He picked small details out of the second letter, something about Jill off on business.

The hell. Separate vacations for the last three years, one separation, a new courtship. Now Jill was off on business at the moment and Toby wouldn’t admit to her he’d flown down to the capital. Toby was, in fact, actively concealing where he was, though Jill was due home tomorrow—to an empty house up on the coast. Surprise her with it— God, Toby… what are you thinking?

The kids, at least—hardly kids now—were in school—likely staying with friends at the moment. While Jill—Jill had had all the crises she was willing to take. It wasn’t whathappened. It wasn’t the bouts of illness, which were a real illness. None of those things were the issue. What was the issue was a battle between two women over a son and husband. Jill knew she was always going to lose, and that Toby couldn’t win.

know there are good reasons,

Toby finished his second letter.

If I have to handle things here I will. But I think you’ll feel better if you can get down here.

And who knows? She’s tougher than either of us. She’s beaten the odds before.

You may get a letter from Barb. I know you don’t want to, but read it all the same. I think it’s time to make peace on all fronts.

Time to make peace. That was certainly the truth.

Would he have gone to the island, if he’d gotten that letter before he left the ground?

Would he have thrown all his good reasons to the wind, missed his shuttle flight and caught the next air cargo hop to the island?

He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know that answer and it was too late now to know the truth.

Turn around and catch the next shuttle flight down, next week?

Maybe. He didn’t want to think about that answer. Not until the shock had settled.

And it would settle, before the chance came.

Meanwhile he owed his brother a letter. But he couldn’t write thatuntil he honestly knew what he was going to do.

Going down there when Tabini was in the midst of maneuvers as critical as any in his reign… risk all that that entailed? It wasn’ta good time for the paidhi-aiji to intrude his human presence into a rush trip onto the continent and on to Mospheira. Even going in at the other spaceport wouldn’t conceal the fact that he had landed—again. A furtive visit was even more apt to attract attention from the news than going down officially at Shejidan.

The more dogged of the conspiracy theorists, atevi and human, wouldn’t believe for a moment that the family emergency existed.

God, he just didn’t see how he was going to get there. He didn’t know if he wanted to get there.

But leave Toby to deal with things solo, one more time… notto be there the one time their mother, who was the world’s best at crying wolf, really was on the brink…

What he most needed to do was to grab Toby by the ears once and for all and say, Go home, brother, you have a right to your own life. But he’d done that and Toby didn’t listen. Toby was so damned smart, but in matters involving their mother, Toby didn’t listen, because somewhere in the tangled depths of family politics, Toby didn’t ever like the answers he got.

A small commotion had reached the foyer. Narani came to the office door.

“Your luggage has arrived, nandi. Crates have been set in the kitchen. Those without labels are in the foyer.”

“Very fine, Rani-ji.” He rose from his desk and let the messages lie—decided against the coat, after all, and walked to the the foyer, where, amid dinner preparations, the smaller luggage sat, large, travel-worn lumps of diplomatic bags about which the servants gathered in shy anticipation.

He personally opened the sealed tie and passed out the bundles and packages. He needed distraction. He enjoyed the gift-giving, like holiday.

Letters. Abundant letters from happy, sensible, long-bonded families, whatever the baroque nature of atevi parentage and fosterage. He gave those into Narani’s care, and Narani ceremoniously handed them to junior servants to sort and distribute, all with fair despatch. There were special treat packets from various homes, small, brightly wrapped presents from relatives… those were the bulk of the bags—besides the requested video games, which regulations did not permit in the general uploads from Mogari-nai, and which therefore had to be freighted up. For Narani, a great-grandfather for the third time, there was a basket about which he had been curious: it was very light. It proved to be simply curls of fragrant bark, and that gift passed from one to the next, with appreciative sighs and second sniffs: smells of the world of their birth.

Then his gifts: he had provided, gathered from the Bu-javid gardens, a middle-sized box containing bits of natural wood and a few curious rocks and sprigs, which the servants prized for their own common quarters, for kabiu. That was his gift to them, which he had personally asked of the gardeners.

For his senior staff, he had another box—a very fine two hundred-year-old bowl of southern work, for Narani and an antique book for Bindanda.

They were far, far more than servants to him.

For Tano and Algini, books. Tano had, besides, gotten a letter from his father. The two had begun to correspond, and did so quite frequently, now that Tano was out of reach.

Banichi and Jago turned up, at the distribution of gifts, both fresh from showers and ready for dinner—they came to present Algini their own gift, a very, very florid shirt, to laughter and applause from the servants, because Algini had a penchant for his old black uniform tees, in his rare moments off-duty. Algini accepted it in good grace, shed his uniform jacket and put on the shirt over the black tee to general laughter.

The door beeped. Algini shed the gift quickly.

“What?” Banichi said. “Not wear it for Jase-ji?”

Algini said not a word, only put on his jacket and looked quite proper before junior staff could open the door.

Chapter 5

Jase turned up in station casuals, never, these days, his atevi finery. Bren was sure it was a political decision that led a Phoenix captain, however unwelcome the captaincy, not to dress as a foreigner to the ship. Jase kept his hair cut, too, and at his least formal, still wore ship-issue, plain blue that had as well be a uniform. He’d been given his captaincy for political reasons, after the juniormost captain Pratap Tamun—there were four captains running Phoenix, by ship’s custom—had led a failed mutiny. The ship had badly needed a reconciling symbol in the wake of that disturbance, and Jase had become that symbol—a captain not tainted by the divisive politics that had led to the mutiny. But beyond the immediate need for a figurehead and over Jase’s protests, circumstances and the senior captain’s insistence had kept him in the post. In self-defense, Jase had thrown himself into the requisite studies, and the requisite manners, and uniform—hell, he probably even knew the set of orders that could activate the ship engines. Please God they could put off that order for decades.

“Hello there,” Bren said as Jase shed his jacket into the servants’ keeping.

“Good trip?” Jase asked him.

“Interesting,” Bren said. “Good, I suppose.” He decided, on the whole, it had been a good trip, no matter what he learned once he got home. No matter what he’d not been able to do while he was there. “The whole business seemed to be a funeral.”

“Funeral.”

“Well, of sorts. Belated. A memorial service for Valasi. Tabini’s putting on a show, called in all the television people. Don’t ask me why. Days there and I still don’t know. I think we got the feed up here. I haven’t asked yet.”