Destroyer

by C. J. Cherryh

  The spider plants. The myriad spider plants, Bren thought. Bales of them. Not to mention the recycling of ship’s waste for all those people. Could they possibly have that much bound up in them, that they could make a dent in station requirements?

  But the ship had been nutrient rich for a long time. They’d carried an abundant supply, and they hadn’t offloaded any of it. They’d taken on a good extra load from Reunion Station itself on the return flight, emergency supplies to expand their capacity to serve thousands of passengers. Was that enough?

  “Meanwhile,” Ogun was saying, “Mr. Cameron’s got a landing lined up with Mospheira. I take it, Mr. Cameron, you have a plan.”

  No, he wanted to say, in all honesty. But it wasn’t that black and white. “We need more information than we have, sir, more than we likely can get from here. Lord Geigi knows what happened on the mainland, but he’s not in possession of enough details to give us a sure list of who to trust. So we have to go down, and go fast, before loyalties shift.”

  “What did happen down there, Mr. Cameron?” Sabin asked.

  “In fact it looks like a long-range double cross, in the case of the scoundrel who’s launched this attack on Tabini-aiji: he played the ally, he played the innocent relative caught in the last uprising, sided with Tabini, and with us, and all the while he was holding out to let Tabini beat his relatives. Then he got power over his own house, which set him up to make a try at overthrowing Tabini-aiji in the next round. Classic politics. But he’ll rest uneasily now that we’re back. And he’ll be desperate for information, which he can’t get too easily since he himself closed us off from the uplink station. That’s why we want to move fast and continually change the data. They surely know you have one remaining shuttle that’s still capable of getting us down there. They have to have formed some plan to go into action the moment Phoenix comes back, as we have, and in case that shuttle tries to land. That plan has to include neutralizing the dowager and the heir, it could mean getting boats in position to try to bring the shuttle down, which I hope is technically unlikely, and slow-moving. And our plan, quite plainly has to center on establishing a countermovement, finding out where they are, and killing them.”

  “So should you risk the dowager?” Ogun asked.

  “If there’s to be any hope of dealing with this, she has to be there. The heir has to be there. Her loyalists—and they’re more than I can trace at the moment—won’t understand her sitting safe on the ship or keeping the boy safe and asking them to go die for her cause while she protects herself with human allies. It’s not the atevi way. They’ll show up when she shows up in their circumstances, at equal risk. And they’d never respect the heir if he were held up here in safety.”

  “You’re that sure they’ll rally.”

  “If they don’t, for that, they never would. And I believe they will, so long as they’re alive and have resources. They’ll be there.”

  “It’s the best chance for our situation,” Sabin said. “If you can reestablish relations with the atevi government—stabilize their situation—maybe get a new government installed, one that’s pro-space—get supply moving up here. Do you have a plan?”

  Back to that nasty question. “As you say, captain. We stabilize the situation for starters. Vindicate Tabini-aiji. Vindicate him, even if he’s dead. It’ll make a difference in the shade and shape of any government that follows him. Beyond that—I can’t guarantee the outcome.”

  “The boy?” Sabin asked. “The heir? Or the dowager?”

  “Cajeiri might succeed. He’s Ragi, like his father. With the dowager as regent. Although the tashrid, their house of lords, has refused her claim before—frankly they were afraid of her in those days, because she was too closely tied to the eastern provinces. That perception of her had somewhat changed in recent years . . . but I don’t know where her province has taken its stand in this current situation. So I don’t know which the tashrid would choose—a regency, with Ilisidi behind the scenes, or a strong government, with Ilisidi in power, with Cajeiri still as heir-apparent.”

  “Still, all our eggs in one basket, taking them down there. I know, I know, everything’s what she decides. But if he were up here, with Lord Geigi . . .”

  “Geigi’s Maschi, ruling an Edi population.” And at Sabin’s unenlightened stare: “He’s not Ragi. We absolutely can’t afford the perception of the boy under any influence but his own family’s. We can’t have him viewed as a puppet for Lord Geigi, or, God forbid, for human rule.”

