And they would.

And maybe get shot doing it.

Maybe die.

Boji chittered at him from his cage, diverting him into the real moment. Boji rattled the cage door, and reached fingers through the convolute metal flowers of the cage.

He felt a lot like Boji. Locked in. Kept.

And all of a sudden he felt that he was getting a lot more cautious than he had used to be. A lot smarter. A lot more aware what could happen in the world. He was not sure he liked the changes the year was making in him. He was not sure he liked it at all.

I could not steal away downstairs today and catch the train, could I? I did that when it was just Jegari and Antaro and me—we three could do that.

But now Lucasi and Veijico would get in trouble. Now everyone is Guild, and we cannot go back, can we? We cannot sneak out and catch the train, we cannot even sneak down to the library—not because I would get in trouble, but becausethey would get in trouble.

And they would do it, if I asked.

But I cannot ask them. Can I?

Damn it.

He was caught. He did not want to grow up. Not yet. He wanted to be a boy. He wanted to slip away the way they had on the starship, and go places where he could still play games.

But there were no places like that on this floor. And any otherfloor of the Bujavid was not safe.

The world had gotten serious and stayed that way. His guests were going to say, “Come on, Jeri, let’s go . . .”

And he’d have to say no, it probably wasn’t safe . . .

Because his stupid grandfather had made things worse just when they could have really gotten better.

Maybe,he thought, I can think of something.

And: I can still get my way. I just have to be smarter about it.

My associates are coming down here. I have to be good until then. I have to follow all the rules and do my homework and be so good even my mother will be happy.

And once my guests get here, then there has to be something to show them when they come. They have never seen the ocean. They have never seen trees and grass. They have never seen a sunrise. I had to describe it all for them.

I have to show them everything. I have to show them the best things, so we have something to talk about, and they will want to come back.

I would like them to come back. I would like them to be here when I grow up. I would like to have people like nand’ Bren, who have no clan, and owe nothing to anybody else. Just to me.

8

Morning brought mail and a last cup of tea to follow the paidhi-aiji’s solitary breakfast. The apartment was very quiet now—not that Geigi had ever made a lot of noise as a houseguest, but the sense of lordly presence in the place was gone.

So was Geigi’s company at breakfast, the distraction of his cheerful conversation on completely idle but interesting topics. That part had been pleasant.

The shuttle was well on its way, safely clear of the atmosphere. Geigi was headed home, and the complex affairs and troubles of the space station had become just a little less intimately connected to the problems of the continent.

That was, over all, a good thing.

So was the quiet, in which he could, at last, think without interruption. They were not necessarily pleasant thoughts, regarding the problem of the Ajuri, and the imminent legislative session with its necessary committee meetings, and committee politics. And there was going to be a question of what he was going to do with guests whose parents had an agenda—

But those were questions he could sidestep. The parentsweren’t coming. Wouldn’t be allowed to come. Just deal with the children as children, don’t let anyone get hurt, and translate for them—Cajeiri’s ship-speak had to be a little rusty after a year—and he was sure he’d be drawn in for all the tours and the festivities, to be surethe guests had a good time.

Of all jobs he had ahead of him—that one might actually have some real enjoyment in it.

Give or take a boy who’d already been arrested by station security.

But that was, he said to himself, possibly Cajeiri’s influence.

He could handle it. Absolutely.

And Geigi by now, thank goodness, understood their earthbound worries, andthe security issues his bodyguard would have explained by now. The paidhi-aiji’s security could protect the kids; the parents were Geigi’s problem.

He had his own share of loose ends to tie up.

The tribal bill. The cell phone bill. He had to arrange meetings, formal and informal, talk to the right people, have his arguments in order, and get done what had to be done before the next shuttle landed and brought him kids who might, on first seeing a flat horizon, heave up their breakfasts.

The cell phone bill was certain to raise eyebrows. Explaining whyhe’d pulled his support from it, and would in fact vetoit—technically, Tabini still granted him that ability, where it regarded human tech—that was going to be the problem with that one. He didn’t want to dust off the veto power. He reallydidn’t. He wanted the atevi to vote it down.

The tribal bill was far from a sure thing, and potentially could blow up. Problems regarding the status of the tribal peoples had hung fire since the War of the Landing, which had displaced the Edi and Gan peoples from the island of Mospheira, and settled them in two separate coastal areas. They—quite reasonably, in his opinion—wanted full membership in the aishidi’tat, and even with the favorable report of the two Associations nearest the tribal lands, they still had some old prejudices to deal with. The most bitterly opposed, the Marid, was going to vote forthe measure: Ilisidihad accomplished that miracle. The southwest coast, Geigi’s district, was going to vote for it; the northern Coastal Association, where the Gan lived, had Dur’s backing, and thatvote was assured.

He just had to budge, principally, the six very small hill clans who sat between Shejidan and the Marid, who had made their living partly from agriculture and hunting, partly from trading, and who, as much as they felt that being ancestrally native to the mainland made them superior to the tribal peoples, believed that the new trade agreement between Ilisidi and the Marid was going to kill off theirtrade with the Marid, and therefore they wanted the tribal bill to fail—so as to make Ilisidi’s trade agreement fall through.

He had an answer for that one, if he could get them to stop shouting and listen. The Marid was going to develop an economy that would flow uphill to them. And the same benefits would be available to them, if they would stop spending all their resources on the Assassins’ Guild and allow the Scholars’ Guild to operate in their districts—which could be said of the Marid as well. Too many of the atevi clans were still mired in their rural past and needed the world perspective that came with education. Thatpart, however, he very much doubted he was going to mention in this session. Several new rail stations, with a favor given their local products bySarini Province, however, might be an inducement.

Bribery? Bet on it. It was a time-honored tradition.

Meanwhile . . .

Meanwhile the mail arrived, brought in by Narani. Jeladi, arriving through the door Narani held open, brought him tea, and both silently vanished.

Lord Machigi’s was the most conspicuous message cylinder. Machigi, in his capital at Tanaja, declared he was writing simultaneously to him, the aiji-dowager—and to the Physicians’ Guild, who had asked access to all districts of the Marid, in another of those many-sided deals.