exposed, Najida considerably weakened. He was not a tactical thinker. Banichi and Jago were.

“Are we doing rational things, Jago-ji? One intends to pull all Guild from Kajiminda. One sees no alternative.”

Jago’s face was calm and unworried and he suddenly knew his was not. “Cenedi advises us,” she said quietly, “that the dowager has indeed contacted Tabini-aiji. He is apparently sending Guild in some numbers, Bren-ji, to be under Cenedi’s management. The dowager is going to make this situation clear to the Edi.”

That was notgoing to make the Edi happy. But the Edi, dammit, had just failed them, and knew it. The whole ground underfoot had shifted, neither he nor his team had had significant sleep, and decisions had to be made—which Ilisidi had been making for them, left and right.

Calls to the aiji for some reinforcement—routine. But in some numbers?

Alarm bells rang. He had left Ilisidi in charge of Najida, with the implements to make secure calls. And Ilisidi had an agenda that, par for Ilisidi, ran solely on Ilisidi’s opinion. The Grandmother of Najida, with her agenda, had been dealing with a past master. So had he. Dammit.

Likely the Grandmother of Najida didn’t know yet that there were Ragi foreigners coming into the district. That was what she had come here to learnc probably at Ilisidi’s pre-dawn summons.

And somehow—he was not going into that room for anything—Ilisidi and the Grandmother of Najida were going to have a meeting with reality and necessity and consider the rearrangement of power on the lower west coast. God knew, there were already Marid foreigners here. The Grandmother of Najida had notbeen able to deal with them alone.

The aishidi’tat could.

The Grandmother of the Edi was then going to have to explain those facts to her people.

Not to mention what Geigi was yet to find out—which he would lay odds Geigi was learning in bits and pieces.

He knew the name Baiji had not given them. He was sure of it even before Jago said, quietly, relaying it from Banichi, “Pairuti of the Maschi, Bren-ji. Banichi is getting it in writing.”

14

« ^ »

There was a lot going on. Even nand’ Toby knew it, and asked, or seemed to, what was happening outside.

“I’ll find out, nandi,” Cajeiri said, and sent Jegari out with orders to ask questions and eavesdrop.

Jegari came back. Cajeiri went out into the sitting room to hear the report, and Antaro came with him.

“Nandi, they are getting the bus ready. Nand’ Geigi is going to deal with Maschi clan and nand’ Bren is going with him, mostly because nand’ Bren can bring senior Guild into it– besides your father’s name.”

The machimi plays were bloodily full of such instances where one lord replaced another the hard way. And mani had seen to it that he was acquainted with very many machimi.

But lord Geigi had a place on the space station. Was he going to tie himself down to live in the country like Great-uncle Tatiseigi?

Besides, the Maschi were such a little clan: most people, asked to name clans, would have trouble thinking of them, except for Lord Geigi, who was famous.

He had grown up with Gene and Artur and nand’ Bren and he had been able to predict what they would do, when he was on the ship in space. But mani had always said, and it had made him mad at the time—that when he was among atevi, he would find things making sense to him in an emotional way. He would understand things.

He certainly understood more today than he had yesterday. He could feel the directions of man’chi, and it made things clear in his mind. He was very sure that there was nothing queasy about Lord Geigi, and that there was a question about the man’chi of the Maschi lord. That lord should have shown up in person here at Najida, especially with Lord Geigi here. He certainly should have sent someone.

And he could feel the direction of the Marid, too. That took no more reading of man’chi than it did to look at clouds and say there would be a storm. There were storm clouds aplenty when one read Great-grandmother. Great-grandmother was not about to go back East without having things her way, he was absolutely sure of it—it was not mani’s habit to leave a fight, and this was a fight that had cost her one of her young men.

Besides, she was on the hunt for something political—he could not quite understand what, and certainly the surface of it had to do with the Edi, but he thought it also had to do with his father and old history, and he was relatively sure it was tangled up with the Marid, with whom he knew mani had an old quarrel. He knew mani’s moods, and he knew when she was up to something. He had felt the currents moving when his father was here and mani and his father were fighting. He had felt then that mani wanted something and mani had talked his father into it, which meant his father had been halfway agreeing with her before the argument ever started. They just shouted at each other because they always shouted at each other over little things, not the big ones.

And now Lord Geigi was in the middle of it, and so was nand’ Bren’s house, and now nand’ Toby had gotten hurt, and Barb-daja was a hostage. So it could be a really, really big fight, once it started rolling, bigger than anything since they had taken Shejidan and thrown Murini out of power. He had been at Tirnamardi, with Great-uncle, when things had blown up left and right and there had been a lot of shooting.

So it could turn out like that. It was already showing signs of it. And just thinking about the Marid made his heart beat faster, and made him mad along with everybody else, that was what it felt like—not because he was a kid and a follower; but because these people had messed up hisbusiness and hisintentions and then shot people who were attached to nand’ Bren, who was hisnand’ Bren. Maybe his was not so big a piece of business with the Marid as mani had, certainly not as big as the Edi, or the aishidi’tat had. But he was very close to being mad, personally.

And it was a long way from being about his fishing trip.

One did not want the fight to turn out like Tirnamardi. One did not want nand’ Bren’s house blown up and people killed.

And there was something else he was mad about. He resented being mad about grown-up things because he didn’t want to be grown-up yet. He wanted to go fishing and go exploring and messing with things. He just wanted an aishid that wanted to do fun things—Antaro and Jegari did.

But Veijico and Lucasi had brought grown-up business with them. And they had done things that dragged him into the adult fight. And he didn’t want that. Damn them.

He was thinking in ship-speak again. He did that sometimes when he was upset and wanted to think his own thoughts, privately, just to himself. He thought thoughts that nobody else around him could think, and he was glad they couldn’t.

And it would make Great-grandmother mad at him, because he was supposed to be atevi all the time now and forget about Gene and Artur and Irene and just be—

Grown-up. And mad. Along with everybody else.

No. That was not what Great-grandmother had said, more than once, often enough thumping his ear hard to make him remember.