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  But they didn’t go to the terminal. The bus drove past the blue flashers, straight for the edge of the runway, and there the bus stopped.

  They would board directly: Jase’s prerogative. That was the word from the port. A starship captain could waive customs for himself and his companions, where it came to personal items. And Jase had done it.

  • • •

  There was no more time. Cajeiri got up, and his bodyguard did, and his guests did. He looked at them all—he looked hard, trying to remember every detail of their faces, their relative height—that was going to change. By their next visit, and forever after, he would very likely be the tallest of them, and the tallest by quite a lot, once they were all grown.

  The bus doors opened, and it was time.

  They had to behave now. They had to follow all the regulations. Most of all things in the world, they had to keep nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji firmly on their side.

  Cajeiri had only one immediately chancy intention, however: to go just as far as he could with his guests, and not to have to say good-bye at the bus door. He led the way up the aisle, up to the door, as Jase-aiji’s bodyguards were going out, and as Jase-aiji was taking his own leave of nand’ Bren. If he got onto the steps, he had to go down them to let his guests out, and his bodyguard had to go out, and he would be outside with them.

  But Jase-aiji and nand’ Bren went on out ahead of him. So he was able to go outside with his guests, just behind Kaplan and Polano, and stand with them under the open sky. They were so close to the runway they could hear the address system from trucks attending the shuttle, voices talking about numbers, and technical things.

  Jase-aiji had lingered to talk with nand’ Bren and their security. But nand’ Bren was going no farther, so this, now, was where they had to say good-bye, having gotten at least this far together.

  His guests understood, too. Irene’s eyes started watering, and she kept trying to stop the flood, and trying to make her face calm.

  “One regrets,” Irene said in good Ragi, wiping at her face. “One tried not to do this, Jeri-ji. It’s stupid.”

  “You have to go,” Cajeiri said, “but remember what we said last night. We are associates. Forever. And I will get you back, so long as you want to come back. If everything goes well—I shall get you back for my next birthday. Maybe sooner.”

  “We stay connected,” Gene said.

  “I have my notebook,” Irene said. She sniffed and her voice shook.

  “Just be careful what you say to everybody,” Cajeiri said. That was his greatest worry. “Tell only the good things. Be careful. And remember you should not have to pay anything to send letters or to call me on the phone. Do not let anybody say you have to pay. Nand’ Geigi will send the letters for you if you cannot reach nand’ Jase. Just get the letters to him if you have any trouble. And go to him first if anything goes wrong.”

  “We shall write,” Gene said. “A lot.”

  “Come along, kids,” Jase-aiji said, waiting with his bodyguard. “Sorry. They want us aboard. They’re going into an unscheduled hold for us.”

  A moment of panic came down then. They looked at each other. Irene took a deep breath and managed to steady herself. Artur and Gene gave a little bow, very proper.

  Then they walked away, all three.

  • • •

  The youngsters all three were very polite, very proper in their leaving, bowing as they passed on their way to Jase, and Bren returned the bows very gravely, in silence.

  Irene was the last.

  “Nandi,” she said properly.

  “Reni-daja,” Bren said. That was Cajeiri’s name for her. “Have a very good flight.”

  “Get me back!” she whispered suddenly in ship-speak, looking up at him. “Please get me back, sir!”

  Then she spun around and ran the few steps to catch up with Jase and the two boys, wiping tears as she went.

  God, Bren thought, a little shaken by that. He stood watching as Jase and the kids walked on their way to the shuttle, along the safety corridor painted on the pavement. Jase had his hand on Gene’s shoulder, and the boys had Irene between them, holding her hands.

  He turned then to see how Cajeiri was taking the departure, and saw a forlorn figure, as tall as he was, back already turned, boarding the bus with his own bodyguard waiting.

  Damn, he thought as he headed back to the bus. He wasn’t sure whether Cajeiri had seen or prompted that exchange with Irene, but he was relatively sure Cajeiri’s young bodyguard had seen it.

  When he boarded, Cajeiri had gone to the rear of the bus with his bodyguard, and they were all talking to him, heads close together.

  The adult world that made good-bye necessary just wasn’t going to have any welcome advice for the boy right now. And he and Jase had planned as much as they could plan to be sure the kids would come back next year.

  It was bound to hurt.

  It had to hurt. But it was part of the boy’s growing up.

  He settled behind the driver with Banichi and Jago for the trip back, sighed sadly, and leaned back. The driver started the bus, took a broad turn, and headed back the way they had come.

  “How is the schedule, nadiin-ji?” he asked them.

  “We are well within the window,” Banichi said. “One freight is inbound for the port, but we have plenty of time.”

  They would have no trouble getting off the spaceport spur before then. The shuttle would launch before then.

  And it was significant that Cajeiri hadn’t asked to stay and see it go.

  “One cannot read the young gentleman at the moment,” he said to his aishid. “One is concerned for him.”

  “He is making every effort,” Jago said, “to bear this in a dignified way. He has done very well today.”

