"You are a scandalous flatterer, nand' paidhi."

"Nadi-ji, never. You're a treasure. Please, rest early. I'll see myself to bed. I've two hands now."

"Nadi," Saidin said, and not least among her virtues, understood when a man was tired enough to fall on his face, and withdrew quietly.

Banichi lingered, speaking with Algini in the small secuity office — and Bren eavesdropped, wanting most of all to know Jago and Tano were all right. "Any word?" he asked. "Where's Jago and Tano? Do you know, Banichi?"

"We're in contact," Banichi said.

"They're safe."

"Separately. They're safe. — Are you all right, Bren-ji?"

"Tired. Quite tired. That's all right. I can walk."

"Nadi," Banichi said, and left the office and the com to Algini, and took him by the arm.

Which was probably a good idea, considering the wobble in his legs.

He took off the coat. He gave the gun to Banichi, and Banichi said he would take charge of it, which was altogether agreeable to him.

"You know," Banichi said, tucking it in his pocket, "it was very foolish, what you did."

"I didn't know where you were. I thought Algini was alone by the front door. I had a gun. I didn't leave it to the servants to check the back balcony because I stood a better chance to stop someone if there should have been a problem…"

"Then it was, over all, well done. Well you were armed, but I admit to extreme anxiousness when you aimed at me, Bren-ji: you presented a disturbing quandary for your own security."

"I apologize, Banichi."

"Well done, too, that you waited to confirm your target; one hopes you recognized me. But one fears that you simply hesitated, which is not good. Besides, I must teach you about doors, nadi-ji. Due to their size, and the design of the building, those were not, obviously enough, bulletproof."

"Banichi, as my life's become, I'll pay closest attention to anything you can teach me, and, no, I didn't recognize you. I knew it was a possibility of it being you."

"Far easier for me to tell it's you, paidhi-ji. Anyone can. If you perceive presence, assume they won't fire if you don't seem to see them. Dangerous, but less so to your security."

"I'll remember that."

"Word from Tano. The scene downstairs indicates a likelihood of Guild members operating without Guild sanction. Despite the evidence of the breakfast room, these are professionals, Bren-ji. This is not the sort that assailed you in the legislature."

"Professionals acting under man'chi."

"Evidently so."

"Does every association have such high-level professionals? I assume they are, since Hanks' guards —"

"Not every association has such professionals, and that's a very likely assumption. Such as guarded Hanks-paidhi were not careless."

"Do you then havesuspicions?"

"Four or five."

"Names known to me?"

"All."

"Then who, Banichi?"

Banichi hesitated. "Cenedi is a remote possibility."

"No. Surely not. Not with such lack of finesse."

"A possibility, I say. One believes the breakfast room itself was a target."

"And not me?" He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or insulted.

"Possibly. The other names… you would not know the Guild members involved, but the second possible instigator is Atigeini: Tatiseigi. Another is lord Geigi. A fourth is Direiso, who, for the Kadigidi, carried the Filing against your name to the Guild. I'm ordinarily restrained from telling you that, but there's been an action which makes it needful for you to know. That the proposed contract was voted down, if she has pursued it, would place her and her man'chiin dire opposition to the Guild; but she is constitutionally capable of that, and if the action tonight is on the part of an association of which Ilisidi herself is a part, it would involve Direiso. Likewise another of close association with the Kadigidi — Saigimi of the Marid Tasigin, which is the center of an unwholesome sub-association of suspicious interests. Oil is their unifying interest. Oil. And Talidi province."

He knew the Kadigidi, one of the perpetual annoyances Tabini tolerated both as contentious neighbors and opposition leaders in the tashrid, in the name of, Tabini swore, the value of peaceful opposition —

And though he didn't know Saigimi by direct experience — Saigimi didn't occupy a seat in the tashrid — he knew the Marid Tasigin and most of all he knew the business of Talidi province.

Certainly Banichi did.

"Talidi," he said to Banichi, "is your province."

"Bren-ji. Don't doubt me."

"Banichi," he began to say, and then knew salads didn't remotely cover it, and the language didn't really have a word for lonely. You could substitute. But it didn't communicate. And neither could the paidhi, on what the paidhi felt Banichi's loyalty to be.

"Bren-ji," Banichi said, "I am notthe one."

"I know that, Banichi. I'm capable of being deceived, of course. But if I were —" A knot had arrived in his throat, and he flashed on that painful darkness as Banichi carried him to the floor. "— if I were, Banichi-ji, it's hardly necessary for you to go to such trouble. I've no association outside Tabini's but to you and Jago."

He'd disturbed Banichi. Clearly. "Not to us, paidhi-ji."

He was in a dark, self-destructive humor all of a sudden — emotional, and not knowing why. "To Tabini, oh, yes. And to you. I stick like glue. You'd have to kill me to get rid of me, you know. We're like that."

He'd never seen Banichi show such a troubled expression. "Nand' paidhi, one has no such intention. I assure you. But you have no man'chito me orto Jago. Which I'm assured you don't feel, anyway, nadi. So this is nonsense. Is it not?"

"Who knows what we feel? Maybe I do feel it, Banichi. If I'd shot you, I'd have been very upset."

"One is certainly glad to know you'd wish otherwise, nand' paidhi. And I would have been professionally embarrassed. You scared me."

That, from Banichi, of the Guild he was from, was an intimate confidence.

"But you are not," Banichi insisted, as if it still troubled him, "of my man'chi. Nor, I hope, physically attracted to me — which is your other choice. Jago, on the other hand — does not entail necessary loyalty to me. — Or does it, among humans?"

They were entering far too deep a subject for a man as tired as he was, as emotionally frayed as he was — and as guilty as he was, on that touchy private ground between Banichi and his partner. He was getting in well over his head, and suddenly Banichi, whom few secrets eluded, seemed to be implying a suspicion and questioning an event he couldn't forget, couldn't altogether ignore, and had no wish ever to admit had happened.

So he ignored the question at least, in favor of what he most wanted to know. "Where isJago right now?"

Ordinarily neither Banichi nor Jago answered such questions of whereabouts, except obliquely. He realized by now that it might be the policy of their Guild or of Tabini's service, to say nothing about business in progress, and that therefore Banichi would never give him a straight answer. But Banichi seemed to consider a moment, perhaps noting the sidestep he'd done on Banichi's question.

"At the airport, at the moment. No planes got away. No rail left the Bu-javid underground."