Текст книги "Betrayer"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

She laid a hand on his arm, wanting to be sure he was focused, he thought. Human gestures of comfort were not likely when she was on duty. “We are one day, by foot, from the boundary, Bren-ji. We want to go until near dawn or until we find a defensible position. We are not yet in position to make contact with Guild forces. An attempt could attract unwelcome attention in numbers greater than we can deal with.”

“Understood. We shall just keep going, then. Is there more of that drink?”

“Best wait, Bren-ji. It could make you sick.”

“I shall make it, Jago-ji,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, thoroughly in Guild mode, and went back into the dark, leaving him to Tano and Algini. In a moment more, a trick of the eyes, she was gone.

He was glad they were not stopping and risking themselves because of him. Tano and Algini gathered up the baggage they were managing between them—maybe weapons, electronics, even explosives—given Tano’s and Algini’s special skills, the latter was not impossible.

They had, he told himself, enough to deal with without hauling him uphillc and he had gotten a little second wind.

It didn’t last beyond the next small valley and another climb. Near the top, he had to be pushed and pulled up the hill, by Tano, he supposed. In the ebbing of the boost from the juice, he was far too winded and dizzy to take account of who was ahead and who was behind him.

But he kept going once he hit the stony flat at the top, staggering a bit, until they encountered Banichi in the starlight. Jago, Banichi said, had gone somewhat ahead, and they should rest for the while.

That was good. Words were echoing in his ears. Details weren’t coming clear. He needed to rest.

“We are coming into a difficult area,” Banichi said, “and we are trying to find a way around it.”

Going around. He thoroughly agreed with that notion. If there should be gunfire at the moment, he would not have the energy left to take cover.

He just sat down on a convenient rock. And then there wasa gunshot, distant, echoing. Just one.

For the next few moments.

Then there were two. And one more.

Jago was all right. Jago had to be all right. If fire was still going on, she was fighting back.

And she wouldn’t be heading back to them, dragging a shooting match with her. If she was engaged with the problem, she’d settle it, and she wouldn’t come back until she had.

Banichi stayed with them. Algini had the bracelet with the green flashes. Surely he would get some kind of signal soon.

They waited. And waited. The gunfire had given way to a great, deep silence. And Bren didn’t ask questions to interrupt the stillness, because if Jago signaled she was in trouble, he was sure others had one try to catch that signal. That illusory green flash didn’t come. He might have been sitting among a group of statues.

The rest were worried, too, he thought. They watched that bracelet and watched the hill around about them.

Three fast flashes. Then one.

Banichi gave two fast handsigns, got up, and melted into the dark.

More waiting.

God, he hated this. People were almost certainly dead out there—he hoped the casualties were all on the other side.

And the only favor he could do his bodyguard was not to ask questions and let them think.

The chill of the rock began to get into his backside and up from his feet. He was sweating under the coat, far too hot under the damned vest, and his feet in the light house boots were numb from cold. He still didn’t move, except to shift his feet and make sure, if they had to get up in a hurry, that he could do it.

Then a couple more fast flashes came from Algini’s device. A flurry of five or six, so fast he wasn’t sure. Then three.

Algini didn’t move. Tano shifted stance a little, then gave a fast handsign and moved off.

That left him and Algini, who stayed still, watching that blip of a lifeline.

They were in cover where they were. Algini shielded that tiny light with his hand, keeping its view to the two of them.

How long had Jago been gone? He didn’t want to ask a question, which might distract Algini.

But it seemed forever. His backside passed numbness, and the numbness of his feet was traveling up to his ankles. Not good if he had to move. Very, very quietly, and determined not to let the sore ribs glitch the move, he pushed himself to his feet.

Algini rose up immediately, seized his arm, and drew him back against the rocks.

Then Algini shot him a sign. Quiet. Atevi eyes might have made something out. He couldn’t.

He didn’t want to ask. Staying still seemed to be the best course.

Algini left him then. That sign had probably given him Algini’s best advice, but right now, one by one, his bodyguard had left him, and he was all alone in Taisigi territory—an unprecedented solitude. It was possible that things were, one by one, going massively wrong—in which case all he could do was burrow in, prepared to last days in concealment, and hope whatever was going on in Taisigi district ultimately favored Tabini.

