Foreigner

The irony was, the hard-liners, the nuke-the-opposition factions, were alike on both sides of the strait. And he couldn’t turn the situation over to them.

Mistake to have taken himself out of Cenedi’s hands. He believed that now. He had to tough it out somehow, find out if Banichi was involved, or a prisoner, or what—get them to bring Cenedi back in, get the ear of somebody who’d listen to reason.

Plenty of time for the mind to race over plans and plans and plans.

But when the cold got into his bones and the muscles started to stiffen and then to hurt—the mind found other things to occupy it besides plans for how to fix what he’d screwed up, the mind found the body was damned uncomfortable, and it hurt, and he might never get out of this cellar if he didn’t give these people everything they wanted.

But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, hadn’t done his job half right or he wouldn’t be here, but he wasn’t going to finish it by bringing Tabini down.

Only hope he had, he kept telling himself. Tabini was a canny son of a bitch when he had to be. Damn him, he’d given up a card he’d known he had to cede— knewhumans wouldn’t fight over him; and having not a human bone in his body, didn’t feelwhat a human would. He’d gotten his television interview. He’d show the world and the humans that Bren Cameron was well-disposed to him—he’d slipped that television crew in neatly as could be and gotten his essential interview just before the other side moved in their agents with their demands on Ilisidi, who was probably fence-sitting and playing neutral.

Check, and mate.

Put him in one hell of a position, Tabini had. Thanks a lot, he thought. Thanks a lot, Tabini.

But we need you. Peace—depends on you staying in power. You know they’ll replace me. Give you a brand new paidhi, a new quantity for the number-counters to figure out and argue over. Switch the dice on them—leave them with a new puzzle and humans not reacting the way atevi would.

You son of a bitch, Tabini-ji.

The time seemed to stretch into hours, from terror to pain, to boredom and an acute misery of stiffened muscles, numb spots, cold metal and cold stone. He didn’t hear the thunder anymore. He couldn’t find an angle to put his legs that didn’t hurt his back or his knees or his shoulders, and every try hurt.

Imagination in the quiet and the dark was no asset at all—too much television, Banichi would tell him.

But Banichi had either turned coat—which meant Banichi’s man’chihad always been something other than even Tabini thought—or Banichi had landed in the same trouble as he was.

In his fondest hope, Banichi or Jago would come through that door and cut him free before the opposition put him on their urgent list. Maybe the delay in dealing with him wasbecause they were looking for Banichi and Jago. Maybe Jago’s quick exit when he’d last talked with her, and that com message from Banichi—had been because Banichi knew something, and Banichi had called her, knowing theyhad to be free in order to do anything to free him…

It was a good machimi plot, but it didn’t happen. It wasn’t goingto happen. He just hung there and hurt in various sprained places, and finally heard the outer hall door open.

Footsteps descended the stone steps into the outer room—two sets of footsteps, or three, he wasn’t entirely sure, then decided on three: he heard voices, saying something he couldn’t make out. He reached a certain pitch of panic fear, deciding whatever was going to happen was about to happen. But no one came, so he thought the hell with it and let his head fall forward, which could relieve the ache in his neck for maybe five minutes at a time.

Then voices he’d decided were going to stay in the next room became noises in the hall; and when he looked up, a shadow walked in—someone in guard uniform, he couldn’t see against the light, but he could see the sparks of metal off the shadows that filled his field of vision.

“Good evening,” he said to his visitor. “Or is it the middle of the night?”

The shadow left him, and nerves ratcheted to the point of pain began a series of tremors that he decided must be the stage before paralysis set into his legs, like that in his fingers. He didn’t want that. He hoped maybe that was just a guard checking on him, and they’d go away.

The steps came back. He was supposed to be scared by this silent coming and going, he decided—and that, with the pain, made him mad. He’d hoped to get to mad… he always found a state of temper more comforting than a state of terror.

But this time more arrived, bringing a wooden chair from somewhere, and a tape recorder—all of them shadows casting other shadows in the light from the doorway. The recorder cast a shadow, too, and a red light glowed on it when one of them bent and pressed the button.