Just about half a year ago. Yolanda had gone away in a van along with Deana, bound for a plane nearby; Jase had gone with him and Banichi and Jago in another one, bound for the subway, and that had been it, last contact, except the phone calls.

Jase had been so scared in those first days, so very scared - of the staff, of security, of the devices that guarded the doorway. Of the simple fact they found it necessary to lock the doors of the apartment.

Of the simpler fact of thunder crashing above the roof. He remembered.

The plane rushed down the runway, lifted, and a moment later Jase was trying to improve the plane's angle by leaning as it banked for the west.

Bren kept himself deadpan and didn't say a word about what was probably an instinctive reaction. One would think a man from weightless s.p.a.ce would have overcome such tendencies. But Jase said his ship made itself gravity the same way the station did, so Bren supposed Jase wasn't used to being without it.

The plane retracted the trailing edge flaps. Jase was still white-knuckled and had looked askance thus far at every noise of the hydraulics working, from the wheels coming up to the slats coming back. This was the man who'd boarded a capsule and let a crew shove him into s.p.a.ce in free fall toward a parachute drop into the planetary atmosphere.

On the other hand... Jase said very little about that trip down. Jase had waked now and again with nightmares, startling the staff, and he had once remarked that the parachute drop had perturbed him. He hoped the trip back into s.p.a.ce once they had the ship, Jase had said to him very early on, would be a good deal more like the airplane ride to Shejidan.

"You know," he remarked to Jase, who, after ten minutes at least and almost up to cruising alt.i.tude, hadn't let go the seat arm, "planes don't often fall out of the sky. They tend to stay up. Airfoil. Remember?"

Jase took several deep breaths. "I'm fine," he said, in the manner of someone who'd just survived h.e.l.l. "I'm fine."

Jase stared straight ahead. There was a lovely view of clouds out the window, but he didn't look, evidently not trusting the plane would stay level without his encouragement. Jase didn't look at him, either, and didn't seem inclined to think about anything but the plane.

Well, there was work he could do while Jase was helping the pilot.

He could unpack the computer. Or he could sit and worry about the situation on Mospheira with the State Department and its windows.

Or the situation in the capital, where Shockwaves of the peninsular affair and Tatiseigi's apparent realignment were still ringing through the court and lords marginally aligned with Direiso were reconsidering their positions - disturbing thought, to have a continent-spanning war going on, and thus far the casualties amounting to one man, a lightbulb, a piece of gla.s.sware, and Badissuni of the Hagrani in the hospital for a stomach condition - so that one wondered was was it stress that had sent him there, or had Jago been near his drink? it stress that had sent him there, or had Jago been near his drink?

The ship and probably the man beside him were completely unaware of the struggle except insofar as Jase had had to deal with Tatiseigi.

Well, the island would would become aware of it. With the illegal radio traffic going on, bet that Deana Hanks would become aware of it. become aware of it. With the illegal radio traffic going on, bet that Deana Hanks would become aware of it.

If she could translate a.s.sa.s.sination a.s.sa.s.sination without mistaking it for without mistaking it for pregnant calendar pregnant calendar.

Banichi and Jago were meanwhile taking great care to have him apprised of what was going on, after, presumably, some shaking at high levels had gone on in the Messengers' Guild. The information delivered with their supper last evening had been an intercepted radio message on the north coast, up by Wiigin, where they were not not going, a message which - laughably under less grim circ.u.mstances - purported to be between atevi, when clearly only one side was atevi even by the timbre of the voice, let alone the vocabulary and syntax errors. going, a message which - laughably under less grim circ.u.mstances - purported to be between atevi, when clearly only one side was atevi even by the timbre of the voice, let alone the vocabulary and syntax errors.

The fluent side of the transmission had discussed at great length the situation with the a.s.sa.s.sination of lord Saigimi. It had claimed lord Tatiseigi had made the television interview under extreme threat and it claimed that only fear that the Atageini would be taken over by the aiji had weakened Tatiseigi's former - the message called it - strong stand for traditional values strong stand for traditional values.