It was possible, too, that he was not as alone as he thought. Guild could disappear with amazing effectiveness and still be on the job, in which case it was the paidhi’s simple job to stay very still and tucked into the rocks, glowing in the dark as he inevitably did to atevi vision, and let Algini handle whatever came along.

A sound. A very, very faint sound seemed located off to his right. It wasn’t the direction Algini had gone.

Stand still, he told himself. Stand very still. Atevi had trouble realizing how blind humans were in the dark. And he was blind, in this nook where Algini had put him. At least he didn’t shine out across open spaces.

He hadn’t thought of the gun in his pocket. Now he did, and with what he hoped was a natural motion, he eased his hand into that pocket.

“Kindly hold fire, Bren-ji.”

He all but had a heart attack.

Tano was back. He hoped, instantly, for Banichi and Jago to follow.

But he didn’t move. He saw Tano pass a shadowy sign to empty air, and Algini reappeared, answered in kind, then indicated a direction. Right.

Bren very carefully went that direction, around the side of the rock that had sheltered him.

Tano overtook him, took a gentle hold on his arm, as much to signal him when to stop as to offer help. He kept walking, trying not to make a sound, and Tano said, in a very quiet whisper, “Jago is coming back. Banichi is holding position.”

That was two things he knew, then, two very welcome pieces of news. They were heading in the direction of the gunshots. That was another thing he was sure of.

Tano suddenly had him stop and wait. He waited, absolutely still.

Then out of the dark beside the shoulder of the hill, Jago was back. “Opposition is momentarily cleared,” Jago whispered. “Banichi is watching for any further movement. We have met one of Lord Machigi’s problems.”

The report was for his benefit. The Guild could communicate in many fewer words.

“There is an operations post on the height beyond the ridge,” Jago whispered, breathing only slightly hard, and pointing up . “They may have picked up our signals. Sounds are dangerous.”

His bodyguard at some point had picked up the other side’s transmissions, Bren thought. And Machigi’s problemsc

The hostile base Machigi had talked about. It dominated routes in and out of Taisigi territory.

It made terrible sense that their route, shaped by the land, had run them into it.

He didn’t push his luck with more questions, but Tano said, “We are not surprised.”

A veritable flood of information. Banichi was somewhere ahead mopping up. Solo, for God’s sake. One hoped Banichi was all right and that the alarm switch hadn’t been tripped up on the heights, to bring in reinforcements.

And where are the regular Guild forces? he wondered. If the Guild itself hadn’t moved in to check an advance out of Senji clan, might they might be obligingly mopping up the Guild’s local problem for them as they went? His bodyguard had been a while in space, but they had not rusted.

Damn, they had not.

But, twice damn, this wasn’t their job. It wasn’t even Machigi’s bodyguards’ job. They were supposed to be getting out of the way.

They were supposed to be getting back to safe territory.

But now theyknew where the target was.

Was there any means to let the Guild know?

No safe way. Not in his way of thinking. He had a responsibility for whatever negotiations followedthe Guild actions. He couldn’t risk himself and his bodyguard taking on the Guild’s job. They needed to get out of here. Fast.

Silence persisted in the land around them.

Jago had indicated they should stay put for a time, not, one suspected, to go wandering between Banichi and some objective, or bringing one very slow-moving, glow-in-the-dark human near the opposition.

But at least there were no more gunshots.

It got cold. Very cold. Bren blew on his hands to keep warm, glad of the vest, which at least kept his core warm.

Eventually Algini got up from where he had been sitting. Jago looked at him, then got up and motioned for them to get moving. She quickly moved off ahead of all of them, in utter silence.

Atevi could see in this murk. A human couldn’t. To his eyes, there was no trail where Jago had gone. It was rocky, brushy country, and the night sky had grown overcast, so the dark in the dark places was deeper and played interesting tricks on human sight, especially when one was trying to hurry on rough ground.

Jago was, he thought, on a mission of some kind, and he didn’t want to slow her down.

Banichi was out there somewhere; Banichi might have signaled her, needing somebody to watch his back, and there was evidently some urgency about it.

The hills gave way to a flatter terrain, still at elevation. The Sarini uplands were part of the vast southern plateau, and now– Bren was sure it must be pushing dawn—they were well into that territory, the broad plains that constituted most of Sarini province. If that waswhere they were, it was a three-way border in the distance, where Taisigi land met Senji and both met Maschi clan and Sarini Province—a border that had lately been a permeable membrane, as agents of one Marid clan and the other had attempted to carve their way to the coast via Maschi holdings.

