Текст книги "Protector "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

“We are receiving word,” Tano said calmly, “that fire came from one of the house guards. A sensor picked up someone near the stable. The young gentleman, meanwhile, reports the parid’ja came back to the window and they let him in.”

Guild reports were not sloppy. The report said someone,not movement,or an animal.Some onehad been at the stables, and if Cajeiri’s pet had had anything to do with what followed—it had probably run for a high spot when some onehad come close to its hiding-spot.

“We have a problem,” he said in ship-speak, for Jase’s benefit. “Near the stables. Our problem didn’t get out on foot. He might have decided to risk taking the herd-leader. Meanwhile Cajeiri’s little pet made it back to his window and they let it in.” He was not happy about the youngsters near a window at the moment.

“You think he’d survive to get a saddle on that fellow?” Jase asked, and simultaneously someone knocked on the door. A human voice said, “Captain?”

“Kaplan and Polano,” Bren said to Tano, who was nearest the door. “Let them in, nadi.”

A quick unlock let Jase’s bodyguard into the room from the lighted hall—and both of them arrived in tees and knit pants, Polano with his rifle, Kaplan with a pistol.

The door shut quickly, leaving them back in the dark.

“We’re all right,” Jase told his guards. “Tano and Algini are with us. The house seems secure but we’ve had an intruder out by the mecheiti.”

“There’s nothing we can do at the moment,” Bren said. Two ship’s security officers trying to assist would only add to the problem—especially with Taibeni riders coming in. “We just sit in the dark and let the Guild figure this one out.”

“Cenedi sent Nawari down the hall to see to the children,” Algini said. “The young gentleman’s aishid reports they opened the window very slightly to retrieve the parid’ja, not having their lights on at that point. They say no one was exposed.”

Cenedi was going to have an extensive word to say to the young gentleman’s aishid, Bren thought. They were all young. Cajeiri was hard to tell no. Thank God they hadn’t had a shot fired through that window.

“The second shot was from a member of Lord Tatiseigi’s Guild, who fired from an assigned position to try to stop two fugitives along the back of the house. Lord Tatiseigi’s man did not pursue. This was his order—not to leave his post for any reason.”

Twofugitives.

Algini was silent a moment. “Taibeni are coming up, part of them through the woods. The western camp has riders out now to sweep the perimeters.”

One would not want to be in the fugitives’ situation. Tatiseigi’s herd was locked in, stout doors and heavy bars assuring that herd was not going to break loose and take after the Taibeni, who were going to be fanning out along the hedges, through the woods, and looking for a scent trail—

Once the mecheiti found it—it was going to be an ugly business out there. The fugitives couldn’t run fast enough—no one could. They could try the powder, they could try shooting from ambush, and they might bring riders and mecheiti down—but not all of them, not before the riders would run them down and the mecheiti would take them apart. They’d saddled fast—the Taibeni might or might not have the war-caps on those tusks, but with or without, they were lethal. He didn’t want to see the result. But it was a near certainty he would have to. They needed to know whose these men were.

He sat down, feeling his way by the table edge. In the house, everything was quiet.

“Unfortunate,” he said. “The Taibeni aren’t going to go half-measures. The Taibeni value their animals—and control in a hunting herd is on a thin thread, as it is. If they try that powder trick again—we may not have anyone to question.” He heaved a sigh. “I’m sorryabout this.”

“Seems to us your security is handling the problem.”

“I’m very glad they are.”

“Any bets it’s the Kadagidi?”

“We have no few choices.” Tano turned the lights back on. “Are we clear, Tano-ji?”

“Not yet,” Tano said. “But this floor is clear.”

It was late. It had been late before the trouble began. But there was no chance they were going to go to bed until they had answers. And Supani had stood up, standing at the side, but back on duty, the room having guests. “Tea?” Bren asked Jase. “It seems we’re going to be a while at this.”

“There’s a chill,” Jase said. “Not sure whether it’s the night or the events.”

“Tea,” Bren said, “all around.” Supani nodded and set about it, Koharu moving to help him, while Tano and Algini talked to someone who presumably was in touch with those outside.

“It’s not the way the Kadagidi normally go about things,” he said to Jase, “up close like this. Usually it’s sniping from a distance. Political maneuvering. However, they’ve been pretty well confined to their own borders this entire year. The people can come and go, but Aseida’s been bottled up—not his bodyguard, but Aseida himself. If he’s picked this time to make a nuisance of himself to Tatiseigi, it’s a bad time.”

