Inheritor (59 page)

"What target?" he asked her.

"Those trucks," she said. "Aim high! My partner's a fool!"

He was alarmed. "Where's Banichi?" he asked. He saw gun flashes out in the dark where he thought was water, and realized then it was the fishing boats. Geigi's other Guild protection, Gesirimu, had been with them, and
they
were running close to shore, firing from the water toward the trucks on that road.

"He said he'd get the trucks!" Jago said, stopping to shove in another clip.

"Are we sure who's out there in the trucks, Jago-ji? Jase's partner is missing!"

"We're sure. Hanks has a pocket com. She's appealed to all of us to disintegrate and abase our weapons."

It was surreal. The paidhiin were shooting at each other.
His friend
Banichi was out there in the dark with bullets flying from the water and from their position, and he opened fire high, with the thought of knocking rock down off the cliffs above those trucks. He was scared of hitting Banichi.

Jago's fire joined his, lower and more dangerous to the enemy, he was sure. And another someone joined them.

"Nandiin!" a young voice said. "My father
believed
the dowager's men! I have a gun! Where do I shoot!"

"Above the trucks!" Bren said. "Aim at the cliff. Produce ricochets!"

"Yes!" Rejiri said, lifted his high-caliber rifle, and fired.

Fire blossomed in the trucks, and in a flash that imprinted trucks and figures on the retina, light stained the cliffs, the sand, the sea, lit the boats and the rocks they were using for cover. The shock went through the ground and into their bones and before the light died a piece of the cliff was peeling away and headed down toward the trucks. There was the sound of one truck engine, speeding away.

"Ten, ten," Jago said anxiously into the com.

"
Got them
," Banichi's voice came back. "All but one, damn it."

That truck was headed back to Saduri, by the sound of the motor fading. Jago rattled off a string of verbal code that Bren guessed was their identities. It ended with, "The Dur island ferry," and drew an astonished and rude remark from the com.

A hand closed on Bren's shoulder, Jase's, in the silence of the guns. He reached his own out and closed on Jase's arm, shaky, feeling the chill of the wind now that the area was quiet. Jago went on, apparently trying to talk to someone else.

Then a voice came back and Jago said, "Ten, ten, four, sixteen. Headed your way."

"
Mistake on their part
," a voice came back. And something exploded in the distance, another shock echoing and echoing off the cliffs.

There was silence after, except the ringing in the ears.

"
Lord Tatiseigi's compliments
," the com said distinctly.

Deana Hanks was dead. Banichi said he could verify that and it was probably better not to go down to the trucks, but Bren did. The place stank of smoke, of oil, and ocean — of burning, mostly, and while he was there, a small rock gave way high up the cliffs and fell with a pelting of gravel.

Six humans. At least — he was relatively sure it was six. More atevi. Twisted metal, the paint burned off. Banichi had gotten them with a grenade he'd gotten from up at Mogari-nai.

And Tatiseigi's forces, while the elderly lord had ridden down in the van, had occupied the township proper and thrown up a roadblock with the help of residents. So they heard on the radio.

Fishing boats had come in as close as they could to shore within Saduri Harbor. They were anchored there.

One could just see the lines that ran down to the water. Bren began to be aware of the dawn, as he and Banichi walked back toward the beach.

Jase and Jago waited for him where the paved road gave way to sand and a view of two wrecked boats, the beached island ferry, and a sea full of pleasure yachts and working boats, all in the shadow of the Saduri headland.

Jago had his computer. The case was mostly melted. It was a wonder the strap held.

"Bren-ji, I did my best," Jago said.

"Jago, you did wonderfully well." He took it, such as it was. What it could do, it had done. Data recovery might turn up something, but he doubted it. "How are
you
doing?"

"Nothing serious, nadi. The dowager is well, lord Geigi is well. Cenedi has a cut from glass.
We
have taken no serious injuries. Lord Geigi's pilot has cuts and both arms broken, but he did excellently well to steer us about into the shore when the bridge was hit."

