The disappearance of the regular staffc God, that was thirty, forty people. At least. All missing, and no word of warning reached outside Kajiminda to alert his staff at Najida?
He had confidence in Ramaso. If information had been floating outside, village gossip, rumors from the train station, the airport, even clear to Dalaigi Township, they’d have picked it up. Ramaso would have warned him. But no, they had walked into a situation at the neighbor’s, a completely unwarned situation—but all ordinary methods of information-gathering had failed. The Southerners had been secretive—nothing new— and Baiji had been cooperating in that secrecy, keeping it even from his neighbors, with far more skill and thoroughness than Baiji radiated at other enterprises.
How long had the Tasaigi been setting up for a move against Najida? And what hadthey been aiming at?
And how the hell had Baiji kept the Edi he claimed were still on his staff from telling their relatives, who would have told relatives in Najida district? Would they not? Had threats kept them silent? The Edi tended to keep their own counsel, but not to have gotten anyword out—
Oh, there were a dozen questions he had yet to ask Baiji when he got back.
And God, when Geigi did find out—good-natured, easygoing Geigi was not all sweetness and affability. No knowing what Geigi would do when he learned what had happened in his house, but coming down like a hammer on his nephew was head of the list.
And Geigi’s sister: another bad bit of business, and murder was a high likelihood: it was too convenient for the Marid. Geigi’s sister taken out, and her son, a fool, set in her place, last of a waning line and without relatives at hand to advise him. The Maschi remaining in Kajiminda—the last of the clan besides Baiji and Geigi’s niece—were two young men who’d gone to space to work with Geigi. Beyond that—
Beyond that—there were a few Maschi relatives in the Samiusi district, who, be it admitted, had been a problem in their dealings: Geigi’s former wife had gone to the Marid and married there: that was an old bit of business; and Geigi—
They relied on Geigi. They weren’t in the habit of questioning Geigi’s connections, because, up in space, Geigi had absolute control of his associates, and he was never exposed to problems. A security lapse up there just didn’t happen.
If he were down here, howeverc
There would be problems. Clearly there wereproblems, and the staunch loyalty Geigi felt to the aiji in Shejidan, that they treated as dependable as the sunshine—the lines of man’chi that ought to have made the nephew cling tightly to his uncle’s commitments—were not reliable at all.
The Marid, Tabini’s old enemies, didn’t do things without a purpose. The Farai had gotten into the Bujavid. Others had gotten into Baiji’s house, in the heart of Sarini province. His coming here—the Farai were clearly in a position to find that out, and he had a strong suspicion there had been a phone call or a courier. Dalaigi Township was a sprawling hub of transport, boats going in and out, rail, air—all kinds of things could go in Dalaigi. All sorts of people could be in Dalaigi—the missing Edi. Their relatives. Or a small cabal of Marid folk trying to look like locals. It was not a comforting prospect, not for the peace of this district—not for the Edi—not for his own estate, or Geigi’s.
Or for the Western Association, for that matter. Tabini was newly restored to power: the usurper Murini was dead. But the issues that had driven the attack on Tabini’s power were still there, old as the aishidi’tat itself. The matter of local rule. The ambitions of the Marid for power. The old issues of the displacement of whole populations from Mospheira, when it became a human island. All those things were still rattling loose, and nothing that had ever happened had settled them.
An impromptu move against the paidhi?
Oh, far from a single move. It was a movement he had stumbled into. The Farai might be bitterly regretting now that they had taken the paidhi’s apartment—that a chain of events had moved the paidhi to the otherold Maladesi estate, the one the Farai hadn’t dared claim.
He had come out here, the Marid had made a fast move to be sure Baiji didn’t pay a visit to Najida, Toby’s daughter broke her leg—three bored kids had decided to take to the water in a sailboat. And when he’d come over to do the socially correct thing, a handful of local trouble trying to contain Baiji had decided they had a chance at taking out the paidhi-aiji.
Maybe they’d been misinformed as to the identity of the youngsters, or just—as the dowager seemed to think—counted the aiji’s son inconsequential, if they could take out the aiji’s advisor.
He thought about that. And his heart rate got up. He was, he decided, mad. Damned mad about that.
Count on it—if low-level agents had blown their secrecy, the Marid was probably moving assets from wherever it had situated them, maybe inDalaigi, maybe in Separti—because an operation intending to spread Marid influence onto the coast wasn’t going to rely on a handful of agents holding Baiji silent. There was more out there. There could be a lot more out there.
God, he hoped Tabini had read between the lines. Ilisidi had made the call; protocol had dissuaded him from following up with a call of his own, and now, on a bus headed into the thick of it, he had second thoughts. Not about getting the kids out— that was increasingly imperative. But about what they were dealing with.
They needed help out here. They might need a lot of help, very soon, and if they didn’t move quietly, they could see events blow up in a major way—a little action spiraling out of control, into major armament, movement of forces—
It could get very, very nasty. He needed to talk plainly to Ilisidi—who wasn’t talking, at the moment. Nobody was, among her group. All he could do was put Tano and Algini into the current of his thinking, and trust if there was information flowing down Guild channels, they could be sure at least that Cenedi was thinking about it.
Dark was coming fast. It was just light enough for the whitewashed wall to glow a little in the twilight. For the windows of the house to show light.
And Cajeiri’s legs were asleep, a fierce kink getting worse in his back. Jegari and Antaro did not complain, but one was sure they were in more discomfort, being larger.
There was still no sign of nand’ Bren or Banichi or a rescue. That was getting scary.
Pain.
Excuse me, he signed, and had to wriggle about to his knees on the concrete floor, just for relief.
“Are we going to go, nandi?” Antaro signed back. And that was getting to be another trouble. They signed, to stay quiet. But it would reach a point soon when that would hardly work.
“If we go over the wall,” Jegari whispered, right against his ear, “we are bound to make some noise. Those are Guild, nandi, they are real Guild! We cannot take a chance.”
Noise.
Noise.
He had had an idea which had been simmering a long while, considering present resources, and with the lights in the house more or less indicating where people actually were—except the man on the roof, who must be getting very tired up there, and probably boredc
There was printing on the side of the fertilizer canister.
It said: fertilizer stakes.
It was just worth curiosity. He wriggled around where he could get into the canister, pried up the lid, and found curious hard sticks of smelly stuff. He tried breaking it.
It broke. It broke into nice pieces. It belonged in a garden, did it not?
So if they missed a few shots and somebody looked down, that somebody would only see fertilizer bits. Right? He thought he might just lob a few pellets into the trees. Hitting the windowsc that would bring another search of the garden, and maybe their patio, which he did not at all wantc but if he could get enough range, if he could get a clear shotc And nobody would see anything but fertilizer for the plants.