Protector: Foreigner #14 (18 page)

Pretty damned amazing, Bren thought, and had to give a second look at Jase, to believe it.

“You’re not sick,” he said.

“Medicated to the max,” Jase said, and patted his pocket. “’Til the brain adjusts.” He spotted the dowager, and Tatiseigi, and bowed, deeply. “Nandiin. One is surprised and honored. One apologizes for the children.”

In fairly good Ragi, that was. The dowager nodded, pleased. The children, having gotten toward the middle seats, were trying their best to keep quiet, but there were excited young voices, and Tatiseigi was eyeing them with unguessable thoughts about it all.

“The two in armor, nandiin,” Bren said, “are Kaplan-nadi, and Polano-nadi, Jase-aiji’s personal bodyguard, very responsible men, who always accompany him.”

“You are very welcome, Jase-aiji,” Ilisidi said, of course in Ragi. “Lord Tatiseigi, he is one of the ship-aiji now, and a very astute young man, who has come to supervise the children. One hopes Tirnamardi can accommodate another guest with minimal difficulty.”

“Honored, nandi,” went both directions, and Tatiseigi looked a little less stressed.

Thump! went the door, then, the last of the hand baggage manhandled down the aisle without hitting anyone, and other baggage stowed below, in the baggage compartment of the bus.

Thump! went the ferrule of Ilisidi’s cane. “Let us be moving, nadiin,” she said, and Jago relayed it to the driver, who put the bus in gear.

“Well, well,” the dowager said cheerfully, bracing her cane against the sway of the bus as it turned, while Jase and Bren stood and held their ground. “We shall reciprocate the hospitality of the ship-aijiin, with your kind assistance, Tati-ji. You are very welcome, Jase-aiji. My great-grandson is holding forth with his young associates. Come sit with us.”

“One is honored, nand’ dowager,” Jase said, in very passable Ragi, and gave a second bow to Lord Tatiseigi. “We are not of close acquaintance, nandi, but you are known in the heavens.”

“Indeed,” Tatiseigi said—impassivity had settled over his face, but he seemed to like that information. “Tirnamardi will find room for any guest the aiji-dowager recommends. You speak very well, ship-paidhi.”

“One is very flattered, nandi,” Jase said with a perfect little bow, and slipped quite deftly into a seat, leaving space for Bren, next to Tatiseigi.

“A very great asset,” Bren said, thinking,
Geigi.
Jase, incongruously, had a slight southwest coastal accent, and one knew the source.

“One does not suppose the children are as studious,” Ilisidi said.

“No, nand’ dowager,” Jase said—hit exactly the right form of address for their relative ranks. Geigi’s coaching in that, too, Bren was quite sure.

“How is your stomach, Jase-aiji?” Ilisidi asked.

“Much better,” Jase said with a little bow, and Bren said, “They have found a medication that works.”

“Excellent,” Ilisidi said. The bus left the concrete and turned onto the gravel.

There were suppressed human gasps from the middle seats—children, with faces pressed to the bus windows as the scenery swung into view, trees, and grass. A quiet
shhh!

They were under way, collected, gathered, oriented, and headed back to the train.

•   •   •

“Trees?” Gene asked in Ragi.

“Yes,” Cajeiri said.

“You can look right at the sun,” Artur said, leaning.

“Don’t,” Cajeiri said. “It’s not good.” They had never seen the sun in a sky. For them the sun was something else. A star. A place that anchored planets. A place that anchored ships. “It’s a clock. 1200 hours, a little more.” He inclined his hand. “0100. 0200. 0300 . . . By 0800 it’s gone. It comes back around 0530.”

“Neat,” Gene said, and leaned forward to catch a look as Artur sneaked another peek. “Come on, Irene. Don’t be a baby.”

Irene made a try, and then the bus took a turn. Irene shut her eyes.

“Just like a shuttle docking,” Gene said. “Just like two ships meeting. It’s all in your head.”

“It’s
fast
,” Irene said, and Gene and Artur laughed.

“Silly. The
ship
is fast. This is just a little distance.”

“There’s a black and red machine.”

“The train,” Cajeiri said in Ragi—not knowing any ship-speak word for it. Then thought of one. “It runs on rails. Like the lifts.” He made a sideways motion of his hand. “That way.”

“We’re going on that?” Irene asked.

“Yes,” Cajeiri said. “The red one. Back there.” He tried to think of words, after all his practice, and the only words he could think of for a moment were ship things. The tunnels. The places they met. Sneaking into the access doors.

