Foreigner

Whereupon, for the rest of the afternoon, he went back to his ghost ships, and his headless captains of trawlers that plied Malguri shores during storms. A bell was said to ring in the advent of disasters.

Instead there was an opening of the door, a squishing of wet boots across the drawing room, and a very wet and very tired-looking Banichi, who walked into the study, and said, “I’ll join you for dinner, nadi.”

He snapped his book shut, and thought of saying that most people waited to be asked, that he hadn’t had any courtesy and that he was getting damned tired of being walked past, ignored, talked down to and treated in general like a wayward child.

“Delighted to have company,” he said, and persuaded himself he really was glad to have someone to talk to. “Tell Djinana to set another place.—Is Jago coming?”

“Jago’s on her way to Shejidan.” Banichi’s voice floated back to him from the bedroom, as he headed for the servants’ quarters and the bath. “She’ll be back tomorrow.”

He didn’t even ask why. He didn’t ask why a plane bothered to take off in the middle of a thunderstorm, the second since noon, when it was presumably the aiji’s plane, and could observe any schedule it liked. Banichi disappeared into the back hall, and after a while he heard water running in the bath. The boiler must still be up. Banichi didn’t have to wait for hisbath.

As for himself, he went back to his ghost bells and his headless victims, and the shiploads of sailors lost to the notorious luck of Maidingi, which always fed on the misfortune of others when an aiji was resident in Malguri.

That was what the book said; and atevi, who believed in no omnipotent gods, who saw the universe and its quasi god-forces as ruled by bajiand naji, believed at least that najicould flow through one person to the next—or they had believed so, before they became modern and cynical and enlightened, and realized that superior firepower could redistribute luck to entirely undeserving people.

He had sat about in the dressing-robe all afternoon, developing sore spots in very private areas. He declined to move, much less to dress for dinner, deciding that if Banichi had invited himself, Banichi could certainly tolerate his informality.

Banichi himself showed up in the study merely in black shirt, boots, and trousers, somewhat more formal, but only just, without a coat, and with his braid dripping wet down his back. “Paidhi-ji,” Banichi said, bowing, and, “Have a drink,” Bren said, since he was indulging, cautiously, in a before-dinner drink from his own stock, which he knew was safe. He did have a flask of Dimagi, which he couldn’t drink without a headache, and eventual more serious effects, very excellent Dimagi, he supposed, since Tabini had given it to him, and he poured a generous glass of that for Banichi.

“Nadi,” Banichi said, taking the glass with a sigh, and invited himself to sit by the fire in the chair angled opposite to his.

“So?” The liquor stung his cut lip. “A man’s dead. Was he the same one who invaded my bedroom?”

“We can’t be sure,” Banichi said.

“No strayed tourist.”

“No tourist at all. Professional. We know who he is.”

“And still no filing?”

“A very disturbing aspect of this business. This man was licensed. He had everything to lose by doing what he did. He’ll be stricken from the rolls, he’ll be denied benefits of the profession, his instructors will be disgraced. These are no small matters.”

“Then I feel sorry for his instructors,” Bren said.

“So do I, nadi. They were mine.”

Dead stop, on that point. Banichi—and this unknown man—had a link of some kind? Fellow students?

“You know him?”

“We met frequently, socially.”

“In Shejidan?”

“A son of distinguished family.” Banichi took a sip and stared into the fire. “Jago is escorting the remains and the report to the Guild.”

Not a good day, Bren decided, having lost all appetite for supper. Banichi regarded him with a flat, dark stare that he couldn’t read—not Banichi’s opinion, nor what obligation Banichi had relative to Tabini versus his Guild or this man, nor where the man’chilay, now.

“I’m very sorry,” was all he could think to say.

“You have a right to retaliate.”

“I don’t want to retaliate. I never wanted this quarrel, Banichi.”

“They have one now.”

“With you?” He grew desperate. His stomach was upset. His teeth ached. Sitting was painful. “Banichi, I don’t want you or Jago hurt. I don’t want anybody killed.”

“But they do, nadi. That’s abundantly clear. A professional agreed with them enough to disregard Guild law—for man’chi, nadi. That’s what we have to trace—to whom was his man’chi? That’s all that could motivate him.”

“And if yours is to Tabini?”

Banichi hesitated in his answer. Then, somberly: “That makes them highly unwise.”

“Can’t we arrest them? They’ve broken the law, Banichi. Don’t we have some recourse to stop this through the courts?”

“That,” Banichi said, “would be very dangerous.”