Destroyer

by C. J. Cherryh

  He put a hand on the chair arm, pushing himself to his feet. Yolanda rose. “I’ll see to the things I can,” she said. “Don’t worry about what’s happening here.”

  “My staff . . . they’re done in, themselves. Good thing we didn’t plunge off for a crossing forthwith . . . Nadiin-ji, have you followed any of what we said? Mercheson-paidhi felt more at ease in her native language, for precision of expression, and says she believes Tabini-aiji was warned only by a few hours, not knowing the threat was so close. She was supposed to precede him to Mogari-nai, was hastened out during a violent attack, sent on to Mogari-nai, and with no further explanation, she was hastened onto a boat. She heard then that Tabini-aiji had also arrived at Mogari-nai—but his few radio transmissions ceased from that source within a few hours and now she has no notion what may have happened there.”

  “One did follow a certain few details, nandiin,” Jago admitted. “And if Mercheson-paidhi will repeat her information for us in Ragi, we shall take notes.”

  “One will gladly do so,” Yolanda murmured, with commendable courtesies, “with apologies, Jago-ji.”

  Maybe he looked as ready to fall on his face as he felt. He hated to leave his weary staff to endure one more briefing, but murmured a courtesy of his own and let Jago take Yolanda back down the hall, presumably to retrieve the duffle she had abandoned to the military guard near the lift.

  “One might sleep,” Banichi said, touching his arm. “One observes you have not slept much on the flight, Bren-ji.”

  “I never sleep on airplanes,” Bren muttered. Which was not quite true. But it wasn’t restful sleep. Banichi could sleep under the most amazing circumstances, and doubtless had, at least for an intermittent hour or so. So, likely, had the rest of them. And it was true they looked fresher than he felt. “An hour or so,” he conceded. “I take it as good sense.”

  “Undoubtedly good sense, nandi,” Banichi said, as alert and bright as he was not.

  But it was not bed he had first on his mind. He picked the other suite that had a view of the mountains and betook himself to that, immediately to the phone.

  He knew his mother’s number. He both longed to call it and dreaded the call, not knowing what might have been the outcome of her last trip to hospital, two years past, not knowing if she had lived through that crisis. He had a choice of her number, or his brother Toby’s, up the coast, on the North Shore.

  He decided on fortitude, and called his mother’s number, not even trying to think what he would say to her after his desertion, beyond hello, I’m back.

  But the number, the lifelong number, was no longer working.

  He clicked the button down, severing the connection, desolate. Even if she’d gone to some care facility, she’d have retained that lifelong number. And now it was just silence on the other end. And he knew he’d failed her. She was gone. Just gone. And he wouldn’t blame Toby for not speaking to him.

  There was a lump in his throat. But he didn’t take for granted, ever again, that there would be time, that there would be a second chance. He rang Toby’s number. And it at least rang. And rang. And rang.

  And clicked. “Toby Cameron here.”

  “Toby, thank God.”

  “Bren?”

  “I’m on the planet.”

  “I know you are, you silly duck. I’m downstairs.”

  “What?”

  “Downstairs in the hotel, in the lobby. The guards won’t let me upstairs.”

  “My God.” He slammed the phone down and exited the room so fast his bodyguard and Ilisidi’s jumped to alert; and so did the marine guards down the way. He stopped half a beat.

  “My brother,” he said to Banichi, and was off down the hall to the military guard. “My brother’s coming up. Toby Cameron. Tell the people down there to let him into the lift.”

  The guards looked dubious, but one of them called down on his personal unit. “John? Have you got a Mr. Cameron down there?”

  He didn’t hear clearly what the other side said, but the guard said, “Send him up,” and Bren folded his arms into a clench to keep the shivers at bay, not wanting to pace while the lift came up, but not knowing anything else to do with himself. His own bodyguard attended him, close at hand—they might be why the guards had folded. He thought so. He hadn’t been coherent.