"One is
very
glad, Jago." Bren leaned against the rock and caught his breath. Or tried to. He pointed to the ferry. "Did you know about that?"

"One had
no
idea, nadi," Jago said. "Our people there were under orders not to use radio, and they didn't. The boy — and his father — called in certain of the island folk. And saw the fires and came in."

"Definitely it was Hanks," Bren said. "It's a mess down there. We won't know what happened — but she
must
have hit the rocks at the point." He was looking out to sea as he said it. And saw, among the atevi yachts in the haze of smoke and morning, a motor-sailer, a tall-masted boat that didn't belong in this company, gliding along under sail.

It didn't belong in this company.

It didn't belong in these waters. It belonged up on the north shore of Mospheira.

"My God," he said, and then in Ragi: "That's my brother's boat!"

"Bren!" a male voice yelled, and he knew the man who'd come running toward him from the grounded runabout — a man in a pale fishing jacket and a hat, a ridiculous hat stuck about with fishing floats. Yolanda Mercheson stepped over the side of the orange fabric boat, with him, and third was Shawn Tyers. Yolanda was trying to run, not quite steady on land-legs; and about then Toby was all his field of vision, Toby unshaven, looking as if he'd had no sleep for days, and grinning from ear to ear.

"God, it's good to see you!"

"Good to see you," Bren said, and Toby hugged him; he hugged Toby. Atevi had to wonder at them, and he didn't care.

"What are you
doing
here?" Bren managed to ask.

"What are
you
doing?" Toby asked. "Are we at war or something? We were doing fine but a gunboat escorted us down here."

"They're ours. How's mama?"

"She's doing fine. We couldn't bring her. But Jill's with her. And the kids. We brought Shawn's family, though."

Shawn was there, in a puffy insulated jacket, bright blue, the most informal thing he'd ever seen Shawn wear. He let go of Toby and recovered wit enough to hold out his hand.

"Welcome ashore, sir. I take it you had something to do with this."

"It was getting uncomfortable," Shawn said, and nodded over his shoulder where Jase and the other ship-paidhi were giving atevi another exhibition, oblivious to all else. "I figured it was easier to talk to the aiji than to George, truth be told. We just assembled down at Bretano and Toby flew up to the coast and got the boat. Got my wife, my kids, a Ms. Johnson who said you sent her —"

"God, Sandra made it."

"Showed up at my door with two plants in a grocery sack as I was leaving for Bretano. I said come along, we'd explain it. She said she didn't want to go this far, but it sounded safer here." Shawn cast a look around the beach. "She's probably changed her mind."

Bren looked behind him, where a row of atevi stood, Banichi, and Jago, and Cenedi, expressionless, uniformed, and armed.

He suddenly realized how they must look to Toby and Shawn. And blinked again and saw his dearest friends.

«
^

T
he wind came
in from the sea, in a summer warm and pleasant. The leaves sighed in a lazy, sleepy sussuration on the face of the wall, where the djossi vine had spread itself wide.

Lord Geigi was bringing the boat. His new, two meters
longer
boat, gratefully donated by Murini, lord of the Kadigidi. It was a short walk down to the water.

"Quiet day," Jago said, leaning elbows on the rail. She made hand-signals. The paidhi could just about bet that Banichi was below, watching over the boat dock.

Jago made a furious sign then, and a sign of dismissal, but not in anger, in laughter. Banichi's unseen comment was, he was sure, salacious.

"The boat's coming in," Jago said.

"One thought so," Bren said, and stood up and looked over the the rail himself.

Toby was joining them — that was the second boat, tied up just down the row. Geigi especially favored Toby: a fine sailor, Geigi called him, a true fishermen. Toby had an invitation in his own right; and he'd brought their mother for a three-day visit coinciding with the paidhiin's two weeks at Geigi's estate. Jill, who was pregnant, had flung herself valiantly into the breach, and was, with Shawn's wife, not only entertaining their mother, but escorting a children's birthday party (Shawn's oldest) to the beach, which had Tano and Algini occupied.

