Tracker (44 page)

“Let us identify the tunnel accesses in question,” Banichi said. “And memorize the maps.”

“In that matter, search teams may use this unit,” Geigi said, handing the unit with the schematic display over to his own Guild-senior. “It is not dependent on transmission.”

“Are you going into the tunnels?” Irene asked from beside Cajeiri, a young human voice, in Ragi. “Please let me go. The boys will
answer
me.”

Unconscionable—under other circumstances; but finding one boy—or three—who wanted to stay hidden, in a tunnel with countless machinery installations and storage . . . Irene's was the one voice they
would
believe. “Yes,” Bren said, and saw Cajeiri start to speak. “You, young gentleman, know your responsibilities. No, you should not.”

Lips closed. Hard.

“Nor can
I
go,” Bren said. “In some situations my presence is an advantage. In this one I would endanger everyone. You, young gentleman, have a mission with the kyo, the same as I do.” He
wanted
to go. It was always hard when he had to send his aishid into harm's way, and wait. And wait.

But there
were
things he could do meanwhile.

“Get permission from your great-grandmother to go with me. I shall oversee this operation from the vantage of atevi Central, where there
will
be information. If you wish, you will be able to see everything there.”

“Yes!” Cajeiri said, and hurried.

“Nawari and I claim Braddock,” Cenedi said quietly, having attended something coming through his earpiece. “Sidi-ji will very likely come to Central, to answer any questions of authority.”

“One would be grateful,” Bren said fervently. Treaty law, and a step toward removal of the Reunioners, was the only thing that might quiet Ogun's objections. “Banichi-ji, the search of the likeliest tunnel. Can we undertake that, simultaneously with the move on Braddock?”

“Your aishid
can undertake it,” Banichi said sternly. “Irene-nadi, however, will be an asset.”

“My workers,” Geigi said, “will gladly assist.”

“We shall need a translator in the other searches,” Jase said. “If we get nothing from Braddock, my personal bodyguard and I will move into the tunnels with Banichi.”

“Let us go, then,” Cenedi said. “Time is running. It will take half an hour to position ourselves, with the workers' assistance.”

“On your signal,” Geigi said. “I shall call senior workers to meet you. Service tunnels penetrate the divisions at certain points, and you will be able to go and come as you wish, with their help.”

“Call them,” Cenedi said. “And let us move quickly. Sidi-ji will arrive in Central with an escort. Nandi, how soon can you lock the doors?”

“Within a few moments after I reach Central, nadi. I have written down the sequence of commands in a manual
I
keep. I wish to be sure of them.”

“Let us go, then,” Cenedi said. “Sidi-ji and the young aiji will arrive as she pleases.”

“Sakeimi,” Geigi said to the fourth of his aishid, “you will stay to escort the aiji-dowager. Let her meet no inconvenience.”

“I'm signaling my bodyguard,” Jase said, “to armor up and meet me at the interface. Best we hurry. Once Riggins starts asking for my handoff, he's going to be highly frustrated.”

Bren translated that for the others, rose and put a hand on Irene's slight shoulder. “Irene?”

“Sir?”

“Go with Banichi, stay with him wherever he goes and if there should be trouble, hide in a dark place and trust we'll come back for you. We
absolutely
will come for you. Captain Graham's going along to be sure your mother is safe. And if you and Banichi can't find anybody in the tunnels, our next step will be the addresses you gave us. And if they're not there, we'll keep on 'til we find them. Got it? If you get separated from my bodyguard for any reason, don't call out, don't try to catch up. Get into one of the maintenance shelters, get into a cold-suit, and wait. If you absolutely have to, exit on the Mospheiran side and ask for Gin Kroger. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” she said in a small voice, and got up from the table. Everybody did, and Hanidi said quietly, “Wherever we can be of service, nandi.”

“We shall be searching in two sections,” Cenedi said quietly. “Attend Jase-aiji. His bodyguard does not speak Ragi, and they will be guided by atevi workers once he leaves us. Stay with him wherever he goes, and be sure he understands his guides.”

