Текст книги "Betrayer"

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

So supper had gone very fast, for one of mani’s suppers, just the one dish and tea, quickly disposed of.

And immediately after there was more serious talk, mani with Cenedi and Lord Geigi, while Cajeiri translated as much as he could get into his head, for nand’ Tobi and Barb-daja.

Mani’s guard, stationed on the roof and at various places nobody mentioned, had all the roads under watch. The Edi were watching the overland roads and trails.

And nand’ Geigi had left orders at Targai when he quit the area, telling the little Parithi clan not even to try to resist any invasion, but to stay under cover as much as possible and even to abandon the house if they had to. Parithi had no Guild of its own there to defend them, and in Geigi’s opinion and everybody else’s, they were not a priority for Shejidan to move anybody in to help them.

Meanwhile, the men who had come in from Tanaja on the bus had vanished again, telling nobody what they were up to.

Cajeiri tried to communicate all the detail. He had not used his ship-speak this much in most of a year. Mosphei’ had a different accent and put in pieces ship-speak left out, so he kept having to correct himself. And when nand’ Toby had something to say, he had to ask nand’

Toby several times to get things straight, and then find a time to break into what mani and Lord Geigi were saying to get it across, whispering.

Nand’ Toby had been working for the Presidenta of Mospheira all during the Troubles, and he understood just how everything was laid out along the whole west coast, and who was where, and who was allied, and who was trouble. So that at least made explaining mani’s answers easier in the other direction.

The one fact he gathered from mani and Cenedi was what they had already found out, that the Guild was acting on its own in the Marid. Guild who had man’chi only to the Guild were running things at the moment, and Cenedi was not reliably informed, the way Cenedi put it.

Cenedi was angry about that, Cajeiri thought, but even as high as Cenedi’s rank was, not to mention mani’s, there seemed to be nothing he could do to get the Guild to obey and get people to Najida. Going into the Marid and, as Toby put it, knocking heads, was probably a good idea on the Guild’s part. But mani had rushed into action, a situation neither she nor Cenedi liked, because this second power, this other outlawed Guild, had tried to get Guild action focused on Machigic which mani believed meant they were going to kill him.

Now here they sat.

And Cajeiri thought his father in Shejidan was probably doing just what mani was doing: sitting. And it was probably what even the Presidenta over on Mospheira was doing: getting his people into protective positions until it was clear exactly where the Guild was operating and what they were doing, and sitting in his office asking sharp questions and listening to reports. It was all these powerful people could do—because the Guild, which had always taken orders, was obstinately not taking orders or giving out information.

And it was not just the Maschi and the Edi and the Marid involved. Mani in fact had told nand’ Geigi that when the Edi had appealed to the Gan for help, the lord of Dur had found out; and everybody speculated that Dur, of all their allies, might do something—being far enough from the renegade’s territory that he was not directly in danger. Cajeiri was excited and encouraged to hear that; Dur was one of his father’s staunchest allies, and particularly the young lord of that district, who was incredibly brave and reckless and had an airplane. A yellow one.

Dur had boats. And planes. And if they came down, things would be a lot better.

But in either case, the bad news was that the help from the north was going to take time getting here.

And now the Guildsmen who had come in on the bus had disappeared, and Cenedi would not talk about it or answer mani’s questions, which probably meant Cenedi knew where they were.

Probably, Cajeiri thought, they had headed back into Targai district, which definitely had trouble; or maybe they had gone down into Separti Township or over to Kajiminda to give Guild help to the Edi who were protecting it. It still all added up to the fact that they might be on their own for a while, and what was blowing up larger and larger in the Marid was like a storm coming up way too fast. There just was not time, now, Cenedi said, to expect any help.

They were going to have to get through the night, and possibly a few days longer than that, on their own.

Meanwhile, mani’s bodyguard wasputting booby traps in place. A lot of them. Really interesting ones. Cajeiri had wanted to see in detail what they were, but nobody would let him.

So they were getting ready, with mani’s young men posted on the roof and elsewhere as they had been.

Nand’ Toby said, too, that if they wanted, he could phone the Presidenta of Mospheira and get help, and Geigi said that the station would provide intelligence to Shejidan.

“We shall just keep behind our walls, nadiin-ji,” she said, in that tone of voice that ended argument. “We shall defend ourselves.”