“So are we going to the city?” Gene asked.

“No,” he said. “Tirnamardi. Lord Tatiseigi. It’s his. He’s my—” He realized he didn’t know ship-speak for great-uncle. “My mother’s mother’s brother.”

“Wow. He owns a whole city?”

He shook his head, struggled again for the right word, this time for house, and was immensely frustrated. “We go to his . . . Where he lives.”

“Apartment?”

“Like. But big.” It came to him—they had no houses, either. There were no words for it. Even apartments for them weren’t rooms in a building, but rooms off a corridor. “We say
adija.
Big. Lot of rooms. We’ll be there for a few days, then we go to Shejidan, to the Bujavid, for my party.”

“We’ve seen pictures of the Bujavid,” Artur said. “It’s huge.”

“My father’s apartment’s there. That’s where we’ll go for my birthday. First we go to Tirnamardi. They have mecheiti there.”

“It’s going to be good,” Gene said, and his eyes were wide and bright. “This is so good. We
knew
it was your birthday again. We heard
about
you. We knew you were all right. But pretty scary. A lot of scary stuff.”

That opened up difficult business. “Lots of trouble.” He had no idea where even to start telling them about the Shadow Guild and the trouble over on the coast. Or Malguri. Or what had happened at Tirnamardi before that. “But safe now. All fine.”

The bus slowed down. It was time for everybody to get out. His attention was all for his aishid for a second, for instructions, and then he realized he had forgotten to introduce them—
everyone
had a bodyguard, and bodyguards knew each other, and things passed back and forth. “Nadiin,” he said in Ragi. “This is Gene-nadi. This is Artur-nadi. This is Irene-nadi. People, this is my
aishid.
This is Antaro. This is Jegari. This is Veijico. This is Lucasi. I wrote you about them.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Gene said.

“Nadiin,” Antaro said, with a polite little nod, Guild-fashion. “We go now.”

“They speak
ship
!” Irene exclaimed.

“A little, nadiin,” Antaro said with a second nod, pleased, and up front, people were getting off and they would have to catch up. “We go now. Up.”

“We move fast now,” Cajeiri said. “Don’t stop.” Up front, two of mani’s bodyguards had lingered, and they had opened the baggage compartment of the bus, taking out what they had put on. Antaro and Jegari led out, and he followed with his guests, Lucasi and Veijico behind them. Tano got out ahead of them, and there were Kaplan and Polano, mirror-faced helmets on, which made them look like machines—scarily so. But that was what bodyguards did—look as forbidding as possible if there was any chance of a threat. Everybody else was already getting on the train, and Tano went ahead of them as they caught up.

The steps were high, even for him, but
very
high for his guests. He made it in, and Gene, with a little jump, was right behind him. Veijico and Lucasi all but picked up Artur, setting him on the steps, and Gene hauled him up the next by the hand. Irene came next, lifted up gently by Lucasi.

“Everything’s so
big,
” she said, staring all around her.

“
We’re
just
short
,” Gene said, with his big grin. They were in the car, now, and being urged away from the door. All the bodyguards were still standing, but he caught a glimpse of mani and Great-uncle, and nand’ Bren and Jase-aiji through the sea of black uniforms, settling into the seats at the rear.

One of the guards was Tano, who said, with a wave of his hand: “You and your guests may have the seats over there, with the let-down table. There will be lunch very soon.”

“Thank you, Tano-nadi,” he said with a little bow, and now, finally, they were going to be on their way and everything was going to work. “Is mani happy, and Uncle? Is everything all right?”

“Everything is perfectly fine, young gentleman.”

He hoped it was, but some of the bodyguards were still outside. Finally Kaplan and Polano came up onto the train ahead of a few of mani’s guards, and the door shut.

They were in, they were safe.

And lunch was coming.

He so wanted to introduce his guests, but it was not proper to do introductions of complete strangers to mani and Uncle in a crowded conveyance. It would have to be as if they were in two separate cars, the adults down there, and them here, at this end, and they had to be sure not to bother anybody.

“Sit here,” he invited his guests. “Food. Soon.”

“Food!” Gene said. “Excellent!”

Their own table, and very quickly iced bottles of fruit juice. No servants were present—they were all in the other cars . . . with the baggage—so it was one of mani’s guards who set down the drinks.

It was quiet, it was safe: the red car had excellent shielding—even the red velvet curtains that made it look as if there would be a window at the end of their table were for decoration only: there was no looking out. Not from this end of the car.