“Not part two of the grandfather’s assassination.”

“I don’t rule anything out—from either side of that matter. If it’s a probe—they already suspect their answer. And finding that out’s fairly inevitable. We only figured the Malguri story to last a few days, as is—possibly not past a Kadagidi spy on the road here. There’s a reason the Taibeni met us at the train station. They were sweeping the area before we got there, and they’ve been watching the road between Kadagidi and here. The Kadagidi have their own train station, two of them, one in the township, one closer to the Kadagidi estate. It’s not as if they need to be using the road past Tatiseigi’s estate. As far as I know—it’s not been an issue.”

Koharu poured tea for them, as Supani was doing the same for Kaplan and Polano. Bren took a sip.

“The Taibeni have located them, nandiin,” Algini said. “The signal is located but not taken.”

Damn. A complication?

“What do you think is going on, Gini-ji?”

“One rather suspects,” Algini said, “that our problems are up a tree.”

•   •   •

They could have the lights on now, Nawari said as he arrived, and kindly turned them on.

Cajeiri was relieved that the alert seemed to be winding down, and he drew easier breaths with Nawari in the room to look things over. He trustedhis own aishid, that they could take care of things if they happened, but he by no means wanted things to happen tonight, with gunshots going off. He had heard that sound all too often in his life, and one could not trust being absolutely safe even on the second floor.

And his guests were impressed and seemed reassured, now that the light was on. Nawari walked around with his rifle in hand—Nawari was lean and particularly good-looking and very professional-looking in his glance over things.

“Good you had the lights out,” Nawari said.

Antaro said firmly, “The moment the alert came, Nawari-nadi.”

Nawari looked at the window latch, took a look outside, moving the filmy curtain with his hand, and looked satisfied.

Then he looked at him. “One understands you recovered the parid’ja, nandi.”

Cajeiri took a careful breath: Nawari would notchastise him or his aishid in front of his guests, no.

But he could not let his aishid be pulled aside for a reprimand, either. “Nawari-nadi, I ordered it. We heard the mecheiti. And then we heard Boji scratching at the window. We had turned the lights out.”

“We put the lights out immediately when we heard a disturbance,” Veijico said, which was right. “Records will note we notified security simultaneously.”

“Then Boji tapped the window,” Cajeiri said. “He makes this sound. My aishid was very careful. They opened the drape from the sides, we had the lights out, and we did not open the window but a crack. I had an egg, and Boji came in on his own.”

Nawari looked at Antaro and Jegari.

“The tap is distinctive, nadi,” Antaro said, “and we at no time presented a target.”

“Bear in mind that the window-glass would not stop an intruder, nadiin. —Our allies have deployed riders from both camps, tracking two targets. Do not look out the windows, even after the all-clear.”

“Great-uncle’s herd—” Cajeiri said, thinking instantly of Jeichido out there.

“Shut in,” Nawari said. “Safe and shut into their stable. Our allies are dealing with the matter. There may be unpleasantness. Your guests, young gentleman, should not be confronted with the view.”

He understood, then—he absolutely understood. “Yes, Nawari-nadi,” he said.

“You seem to be in good order here. Are you anxious about being by yourselves tonight, young gentleman? There will be guards in the hall all night.”

“We are perfectly fine,” he was quick to say. “Only no house servant should open our door.”

“That word is already out, for all the house.” Nawari headed the door, and Cajeiri cast a fast look about the tops of the curtains and hangings.

“Please,” he said as Nawari laid his hand on the latch, “please be very careful with the door, Nawari-nadi. Boji is hiding somewhere in the suite, and one does not wish him loose in Great-uncle’s house.”

“One will be very careful,” Nawari said solemnly, and was exactly that, in leaving them alone in the room.

The Taibeni had the mecheiti hunting the intruders.

At least they were not in Great-uncle’s basement.

He hopedthere were no more of them.

He faced his guests, who had not, he thought, gotten all of that past Nawari’s Malguri accent.

And he did not want to tell them all of it, about the mecheiti, or he would never get them back near the stables.

“Everything is good,” he said. “All safe.” He glanced at his aishid, very sorry that he had gotten them in trouble. “Nadiin-ji, one regrets—”

Antaro gave a little oblique nod, as if to say, yes, there would be a problem, but his aishid would deal with that for him, too.

