He looked up at his map, wondering what he could do about Grandfather.

Fortunately, just to the west of the Northern Association, there was Dur, head of the North CoastalAssociation, and young Dur was hisally, and there was no way Dur was ever going to swing over to his crazy grandfather.

And the Gan people would be with Dur, because Dur was backing them for membership in the aishidi’tat; and that meant they would be on hisside, because the Edi were on his side, too, backed by nand’ Bren, and the Gan sided with the Edi. And if Najida and Kajiminda and the Edi were his allies, and the new proxy lord of Sarini went along as Lord Geigi would want him to, that meant the whole South Coastal Association was his. Not even to mention Lord Geigi himself, who ran half the space station, and Jase-aiji, who was one of the ship-captains.

So if Grandfather thought the Northern Association would be all behind Ajuri, the way he was acting, he was going to get a nasty surprise. Durhad some influence, too.

And hehad. He took a look at his map, took up two red pins, and stuck them over at the other end of the continent, across the Divide and just beyond Great-grandmother’s estate at Malguri,

Calrunaidi. The Calrunaidi girl, his cousin, had been nice. Her father was well disposed. They both were allied to Great-grandmother, and now Calrunaidi was allied to Lord Geigi because of his nephew.

So he had just had a few pins go yellow.

He put new red ones in, at the other end of the world.

One lost a few. And gained others. He knew how this game worked.

Even if he wasstill just infelicitous eight.

6

The oldest engine in regular service pulled up to the platform and small office, puffing steam—luck of the draw, last night, when it had been sequestered and prepared for its run, but it was fast, and it often pulled this particular set of cars.

There was not much to see at the train station, beyond the simplest of sidings, a line of blue-green trees, and, if one knew what one was looking at, a long runway that stretched out of sight behind the little transport office. The main buildings, a little outpost of the space program, were far in the distance.

A large, sleek bus was waiting, and a conveyor truck stood at the platform, ready to whisk people and baggage through a hidden gate to the spaceport itself, which operated in high security, behind fences and sensor-systems. It happened to be the oldest shuttle in the fleet that was waiting for Geigi, too, over that gentle roll of the land, but it was oldest only by months: that was how hard they had pushed, in the earliest days of the space program. It had been two weeks on the ground undergoing the sort of servicing the ground facility did best. And within hours, it would be winging its way across the ocean on a long ascent, up to where the blue of atmosphere gave way to the black of space.

The station’s modern world started here, with that bus, the conveyor truck. From this point on, Geigi would be too busy with procedures to be socially engaged. So it was prearranged that the paidhi-aiji was to go no farther than the doorway of the train car and that Geigi would immediately board the bus, no lingering about outside, and little to see, in this vast flat grassland.

“Well, well,” Geigi said, heaving himself to his feet, “one can only thank you, Bren-ji, for all you have done, from a very difficult beginning.”

“For you, Geigi-ji, my neighbor, an honor. Come back soon.”

“Nandi.” They bowed properly to each other, and moved toward the door, and their parting. Geigi’s staff was already shifting personal luggage out very efficiently, gently tossing things down, and Tano and Algini went outside to supervise the baggage car’s more extensive offloading. Baggage from that car entered the hands of Transportation Guild and Assassins’ Guild waiting outside, agents who worked the port.

From here, everything Geigi brought had a series of procedures and inspections to go through, not so much for mischief—although it was always a concern—as to discover those small thoughtless items like pressurized bottles which might need special containment or outright exclusion.

“I shall visit,” Geigi promised him in leaving. “I shall assuredly visit next year. And I shall give your regards to your on-station staff.”

“I owe a visit up there, before long,” Bren said, thinking of that place, those faithful people. “But as yet I have no date I can plan on. They know the circumstance. Assure them they are in my thoughts. And take care. Take very great care of yourself, Geigi-ji. Good fortune.”

“Baji-naji. Let fortune favor us both, nandi, and new ventures delight us.”

With which Geigi stepped off the train to the platform and Bren went back to his seat at the rear of the car, beyond the galley, with all the baggage suddenly gone, all the car emptied of noise and laughter. He felt a little at loose ends for the moment, a little between,and not knowing how to pick up his routine life—but with a huge sigh for a complex business handled.

Came finally a definitive thump. The baggage door had shut, in the next car. Tano and Algini came back aboard, and their own door shut with a louder thump. Banichi stood by that door, talking to someone absent, likely port security, or the driver of the bus. Jago walked back to the rear of the car where Bren sat, and leaned back against the galley counter.

The train slowly began to roll again.

“Sit down, nadi-ji,” Bren said to her, and in a voice to carry over the sound of the train: “Everyone sit down. We are on our own again. Rest. Take refreshment. You have certainly deserved it. This has been a long several weeks.”

Jago sat down. The rest of his aishid came back down the aisle, collected soft drinks from under the counter, uncapped bottles and sank down on the bench seats nearest—Banichi handed Jago a bottle, and got his own before he settled with a sigh.

His four, his irreplaceable four. It was a relief, as the train gathered speed, to be at last in their company, solo, and to be going home with no crisis ahead of them.

“Our package made it aboard,” he said. It was a question.

“It did, Bren-ji,” Tano said.

“Excellent.” He was a little smug about that item. He had slipped a sizeable and very well-padded case into Geigi’s luggage, one that, under instruction to Geigi’s servants and bodyguard, would not come to Geigi’s attention until Geigi got all the way back to the station. It involved a budding relationship with a really fine porcelain maker in Tanaja, one Copada, whose card he had included with the piece. The artist had expressed the piece up to Shejidan two days ago. Geigi’s own collection was all at Kajiminda, less a few pieces sold off by his fool of a nephew. But one fine piece would now grace Geigi’s station apartment.

They settled for the trip.

But then Algini drew papers from inside his jacket and gave them to him without a word, very flimsy stuff, very closely written.

Jago had said a report would be forthcoming—about the content of the meeting in Tabini’s back rooms. Bren turned on a reading light and paid that report his full attention, while his aishid had their refreshment and waited, all watching him, he was quite aware.

It said, for a header:

Because of the sensitive situation within the aiji’s household and the fact that his aishid is involved, please consider this car insecure for the purposes of this report: we should not discuss these things aloud.

Then: There is reason to consider normally acceptable persons potentially compromised, not by their intention, but by their secondary associations.