“We must get transport to come to us,” Cenedi said to them. “We are moving too slowly. If we can find a place for a few of us to wait—” Cenedi would never say that the dowager and the boy and likely the paidhi-aiji were the few of us in question, but Bren had no difficulty understanding there might be theft, mayhem, even casualties in the process of acquiring that transport, actions in which the few might be an inconvenience. They were at a crossroads of their plans, either to find a secure place where they might leave their weaker members in fortified safety, with allies, while the rest of them attempted to raise support—or go all together. Bren was not unhappy when Banichi supported the principle of stealth and rapid movement, which was their Guild’s general preference, and all of them going together into the interior.

“We have several names,” Cenedi said, “for this area. Dur remains one possibility, nadiin, but our adversaries will watch that.”

There were staunch allies in that particular district, for certain, somewhat to the north of them, and they might have gone there if they had run into opposition. Dur was an isolated place, the sort of place in which one could hide, but from which they could not maneuver with any aggressive rapidity at all—not unless they wanted to try an escape by air, in a small plane, and Bren sincerely hoped not to have to do that.

“Desari is our choice, then,” Banichi said, and others seemed to agree this name represented a good idea. “Two of us will go. We should.” That was in the dual, as Banichi put it, meaning himself and Jago.

Bren was less happy with that, but to this council—all of them were out of the Assassins’ Guild—he was necessarily a spectator, not a useful contributor of suggestions. They had spent their voyage down memorizing and arguing resources, and likewise used their voyage across the straits, laying these plans. When Toby had suggested this coast, and Cobo village, they had immediately known where he was proposing to land them and what resources they might have here, before they had approved the idea.

Now they were the ones with the information and the plan, which turned out not to be Cobo, evidently, but another village in the area and the paidhi could only wait, wait sometimes sitting on an uncompromising and chilly rock, sometimes sitting against it, resolved not to move about or stand up, for fear of attracting attention. Silence was all he could contribute to the situation. Ilisidi had lain down to nap on the lumpy, but less chill, bulk of their personal baggage. Cajeiri had completely flagged and gone to sleep on the icy damp ground, buffered by baggage. Cenedi and his men rested, catnapping by turns, cleaning weapons, speaking only in necessity.

But, damn it, he never could nap under such situations, even if he knew it was the sane thing to do. He sat there in one position or the other and fretted, and had a candy bar he’d stowed in his pocket, and listened to the sea, that vast, powerful sound that in principle seemed so quiet, and wasn’t. It could mask their small sounds. It could mask ambush. He felt deaf.

Tano and Algini came and sat by him, his protection, still. They went to sleep for maybe half an hour, taking turns with Cenedi’s men.

Bren just stared at the horizon, as a faint, faint glow began in the east, and grew, and grew, casting the lumpy horizon into relief, and slowly bringing reality to the landscape around them, rounded rocks and clumps of sea grass, small shrubs and a fairly precipitate slope behind their little camp.

Daylight. And the mainland. It seemed surreal.

Light grew. And with it, all at once, every ateva but Ilisidi and the boy suddenly stirred, opened eyes, looked in the same direction, an eerie simultaneity, a warning. They sat up, reached for weapons. Bren reconsidered his position, whether he had enough cover. He didn’t ask what was happening, or what their senses had perceived. He didn’t make a sound. Didn’t twitch a muscle, not risking even a scuff of dead grass.

Came a distant thrum, then a motor, some sort of vehicle, something of size, by the pitch of it. And he stayed quite, quite still, knowing that whatever he heard, the atevi around him heard more than he did. It could be a chance traveler. It could be trouble.

Cajeiri sat up suddenly, blinking and confused. Cenedi immediately signaled silence. Weapons were in evidence all around, and Cajeiri quietly touched his great-grandmother’s foot.

She woke, and Cenedi assisted her to sit up, as he moved Ilisidi and Cajeiri ever so quietly to a sheltered place behind the rocks. The paidhi was supposed to see to his own welfare, and the paidhi had no idea except to keep low and not move.

The noise kept on, a low gear, straining, and it was coming toward them.

Are we that close to a road? Bren wondered, as the racket grew and grew. Is it coming overland? He dared not put his head up to see what was going on, but Algini edged up among the rocks and got a look.

And stood up, as the racket and clatter crescendoed to a ridiculous level.

If Algini stood up, everybody could have a look. It was a battered old market truck, and Banichi was driving, Jago occupying the other seat. The side of the truck said, in weathered blue and red paint, Desigien Association, and it had made a fairly long, laborious track across the grassy headland, leaving tracks in the grass.

It came to a stop, and Banichi set the brake, and the two of them got out, beckoning them to come, hurry it up. Banichi and Jago were not in uniform—were in bulky country jackets and loose trousers, even their pigtails tied up with leather cord.

Bren gathered up his computer, his personal baggage, and Tano and Algini gathered up their own gear and Banichi’s and Jago’s, while Cajeiri and Cenedi assisted the dowager to rise and negotiate the rocky path toward the truck.

Baggage went unceremoniously into the truck bed ahead of them, except the computer, which Bren kept close, except the guns and ammunition, which various other people kept close. And the truck was atevi-scale. Cenedi got up onto the bed and bent over to assist the dowager up, and Nawari made a step of his joined hands, so that she could manage it, Cajeiri hovering behind, in case he needed to administer an indelicate push.

There was no need. The dowager, once aboard, went to the heap of baggage near the cab and sat down quite nicely. Cajeiri got up and wandered noisily around the truck bed, looking for a permissible spot, and Ilisidi beckoned sharply for him to join her sitting on the baggage.

Bren hitched his computer higher onto his shoulder and tried to climb up the metal rungs. Algini extended a hand from above and Jago, appearing below him, shoved from behind.

He turned and looked down over the tail of the bed. “Did we steal it?” he asked Jago.

“Borrowed, nandi,” she said. “We shall leave it at the railhead for its owners.” She clambered up. “There is a tarp, nadiin-ji. Regretfully, we must use it. Heads down.”

She hauled the oily, dirty thing from its position bunched against the rear of the cab, and and began spreading it out of its stiff folds, back along the slatted side-rails. Tano, from the other side, moved to help, and it spread like a tent over them. Bren sat down, as they all must, below the level of the side panels, their daylight cut out again in favor of oil-smelling dark and the vibration of the still-running truck engine.

“Are you well, nandi?” Cenedi asked Ilisidi, off toward the cab end, and Ilisidi answered, practically: “It will be warmer under the tarp, at least, Nadi-ji.”

There was some to-do, Cenedi and others evidently rearranging baggage to make Ilisidi a more comfortable place—she was not so tall that she had to bend her head, at least—and meanwhile the tarp was being tied down from above, lashed across with ropes, made into a snug container.