“I don’t understand why,” Cajeiri said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja, “but mani says no.”

Then Cenedi’s chin lifted, and he sent an attentive look into nowhere, as if he were hearing something from that earpiece he had.

He said, quietly, “Aiji-ma, nandiin, there is movement out of Senji, bypassing Targai. It has reached the airport. It will likely come this way.”

The airport. That was close. That was just about an hour away. Whatever was going to happen had started.

***

It was difficult to be bored to tears while being terrified, but given a whole day hiding in a hole in the rocks, it was possible, Bren decided. He shifted position to keep his legs from going to sleep, but his backside was beyond numb.

It had gotten dark. Darker than dark. Clouds had moved in, and there was not even starlight to help. And the strain of listening for hours had taken its toll on mental acuteness.

He wasn’t listening as well as he had. He actually grew increasingly sleepy and dull-witted with exhaustion, and he leaned his head back and shut his eyes, just reassuring himself with the faint night sounds—telling himself that if those creatures were stirring, nobody was near.

He came closer to sleep. Felt the slight movement of a breezec

A very light breeze. The waft of a white, sheer curtain. The smell of flowers. The shadow of the lattice.

The garden apartment. That was where he had joined up with Banichi and Jago, a different world ago.

It was the night he’d started carrying an illegal gun in the first place. If he let this dream continue, in the next moment he’d see a shadow beyond that lattice. A gun would go off.

He’d begun another life, that night, on the chain of events that had led him to Ilisidi.

And a close association with Tabini, who’d taken him target shooting up at Taiben, in days when he’d been far more innocent.

Best not sleep. Keep awake. Keep alert. He’d be embarrassed when Jago got back and scared hell out of him.

Had to move. His leg had a cramp.

Damn, he wished he’d hear from Jago. Or Banichi. Or somebody.

Was that the breeze stirring the grass?

God. The other night sounds had stopped. He just realized that.

His heart rate picked up. Calm, Banichi had told him. A rapid heartbeat never improved one’s aim. Think of the problem, not the emotional context. And Jago had advised him that it was generally wiser to watch an approaching enemy from cover and find out the number involved before doing anything, including running.

He couldn’t stand sitting in a hole and waiting, however. He wanted to get up onto his feet.

But he had to manage that without scuffing a foot or moving a pebble. Which meant deciding it was going to hurt his chest and that he was going to lever himself straight up anyway, without minding the pain.

He could do it.

He’d damned well betterdo it.

He did. Control the breathing, Banichi would say. Keep balanced, Jago would say.

He tried. Poking his head out of his little nook just wasn’t bright. As best he could judge, he was in deep shadow.

And there was, please God, the chance it was Jago coming back. He couldn’t just fire blindly at whatever came.

He eased the safety off the pistol, however. He looked at the ground, judged the slight difference of shadow and deeper shadow that his human eyes could barely make out, and decided it was best just to stay absolutely still and hope. He wasn’t the one to take on trouble, and his bodyguard didn’t need his warning.

Whoever it was, he had the impression they were moving on or near the track he and Jago had laid down.

The sound was coming toward his rocky nook, in all this emptiness. In grass, there was no help for it: there was the vestige of a trailc just not much likelihood of anybody happening onto it by total chance.

Closer. God, he didn’t want to have to shoot. If some stranger came in here, setting that pistol off would echo like doom, from one end of these hills to the other, and would bring all sorts of trouble he couldn’t outrun.

But no choice, he thought, hearing a step in the grass outside.

“Bren-ji,” a whisper said.

It wasn’t Jago. It was Tano or Algini, one or the other, and he felt the blood drain from his head. “Here,” he whispered back, and a shadow slipped in between the rocks.

Algini, he decided, feeling the aftermath of the adrenaline rush.

“Jago’s been gone all day,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Algini said. “We have contact.”

God, that was a relief.

“Banichi?”

“No,” Algini said, and relief plunged right back into worry.

But there was no chance to ask extensive questions. Algini moved, and he went too, out into the clear. “Tano?” he whispered, outside.

“He is coming,” Algini said, and Bren tucked the gun into his pocket and went with Algini, moving as quietly as he could, in Algini’s footprints, or as close as a human stride could make it.

He was quickly out of breath, his mouth was parched, and blisters made walking painful; Algini had to slow down, and finally to rest, hunkered down next to a line of brush.