  The lift ascended. Stopped. The door opened. Toby was there, Toby, in a casual jacket, sun-browned, scrubbed and shaved and anxious to see him. He flung his arms around his brother, Toby gave him a bone-cracking hug, and they just stood occupying the lift doorway for a moment, until it beeped a protest and they broke it up and moved into the hall.

  “So good to see you,” Toby said, holding him by the arms.

  “How did you know?”

  “Oh, it’s been all over the news. Amateur astronomers saw the ship had come back. Then the morning news said the shuttle was coming down. That you were on it. Indefinite whether you were coming down at Bretano or Jackson—I reserved a ticket to Bretano from here in case, but I bet on Jackson, and I brought the boat over. I saw you come in as I was coming into the harbor.”

  “I can’t believe it. Damn, it’s good to see you.” His bodyguard knew Toby. Knew him well. Word was spreading to the few staff that didn’t know him, he was quite sure. “Come on. Come sit down.”

  “The President was here, I gather.”

  “Met us when we landed.” He had Toby by the arm, unwilling to let him go, and walked him down the hall toward his chosen rooms. “A quick move, up there. We weren’t sure we wouldn’t be shot at coming down, if we didn’t. At least that’s how we understand things stand.”

  “It’s been dicey. Things have gone completely to hell on the mainland, by all reports.”

  “I’m getting that impression.” He showed Toby into his suite, offered a chair. “Tea?”

  “I’m fine,” Toby said. “No fuss.” A small silence. “Bren, we lost mum.”

  He dropped into the other chair. “I’d tried to call her. Before I called you. But the number’d gone invalid. I thought that might have been the case.”

  “Not long after you left,” Toby said. “About a week.” He didn’t think the news would hit him that hard. He’d expected it. He’d known it had probably happened, two years ago. But he still felt sick at his stomach, guilty for the last visit not made, a skipped phone call, on a day when he’d had the chance and ducked out to get back into orbit. There’d been so many emergencies. There’d been so many false alarms. He’d put so much off onto Toby. Handle it, brother. Brother, I need you. Brother, I can’t get there. Can you possibly?

  “She asked about you,” Toby said quietly. “I said you’d called.”

  “That was a lie.”

  “It was what she needed to hear. And I knew you would have called, if you could. I just glossed that bit.”

  “You glossed everything, the last number of years. You glossed the whole last ten years. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. I didn’t know whether you’d be speaking to me when I got back.”

  Toby shook his head. “You should never, ever have thought that.”

  There was another small silence. Breathing wasn’t easy.

  “So did you do it?” Toby asked. “Did you get the big problem solved out there?”

  “We got the problem to talk to us,” he said, got a breath and chased the topics he lived with. “And this isn’t for public knowledge, Toby. I think it’s going to get into the news soon, but I don’t want it to spill yet. We established relations with a species called the kyo. They weren’t at all happy about the ship poking about in their business—they blew a bloody great hole in Reunion Station and they were all set to finish the job, except we talked them into just taking possession of it and letting us get the population off. They’re technologically ahead of us in some ways, they’re dangerous, and we got the station population safely out of their territory, humanity pretty well disengaged from them, the local Archive destroyed, which was another part of our job, but they
did get the station itself, they got every other record aboard, and they’re watching us, even though they’re negotiating and probably studying us. They could show up here. I don’t know when.” He didn’t say what else the kyo had told them: that there was something more worrisome still on the other kyo border. That information was deeply classified information, and he wasn’t sure when or if he was going to let that detail hit the evening news.

  And God help him, even while he was trying to figure how to explain things to Toby, his hindbrain was working on a plot to use that restricted information to scare hell out of certain factions on the island and among the atevi on the mainland. There was no decency at all in the automatic functions of his hindbrain. He just went on calculating and finagling, while trying to tell his brother as much truth as he thought he could, about something that had already cost their family dearly.

