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  "One would be hard pressed to join these items in conversation," Banichi said dryly. "Even with nuance."

  "One would." He was amused, and felt the unwinding of something from about his heart. Tano didn't tend to catch him up on the daily illogics of his trade, but Banichi would jab him, mercilessly. So would Jago. He had to revise the rules of his life and go on his guard all the time, or be the butt of their humor. And he enjoyed it. He fired back. "So what did befall lord Saigimi?"

  "One hears," Banichi said, "someone simply and uncreatively shot him."

  "So. Doubtless, though, it was professional."

  "Doubtless," Jago said. "Though late."

  So Tabini didn't trouble to make it look accidental, was his private thought: more dramatic effect, more fear on the part of those who should be afraid.

  "Is it quiet in the south?"

  "The south. Oh, much more so. But quiet often goes between storm fronts."

  A warning. A definite warning, from Jago. "Is there anything you wish to tell me, nadiin-ji?"

  "Much that I would wish to inform you," Banichi said, with the contrary-to-fact wish, "but essentially, and until we know the outcome of yesterday's events, please take no unnecessary chances. The situation is quite volatile. Lord Saigimi of the Hagrani had acquired allies, more timorous or more prudent than he, but should any of those lords fall within their houses, and some more radical members within those same houses rise — -times might become interesting. In most instances, understand, the replacements for any of those persons would not lead with Saigimi's force of will; but one of the lot is worth watching, Saigimi's daughter Cosadi — a bit of a fool, and an associate of Direiso — female conspiracy, entirely impenetrable."

  Jago made a face and shot her senior partner a look. And knowing these two, Bren recognized a tossed topic when it sailed by him. "A woman may be more in Direiso's confidence. Naturally."

  "I don't think the junior member of the Hagrani clan is on Direiso's intellectual level," Banichi muttered. "And she will see herself eaten without salt."

  Quickly, that idiom meant. The two had fallen to discussion in front of him, but played it out for him, quite knowledgeably so.

  "But considers herself to be Direiso's intellectual heir-apparent," Jago said.

  "Oh, small chance."

  "An earnest student — capable of flattery."

  "I thought discerning women saw through such frivolity."

  Clearly it was a jibe. Bren failed to know where. But Jago wasn't daunted.

  "They receive that kind of flattery so rarely, nadi."

  Banichi's brow lifted. "What, praise? Admiration? I pay it when due."

  Banichi evidently scored. Or came out even.

  Jago shot him a sidelong look, and was otherwise expressionless.

  "Jago believes she saved my life," Banichi said. "And will not decently forget it."

  "Is that it?" Bren asked. "I at least am grateful, Jago-ji, that you saved his life. I would have been very sad if you hadn't."

  "I did raise that point," Jago said, still straight-faced. "He of course was in no danger."

  "None," Banichi said with an airy wave.

  "Guild etiquette does not permit me to state he is a fool, Bren-ji, but he risked himself attempting to preempt me in a position of better vantage. — And I did not require help, nandi!"

  A wise human sat very still. And ducked his head and bit his lip, because he knew it was a performance for his benefit.

  He was appalled to think, then, like a lightning-stroke, that he was hearing details from this morning, regarding a death for which, dammit, yes, these two were directly responsible.

  So who had fired? At whom?

  Jago? To save Banichi? Jago had killed someone?

  Lord Saigimi?

  Or his security? That would lack finesse. Banichi would never joke about such an event as that. And did Tabini want such matters communicated to him?

  Banichi took a casual pose, legs extended, and had a sip of the liqueur.

  "Bren-ji, just take care."

  "I am very glad you're both safe."

  "So are we," Banichi said, and gave a quiet smile. "We only said to ourselves, 'What does it lack now?' And Jago said, 'Our lives are too quiet. Let's find nadi Bren.' So we climbed back over the wall and took the first plane to Shejidan."

  Not from the Marid airport, Bren was willing to bet.

  "One is very glad," Bren said, "to have you both back. One hopes you'll stay a while."

  "One hopes." Banichi kicked a footstool into reach and propped his feet toward the fire, then leaned back, glass in hand.

  "They won't — come after you here, will they?"

