Destroyer

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Who would be listening, mani-ma?”

  “Hush, I say!”

  There was silence, then, none of them brooking the dowager’s exhausted annoyance for a very long, bumpy ride. Bren felt himself bruised, his own baggage having gone to cushion Ilisidi, and protected his computer in his arms, which somewhat kept him stable.

  There was a whole world of things which, he thought suddenly, no, the boy didn’t automatically know, simply by being born atevi. He’d been very young when he’d been shunted off to Taiben, and then again sent off to his great-great-uncle Tatiseigi’s estate at age five, scarcely informed about the world at large, scarcely philosophical when, scarcely six, he’d gotten a little freedom of the grounds and learned to ride.

  That had been a disaster, involving wet concrete and a very large patio, and uncle Tatiseigi’s great indignation.

  Then the lad had been whisked off to space to get an education. To get an education, his father had said.

  In what? Hacking the ship’s computer? Talking to hostile foreigners? Cajeiri was quite precocious in those regards . . . but what had they taught him? A fondness for dinosaurs?

  They might, if they had been wiser, spent a little more time on the ordinary arts of going unseen, on natural history and most of all on atevi classics, which might have taught him that badgering his great-grandmother was not productive of harmony.

  Not to mention the boy’s lack of knowledge about the world itself. How could he know how this truck fit into a village on the coast? How could he know how the roads lay, or how they all went to rail lines?

  The boy had, literally, dropped in out of space onto his own planet, naïve regarding the weather, regarding the geography, naïve in many ways regarding Ragi rural society, and, the paidhi supposed, ignorant of the fabric of traditional atevi life which ought to trigger appropriate atevi twitches in young atevi nerves—if those nerves hadn’t been jangled by too much sugar and too many humans and no contact at all with the planet. He’d done his most critical growing in a linear human corridor only partially jury-rigged into a dwelling of atevi pattern. He’d entertained himself with movies and cultivated human children. The atevi world—it had its rhythms, its seasonally proper foods, its rules of etiquette and ethics, all the social graces that appeased volatile tempers and stiff regional pride. The boy had had the dowager to hammer the traditional courtesies and social conventions into his head, but had the nerves ever gotten triggered in the right ways, at the right times, in the very basic sense?

  One could have a very deep unease, given what Cajeiri didn’t know, what they’d robbed him of, in taking him to space. The boy had no ingrained concept of how profound the bond had been between Geigi and that fisherman, the situation that allowed this debt to be passed up the lines of man’chi, from Lord Geigi to Geigi’s lords. Up, in the direction of wealth and ability—but never down, onto the shoulders of a poor man, who could discharge his debt by convincing his village to lend a truck.

  But obligating the lord forever. And thence never to be discharged. That had been what Ilisidi had been trying to be sure of—that the young lord would know that name, remember the debt in his own generation, if hers failed that man. That was what the paidhi dimly grasped.

  But had the boy? Cajeiri had sunk into quiet, and probably, in such silent times—Bren feared—was remembering the ship, not his uncle Tatiseigi’s estate, not the Bujavid, or Taiben. He was, one very much suspected, thinking about the human company he’d left behind, since he had few enough memories of any other associations.

  Can Gene and Artur go with me? Not just a boyish question. Desperation. Attachment, in a bond even the human paidhi had to think was unhealthy. The right social nerves just hadn’t gotten the right trigger at the right times, and the boy was more than a little lost, getting instruction, but missing any emotional connection. He knew all the right social moves the way he memorized the provincial capitals and their lords, but not why those moves had to be made.

  Dared one think . . . a sociopath, if one let one’s thoughts wander far, far down an unpleasant track?

  Impossible. A good and willing kid. Angry. Hurt. Exhausted. The dowager shoved lectures at him, and he argued, he defended his ground, he increasingly annoyed his grandmother, who probably had a better sense of what was going on with the child than he possibly could. His own advice certainly couldn’t help the boy.

  The fish—God, the fish had been a moment. He afforded himself a wan laugh, in silence. But having to fish, having to have an activity, that was the frenetic energy the boy had, that explored things and then sent him dashing back to great-grandmama when the world threatened him . . .