  “Sounds like you’ve been busy the last two years,” Toby said, understatement.

  “Busy. Busy with a ship full of refugees who still don’t know how serious their situation was.” That led into the kind of trouble said refugees might pose the current local station population, and that was a topic he didn’t want to get into. “How are you?” he asked, the thing he truly wanted to know. And the next painful question: “Did you get back with Jill?”

  “No,” Toby said. Just, no, when there were two kids involved, and Toby’s whole life. “I gave her the house, the kids, I kept the boat . . .”

  “I’m glad you kept the boat.”

  “She sold the house. Couldn’t stand to live in North Shore any longer.”

  Bitterness in that. Jill had been the one who wanted to live on North Shore, far from their mother, which had led to their mother’s deep unhappiness and isolation, and a lot else that had gone wrong, with him living on the mainland. But apparently that effort, like everything else, hadn’t worked out for Jill.

  “Are you happy?” Bren ventured to ask.

  “Actually—yes. I am happy,” Toby said. “What about you?”

  He didn’t live the kind of life where he expected to find that question coming back at him, as if he could sum everything up in the fact he owned a boat, or a house with a white picket fence. Or a wife. Or kids. He’d just never gone that direction—had skittered all over the map with his life, from obscure, ignored atevi court official to Lord of the Heavens, and was lovers with Jago, for what physical needs he had. No children there. Nor ever going to be.

  He supposed he was happy. He was alive. Banichi and Jago were. Toby was. He’d be happier at the moment if he thought Tabini was, which he wasn’t at all sure about. He’d be happier if he didn’t have the business on the mainland looming ahead of him, and the prospect of everything their return might bring down on a peaceful countryside. But—

  “Happy,” he said. “I think I’m happy. Happy being back. Happy seeing you again. Happy to have all my people safe. Except the mainland’s in a mess. And there are people I care about over there who have their neck in a noose—increasingly so, as the news of our landing spreads.”

  “I take it you’re going across.”

  “Fast as I can.” He couldn’t even apologize for the desertion. “I have to.”

  “I brought the boat.”

  He blinked. Twice. “No. I couldn’t possibly—”

  “She’s small, she’s quiet, she has full instruments, and I know the atevi coast.”

  “Damn, Toby.”

  “Look, it’s a family outing. I’ve been waiting for this fishing trip for two years.”

  Toby’s humor broke out unexpectedly, and it got right through his guard. He missed a beat in their argument, and Toby said, with a slap on his shoulder,

  “Deal, then.”

  “For God’s sake, no, it’s not. We’re arranging for the military to run us over there. People with guns and engines to stand off an atevi patrol boat. Or an air attack.”

  “Noisy. Let the navy just keep a radar watch and be noisy somewhere between them and us. We’ll make it in when no one’s looking. I’m even provisioned, if you don’t mind hot dogs and chili. I can set you ashore with food in hand. I’ve got a whole box of survival rations. Where precisely do you want to go?”

  He had no intention of listening to Toby. But he envisioned Toby’s fishing boat, the sort that was ordinary traffic on the waters of the strait, then envisioned, as Toby said, a noisy military move.

  And, unhappily, he knew which he’d rather be on, given the certainty their enemies would have intercepted the news broadcasts which had detailed their landing. There was more than enough time for Murini’s crew to position Assassins on the coast, people who moved quietly and secretly, more than enough time for the Kadigidi to toughen the surveillance around Lord Geigi’s estate. That around his own, he was sure was constant and thorough. A military escort bringing them in on a fair landing on the coast could do nothing to protect them. Only secrecy and surprise could do that.

  “You’re wavering,” Toby said, reading his face. “You’re wavering, brother. I have you.”

  “Damn it, lend me the boat!”

  “Lend you my boat, so you can run her in and abandon her on the mainland?”

  “And leave you safe on shore this side of the strait.”

