The paidhi had notbeen doing his job for two critical years. The paidhi had come back to find the world girded by satellites, a grid laid out, and relay stations—armed and mobile relay stations—dropped into strategic areas, satellite phones, cell towers on the Island, and all the preparation to loose, even worse, either cell phones or far less restricted wireless on the continent. The Assassins’ Guild was the worst, the very worst affected. Keeping the aishidi’tat, the Western Association, together—meant keeping each member of the Association sure that his advantage was exactly the same as everybody else’s; or at least sure that if somebody else cheated and got an advantage, the aiji in Shejidan was going to come down on them fast and hard. Guild members didn’t talk about Guild business, but the Assassins’ Guild itself had had one internal power struggle, only last year.
The aiji’s side had won, but what was going on tonight out in the bushes around the estate contested that conclusion.
He’d been coasting along since his return trying to catch up on what had happened, what technology had come in, what atevi had invented themselves, or modified. He’d been writing letters, answering queries, trying to find out what was a fait accompli and what he could still get a grip on, and possibly stop—
He’d beencoastingc in the technology questions since his returnc and now he had a growing, sinking feeling that he might utterly have lost the war.
They had aliens out there that were promising to come calling, atevi wanted their share of the situationc and that meant technological advance.
They had one hell of a problem in the world, was what they had. Hehad a problem. The Guild certainly had—and wouldn’t be happy about it. The aishidi’tat had a problem—manifested in a coup, a counter-coup, and God help them if things went wrong tonight—possibly a civil warc in which the technology he’d delayed banning was likely to turn up, full-blown, possibly inciting certain factions, possibly giving advantage where it hadn’t been and meaning all bets were off on the outcome.
It was the paidhi’s fault—at least in the sense he hadn’t been able to prevent it.
And Cajeiri was going to have it all in his lap, if he survived his childhood.
The dowager was right. Time they did get the boy full-time, technologically sophisticated security to keep him alive, considering the world he’d been born into, and not Great-uncle’s socially impeccable but less than adaptable old men. They needed two very young Guild, somebody who’d keep aheadof the boy, and train the two Taibeni practically in situ. Thank God, he thought, the Taibeni youngsters had come in with some natural advantages of their upbringing. But it wasn’t enough.
Something had to change. Soon. It wasn’t a safe world. And the boy’s tendency to go off on his own wasn’t going to get handled if Tabini, Uncle Tatiseigi, and the dowager started quarreling about the ethnicity of the guard.
God. His brain was wandering. The upcoming cell phone speech seemed suddenly so little, so small an issue. He was trying to stop a flood with a teacup. It couldn’t be another regulation. It had to be an attitudinal accommodation in the society. They’d accommodated tech on ship. Why couldn’t they adjust—?
They’d handled phones. They’d handled trains crossing provincial and associational boundaries. They’d adjusted. They’d taken computers, and done things theirway, that the paidhi couldn’t even have conceived of. That had been a dicey step. And they’d survived it.
If he could just explain to them—
Somethinghappened. Tano gave that sign that meant trouble, and then said the code word for intruder, getting up from his chair and reaching for his pistol as he did so.
Bren got up out of the way immediately and reached for his own gun, while Algini kept his attention fixed on the equipment.
Tano got into the doorway, angled to the left, fired up at an angle, and fired again as a shot came back; then dived out across the hall. Bren stayed where he was, in the vantage Tano had had, safety off the gun and the gun at the ready, eyes scanning not only Tano’s position, but things up and down the hall. It wasn’t just Tano’s life at risk. He was Algini’s protection, and Algini was busy relaying their situation to other units of their team.
Maybe, he thought, he should shut the door—barricade himself and Algini inside. Don’t rely on the gun: his security had told him that more than once.
But Banichi had given him the damned thing. What was it for, but for backup?
Tano, meanwhile, moved out and down the hall toward the servants’ wing and the dining room corridor, moved, and moved again, not without looking at ground level for traps. He reached that nook, tucked in against the slight archway, and held position.
The dowager, with Cajeiri, with her immediate guard, was just beyond that intersection, in the office. Bren personally hoped that door stayed shut. They were all right. Nobody was in sight.
Scurrying movement from right over his head, beyond the ceiling.
“Tano!” Bren cried. “Above!”
Shots broke out, up above the ceiling, breaking through the paneling. Tano suddenly eeled around the corner he was holding. Fire came back from the direction of the dining room.
“Hold!” Tano shouted out to someone down the dining room corridor. “Hold place! Call off your partner! Truce! We offer truce!”
Bren held his breath, flexed his fingers on the gun grip.
Suddenly a shot sounded overhead, running footsteps headed down the hallway ceiling where there was no room.
“Tano!” Bren shouted, and about that time Algini knocked him aside and fired into the paneled ceiling.
Splinters exploded near Tano from overhead and chips ricocheted off the floor tiles.
A volley came out of the dining room hallway and hit the intersecting wall. Tano had dropped into a sideways crouch right into the open and fired back. More fire came from overhead, splintering a ceiling panel, Algini moved and fired back, and Bren darted across the hall, his back against the same wall Tano had used.
A volley of fire went overhead, above the panels, and one came back.
Algini stood mid-hall and fired nearly straight up. Something up there thumped, and then there was quiet, except that Tano got to his feet. A dark dot appeared on the stone floor near where Algini was standing. A second spatted down in exactly the same spot. It took a second before Bren realized what was dripping.
“Clear!” Tano called back to his partner, holstering his gun, and cast a look down the hall. Bren leaned against the decorative paneling and far from automatically, working a little, put the safety back on his gun.
Curious. His hands had used to shake considerably. Now he was thinking they’d kept the hall safe, he was thinking they’d kept the dowager safe, that it had been a better-than-average lot that had actually gotten through their perimeter—someone damned good, in fact; and thinking, with a small shudder, that, thank God, some on hisside were better. But he was worried about Ilisidi’s men on the roof. And just too cold-blooded about it. He didn’t recognize himself.
And then he did give a shiver, thinking how Banichi and Jago were out there somewhere trying to pull exactly what they’d just killed two people trying to do, here.
That didn’t make him feel better. Not at all.
Algini gave him a solemn look and nodded, then listened to something for a second, frozen quite still.
Down the hall, the library door opened slightly, and one of Ilisidi’s young men glanced out, and came all the way out to exchange a handsign with Tano up at that end of the hallway.
The stain on the stones was widening.
But they had no all-clear yet. They might not have one for some time. Standard procedure would send a search all through the area.