"Nadi." Jase joined him, with Yolanda, coming out of the house. "Are we promised fishing gear? One wants to be sure."

"There is, nadiin," Bren said. "I assure you it's on the boat."

"I'll be sure before I board," Jase said, and the two of them took the steps quite rapidly for spacefarers.

The ship — it was up there. The government of Mospheira was dealing quite politely nowadays, having apologized for the misunderstanding — one knew they would. The aiji had threatened an embargo of more than aluminum if they didn't come up with a passport for anyone the paidhiin requested — an offer the validity of which Sandra Johnson had tested, returning once for a visit, and a night of live machimi theater in Shejidan, the experience of her office-bound life. Now the State Department wanted Yolanda to come back and lecture to the Foreign Studies program at the University. One was absolutely sure she would not accept the offer, although Shawn said with Eugene Weinberg in as Secretary of State it was a certainty they'd honor her passport.

The telling matter was that the government of Mospheira, no longer able to pretend it had a space program, was dealing for Patinandi to build an expansion plant on the mainland to build a second spacecraft, part of a fleet of five such craft, that being the only way humans were going to get up to the station; and the ship did want them.

Shawn, however, was not going back to Mospheira. Emissaries came to Shawn, who said he'd wait for the next elections to see whether the voters had really acquired some sense. The Progressive Unionists wanted Shawn to run for President of Mospheira in the fall, but he said he'd think about it. Meanwhile Sonja Podesty was a very good candidate for Foreign Secretary if they'd use their heads. He wrote letters to Weinberg suggesting Weinberg run for President for the Unionists and appoint Podesty to the cabinet post.

Mospheira had to revise its notions of the universe, quite as much as Geigi had — and with far more disturbance to their expectations.

A radio show on the far side of the island, on which George Barrulin was a frequent guest, still maintained that atevi were going to pour across the straits and murder them all; but tell that, this summer, to the traders who saw their markets opening up, tell that to the companies which were making across-the-straits deals. The Foreign Office and the State Department were beginning to issue trade permits and companies would cut throats to be in early on the market — even if the aiji would not issue patent protection beyond three years for any product. The aiji
was
protecting certain Mospheiran patents, where it served the interests of atevi or where the paidhiin recommended exceptions. Everything among atevi was both patronage
and
merit. It always had been. And Gaylord Hanks wasn't on the aiji's list.

Tides ebbed and flowed in that blue water, and the one that had carried Deana Hanks to the heights of influence was ebbing. Her father still had money; and the old money still gathered at the Society meetings and talked about the unfairness of it all, but money meant less when the ideas it bought and backed were on the ebb of their fortunes, gotten down to the tide-pools and creatures that skipped away for deeper, safer water.

The aiji was in Shejidan, the heir of Dur was attending University, grandmother was riding mechieti at Malguri on the lake, and uncle Tatiseigi was in Shejidan politicking with the fragments of the association which had revolved around Direiso and now wanted very much to be seen with Uncle
and
with lord Geigi, who was the guest of the season in social circles.

As for the bad neighbors out in space, those who needed to know were warned. They were working on it. Nobody mentioned it. Yet.

Bren picked up the lunch basket that had rested on the terrace and joined Jago on the way down the steps.

They had gotten fairly good at certain things. Practice, Jago called it.

The aiji-dowager had invited the paidhiin and their staff for a season at summer's end — the aiji-dowager had promised
them
boating, too, and a bedchamber guaranteed to be as haunted as the lake.

The ghost bell has been heard this summer
, Ilisidi had written them, in that careful, delicate hand Jago said was the old school of penmanship.
I propose to spend the night in the old watchman's tower on the island in the lake. If we find no ghosts the view of the stars will still be extraordinary, and if it rains, the fireplace is intact
.

I assure you of the safety of the old tower and the caution of our cuisine as well as the security of our boundaries. The shell holes are patched. The banners fly. There's a nest of wi'itikiin on the roof this summer.

The damned creatures have taken advantage of the repairs and are getting entirely too impertinent.

The End