“Tano will catch up with us,” Algini said.

“Banichi?”

“Possibly switched off,” Algini said. “Possibly out of range.”

Jago might know. Wherever she was. Bren found himself chilling in the wind and tried not to shiver. Algini was never a fount of sympathy: his mind worked otherwise, on facts and necessities, and one decided it was far better to let Algini think and listen and not to be nattering away with questions to which Algini had no answer. Whatever had happened, had already happened, and at this point they were headed, he hoped, as directly as possible toward Targai, where they could reach Geigi and, if they were lucky, signal the bus to come get them. They were on flatter groundc which could mean they had reached deep into the uplands and maybe were approaching one of the few roads that ran through Maschi lands.

“Water, if you will, nadi,” was his one request of Algini. Algini passed him a small flask, and he held the water in his mouth a long time on each small swallow. It was stale, but it was the best thing in hours. He started to hand the flask back.

Algini made an abrupt move of his hand, then held up two fingers.

Tano, and company. They were going to meet and probably part again after conferring and laying plans.

Then Algini, uncharacteristically, volunteered information. “We have now lost Jago’s contact, nandi.”

His heart sank. There was still nothing they could do about it. “Yes,” he said, acknowledging he had heard. Nothing more. He looked at the ground and tried not to think what could have gone wrong. Jago would go to help Banichi only if she were sure Tano and Algini were going to find him.

So they had found him. What else was going on out there in the dark at the moment, he had no idea, and he was convinced Algini would tell him if he knew anything more.

They waited.

16

« ^ »

Great-grandmother would not, she still said, take refuge in the basementc

“Are we to sit in a hole in the ground along with that coward and malefactor Baiji! We will not, nadi!”

Cajeiri never recalled Great-grandmother addressing Cenedi so rudely. It was late, people needed to settle to bed, particularly nand’ Toby, who was not that well; but that was not happening, not while mani held out abovestairs.

Cenedi replied, jaw set, “Aiji-ma, I will carry you downstairs myself if you will not go. Then I will stay there with you to be sure you stay, when your guard needs my presence. Live or die, they will have to get along without me, because youclearly need me more.”

Cajeiri never recalled Cenedi answering back to mani, either. He found his mouth open, and shut it, and his bodyguard, there to witness along with Lord Geigi, was likely dismayed.

“What’s the matter?” nand’ Toby asked.

It was not a good time to be talking. Cajeiri didn’t say a thing.

Then Lord Geigi said, offering a gentlemanly hand, “Aiji-ma, let us go down together for a light snack and leave our bodyguards less worry, shall we? We shall have Cook provide us cakes and tea, and we shall have my radio, and we shall keep well apprised of the situation on the grounds. Kindly do come, aiji-ma, and keep me company. Otherwise this waiting may be very tedious.”

Mani’s temper was up, for certain, but Lord Geigi bravely persisted.

“Sidi-ji,” he said. “Do join me. You know what they say about lords who ignore their bodyguards.”

“Gods unfortunate, when did youbecome mine?” she muttered, and sharply: “Great-grandson!”

“Mani!” Cajeiri said instantly.

“You will come with us. And bring our guests down.”

Finally! “Yes, mani!” Any other answer was apt to get a thwack with her cane, and not a slight one. “Please come downstairs, too,” he said to nand’ Toby and Barb-daja. “Get some sleep.”

“How close is the enemy?” Toby wanted to know. “I can shoot, understand. I’m a better shot than my brother.”

“This is Guild business,” Cajeiri said. “It’s going to be bad up here. Mani says come down right now, and I’ll bet she knows something. So we have to go with her. Or she won’t go.”

He looked at his bodyguard. “Taro-ji, Gari-ji, I don’t think you should be up here. Jico-ji—do whatever you decide to do.”

“I am Guild,” Veijico said quietly. “I shall be upstairs, nandi.”

***

It was also possible to be bored while worried sick, and there was nothing to do but sit and stew about the situation.

“Is there any reason they would switch off, Gini-ji?” Bren asked, desperately, finally, in their long sitting still. “Do you think they are still all right?”

Algini took a while answering. The Guild held certain information very close, and it was not likely at all that Algini would divulge method, only conclusion.