“We have Boji back,” she said.

“Wherever he is,” Lucasi said.

But they all sat down to talk it over, late as it was, with his aishid nominally still on duty, still armed, leaning rather than sitting.

And in a little while Boji put his head out from the top of a drape.

“Egg,” Cajeiri said, and Lieidi, nearby and with his eye on Boji, calmly reached into his pocket and produced one. “His egg, nandi.”

•   •   •

“We are strongly suspecting,” Tano said, still listening to the communications flow, and still with no word what the situation was out on the grounds, “that this infiltration was prior to the sensors going up. It would take a very expert sort to get in here now. I know only four who could attempt it and three of them are under this roof.”

“The fourth?” Bren asked. Jase was doing a shorthand translation for Kaplan and Polano. Algini was checking Banichi’s black box, doing something.

“Far too wise to take off across that meadow with the mecheiti let loose. We believe they were inside, decided to try to get out. At the moment, we are more worried about anyone who may be left inside.”

“Somebody our housecleaning missed?” Bren asked.

“Possibly, nandiin-ji. We have kept staff frozen in place for hours for individual interviews. We have begun to release certain staff, one area at a time, as their personal quarters are searched and cleared. Lord Tatiseigi’s security is proceeding now with a roll call, all staff to report for individual recognition and clearance, and it has been slow. We are not accepting a supervisor’s word without an interview and an examination of identification—we are doing this as delicately as possible, considering we are treading over Atageini prerogatives. We have conducted interviews. We have asked about unlocked doors, pilferage, or unusual behavior, about persons late, or otherwise out of routine. We have had chiefs of staff cross-compare the schedules and duty reports. We are now going over those records ourselves. We have checked the furloughed servants: five groundskeepers who were put on holiday before our visit—three mechanics sent on furlough the day before our arrival. They are registered at the hotel in the township. We have sixteen questionable individuals lodged in a house, under guard, which represents every individual who might know anything about our activity and security arrangements here. We have not had any deliveries, no one coming or going.”

“We are not satisfied with the garage,” Algini said sharply. “It abuts the area where we had the first alarm. We are rechecking.”

“The three mechanics,” Tano said, “normally have quarters in the loft above the service area. We started processing that area this afternoon. The vehicles, the loft, the fueling station, the service pit . . . the searchers say most access doors are painted shut and undisturbed—they opened the plumbing access, and checked for signs of entry, but found none. The place is evidently a dense clutter of tools, pipe, chain, all sorts of things. Four of Cenedi’s men spent two hours going over the place—but we also have had the basements to go through, and the staff checks. The team in charge locked the garage and put a guard on it, then went to check plumbing accesses that branch off from that one.”

“We are not satisfied,” Algini repeated. “We have been through the basements—we are assured the basements have no access at all except through the door in the main hall, and Lord Tatiseigi confirms that is the case, but we have been surprised before by some detail that dates to the last century. The garage holds two dead vehicles besides the current, besides, we are told, every tool and spare part ever needed on this estate, besides plumbing and electrical parts, hose, chain, and parts for an earthmover not in the garage: there are accesses, plates welded shut, painted shut, accesses built over with shelves—the moment we had the second alarm, we unlocked that door and started another search. Banichi and Jago, with Rusani’s men and the original four, are rechecking the place right now. We have cleared the entire house to our reasonable satisfaction. Not the garage. And we are having to proceed with caution, nandi, in the event of some sort of trap.”

He had never seen the garage—there was a drive, a cobbled spur off the wide sweep of the drive at the front door, but it was offset somehow from the frontage, not apparent from the approach, and its east wall, also inset, was screened in shrubbery, vines, and an arbor—which he did think of when he thought about the nearness of the garage to their trouble spot of the afternoon. There was the shrubbery, the arbor—and a very long stone’s throw removed from that, the little woods started, with its little path for walks on summer days. That woods was what he had been looking at when they had the first alarm. The garage, behind its camouflage, he did not even recall as a stone wall. The two upper floors rose above what looked like just part of the landscaping. A place out of mind. Never visited. Lord Tatiseigi himself had probably never ventured into it—just stepped into his car at the front door. Get rid of the old tools? They had met Lord Tatiseigi’s notions that old was perfectly good, that getting rid of what one had paid good money for was just unthinkable . . . the mechanics had had help in that accumulation.

