Protector

But couldn’t he say, lacking the hardwiring to feel atevi emotions, and going solely on his human senses, that he trusted the four people who were telling him this?

When push came to shove, he bet everythingon them. And had no doubts.

They’d just had, perhaps, a trial of Tatiseigi’s new security arrangement, this morning.

From inside,as it looked to be.

They’d chosen to be separate from the Bujavid—but to have as short a distance as possible to the spaceport; now he knew why thatwas; and as short a distance as possible between them and the capital—and Guild Headquarters. He’dbeen anticipating trouble from Komaji.

Scratch that, as of this morning.

“The Kadagidi,” he said. Murini’s clan. Tatiseigi’s next-door neighbors. “This bodyguard of Lord Aseida’s. Haikuti. Is hethe force we’re imminently worried about?”

“Yes,” Banichi said, from across the room. “He is a significantproblem.”

Algini said, just a flick of the eyes toward Banichi, “Very significant. —Lord Tatiseigi, Bren-ji, has been a somewhat special case in the matter of out-clan assignments. He supports the rule. Officially. But he is very inclined to prefer Atageini Guild be assigned here to him—and he has occasionally, on personal privilege, put pressure on the Office of Assignments. Assignments never complained, you may be sure. Shishoji inserted a few Atageini with kinship to the Kadagidi—and beyond that, assigned some Atageini personnel who, frankly speaking, were not the caliber that a man in Tatiseigi’s position should have gotten. Conversely, where there has been extraordinarypromise in an Atageini candidate who might have come in and identified these people, that person has been shifted to other service, and made unavailable to Tatiseigi’s house.”

And in just such a way, one at a time . . . or in this case in twos and fours . . . the balance of power throughout the aishidi’tat had been shifted—for forty-two years. Forty-two years of lethal man’chi being slipped into key positions. It wouldn’t even take special training or instructions, nothing that could be traced directly to some individual. A time bomb with a purely instinct-driven trigger, right out of the machimi plays. Instincts that would, at some key instant, jump the wrong way. Silent. Nearly untraceable. Shadow Guild, indeed.

Algini continued: “Tatiseigi’s clan has bled talent into the system and consistently gotten back less. Rusani and his team, the senior bodyguards—are not much younger than Tatiseigi. They are too old to keep up with training in the way of younger men; and ironically, when we approached them, with Lord Tatiseigi’s permission, they were convinced the general quality of Guild training has sadly declined over the years. We cannot at this point tell them the truth of the situation, but we told them the aiji-dowager herself would send them help. Tabini himself told Lord Tatiseigi that he must accept, for the safety of the aiji-dowager and the heir. That is the situation. We have a few remaining of the old staff. And now we have to ask if we have somehow missedone. If we have, that individual may be desperate to try to get word to his control. And we are equally determined he should not get that word out, either who is here, or how we are configured. Alternatively, wemay have a source of information we can lay hands on.”

“If he uses communications equipment, we will be on him in an instant,” Tano said. “Otherwise, he will have to make a run for it. And getting across the grounds and through the hedges is no small difficulty. He is trapped. Whoever he is.”

“Kadagidi would be the logical direction,” Bren murmured.

“We are watching all directions,” Jago said, “by every means.”

They would find this—hopefully last—infiltrator, he had every confidence. With luck, they’d take him alive and have a chance to extract information. And then, or at least very soon thereafter, they were going to try to fix what was broken.

Forty-two years of problems in the Guild.

That dated from before hispredecessor, Wilson, had been paidhi-aiji. It dated from the time of Tabini’s grandfather.

From before there was anyone living on the space station. From before there had beensignificant human technology in atevi hands, and from before there was any real flow of communication between Mospheira and the mainland. An old movement, an oldresistance to human influence . . . had shifted course radically—with this wild notion of moving into the space station.

Not technophobes, however. The old man sitting in that office had declined computers, which would have opened up his records, a locator bracelet, which would have told other Guild where he was.

But he was seeking control of the highest powered technology available.