But there were wedges of land that had never known even the atevi concept of a road—

breeding grounds, nature reserves left alone even during hunting season. It was a logical enough place for the renegade Guild to have established a base, a wedge of hills that would see only foot traffic, and that once in a hundred years. Setting up here might be illegal, immoral, and violating every concept of kabiu, but it waslogical.

How other such bases might exist—if there was a plan behind what was going on.

That cell Tabini’s agents had found and eliminated over inside Separti Township? They’d attributed that operation to the Taisigi.

Now he wasn’t at all sure of that fact. Tabini’s agents thought they’d gotten it all. He didn’t entirely bet on that, either.

Their opposition had been clever. Nobody had suspected organization among the scattered elements who had run south. No one had—except the Guild itself; and they hadn’t been talking to the government.

Not to Tabini, not to the dowager, and not to him. He’d more than walked into the renegade’s operation and exposed it—he began to think he’d walked into the Guild’s long-term counter operation, and triggered it.

Well, hell, if the Guild had politely told its own membership what it was slowly doing, he’d have avoided the coast this spring.

And maybe more people would be dead. So he wasn’t sorry for it.

He just wanted to get past this obstacle and into Maschi territory. Let the Guild handle it.

That was all.

14

« ^ »

A sharp yell erupted in the dark, from somewhere in the apartment. Cajeiri flung the covers off and flung his feet over the edge of the bed.

Antaro, was his first thought: the cry had been female. He thought of diving under the bed or into the closet, but if there were intruders, that was too obvious a hiding place.

He heard voices, then, and Jegari and Antaro were talking outside, which was not the sort of thing one expected if they were dealing with intruders. But he was not hearing Veijico. So he thought it might be a fight, then.

So he had better get out there before it got worse. He grabbed his night robe, belted it on, and went out into the sitting room, blinking in the bright lights.

It was no invasion from the roof, and no fight among his bodyguard, either. It was Veijico, looking embarrassed, standing there in the hall in her underwear, and Antaro and Jegari, too—all of his bodyguard in their underwear, all of them with their hair unbraided and looking entirely unkempt. Veijico gave a miserable little bow in Cajeiri’s direction.

“One apologizes, nandi, nadiin.”

“Was it a nightmare?” Cajeiri asked. He had them now and again, although he had never waked the whole apartment, well, not since he was a baby.

“A nightmare, nandi,” Veijico said shamefacedly. “One regrets. One regrets very much having inconvenienced the household.”

She started to turn back toward the room she shared with Antaro. Cajeiri did not think he was going to get back to sleep. It felt close to daylight, anyway. “What time is it?” he asked.

Veijico politely stopped, and when Jegari said it was as late as he thought it was, Cajeiri ran a hand through his hair and decided on waking up.

“Well, one will hardly sleep after that,” he said. He was sorry for Veijico. He supposed the bad dream was about her brother. And he knew he always wanted the lights on and people around him after he had had a bad dream. “I think we should have tea and toast,” he said,

“should we not, nadiin-ji?—Will you like some tea, nadi?”

“One is deeply embarrassed,” Veijico said, “and would undertake not to disturb the house further.”

“Tea,” he said, insisting, and Antaro went off to her room to dress and probably to be the one to go after the tea. Cajeiri stifled a yawn. People were standing about in their underwear, a view which was interesting, from his standpoint, but he would see that from time to time all his life. When Guild moved in defense, they moved, whatever they were or were not wearing, and he was politely not supposed to notice it.

So he went back to his bedroom to dress, and before he was finished, Jegari, dressed but still barefoot, showed up to help him.

When he was done, he and Jegari came back out to the sitting room, where Veijico, in Guild uniform, was using a poker to stir up the sleeping fire. She put on three small sticks and poked the coals until it took fire.

She was deliberately not looking at anyone. Clearly she was still embarrassed.

“I have bad dreams sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I think people are shooting in the house. And then I wake up.”

“It was like that, nandi,” Veijico said, and still she did not look at him or at Antaro.

“Was it about the kidnappers?”

“If I were given permission—” Veijico looked at him, then, her back to the fire. “No, nandi. I shall not ask for permission. I would have to have Cenedi’s support, and I know I would not get that.”

“To go look for your brother?”

