Foreigner

Because it wouldn’t restrain them. He understood that. It couldn’t legally stop them until there wasa judgment in his favor.

“All they need claim is affront,” Banichi said, “or business interests. And how can you defend anything? No one understands your associations. The court hardly has a means to find them out.”

“And my word is worth nothing? My man’chiis to Tabini, the same as yours. They have to know that.”

“But they don’t know that,” Banichi said. “Even Idon’t know that absolutely, nadi. I know only what you tell me.”

He felt quite cold, quite isolated. And angry. “I’m not a liar. I am nota liar, Banichi. I didn’t contest with the best my people have for fifteen years to come here to lie to you.”

“For fifteen years.”

“To be sent to Shejidan. To have the place I have. To interpret to atevi. I don’t lie, Banichi!”

Banichi looked at him a long, silent moment. “Never? I thought that wasthe paidhl’s job.”

“Not in this.”

“How selective dare we be? When do you lie?”

“Just find out who hired him.”

“No contract could compel his action.”

“What could?”

Banichi didn’t answer that question. Banichi only stared into the fire.

“What could, Banichi?”

“We don’t know a dead man’s thoughts. I could only wish Cenedi weren’t so accurate.”

“Cenedi shot him.” So Cenedi and Ilisidi’s loyalties at least were accounted for. He was relieved.

But Banichi didn’t seem wholly pleased with Cenedi. Or, at least, with the outcome. Banichi took a sip of the drink warming in his hands and never looked away from the fire.

“But you’re worried,” Bren said.

“I emphatically disapprove these delivery vehicles. This is an unwarrantable risk. The tourists at least have a person counting heads.”

“You think that’s how he got in?”

“Very possible.”

“They’re not going to continue the tours. Are they?”

“People have had their reservations for months. They’d be quite unhappy.”

Sometimes he ran straight up against atevi mindset in ways he didn’t understand. Or expect.

“Those people were in danger, Banichi!”

“Not from him or us.”

Finesse. Biichi-ji.

“There were children in that crowd. They saw a man shot.”

Banichi looked at him as if waiting for the concluding statement that would make sense. As if they had totally left the subject.

“It’s not right, Banichi. They thought it was a machimi! They thought it was television!”

“Then they were hardly offended. Were they?”

Before he could follow thatline of reasoning, Djinana and Maigi arrived down the inner hall with the dinner cart.

With a selection of dishes, the seasonal and slices from the leftover joint. Banichi’s eyes brightened at the offering, as they seated themselves in the dining room and the covers came off the dishes. State of mourning or murderous intent, Banichi had no hesitation in loading his plate, and no diminution of appetite.

The cook had provided a selection of prepared fruits, very artistically arranged. That appealed. One could have exempted the prepared head of the unseasonal game as a cap for the stewpot, but Banichi lifted it by the ears and set it delicately aside, gratefully out of view behind the stewpot. Other dead animals stared down from the walls.

“This is excellent,” Banichi said.

Bren poked at the sliced meat. His nerves were jangled. The dining chair hurt. He took up his knife and cut a bite, trying to put ghost stories and assassins out of his mind. He found the first taste excellent, and helped himself to the sliced meat and a good deal of the spicy sauce he enjoyed over the vegetables.

“Is there,” he asked, in the lull eating made, “possibly any word on my mail? I know you’ve had your hands full, but—”

“I have, as you quaintly express it, had my hands full. Perhaps Jago will remember to check the post.”

“You could call her.” Temper flared up. Or a sense of muddled desperation. “Has anyoneexplained to my office where I am, or why?”

“I frankly don’t know that, paidhi-ji.”

“I want you to convey a message to them. I want you to patch me through on your communications. I know you can do that, from the security station.”

“Not without clearance. It’s a public move, if the paidhi takes to our security channels. You understand the policy statement that would make, absolute encouragement to your detractors and Tabini’s.”

“What happened to security?”

“Courier is still far better. Far better, nadi. Prepare your statement. I’ll send it the next time one of us carries a report.”

Banichi didn’t refuse him. Banichi didn’t say no. But it kept coming out to procrastination, I forgot, and, There’s a reason.

He ate the rest of the meat course in silence, favoring his sore mouth.

And questions still nagged him.

“ Wasit an accident, the power outage?”

“Most probably. To put a quarter of the homes in Maidingi township in the dark? Hardly the Guild’s style.”

“But you knew it last night. You knewsomeone was loose on the grounds.”

“I didn’t know. I suspected it. We had a perimeter alarm.”

Didwe? he thought bitterly. And asked, instead: “ Whereis Algini?”

“He’ll return with Jago.”

“Did he leave with Jago?”