  “God,” Sabin muttered. “All right. All right. We go with it.”

  “Best we can do is work fast,” he said. “If we get down in one piece, we’ll still have to reconstitute the maintenance facilities for the shuttles and locate all the personnel, who may be in hiding—or worse. At very worst, we’ll have the pilots and the shuttle we bring down. We’ll have one good window to get down, and—forgive me for expressing opinions in operational matters—we should use an approach over the sea to the west, where I trust there’s not going to be atevi presence armed with missiles.”

  “Agreed,” Ogun said. “And that is what we planned. The course is laid in. You say we’re assured of the runway at Jackson.”

  Sabin tapped a stylus on the table and frowned. “As it happens,” Sabin said, “your Lord Geigi’s called up the shuttle crew all on his own, and the dowager’s already shifting baggage and personnel aboard, while we sit here. We know you’ve contacted Mospheira. We assume you have landing clearance.”

  Could he claim he was surprised, either at the blinding rapidity of events or by the fact humans knew everything Geigi did? “Then I’m asking your support,” he said. “The station’s technical support for the operation. And for whatever follows. We may need to call on you, maybe even for a limited strike from orbit. It’s nothing I want to think of, but it could become necessary.”

  “You’ll have it,” Sabin said. Ogun, for his part, nodded. Of Jase, there was no doubt at all.

  “Well, then I’d better go catch my shuttle,” he said, with this time a glance at Jase, who’d not said a word—who gave him a direct and worried look now as he stood up to leave, as the senior captains rose. To them all, Bren gave a little bow, the atevi courtesy. But he paused for a second look at Jase, who edged around the table to intercept him—didn’t say a thing, just looked at him, and he looked at Jase, the one of the captains who’d go down to the planet with him in a heartbeat.

  But Jase couldn’t do that. He’d gone back to space, accepted duty aboard Phoenix, and severed himself from Tabini’s court. Jase couldn’t be half the help to him on the planet that he could be up here serving as bridge and go-between.

  “You know the things they need to know,” Bren said. “Translate for me. Make them understand.”

  “I can do that.”

  “If anything should happen—”

  “I’ll work closely with Lord Geigi, in that event,” Jase said, with no silly demur that nothing would possibly happen. “And with Yolanda.”

  Discounting all the history in that relationship.

  He embraced Jase, patted him on the shoulder. They’d been through everything together. It was harder to part now than ever before.

  “You’re not even going to get a night in your own bed,” Jase said.

  “Luxuries go by the board, I’m afraid. I’ll send up tea and fruit candy and canisters of all sorts of things, first I get the shuttles flying.”

  “Waiting with bated breath,” Jase said. “Good luck. Good luck, Bren.”

  Neither language seemed apt to what he wanted to say at the moment. And there was nothing either of them could do but part company and go out their separate doors.

  He left with Banichi and Jago, Jago going first outside the door, Banichi behind him, the old, carefully measured steps that were by now completely automatic. The human guards outside, knowing them, were unruffled by their ways.

  “So we are boarding?” he asked them as they walked on.

  “Immine
ntly,” Banichi said.

  “Your staff is prepared,” Jago said, “and Tano and Algini request to come down with us. So do Bindanda and Narani.”

  He thought about it a pace or two along the hallway. About Tano and Algini he had no question: those two were, like Banichi, like Jago, like Cenedi and Ilisidi’s other bodyguards, members of the Assassins’ Guild, partners, in sets, like most others.

  But Narani and Bindanda, though members of that Guild, too, were no longer young. They were well suited to the warfare of the court, but not to running hard.

  “What would you advise, nadiin-ji?”

  “Tano and Algini would be helpful to us,” Banichi said. “Narani and Bindanda would be extremely valuable to Jase-aiji.”