“We’re moving!” Irene said, with a startled look, and grabbed her drink. “Oh, this is scary! How fast does it go?”

“A little,” Cajeiri said. “Not like the ship.”

“What’s that sound?”

“Joints in the rail,” Cajeiri said.

“The other sound.”

“That’s the train. The machine.”

“Neat,” Artur said. “You can hear it breathe, can’t you?”

Breathe. He’d never thought of it like that, but Artur was right. It
was
neat. And they were happy. Nobody was sick or throwing up, which Bren had cautioned him could happen to them even without windows. They were eager for lunch, and the fruit drinks were fast disappearing.

But, he realized suddenly, he had to teach them things, like not eating just anything. He had told them once about nand’ Bren having to be careful what he ate, but that was on the ship. He had to be sure nobody got sick now. Or dead. It could be really serious, with some dishes. And even some teas.

And he had to present them to mani and Great-uncle, once they got to Tirnamardi, in a way Great-uncle would approve. Great-uncle was so touchy. He had to make them understand where to be and how to talk to lords and servants.

And so many, many things there were Ragi words for, just Ragi words. Where did people born on a station far, far off from any world ever see a tree or a woods? There were words in the old archive, that they all knew. And there were vids. But not all of those words fit
things
and vids weren’t like standing next to a tree that towered over your head and dropped leaves into your hands.

They came from a place that was all one building. Just doors and hallways and lifts and tunnels.

It was just enormous, the mass of things he had to explain. He suddenly found nothing as easy as he thought it was, and it all was going to come at them in a few hours when they got to Tirnamardi.

He swallowed a mouthful of fruit juice, and decided he should just tell them Ragi words for what they could see around them. It was, after all, the way he had learned ship-speak, when he had been in their world.

•   •   •

“They seem to be enjoying themselves,” Banichi said, having taken a short walk down the aisle and back, as they finished lunch. “They seem to be doing very well. No motion sickness.”

“One is glad,” Bren said. “Thank you, Nichi-ji.” He and Jase had their lunch together, a little separated from Ilisidi and Tatiseigi, and bodyguards did their own rotation, catching lunch in the little galley. Jase was doing very well, had an appetite, had no problem with the rock and sway of the train.

“Which of us is going to handle protocols?” he asked Jase. “How much have you told them?”

“That the bodyguards mean business, and that you don’t touch people. Particularly people with bodyguards.”

Bren laughed a little. “Children have latitude. Nobody would hurt them.”

“The boy’s
grown
this year.”

“Eight or nine, the kids shoot up fast. Big spurt between eight and twelve. All feet and elbows in a year or so—just like a human kid. The emotions are different—there’s adjustment, a little rebellious streak. Jago’s warned me.”

“Sounds like us.”

“But girls won’t be the focus. Man’chi will be. A push-pull with the parents. Rebelliousness. Quick temper.”

“Sounds exactly like us, in that part,” Jase said. “I was a pain. My actual parents weren’t available to argue with, and I
still
argued with them—in the abstract. Wasn’t fair, them being so non-communicative.”

Jase’s humor had a little biting edge to it. Jase was one of Taylor’s Children, stored genetic material, a
special
kid, harking back to the original crew. Ship aristocracy, in a manner of speaking. A living relic. A resource.

Sometimes, Bren suspected, from what he had heard Jase say, those who
had
raised him had forgotten he was still a human being.

“You turned out pretty well.”

“Dare I say, thanks to you?” A narrow-eyed glance his way, then around the train. “Thanks to all of them. —When they decided to come back here, they decided to resurrect a few of us. Beginning a new era, I suppose. A marker. I wonder, sometimes, what they think of what they got.
Yolanda’s
gone philosophical. Meditates in a dark room. She scares me.”

Yolanda was another of Taylor’s Children. Like Jase, but not like. Cold as a fish and as prickly, in Bren’s way of thinking. “Seriously?”

“I think she’s in a career crisis. She
didn’t
like my promotion.” Jase heaved a sigh. “Authority problems. She’s always been a person who likes definitions. The planet bothered her. Translating bothered her. She’s got more realities in her head than she likes and she won’t go into the atevi section, won’t deal with Geigi. Geigi’s learned ship-speak, since she’s resigned. She’s dropped linguistics. She’s gone over to research, records-keeping, history of the ship, that sort of thing. I think it’s a cocoon. It’s safe.” He shrugged. “She and I don’t talk.”