  “While you wreck my boat? No, thank you, brother! I’ll get you there. I’ll get you there and get out again with my boat, with room to spare. I’ve made a fine study of the tides and the shallows over the last dozen years, with that nice set of charts I picked up over at your place. I know what I’m doing. I’ve got charts our military doesn’t have.”

  He gazed at Toby, at a face he’d so longed to see. “No.”

  “I know the risk,” Toby said. “You’ve done what you want with your life. You’ve made the grand gestures. For God’s sake, give me the chance for mine.”

  Got him dead on. He sat there a moment not saying anything.

  “So,” Toby said. “We’re going.”

  “Toby. If anything should happen to you—”

  “Sure, sure, mutual. When do you want to leave?”

  He made his career persuading the powers of earth and heavens. And his own brother nailed him.

  “It’s not a done deal. I have to talk to Banichi.” Meaning Banichi, Jago, and the whole atevi contingent. “Not to mention the dowager.”

  “You think she’ll want to come ashore on a Mospheiran navy ship? How would that look?”

  Got him again. He heaved a slow sigh. “I’ll see if Shawn will give me a few boats for a screen and a diversion.”

  “I’ve no doubt he will. But it’s not our problem. We can leave after dark, just get everybody into a couple of vans and pull up at the dock. My crew had her at the fueling dock when I left. We’re at dock C, number 2, easy to pull up and get right aboard.”

  “Your crew. Who else have you snagged into this crazy venture? Not one of the kids, for God’s sake.”

  “Barb.”

  His heart thumped. “God.”

  “You aren’t involved with her any longer.”

  “No,” he managed to say. “No.” Barb, who’d been his lover for years, who’d broken with him, married and divorced Paul Saarinson, taken care of his mum with a daughter’s devotion, and pursued him with a forlorn hope of renewing their relationship, right up until he left the planet . . . and now she’d gotten her hooks into Toby? He started to say: It’s certainly over on my side . . . and then had sinking second thoughts, that it wasn’t a very good thing to say to a brother who might, God help them, have gotten himself emotionally involved with Barb.

  Toby was entitled, wasn’t he? Toby knew very well what the relationship between him and Barb had been, and wasn’t, and then Jill had left him, and he could picture it: Toby and Barb both had been taking care of mum when he’d left, two desperately unhappy people in an unhappy situation—

  “You’re not upset,” Toby said.

  “I haven’t got a right in the world to be upset.”

  “You’re damned right y
ou don’t,” Toby said, with the slightest amount of territoriality, serious warning, one of the few Toby had ever laid down with him.

  “I’ll wish you both the happiest and the best,” he said, “fervently.” And he thought to himself that if Barb made a play for him on that boat and hurt Toby, he’d kill her. “I’ll behave. Absolutely. Nothing but good thoughts.”

  “Good,” Toby said, and took his promise at that, and the deal was done.

  It was a quick council following, Toby describing the yacht’s speed under power and under wind, for their staff’s benefit, and Tano suggesting precisely, if they were going in by boat, where they might hope to put in unseen—the northern coast, a region which, though not Ragi, would hold no sympathy for the south, and Tano had connections there. It was a region of independent fishermen, practicing kabiu—seasonally appropriate—catch, people whose small boats supplied the tables of the wealthy and philosophically conservative houses, and who were not greatly interfered with, in consequence, in any political upheaval.

  “We shall be one boat among many,” was Tano’s summation of the matter.

  One boat among many. They would be relatively unarmed, vulnerable to spies and ambush both on the approach and after they landed, but that would be their situation wherever they went on the mainland.

  The particular beach, Naigi, was the recessed shore of a region where Toby had fished before, a stretch of small islands and stony reefs. Tano had been there. There was a consultation of maps, a discussion of neighboring villages.

  It was not a place inviting to boats of deep draft, another good point.

  Yolanda arrived in the conference. “I’ve provided a short list of names in that area,” she said. “I have no way of knowing whether they’re still reliable.”