“When Guild goes against Guild,” Algini said, “yes. One might switch off.”

It was his dearest hope Jago and Banichi had done exactly that.

It had to pass for good news. Banichi and Jago were a force of two. The number of renegade Guild in the district was certainly far higher than that, even if they might have slightly reduced the odds tonight. They knew the direction Banichi and Jago had taken, at least generally, and prolonged silence and absence could tell them that there was something ahead of them they didn’t want to meet.

That would put that problem out into the far edge of Machigi’s territory, or right in the near edge of Geigi’s, neither being good news for their situation.

He began to wonder if that was the case. And once Tano caught up, they might decide that, instead of going north and trying to cross into Maschi territory as quickly as possible, they might veer off to the northwest and try to reach Najida directly. He wasn’t completely in favor of that. It would be farther. A hellish lot farther. He wasn’t sure how much he had left in him; and he most of all wanted to get back to Najida and in reach of a phone.

But if Tano and Algini said that was the best thing to do, he was going to have to find it in himself to do it.

If he could shed the damned vestc

But they weren’t going to let him do that.

Algini knocked his knee with the back of his hand, a signal to pay attention. Something was going on, but Algini hadn’t moved, otherwise, and just waited. And waited. “I have shut down my locator,” Algini said. “But Tano will find us.”

Tano was close. But there was a chance the enemy was close, too.

Moments passed.

“They are here,” Algini said, in a night no different to Bren’s eyes and ears than the last hour.

“Come, Bren-ji.”

Tano and Lucasi. He got up. Algini took a grip under his arm on the way down the slight rise, for which he was grateful, and from out of a very little cover of brush, there were, indeed, Tano and Lucasi, the latter under his own power with, apparently, a stick he was using as a cane.

“We are all going dark now,” Algini said to him in a low whisper. “We have to make time toward Maschi territory.”

Still going north, then. Going for the major road. Or close to it. “Yes,” Bren said, and he just kept up as they started off, holding the thought in his mind that Banichi and Jago might have done the same, and they all might be heading toward some mutually agreed goal, to make a rendezvous.

He walked, at least doing no worse than Lucasi, who was walking with an improvised crutch and with his ankle now professionally splinted clear to the knee. They were a hell of a group, he thought, two of them doing well to be walking at all and not going as fast as Tano and Algini could wish. Bren had one sip more of water and kept going, trying not to breathe like a steam engine on a grade and trying to keep his feet out of holes, of which there were a great many, given the rocky, graveled ground. Tano and Algini were lugging heavy packs, and they made no fuss about it, just kept going doggedly at what was undoubtedly a slower pace than they would like to set.

They were now out of cover. One really, truly didn’t like this.

There was, however, a rock ridge running in the far distance. They seemed to be going toward that.

There would be cover there. He liked that better. He decided there were a finite number of steps between here and there and he coulddo it. Lucasi, who had not said a word, was likely telling himself the same thing. Once they got there, they could surely rest for a bit.

Try not to pant. That was noisy. He couldn’t help it. He just had to hurry. The kid was in the same shape. And toward the last, Tano and Algini each took one of them by an arm and just kept them moving.

They reached the shadow. And went into it, and down to a split in the rocks.

There was a downslope about three times a human’s height, down to a dirt road.

And there Tano stopped him and let him sink down and lean against a rock just slightly too high to sit on. It was enough. He tried to collect his breath and his wits.

Algini left his bag and slipped away, out of sight. Not one more of them, Bren said to himself, regretting that departure.

But Tano didn’t talk, the boy didn’t talk, and that set the rules he was sure Tano and Algini had laid down. He didn’t talk. He just sat and waited.

And waited.

And still waited.

Tano checked the time, doubtless himself wondering how long it had been.

And then there was a faint, distant sound. Even human ears heard it. A vehicle was coming from somewhere to the north. The road ran more or less north and south.

Somebody was coming.

The sound kept up. The boy’s head was up. There was no doubt Tano heard it, and he stood there attentive to the night and their surroundings.

Trouble, Bren thought. As if they didn’t have enough. But Algini would lie low out there.

Algini might be able to see it.

He listened to the sound for several minutes. It was coming closer.

And then it changed pitch, then started up again. Shifted gears, maybe. Maybe a climb.

Definitely coming this way.

“Come,” Tano said, and led the way behind the rocks.