“It is not practical, nandi.”

“Lord Machigi sent you and Barb-daja back. Everything will sort out, and Bren-nandi will get him to send Lucasi back, too.”

“The Taisigi caught me, with Barb-daja. But Lucasi will not be caught like that. They will not find him. And he will go on looking for Barb-daja and for me. He will live off the land, and he will not come back until he succeeds or gets an order.” A deep breath. “But if he shoots one of Machigi’s people, nandi, it will be a risk to nand’ Bren. And one very much hopes that does not happen.”

So that was the dream. They had had disturbing news from the Marid all evening, reports of Guild movement here and there in an action Cenedi was not in charge of, and, what was truly unsettling, neither was his father. All yesterday they had known nand’ Bren was talking to Machigi, trying to get him to deal with Great-grandmother, and Lord Machigi had directly promised to find Lucasi and get him home, but it was just what Veijico said: Lucasi would know none of what was going on. He would not want to be found, and if things blew up worse than they were, there was less and less chance of any good news about Lucasi. That was what Veijico was dreaming about.

“Do you want to go ask for news in the security room, nadi?”

“I am becoming a nuisance there, nandi, and I am not in good favor with Cenedi-nadi.”

That was the ongoing problem. Veijico was still in trouble. He realized he had never quite told Cenedi he had taken her back, and how else was Cenedi going to know that, except she was staying in his suite?

“I shall speak to Cenedi,” he said.

“One would be very grateful,” Veijico said.

“I shall go talk to Nawari, meanwhile, nadi,” Jegari said to her. “Nawari will tell me.”

“One would be grateful,” Veijico said again. But this time she looked at Jegari.

It was curious. Just in that, something shifted in the household. Cajeiri felt it. Adults had always said he would know things and he would feel things differently than his ties to humans. And he had thought they were just saying that to separate him from Gene and Artur and Irene, his friendson the ship.

But something shifted. Antaro came back into the room, and they were all together, and it felt different.

His father had unintentionally handed him a hard situation– trying to protect him by getting him a very young bodyguard that he would not try to shake off his track—not, maybe, reckoning how very hard it was going to be to work out man’chi with them and with Antaro and Jegari. Because mani was right. He had notfelt his way through things. He was rowdy and disrespectful, and his ear had gotten very sore from mani’s thwacks on it. She would say things like, “You have no grace,” and “ Think, boy. You were not born dim-witted.” And grow very out of patience with him being slow when it came to guessing what he should and should not do.

Then she would say things like, “ Nand’ Brencan perceive these things. Why can you not use your head, young gentleman?” So he knew she was comparing him to nand’ Bren. As if he were human. And things like, “You have to be among atevi. There are things you will knowwhen you live among atevi.”

Nonsense, he had thought. There was nothing wrong with him.

But all of a sudden he did feel something. Something like a puzzle piece clicking into order.

It was like Gene and Artur on the ship: if somebody did something stupid, they could figure it out, and forgive it, and stick together anyway. And this way they had—had scared him. He had not understood it. But now that his aishid did it, just that little exchange between Jegari and Veijico, it all felt—better. Safer. Maybe it was Veijico needing them and them forgiving her. Maybe it was the precarious way things were; they had become an infelicity of four without Lucasi, but they did not make a felicity of three by shutting her out, and she more than knew that, he suspected she feltthat– because hedid.

So there was something to what mani had said. Things made sense suddenly. They were an infelicity that would not heal until they got Lucasi back. But they choseto be that, because they chose to take Veijico in; and she was suddenly different with them. Not alone, now.

Antaro came back with toast and tea, and Jegari told her he was going out for a moment, and she should save him some.

So now Antaro had to figure it out. But he helped. He said, “Jegari has gone to find out if there is any news about Lucasi. He will be back. We should save his breakfast.”

“Yes,” Antaro said, and set up the teacups, four of them, and poured three, and served him one.

“Nadi,” Veijico said quietly, taking hers, with a look at Antaro. And the room went on feeling better.

***

Jago had been back with them for at least a minute before Bren knew it. She was just there, saying nothing, but moving ahead of them, in the eye-tricking last of the night.

“Is Banichi moving ahead of us, Jago-ji?” Bren whispered when he caught up. It was a brief rest, in the dark, on the edge of dawn. “Why have we not met up with him?”