  So Jago thought the boy was handling it well enough.

  But making the boy happy to go back to the confines of his life in the capital, making him content, there—

  That was not going to happen.

  • • •

  They reached the platform, they left the bus in silence and crossed to the train. Tano and Algini waited for them at the steps.

  The boy, first inside, with his bodyguard, just settled where he and his guests had sat, in the empty seats, at the now lonely little table. His young aishid stood, uniformly long-faced, in the nook beside him.

  “Young aiji,” Bren said, pausing by the table, “if you should wish to join me at the rear of the car, you would be welcome. One does not insist, however.”

  A muscle jumped in Cajeiri’s jaw, a little effort at self-control. The boy looked up. “I shall prefer to sit here, nandi. Thank you.”

  Fragile. And so wishing not to give way right now. Bren gave a little bow and with a movement of his eyes, advised his valets, who were in charge of service on the train, and poised to offer tea or anything else desired, also to let the boy be. The boy’s own bodyguard would do anything the boy wanted. Cajeiri just asked to be alone, and one had to respect that, in a boy who had, overall, done very, very well and behaved bravely in recent weeks.

  So Bren went back to the bench seat at the rear of the car, with his bodyguard, and with his valets following closely.

  “The household might have tea, nadi,” he told his valet quietly, including Supani and his partner Koharu in the suggestion—and he settled into his place on the corner of the bench seat, where he habitually sat. His bodyguard settled with him, and the train began to roll.

  Quiet again. Devastatingly quiet. No Jase. No kids’ laughter.

  In another half hour he had the word from Tano that the shuttle had started its takeoff.

  Within the hour he had the word that the shuttle had cleared the atmosphere and was in space, safely past the most dangerous part of its return.

  “Advise the young gentleman’s aishid,” Bren said and Tano did that,
via Guild communications, just the length of the car.

  The young gentleman settled after that, over against the wall, head down, arms folded, apparently asleep.

  Despite the adrenaline from the launch and the climb to orbit, the youngsters on the shuttle would soon be ready to fall asleep, too, seatbelts fastened, for the next few hours.

  They’d certainly earned it.

  They’d all earned it. Jase and his bodyguard, too.

  • • •

  The paidhi-aiji, however, who had been up before dawn composing documents for Jase, had two reports to outline while the details were fresh in his mind, and another set of documents to translate.

  The train was headed home, on an eastward route right back around to the Central Station. They would come into the capital, then take the ordinary route along the edge of the city, to the Bujavid train station.

  Tatiseigi had returned to the capital some three days ago. Ilisidi was back from business in the East.

  And the letters waiting for him in his Bujavid residence were surely overflowing the message bowl by now, business postponed as long as it could be.

  Aiji-ma, Bren wrote to Tabini, the guests have gone home with many expressions of gratitude for their visit. The young gentleman is exhausted, and sleeping as I write. His comportment was exemplary in these last days. I am very glad to have had him as my guest at Najida and he is welcome at any time to return. He is a great favorite of my staff.

  I had opportunity to speak with Jase-aiji at some length. Last night he conveyed a request that I visit the station in the near future, to become acquainted with the station’s current situation and more specifically with the performance of Tillington, the human station-aiji, Lord Geigi’s counterpart. Lord Geigi himself has not, in my hearing, complained of Tillington, but I am alarmed at recent statements, which are problematic for our political allies on the station.

  The difficulty springs from an ancient disagreement, in which the Reunioners, who were the aijiin of the station in past times, lost the man’chi of the population, and then left the world to pursue settlement elsewhere.

  During the two years of the recent Troubles, Mospheirans on the station, in anticipation of a much smaller number of Reunioners returning, worked hard to enlarge the living space and also to repair damages done to the food production factory by a stray piece of rock, this during our mission to Reunion, and during the two years when Murini, of unfortunate memory, had grounded the shuttles.

  The arrival of a much larger than expected number of Reunioners has crowded the human section of the station and shortened supply. The station is divided into two territories. And the Reunioners came with families. Mospheiran workers, for whom families are forbidden, have been crowded into less space, and have a very limited ability to return to Earth for family visits. For various reasons, including scarcity of employment, the ancient antipathy of Mospheirans toward Reunioners has resurfaced, creating tensions.

  The Mospheiran folk wish to be rid of the Reunioners who have disrupted their lives, and indeed, the population of the station is oversupplied with humans so long as the Reunioners remain. But any plan to have the Reunioners go apart and build another station risks the eventual rise of an opposition group of humans. I most strongly discourage that as a solution, aiji-ma. First of all, there is the treaty requirement of numerical parity, which would require atevi presence in equal numbers. It is likely that if the Reunioners stay on the station under current conditions of shortage and overcrowding, there will be conflict. It seems clear that if they cannot stay where they are and we cannot send them elsewhere, the Mospheiran government has it incumbent on them to bring the Reunioners down to Earth. In the general population of Mospheira, five thousand Reunioners will become a minority population and they can be integrated into Mospheiran society.