Apparently they were moving to deeper cover, along the same line Algini had taken. Letting the vehicle pass them.

It was definitely getting closer.

Tano led the way around the end of the ridge, onto the exposed slope, and there was a van coming fast, running with no headlights, and here they were, out in the open on the slope.

Then it ticked into his thinking that they were going toward that van, and doing so recklessly.

Tano seized him by one arm and took hold of Lucasi by the other, on his bad side, and took them down the slope, just about the time the van reached that point on the road.

It braked. Flung open a side door. Algini ducked out, beckoning them on, and Bren threw everything he had into it– damned near fell on his face, if not for Tano, coming down the last of the slope.

Two were driving. He caught the silver glint on the uniform, the profile against the faint, faint light from outside.

“Is it Jago? Banichi?”

“Bren-ji,” Jago said from the front seat as Tano seized Bren a second time by the arm and edged as far over as he could to give room to him and Lucasi—and two armored bodies between them and the walls of the van. “One regrets the long silence, Bren-ji,” Banichi said.

“We are reasonably well.”

Algini shut the door and dropped into the back seat. “Targai is too risky a run,” Banichi said, throwing the van into reverse, backing around. “We are heading straight west, for Najida.”

“One will by no means argue with that,” Bren said, feeling all the exertion of the last number of hours. He felt absolutely drained of strength, not least from sheer relief. “Is the van from Targai?”

“No,” Jago said. “It is probably from Senji district.”

“We have a little difficulty about fuel,” Banichi said. “But we are headed for a station.”

“Apai?” Algini asked.

“Yes,” Banichi said. It was a name which meant absolutely nothing to Bren. But his bodyguard knew. His bodyguard kept abreast of things that never occurred to the paidhi-aiji to wonder about and checked maps he had not, while he was deciding the fate of the east coast, thought to look at. But his aishid might have, while those atlases were on the sitting-room table. And there was fuel at a place called Apai, which was probably a crossroads in the back country. That would mean market roads, or a farm, or hunting stationc more such details his bodyguard studied and that he hadn’t even thought of when they’d diverted themselves into Taisigi territory.

It was even possible his guard had studied these things before they had ever left Najida, in case of the unanticipated. He had never even thought to wonder.

Their enemies could have studied those things too, about Najida, about the territory they were in.

Their enemies were now missing a van. And probably several occupants. The windshield was badly cracked. There could be blood on the seat he was sitting on; but at this point he couldn’t care about it. He rested his head on the seat back and just breathed and took in the fact he had all his bodyguard back, their voices, matter-of-fact about their desperate business, reassuring him that, at least for the next hour, nothing was within his power to fix but it might be within theirs. He had no complaints.

Unless—

“Have we the ability to contact Najida, nadiin-ji?”

“Safest not to do so, Bren-ji,” Jago said, half turning in her seat. “We are dark at the moment and move best that way. Our opponents use the same systems, and they know each other, likely, only by what zone they occupy. Our best hope of getting out of here is to be misidentified.”

“Understood,” he said, and he shut up, content to let his bodyguard make their own decisions without his meddling. But, damn, he wanted to make that call.

He put a hand to his chest, site of the most forceful reminder not to meddle in Guild business.

It could have killed him. It all could have ended right there, leaving more than his affairs in a hell of a mess. His bodyguard hadn’t called him a fool. But he had, every time he made an injudicious move. Every time he risked things larger than himself.

The bruise was better now than it had been, or he didn’t think he could have made it across country. He was sweaty, he was dirty, he was miserable, his hands and feet were still half frozen, he was sure he had deep blisters on his right foot, the sole had come loose on the left boot, and he had definitely picked up a bit of gravel in the failing boot to add to his misery, but the greatest immediate discomfort was the vest itself. It had to stay on, that was all, and the feet—he was sitting down now on a padded seat, out of the wind and no longer freezing, but his feet were cold.

Riding, however, was bliss. They weren’t safe by a long shot. There was a long way to go. A scary long way to go.

But going to Najida—that was where he needed to be.

That was the place he wanted most to protect, personally, emotionally. He was only upset about leaving Geigi at Targai in what could be a very dangerous situation.

