He had only really lived in that apartment when he was a baby. He had, since then, lived in Great-uncle Tatiseigi’s house; and then he had gone up in the shuttle and lived on the starship, and he had flown on the starship farther than anybody on earth could imagine; and he had traveled back to the space station—which he had had to leave in a hurry, leaving all the people he had met in space.

And then he had flown back down to the world with nand’ Bren and Great-grandmother, because his father had been overthrown and enemies were in control of the capital, and they—he and Great-grandmother and Father and nand’ Bren—had had to fight their way from Uncle Tatiseigi’s house back to the Bujavid again and set his father back in power.

So he had come to live in this room, in Great-grandmother’s apartment, which had stayed safe during the Troubles. His father and his mother had lived here, too. And he had been almost a whole year living in this warm little bedroom. And taking lessons from his incredibly boring tutors—well, except for one small incident. Or two.

His father had of course become aiji again, so his father was obliged to live in the Bujavid and, as soon as he could, to have his own apartment back. They were cramped, living with Great-grandmother.

But hehad rather live with Great-grandmother or with nand’ Bren, which was where he had just been—at Najida—even if he had only gotten to go out in a boat once.

Well, twice, if one counted the accident. But that had not exactly been a proper boat.

And everything was better at Najida now, and just when there was a real chance nand’ Bren could have taken him out every day on his boat, or nand’ Toby could have—his parents wanted him back in Shejidan, and told him he had to fly home.

Great-grandmother had gotten to stay in Najida. And now she was coming back, but she was not even going to come in from the airport. She was taking that fool Baiji to meet the girl he was going to have to marry.

So he did not even get to see her.

And now everybody was running around in excitement because they were moving back to their own apartment, as if that was good news.

They were moving there tomorrow.

And that was where he would have to live.

Forever.

With a boring tutor giving him boring lessons.

He had ever so much rather have his lessons from Great-grandmother, even if she did thwack his ear for mistakes.

Or from nand’ Bren, who had taught him all sorts of things.

Or from Banichi, who was Guild, and incredibly scary and very kind and understanding. Those were his best teachers. Ever.

When they had been on the starship, nand’ Bren had given him vids from the human archive, about dinosaurs and musketeers and horses. He never got those any more. He scarcely ever got to spend time with nand’ Bren and Banichi.

And worst of all, Great-uncle Tatiseigi was back in residence in the Bujavid, now, and they would probably have to have dinner with him once a week once they had a dining room.

Then his mother’s Ajuri clan relatives were coming in, because the legislature was about to meet, and they would take anyexcuse to come visit. The aunts were not so bad. But Grandfather was appalling.

Mother was about to have a baby, that was the problem. That was a lot of the problems. The Ajuri were all excited about it, as if his mother did not already have him.They were probably saying that thisbaby would never be exposed to nand’ Bren, and they would far rather a baby that theycould rule—

They would certainly rather have somebody theycould influence. He had had far too much to do with Great-grandmother and with humans. That was what they thought. He was sure of it.

Great-grandmother would come back when she had gotten Baiji married off.

But by then he would have moved out of this apartment, with his parents, with all sorts of rules.

In theirapartment, he would have a whole lot of theirstaff watching him. A lot of his parents’ staff who had not been killed in the coup had been off on paid leave since his father had come back to power because there was just no room for them in Great-grandmother’s apartment.

But his father’s staff would be all over the new apartment, and he would not be able to make a move without somebody reporting it to his father or his mother.

It was just dismal.

Pack, they had told him. Or would you rather the servants did it?

He most certainly did not want the servants going through his things. They would hardly know what was important. The things they could handle were in the closet—which was a lot of clothes—and what was not clothes was in the boxes on the floor, which were his drawings and his notes.

And then there were the important things in his pocket, where he kept his slingshota, along with three fat perfect rocks from Najida’s little garden, which he never ever meant to shoot where he could lose them. They were more precious to him than anything but the slingshota itself.

It was not very much to own for somebody who was the heir of all the aishidi’tat. But it was all he really cared about keeping. Not counting the clothes. Which he personally did not count. The servants could move those.

He was just short of his felicitous ninth year, and in one more day he was going to be miserable for the rest of his life.

He had his own bodyguard now, at least: Antaro and Jegari, who were not Guild yet, just apprentices. They were sibs, from Taiben, and they were almost grown, but they understood him better than anybody in the Bujavid.

And now there were Lucasi and Veijico, another brother and sister team, who were real Guild and carried weapons and wore the black uniforms and everything. His father had assigned them to him. His father was not thoroughly pleased with them ever since Najida. But they had learned a lot, and improved. So they were his, and he would not let them go.

His parents had promised him his bodyguard would have rooms of their own in the new apartment. And he would have a little suite. Which was good. He had not even been interested in looking at it when he had had a chance to look in on the apartment.

They had told him no, there would be no windows where they were going, not in his suite; he had not been surprised, but he was not happy about it, either. Ever since coming back to the Bujavid, he had felt closed in. Mani’s apartment had not just a window, but a whole balcony you could sit on. But his father’s bodyguard would not let him go out there.

So for the rest of his life, he would just have to sit in his windowless little suite and do homework and ask the servants to do anything that was remotely interesting. He had wanted this morning to go to the library and look up things about the Marid, because he had gotten interested in it, but his father’s bodyguard would not let him out of the apartment.

That was a forecast, was it not? It was just what things would be.

He was bored and angry, and went disconsolately from one thing to another, he tried to read the book nand’ Bren had lent him and wished he still had the vids from the ship that he had grown up with.

He wished even more that he had his companions from the ship, humans his age. He really wished there were someone, anyone, his age that he could talk to. But he was the aiji’s son, and who got to be associated with him at all was a political question, and important, and so far there was no boy his age in the whole world that his father approved of.

And if ever his father approved, he still had to get his mother to approve, and Great-grandmother, and Uncle Tatiseigi, and his Ajuri grandfather.

It was just grim here.

And it was going to be grim. Forever. His mother and his father and his grandfather and Uncle Tatiseigi had his whole life planned.