Part 23 (1/2)

Just about half a year ago. Yolanda had gone away in a van along with Deana, bound for a plane nearby; Jase had gone with him and Banichi and Jago in another one, bound for the subway, and that had been it, last contact, except the phone calls.

Jase had been so scared in those first days, so very scared - of the staff, of security, of the devices that guarded the doorway. Of the simple fact they found it necessary to lock the doors of the apartment.

Of the simpler fact of thunder cras.h.i.+ng above the roof. He remembered.

The plane rushed down the runway, lifted, and a moment later Jase was trying to improve the plane's angle by leaning as it banked for the west.

Bren kept himself deadpan and didn't say a word about what was probably an instinctive reaction. One would think a man from weightless s.p.a.ce would have overcome such tendencies. But Jase said his s.h.i.+p made itself gravity the same way the station did, so Bren supposed Jase wasn't used to being without it.

The plane retracted the trailing edge flaps. Jase was still white-knuckled and had looked askance thus far at every noise of the hydraulics working, from the wheels coming up to the slats coming back. This was the man who'd boarded a capsule and let a crew shove him into s.p.a.ce in free fall toward a parachute drop into the planetary atmosphere.

On the other hand... Jase said very little about that trip down. Jase had waked now and again with nightmares, startling the staff, and he had once remarked that the parachute drop had perturbed him. He hoped the trip back into s.p.a.ce once they had the s.h.i.+p, Jase had said to him very early on, would be a good deal more like the airplane ride to Shejidan.

”You know,” he remarked to Jase, who, after ten minutes at least and almost up to cruising alt.i.tude, hadn't let go the seat arm, ”planes don't often fall out of the sky. They tend to stay up. Airfoil. Remember?”

Jase took several deep breaths. ”I'm fine,” he said, in the manner of someone who'd just survived h.e.l.l. ”I'm fine.”

Jase stared straight ahead. There was a lovely view of clouds out the window, but he didn't look, evidently not trusting the plane would stay level without his encouragement. Jase didn't look at him, either, and didn't seem inclined to think about anything but the plane.

Well, there was work he could do while Jase was helping the pilot.

He could unpack the computer. Or he could sit and worry about the situation on Mospheira with the State Department and its windows.

Or the situation in the capital, where Shockwaves of the peninsular affair and Tatiseigi's apparent realignment were still ringing through the court and lords marginally aligned with Direiso were reconsidering their positions - disturbing thought, to have a continent-spanning war going on, and thus far the casualties amounting to one man, a lightbulb, a piece of gla.s.sware, and Badissuni of the Hagrani in the hospital for a stomach condition - so that one wondered was was it stress that had sent him there, or had Jago been near his drink? it stress that had sent him there, or had Jago been near his drink?

The s.h.i.+p and probably the man beside him were completely unaware of the struggle except insofar as Jase had had to deal with Tatiseigi.

Well, the island would would become aware of it. With the illegal radio traffic going on, bet that Deana Hanks would become aware of it. become aware of it. With the illegal radio traffic going on, bet that Deana Hanks would become aware of it.

If she could translate a.s.sa.s.sination a.s.sa.s.sination without mistaking it for without mistaking it for pregnant calendar pregnant calendar.

Banichi and Jago were meanwhile taking great care to have him apprised of what was going on, after, presumably, some shaking at high levels had gone on in the Messengers' Guild. The information delivered with their supper last evening had been an intercepted radio message on the north coast, up by Wiigin, where they were not not going, a message which - laughably under less grim circ.u.mstances - purported to be between atevi, when clearly only one side was atevi even by the timbre of the voice, let alone the vocabulary and syntax errors. going, a message which - laughably under less grim circ.u.mstances - purported to be between atevi, when clearly only one side was atevi even by the timbre of the voice, let alone the vocabulary and syntax errors.

The fluent side of the transmission had discussed at great length the situation with the a.s.sa.s.sination of lord Saigimi. It had claimed lord Tatiseigi had made the television interview under extreme threat and it claimed that only fear that the Atageini would be taken over by the aiji had weakened Tatiseigi's former - the message called it - strong stand for traditional values strong stand for traditional values.