 • • • 

Jase, Cenedi and his men, and the Observers took the first lift, Banichi, Jago, Tano, and Algini, with Irene, immediately took the second, and Geigi's man Haiji pushed the button to call a third.

“The dowager is coming,” Geigi said then, just as the car arrived.

“Hold for her,” Bren said. Ilisidi was coming, and with her, Cajeiri and Cajeiri's young aishid, at the dowager's pace. They held long enough for the lift to advise them, in a mechanical voice, that long holds inconvenienced others.

The clock was running on Jase's shift. Distances and procedures—a simple traffic condition in the lift system—could run their margin closer. Not to mention what happened to their timing if Ogun woke up and wanted to talk to Jase.

Promise me asylum,
Jase had said. It was Jase's sort of levity. But it was also dead serious. Ogun could well cast blame on Sabin if the operation against Braddock failed. Ogun could take over the operation if it worked.

But if it failed, if it came to a contest between Sabin and Ogun, with Jase's future in the balance . . .

Riggins would have been negligible in the whole game—except Riggins sat out there, Ogun's man, in possession of the ship . . . and ultimate ship-folk power.

At his own suggestion, that was the hell of it. It had seemed a sensible idea at the time.

Ogun certainly wouldn't have
Gin's
assistance if Ogun went against Sabin. And Ogun damned sure wouldn't get the aiji-dowager's approval.

But that sort of standoff was by no means the situation they wanted to get into.

Ilisidi arrived at the lift, with her company, and Cajeiri and his. She leaned heavily on the cane as she walked, not her habit, and gave a deep, discontented sigh as she joined them.

“Go in, go,” she said with a wave of her hand. “We understand there is an urgency.”

She hurt like hell, he guessed. The long trip and hiking about the long halls had been hard on her. But she knew exactly what she was doing, and she well knew what her presence was worth, in politics, representing the government that was the station's major source of critical supplies. Be damned to those who thought an atevi request for compliance was of minor import.

God,
he loved this woman. Loved. He had been thinking human for hours.

Tillington was down, having crossed Geigi.

Braddock had had the bad judgment to cross the dowager's great-grandson.

Would Ilisidi order Cenedi summarily to remove the man from further troubling them? On Earth, that required a Filing.

Up here, under the Guild Observers' direct witness?

One had no idea what sort of signal she might have passed to Cenedi.

And, though he had a little twinge of conscience, he conscientiously didn't ask.

 • • • 

The lift let out again a short walk from atevi Central. A man and a woman in Guild black guarded the shut doors to Central operations. And two men in workers' green waited there. Geigi signaled them, excused himself to speak to them, a hasty delivery of instructions before he hurried after them.

The dowager with her bodyguard, Cajeiri with his own, continued. Bren followed Cajeiri, with two of Cajeiri's young guard behind, and none of his own. He had not been without his aishid, waking and sleeping, in—in what length of time he could not remember. It was a strange, a frightening feeling, as if he were hyper-extended, part of him headed clear across the station, at great risk, if things went wrong. The tunnel environment itself held dangers.

He was not going to let things go wrong. There was little he could do, from here, in the detail sense. But if his aishid or any of the others found themselves in trouble—he
would
act. He would act if it took calling down every influence he owned or could borrow.

As they entered Central, techs at their stations, realizing their presence, began to rise.

“Sit!” Ilisidi thumped her cane against the deck, instantly stopping all such movement. “Please attend your duties, nadiin! We need you to pay attention there!”

Geigi, entering his office briefly, ordered a padded chair brought out, providing Ilisidi a place to sit. When he came out again, he strode into the center of the room, with an open notebook in hand, and began giving rapid-fire orders to this and that station.

Locks and codes were at issue. Geigi gave step by step directions, reviewed instructions with certain stations.

And meanwhile a pot of tea, ordered from the adjacent service area, arrived at Ilisidi's elbow.

Bren stood and watched the screens, such as he could. Listened, for what he could gather of their units' progress.