Maybe, he thought uneasily, they should just call the mechanics back from the township and have themgo through the place. They probably knew what belonged there, and didn’t.

Damn, he didn’t like it.

“What’s the story?” Jase asked him. “I missed some of that.”

“The mechanics’ quarters. It’s apparently a cluttered mess and it’s right near where they had the first alarm. They’ve searched it once. They’re increasingly sure that’s where we need to look, and Banichi and Jago are in there now.”

Banichi and Jago were good, but Tano and Algini were the demolitions experts. He’d feel better if it were Algini in there doing the bomb search. If it was Kadagidi mischief, even an assassination attempt, it was one thing. But if it was Shadow Guild—

Scratch that thought. What he knew now said that the Kadagidi werethe Shadow Guild, or as good as, and that group didn’t stick at civilian casualties, explosives, wires, damage to historic premises—anything to take their targets by surprise and anything to create fear and panic. They couldn’t claim they hadn’t hedged Guild regulations themselves: Tano and Algini had taken out two rooms right here in this house, eliminating one of Murini’s mainstays.

He hoped to God the Shadow Guild hadn’t returned the favor.

What did it take to get a load of explosives into Lord Tatiseigi’s estate, between packing off the resident mechanics to the township and the dowager’s men doing a massive security installation?

Beforetheir security revision—it could come in as a load of foodstuffs.

He sat and sweated, listening to what he could overhear from Tano and Algini—not wanting to say or do anything to distract anybody, and wishing they would hear from the Taibeni. He hopedthey had gotten information out of the intruders. He hoped they were in shape to talk, and that, even if they weren’t forthcoming with information, they could find out what they were. That alone—

Then again—the routine homecoming for Lord Tatiseigi would have involved the touring car and the truck.

If they had not used the bus, Bren thought with a slight chill, if they had come in at the train station and called to be met by the estate truck and that huge open car, as Tatiseigi always traveled—and if drivers who were not the regular Atageini drivers showed up—

Tatiseigi would have taken alarm at once. But he might not have had time to do more than realize that fact.

God.

He did notinterfere in a Guild operation. He had sworn it to himself in the Najida affair; and already violated it. His mind kept racing, actually hopingthat that was the case, and that it did not involve explosives. But he kept his mouth shut. His team had to investigate what bore investigating, and find out, not guess.

Algini took a deep breath, reacting to something he’d heard. Then: “The Taibeni have them, nandiin-ji,” Algini said. “Two of them. Guild. The Taibeni are bringing them back.”

Havethem. Not killedthem.

“The report is they climbed a tree, and surrendered, though there was a lengthy negotiation,” Algini said. A pause. Then: “They have asked to speak to you,Bren-ji.”

16

So what did one wear to an after-midnight meeting with men who had attempted one’s life?

A bulletproof vest was the first choice.

Banichi and Jago were on their way—they had broken off the search and sealed the garage. Ilisidi and Lord Tatiseigi also intended to have a look at these intruders: but as Jase put it, four humans downstairs was probably too many, and he had no desire to be a distraction. He and Kaplan and Polano were headed down to the house security station where he could get a report and translate the situation for his two guards without getting in the way.

Bren changed coats for a better one . . . with the weight of his small pistol in the pocket. Tano and Algini waited at the door for him—and now he narrowed his focus to just them. From now on they entered a kind of choreography in which, indeed, it was just him and his guard going down there, to meet up with Banichi and Jago. From here on, it was his aishid in charge: he had to be completely aware of their signals, position himself exactly where they wanted him to be, and believe that he could concentrate on his job only when he waswhere they wanted him.

If anything went wrong down there, or if they weren’t liking the situation, he’d pick it up in his peripheral vision—by mind reading, he sometimes thought, awareness of them so keen he could feel their reactions right up his backbone. Right reactions for an atevi world. He settled into that, uncommunicative, as they headed for the stairs—Cenedi had asked the paidhi-aiji’s bodyguard to see these prisoners, find out what they had intended, before they let them anywhere near Ilisidi and Tatiseigi, and find out whythey had asked to see the paidhi-aiji.

But they were not meeting them alone. Cenedi had lent them twenty of his own.

Twenty. And two of them. Intimidation: just as his best coat was meant to put two fugitives, just pulled from a tree, at a disadvantage.