  That flocking instinct? Man’chi in its early expression? Maybe dashing back to adults was the normal part and the brash, aggressive exploration was what he’d picked up from his human associates.

  Maybe a human just didn’t know how to judge the boy, and ought not to say a thing.

  While Jago, who knew less about children than she knew about field-stripping her guns, had expressed concern during their voyage, but seemed to indicate there was not much to do about Cajeiri’s isolation, except to keep him happy and to discourage him from the human Archive. Banichi had said, what was it? That the boy was going to have to stand still long enough to be aiji in Shejidan, and that was by no means a given.

  The brakes began a prolonged squeal.

  “Keep utterly still,” he heard Cenedi say, doubtless aiming that at the boy, and the truck bumped and heaved to a stop.

  Conversation reached them from outside the tarp, questions about their use of the truck, from someone who definitely didn’t recognize their right to have it, or to be here. Bren held his breath, held utterly still.

  “Picking up driftwood, nadi,” he heard Jago said, in a country accent he’d never heard her use, “to make lamps.”

  “Lamps, is it?” he heard from that strange voice.

  “Driftwood lamps, nadi,” she said, “which sell quite well in Shejidan.”

  “Who authorized you to have this truck?”

  The wrong answer could damn the man and the whole village who’d helped them. Could cost lives.

  “The council, nadi,” Jago said, “for a consideration. A fee for the wood and for the hire of the truck.”

  “Papers,” the man said.

  “Here,” Banichi said, and got out, a creaking of springs and the opening of the door.

  Thump. That was the truck door on Jago’s side, and a second thump, as something hit the ground.

  “Good move,” Banichi said, and one formed a picture of that truck door opening and bashing right into a man, perhaps a local security patrol, who’d gotten too inquisitive.

  There was some to-do outside, a series of small movements.

  “Best take him along,” Banichi said. “He may be local.”

  The logic in that was clear, that they wanted no blood on their ally’s hands, and the man who’d come afoul of two Assassins was still, courteously enough, alive.

  Banichi came around to lower the tailgate, letting in daylight and a welcome waft of cool air.

  “One regrets to report an inquisitive nuisance,” Banichi said, “and a problem. We propose, nand’ dowager, to put the local constable aboard, and leave him where we leave the truck, for our ally’s sake, for peace in the district. We believe he is not Desigien village, but perhaps a neighbor from Cobo.”

  “Do so,” Ilisidi said. “How far are we from the rail?”

  “Not far, nand’ dowager. The train comes into the station just after dark, and will pick up the local railcar, which is our best hope. We are to leave the truck in its ordinary spot, which is by the depot north wall, where we can move safely after dark. After that the ride may be much cooler, nandiin, one regrets to say.”

  One formed a picture. The local car would carry fish. And ice.

  Their unwanted passenger came to in the dark, blindfolded and gagged, and thumped around, kicking and protesting, until Cenedi’s men got h
old of him.

  “You will live, nadi,” Nawari’s voice said pleasantly in the dark. “Be patient. We mean no particular harm to you and we shall return the truck, the use of which we took.”

  A deal of muffled outcry, then. And a quick subsidence after.

  Everyone had to be quiet. Cenedi had said that while their passenger was still unconscious. Particularly the dowager, the heir, and the stray human had to keep quiet, their voices being far too remarkable.

  “The drug has taken effect,” Nawari said, “but we should not rely on it. It has its hazard, nandiin-ji.”

  There was silence. So on they rolled, with one bound, gagged constable heavily sedated, from that store of small nastinesses the Assassins’ Guild sometimes used. Finesse, Banichi called it.

  They maintained particular silence, as the truck rolled slowly over smooth, and therefore well-maintained, road, which indicated a populated, frequently-traveled region. It was probably a picturesque village they had come to. They were probably not in Desigien, but at Adaran, at the railhead, and the Desigien truck sitting still and waiting for the train was probably not that unlikely an evening event.

  Banichi got out of the truck, and asked, near the side: “How are things?”