  Unfortunately two human aijiin have risen in opposition to each other, station-aiji Tillington, appointed by the Presidenta of Mospheira; and Braddock, about whom I have previously reported, who has appointed himself aiji of the Reunioners, though currently unrecognized by the Mospheirans.

  Tillington’s activities in promoting a new station for the Reunioners have produced a division of policy even among the ship-aijiin, with Ogun-aiji favoring Tillington and Sabin opposed to his proposals.

  Lately, however, Tillington has made false statements regarding Sabin-aiji, which are destructive of the peace and which cannot be tolerated.

  Jase-aiji has asked me first to contact the Presidenta by letter regarding Tillington’s behavior and seek his dismissal and replacement. He has also asked me to come up to the station to acquaint myself with the current situation. I shall contact the Presidenta. I hope to see the appointment of a new official who will work toward a settlement of the Reunioners and a relief of pressures on the station. Of course I cannot go aloft without your permission, aiji-ma, but it seems to me that peace in the heavens does well serve your administration, and I hope you will grant me leave to do this, so I may bring back useful information.

  I have several urgent Earthly matters before me in the meanwhile, and I shall be working on those with a view to settling all issues in the current legislative session before I undertake anything else.

  I look forward to a meeting and discussion at your leisure, aiji-ma. I am happy to report I bring you no other crises whatever, and that our guests are now safely in space again.

  To Ilisidi he wrote:

  Aiji-ma, the guests are safely in space and by the time this letter reaches you, your great-grandson will be safely home with his parents as well.

  I was greatly surprised to see the magnificent windows at Najida, and to see the first one in its permanent place in the main hall. They are extraordinary, and I by no means expected such an extravagant honor. They will be treasured not only by myself, but also treasured by the people of the region.

  I remain indebted to you as well for your continued support, and notably to Lord Tatiseigi for his gracious hospitality on his estate.

  I shall immediately address myself to the matter of the railroad, and hope for an early conclusion favoring all your plans.

  I look forward to giving a more detailed report at your convenience, but I can safely report there is no urgency involved on any matter involving our guests or your grandson, whose deportment was impeccable throughout.

  He is now at home with his parents and new sister and I hope will enjoy the memories of an extraordinary visit.

  He was, he began to realize, exhausted. And he had just kept silent, in the dowager’s letter, about a very dangerous situation, and glossed it over in his report to Tabini. He didn’t like the position he was in.

  He sat there, staring at nothing at all, and hoped for an early night, his own bed, maybe the chance to sleep in tomorrow.

  It wasn’t altogether likely, but one could hope.

  5

  Cajeiri drew a breath, waking. The train was making that strange sound it did, slowly puffing up the incline in the tunnel under the Bujavid, a sound he had heard, oh, many times before in his life, on good occasions and bad.

  His bodyguard was near him.

  But his guests were not.

  He knew it just in the air, before moving. His guests had a kind of perfume about them that was not atevi, and that was gone. They were gone and their belongings were gone, as if they had never been here at all.

  He had had so strong an impression in his sleep that everything was all right and they were with him—that he had thought things should be that way when he waked.

  And he knew now they were not.

  He did not lift his head immediately. He composed himself, carefully settled his expression, decided how he should behave—as if nothing in the world were wrong—and began to do that, waking, and stretching, and saying, conversationally, to his aishid:

  “I believe we are about two turns from the platform, nadiin-ji. Ar
e we ready?”

  “Yes, nandi,” Jegari said, and added: “Nand’ Bren says the shuttle is now safely in space.”

  That was good. He was glad to know it. But the sympathetic look his aishid gave him nearly unraveled him.

  They knew how upset and how sad he was. They absolutely knew it.

  He gave his head that little jerk his father used when he was giving a silent order to behave, and kept his face expressionless. They knew that gesture, too. He meant to give no acknowledgment of his distress, no outward admission, not even for nand’ Bren.

  And he desperately hoped nand’ Bren would not shake his composure with any expression of regret.

  He could not avoid nand’ Bren’s company, however. He just said, when the train had stopped, and nand’ Bren came down the aisle— “I am doing quite well, nandi.”

  “You are indeed, young aiji,” nand’ Bren said, giving his greater title, very courteously, and, to his relief, not treating him at all as a child.

  “Mind,” nand’ Bren added, “that your parents will be anxious about your impressions of your guests, and their influence on you. They will be forming their opinions about the effects of their visit. Trust that I shall be giving them a very favorable report, as Jase-aiji will give to his associates.”

  Practicalities. Politics. That was a relief. That was what he had to think about. Nand’ Bren was very sensibly warning him to think clearly.

  “And well done, young aiji.”

  That—jarred him a little.

  “Nandi.” He gave a little bow. He already knew his parents would be judging him, and listening to those reports—and to some reports less favorable, probably, by busybodies he could not control. Any bad report worried him. But there could not be too many of those. “I shall be very careful,” he managed to say. “Thank you, nandi.”

  He was to leave the train first, these days, being his father’s heir.

  Being no longer just a child.