His own best use was as her support, and as a representative of the aiji’s confidence in herc and ultimately as a negotiator, once he had the whole truth of what was happeningc whatever happened.

He was, he realized as the elevator plummeted toward the train station, woefully short of staff, short of resources. These Eastern conservatives would respect appearances. Force. A full staff. He had no domestics: his personal staff was up on the station. Tano and Algini were at the coast trying to get his brother back and could not join them in time to back up Banichi and Jago. For servants—he would have the dowager’s staff, at Malguri, presuming that was where they were going. But he had by no means all the wardrobe; he couldn’t even pack his needful items. He had to trust Jago for that—and did. She would bring his computer: that, he wanted with him, where he could at very least wipe it, if things went wrong. He hoped there was nothing else waiting in the wings, no other assassins aiming at Tabini from within the dowager’s staff— God, God, when one stopped taking security for granted, within a household, there were so many things to think of.

And priorities had suddenly shifted. He had, as best he could, to rearrange the pieces on the board.

“It might be well if we recall Tano and Algini, ’Nichi-ji. One assumes their assistance would be useful to you and Jago.”

“If we can reach them at this point,” Banichi said. “One will try to contact them.”

“Surely it was not Guild, nadiin-ji,” Bren ventured to say, in the company of those who sincerely were. “Surely—if it were—”

“If it were Guild, the Taibeni boy would not have escaped,”

Banichi answered him—the one thing all of them could well conclude. “Unless escape was part of the plan.”

The car whisked past level after level, bound downward on a high-level security key. Bren’s stomach floated, in the precipitate drop.

And he clung to one hope. The kidnappers hadn’t killed anyone.

Their light-handedness argued for amateurs rather than Guild, argued for someone who feared bloodfeud that might well bring allies in against them.

But their being amateurs had its own particular dangers— not least, the possibility someone in their number would panic and all hell would break loose.

And, the other worrisome component of the problem, someone had let them into the dowager’s apartment. Someone who was at this very moment close to the aiji, being either part of his staff or the dowager’s, because, without that help, there was no way on earth they could have gotten in to reach the boy.

The lift hit bottom. So did Bren’s stomach. Banichi, meanwhile, was on his small com before the door opened, issuing orders while he kept an unceremonious and surely distracted handhold on Bren’s arm and pulled him along in Cenedi’s wake: it hurt, and that was all but unprecedented. Banichi was entirely on edge.

Cenedi’s two men meanwhile went ahead of them around the corner of the elevator bank, heading toward the trains that came and went in this heart of the Bu-javid complex. In better times, a small train had always waited in the event of the aiji’s need—and one sat there, now, on a concrete-rimmed siding, an engine with three cars, the way it always had been, and the middle one a luxury special belonging to the aiji. There it sat waiting, apparently unscathed in the interregnum, and Cenedi’s men, jogging ahead of them, split up short of the cars, one heading up to the engine, one moving to open the door of that middle car. That man went inside first, to be sure of it.

So they had clearance to use that train, that car. Bren now had no doubt where they were going. Banichi was moving fast, with Cenedi, and Bren kept up, dragged along, as it were. They reached the car and both of them, behind him, shoved him roughly up the atevi-scale steps.

They followed, and pulled the door to behind them. It shut with a thump.

Bren caught his balance against the transverse brass railing inside, near the bar counter. “Will we wait for Jago, Banichi-ji?”

“We shall wait, nandi,” Banichi said distractedly, clearly listening to something else, and, thus assured, Bren worked his way among the padded red-velvet seats and small tables, and on to the rear of the car, the position he had always favored as simply less in the way of traffic.

They were as safe here as armor plating could make them. The windows were bulletproof and shaded in red velvet, affording not even the hint of a target.

Cenedi meanwhile spoke to Banichi in that shorthand the Guild used, half with handsigns. Bren caught enough to know that they were sure of the dowager’s plane’s security, and would have it or another plane fueled and diverted to their use, on their subsequent flight—likely a second plane, since the transcontinental flight needed a longer range. Cenedi indicated that the dowager was bringing all her security with her, leaving only Cajeiri’s guards in the Bu-javid apartment, and that would reinforce them considerably.

Meanwhile, Bren thought he caught, via the conversation between those two, that air traffic control was reporting on the three planes that had already taken off. Directions had not changed: one eastward, one northward, and one bound to the hostile south. And he understood from that conversation, too, that Lord Keimi, lord of the Taibeni, had not been in the city, that he had gone back home two days ago, and that he now was coming in by train, to arrive by morning. That was a relief: Tabini could rely on Lord Keimi, absolutely, and to hell with critics trying to dictate the political composition of his bodyguard and staff. Lord Keimi’s arrival would take some of the pressure off Jaidiri, and that was to the good, within the staff.

But Lord Keimi had just had two of his own injured in this situation, and he would arrive with fire in his eye, bent on answers from someonec not to mention the youngsters’ parents were probably coming in with him.

And, again, who had taken Cajeiri?

If the Taibeni boy had gotten to a security office phone, what had he reported, and what did Banichi know, by now, that Banichi was too busy giving orders to explain?

He sat gnawing his lip, wanting to ask, but Banichi and Cenedi leaned close together, talking urgently, and that must not be interrupted.

Who could have gotten through Ilisidi’s security net—if not Ilisidi? Or had someone dared take service under her roof and betray her interests?

There’d be blood for that—if betrayal was the case. This wasn’t the ship, and whatever staffer had double-crossed Ilisidi of Malguri had better be on that plane with the kidnappers, unless suicide was part of the plan—or unless that wasn’t the picture at all. He just didn’t know. And the reason Banichi and Cenedi were talking like that, so intently, so quietly, without him—could be Banichi trying to feel out just what the hell was going on, and even to learn whether Cenedi himself knew more than he admitted of what was happening.

It was like the first stage of entry into a gravity well, a little courage, and a little bit of confidence, until one had reached a point of no returnc both in circumstance and in emotional context. They were sliding over the rim—the moment they boarded the dowager’s plane.

Dangerous. Ilisidi always was that. That never changed. But there had to be a way for a diplomat to bend the situation. Any situation.

The train started into motion, a slow, inexorable sense of force.

And it was not supposed to move. Not without Jago. That brought him to his feet.

“Banichi-ji.”

“Jago is in the baggage car,” Banichi said quietly, diverting his attention from his conversation with Cenedi. “The plane will be ready for us.” With the information came a direct look from Banichi, a look that, after all their travels, he could read as well as Jago could: don’t interrupt, don’t rock the boat. Sit down, Bren-ji.