“We are having trouble getting around our inconvenience,” Jago said, and indicated the rugged ground that rose on their left hand, across a ravine. They had traveled, they had climbed through difficult terrain, and they stillwere not out of the vicinity of their enemies?

“Is that the same place?” Bren surmised.

“Yes,” Jago answered. “We are below it, but not away from it. We are wary of surveillance, Bren-ji. We cannot dismantle it without betraying our presence. Banichi is mapping it. We are going to have to lie low for the day if this way does not work out. How are you faring?”

“I can do it,” he said, impatient of the delay. And then he had to be honest. “If it doesn’t involve a vertical climb. That—I can’t.”

“One hopes to avoid that.”

So that was the story. They were increasingly exposed. There might be enemies waiting in ambush. The sun was coming up, and it was still night to human eyes—but to atevi vision?

They were getting into a region where there had been trouble, and it might have posted sentries. And the day was coming.

“I can go faster, at least,” he said.

“Banichi is back,” Algini said in a low voice, close at hand.

Where? he wondered, looking around like a fool. He saw nothing but rocks and brush.

But as they started moving, and just a little distance farther, a tall shadow appeared in their path, gave a handsign, and they all waited while Banichi and Jago exchanged a handful of words and signs.

Then Tano said, “Banichi has found the boy.”

Lucasi? Good God. “Where?” he asked. And then thought of the enemy base. “God. Is he up there?”

“No,” Tano said. “But ahead of us. We are going to where he is.”

They’d made all possible racket in the district, including gunfire. The enemy had to be on high alert up there. Now they moved quietly, slipping down into a nook in the rock, behind vertical slabs, overgrown with brush, and down and up again, Banichi and Jago in the lead, and Banichi not stopping for a lengthy report.

They came to a split in the rock, a difficult passage over tumbled boulders, a nook deep in shadow.

He didn’t see any sign of Lucasi there, not at first, and then he saw the direction of attention of the others and made out the faint outline of a figure sitting next to the scrub with one leg extended. That figure started to get up, but Banichi signed abruptly and it stayed put.

Bren came closer, finding, indeed, their missing young Guildsman, with a splinted leg and an attitude of utter exhaustion and dejection.

Tano, their team medic, dropped down on his haunches and asked, “Your condition, nadi?”

“Foot and ankle, Tano-nadi,” came the faint answer.

“He was the one who started all this,” Banichi said in the lowest of voices. “He came very near to being shot, but he spoke to me in time.”

Jagohad missed spotting the kid, when she had gone over the area. He had recognized Banichi in the dark. And he had somehow not gotten away from the original firefight, the one that had touched off the trouble. That was something.

“Can he walk?” Bren asked.

“He will slow us down,” Banichi said. “He will have to keep up to our pace or hide and wait for help. We cannot risk you, Bren-ji. He knows that very clearly.”

He didn’t like the choice. He felt responsible for the boy.

But if the renegades succeeded in taking them, the aishidi’tat had a problem.

He went over to the boy and half-sat against a rock—if he knelt down to the boy’s level, he thought, it would take his whole aishid to get himon his feet again. “One is glad to see you, nadi.”

“Nandi,” Lucasi said with a lowering of his head. “One understands the depth of trouble I have caused.”

“Banichi has told you that your sister is safe, along with Barb-daja.”

A nod. “Yes, nandi. One is deeply grateful.”

“Banichi may have told you. You are in Taisigi district, and that post up there is not Taisigi.

The Guild is moving on a nest of renegades of the Guild, from the years of the Troubles. And this will not be a safe place once they arrive. Can you possibly attempt to stay with us, or can you go to ground and stay there?”

“I wish to go with you, nandi.”

“Make the safest decision, for your own sake, whether to try this or to go to ground. I wish very much to present you to your partner safe. But we cannot have you endanger this mission.”

“I can do it,” Lucasi said. “I can, nandi.”

Bren walked back to Banichi. “I have told him the importance of our mission. He believes he can stay with us.”

“I have my own orders for him,” Banichi said, and he went over and said about two words, which Bren did not hear; but he saw the boy, who had risen to stand on one foot, nod emphatically. Twice.

They gathered up their gear then—or Banichi and Jago did. Tano and Algini were suddenly not in sight, and since Banichi and Jago started off, it didn’t seem a good thing to ask too many questions.