  A totally innocent look, from golden atevi eyes. "Who?"

  "The —" One was being stupid, even to ask. "The owners of the wall."

  "Ah, that."

  "No," Jago said primly. "One cannot file Intent on the Guild, Bren-ji. Certain privileges the Guild reserves for itself."

  "Needless to say, however," Banichi added, "if one is one of those points of stability on which other stability rests, it's always well to take precautions."

  Him, Banichi meant. Or Tabini.

  "The project." He could only think of those remote, scattered facilities. "Has one accounted the safety of that? Even my eyes see possible vulnerabilities in the small plants."

  "Oh, yes," Banichi said. "Carefully. Constantly. Although it hasn't been our direct concern."

  "But it is at risk." He had cold chills even thinking of a flaw — deliberately induced. "Nadiin-ji, we have so very much at risk in that project. I don't know — I don't know if I can explain enough to the Guild how small a problem can be fatal. I'm the translator. And some things I know by being from the island and having the history humans have — but it's so important. It's so important, nadiin-ji, and I haven't succeeded in making enough people understand. All the lives of all the paid-hiin before me come down to two things: the peace, and this project. This is what we were always aiming at, in everything we did, in all the advice we gave to atevi — the peace, and this project, was all to give us all the capacity that we lost in the War and in the failure of the station up there. And one act of sabotage, one well-concealed piece of bad work — and the ship we build is gone, lost, perhaps not to be built again. The humans aloft — they can't build your future, nadiin-ji. They won't. Atevi could lose everything."

  There was something a little less relaxed in Banichi's pose. In Jago's.

  "At least," Banichi said, "one perceives distress. Why, nand' paidhi? Why are you concerned? Is it a specific threat? Is it a general one?"

  "Because if this spaceship fails, Banichi, I can't call that chance back again. There's so much at stake. Your governance over your own future is at risk. This is why I stayed and why I wouldn't go back to Mospheira when my government wished me recalled. I won't go even for my family's sake." He realized he'd reprised at least the feeling of his speech to the workers — that fear was working at the back of his brain, and it had been there since before he'd heard of the assassination of lord Saigimi. Perhaps — perhaps it had been there since he'd seen the ship lying in pieces at his feet, and seen all that devoted effort in those upturned faces.

  There was so much good will, and so much desire in so many people; and it was so vulnerable to the vicissitudes of fortune — and a few ill-wishers.

  Baji-naji. Chance and Fortune, the interlocked design in the carpet outside the dining room, the demon and the force that overwhelmed the best of numbers and improved the worst.

  "Have you some specific reason to fear?" Jago asked: Jago, who would fling her body between any of her charges and harm; but who was trained to do things far more lethally useful for those within her man'chi.

  "Just — nadiin-ji, a single act of sabotage, undetected, might set the program so far behind Mospheira we'd never catch up. And I saw so many plants where people from the towns came in without security checks, where lords' families had access. And shouldn't. Not that I
want to be rude to these honest people — things are going so well. I think it makes me irrationally fearful."

  "Not irrationally." Banichi let go an easier breath. "We are aware of the hazards — trust me in this. This is an immensely complex project, with many exposures. But without being specific, let me reassure the paidhi, we are not off our guard."

  L

  Banichi would not say Guild. This was, again, the man who hadn't known the sun was a star — nor cared. But what he did care about, he knew about in greater detail and with more forethought than most men could keep up with.

  "And," Jago said with a quirk of the mouth, "lord Geigi has the number-counters contained. Or occupied."

  "One hopes."

  The decanter was on the small table near Banichi. Banichi reached over and poured a finger more; and one for Jago, who leaned forward to present her glass. "Nadi?" Banichi said, offering to him next.

  He considered. He'd had one with Jase. But if Banichi was offering information, and it came on such skids, he'd have another: he let Banichi add a bit.

  "Did I do foolishly to take lord Geigi's hospitality?" he asked them.

  "Evidently not."

  "I didn't ask was I lucky? I asked —"

  Banichi grinned. "Far more wary, these days, our Bren."