He knew why Tabini had had let that radio traffic, ostensibly between small aircraft flying near the a.s.sociation-Mospheiran boundary and a tower controller on the atevi mainland, go on without protest: it was deliberate provocation on someone's part on the mainland to be doing what they were doing, bold as bra.s.s on the airwaves. That they continued had nothing to do with rights of expression as they defined free speech on Mospheira. By the Treaty no Mospheiran had the right to use a radio to communicate across the strait. By allowing those radio messages to continue, Tabini was simply, in human parlance, giving the perpetrators enough rope to hang themselves and draw in others before he cracked down, definitely on Direiso, possibly on the perpetrators of the messages, and diplomatically on Hanks. let that radio traffic, ostensibly between small aircraft flying near the a.s.sociation-Mospheiran boundary and a tower controller on the atevi mainland, go on without protest: it was deliberate provocation on someone's part on the mainland to be doing what they were doing, bold as bra.s.s on the airwaves. That they continued had nothing to do with rights of expression as they defined free speech on Mospheira. By the Treaty no Mospheiran had the right to use a radio to communicate across the strait. By allowing those radio messages to continue, Tabini was simply, in human parlance, giving the perpetrators enough rope to hang themselves and draw in others before he cracked down, definitely on Direiso, possibly on the perpetrators of the messages, and diplomatically on Hanks.

But the area where that was going on was (he had checked) well north of the area where they were going.

And, while he would be involved in the crisis those messages were bound to engender when the crackdown came, it wasn't his problem now. His job right now was simply making sure that Jase got his chance to relax and reach some sort of internal peace with the land and the people. He had great faith that a little exposure to problems more basic and more natural than living pent up in the pressured Bu-javid environment would help Jase immensely. And he he, himself - He needed to rest. He finally admitted that. He'd reached the stage when there just wasn't any more reserve. No more nerves, no more sense, no more flexibility of wit.

He'd had his last real leave - oh, much too long ago.

He'd stood on a ski slope, on Mt. Allen Thomas, in the very heart of the island, getting sunburn on his nose, coated in snow from a header. (He'd gotten a little slower, a little more cautious in his breakneck skiing.) But, oh, the view from up there was glorious, when the sun turned the snow gold and the evergreens black in the evenings.

When the mists came up off the blue shadows and the wind whispered across the frozen surface in the morning - then he was alive.

It would have terrified Jase.

Ah, well, he said to himself, and propped one ankle on the other and asked junior security for a fruit juice.

"Would you care for one, Jasi-ji?"

"Yes, nadi, please," Jase said.

Definitely better.

The fruit juice arrived. "Pretty clouds," Bren remarked, and Jase looked and agreed with relative calm that they were that.

Vacation would do them all good, he said to himself.

Because... he had a sip of fruit juice and stared at the empty seat across from him, the one Jago usually occupied... he was definitely reaching the fracture point himself, and seeing conspiracy under every porcelain lily petal.

Conspiracy that linked the various shattered major pieces of the last several days, from whatever had necessitated the a.s.sa.s.sination of Saigimi, to whatever Hanks had pursued, to Direiso, to a couple of radio operators up by Wiigin, and even to the paint flung at his mother's apartment building.

He just wished he hadn't hung up on Toby. Their mother's surgery was this week. And he wouldn't hear. He just wouldn't hear. He'd resigned himself to that.

Hard on the relatives, the job he'd taken, the job Jase had volunteered for, never having been out of the reach of family and familiarity in his life.

He sipped his fruit juice. Jase eventually remembered to drink his.

The plane took a turn toward the west. Jase braced himself and looked at the window as if he expected to see something.

"It's all right."

Jase took a deep breath. "Can you see the water as we come in, nadi?"

"We're starting descent. You should be able to see it. You should have a good view."

He didn't know why Jase had taken the ocean as his ambition. He was only glad that Jase had taken something that easy for his goal, something he he could deliver. could deliver.

He got up briefly and spoke to Banichi.

On the paidhi's request and the local tower's willingness, the plane made a very unusual approach, swinging low and slow over the water's edge, then flew out over the sea and the large resort island of Onondisi, which sat in the bay, affording the ship-paidhi a view. Bren stood up to see, with his hand on a safety-grip, mindful of island pilots, standing and looking over Jase's shoulder at a pleasant rock-centered island with bluffs to the north and sandy beach to the south, where the resorts cl.u.s.tered.