  “Our guest is sedated,” Cenedi said. “We shall renew the dose every half hour. We are monitoring him carefully.”

  “We are at the station, parked at the appropriate place. There is no shade, one regrets to say. How is the dowager?”

  “Hot and cross, nadi,” Ilisidi snapped. “But it seems we all are hot and cross, and will freeze tonight. Cease talking. Take no chances.”

  “Yes,” Banichi said simply, and got back into the truck cab, for a long, long wait.

  It was a very long, uncomfortable silence, in the stifling, oil-smelling heat of the sun on the canvas above their heads. Once and twice again someone administered another dose of sedative, and reported they still had a steady pulse.

  Someone approached the truck, a slow scuff of gravel. That someone, a female person, went as far as the door of the truck and spoke quietly and respectfully to Banichi and Jago. She said something about having walked here, and being the driver, and taking the truck back.

  “When the train leaves,” Banichi answered that person. “Come back then. Do not associate yourself with us, for your own safety.”

  “What of the fish?” Jago asked.

  “We have everything on yesterday’s ice, nadi,” the female person said. “Some days the truck breaks down. We will bring the catch in tomorrow night. We shall make up for it. Thank you for asking.”

  “We have an unexpected problem,” Banichi said. “The constable met us on the road and questioned us. He is sedated. Back there. Would you know who would properly be on the road above Cobo village, asking us questions?”

  “I by no means know, nadi,” was the answer. “But the Cobo constable would not be wandering around up on the ridge.”

  Banichi said, “Come have a look at him.”

  The truck rocked. Steps moved around to the tailgate, and Banichi lifted the tarp. Sunlight came in, and a young girl stood with Banichi and Jago, a pretty young girl with astonished eyes.

  “Aiji-ma?” she said reverently.

  “Nandiin,” Banichi said, “this is Ruso, our associate’s daughter. And the driver. We would not let her drive it here.”

  “We are grateful,” Ilisidi said, from the deep recesses, where the angled light glimmered off atevi eyes. “We regret the inconvenience. Show her this man.”

  Nawari, a shadow against the light, turned their unconscious prisoner’s face.

  “Dataini,” was the immediate, frightened-sounding answer. “Dataini. His wife is Tasigin. He is the new constable.”

  “The new constable?” Banichi asked.

  “Here in Adaran. Since—” Ruso’s eyes moved uneasily toward the dowager and back. “Since the new authority, in Shejidan.”

  “And where is the old Adaran constable, Rusonadi?” Ilisidi asked.

  “Gone back to fishing, aiji-ma, since they took his authority away.”

  “We give it back. Do you suppose, if you found him this evening, he might deal with this man?”

  Ruso’s eyes were very large. “I think he would run that risk, if it was your order, aiji-ma. But the wife has relatives.”

  “See to it,” Ilisidi said with a wave of her hand, and Banichi lowered the tarp, taking the light away. A low-pitched discussion followed, outside, how they would leave this Dataini in the truck, well-secured, and how Ruso must go to the former constable in this town, and take measures to take Dataini’s wife into custody too, before she could realize her husband was missing and make a phone call to whatever regional authority was overseeing this remote fishing district.

  The counterrevolution had started. And the young driver, Ruso, had volunteered in harm’s way, with time and force of the essence. It was not the move Banichi would have advocated if they were going to take months dealing with this.

  God, Bren thought, we may have to deal with Kadigidi appointees in districts where we’re going, not to mention the cities. It was an unfortunate possibility that these new authorities were still compiling their own list of everyone within the man’chi of Tabini’s household and Geigi’s, Geigi being aiji up on the station, and in an otherwise unassailable position . . . threaten those under his protection, since they could not reach Geigi.

  This could be a problem, Bren said to himself. This could be a real problem.

  “Is there water, mani-ma?” Cajeiri asked. “Might we just leave the corner of the tarp up a little?”