Banichi and Jago were waiting for them, down in the foyer, along with that number of the dowager’s guard—so many black uniforms the light in the foyer seemed dimmed and the echoes were dead, overwhelmed in the slight shift of very tall bodies. Bren stepped onto the floor, his aishid moving around him, making space for one pale, shoulder-high human in a towering, black-skinned company. No one spoke. After only a moment of their waiting silence they could hear the sounds of mecheiti in the distance, coming from the north end of the house.

Mecheiti arrived on the drive at a slow pace, walking, with the rhythmic sound of harness and the scrape of blunt claws on the cobbles.

That stopped. There were voices, footsteps ascending. Banichi exchanged a word with someone on com, gave a quiet signal to the men in charge of the doors. The whole foyer whispered with the shift of bodies, the movement of weapons.

One door opened; the other was pinned fast, and the night wind came in, a breath of chill. The porch light showed a number of Taibeni, in their green and brown, the only district where the Assassins’ Guild did not go in black. In their midst, came two windblown strangers in Guild black—not restrained, but surely disarmed. They came in, and their eyes made a fast search of the reception—a little surprised, perhaps, at so many weapons.

Then they saw Bren, and Bren saw instant focus—awareness, emotion of some sort. Nerves twitched, his aishid was already on high alert, and he heard one simultaneous rattle of weapons around the foyer.

One of the prisoners dropped to one knee. The other did, like some scene out of a machimi play—and Bren just stood there, jolted into an improbable frame of reference.

“Nand’ paidhi,” one said to him, showing both hands empty, “do notput it out to the Guild that we are still alive. Hear us out.”

“Nadiin-ji,” Bren said—not to them, but to his own aishid. He had no idea what had and had not gone out to the Guild system.

“We have reported nothing as yet,” Algini muttered, at Bren’s shoulder, and Bren stood there, aware of his aishid, of the protection around him. And the intent in front of him didn’t read as a threat—but as strange an approach as he had ever seen. Nobody knelt.Not even to Tabini.

“My name is Momichi,” the first man said in a hoarse and thready voice. “My partner is Homuri. The ones who gave us our orders take theirs from a man named Pajeini.”

“We know that name,” Banichi said, and there was nothing of warmth about it. “Is he still in the Dojisigin Marid?”

“Yes. Probably he is. Nand’ paidhi, they have our whole village hostage. If a report goes out, if they learn we failed—and talked—they will kill everyone, without exception. You spoke for the Taisigi. Speak for us. For our village. For Reijisan. The aiji dowager can move Guild on orders Shejidan cannot track. If anyone can help us—she can. If you could persuade her—”

“What wasyour mission?” Jago asked sharply, and with a nod to Bren, but likely no shift of her eyes off the two on their knees: “Forgive me, nandi, but there is a great deal of information missing in this business. They come here by stealth, lie in wait, inconvenience the aiji-dowager, all to ask your help? We believe the paidhi-aiji would like to hear your reasoning!”

“Our target was not the paidhi. Nor the aiji dowager. Lord Tatiseigi was our objective.”

“Why?” Bren asked.

“We do not know, nand’ paidhi. We can guess . . .”

“Who helped you?” Algini interrupted him, wanting specifics, facts and names. “What wasyour route?”

“From our village by boat,” Momichi said, “to Lusini on the Senji coast, to the railhead at Kopurna . . .” He looked at Algini, as if judging if that was the answer Algini wanted. And kept going. “To the station at Brosin Ana . . .”

Brosin Ana was the last stop in the Senjin district. It was the old rail line, a route up from the Marid, through the mountains, and the territory of several small associations, finally joining the new line north and east of the capital. Trains from Senji had carried commerce and contraband for two hundred years.

And that line ended in the Kadagidi township, where Marid commerce had always come in, an old, often problematic association that had not been happy, one suspected, to see Tabini back in power, certainly not happy to see the southern Marid talk about its own rail link.

His doing, that talk about a new line—a realization in two heartbeats of stretched time. That the northern Marid wasn’t happy with him—he perfectly well understood.

“To the Kadagidi township,” Momichi said. “We were met, given specific instructions for our mission, and we walked in.”

“Walked in,” Algini said. “From the Kadagidi township.”

A hesitation. But geography made it obvious. “From the Kadagidi estate, nadi.”

“When?”

That was the question, Bren thought. How?ran right beside it.

