Ilisidi had noticed this sluggishness of respect, too, and arched a brow, and stared at the young rebel, her lips a thin line.

“Where are you, boy?”

The jutting lip faltered. Tucked in.

“Answer.”

“On a boat, mani-ma.”

“As if to say, a ship. And that is the ship-aiji, more, the owner of this boat, which we are not. We are guests of a person placing himself at great risk in transporting us. Does this fact suggest anything?”

A moment of silence, in which Cajeiri shrank half a handspan and drew a deep breath.

“Need we suggest it?” Ilisidi said sharply.

“One apologizes, nandiin.” Delivered very quietly, with a bow of the head, from a boy who looked, now the energy had gone out of him, frayed, running on nervous energy, and, yes, terribly scared, when the whole ship had reacted to a creature he had flailing on the end of a line he had had no particular skill to manage. “I did not intend disrespect.”

“Bow,” Bren said, nudging Toby, who managed it, and Cajeiri bowed to Toby, and the dowager nodded, and matters were patched.

“This boy is tired,” Ilisidi said. “Nawari-ji. See him to a bed and tuck him in.”

Indignation. “I do not need to be tucked in, mani-ma!”

“He does not need to be tucked in,” Ilisidi said serenely, “but will benefit from a little rest.”

“Nandiin.” With a bow and a great deal of dignity the young rebel laid aside his pole and departed to the companionway, one of Ilisidi’s young men at his heels.

The deck was silent meanwhile. Barb, at the wheel, kept clear of the business, watching with apprehension, decidedly.

And then things went back to ordinary, the staff relaxing, Ilisidi enjoying the sunlight, hands on her cane, eyes shut.

Toby cast Bren a worried look.

“There are rules,” Bren said carefully, since Ilisidi herself understood more Mosphei’ than was at the present comfortable. “He’s doing very well. But he’s only eight.”

Toby gave a deep breath, on edge, clearly, and perhaps recalling his time about the mainland shore, where people had been on holiday and relaxed, as relaxed as atevi staff could be. The whole picture of atevi manners had never been available to him, and was not, now. It might not seem Ilisidi had been understanding, even kindly, in her handling of a boy whose temper and self-command had just snapped, and snapped because he was a child who’d been snatched from a world of routine and order into a world that had grown very remote from him. But Ilisidi was not cruel. Two years ago, at six, Cajeiri had had no independence. Now he had begun to run certain things—being tall as a human adult and strong and dexterous enough to do things for himself. But on the earth—and under present circumstances—he was obliged to take fast, concentrated advice from his great-grandmother, and become very much more adult, for his own safety’s sake, overnight… not mentioning the fact his physical strength was enough to do serious damage.

“This boy,” Bren said in a low voice, as they turned and leaned on the rail, “may be aiji within the week. He will have life and death in his hands. Indulgence is nowhere on his horizon.”

“You think Tabini is really gone?”

“I don’t know,” Bren said. “No one knows.” He moved the conversation back to the side of the boat and forward, under the white noise of the water, recalling atevi hearing. “She learned a great deal of our language on the voyage.”

Understanding dawned. Toby nodded, gave him a look, then leaned beside him on the bow rail, the white froth rushing along below them.

Long silence, then. Conversation on old memories, winter on the mountain, school days. Their mother’s cooking. The whereabouts of their father, who never ventured back into their lives, not even lately. That was a lost cause. They both knew that.

The wind shifted, and Toby looked up at the sail, and quickly left to see to the trim. Bren thought of going with him, handling the boat just for a moment, but, again, Barb was back there, and they’d clearly worked out that smooth teamwork, Barb and Toby had. He chose not to interpose his own skills.

A full day of such running, and half the night, and they’d work into the shoreline isles under cover of darkness. He might, extraneous thought, get off the boat without dealing with Barb, postponing all such dealings until he got back from the mainland—granting he would ever get back. He could duck below for an hour, get some sleep, and let his staff relax, more to the point, which they would not be able to do with emotional tension on the deck: they weren’t wired to ignore a situation that their nervous systems told them was unresolved between him and Barb. God knew there would be no violence, but their nerves, already taut, would resonate to every twitch and gesture and look, especially since he was sure by now Banichi also knew that was the Barb.

And the last thing he wanted between him and Toby at this imminent parting was Barb. He didn’t want to go below, into the close dark. He thought he just ought to bed down as Ilisidi had done, on deck, wrap up in a blanket somewhere where no one would step on him. He could lie near the bow, and just listen to the water. That would be good. There was a decided nip in the air. But only enough to remind him the planet wasn’t temperature-regulated, not on a local scale.

“Bren.”

Barb. Barb had slipped up on him, masked by the rush of water, the very person he hadn’t wanted to deal with. He stared at her, frozen for the instant, caught between a desire not to deal with her civilly and the fact that he’d promised Toby peace.

“Barb?”

“I’m sorry about your mother. It was two years ago for me. I know it was only yesterday you heard. So I’m sorry.”

“Accepted.”

“You’re upset that you weren’t there. She accepted that.”

“The hell she did. She never forgave me. She blamed me to her last breath because I wasn’t there. Let’s have the truth.”

“She did that,” Barb conceded. “But it doesn’t mean she didn’t love you.”

That hit to the quick, that love word, that sentiment humans needed, and atevi didn’t understand. He felt an angry sting in his eyes and turned his face to the wind, his eyes to the horizon, unwilling to have Barb come at him on that topic.

“You know there were things she wanted in her life,” Barb said, unstoppable, “and that didn’t happen, and she’d have been disloyal to her hopes to ever give in. One of them was your father. She never would deal with him again. But she never stopped loving him.”

“Not that I ever heard.” And didn’t want to hear. Barb had no business in their family business. But she’d been there, at a time when their mother might have confided things. He hadn’t.

“She was stubborn,” Barb said, “just like you. She held on to her hopes and wouldn’t admit any other situation. Like you. Yes, of course she wanted you there. If she hadn’t, if she’d ever let you go, she’d have been letting you go in the emotional sense, and she wouldn’t ever do that. It was her kind of loyalty. Is that what you want to hear from me?”

“It’s no good to tell you that I did what I could. You know me. I’m very limited in that regard.”

“I accept it,” she said. “I’ve learned to accept it.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He didn’t like the direction this was going, and wasn’t going to talk about love and devotion with Barb.

“Maybe it doesn’t, to you,” she said. “But I think it does.”

“Doesn’t, Barb. Leave it. Leave it alone.”

“I couldn’t be her. I couldn’t live with you. That’s the truth.”

That was the truth he wanted. He looked at her this time. The years and the sun had put little fine lines beside her eyes. She wasn’t a vapor-brained kid any more. “You learned the hard way.”

“Did that.”

“So let’s all try to get it right this time,” he said, while the wind blew at both of them, whipping hair and clothing. “For Toby’s sake. You and I used to be friends. It was better while we were friends, before we began talking about love and the future and the rest of it. Before we ever slept together, we had fun. We liked life. Anything in the middle is a long voyage ago for me. Let’s have it that way again. Can we do that? Because I’m telling you, I can’t accept anything else.”