  “Hush,” Ilisidi said sharply, and there was renewed quiet, in which they could still hear the discussion with Ruso, a discussion in which it seemed there was some sort of written instruction, some commitment to paper that they had found in the dash panel of the truck, and a pricked finger—blood could work, where wax was lacking, however imperfectly, impressing a mark from Banichi’s Guild ring. It was an Assassin’s signature they were producing for the girl, a request with legal force, when Banichi was acting in his protective capacity. His own authority at least matched any village constable’s.

  “There,” he heard Banichi say. “Let the Adaran constable carry that for a warrant, and gather deputies, as many as he can.”

  They moved away, then, and by the give of springs, sat on the front bumper, Banichi, Jago, and the girl from Desigien together, as it seemed, looking, as they would, like country folk holding a bored conversation. Things grew quiet for while.

  “There was almost certainly a phone call that put that man out on the road,” Cenedi said. “Someone, at sea or on land, saw nand’ Toby’s boat. When the constable does not phone back with a report, there may be an inquiry sent on more than a local level.”

  “Good we are not staying the night,” Ilisidi said.

  Other footsteps approached the truck. Whoever was sitting on the bumper did not get up, but Ruso, clever girl, told whoever had come up that these were her cousins from down the coast, that they had sailed up to beg the loan of a net, their own village having suffered extremely in a recent storm. Converse went on and on, mostly Ruso speaking in that local lilt, and the conversation up there settled to the usual grumbling about the weather, the fish, daringly, to the market since the trouble. Others gathered, and for a time the truck rocked to bodies leaning against it, all complaining bitterly about market prices and the attitude of the owners of the ice plant, who thought their profits should stay the same, no matter what the depressed market did to the villages.

  The talk dwindled, then, some conversants going off to a local watering hole, inviting Ruso and her supposed cousins to join them, but Ruso said she would stay with the truck.

  “Now who would steal it, nadi,” one laughed, “or filch one of your fish?”

  “The new constable, for all I know,” she said, a bit of boldness that made Bren’s heart skip a beat.

  “You have a point, Ruso-ji,” the speaker said, and v
oices and presence retreated.

  There was a collective sigh of relief, audible in the dark. Their prisoner stirred, and went out again, to everyone’s relief.

  Bren pillowed his head on his arms and tried to catch a nap beside Tano and Algini. He shut his eyes, tried to ignore the heat, hoped that Toby had gotten well away from the coast by now.

  Hoped that the constable’s wife expected him to be out at all hours.

  He did sleep a little. He came to in utter dark and much cooler air, no light even from the edges of the tarp, with the noise of a train in the distance. Everybody was stirring about, and he sat up, sore in every joint from resting on bare boards—he could only imagine how Ilisidi fared.

  “We are ready, nandi,” Tano said, close beside him.

  The train chugged to a stop, passed them, so that they must be alongside the cars. There was a good deal of hallooing and fuss up and down, and Ruso—Bren had gotten to recognize her voice—talked to someone, some talk of ice, a bill, and papers, and then she came back again, saying her cousins would help her load, there was no need of any other. There was a great deal of rattling about, rolling of large doors, cursing and thumps, as something loaded on noisily in their vicinity. It sounded like steel drums.

  This diminished, finally, and whoever it was trundled off with the rattle of an empty pull-truck. There followed a period of silence, in which the unconscious constable stirred, and went out yet again, this time gagged and tied to an upright of the truck slats.

  “When?” Cajeiri whispered miserably, teeth chattering. “When shall we move, mani-ma? What if we miss the train?”

  “Hush,” Ilisidi hissed.

  Abruptly someone pulled loose the ropes and freed the back of the tarp. Jago was there, in the dark, outlined in the light of a lantern somewhere distant, to the side.

  “Quickly, aiji-ma.” Jago held up the edge of the tarp as two of Cenedi’s men rolled out to assist the dowager. Bren snagged his computer and Tano and Algini worked past him to get at the baggage. Cenedi and Nawari and Cajeiri himself helped Ilisidi to the end of the truck bed, simply sliding her inventively if unceremoniously toward the rear on a piece of baggage. Cenedi then jumped out and lifted her down in his arms, ever so carefully, himself no youngster, but he accepted no help doing it.