  “And they will not thank us for saying so,” said Jago, “but our venture onto the continent will be no holiday in the country, Bren-ji. If we could leave you on the Island, and plead a Filing on Murini and his supporters without you, we would.”

  The legalities of the situation came home to him. One did not simply decide to attack an atevi of any high rank. “We should File Intent on him, shouldn’t we?”

  “If one can manage to get a signed letter to the mainland,” Banichi said dryly. “We shall certainly attend the matter, Bren-ji. You only need fix your signature and seal to the document.”

  “My seal.” It was on his finger. He hadn’t used it in two years, except to sign notes back and forth with the dowager. Dinner invitations. Now it could request a man’s life.

  “One believes the dowager and Cenedi will be well before us in any Filing, nonetheless.”

  “We do need to send a letter.” The ordinary details of atevi life flooded back into memory, the rules, the procedures. “But if we’re asking a hearing, do we not automatically have protection in reaching the Guild?” If one Filed Intent, meaning an official filing of intent to assassinate, for personal or public reasons, another individual, the paper must go before the Assassins’ Guild to be debated—a proceeding much like a court of law, with arguments pro and con largely coming from other members of that Guild, members in service to various houses, as well as those at large. Not infrequently it entailed an appearance before the Guild Assembly, separately, by the principals in the dispute. He recalled a provision for protection for persons summoned, or for persons attempting to File, that they could not be struck down on Guild grounds.

  But that prohibition certainly left a lot of the continent under no such protection.

  “Certain people may not observe the niceties, Bren-ji,” Jago said. “The Guild president is dead, so Lord Geigi’s people say. One doubts that assassination was easily accomplished, or without repercussions.”

  “Which points up,” Banichi said, “that when rival aijiin are attempting to influence the Guild, nothing is reliable.”

  Appalling. The Guild, the one impartial power, in disarray.

  “But Guild membership cannot be happy with the assassination.”

  “They will not be, Bren-ji,” Jago said, “but there we are: there is no authority. The Guild is taking a position of neutrality in the dispute.”

  If the Assassins’ Guild, offended and notoriously independent-minded, would possibly accept an Intent to remove Murini from life as well as office, it would be an incalculable advantage to the aiji-dowager in her claim on the leadership. Certain Guild members would still defend Murini, in such a case, of course—but only those in his personal man’chi, or such as might be morally persuaded to do so. Murini’s personal record of double-crosses would not inspire altruists to back him. But the dowager’s eastern origins would mean the same debate as had turned the tashrid against her, in the last debate of the succession, and the heir, though Ragi, was a child. The Guild was leaderless, the aishidi’tat was broken, and if it could not reassemble itself and make a reasonable appeal to the Guild, the Guild was not going to lash about in pointless violence that would set no legitimate leader in power—such as they had, with Murini, they had, until something strong enough to challenge Murini rose up. It was why atevi wars had become, historically, very few, once there was a unified Assassins’ Guild.

  “The dowager’s return in itself will prompt debate in Guild Council,” Banichi said, “and we shall certainly catch their notice, once we can reach the mainland. We shall get a Filing to the Guild. But bear in mind that Murini—I do not call him Murini-aiji—will certainly File against you, in particular, since it is hardly kabiu to file on a child.”

  Sobering, but not surprising, and not the first time he’d been Filed on. One never liked to contemplate the resources a wealthy lord could bring to bear . . . money which could hire certain individuals of that Guild, if they were willing to be hired. An aiji had the whole state treasury, if he could justify the budget to the tashrid, and who knew how many pro-Tabini legislators were going to dare show up to resist Murini’s demands for funds?

  The Guild as a whole might not budge and might be leaderless, but individuals might incline to back Murini.

  “Well, we shall do the best we can,” Bren said.

  “Shall we advise Tano and Algini then to join us?”

  “Absolutely. Tell them pack and board. I must go home first, however. I should do Narani and Bindanda at least the courtesy of a personal refusal of their offer.”

  “There might be time for tea,” Banichi said. “It would surely please them.”