Cajeiri stayed close by his great-grandmother, talking to her, watching anxiously as Geigi moved from section to section of the boards, giving orders.

Twenty-nine minutes gone, since they'd arrived in Central. Jase's duty was about to end. Riggins would be due to take over.

The suspended screen above, triple-faced, changed from numbers to an image of darkness, a green glare on machinery.

Banichi? Bren wondered. That camera was body-mounted, possibly borne by one of Geigi's men, moving in haste, within one of the tunnels.

Then he heard, on speaker, voice contact from Jase. And unmistakable behind the moving shadows, as the camera-bearer turned, two white figures, large as atevi, glared ghostlike in the dark.

That was Cenedi's group on screen. Jase, with his bodyguards, Kaplan and Polano. And the Guild Observers. The move was underway, headed for Braddock.

Geigi meanwhile, continued up and down the row, giving orders, supervising what had to be a tight sequence of events.

There was nothing for the rest of them to do right now but stay out of the way, and cling to that murky image, that distant mutter of voices, one of the two operations currently underway. Cenedi's team was moving very fast, presumably with Geigi's workers leading. Occasionally a green-lit girder flared into visibility, and slipped away, distorted at the edge of sight.
12,
Mospheiran numbers said, on a girder.

At what stage his own aishid was in their operation, he had no word. There was no contact with them, yet, that he could tell. But Guild didn't seek contact with directing authority until the Guild-senior in charge decided a report was due.

There was one resource, and Bren hesitated to resort to it. It had been for other contingencies, other emergencies—in case. It breached regulations. He reached into his coat pocket, felt the presence of that Guild com, told himself he could do damage if he resorted to it. This wasn't the time. His aishid didn't need his interference. He would embarrass them if they knew he was holding on to it like a superstition, a surrogate presence. But he was. As if wishing
could
help them.

The image on the hanging screen shifted then, flicked to another, larger, area with tanks and pipes casting strange shadow in a moving light.

A young human voice called out,
“Bjorn? Gene? Artur? If you're here—come out! It's all right! It's me!”

That
was
his aishid, with Irene, underway in their search just about the time Cenedi's group was prepared to move into the apartment corridor.

The white readout in the sidebar next to that dark image said six past the hour.

Six past. Into next shift. Riggins was in charge—except Jase was not going to be handing off with a report any time soon.

“Doors in the residencies in 23 and 24 have now reset,” Geigi said quietly, the first report from him, in his close attention to the boards. He was talking to someone, likely his own workers. And the apartment doors were all locked. The master card for Irene's apartment was in their hands. And if that household had waked, they would not spend long before realizing Irene was missing. And that the master key was missing.

“Nandi,” one tech said, turning. “Riggins-aiji seems to be asking for Jase-aiji.”

Good
guess
Riggins was looking for Jase.

Everybody
was going to be looking for Jase-aiji in a few minutes.

“Mospheiran Central officially shut down all operations half an hour ago,” Geigi said. “Gin-nadi has handed all control back to us. We shall decline to answer Riggins-aiji.”

“Nandi,” the tech said, and simply pushed a button.

Ship-com was going to be asking a lot of questions.

Meanwhile all apartment doors, throughout sections 23 and 24, were
supposed
to open from the inside, using the master cards, but those honest souls who had not had their master cards stolen were now finding that
their
cards wouldn't work.

And their com service had been cut off days ago. That was very a scary situation, and they could not maintain that for too long before people became completely panicked.

“Bjorn? Gene? Artur? Come out! It's all right! It's safe!”

The display had switched again. Cenedi's, Bren thought. For a few moments the display was green-lit pipes, and blackness, and shadows.

Then a white-lit wall flared bright. A door opened. Camera view adjusted to low corridor lighting.

“Retain the first thread, nadiin!” Geigi said to his techs. “Hold on that source.”

Over audio came Cenedi's voice, in Guild code. The video image jolted, veered to the right, to a broad, deserted expanse, a low-light image dimmed by distance and motion.