He understood why his bodyguard hadn’t wanted to turn the equipment on—with all it potentially connected to. He wasn’t that anxious to use it himself, not utterly understanding what it did, or who it informed.

But if Toby was on the system—somehow— And if Jase was in a position of authority up above and Ogun was playing straight with Jase and Sabin— “Pacts,” he said, “pacts apparently exist between Shawn Tyers’ government and the station. They’ve permitted the installation of this equipment. Tyers very likely knows. And the station possibly violated secrecy in giving these units to Tano and Algini—considering the mess we were going into. Considering that the dowager might end up ruling the aishidi’tat, with whom it could be argued certain treaties had been trampled on—the station did not want us to feel betrayed by this system. And Shawn, for whatever reason, would not breach security to inform us this was going on—possibly because he thought he was doing enough putting it in Toby’s hands, possibly against agreements he had with the station, perhaps otherwise. Toby didn’t tell us, because Shawn had asked him not to. He is the Presidenta. He would have argued with Toby that it was best I not know—because he was asking Toby to undertake a second mission he had no wish for me to know about.

And Tyers may or may not know you have that equipment now.

One would expect he does know—if Jase has been telling him all he knows. But Tyers may not have the capacity to track—if it exists.

That ability may reside only with the station, from their vantage, with their receivers.”

“Humans,” Banichi said dourly, “can be puzzling.”

“No man’chi, nadiin-ji. Toby knew I would argue to the contrary.

And Toby wished to do this, for his own pride.”

There was no atevi word for a person who would step outside man’chi, defy a prestigious relative, and seek personal risk because he’d been waiting for a chance like that all his cautious life. No word, but Toby, damn it all.

So neither the station nor the island had been idle while the continent had been under Murini’s rule—they’d been working hand over fist to do something. Those landers out there were for something, and there were satellites up there tracking them—had to be.

And if local farmers took to hacking up the mysterious landers with axes—that was not a desirable situation, either—no knowing what contamination they might let loose, for one unhappy result.

But there were others possible. Deaths. Resentment.

Suspicion—that he had to answer, somehow, when neither the station authorities nor his former President had leaped to provide him answers.

He had an inkling what the mix was that had given his bodyguard pause—the certain sense there was something human going on, and that if they just didn’t turn the damned things on, they could postpone upsetting the paidhi-aiji and adding one more vector to the problems of the aishidi’tat. Just settle it on the atevi plane, first. Then let the paidhi-aiji take on the foreignersc Let the paidhi-aiji get the truth out of the station-aijiin.

Let Tabini sit in authority again, and let the world get back to normal.

He intended to have more information, from Shawn and from Jase, that was dead certain. And he wanted Toby safe, and if the station’s little secret project—spread all across atevi skies in a plethora of foreign numbers—could get Toby back to shore in one piece, good.

Another sip of brandy.

He was going to have to explain it to Tabini, this business of foreign equipment parachuting into local fields and frightening the wildlife. He was going to have to say that this had gone unmentioned for days, and there were installations from space dropped all over the continent, for unknown reasons.

More, he was going to have to explain to the superstitious and the uncounted atevi institutions that humans had divided their world in numbers. God help him.

“Did they mention anything else it would be useful for me to know, nadiin-ji?”

“That was the sum of what we were given, Bren-ji,” Banichi said.

“We all kept it close. It was my own decision. It seemed a possible point of controversy, in certain quarters.”

Understatement. And he was, Banichi had always informed him, an absolutely wretched liar, by atevi standards.

“Perfectly understandable,” he said. “It is understandable, ’Nichi-ji: by no means trouble yourself. We both agree I do not lie well.”

Banichi gave a visible wince. “Indeed. All the same—”

“No fault, ’Nichi-ji, no fault at all.”

He so rarely scored one on Banichi, and the brandy had made itself a warm spot, in a confidence that, however tangled the skeins of information around him, he had finally begun to get a real sense of what had been going on—what had been going on all during the time that Yolanda Mercheson had run for her life and the station in orbit had started cooperating closely with Shawn Tyers on measures they could take to protect their assets.

The Treaty of the Landing had taken a beating during the last decade, but it was still what kept humans and atevi trusting one another enough to keep out of each others’ affairs, and out of each others’ territory. It was the basis of peace and order. And the station and Tyers had had something going that hammered it hard.

He didn’t think Tyers would in any wise contemplate invading the mainland. Human agents on the mainland would be a little damned conspicuous.

But Mospheira might have contemplated bringing Lord Geigi and his people down in the one shuttle they had left in orbit, and letting Geigi go after Murini.

Now there was a thought.

Well, thank God it hadn’t gotten to that. Thank God Tabini had stayed alive, and the relative framework of the aishidi’tat had bent, but not broken.

A close call. None of the alternatives had been good ones. But if any had been put into play, one hoped Shawn would call them off quickly, so they could all pretend nothing had ever gone on.

And if Toby and Tano and Algini had locators, they stood a good chance of finding each other in all that water. Dared he think that?

He hoped so. He fervently hoped so.

Delivered to one’s own door by Banichi.

Escorted to one’s own chambers within those doors by his father’s bodyguard, and watched like a criminal. Cajeiri was disgusted.

He had been so close to reaching Gene. He had talked to Jase-aiji, and when he had, all the memories of the ship had come flooding back, the very textures and smells and the details, down to the ribbing on the lights and the pattern of the floor tiles—suddenly, in his mind, he had seen Gene’s face, with his pale skin, not unpleasingly brown-speckled across the nose, his eyes, a remarkable muddle of gray, green, and blue— his hair, which was brown and dark, and curled generally out of control— He had already begun to lose the details he tried to hold in his head, but they were back, now. Artur’s face, narrow-nosed and with a chipped front tooth—Irene’s, dark as an ateva, but brown, and eyes darker than her face, scarily dark, full of thoughts— Golden eyes around him, now, two sets of purest golden eyes, worried-looking. Antaro and Jegari seemed sure they were at fault, which was absolutely stupid. It was stupid the way everyone down here seemed anxious to sop up blame when he did anything at all.

For a moment overwhelming anger welled up in his throat, anger enough to strike out and break something, but mani had taught him better, so he choked it back.

Oh, he had anger enough for a sharp word to his father’s guards out there, but mani would do far more than whack him on the ear if he let fly. If mani-ma were here, which she was not. She had deserted him, given him up to his father. Everyone had deserted him, everyone that he actually wanted to be near him, everyone but these two, who sat staring at him as if at any moment he would have some incredibly brilliant answer for their collective embarrassment.