“Five days ago. We were directed simply to get into the garage, substitute ourselves for the garage staff—and wait until Lord Tatiseigi arrived at the train station and called for his car.”

“Give us the detail,” Algini said. “How were you to accomplish this?”

“It was all laid out. We were to come onto the grounds by the back gate, keep well to the north hedge until we had passed the stables. We were to find an iron plate under the vines, in the corner near the arbor, and that would get us to the water system—we should work behind the pump housing, and follow the pipe to an access.”

“Which access?” Banichi asked. “Where?”

“Beside the hot water tank.”

“Go on,” Banichi said.

“We were to deal with the staff,” Momichi said. “We did notwant to kill any of the staff. We were prepared to keep the garage crew drugged and confined. But when we got in—there was no one there. So we thought—they are on leave; they will come back when their lord advises them he is coming. We just need to wait. Our information said the garage staff used its own kitchen, rarely mixed with the rest of the staff—that it was very likely no one would come to the garage at all, except the garage staff when they came back. That was the plan. But there was no one there. We never used the lights. We never used the stove. We just waited.” Momichi drew breath. “Then two days on, the house began to stir. And grew busy, as if there was something going on. We caught some voices, and we began to realize there was a great deal of construction going on in the house and on the roof. We went out through the trap, onto the garage roof, that night, and we saw a patrol, Taibeni, on mecheiti, on the front grounds; we saw a glow against the hedges, lights moving. We had no idea what to think—whether Taibeni had occupied the Atageini lord’s estate, or whether theywere preparing an ambush– We stayed very quiet. We thought, if they kill Lord Tatiseigi, the garage staff may not come back. But everything had changed. We decided to stay to find out what was going on—but then we began to realize it was more than Taibeni, that there were other Guild about. And nothing made sense. We thought—we might take the car, claim we were on some errand, and drive out the gate—granted the Taibeni would not know the regular staff. But we decided we might still accomplish what we were sent to do; and even if we failed at that—if we could find out what was going on at Tirnamardi, we might be able to trade that information to the rebels.

“Then we realized Lord Tatiseigi had come home without calling for his car—that the aiji-dowager was in the house. That was the point at which we decided we were in something so far beyond our understanding—it could bring the whole north and East down on the Marid. We thought—we even thought of simply calling on the house phone and reporting ourselves. But we thought—the rebels would get the news. So we opened the same access and tried to leave. Going straight forward, we immediately set off an alarm on the premises. We had used up our only defense against the mecheiti—to keep them from finding the access. We decided to make a second try, but we knew we would never make it on foot if another alarm sounded and the mecheiti were let loose. We thought of taking the car—but doubted we could ram the gate. We thought then—if not afoot—then we might use the mecheiti native to the grounds. If we could bridle two of the leaders while they were settled for the night, we could loose the herd, ride for the east gate and hope the mecheiti would create enough confusion with the Taibeni riders for us to get through the gate. Well, it was a foolhardy idea.” Momichi sighed and shook his head. “We no more than opened the door when some night creature bolted across the rails setting up a racket, the mecheiti all rose up in a panic—and a shot went off. At that point—we ran. We just ran.”

Boji, Bren thought. Boji.Of all damnable things.

“We expected,” Momichi said, “the Atageini would immediately loose the herd on us. We headed for the trees. We made it a distance into the woods, and since we had not had the Atageini herd behind us—we were expecting the Taibeni riders. They cut us off. We climbed for it. We had our rifles. They had theirs. We shouted back and forth a while. We exchanged views—they were upset about the black powder. We granted their point. And we knew the danger should the report about us get out to the south—we told them about that. They said that we could present our case to the aiji-dowager and Lord Tatiseigi, and you, but that they had no sympathy. So we said—if we could talk to you, nandi, we would surrender. And we did.”

If there was bad luck to be had, Bren thought, these two had found it at every turn—bad luck their security had arranged, true. But bad luck that had come full about. These two had come back alive.

And, damn, the expressions looked sincere. They were exhausted, they had spent days in a situation progressively going to hell, and their story made sense, step by miserable next step, so that he was almost inclined to believe them. They’d had rifles. They’d had a chance to use them. They saidthey’d come for one target, only one—strictly regulation, give or take the lack of a Filing. They had not harmed anybody on staff. At the end, they hadn’t shot it out with the Taibeni or aimed at the mecheiti—which had probably persuaded the Taibeni to stand back and talk them down.