  "Lord Geigi's philosophical persuasion is one of the most rigorous," Jago said. "Most, understand, follow less rigorous systems, saying that there is no assurance that anyone has yet come up with right answers. But here are Geigi and his Determinist numerologists actually matching up answers with the universe as human numbers also perceive it, and the Rational Absolutists are prowling around this new set of ideas trying to find a problem it doesn't solve. This folded space business has acquired great credibility, Bren-ji. The numerologists are still gnawing the bone of the faster-than-light idea Deana-ji threw them —" That Deana-ji was certainly barbed. "But no one dares challenge folded space until they've posed certain classic problems — which keeps the 'counters and the Absolutists both out of mischief, at least until they've worked out their numbers. A challenge to folded space will be hard, by what I hear."

  "I leave such deep questions to my partner," Banichi said, and took a sip of shibei. "Geigi's good will is secure. That secures the numbers of the northern reach of the peninsula, which are the numbers that concern me, pragmatically. Geigi's penchant for honesty — that and his penchant for inviting guests inside his security — that worries me. Tano says you bade Geigi take precautions."

  "It seemed prudent to say. Possibly excessive."

  Banichi gave a short laugh. "He'll naturally believe you have special inside information from your security, and he'll listen to you far more than to any advice his security gives him. I've no doubt he will lose sleep over it. A good stroke, nand' paidhi!"

  "What will happen in the peninsula? Who do you think will take over the Marid?"

  "Oh, difficult question. Very difficult, Saigimi's daughter, Cosadi, being a passionate follower of Direiso and all that lot — and a fool."

  "On the other hand," Jago said, "Saigimi's younger brother, Ajresi, who is not resident in the house, and who absolutely can't tolerate Saigimi's Samiusi-clan wife, is much more forward to defend himself than he is to involve the house in adventurous actions. As a leader of his house he's both more and less dangerous. He let Saigimi take the risks. But for want of aggression, to allow himself to be pushed aside in the succession by a willful niece who might take the house even further down the path Saigimi took — I think not, myself."

  "Wise conclusion," Banichi said. "That house will have internal difficulties. The wife, too, Tiburi, may take refuge with Direiso; Tiburi is, by the way, related to lord Geigi. That was the plan in driving Geigi into poverty, to slip her into that inheritance."

  "Was that it?"

  "Oh, yes. So thanks to her try at dispossessing Geigi, wife Tiburi of the Samiusi is not only no longer welcome with Hagrani clan — she's no longer welcome with her distant cousin Geigi. Nor will her daughter Cosadi be welcome any longer with Saigimi's brother Ajresi, especially since Geigi's fortunes are more and more linked to Tabini's, and the direction of Cosadi's man'chi becomes more and more unpredictable. She may claim the Hagrani estate with at least equal right, and certain of Saigimi's household more loyal to the wife might try to prevent the lordship drifting to the brother's line, in fear he will toss them out the door. Some say Cosadi has assassins belonging to the Hagrani clan poised to take out Saigimi's brother and make her the Hagrani lord. Certainly Ajresi also has Guild poised to remove her."

  At this point a man wanted to grab a notepad and tell them to repeat it while he took notes. But it was too late. His head was buzzing. He at least had the critical names to ask them.

  "And," Jago said, "certain of the Guild who have served Saigimi may now find man'chi lying elsewhere, rather than serve the daughter, who is suspected by some to be a fool and by others to be a mere figurehead for Tiburi, who is not even Hagrani and who cannot go back to her own clan."

  "It should be an interesting summer in the peninsula," Banichi said.

  "Direiso may attract those Guild members," Jago added. "And lose a few of her own, who will begin to think it towering folly to have so many targets move in under one roof."

  Bren's ears pricked up. He wanted to ask, Can one choose man'chi logically? He had thought it, like love, to be unaffected by common sense considerations of survival during such machimi play sort-outs. Not evidently so.

  But if he interrupted the flow of information, he could lose what they were trying, in their bewildering way, to tell him.

  "One thinks," Jago had gone on, "that the Kadigidi themselves —" That was Direiso's house. "— will spend some time in rearranging loyalties. The son and likeliest heir to Direiso herself is an Atageini on his maternal grandfather's side —"

  "Direiso's father never sitting as house-head," Banichi interjected, "due to a dish of infelicitous berries."