Guarding their backtrail, Bren thought. They had to make speed and still avoid running into allies or enemies in the dark, and with dawn coming on.

Then he realized the boy was not with them. Banichi had, he thought, outright ordered the boy to stay put and wait for them to come back for him once they had this mess sorted out.

Which was as it was. Banichi was thinking about the mission, he had no question of that.

About the mission and getting through this. He was glad if Banichi was doing what was necessary in spite of help from him.

He just hoped to hell Tano and Algini would get back to them soon.

They were about half an hour on, on a delicate climb downward, in the earliest of dawn, when all of a sudden the ground heaved and rocks fell, bounding hollowly down from the height.

Bren leaned back against a man-sized boulder and stared up in startlement at the source of the explosion, a cloud billowing skyward above the ridge.

He didn’t say anything. But that hadn’t been any weapon he knew about.

It was, however, Tano and Algini’s specialty.

And now that explosion and that cloud was a beacon for the neighborhood. It was going to upset any enemies in the area, who would probably run to see what had happened.

The renegades had certainly been stirred up from the hour Jago had fired the first shot. He had no doubt of that. But that towering cloud above the ridge was a magnet for an ambush.

The other side would know it—and maybe blame Machigi’s forces, which actually lay in the opposite direction. The combination of misdirections was not a bad thing—unless it brought action down on their heads.

Just hurry up and get back to us, he thought; and he hoped Tano and Algini didn’t stay to do any more damage.

And he hoped to God the kid back there just kept his head down and melted into a hole in the rocks before their enemies came swarming out and around the area.

He—he just had to get down this slope, carefully, quickly. Safety was ahead of them, not behind. Banichi and Jago might have left the kid out of practicality, but they were held to the progress hecould make, and the only thing he could do to help them was to watch where he put his feet and just do better, longer, farther than he thought he possibly, humanly, could.

He got down to flat rock. Banichi moved on, and he kept going, with Jago’s help under his arm.

“Bren-ji,” Jago said at one point, “go more slowly if you must!”

“For my sake or yours, Jago-ji?” he panted as he went. “If for mine, trust I can do this. I shall live, I assure you.”

They went at the increased pace, Banichi in the lead, Jago close by him, being sure he didn’t step into a hole, so he had one less thing to worry about. Staying upright. Moving. That was his job.

The sun was definitively up, now, removing the cover of darkness even to human eyes.

Breathing and walking occupied all available intellect. And he was no longer sure he was using his best sense, but he pushed a bit harder, able to see, now. He made it to the top of a rise, wavered, with the far view of hills swimming ahead of him, then realized he was wobbling on the edge of a drop-off, and he caught himself one nanosecond before Jago snatched him against her and steered him to safer route, keeping him from descending the hill in a catastrophic slide.

“One is,” grateful, he tried to say. But he hadn’t the wind left. The whole world went fuzzy at that point. He might have been out on his feet, except Jago still had hold of his arm, and then had her arm around him.

“Here is not a good place, Bren-ji. Just a little farther. Then we shall rest an hour.”

An hour. A whole hour sitting still. He wanted it so much.

But they couldn’t afford that.

He had to tell them that. But he had to get where it was safe. He energized his legs and managed to keep going, sure, with what shred of intelligence he had left, that where Banichi was going, where Jago wanted him to go, was at least better cover, and a place where he could take just a little rest and get his wind back and then argue.

Maybe he could even take off the damned vest for a moment or two. It would be such a relief.

God, he wanted to do that.

It was still another downhill, in among rocks, and past an overhanging shrub. Banichi waited at the bottom of a steep little slope, took his other arm and steered him to a little concealed nook and a flat rock he could sit on.

Then, silently, by the time Bren looked up, Banichi had left them. Jago was alone.

“Sorry,” Bren said, trying to get his breath. “One is sorry, Jago-ji. Banichi is scouting?”

“As well we take a look ahead, Bren-ji. Use the time.”

She offered him a drink from a small flask, plain water, which they had in very short supply, he knew that. His mouth was dust-dry and he let a mouthful roll around and moisten his throat in little trickles. For not very much encouragement at all he would lie flat on the rock and stay there, but it would only hurt more, getting up, and the damned vest, once he was sitting down, at least helped hold him upright in some comfort.

“How are you, Bren-ji?” Jago asked him, sinking down on her haunches. She wanted an estimate, he said to himself, not stupid overstatement.