Had there been a voyage? Was there a space station and a ship swinging overhead? Was the whole world changed? He was back. He had never left. Nothing had changed.

Except him. Except what he knew, and what he had on his shoulders to do.

He drew a deep breath and hung isolated, between worlds, waiting for the sunrise to come over a planetary rim. Then his eyes shut, once, twice. He wrapped his arms about himself and slept his way to dawn.

Chapter 6

Sunrise still held a favorable breeze—indicative of weather moving toward the continent, in this season, and the Brighter Days ran before the wind with a continual hum of rigging and hull. It was a glorious motion, an enveloping rush of water.

And it was impossible to keep Cajeiri out of the works: Algini, taking his turn at Cajeiri-watch, took the young rascal in charge before breakfast, assuring he stayed aboard and uninjured, explaining the tackle and the working of the sail, explaining—Algini having once lived near the sea—how a wind not exactly aft drove the boat forward, and the mathematics of it all. Cajeiri sopped it up like a sponge—his other guards had not been so knowledgeable—and dogged Algini’s steps like a worshipful shadow.

Breakfast—chili hot from the galley—met universal approval, even from the dowager, who thought this strange spicy offering might go well on eggs, if they had had any.

Afterward Algini put out a line, baited it, set Cajeiri in charge of it, and the boy promised fish for lunch.

It was tight quarters, over all: everyone wanted to be on deck at all times, and atevi even trying to watch their elbows took up more room than the ten humans who might have been quite comfortable on the boat. Bren was constantly cold—Jago and Banichi found occasion to stand close to him, warming him and blocking the wind.

But the dowager, who had sailed often enough in her youth in Malguri, left her bench, and rose and walked about the tilting deck, to everyone’s acute concern, no one but Cenedi daring to keep close to her.

Within the hour, Cajeiri actually hooked a fair-sized fish, and all but fell in from excitement. It took Algini and one of Cenedi’s men to get it unhooked, not without getting a hand finned, but Cajeiri was triumphant, and admired his pretty fish, until it escaped across the deck to considerable excitement. Algini picked it up, and Cajeiri proclaimed it was a brave fish and ought to go free. So back to the sea it went, to universal relief. And the line went back in the water.

So they sat or stood and absorbed the sunlight, in a sea devoid of other ships, from horizon to hazy blue horizon. “Bren-ji,” Jago ventured, when Banichi had gone aft to talk with Tano, “this woman Barb. Is this a common name?”

The question. The very pointed question. Jago had once upon a time urged him to File Intent against Barb, back when Barb had been a trouble to his life. Jago had offered to take out Barb herself, except he had, in a little alarm, realized Jago was perfectly serious and told her that this was not the human custom.

Now he found no cover at all.

“It is a common name, Jago-ji, but this is indeed Barb.”

“And she has made a liaison with your brother?” Very little floored Jago, but this seemed to reach some limit of good taste… he parsed it in atevi terms, and it came out worse than with humans—man’chi might be involved. A family breach among atevi was beyond serious.

“It seems so,” he said, and on a quick breath, Jago giving a very dark look toward Barb, he touched Jago lightly on the arm and drew her over to the forward rail, in a small space of privacy. “I know this will be confusing, Jago-ji. You know that my mother has died.”

“One had feared so, Bren-ji. One offers whatever words are appropriate, with deep concern for your well-being.” But it did not relate to Barb: the silent objection was there, simmering under her patience.

“Thank you. Thank you, Jago-ji.” Touching her hand. “One appreciates the sentiment. It was no great shock, but a profound loss, all the same. And this is what I have to explain. It does connect. Barb, in her own way, Barb had become a close associate of my mother during her illness, since I was absent. And that was a good thing. Toby, meanwhile, Toby had attempted to assist our mother, and was absent from his household. His wife took offense and left him, taking the children with her.”

“They were hers?” Under atevi law, children were arranged for, and contracted for, and went with the contracting parent under the marriage agreement. Nor was marriage always permanent. Nor was there love, that troublesome human word. There was that other thing, man’chi, which followed kinship lines more than it followed sexual attraction and finance.

He let go a deep, despairing sigh. “Humans make no such contracts. They assume husband and wife share man’chi. And no, she had no particular right to take the children, but their man’chi seemed to be to their mother, so they went, and left Toby at a time of crisis.”

“One recalls the facts of the case.” Jago had been privy to the details of a great deal of it, once upon a time, and seen him frown and worry over it, though, he recalled, he had not troubled her with overmuch explanation. The only thing she had known for certain, he put it together, was that Barb, a problem to him, had been taking care of his mother for reasons unfathomable to the atevi mind.

“Toby’s wife, Jago-ji, did not sympathize with our mother in her wish to have her household about her. She insisted Toby move to the north coast. This was about the time I took up the paidhi’s office, which upset my mother greatly. Toby had moved away. I moved away. She had no servants, nor anyone close to her. She wanted us back. I could by no means cross the strait at will; for Toby, it was a shorter flight. And our mother found a way to have emergencies. This became a serious matter between Toby and his wife. Our mother abused Toby’s devotion, I cannot pretend otherwise; and when she became old and sick, Toby’s wife was not willing to view the situation as anything but the old quarrel. Her man’chi to Toby fractured. In such cases, one splits the property—and the children. Toby gave the wife the house, which she sold, and kept the boat into which he put all his fortune. And I suppose—I suppose when our mother died, Barb had no man’chi but to him, and he had no one but her.”

“This is difficult, Bren-ji,” Jago said, whether that she meant it was a difficult situation, or difficult for her to comprehend.

“I have a deep man’chi to my brother. He risks his boat, and his life, in offering to assist us. And Barb—Barb has come with him to work the boat as she has evidently been doing—it is, apparently, their household, and it may be—it may be that she wishes to be sure the man’chi between Toby and me does not supercede that between her and Toby. So she came. So she wishes to maintain her influence. I trust this is her motive. She will not let me touch the boat.”

That apparently made sense. But it brought a frown.

“If she brings him happiness, Jago-ji, and settles herself with him longterm—” Talking it out, having to translate it into terms Jago could comprehend, somehow took the sting out of his heart. “If she treats him well, Jago-ji, I shall never remember any quarrel with her. I would honor her as my brother’s wife, and be respectful of her and him.”

“Then you believe, nandi, that she has come on this voyage to support him as well as to maintain her hold.”

“She would. She has courage, Jago-ji. She always had. She wanted the glamorous life, when I was coming and going often from the mainland, with a great deal of my resources to spend. Then when I grew more involved with the aiji’s affairs and my coming and going grew more irregular, and sometimes fraught with public controversy, even assassination attempts—she wanted quiet and safety. You know she married once, a man who could provide that comfort. That contract was brief. Now, it seems she has chosen Toby, and the boat. I think it the best choice she ever made. Toby is an excellent man.”