And he’d suggested Lund come, as a way to get Ogun better advice.

“You got the logs from Mogari-nai, didn’t you?” Extraneous question, the answer to which he thought he knew.

“We did watch contacts. There were no records available to us. We did search Mogari-nai, at our level of authority, and at Guild level.”

“But there is one higher.”

“Yes. Always there is one higher.”

“I think we know the truth,” he said. “I think we know we were gotten out of the way, being called down there.”

“One believes so. There will have been codes,” Jago said, one of those rare revelations of her craft, “given to Lord Geigi, or to his men, or even to independent agencies. This we always knew, that the station is very easy to infiltrate, with so many man’chiin involved. No different than the Bu-javid. Anyone can send an unregistered agent—” Non-Guild assassin, that was to say—not lawful, but not utterly illegal. “Right now Banichi is attempting to trace atevi access to Ramirez’s venues. But there are too many tunnels in this place, too many accesses, doors far too easy to penetrate, except here. Ramirez had gone onto the station, in a free-access area, observing a known pattern of activity when he had his attack. He ran such risks and heard no advice against it. There were very many opportunities. What happened, if it happened, caused a crisis which caused his death.”

Next question. Next very scary question. “Human forensics might detect it, if they were looking. And Ramirez was neither buried nor burned.”

“Troublesome.”

“His body will go on the ship with us. If there ever is a question—if it matters—they can investigate.”

“It is inconvenient,” Jago said.

“And Ogun? His safety? He manages the training of pilots. He’s a very vulnerable linch-pin, Jago-ji, in all the plans we have. If this place is such a sieve that random individuals can operate—”

“This Cenedi and I discussed. And there must be provisions made for his protection.”

“Which will draw him closer to the aiji’s hand.”

“One can foresee such. Lord Geigi does think favorably of him. If he would draw closer to Geigi’s man’chi, he might be safer. One is aware, however, that Ogun-aiji has no successor the aiji won’t regard as junior.”

The thought was terrifying. “I wish I was going to be here.”

“Yet is there not danger where the aiji sends us?”

“Very likely.”

“And should we let the situation out there arrive back here uncontrolled, unobserved, unmodified, nandi? You would not choose that.”

He saw the deep void, and felt cold, and scared. Something in him insisted that an honest Mospheiran had no business going on ships into the dark, over unthinkable distances.

“One thinks,” Jago began to say, further, and then Jago’s hand rested on his shoulder. Someone was in the hall.

Someoneturned out to be one of their own, from the foyer. And one of their ownturned out to be Tano.

“Excuse me,” Tano said. He was a shadow against the vague light from the foyer that permeated the central hall: no light touched within that outline. “Nand’ paidhi.”

Open as the household was, Tano would scarcely venture into his bedroom, not without an uncommonly urgent reason in the security station.

“Tano-ji. Trouble?”

“A handful of sudden matters,” Tano said. “Your brother, nandi; also Barb-nadi—”

My God, Bren thought with a sinking heart. Toby. And Barb. Barb was not someone he wanted to hear from, but Barb, like Toby, orbited around his mother. He dreaded news from that quarter—especially together, in the middle of the night.

“Also,” Tano said, “the aiji andthe aiji-dowager have sent messages. All at once.”

All at once.

Temperhit, hard after the first ice-cold shock.

“Either C1 or Mogari-nai has had a hold in place,” Jago suggested softly out of the dark behind his bare shoulder, and, oh, indeed he was sure she was right.

Mogari-nai—site of the big dish that communicated with the station—or C1, the ship communications station—had blocked his calls, all the while assuring him there was no problem. And now, responding to some authority which could be only one of two, they released everything… all his personal calls, all his delicate family business.

And Tabini’s message arrived.

Maybe Tabini had one to the dowager as well. And thathad likely triggered something to him from the dowager.

No, the world below had not suddenly gone berserk. It was a chain-reaction, a dam-break.

A torrent of probable bad and worse news…

That the paidhi’s mother was in critical care didn’t matter, on the scale of nations and the future of two species.

“Find Jase,” he said, furious, and trying to control both the temper and the shivers that resulted from the adrenalin hit. And no, one did nottalk to a loyal atevi staffer that abruptly, ever. “Kindly call him, nadi-ji. Tell him I’m extremely distressed at what is clearly a mail-block from either C-l or Shejidan, and I urgently ask its origin. You may explain the circumstances.”

“One will do so, nandi. Shall I wait?”

“Ask now. Find out the truth diplomatically, nadi-ji.”

Tano left at once. Hegot out of bed and searched the dark for his robe—ran his toe into the bed-base and smothered the yell of frustration.

Jago draped the robe over his shoulders. He felt it settle, thrust one and the other arm into it, belted it, all the while thinking, unworthily, but with a deep, sick feeling in his stomach—Jase knew, Jase knew, Jase knew about my mother. Didn’t he know?

Did I tell him? If I told him, why in helldidn’t he just let the personal messages through?

If not Jase—

Tabini. Who didn’tknow.

Unless the spy-net that surrounded him had told him. Which it might not have.

“Shall I wake the staff, Bren-ji?” Jago said, slipping on her shirt.

He reached one reasoned resolution. “I’ll dress, Jago-ji.” He’d sat shivering in his robe in the security station far too often in his career, dealing with some godawful midnight crisis. And damn it, it was halfway to local morning. Occasionally his comfort counted, and he could be inconsiderate pursuing it, when it meant having his very critical wits about him. Especially if he had to practice impromptu diplomacy. “I’ll dress and I’ll have hot tea, thank you, Jago-ji, if you’d kindly arrange that. I think our sleep tonight is done for.”

Chapter 14

It was the security station, but not without his cup of tea, and, of greatest import, with his security staff at hand, to keep current with what he heard and form their own conclusions.

He had showered, gathered his wits—dressed even to the morning-coat.

He had had half the tea, and set the cup down on the console near him as he sat down.

Jago sat down beside him. Banichi had thrown a robe about himself—no one had disturbed Banichi until now, in one of his rare chances at peaceful rest—and hovered behind his chair. Tano and Algini, at the far end of the room, worked in their Guild’s equivalent of fatigues, with the addition of a light jacket—ready to fall onto the cots in the small adjacent alcove if they were so lucky—if this letter-flood proved an alarm over very little.

“Which will you wish first, nandi?” Tano asked him.

“The aiji’s,” he said, and immediately it reached his screen.

Bren-ji,

the message said. At least it was still the intimate address.

Ramirez-aiji is dead. So I understand. This was by no means unexpected.

Your duties are removed, considered, and assigned to lord Geigi’s discretion. Worry no more for them.

I have honored you as a lord of the aishidi’tat. I have accorded you place and appearance among the highest in the Association. I have seated you among the household in view of all the great and notable of the world.