"Melted water," Jase said in a tone of awe. "All that melted water."

Now and again Jase could utterly surprise him.

"Melted it is."

"Is it warm?"

"About the temperature of a cold water tap." He reached past Jase to point at the hotels that cl.u.s.tered among trees on the heights of the island. "Vacation places. Hotels. You stay there and go down to the beaches."

"Ordinary people go there?" Jase asked.

"And lords, nadi. And whoever wants to. The ordinary consideration is security, for the lords, so usually the high lords stay on the south sh.o.r.e of the bay. A lot of private beaches over there, but not as fine as these."

"Other people, they don't have to worry?"

"No. - Except if they've made somebody very, very angry. And even then they know whether they have to worry."

"Are they scared with this a.s.sa.s.sination going on?"

"The Guild won't touch a common man without a Filing of Intent. Even then the Guild has to be convinced there's a strong and real grievance, so," he said, with an eye to all the tiny figures on the beaches, wading the surf, "unless someone's done something really outrageous enough to get a Filing approved - they're safe, down there."

"But not lords?"

"Lords have Guild in their households," Jago said, standing close. "And the Guild doesn't necessarily have to approve a greater lord moving against a lesser if right can be demonstrated later."

"And a lesser against a greater?" Jase asked.

"It must approve that. And with common folk, it must. And often," Jago said as an afterthought, "we mediate between common folk. Many times, a feud among folk like that doesn't draw blood. We see many, many situations that common folk think extraordinary. We can bring perspective to a matter."

One suspected (Tano had hinted as much, and he'd observed it on the daily news) a commoner-feud usually went quite slowly indeed if the Guild suspected mediation would result. Sometimes, the paidhi strongly suspected, the Guild did absolutely nothing for a few months, expecting its phone to ring with an offer to the opposing side, once the targeted party grew anxious.

Jago didn't volunteer such information, however; and the plane swept on over water, this time with the view of Mospheira a distant blue haze past the rolling hills.

"That's the island, nadi. The The island. Mospheira." island. Mospheira."

The wing tipped up, hiding it, as they were obliged to veer off along the invisible boundary.

"I didn't see it," Jase said.

"It's just hazy out there. It was was the haze." the haze."

"I didn't see it, all the same." Jase sounded disappointed.

"Well, I'll point it out to you when we're on the ground. I'm sure we'll be able to see it. - The hills closer to us, that was the height of Mogari-nai."

Behind them now lay the rocky coastal bluffs that photographers loved, along with those of Elijiri which were near Geigi's estate, further inland. Mogari-nai was set, one understood, on the aiji's land, well back from the scenic areas, in a zone dedicated once to firing cannon b.a.l.l.s intended to fall on hostile wooden ships approaching the port at Saduri Township.

Now Mogari-nai faced a periodic barrage of electronic interference launched from Mospheira, and that opposing sh.o.r.e was lined with radar installations.

Ask about that interference in a protest to the Mospheiran government, and naturally the problem immediately spread to the phone lines.

"Will one wish another pa.s.s, nandiin?" That was the co-pilot. "We have the sky to ourselves."

"No, thank him, nadi," Bren said, and Tano, standing near the intercom, relayed that information.

"We will land, then, nandiin. Please seat yourselves comfortably and safely."

Bren sat down and belted in. Jase fastened the belt and drew a long breath.

"Routine landing," Bren said, and talked Jase a second time through the process of landing, and why why planes stayed in the air and how they got onto the ground. planes stayed in the air and how they got onto the ground.

Jase seemed very much more relaxed, just three deep breaths as they were approaching touch-down, and a grin as they did so exactly when Bren predicted.

"A lot better than parachutes, nadi," Jase said. They'd begun with a scared, withdrawn pa.s.senger and ended with one smiling and joking - one who'd been able to look out his window even during a steep bank, only occasionally clinging to the seats.

This was a good idea, Bren thought, this trip was a very good idea.

The plane taxied to the terminal of what was, for defense and seasonal tourist reasons, a fair-sized airport. The transport vans were waiting.