He knew why Tabini had had let that radio traffic, ostensibly between small aircraft flying near the a.s.sociation-Mospheiran boundary and a tower controller on the atevi mainland, go on without protest: it was deliberate provocation on someone's part on the mainland to be doing what they were doing, bold as bra.s.s on the airwaves. That they continued had nothing to do with rights of expression as they defined free speech on Mospheira. By the Treaty no Mospheiran had the right to use a radio to communicate across the strait. By allowing those radio messages to continue, Tabini was simply, in human parlance, giving the perpetrators enough rope to hang themselves and draw in others before he cracked down, definitely on Direiso, possibly on the perpetrators of the messages, and diplomatically on Hanks. let that radio traffic, ostensibly between small aircraft flying near the a.s.sociation-Mospheiran boundary and a tower controller on the atevi mainland, go on without protest: it was deliberate provocation on someone's part on the mainland to be doing what they were doing, bold as bra.s.s on the airwaves. That they continued had nothing to do with rights of expression as they defined free speech on Mospheira. By the Treaty no Mospheiran had the right to use a radio to communicate across the strait. By allowing those radio messages to continue, Tabini was simply, in human parlance, giving the perpetrators enough rope to hang themselves and draw in others before he cracked down, definitely on Direiso, possibly on the perpetrators of the messages, and diplomatically on Hanks.

But the area where that was going on was (he had checked) well north of the area where they were going.

And, while he would be involved in the crisis those messages were bound to engender when the crackdown came, it wasn't his problem now. His job right now was simply making sure that Jase got his chance to relax and reach some sort of internal peace with the land and the people. He had great faith that a little exposure to problems more basic and more natural than living pent up in the pressured Bu-javid environment would help Jase immensely. And he he, himself - He needed to rest. He finally admitted that. He'd reached the stage when there just wasn't any more reserve. No more nerves, no more sense, no more flexibility of wit.

He'd had his last real leave - oh, much too long ago.

He'd stood on a ski slope, on Mt. Allen Thomas, in the very heart of the island, getting sunburn on his nose, coated in snow from a header. (He'd gotten a little slower, a little more cautious in his breakneck skiing.) But, oh, the view from up there was glorious, when the sun turned the snow gold and the evergreens black in the evenings.

When the mists came up off the blue shadows and the wind whispered across the frozen surface in the morning - then he was alive.

It would have terrified Jase.

Ah, well, he said to himself, and propped one ankle on the other and asked junior security for a fruit juice.

”Would you care for one, Jasi-ji?”

”Yes, nadi, please,” Jase said.

Definitely better.

The fruit juice arrived. ”Pretty clouds,” Bren remarked, and Jase looked and agreed with relative calm that they were that.

Vacation would do them all good, he said to himself.

Because... he had a sip of fruit juice and stared at the empty seat across from him, the one Jago usually occupied... he was definitely reaching the fracture point himself, and seeing conspiracy under every porcelain lily petal.

Conspiracy that linked the various shattered major pieces of the last several days, from whatever had necessitated the a.s.sa.s.sination of Saigimi, to whatever Hanks had pursued, to Direiso, to a couple of radio operators up by Wiigin, and even to the paint flung at his mother's apartment building.

He just wished he hadn't hung up on Toby. Their mother's surgery was this week. And he wouldn't hear. He just wouldn't hear. He'd resigned himself to that.

Hard on the relatives, the job he'd taken, the job Jase had volunteered for, never having been out of the reach of family and familiarity in his life.

He sipped his fruit juice. Jase eventually remembered to drink his.

The plane took a turn toward the west. Jase braced himself and looked at the window as if he expected to see something.

”It's all right.”

Jase took a deep breath. ”Can you see the water as we come in, nadi?”

”We're starting descent. You should be able to see it. You should have a good view.”

He didn't know why Jase had taken the ocean as his ambition. He was only glad that Jase had taken something that easy for his goal, something he he could deliver. could deliver.

He got up briefly and spoke to Banichi.

On the paidhi's request and the local tower's willingness, the plane made a very unusual approach, swinging low and slow over the water's edge, then flew out over the sea and the large resort island of Onondisi, which sat in the bay, affording the s.h.i.+p-paidhi a view. Bren stood up to see, with his hand on a safety-grip, mindful of island pilots, standing and looking over Jase's shoulder at a pleasant rock-centered island with bluffs to the north and sandy beach to the south, where the resorts cl.u.s.tered.

”Melted water,” Jase said in a tone of awe. ”All that melted water.”

Now and again Jase could utterly surprise him.

”Melted it is.”

”Is it warm?”

”About the temperature of a cold water tap.” He reached past Jase to point at the hotels that cl.u.s.tered among trees on the heights of the island. ”Vacation places. Hotels. You stay there and go down to the beaches.”

”Ordinary people go there?” Jase asked.

”And lords, nadi. And whoever wants to. The ordinary consideration is security, for the lords, so usually the high lords stay on the south sh.o.r.e of the bay. A lot of private beaches over there, but not as fine as these.”

”Other people, they don't have to worry?”