“Do you think this situation with Ajuri is going to blow up, or simmer away for a season? We have Cajeiri’s guests coming down. That seems certain now. We shall have a fairly controversial, politically sensitive handful of children on holiday. This will be a magnet for Ajuri interest, among others.”

“And the news services will be very occupied with it.”

“Geigi says he could still prevent this visit.”

“Best,” Jago said, “that it proceed—barring something we have not foreseen. It will let us move about, too, and shift assets without questions raised.”

He was appalled. And his brain was overloaded. “Jago-ji. We cannot use these children for a decoy.”

“We shall not,” Jago said. “ Ourman’chi is to you, and to Tabini-aiji. We simply ask you let us do as we see necessary for your protection. The young gentleman and his guests—assuming you will be involved with them, which is likely—will give us an opportunity to move in additional security, at various places on the map, assigning them as if they were temporary, without anyone asking too closely into why. We shall be ready to deal with any adverse situations on the peripheries, and once we have sent these visitors back to the space station—we shall simply fail to remove some of our precautions. We willbe in a better position, and Ajuri may reconsider its adventurous moves.”

Thatmade sense. The balance was what had gotten grossly disrupted. Getting the various sub-associations to settle into a sense of security—or at least a conviction that they would be fools to make a move to upset the peace—was a restoration of the status quo. The whole last year had been full of threats and adjustments—aftershocks from the coup and Tabini’s return to power—and that was nothing to the disruptions of the previous two years under Murini.

Getting the balance back—settling the aishdi’tat at peace—that would let them deal with the problems Geigi had talked about in the heavens, which were no small matter in themselves.

Deal with them beforethe aliens that had caused the Reunioners to be withdrawn in the first place showed up for a visit and for a look at this place where two species managed to get along . . .

They had promisedthe kyo that was the case, and they had to demonstrate it. The kyo did not share a human oran atevi mindset, and agreement with the kyo, peacewith the kyo, rode on things here being as advertised.

“Meanwhile,” Jago said, “well that we all get some sleep, Bren-ji. Tomorrow we shall start to solve these things.”

Solve things. He liked that notion.

Saying so didn’t make them safer, or make the situation more secure. God, there were so many angles on what was going on, he didn’t know what to take hold of, or what to look at askance.

He and Jago had their own methods of distraction, when they had a problem that, as Jago said, made a very poor pillow.

And they were going to need all of them, to get any sleep tonight.

4

Morning brought Cajeiri his two servants, Eisi and Lieidi, stirring about in the suite. And Cajeiri’s head hurt.

That could be the brandy. It was supposed to be really good brandy. It had not tasted that good. Like a cross between medicine and really rotten fruit.

But he had only had half a glass of it. There had been a lot of glasses sitting about, and he had had to go entertain himself while his mother and great-grandmother went about the room chatting as if they were closest allies. He had seen adults, when they had to deal with something upsetting, have a whole glass at once. It was supposed to make them feel better about their problems, at least for the moment.

So he had stolen a mostly-full glass and gone off behind a group of guests to drink it.

If he had drunk a whole glass last night, he was sure his head might explode.

“Are you well, young gentleman?” Eisi asked, standing by his bed.

With one’s servants one could be entirely honest, and had a right to expect loyalty.

“You are not to tell my parents,” he said, with his arm over his eyes, “but I drank a little brandy from a glass someone left and I am not feeling well this morning. One does not think it was poisoned.” That was always a worry, in a large company, but these were his father’s closest allies, and somebody had already drunk half of it and not died, or there would have been a commotion. “I only had half a glass.”

“You should not be having brandy at all, young lord,” Eisi said. “Not for a number of years.”

“One knows that,” he said. “But how long before this goes away?” An excruciating thought came to him. “Please do not tell my mother.”

“Your mother, nandi, is having tea in the sitting room with your great-grandmother.”

That.Gods. It was not good. “Pleasedo not let either of them know I am sick.”

“We can bring you something that will help,” Eisi said.

“Please do not draw questions!”

“I shall be extremely quiet about it, nandi.”

Eisi went away for a while. Cajeiri heard the opening and closing of the distant door, hoped that Eisi would not get stopped and questioned, whatever he was doing. A long, miserable time later, he heard someone come back into the suite.

Footsteps. Eisi turned up by his bedside with a small glass of fruit juice. “Drink this. It will help.”

His stomach was far from certain it could even hold on to what it had. Or that it should. His head was sure it was a bad idea to move. But Eisi had risked everything getting him this remedy. He got up on one elbow.

“It is salty,” Eisi forewarned him. “But it will help. Drink it all.”

No punishment ever tasted good, and he was sure this was punishment. Salted fruit juice was awful, but not as awful as it sounded, and he actually had no trouble drinking the whole glass.

Then he let his head down to the pillow to be miserable again.

“Feed Boji, nadi-ji,” he asked Eisi. “I shall lie here a while.”

“About half an hour,” Eisi said, “and you should feel significantly better, young gentleman.”

“I hope so,” he said, and Eisi left and shut the bedroom door, leaving him in the dark, in his misery.

His aishid, who ordinarily lived with him, in those rooms just outside his door, would tell him he had been an idiot to drink it . . . especially Lucasi and Veijico, Better yet, they would have told him that last night, beforehe did it. They would have told him the consequences. They were older, and probably knew about things like drinking. Andthey were qualified to carry guns, which was what Antaro and Jegari were trying to become. He so hoped Antaro and Jegari would not become all proper and forget how to laugh.

But they had to—get qualified to carry guns, that was; not forget how to laugh. They were over at Guild Headquarters, taking tests to get an emergency qualification, not just to carry weapons, but a lot more that most Guild didn’t learn ’til they were much, much,older, because they were hisaishid, and being the aiji’s son put himin more danger than most bodyguards had to deal with. He understood the necessity, miserable as it was, and worrisome as it was to have anybody but him telling Antaro and Jegari what to do.

Before he’d gotten hisaishid, he had had borrowed older Guild protecting him. High-ranking Guild—and theyhad not been able to prevent things happening. They could not even prevent himdoing things he shouldn’t . . . like drinking that brandy last night.

But the four he had now . . . they were good. They understood him and when theyadvised against doing something it was for good reasons, not just arbitrary adult reasons. Antaro and Jegari were only a little older than he was, but they had grown up hunting in the forests in Taiben, so they’d learned to shoot and hit a target and walk very softly a long time ago.