  Berries. The paidhi, feeling the effects of alcohol, all but lost the threads.

  "Last fall," Jago continued unflapped, "Direiso's son, Murini, was a guest in the Atageini house at the same time we have reason to believe Deana Hanks was a guest in Direiso's house. Mark that, Bren-ji."

  Tag and point. Definitely in Direiso's house, then. It certainly deserved remembrance. He hadn't known that detail, either, that this son of Direiso's had been — what, hiding among Atageini with Tatiseigi, for fear of his mother's rash actions? Or had he been go-between, in Atageini complicity in the Deana Hanks affair?

  That would mean aiming at overthrowing Tabini, while Tabini was sleeping with lady Damiri, heir of the Atageini.

  If there were clear proof of that, he was sure Banichi or Jago would have told him.

  It was only certain in what he did know that the Padi Valley nobles, of whom Tabini himself was one, had old, old and very tangled associations. It was the central association of the Ragi, which had produced all the aijiin ever to rule from Shejidan; a little nest of occasionally warring rivals, in plain fact.

  None other than lord Geigi and Tabini's hard-riding grandmother had walked into a house the identity of which was clearly now the Kadigidi house, and taken Deana Hanks away with them, apparently to Direiso's vast discomfiture and no little breakage of fragile objects in Direiso's parlor, by what he had later heard about a fracas and the overturning of a cabinet of antiques wherever the event had taken place.

  Add to that now the knowledge that Direiso's son had been in that very moment at the Atageini home, while the Atageini daughter was in bed with Tabini.

  Definitely headache-producing. But among atevi, things could be very simple, too.

  To find out who was the most likely person to start trouble, and the one toward whom all other atevi players would gravitate, look for the strongest.

  Yesterday he might have said, regarding Tabini's known opposition, that the strongest players were

  Tatiseigi of the Atageini, Saigimi of the Marid Tasigin, and D
ireiso of the Kadigidi.

  Now with Saigimi dead, he would say it was up in the air between Direiso of the Kadigidi and Tatiseigi of the Atageini, and, hardly thinking about it, that Direiso was more likely to act against Tabini — he didn't know why he thought so, but Tatiseigi had dropped back from threatening Tabini the moment Saigimi, remote from him geographically, had dropped out of the picture.

  Why did he think so? Tatiseigi's ancestral lands were in the Padi Valley, next door to the other survivor in that group, Direiso of the Kadigidi, his next door neighbor. Direiso had used Saigimi as front man for her rasher, more extreme moves.

  But it wasn't loss of courage that would cause him to put Tatiseigi second to Direiso, in his bemused and shibei-overwhelmed subconscious, if Tatiseigi allied with that lady.

  No, because Tatiseigi's niece Damiri was sleeping with Tabini, and might provide Tabini's heir. If Tatiseigi could recover his dignity as head of clan and if Tatiseigi's battered pride could be patched up — and bolstered instead of diminished by Damiri's alliance — that could make Tatiseigi very important in the Western Association, though not aiji, which due to her own ambitions Direiso would not let him become, anyway.

  Ah. And ah-ha.

  Direiso would see Tatiseigi at that point as threatening her bid to be aiji as much as helping her, because Tatiseigi would see the same set of facts: he would never be aiji; he was elderly; he had not produced an heir of his own line. That was why Damiri, Tatiseigi's sister's daughter, was the acknowledged heir; and Tatiseigi could not be thinking in terms of his own genetic or political continuance if he were aiji — that was what the subconscious was raking up. Tatiseigi had to reach a truce with Damiri, since he was less and less likely to bring her into line by replacing her. And Damiri was likelier and likelier to produce the next aiji.

  Right now, a thorn in Tatiseigi's flesh, Tatiseigi's ancestral apartment in the Bu-javid was tainted by unwanted humans, his niece was, to all public perception defying him in bedding down with Tabini — and last year some excessive fool in attempting to state opposition to humans or to embarrass the Atageini had sprayed bullets across the breakfast room and taken out a frieze of elegant porcelain lilies…