  They reached the section his apartment shared with Lord Geigi and the aiji-dowager—he walked up to his own door, and met Narani behind it, and formal welcome in his own foyer, with simple fresh flowers—that atevi amenity aboard station had not yet gone to recycling, and such a move would have been strongly resisted—in a heart-pleasingly suitable arrangement on the little table. He saw all the small touches of Narani’s excellent taste and sensitivity to nuance, and found the whole staff had lined up as best they could manage in the little space they had.

  He thanked each and every one of his people, headed by Narani, those who had voyaged with him: Bindanda, Jeladi, and Asicho; and those who had not, who had kept station here—notably Tano and Algini, whose appearance was brief, that pair doubtless already having gotten the word from Banichi or Jago that they were going with him.

  “I hope I have time to sit in such splendid comfort for a moment,” he said, “Rani-ji. And, Rani-ji, I must speak with you and with Bindanda, and explain myself. Will you take tea with me?”

  They knew, only by that, that he was not going to agree to their going, and he detected sorrow on those two faces, the only blight on the moment.

  But Narani glossed over his pain with an offer of a more comfortable coat for the voyage. He shed the coat he was wearing in favor of that one, then established himself in his favorite room, the library, where more flowers met him, if only three precious blooms.

  There he waited.

  Narani and Bindanda arrived with the tea service, and solemnly poured a cup for him, then for themselves. He said, “Sit with me, if you will, nadiin-ji.”

  They were uncomfortable as his guests, these two, who had been house staff all their careers, and who were exceedingly proud of it. But they had voyaged with him, and they had grown far less formal on the voyage. They settled deeply into the chairs, waiting to be told officially that, no, they were not going.

  “I honor you extremely,” he said. “And you know that I must refuse an offer which touches my deepest sentiments. I value your expertise and your wisdom, and in all honesty, nadiin-ji, I rely very much on you here, to advise Jase-aiji, to assist Lord Geigi if anything should at all happen to us in our attempt—”

  “Never say so, nandi!” Narani said.

  “As I shall not allow to happen, of course. But I shall need persons of level good sense to serve in this household and mediate between persons of high rank and foreign behavior, perhaps under trying conditions in situations needing decisive and wise action. That much I must have. I entrust my good name and the proper working of this house to you and to Bindanda, with the utmo
st confidence both will be as safe as it ever would be if I were here, and that you will never hesitate to speak for me to Lord Geigi and to Jase-aiji.”

  Both heads bowed, in the sober earnestness of his charge to them.

  So they drank tea, and savored this taste of home, knowing that he was going to board the shuttle, and that he hoped to see them again.

  Knowing the risks in the landing still set a cold lump of fear in his stomach, which even the tea and the companionship did not quite disperse.

  But they finished, not too hastily, and made their courtesies, his staff far more aware of the exigencies of the schedule than he was. He had put on his comfortable coat for the descent and they added a warm if graceless outer coat for the transit to the shuttle—a transit that had never quite approached routine.

  They also gave Tano and Algini two considerable packets, their initial meals aboard, since the shuttle crew was usually too busy to attend the passengers until they were considerably out along their course. Other baggage, their clothes and gear for after landing, was already en route to the shuttle.

  With that, in what seemed, by atevi standards, blinding haste, they were out the door, as well organized as staff could manage for them—himself and Banichi and Jago, with Tano and Algini, now, the missing members of his bodyguard—Tano as cheerful as if they were headed for holiday, which was Tano’s way, and Algini his sober, mostly silent self.

  The timing of their exit was no accident, nor in any way left to chance, in the curious backstairs communication among the houses here resident. The dowager’s staff turned out just behind them, so they realized when they were most of the way through the lift routings. Banichi advised him, and, bag and baggage, they waited until Ilisidi, with Cajeiri, and attended by Cenedi and his men, had arrived at the core lift, Geigi’s staff attending with still more baggage, providing assistance, not that Geigi himself was going.