And more…

“When I went down to the planet,” he said, “that trip drew our concentrated attention there. Did it not, nadi-ji?”

She was a greater than usual warmth beside him—or he was colder than usual. There was only the least hint of light, to his eyes—but to hers, quite enough.

She rolled suddenly onto one elbow. He knew the pose, when his eyes failed to find her.

“It did,” she admitted, increasingly keen and aware.

“We suspected nothing, then.” There was no illusion of sleep, now. No possibility. “Persons might have moved up here, Jago-ji. Even Guild could have come aboard without us knowing. Is it possible?”

“We have a list of everyone on that shuttle that came up with you,” she said. “And every shuttle flight previous. Thus far we’ve found no suspect.”

His security had not been idle. Never, ever think it.

“So you have suspicions.”

“It’s our tendency, is it not?”

“Who will replace us here?” he asked. “Who is Cenedi leaving? I take it he’s leaving some staff.”

She named two men, Kalasi and Mandi.

“I don’t know them that well,” he said.

“They’re very good,” she said. “Of the dowager’sman’chi, unquestioned.”

“Not precisely Tabini’s, that is to say.”

“Hers, Bren-ji. Unquestioned.”

Wake up, paidhi. Listen to your staff.

“Will Tano and Algini be safe, staying behind, Jago-ji?”

He felt Jago draw a long and thoughtful breath. “Cenedi’s men will assist lord Geigi. In that decision, we are outranked, Bren-ji. Our own staff—”

“We are Tabini’s. Is that a difficulty?”

“One hopes otherwise.”

Oh, he’d hoped for a denial on that score. “But the politics of it—”

“While the Association stays stable, our staff can ally with Cenedi’s men. As Geigi’s can. Under Ogun, things will likely change. Predictions fail us.”

A low-level and chilling thought, often dismissed, kept nagging him. “ Lord Geigiwouldn’t have killed Ramirez, Jago-ji. Surely not.”

“It’s not his disposition. Although—”

“Although?”

“Lord Geigi has his own dealings with the aiji, Bren-ji. That isn’t to discount.”

“Through Tabini? Acting as the aiji’s agent?” It wasn’t a comfortable notion at all, that Tabini would have finally decided to take Ramirez out—but that theory satisfied so many other conditions, and filled so many holes, and agreed so well with things he’d found out from Yolanda. The timing. The horrid question of timing.

That trip.

Getting the paidhi-aiji offthe station. Out of play.

Getting Banichi and Jago, what was more, off the station and out of play—because those two were the most likely of anyone to detect critical movements of atevi staff.

“Or acting for the aiji-dowager. Thereis the close association, Bren-ji. Lord Geigi has long been in her association.”

Ilisidi?

“Do you, even marginally, think it?” He almost asked—where is her motive to attack Ramirez? But he’d been thinking far too many hours in human terms.

“They didenter closed conference, the moment she arrived, Bren-ji. You have not been invited to her table tonight—yet Geigi was. Ihave been invited to conference with Cenedi, but at no time was I in position to overhear her and Geigi. One suspects something stirs there. But one still doubts her motive against Ramirez on her own behalf. There simply is no evidence.”

“It might have been natural causes. There are coincidences. But one, unfortunately, has to suspect every direction exceptnatural causes.“

“Coincidence is the rarest beast, Bren-ji. Its tracks look like so much else.”

“But with Tabini behaving oddly—oddly, Jago-ji. Oddly toward me. Oddly toward the whole association.”

“Yes,” she said, one of those enigmatic of courses, agreeing with him: shewas puzzled.

So must Tabini have been—puzzled, or something like it.

By what Yolanda had indicated this evening, Ramirez, against all warnings from everyone who knew better, had opened direct communication with the atevi lord of the known world.

And while Tabini was the most enlightened, the most modern, the most interculturally aware of rulers, he was also atevi, and Ragi atevi, to boot—which meant he counted the expenditure of one man a very enlightened economy versus the need for troops, or wars, or invasions, all of which were as rare as coincidences in atevi dealings.

Tabini wanted a space station: he damned near had it. He wanted a starship: they were building it, and Mospheira had very few illusions as to who was going to get his hands on it once it flew. It wasan atevi world, and rulers in Shejidan long before Tabini had been conducting a steady campaign, usually quiet and bloodless, to maintain atevi authority over it. If Ramirez had said the wrong thing, and if Tabini had become convinced that it would advance his interests to remove Ramirez—it was possible. And if Ramirez had been tottering near death, in Tabini’s perception—if there was a real and increasing possibility of Ramirez’s making mistakes and dropping stitches—far from eliciting the sympathy a Mospheiran might expect, that would have alarmed Tabini. It might have convinced an atevi mind accustomed to weigh one life against many that someone had to take charge smoothly and quickly… that it was the ethical, reasonable choice, even for Ramirez’s own good.

There it bloody was. The whole reason for man’chi. Such things didn’t happen in polite atevi circles because polite atevi circles werecircles, inclusive, overlapped, interconnected.

It was so damned dangerous to deal with an atevi power from outside the circles.

He’d warned Ramirez. Shawn Tyers above all others knew the hazards, and hadn’t been going past him, but Ramirez had engaged Yolanda as his own, wrenched her tightly into his orbit and played his own game.

Which meant—

“If Ramirez initiatedcontact with Tabini, he ignored numerous, very basic warnings,” he said to Jago in the dark. “Tabini won’t blame her for things Ramirez could have said, but she should be cognizant of them. And Ramirez may or may not have logged those conversations privately. As senior captain—he had the accesses to be off the ship’s official record… I’m relatively sure that’s the case. We don’t know what they did. Only Tabini does.”

“Affront would have brought him to you, paidhi-ji, I strongly think so.”

Yet she reserved the chance she could be wrong. He picked that up. “Kroger’s coming up here with those robots… that meant everything was done. The means to refuel, out there at the station, if the ship should go. Do you think that was the last stone?”

The last stone on the stack, that was. The one to touch off the slide.

“It is possible.”

“ Jago, I didn’t see this. Of all disasters I could have failed to see coming—I didn’t see this one.”

“The aiji has taken the station,” Jago said quietly. “One believes so, though Ogun-aiji may not think it. Well to have Mercheson within these walls. It was well done, Bren-ji.”

“Is that why Banichi brought her? Is that what you think?”

“We had not foreseen danger to Mercheson. But now we see movements within the crew that trouble us. We did foresee that Tabini would move when Ramirez died. And we did foresee that the dowager might come as his agent—but we by no means know whether we are correct in that assumption. We believe that shehas demanded custody of Cajeiri as a condition for her help—a very potent symbol for the east, nand’ paidhi.”

Sometimes a human mind could think all the way around an object, feeling it all the way, and still come to wrong conclusions.

“That she’s teaching the heir. That she’s not being sent to her death. Is that the notion?”

“We suspect so. Isuspect so, after talking to Cenedi. This voyage is difficult. She may not survive it. Cenedi has not opposed the venture, considering that Cajeiri is in her hands. If she should die, Cenediwill have custody of the heir-apparent, and be within that man’chi. More, this is a child, and Cenedi’s will be the guidance and the instruction. There is the likely thought, Bren-ji. There is the reason the aiji’s heir is with her. Tabini will be the power on the earth. Tabini will have his ship. Ogun will cooperate with him, if Tabini can take Mercheson into his man’chi, as seems likely to happen. It will all be subtle. Certain ones may vanish from the scene—as I foresee. Banichi considers Paulson in danger: I say no. Paulson is a fool, but a fool is safe in his office, if he’s a Mospheiran fool. If Lund comes up here, Lund will know better; Lund may be in danger.”