And in that consideration, either something had happened sufficient to top Saigimi’s last offenses, demanding his removal or, it was even possible—the assassination of Saigimi had in fact been simply a warning aimed at Direiso, who was the principal opposition to Tabini.

Certainly it was possible that Direiso was the real target.

He certainly hadn’t been moved to discuss that question with Geigi; and as for Tano and Algini, in the one careful question he had put to them as they boarded: “Is this something you know about, nadiin, and is the aiji well?” they had professed not to know the agency that had done it, but had assured him with what sounded like certain knowledge that Tabini was safe.

They were usually more forthcoming.

And now that he began thinking about it—neglecting the business of collating his notes, the paidhi’s proper job—the news of Saigimi’s death was eerily like a letter from an absent—

Friend.

Oh, a badmental slip, that was.

But Banichi was infallibly Banichi as Jago was Jago, his own security for part of the last year, as close to him as any atevi had ever been. And of the very few assassins of the Guild to whom Tabini might entrust something so delicate as the removal of a high lord of the Association, Banichi and his partner surely topped the list.

Banichi and Jago, both of whom he regarded in that spot humans kept soft and warm and vulnerable in their hearts; and both of whom had been on assignment somewhere, absent from Shejidan, unlocatable to his troubled inquiries for months.

Tano and Algini, fellow members of the Guild, had assured him all winter that Banichi and Jago were well and busy about something. He sent letters to them. He thought they were sent, at least. But nothing came back.

And, no, neither Tano nor Algini knew whether or not Banichi and Jago might return. He’d asked them whenever something came up that provided a remotely plausible excuse for his asking: Banichi and Jago both outranked Tano and Algini, and he never, ever wanted to make Tano and Algini doubt his appreciation of their service to him—but—he wondered. He worried about the pair of them.

Dammit, he missed them.

And that wasn’t fair to the staff he did have, who were skilled, and very devoted, and who offered him all the support and protection and devotion that atevi of their Guild could possibly offer, including a roster of Tano’s relatives, one of whom headed the paidhi’s clerical staff and some of whom, technical writers in offices across the mainland, sent him messages through Tano, whose clan seemed prolific, all very good and very solid people.

And Algini, God, Algini, who seemed to come solo except for his long attachment to his partner. Algini had been much longer unbending and had been far more standoffish than Tano had ever been, but Algini was a quiet, good man, who could throw a knife with truly uncanny accuracy, who had gotten (Tano hinted) two very bad assignments from which he had suffered great personal distress; and who had, Tano had said, been so quiet within the Guild they’d lost track of him for two years and dropped him from the rolls as dead until Tano had pointed out he’d been voting consistently and that he could vouch for his identity—they’d been partners for two years on the same assignments—and it was the aiji’s request for them as personal security that had pulled up the information that Algini was listed as dead. Algini thought it a joke quite as funny as Tano did, but the paidhi understood it was a joke that had never gotten beyond the very clandestine walls of their Guild, and it was an embarrassment to the Guild never, ever meant for public knowledge.

It was indicative, however, of how very good Algini was at melding with the walls of a place. After nearly a year with the man, he’d finally gotten Algini to unzip his jacket, prop his feet up in complete informality, and smile, shyly so, but an approach to a grin, over one of Tano’s pieces of irreverence.

Right now Algini was on his feet, zipped up to the chin and all business, up at the forward bulkhead, talking to Tano, who was also sober, while junior staff kept their distance, all frustrating his desire for information. He supposed that his staff was trying to get accurate reports on the situation in the Marid before they told him anything, or possibly reports were coming in from various other affected places, some of which they had to route over, and one of which might even be a touchy situation in the capital. There were times to talk to one’s security and there were times to stay out of their way and let them work.

And right now he had notes to work over, a job to do. Possibly there were deaths happening. Possibly—

Hell, no, he couldn’t do anything about it. And they didn’t need his advice. He’d been long enough on the mainland to know certain things intellectually, and to understand the atevi way of doing things as part of a wider fabric that actually saved lives.

But he’d made the decision some time ago that he never wanted to get so acclimated that he didn’t think about it. It still hadto bother him. It was necessary to his job that it continue to bother him: he was supposed to translate, not transit into the culture, and no matter how emotionally he was tempted to damn Saigimi to hell for the decent people whose lives Saigimi had cost, he had to remember he didn’tknow what the reason was, not at the bone-deep and instinctual level at which atevi knew what they were doing to each other. He had to stay out of it.

He opened his computer as the plane reached cruising altitude, and called up dictionary files that held hundreds of such distinctions as man’chi unresolved.

Loyalty wasn’t man’chi; man’chi wasn’t loyalty. Man’chi responded to the order of the universe, a harmony which in some indefinable way dictated man’chi, and didn’t.

Man’chi, he had learned, was emotional. Association was logical. And to figure how some other ateva saw them, atevi were mathematicians par excellence. One constantly added the numbers of one’s life, some of more traditional philosophy believing literally that the date of one’s birth and the felicitous or infelicitous numbers of one’s intimate associates or the flowers in a bouquet mattered to the harmony of the cosmos, and dictated the direction one moved. Logically.

Tabini was a skeptic in such matters and regularly mocked the purists. Tabini would say, half facetiously, that Saigimi hadn’t added his own numbers correctly, and had been unaware what the sum was in the aiji’s mind.

Best for a human to stay right in the guessable center of a man’chi directed to a very powerful ateva, best that he listen to his security personnel, and never, never, never tread the edges with unapproved persons.

Deana Hanks had started out her tenure by courting the edges, and now had more blood on her hands than she would ever comprehend. Saigimi’s, for instance. The circles of the stone she’d so recklessly cast into the waters, in her seeking out atevi who could give her an opinion opposed to the aiji (every dissident she could find), had associated a number of atevi who might never have been encouraged to associate. Hanks might wellhave killed Saigimi.

In the human sense of responsibility, that was.

Atevi would just say she’d brought infelicitous numbers into Saigimi’s situation and Saigimi had done nothing ever since but make them worse.

“Fruit juice, nand’ paidhi?” the juniormost of the guards asked, and Bren surfaced from the electronic sea of data to accept the offered drink.

It was about a two hour trip from the peninsula to Shejidan, factoring in the devious routing that took this particular flight into Shejidan Airport as if it originated from the east instead of the west. The detour wasn’t much out of their way, but the plane had turned about half an hour ago, and that told Bren fairly well where they were.