Protector

And he knew beyond any doubt that his guests were enjoying everything they saw. Even pebbles on the ground were treasures to them. They had pills to take because the sky would make them sick—but Gene said he hadn’t needed them today; and Irene said she wanted not to need them, and then Artur said the same thing—Artur said looking toward the horizon was like looking down the core-corridor: scary, because the place could look like the edge of the world one moment and a pit, the next.

But he had seen the core-corridor on the ship. He had been there, in a suit too big for him, and floated in air. He had looked right down it, which was the scariest place he had ever been.

And maybe, for them, having dared each other to look down the core, where gravity just didn’t exist, it had made them ready to look at the sky.

They were all brave. He knew that. Irene had been scared of the mecheiti, but now she said she wanted to ride again, even if she was limping tonight—poor Irene was the skinniest of them, all bones and pale skin, and she looked even skinnier when she was wearing her stretchy clothes. The saddle and Irene’s bones had been very close together this morning.

But she tried. Artur collected the rocks that pleased him—and Gene—

Gene looked at everything, and he said he had really wanted to bring something to take pictures of everything, but security said no. So he just looked at things. Really looked at them. If Gene was standing still, not doing anything for a moment, he was looking—at the sky, at the edge of the meadow, at the mecheita he was riding. Like sketching things, only doing it all in his head.

Cajeiri had never had a camera. He had no idea how one worked. And he did not think mani or Great-uncle would approve: it was a lot like television.

But there were books with pictures. He thought he should give Gene one.

And there was Gene again, with Artur’s sandstone in his fingers, just looking at it, and thinking.

They had so very little time, so very little, and his grandfather had managed to get in the way of them having it. And there was this relative of his, another great-uncle, Shishoji, or something like that, who had been a problem for years and years.

And who even knew what went on in this Shishoji’s brain, or what he was even after, except he could be involved with the Shadow Guild.

Had Grandfather known about that, and not warned them?

That night when Grandfather had tried to get into their apartment and get to him—that was still scary.

And now they had this Shishoji person trying to kill everybody, and a troublesome Kadagidi over the hill who was up to no good. Was anybody really surprised? Kadagidi had always been trouble.

He had no idea why they were. But he became interested in finding out.

They talked about all sorts of things, he and his guests, in the sitting room of his suite, with its tall, wonderful windows. The sun being down, they had to keep the curtains drawn and stay away from the windows—but they had comfortable chairs they could pull up in a circle, and there they could sit and talk the way they had used to do in the echoing service tunnels of the ship. In the ship’s tunnels, they had shivered in the cold and had to find nooks where it was safe to sit, where nobody would find them and where none of the machinery would run over them.

Now they had this comfortable room with the windows and soft furniture, and Eisi and Lieidi to serve them tea and teacakes, as many as they could eat—not many, after the supper they had had; and his aishid had the rest. Lucasi and Veijico understood some of what he and his guests were saying—but Antaro and Jegari were a lot better at it, having studied ship-speak longer.

Antaro and Jegari were a little close-mouthed, however, not saying what they might have heard during their own supper, with all the high-up Guild. Cajeiri fairly burned to ask—but if it was really, really important, they would have called him aside and told him, he was very sure.

His guests talked about what the space station was like now—a place he had never really gotten to see that much of. It was the ship he really knew. And he heard that the ship, Phoenixwas docked at a distance from the station, and only working crew could go out there.

That did not include Reunioners who had only been passengers.

Another pot of tea, a trip to the accommodation, one by one, under escort, and they were out of teacakes—Cajeiri talked about the west coast, and Najida, and where nand’ Bren lived, and Lord Geigi’s house; and how he had gotten lost in a storm in a rowboat. His guests were impressed.

By the end of that story, however, they all were flagging. Artur’s eyes were closing. And despite the beds his staff had made ready for them, Cajeiri thought he would happily just fall asleep in the chair, and they all could just sit there together, all night, talking whenever they waked up and felt like it.

“Nandi,” Eisi said quietly, at his side, “will you like to come to bed, now?”