"We're here, nadiin-ji!" Bren said cheerfully, and was not quite first on his feet, but close.

Vacation, he was thinking. It wasn't quite the hoped-for chase after yellowtail, but Banichi was right: Geigi's estate, just on the south sh.o.r.e of Onondisi Bay, was peninsular, and going there at this precise moment might send some unwanted signal and interfere with the aiji's politics with that region.

Taiben, the aiji's summer retreat, the other possibility - that was in the Padi Valley, and that was, again, politically sensitive right now, as well as dangerous, being in lady Direiso's own front yard.

There'd been Malguri, which he'd most wished, but that was three hours by air into a set of provinces seething with intrigue.

So the aiji's lands, meaning the public defense zone near Mogari-nai and the Historic Site near Saduri Township, that became the fallback. They couldn't use the public resorts. The good one got out of being an atevi lord was mostly limited to a lot of ancestral knick-knacks you didn't own, by his own observation; and the bad one got was that the more politically active you were and the more resolutely you did your job for the people you represented, the more true it became that you couldn't ride regular airlines or go into pretty public resorts like Onondisi or go into the tourist restaurants he'd dearly love to go to - if he weren't the paidhi-aiji, and a human to boot.

But, well, rank had other privileges. Supper tonight with Ilisidi could make up for the restaurants.

They didn't have to gather up baggage. That was another good part of being lords. They let their security handle it and the moment the ladder was in place and the moment Banichi had been down to make direct contact with Ilisidi's people, who were in charge of ground security, they could go.

"I'm fine!" Jase announced as they went out into the brisk, sea-charged wind. Bren went down first, to meet Banichi at the bottom and to catch Jase if he tripped. But he felt the ladder shake and looked back to find Jase had seized the safety rail in his accustomed death grip and watched Jase enthusiastically and adventurously come after him without waiting for the ladder to stop rocking.

Not to push the point by lingering in the open air, Bren went to the nearest van of the three as the driver, who was not commercial hire, but one of Ilisidi's 'young men,' as she called them, opened the door. Bren ushered Jase in, got in ahead of Banichi, and Jago brought up the rear and shut the door as she hit the seat.

The van started up immediately and whipped around a tire-squealing one-eighty turn toward the gate.

Like a van ride he'd taken once before to visit the dowager. He started to protest the driver's recklessness, but - they were in Ilisidi's territory now, and it was what he'd bargained for. The driver wouldn't kill them; he knew that now - having been through far worse; and Jase looked startled and apprehensive, but looked at him, too, for rea.s.surance. So he grinned and Jase tried to mirror the expression.

Roads across the countryside weren't approved tech, except on a local basis. There was definitely rail service to Saduri Township, he'd checked that out, but it didn't serve the old fortress, as such service didn't serve, specifically, two two of the aiji's estates, he'd learned; one of those two was Malguri, and the other was Saduri. No rail went up to the big dish at Mogari-nai; and it didn't go to the Saduri Historical Site, either. of the aiji's estates, he'd learned; one of those two was Malguri, and the other was Saduri. No rail went up to the big dish at Mogari-nai; and it didn't go to the Saduri Historical Site, either.

So he'd understood there'd be a drive to get there; and he could have expected the driver would do what this driver was doing.

The van left the maintenance road and whipped off on a gravel spur that led around a gra.s.sy hill, and around another, and generally up, at a ferocious pace.

Jase looked less rea.s.sured at the sound of gravel under the wheels and at the feel of the van skidding slightly on the turns. He grabbed at the handles and the window-frame.

"Is this dangerous?" Jase asked. "Is someone after us?"

"Oh -" Bren began to say lightly, and settled for the truth with Jase. "This driver is having a good time. Relax."

Banichi grinned broadly. "He's not lost a van this spring."

Jase did know when he was being made fun of. He gave a sickly grin to that challenge to his composure and clung white-fingered to the handholds.

"I'd have thought someone from up there," Bren finally said over the noise of the van, "would be used to motion."

"I am!" Jase retorted. And freed a hand to gesture an erratic crooked course. "Not - this motion."

It did make sense. Jase's body didn't know what to expect and Jase's stomach kept trying to prepare for it, to no avail.