Whatever was going on over at Targai, however—and an incursion from Senji was high on the list of possibilities, as well as action from the renegade Guild—there was a good chance Geigi’s bodyguard had already gotten Geigi out of it, the same as his was doing for him, the same that Machigi’s had done for their lord. Ordinary citizens were off limits as targets. If the lord wasn’t there, the Guild was supposed to cease operations. Which protected civilian lives, civilian property, and historic premises. That was the way it was supposedto work.

But they were up against people who mined public roads. Who kidnapped children. The whole district was getting to be no place for high-value targets, no guarantee for the ordinary citizen.

It was why the Guild had to win this one. The Guild had committed everything, broken with precedent, outlawed half the Marid and pulled in every asset they could lay hands on to stop this lot and restore the regulations that had always stood.

He had to trust it. Had to wish the Guild luck. Most of all, he had to rely on present company to keep him alive and be prepared to run for it, and run hard.

And he hoped to hell they didn’t, in this stolen van, draw fire from their own side.

***

There was occasional shooting outside, up above. It came and it went, and it was long after dark outside.

Mani and nand’ Geigi sat in a basement room having tea and discussing old times. Nand’

Toby and Barb-daja had gone to their basement room to get some rest. Cajeiri sat in the corner of mani’s room, teaching Jegari and Antaro chess.

And he had just made a bad move, because he had been thinking about what was going on upstairs instead of where his district lord was sitting relative to the magistrate.

Antaro made the correct move. He lost a district.

“Good,” he said confidently, as if he had been testing her.

Louder gunfire. A heavy boom that shook the walls.

“That’s out on the road,” Jegari muttered, looking up.

“I hope it was them and not us.”

“Hssst!” mani said, objecting to the turn of conversation. The cane thumped sharply. “Bad enough we are confined down here with the spare linens and the brooms. Shall we also endure pointless speculation?”

“One is extravagantly sorry, mani,” Cajeiri said, half-rising, with a little bow, and sat back down. He knew better than to chatter when Great-grandmother was upset and out of sorts.

Great-grandmother truly hated fidgeting. And probably her back hurt. They had gotten pillows for her chair, and Great-grandmother, on principle, refused to fidget with them.

They went back to their chess game. “One apologizes, nandi,” Jegari said under his breath.

“One is not concerned, nadi-ji,” he murmured, and advanced a village lord.

Great-grandmother and Geigi continued talking quietly, about anything but what was going on outside.

The rifle fire up above became more frequent, and it sounded scarily closer.

17

« ^ »

The fueling station turned out to be a farming village. “One requests you get to the floor, Bren-ji,” Banichi said. “We are going right down the street as if we belong here.”

Getting down onto the floor was not a comfortable act, but Bren managed it, braced against the bench seat, familiar situation. Tano and Algini got down, too, along with Lucasi, in the theory, he knew well enough, that if enemy fire took out Banichi and Jago, it wouldn’t get all of them at once.

Little chance the villagers themselves would fire at them. Word would have gone out by radio that there was a Guild action proceeding, and it was against all common sense for a civilian to interfere in a Guild action. It was a law that kept civilians alive and kept their property undamaged. It limited return actions and moreFilings. And for what these villagers ought to know, the law applied. If the Guild wanted to confiscate the local fuel supply, the village magistrate would complain to his lord, notably Machigi or Geigi, depending on which side of the border he felt they were on, or would apply to both, and request compensation. The lord who presided would supply the fuel for their farm machinery and then send the fuel charges to the Filing party, a modest claim that was incredibly bad form to dispute and fairly bad form to pad, though it happened.

So the village was not their worry: the village would just phone Tanaja and advise them of a problem. The villagers personally had nothing to defend, no worry about action coming at them except stray bullets or somebody deciding to interdict the enemy’s fuel supply by draining the tank, the stealthy option, or blowing it up, the attention-getting one, and entailing a much larger lawsuit once the dust settled.

In any case, if things went as usual, the villagers would always get their justice. And Guild in the field would not have to worry about some desperate and innocent amateur with a gun.

They stopped, Bren judged, somewhat apart from the pumps. Algini scrambled up and out the side door, which wasn’t usual– their explosives expert looked at the pump before they pulled up to it.

Which brought really uncomfortable thoughts. There were all sorts of nasty tricks that never should be used where civilians might stumble into them. And he worried about them until Algini thumped quietly on the fender, had them move up, and unscrewed the cap.